He gave her a small smile. “You letting me off the hook, Piper?”

“No.” She paused and shook her head. “Well, maybe just a little. I really do know you were trying to help. Logically. But . . . emotionally? I’m still hurt and angry at being left out.”

“Understood.”

She nodded, relieved to have gotten that out. He let a companionable silence fill the space between them, along with the small waves slapping rhythmically against the dock. She could hear the wind and a bird squawking at something. The buzz of insects. Her own thoughts . . .

“Everything feels so complicated,” she whispered.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

She looked at him.

“No one meant to hurt anyone,” he said. “Least of all me. The loan . . . I came here to Wildstone intending to check on Winnie, you know that now. What you don’t know is that I wasn’t in a great place. I was . . . needing a connection. Something to ground me, to make me feel. I met you on my second night here, and I knew right then at the bar, Piper. I knew I’d found the connection I was looking for. I wanted to tell you everything, but Winnie needed to do it, in her own time. It was before . . . us.” He paused and met her gaze. “But then I started to fall for you, and there I was, holding back from you while asking you not to hold back from me. That’s what I’m most sorry about. With the loan, I was just trying to help, trying to give you something you needed. You needed to be free to go. Now you are. You can go find the next good-time guy.”

She winced. “You’re not just that to me,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry I let you think that. You’re more. You’re . . .”

“Too much more?” he asked wryly.

No, you’re everything, she wanted to say, but just shook her head.

“Piper, you’re one of the strongest people I know. You’ve had to be. But that’s the thing. Now you don’t. You can let go of everyone else’s problems for once, and just live your own life.”

“But what if I don’t know who I am if I’m not the mom, the sister, the caretaker . . .”

“You know exactly who you are, Piper. Yes, you’re those things, but you’re also so much more. You’re intelligent, resourceful, fiercely independent. You’re also beautiful, but that’s actually the least interesting thing about you.” He looked amused when she blinked. “You make me feel things I didn’t think I could feel.”

A little overwhelmed and maybe also embarrassed at the compliments, she squirmed. “Yeah, well, aroused doesn’t count.”

He flashed a quick grin that affected her pulse. “Yes, it does. But it’s more than that. You make me—”

“Crazy?”

“I wasn’t going to list that first,” he said diplomatically.