She shook her head. “No, I don’t see. You should have trusted me.”

“I didn’t know he was gay. He was a star athlete and adored by all the girls at school.”

“It was a front he put on for others. No one knew but me. When he found out you had broken off with me because of him, he felt guilty and told me to tell you the truth. That’s why I caught the bus to see you. But that’s all water under the bridge now because you didn’t want to hear anything I had to say. And then there was that woman...”

“I didn’t sleep with her that night, Bryce. I only left with her to make you think I would. I wanted to hurt you the way I thought you had hurt me.”

“You succeeded in hurting me, Kaegan. It took me years to get over you and move on with my life. And then you returned to Catalina Cove, still believing the worst about me.” She drew in a deep breath. “None of it matters anymore. I only came here today to say that I forgive you, so you can stop sending the flowers.”

She turned and walked out of his office.

* * *

“ARE YOU OKAY, BRYCE?”

Bryce looked over at her mother. “I’m fine, Mom. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been quiet.”

Yes, she had been. After leaving Kaegan’s office, she had gone home and changed clothes and come to the café to help out. She’d known Ry had taken the day off to attend one of Lil Ry’s football games and her parents would be shorthanded with the afternoon and dinner crowd. Her father had worked with Duke in the kitchen, and Bryce and her mother had waited on tables.

It had gotten busy very quickly. This was the first chance they’d gotten to talk, but she wouldn’t tell her mother anything. The last thing she needed was her parents worrying about her...and they would. Regardless that she was thirty-two, she was still the baby in the family. Her family liked Kaegan, and because they didn’t know all the details of why she and Kaegan had broken up, they merely saw it as a communication problem.

She knew the way her parents’ minds worked. In Kaegan they saw the young man who’d looked out for their daughter while growing up. He’d appeared on their doorstep every morning to walk her to school and back, from the time she’d been in first grade to when he’d left town for the marines.

Then there was the time her father liked reminding her, and anyone else who cared to listen, how Kaegan had all but saved her life during a bad hurricane. Luckily the massive storm had deviated from its course, otherwise it probably would have destroyed the cove. But water surges had still impacted the town. And when she had gotten caught up in it, when she had been out helping others to evacuate, it had been a sixteen-year-old Kaegan who’d maneuvered one of his father’s boats through the streets of Catalina Cove to rescue her. Why was she remembering that now? She wasn’t sure, but she was determined to banish all thoughts of Kaegan from her mind.