Remi blew out a breath. “You know, I never felt special. I felt different.”

“Girl, that’s what special is.”

“Well, I ran away from it. I ran away from who I was and tried to be someone else.”

“It looks like you found your way back,” Audrey observed.

“I guess I did.”

“Now, as the lovable ex-wife, I need you to hear this. Don’t play with him, Rem. He’s been waiting so long for you. If you’re not all the way in, if you’re just going to pick up and move on when the wind blows, do him a favor and walk now.”

“Things are…complicated right now,” Remi admitted. “We haven’t talked about the future.”

“Well, you should at least be thinking about it. Don’t hurt him if you can help it. He’s one of a kind, and I really don’t want to dislike you for something real.”

“Message received,” Remi said, feeling just a little unsteady. She caught a glimpse of Brick’s face at the window again and fell just a little harder in love. “So what are you doing here?”

“My brother told me you and Brick finally hooked up. I figured it was time for me to do some apologizing.”

“And scare the hell out of Brick? I’ve never seen him that pale before.”

Audrey’s grin was sharp. “His face when he opened the door looked like he’d just stepped on a trapdoor. He’s probably out there wearing tracks in the hardwood as we speak.”

46

Remi sat front and center at Tiki Tavern’s bar while Brick, Darius, and her very excited father on his first bar shift handled drink orders. She was determined to enjoy the night, to forget about everything weighing her down, and focus only on having a little fun.

The music was loud, bathing the packed bar in golds and shimmers of rose. The crowd still leaned heavily in favor of the residents, but there were enough seasonal workers and early tourists to shift the balance. As she sipped her drink, straight bourbon tonight, and kept up with the conversations around her, Remi thought about what she’d be doing if this were a normal night in her normal life.

In Alessandra’s life.

She would have been painting, alone into the night. Or she might have been dressed up, made up, for an event to sell herself, her talent to buyers with the right kind of deep pockets.

Instead, she was crammed in between Audrey and Kimber and lusting after her bartending boyfriend. Kimber was doing her best to ignore Kyle, who had not only shown up but bought the last two rounds and was trying to coax her sister into a dance. Spencer—having shown up on the afternoon ferry the day before—was sandwiched in between Audrey and Darius’s boyfriend, Ken.

Brick hadn’t even blinked at the extra guest. With two kids, a separated sister, an ex-wife, and a dog, what was one more?

Remi, on the other hand, had blinked an eye on her way to bed, when she’d spotted Spencer sneaking into Audrey’s room after midnight. Audrey’s arm snaking out and dragging him inside.