“Morning, Sydney.”

“Good morn—”

He cut her off, pulling her to him and into a kiss every bit as perfect as last night’s. And yet, nothing like it. Because where that had been a tentative, tender touch, this one burned with intensity, his lips claiming hers with so much wanting, there was nothing else she could do but hold on to him and return the kiss. His hands, somehow warm, cupped her cheeks before one moved to her neck, his fingers knotting in her hair.

Finally, surely needing air every bit as much as she did, he broke away. One arm wrapped around her waist, and he leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“Holy cow, Neil, what are we doing?”

Another kiss on her opposite cheek. “If you don’t know, lass, I’m doing something terribly wrong.”

Lass. “We’ve only known each other for ten days.”

“I think today makes it eleven.”

“Well, in that case . . .” She was the one to kiss him now, pouring every feeling, every speck of undeniable knowing into it, clinging to his shirt and wishing—desperately—that there wasn’t a tiny voice in the back of her head murmuring that she needed to do this while she could.

Because even if God had led her here, wouldn’t He eventually point her back home? Where her jobs and Micah and her whole life up until now were waiting?

“I don’t know how I should feel about you calling me ‘lass.’” Her voice was a whisper. “Not when it’s apparently what you call your sisters, too, when you’re trying to talk them into mucking out the barn.”

He shook his head, his breath warm against her face and his low chuckle almost as alluring as his grin. “No, I call them ‘lassie.’ World of difference in those two letters.” He touched his forehead to hers. “But speaking of . . .”

“Maybe best not to shock anyone.” So why didn’t she step away?

Why didn’t he? No, he did the opposite, his arm tightening around her and his head dipping once more—

Until the sound of footsteps around the side of the house pushed in. And he released her at once, stepping back, but not so far she missed his panted mumble. “I really wish people would stop interrupting us.”

She would’ve laughed as she turned around, if not for the sight of the person rounding the corner. The look of shock on his face. Micah?

Neil’s only hope of keeping his concerned gaze away from Sydney and the man she’d introduced as her former foster brother as they strolled the shore was to go inside.

But he’d been inside for almost thirty minutes now. And still, his ears were perked for any sound that might be footsteps on the porch or the latch of the front door. Never mind the two sisters gabbing from behind the desk in the office—Lilian in the chair and Indi balanced on its arm.