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didn’t want me to tell you not to go.”
    I shove my chair back and stand. “You’re not my father or my keeper, Merrick. I can come and go as I please.” My lips tremble, my subconscious trying to hold back the words forcing their way out next. “It’s my island, remember?”
    It’s as if my words were my hand and I smacked you across the face with them. Eyes wide and jaw clenched, you clear your throat. “Of course I remember.”
    I shouldn’t have said that. I should apologize, but I’m so furious with you, I’m shaking. “I’m spending the night in the tree house. We’ll talk in the morning.”
    Quickly, I stride into the hotel and collect a change of clothes and the key, expecting you to follow me, to beg me to talk to you, but you don’t.
    Back outside, you sit still and stoic, drinking your beer. The fountain drips water lazily behind you, needing to be filled. Something else on my to-do list that I failed to get done. I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned it.
    “Good night,” I say, walking past you and out the gate. Beck hefts the last of the boxes from the golf cart. “Thanks,” I tell him. “I’m taking the cart.” I get in and drive off, my head spinning and aching, my heart swollen with sadness.
    In one spontaneous move, I’ve angered you, I’ve let down Maddie, and I’ve put our first event at risk of failure.
    You’re not the only one disappointed in me.

Chapter Six
    I can’t sleep. My eyes won’t close—they demand to be focused on the beam across the ceiling where you etched a heart with R.D. + M.R. in the middle. Our initials right beside Ingrid’s and Archibald’s from so many years ago, the beam salvaged from the pool cloister before we renovated it.
    What if I’ve done irreparable damage to our relationship? You’re more important that a ghost. How could I risk what we have by doing something I knew would upset you?
    I flip to my side and stare at the dark sky over the tree line through the open window. An aching throbs relentlessly behind my eyes. The image of you sitting on the patio, disappointed and disapproving, won’t leave me. How could I have done this to us?
    I miss my best friend, Shannon, but she and I have grown apart ever since the night you took me away and brought me here. She doesn’t know our real story, and she never will. She doesn’t understand how I can be so in love with you so quickly and just move here, leaving everything behind.
    I don’t have her to talk to anymore.
    I had you, but you won’t listen. Won’t believe.
    You don’t understand, and that leaves me feeling so alone and hollow inside. I thought we were past all of the misunderstandings. Maybe there will always be this mountain between us to climb. I know you’re
challenged
—to say the least—when it comes to relationships and communication, but tonight it didn’t even seem like you were trying to understand me.
    There was nothing but…
betrayal
in your eyes.
    Betrayal because I left and didn’t tell you first. Because you know that bringing back kitchen supplies was a very thin excuse. You know the real reason I went and I didn’t own up to it.
    I lied to you.
    I betrayed you.
    I betrayed myself.
    A sob cuts loose and others follow. Thick, hot tears of shame wrench from my eyes and seep into the pillow.
    I don’t even know where to start to make this better. An apology would cover only a very little part of it, and I’m not sorry for wanting—needing—to help Ingrid return. This is her home. I can sense her presence here—in this tree house—more than anywhere else on the island.
    Pushing the covers aside, I prop up on my elbow and reach for a tissue on the nightstand. As I’m drying my eyes I see it—a flash of light outside the window.
    It’s probably just lightning, so I lie back down, but then I see it again and know it’s not lightning. Up on my feet, I pad to the window. Deep in the trees, there’s an orb of light bobbing through the brush.
    I’m