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No. He couldn’t go there again. Being back on the island always served to sharpen the rough edges of those memories, and he forced himself to push the painful thoughts away. The sound of a car door closing helped bring his mind back to the present. No sense in wallowing in what was…or what could have been. He wiped his brow with the shirt he’d tossed aside and picked up the hammer again. He’d pound her out of his head. One nail at a time.
He brought the hammer down and missed the nail. Uttering a curse, he tightened his grip on the hammer and tried again, missing his thumb by a hair. Now, more than ever, he could use the release another few hours of manual labor would provide. But if he kept thinking about Reese, he was sure to nail his thumb to the floor. He set the hammer on the old grinding stone and looked around for his painting supplies, figuring he couldn’t do much damage with a paintbrush.
Realizing he’d left his brushes in the car, Trent blew out a frustrated breath and headed outside. He couldn’t see a darn thing with those overgrown bushes lining the front yard. He’d have to remember to ask Shelley if she wanted them trimmed, or at least cut a pathway so people didn’t have to push through them, just like he was doing right—
He smacked head-on into a soft, curvy form, instinctively putting his hands around the woman’s waist to steady her at the same moment that her hands clutched at his chest. Whatever she had been holding crashed to the ground, but he held her steady so that she wouldn’t also stumble and fall.
His hands and body recognized the feel of her curves immediately, even before his brain had a chance to kick in. His brain still wasn’t fully functioning when her name—“Reese”—slipped from his lips, soft and familiar.
“Trent?” Her body went rigid. “I…I was just…I wanted to welcome Shelley to the neighborhood.”
He knew he should let her go, but for this one perfect moment, he couldn’t keep from drinking her in instead. She felt so good, so warm and sweet, even after all these years.
“At eleven at night?” Somehow, he managed to force his hands back down to his sides.
She looked away, but the moonlight caught the rosy blush on her cheeks. “I wanted to leave her a gift basket as a surprise for when she gets here tomorrow. And I didn’t think anyone would be working this late.”
Trent followed her gaze to the street below—and her car parked at the curb. The one with the Rockwell Island lighthouse he’d given her the week they’d first met still hanging from the rearview mirror.
* * *
WITH HER HEART in her throat, Reese bent to pick up the contents of the gift basket she’d brought for Shelley. She’d known Trent had been back on the island for nearly two months—her best friend and employee, Jocelyn Steller, had called her the minute she’d heard about the Rockwell siblings taking over the resort. But Reese thought she’d have time to prepare before running into Trent.
Now, as she tossed the items she’d brought for Shelley back into the basket, she was a trembling mess, and the way he was looking at her in the moonlight as he helped her pick up the gifts was only making her more nervous. Especially after she’d all but admitted she’d come late to avoid seeing him.
“You don’t have to help me pick everything up,” she said, wishing he would leave but aching at the thought of him walking away. He smelled like hot, sweaty, yummy man...and it brought back a thousand sexy memories she couldn’t let herself think about. Lord knew she did enough of that late at night, when she was alone with the memories of him touching her, holding her—
“It’s okay, Reese,” he said as he set a bottle of lotion back in the basket.
Oh Lord. She’d forgotten how deep and sexy his voice was and how when he said her name, it vibrated all the way through her.
Even after all these years, he still had the ability to turn her inside out.
As he picked up the driftwood on which she’d painted a scene for Shelley and drew his dark brows together as he studied it, Reese couldn’t resist making a quick visual inspection of her own. The line of his jaw had sharpened over the years, and the peppering of dark whiskers gave him an edgier feel than the suit-and-tie Trent she’d remembered from their life in New York.
Did he still have to be so darn good-looking? So gorgeous that her pulse didn’t have a chance of staying steady when he was this near to her.
She’d caught only brief glimpses of him a handful of times over the past few years when he’d been in town for short visits with his family, and she’d certainly never allowed her eyes to linger the way she was now. Allowing that was probably a huge mistake, given the way her stomach was fluttering like crazy.
