“Have you been back there since returning to Catalina Cove?”

Now would be a good time to tell her that the island was his, and because of that reason, he would go there often to not only check on things, but also to just get away. He loved the bayou, and since the inlet was a part of that environment, he loved going there, as well. “Yes, I’ve gone back a number of times, and as you can see, I survived all my visits there. I haven’t gotten eaten by an alligator yet.”

“And we survived our visits there, too,” she said softly, as if remembering. “Although that time when your dad found us, I think he was tempted to kill us and feed us to one of those alligators.”

She paused and then added, “I honestly think he was afraid that since we’d been missing overnight that I’d been ‘compromised’ and my parents would demand that you marry me, which was the last thing he wanted.”

“In a way I wish they had demanded I marry you,” he said, without thinking.

She held his gaze a moment and then looked away. He wondered what sort of life they would have had if her parents had done such a thing. When silence ensued between them again, he said, “The bunker is still there.”

She looked back at him. “Is it?”

“Yes.”

He’d come across the underground bunker by chance when he’d been only twelve and trespassing on the property while hiding out from his father. Because he’d never believed any of the hype about the island, it had been his secret place. When he’d gotten older, he’d researched the inlet and discovered it was a Cold War–era civil-defense bunker. It had been built back in the 1960s by the government to use as a possible emergency-operations center in case of nuclear war. He would never forget the first time he’d taken Bryce there.

“I own it,” he then said.

“You own what?” she asked him.

“The inlet.”

She lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “You were able to talk Reid LaCroix into selling you some of the property there?”

“I bought the entire island from him and everything on it.”

Her eyes widened and she stared at him, shocked. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding.”

Now she looked confused. “But why would you buy it?”

He shrugged. “Because I always loved it there.”

Kaegan hoped she didn’t have to wonder why the inlet meant so much to him. For years they’d thought of it as their special place. Their private home. Even when he’d thought he hated her, he would still go to the inlet and remember the times they’d spent there together. He’d convinced himself reliving the memories and being reminded of her betrayal was a way of exorcising her from his mind.

She tilted her head and looked at him. “Yes, but you own a large section of land on the bayou. Why would you want Eagle Bend Inlet, as well?”