It was. Shay whirled once, delighted. It was!

Promptly at seven, Mitch arrived. He wore a pearl-gray, three-piece suit, expertly fitted, and the effect was at once rugged and Madison Avenue elegant. He was clean shaven and the scent of his cologne was crisply masculine. His brown eyes warmed as they swept over Shay, and the familiar grooves dented his cheeks when he smiled.

“Wow,” he said.

Shay was glad that it was time to leave for the Reeses’ beach house; she had rarely dated in the six years since her divorce and she was out of practice when it came to amenities like playing soft music and serving chilled wine and making small talk. “Wow, yourself,” she said, because that was what she would have said to Hank and it came out automatically. She could have bitten her tongue.

Mitch laughed and handed her a small florist’s box. There was a pink orchid inside, delicate and fragile and so exotically beautiful that Shay’s eyes widened at the sight of it. It was attached to a slender band of silver elastic and she slid it onto her wrist.

“Thank you,” she said.

Mitch put a gentlemanly hand to the small of her back and steered her toward the door. “Thank you,” he countered huskily, and though Shay wondered what he was thanking her for, she didn’t dare ask.

As his fancy car slipped away from the curb, Mitch pressed a button to silence the blaring music.

The drive south along the coastal highway was a pleasant one. The sunset played gloriously over the rippling curl of the evening tide and the conversation was comfortable. Mitch talked about his seven-year-old daughter, Kelly, who was into everything pink and ballet lessons, and Shay talked about Hank.

She wanted to ask about Mitch’s ex-wife, but then he might ask about Eliott and she wasn’t prepared to discuss that part of her life. It was possible, of course, Shay knew, that Ivy had told him already.

“Have you started furnishing the house yet?” Shay asked when they’d exhausted the subject of children.

Mitch shook his head and the warm humor in his eyes cooled a little, it seemed to Shay, as he glanced at her and then turned his attention back to the highway. “Not yet.”

Shay was stung by his sudden reticence, and she was confused, too. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” came the immediate response, and Mitch flung one sheepish grin in Shay’s direction. “I was just having an attack of male ego, I guess.”

Intrigued, Shay turned in her seat and asked, “What?”

“It isn’t important.”

“I think maybe it is,” Shay persisted.

“I don’t have the right to wonder, let alone ask.”

“Ask anyway.” Suddenly, Shay was nervous.

“Who is that guy who was holding you in the hallway at Seaview this morning?” The question was blurted, however reluctantly, and Shay’s anxieties fled—except for one.

“That was Garrett Thompson. His father was married to my mother at one time.” Shay folded her hands in her lap and drew a deep breath. “What were you doing at Seaview?”