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I’d gotten my hard head from somewhere when I told them I wasn’t going back and I’d find another investor on my own.
    “Dad probably would have given in once he’d had time to let it all cool down, but your dad showed up at my door out of the blue one day and told me he thought it was a good idea and wanted to go in as a silent partner. I was young and stupid enough to do it without asking why. I just wanted what I knew was mine.”
    “I wonder where he got the money. God knows we never seemed to have an extra penny when it was needed. Not unless he needed a bottle of Jim Beam.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me what was happening?” His gaze was so serious she knew she couldn’t pretend to misunderstand his meaning.
    Jessie took a step backwards and moved to make her way around to the other side of the bar to put more distance between them. She needed space and time to think about what she should say. And she was almost positive she didn’t want to have the conversation right now, when her mind was tired and her body yearning for something else.
    He caught her before she’d taken the second step. It looked like he could move fast enough when he wanted to.
    “Stop running,” he said, the frustration coming out a low growl. His hand clamped on her shoulder and he spun her around, moving quickly to trap her against the bar, exactly as he’d done the first day she’d come back to the island. “You should have told me what was happening. What he was doing to you? I would’ve helped you.”
    “He would have killed you,” she yelled, pushing against his chest. But he didn’t budge an inch. “He would have killed you and taunted me with it while he beat me. Is that the truth you think you know?” Tears she’d told herself she wouldn’t shed coursed down her cheeks as her fists pounded against him. “If I’d stayed here you’d be dead. Because eventually you would’ve found out what was happening. And your death would’ve been my fault and I couldn’t live with that.”
    Her head dropped to his chest as the strength seemed to go out of her all at once. She’d never actually said the words out loud before. Never confessed her darkest secret to anyone. Aunt June had known what had happened but they’d never spoken about it.
    “If you’d told me what you had planned I would’ve left with you.” His hands cupped the side of her cheeks and he tilted her face up.
    “Bullshit. I left you a note.” She managed to slip out from under his arms and put distance between them. “I waited for you to come after me. To call. For something. Did you think about me at all after I left? I know he never did. But did you?”
    “I’ve thought about you every moment of every day for fifteen years.” The look of his face was so tortured she lost her breath. He came toward her slowly but didn’t reach for her. “I never found a note, sweetheart. If I had I would have been after you on the next ferry out of Seeker’s Island.”
    “I was so scared.” Admitting that was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. “And I’m sorry I had to leave. My fear of him, and my fear of what he’d do to you, was greater than what we had between us. Or at least I thought so at the time.”
    “All that matters is the here and now. The past can stay where it is.”
    He leaned down and took her mouth in a scorching kiss she felt all the way to her toes. His mouth was hot and hard on hers—a branding—letting her know in no uncertain terms that she belonged solely to him.
    His hands clamped at her hips and he jerked her against him so she felt the hardness straining behind the zipper of his shorts. And when he lifted her she wrapped her legs around him and whimpered as he tortured her in just the right spot.
    A jolt of need so powerful it made her cry out shot straight to her core, and she answered the demand of his kisses with demands of her own. Need wasn’t the right word. She craved him. Her body hadn’t been whole for