Stupider and stupider. That’s how she felt. But she couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re really starting to damage my self-esteem,” he said, a teasing note entering his deep voice. “I’m going to need therapy if you keep telling me how much you don’t want to date me.”

He stuck his hand out.

“Friends?” he said.

She met his now-serious gaze. “Friends.” She put her hand in his. There went the twist in her chest again, but what choice did she have? Morrie had been thrilled someone was interested in the bar, even if somewhat wary yet. Things were going well in New Mexico, and selling the Shark and Fin would mean he could make his move out there permanent. She owed Morrie so much.

And if I buy the bar, we’re going to be working together.

How had that thought not even entered her head till now? Somehow she had just assumed—

“Wouldn’t you be going back to New York? I thought this was just an investment for you?”

They left Smugglers Village, taking the boardwalk path that led to the marina. The sound of the reggae music filtered through the air.

“I plan to move here,” he said.

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed. Wow, I am going to need therapy.”

He smiled, and she was struck by the even whiteness of his teeth, and the way his dark eyes lit with mischief. There was something so contradictory about him. His entire bearing was so businesslike, reserved, and yet when he looked at her, there was a hint of vulnerability to his dark, shielded depths, and then there were those moments of lightness, not to mention those flashing dimples. She just couldn’t figure him out, and she shouldn’t even want to.

“No, I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Shocked, more like it.

“You can’t see me living here on the Keys?”

“No. Well, you’re from the city. You’re—”

“What? You don’t even know me. How can you say that?” He tossed her own words back at her with another flare of light in his enigmatic eyes.

She stopped in front of the marina, bit her lip. He was sexy, dangerous, all male. And so very close to her, his look on her so very intense.

“You’re right,” she said abruptly. “I don’t have a right to say anything about you at all. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She couldn’t tell him what she was thinking.

“You’re not completely wrong,” he said.

She blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I’m from the city,” he explained. “The life here on the Keys—it’s not me. Or, it wasn’t me. But things have changed. I’ve changed.” He looked out toward the water. Something in his face struck her as terribly painful, and her heart gave another wrench in response. Was he thinking of his wife, the one he’d lost in an accident? “I want it to be me,” he finished quietly.

She didn’t want to feel anything for him at all, but the look in his eyes made her wish she was a different person, the type of person who could put her arms around him and comfort him. And really just be friends.

“Do you believe people can change?”

His question took her by surprise, as did the look in his eyes, as if her answer truly mattered to him. Which, of course, it couldn’t. Why would it?

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I guess it depends on how much they want to.”

He didn’t say anything for a beat. “Come on,” he said then. “Let’s get a bucket.”

She followed him inside the marina. He paid for a bucket of fish at the counter and they walked out to the pier. She experienced the familiar discomfort that walking over water always gave her, but managed to push past it. She still didn’t like the water, avoided getting in the sea to swim, but she’d gotten used to seeing it every day. It was part of Thunder Key. The sea was beautiful, and she didn’t understand her fear of it. She’d learned to live with it.

There were a few tourists, but most of the early crowd was lined up at the dive shop and snorkel shack. The air was salty and fresh and clean. Watching Roman, she had the craziest urge to tangle her fingers through his hair, as if it would be perfectly natural, and ask him to tell her why he thought he needed to change.

“So you had some questions about the bar,” she said instead.

Business, business, business. She needed to talk about something that didn’t make her want to put her arms around him or hold his hands or probe into the sadness behind those amazing dark eyes.

“Not questions, really. I just wanted to let you know that nothing’s going to change. In case you’re concerned about that. I know that’s important to Morrie.” He leaned over the railing, tossed a fish to the tarpons below, then looked back at her. “Morrie emphasized that he wants you to feel secure here at the bar. He really cares about you.”

“Morrie’s great.” She settled her arms against the railing, stared down at the gathering tarpons. The water glittered in the growing day. “He’s been like a father to me. But you’re buying the bar, so I understand it’s up to you what you do with it.”

A thread of nervousness wound through her words, but like her fear of water, she’d learned to live with the new uncertainty since Morrie had put the bar up for sale. With no past, and the future unknowable, living day to day was all she could handle.

The fact was, no matter how much Morrie felt like a father to her, she wasn’t his family. His family was in New Mexico, and that’s where Morrie wanted to be.

“I like the Shark and Fin just the way it is,” Roman said. “And the people, too. I just wanted you to know. I won’t be asking you to move out of the apartment, and I’m not planning to change any of the staffing.”

“You’ll need a place to live,” she pointed out.

“I’m fine at the White Seas for now. I’ll figure out the rest of it as I go.”

Apparently he had unlimited funds if he could stay at the White Seas indefinitely. It was one of the most expensive resorts in the Keys simply because it was so secluded on sleepy little Thunder Key. There was limited potential for any farther development on the island due to the environmental restrictions preserving most of the remaining natural areas on the Key.

Roman dug into the bucket and tossed another handful of fish to the tarpons. The pelicans near the pier had taken note and a couple dove toward them.

Leah took a handful and a white pelican ate straight from her fingers. Roman fed another, and half the bucket was gone in minutes.

She laughed as one pelican nipped her fingers greedily, and she looked up at Roman. He was grinning back at her.

“I like it when you laugh,” he said. “You don’t laugh enough.”

That sobered her instantly. “Why do you want to buy a bar in the Keys?” Dammit, she hadn’t meant to ask him that.

He had a way of just looking at her and sending her completely off balance.

“I honeymooned here with my wife.”

It was the last thing she’d expected him to say.

“Here? On Thunder Key?”

“At the White Seas. Two years ago.”

The pain in his eyes just about killed her. The urge to touch him grew almost unbearable. There was something about him that just pulled her against her will.

If he’d only been married two years ago, his wife had to have died fairly recently. And now he’d come back. It was hard for her to imagine how it must feel for him to be here. Painful, to say the least.

“I would think this is the last place you’d want to be,” she said. Hide. That’s what pain made her want to do. But Roman wasn’t hiding. He’d come right here, to the very place that must hurt him the most. “I feel like an idiot. I was trying to set you up with Marian and I thought you were interested in me. I had no idea your loss had been so…recent. It must be difficult for you to be back here.”

He leaned against the railing. “This is the only place I want to be,” he said. The wind picked up, almost carrying his words away. She had to move closer to hear him. The salty air mingled with the musky male scent of him.