delicately so maybe I should just shut up.”
“Ask what?”
She knew. His next question wasn’t at all unexpected.
“I’ve known Rachel peripherally for years. I’m fairly certain she lived with Kurt and Jan Miller in high school. Their older daughter Shannon is a friend.”
“That’s right.”
“Why weren’t you together?”
That was a long and difficult answer that she wasn’t prepared to share with Nate Whitaker right now, no matter how much she liked him. “We were both in the foster care system from the time we were teenagers, when our parents died. She ended up with the Millers and I...didn’t.”
Her life would have been so different if she had made other choices.
Due to those choices, Jess had ended up spending two years in a miserable, cheerless group home in Sacramento while Rachel had found a home here in Cape Sanctuary with the warm and loving Miller family.
“How did your parents die?” Nate asked.
She tensed. This was the question she always hated and the one she was certainly not prepared to tell Nate.
“Violently.” The word came out hard, blunt, ugly.
“Sorry. That was rude and intrusive,” he said after an awkward pause.
“Not rude. You’re only curious. I just don’t like to talk about it.”
“Understood. I’m sorry I asked.”
She wanted to tell him, an impulse that shocked her. She didn’t, of course. She barely knew the man. Instead, they sat in companionable silence as the sun slid farther and farther down until it was swallowed by the vast sea.
She appreciated his silence. Too few people were comfortable with it, feeling compelled to fill every empty space with chatter. Nate didn’t seem to mind it, which she found both surprising and refreshing.
The sunset was one of the most spectacular of her life, the sky a wild, colorful display reflected on the undulating waves. As gorgeous as it was, she was surprised at how quickly it was over.
“Wow,” she said as the sun slipped below the horizon line in one last brilliant show. “That was unforgettable. I’m so glad we didn’t go up with Sophie and Eleanor.”
He smiled down at her, skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He was tanned, fit, gorgeous. And off-limits, she reminded herself. He was the son of her client and she was very careful not to mix business with personal. It never ended well.
Since she was working all the time and rarely had the chance to meet anyone outside of those circles, that meant her social life was basically nonexistent, unfortunately.
She wasn’t going to change that with Nate Whitaker. What would be the point when she was moving on in a few weeks?
When he was the first to look away, whistling for the dogs, she told herself she was glad.
Cinder and Charlie bounded over with enthusiasm, the little furry Cavapoo in the lead.
“Thank you for staying with me.”
“My pleasure. I don’t take nearly enough opportunities to simply sit and think and enjoy the beautiful surroundings where I live. But it will be full dark in a few minutes and that path to the house can be treacherous if you can’t see where you’re going. I stupidly didn’t bring a flashlight so we should probably go back.”
She didn’t want to leave this idyll but could only imagine how the rocks might trip a person up in the night.
They headed across the sand toward the path with the dogs in the lead, then Jess and Nate in the rear.
“Your shoelace is untied,” he said after a moment. “You probably want to take care of that so you don’t trip on the way up.”
“Thanks.”
His words were prophecy of what came next. Before she could stop to tie her lace, she stumbled on the root of a tree that grew across the path unevenly.
The epitome of grace and panache, as usual, she staggered slightly and would have face-planted onto the trail if Nate hadn’t reached out both hands to catch her and pull her against him.
She could feel the heat of him scorching her from her neck to the curve of her back.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. She looked over her shoulder and their gazes met, his suddenly hot, intense.
Her breath caught, the moment suspended between them. She thought she could feel each beat of her heart.
His gaze flickered to her mouth then quickly away.
Did he want to kiss her? Did he feel this heat that seemed to have exploded between them?
He set her on her feet and stepped away and she wondered if she had imagined the entire quicksilver episode.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Only clumsy. My dad used