He sighed. “No, it wasn’t your fault. I was definitely into it.”

That helped to ease the sting…slightly, at least.

“I mean, you had to be able to tell.”

She nodded. So her instincts weren’t completely off-base; they were just ill-timed?

“I’ve felt things shifting…between us. You too, right?” he asked, suddenly looking unsure.

Would she have attacked him otherwise? She nodded.

“The kiss was amazing. It’s just…”

He looked pained and confused, and Sarah couldn’t deal with the tension simmering in the air around him. “You’re not ready for a relationship.”

“And you’re too busy for one. You don’t want one, either. You’re just here to fix up the inn, and then you have a life to get back to. That’s what you said, right?”

That one kiss had just shattered her entire perception of what she thought she wanted. But she nodded. “Yeah. Absolutely. One hundred percent,” she said, turning her attention back to the painting to hide the bitter sting of disappointment.

Yes, that’s what she’d said. Turns out she was a liar.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The next morning, a group of eight- to ten-year-olds waited not so patiently on the sandy beach to learn how to surf. But as he prepped his surfboard, Wes’s mind was anywhere but on the mid-morning waves. The night before had been catastrophic. There was no other way to describe it. He applied the wax roughly to the bottom of his board, desperate to stop the scene from replaying in his mind.

He’d kissed Sarah Lewis. Then he’d backpedaled his way out of acknowledging that the kiss had had an impact on him.

His emotions were a mess. The impulsive kiss itself had been fantastic, and that judgement wasn’t coming from a place of not having kissed a woman in years. Sarah Lewis was an amazing kisser.

Her lips had been soft and delicious. They’d instantly fallen into a rhythm so in sync, it was as though they’d been kissing each other forever, the heat between them off the charts. All the sexual tension that had been building had exploded as soon as their mouths and bodies had connected. He’d enjoyed the kiss far too much.

But was he really ready to kiss someone else? Move on with someone? Just seconds before the kiss, he’d claimed he wasn’t sure, and the passion that had ignited between them hadn’t helped clarify things.

He should never have gone back to the inn in the first place. Canceling on his night out with the guys had been foolish. His intentions had been muddled, falling somewhere between wanting to help Sarah finish the renos as soon as possible to get her out of town again and simply wanting to see her after the tense, strained dinner with his in-laws.