Page 22 of Tempting the Heart

“Tyler, you never annoyed me. If anything, I annoyed you.” She shook her head and chuckled. “I was that irritating sister who always snooped around you two.”

Shock spun through me, and I couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t think there was a thing you could have done to irritate me. I loved having you around, Mae.”

She chuckled and locked her gaze on me. “So youdoknow my name is Mae and not Mayflower.”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Anyway, you were always welcome.”

“Not according to Brad. He told me to buzz off more times than I could count.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I get it. I was a girl.”

“But you were always an amazing girl. You’d do such awesome things. Remember when you helped me build a fort? Brad got tired of digging the trench for all the sticks to go into the ground, so he went home, but you stayed.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she nodded, pushing a piece of hair that had fallen from her braid. “Yeah, I remember.”

“And do you remember that treehouse your dad built in your back yard and Brad thought it was for him, and you and your sisters thought it was a clubhouse for you all?”

She laughed and nodded. “Yeah. Sharing wasn’t a concept that Brad wanted to deal with.”

“So you came up with a compromise. One side was for him, and the other side was for you and your sisters. You always wanted to make sure everyone got along.”

Her gaze stayed on mine, and it felt like the ocean air was getting to both of us. I felt the same warmth radiating from Mae as we stood less than a foot apart going down memory lane.

“True. Life’s too short to spend it arguing or getting mad at each other.” She shrugged. “I still feel that way. Usually, my siblings do too.”

I nodded, still in awe of Mae Evans.

Part of me wondered if she remembered what happened in that tree house so many years ago.

Probably not.

But I did.

I thought about it more times than I wanted to admit.

“The moral of the story is that I never thought you were annoying,” I added. “I liked you. Somedays, I probably liked you more than Brad.”

She chuckled, and her gaze brightened.

“Just don’t tell him that.”

Mae brushed her hand against my arm and smiled. “Your secret is safe with me. Now, let’s get going before I have to be at the coffee shop.”

I nodded, following her down the last of the winding path to the beach. I stopped in my tracks when we reached the bottom. It was like her own private oasis boxed in by cliffs and fir trees.

The pebbly beach gave way to some larger boulders as the ocean slapped against the cliffs in the distance. There was a tiny square of sand that met the smaller beach pebbles.

“I had no idea this existed here,” I said, truly taken aback at how beautiful this slice of the world was, and it didn’t hurt that I was standing next to Mae. “And I thought Brad and I had uncovered most of the island’s hideaways.”

She turned to look at me as the breeze picked up, and the hair that escaped her braid blew in the wind.

Mae tucked the stray pieces behind her ear and smiled. “Gorgeous, isn’t it? The beach is technically a public beach, but nobody really knows about it, and I’m certainly not going to advertise it.”

I chuckled, nodding. “I don’t blame you.”

She pointed at the square of sand. “When I’m feeling really ambitious, I do yoga over there.”

I clenched my jaw together and shook my head. “Of course, you do yoga.”

She laughed and folded her arms over her chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

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