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“That’s what I told her,” Dale cut in before she could respond. “Come on, let’s go back to bed.”
“Stop worrying,” she said, lightly slapping his chest. “I’m a little sore, but I also want to check out the island. Besides, you can always carry me again if it starts to hurt too much.”
The saucy grin she gave him made me feel like I was intruding on a private moment.
Dale didn’t argue any further as the two of them left the house. I continued my exploration of the vacation home, checking out the kitchen with the state of the art appliances. Venturing toward the back of the house, I found a library. It was amazing. It was just as big as every other room, with a skylight that brightened up the space. Bookshelves lined the walls, full of hundreds of books, and there were brown leather chairs that looked perfect for curling up in to get lost in an imaginary world for an afternoon.
That was where I found Hayden, sitting in one of those comfortable looking chairs with a pen in his hand, working on a crossword puzzle.
“Hey,” he said, arching an eyebrow as I moved closer.
“What are you doing?” I asked, peeking at the crossword puzzle.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His teasing tone would have irritated me just yesterday, but for some reason, I didn’t mind it. I was warming up to this guy faster than I would have thought possible.
“That looks hard,” I said, looking at the complicated clues. He’d already filled out about half of the white squares in the grids, but as I scanned the clues, I couldn’t guess a single one.
“It’s a book of advanced puzzles.”
His voice was so nonchalant. I would have thought that he’d brag about it, but maybe I didn’t really know anything about him at all. It was a little embarrassing to realize that I had been thinking of him as one-dimensional for no real reason. It was based on shallow things that I’d heard about the Reid family, and I had to admit to myself that my source of information was a biased one.
Then, I noticed a book on his armrest about the civil war. Hayden put his puzzle aside and followed my gaze. “Are you interested in history?”
“Areyou?”
Hayden tilted his head as he studied me, and I felt like he could read my mind. At this point, it almost wouldn’t surprise me. The guy was much more of a mystery than I could have ever anticipated.
“Yeah, I am,” he said, getting to his feet. “How about I make us some dinner, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
I just nodded, wondering what was going to happen next . . . and was actually looking forward to spending time with him.
CHAPTERSIX
Hayden
The outdoor grill on the back porch was custom-made. It had eight burners, built-in cabinets for storage, and a sink. It was really a whole outdoor kitchen. The setup was designed for entertaining and was a great place to have a party. There was a bar, too, but it wasn’t stocked with alcohol right now.
Such a shame.
But I didn’t really need to drink to have a good time. I was just trying to make the best of this “stranded on a desert island’ thing, and my day spent with Rylee had made that easier than I thought it would be. I hadn’t been captivated by someone like this in a long time, maybe years. It seemed like everyone I met was the same, most of them only bothering to get to know me at all because of my family name—whether they were interested in the wealth or the connections that came with it. Everyone seemed to have an agenda these days and I realized how guarded and jaded it had made me over the years.
Rylee wasn’t like that. In fact, I hadn’t quite figured her out yet, and I liked that bit of mystery. She was an intriguing challenge, and when was the last time any woman had given me any reason to want to dig a little deeper beyond the surface?
Again, it had probably been years.
So, I led Rylee out the sliding glass doors that led to the back porch. The island was small, and the house had been strategically placed at the narrowest part of the isle so that the ocean could be viewed from both the front and the back. Basically, every window in the place provided an oceanfront view, and what more could you want from a vacation home like this?
My grandpa had thought of everything.
The porch was as wide as the house, and there was usually plenty of patio furniture and a hammock out here, but since this was an unexpected visit, I had to grab that stuff out of the shed myself. I wouldn’t have bothered, but Rylee commented that it would be nice to eat outdoors since the weather was so nice now, and I found myself walking toward the shed before I even took a moment to think about what I was doing and why. It was almost second nature to fulfill her request, just to see her smile.
Once I had a table and two chairs set up on the porch, I fired up the grill and threw on two steaks from the cured meat storage in the pantry and chatted with Rylee while I cooked, sharing everything I knew about the civil war, one of my favorite subjects to study.
History had always fascinated me, ever since I was a kid. My brothers used to give me a hard time about being a history buff, especially when I watched the History channel as a teenager, but I didn’t care.
Rylee seemed interested as she listened to me talk, occasionally asking questions, and it was nice. I’d never had someone show a genuine interest in this kind of thing before, and I liked sharing it with her.
I likedher.
