“You didn’t. It’s part of who I am now.”

“I admire who you are now even more than I admired who you used to be—and that was quite a lot.”

“I’m a work in progress,” she said with a laugh, hoping to lighten the mood.

He flashed that potent grin. “Aren’t we all?”

“Don’t try to fool me. You’re not in progress. You’re all grown up.”

“I’d like to think so,” he said, his eyes shifting to the water, “but sometimes I wonder.”

“About?”

“Whether there might be more.” He brought his eyes back to focus on her. “You know?”

The intensity she saw in his gaze caught her off guard. “What do you want that you don’t have?” she managed to ask, even though she suspected.

“Someone to share this view with. Someone to keep me warm on cold winter nights. Someone to talk to.”

“You don’t like to talk,” Sydney said, teasing him even though his words and the yearning she heard in them moved her.

“I like talking to you.”

The statement hung in the air between them, charged and heavy.

“I like talking to you, too.”

“I think I talked more when I was with you than I have in all the years since.”

“Luke—”

He seemed embarrassed by the confession, as if he’d said more than he’d meant to. “Ready to eat?”

After the delicious—and filling—dinner, Luke invited her to take a walk on the beach.

Sydney hesitated, not certain it was wise to revisit the place where they’d often made love.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that, it’s just—”

“Believe me, I know.”

“Did I ruin that for you, too?”

“Nah. Nothing could ruin the beach for me. I’m there almost every day.” He extended a hand her. “Come with me?”

Sydney couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so she took his hand and swallowed the swell of emotion that came with taking the familiar pathway to the stairs.

Luke kept a firm grip on her hand as she followed him down steep stairs that brought back so many memories.

“I used to wonder if your mother knew what we were doing down here.”

Luke guided her off the stairs and onto the beach but didn’t release her hand. The tide was out, leaving them a wide expanse of beach. “She knew.”

“Why do you say that?” Sydney asked, shocked and embarrassed as they passed the groove in the dunes where they’d hidden from the world as teenagers.

“Because I told her.”

“You told her? Are you crazy? Who tells their mother that stuff?”