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Elise’s heart performed a stupid tap dance across her diaphragm.

She felt like a little kid.

“Sit down, won’t you? So I can help you?” he said.

“I feel so silly,” Elise said as she collapsed in the leather chair next to the desk.

The guy chuckled. As he adjusted himself in front of her and leaned down to get a better view of her wounds, he said, “Ah. You nicked yourself pretty good. Where did you fall?”

“Near the Fort,” she said. “I was hurrying because of the rain...”

“A classic mistake,” he said.

“Something like that,” she said. “You know, I can really take care of this.” She reached out for the cotton balls and then the peroxide.

“You sure? You are a guest on the island,” he said.

“Yes, but I don’t even know your name,” she said.

“Is it a prerequisite for you to know someone’s name before they help you?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I insist on it,” Elise said. “When a lifeguard comes to save my life, I make sure he introduces himself.”

“So he screams, ‘I’m Brett, by the way!’ just before the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?” the man asked.

That moment, he pressed a cotton ball against the gash in her knee and clucked his tongue. “Sorry. We have to end this bleeding. You’ll faint if we don’t.”

“Fair enough.”

“Fair enough,Wayne.”

“Wayne.” It was a nice name. Elise marveled that she had never met anyone with that name before. It felt like a fresh slate, without any preconceived notions. He held her gaze for a moment with those glittering blue eyes. It was almost too powerful.

After a moment, Elise took charge of her own wound, mopping up her blood and depositing the cotton balls in the trash.

“It’s kind of a rush out there,” Wayne said. “Do you mind if I...”

“Of course! Don’t get behind on my account,” Elise said hurriedly.

“You’ll come out for a cup of coffee after,” Wayne said.

“That doesn’t sound like a question.”

“It’s not,” he returned with a wink. “I have to make sure the slasher victim is well enough to walk.”

Elise remained in the silence of his office. Slowly, she stretched a bandage over the gash on her knee. It seemed deep, but not overly so—nothing that required stitches. When she finished, she glanced around the office. What were the chances that she’d stumbled into this guy again? What were the chances that he was this kind and generous?

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Elise. He’s probably this nice to all his guests. He literally works in hospitality.

But he had said that he had been out of the romance game for a while, hadn’t he?

Maybe that meant that he was married and had given up on the romance part of it all?

No. Elise had noticed enough about him. There hadn’t been a wedding band.

Why had she been so aware of that?

Elise stood and again tried out the weight on her leg. It tinged a little but otherwise held up just fine. Probably, there wasn’t a lot of hiking in the next days for her, but she felt as though she had seen a lot of the inner portion of the island, anyway. Good thing she’d gotten it in before she’d messed herself up.

When Elise appeared back in the main coffee shop area, she allowed herself a moment to actually acknowledge the beauty of the place. The windows were floor to ceiling; the tables seemed antique hardwood; paintings lined the walls, apparently all completed by local artists. Wayne stood behind the counter; his massive hands stretched out over it as he listened to yet another in a long line of orders. Two employees in their early twenties buzzed around him, brewing up coffee and tapping beautiful croissants on china plates.

Now, this. This was a coffee shop.

Somehow it had far more charm than anything Elise had seen in Los Angeles.

She paused for a long time, half-praying that Wayne would turn his head back toward her and greet her again. But the line grew past the counter and turned at the door. Wayne was trapped for a good twenty to thirty minutes longer—and Elise sensed he’d just tried to be nice with that whole “make sure you’re all right” business.

He had been kind. Nice. An upstanding gentleman.

She didn’t want to force him into anything else.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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