“There was an article about you in the newspaper—local boy makes good kind of story.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.” The reporter had interviewed him by phone. He sighed, not liking the reminder of what he couldn’t do.

Krissa disappeared and he took his walk, sat and stared at the ocean until his eyes burned from the brightness despite the glasses and he was forced back into the house.

He ran into Krissa in the hall, still dressed in her ugly shorts, although the legs they revealed were spectacular. His eyes were streaming water, but he could still make out an attractive pair of legs.

“Are you okay?” Concern edged her voice.

“Yeah.” Embarrassed, he wiped his face. “The sun was getting to my eyes.”

“Oh, God. What can you do…just sit in the dark?”

“I have some drops the eye doctor gave me.” He grimaced. “I just hate putting them in.”

She blinked. “Why?

“I can’t stand anything in my eyes.” He shuddered.

“Go get the drops,” she said. “I have no problem touching eyeballs.”

“Nobody is touching my eyeballs.”

She laughed. “Okay, I won’t touch them. But I can put the drops in for you.”

“Uh…that’s okay.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be such a baby. Get the drops.”

He hesitated, then went into his room and returned, holding up a small bottle.

She took the bottle from him. “Come and lay down on the couch.”

They went into the family room. “Lean your head back.” She gave the bottle a shake then unscrewed the cap. He did as she asked, removing the sunglasses as he rested his head on the soft cushion, his body tightened in preparation for the torture she was about to deliver.

Krissa gazed down at Nate’s closed eyelids, dark lashes fanning on his high cheekbones. He was…incredibly beautiful.

Her heart skipped a beat, then started thudding unreasonably in her chest. The fingers holding the tiny bottle trembled. She touched a fingertip beside his left eye. “Can you open this eye?” Her voice came out in a whisper.

He opened the eye and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were a beautiful aquamarine color, like a Caribbean cove. Clear and translucent. She compressed the bottle and a drop fell into his eye. He immediately squeezed it shut and hissed.

“Does that hurt?” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. She didn’t want to hurt him.

“Like a bitch,” he muttered.

She waited before doing the other eye, then capped the bottle, watching him screw up his face. Still gorgeous.

He lay there for long moments, the house quiet, until he huffed out a breath and blinked his eyes open.

“Better?” she whispered. Tenderness expanded in her chest.

He looked up at her and their eyes met. And held.

Nate blinked rapidly, and Krissa couldn’t drag her eyes away from his face. Those eyes pulled at her like a receding wave in the ocean and she swallowed.

“I’m going to change and then go do my shopping.” She set the bottle on the table. “If you still want to come, we could go get some lunch somewhere.”

“Nah, never mind.”

She blinked. “Oh. I thought you wanted to come with me.”

He rose to his feet. “I changed my mind.”

He turned his back on her and walked stiffly toward the stairs.

Disappointment flooded her. She’d been looking forward to having company while she did her grocery shopping. “What’s wrong, Nate? Are your eyes bothering you that much?”

“They’re fine,” he snapped without turning. “Just leave me alone.”

She stood there, watched his retreating back. Ooookay. Rude prick. God, she was surrounded by grouchy testosterone.

Then she felt ashamed of that thought. He wasn’t a prick. Just like Derek, he had big problems. And didn’t want to talk about it. Fine.

Besides, she’d been a bitch herself last night. Guess she deserved that. They were all behaving badly.

She went to her own bedroom to change out of her plaid shorts. She pulled on a short denim skirt and a T-shirt, brushed her hair. As she slicked some gloss on her lips, she heard a knock on her door.

The door was open, so she just turned. Nate stood there hands in his pockets, dark glasses shielding his eyes. She looked at him. Waited.

“I…uh…I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

She nodded, twisted the cap back onto her lip gloss and dropped it into her purse.

“I would still like to come,” he said. “If you don’t mind some unpleasant company.”

She swallowed a laugh. “I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully, slinging her purse over one shoulder. “If you’re going to be an asshole I’d rather do my shopping alone.”

“I’ll behave.” The corners of his mouth tipped up.

“Okay, then. How about lunch?”

“Could we go to Darby’s?” She smiled at the hopeful note in his voice. “I get cravings for their bacon mushroom cheeseburger.”

She laughed. “Then you should have one. Come on, let’s go.”

They sat on the outdoor deck at Darby’s in the shade of a huge fig tree, enjoying the quiet neighborhood with only a faint hum of traffic in the background. Krissa plunged her straw into the glass of iced tea she’d ordered.

“Lauren liked it here, too,” she remarked, extending her bare legs under the table. Her foot bumped Nate’s, his legs much longer than hers. “Sorry.” She shifted her feet in her flip flops away.

He said nothing.

“You must miss her.”

“I don’t want to talk about Lauren.”

She blinked. She, too, wore sunglasses now. “Why not?”

Was it still that painful for him to talk about her? It had been over two years since she’d died. Surely he should be moving on by now.

“I just don’t want to.” His voice was hard.

“But it would be good for you…if you can’t get past it, talking about her might help. You must miss her.”

“No. I don’t.”

Astonished, she stared at him, her glass of tea half way from the table to her lips. “You don’t miss her?”

He shook his head, gave the menu his attention. Then he snapped it shut. “Don’t know why I’m even looking at that. I already know what I want.”

“Bacon mushroom cheeseburger.”

“You got it.”

Krissa looked at her own menu, decided on a spinach salad and they ordered.

“Nate. What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

He knew exactly what she meant. The lack of eye contact was driving her crazy, but she felt his understanding. “Lauren. Why don’t you miss her? Why don’t you want to talk about her?”

He sighed. “It’s a crappy story, Krissa. You liked Lauren. I don’t want to spoil your memories of her.”

“Well, you definitely can’t say something like that and then not tell me what you mean.” She sipped her drink. “What would spoil my memories of her?”

Nate turned his face and looked across the street at the small used book store. “Just drop it, okay.”

“No.”

It wasn’t like her to push for an uncomfortable conversation. She normally tried to avoid that. But she had to know. That morning when they’d been talking about Lauren, something had made her feel funny, something Nate had said. And his reaction didn’t seem normal to her. He should be at the point where he wanted to talk about his wife—sharing happy memories. But clearly he wasn’t.

“I want to know,” she said softly, leaning forward. “Truly, Nate, it will help to talk about it. I told you about wanting to have a baby. I’ve never told anybody else that, except Derek.”

He tipped his head to the side as if thinking about that. “Nobody?”

She moved her head side to side. “Not even Cameron.”

He gnawed on his bottom lip. “Well, I’ve never told anybody this, either.”

Something tightly coiled inside her softened. “I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Yeah.” He paused, studied the glass of Coke in front of him, took a deep breath. “After Lauren died, I went through her stuff. I found her journal. She wrote in it all the time, but it was personal. I probably shouldn’t have read it, but I wanted to connect with her one last time…to know her thoughts and feelings. That must sound crazy.”