She had at least a dozen bags in the back of her car. Not that she’d remember them. “Not necessary.” Since she always forgot her bags, she was an expert and scooped the loot into her arms. Everything fit but the bag of chips.

Cliff helpfully added them to the top of the pile. Lily thanked him, pressing her chin down on the chips so as to not lose any of her precious cargo. “Got it,” she assured him.

Cliff lifted his hands and she started to leave, sidestepping to avoid bumping into the customer coming up to the register. Lily was halfway to the door when something made her glance back at the line.

Which was how she saw the very last person on earth a woman wanted to see when she felt like roadkill, didn’t have on her good moisturizer or her lucky lip gloss …

The guy who’d once upon a time starred in all her fantasies as the man of her dreams: Aidan Kincaid, wearing cargo pants and a dark blue T-shirt with a Search-and-Rescue emblem on the pec, a radio on his hip, looking dusty and hot and tired and sexy as hell.

Her heart began a slow and way too heavy beat, and she whipped her head around to face forward again.

“Lily? Lily, is that you?” a woman just in front of her asked.

Lily blinked at her.

“Mrs. Myers,” the fiftyish woman said helpfully. “Your high school English teacher.” She beamed. “Why, I haven’t seen you in years. How are you doing, dear?”

Lily’s mind raced, leaving her unable to formulate a thought past her instinct to flee. She’d hated English. She’d paid her sister to read the books and write her papers, and in return, Lily had done all of Ashley’s math and science and taken on her work hours at the resort their dad had run. “Uh …”

“Is your mother still happily retired and traveling around?” Mrs. Myers asked. “I lost track of her after …” The woman trailed off and her face filled with sympathy. “After … everything,” she finished gently.

There Lily stood in a dress and Uggs and crazy hair, with Aidan probably watching this entire debacle, and Mrs. Myers wanted to casually discuss the single most soul-destroying incident that had ever happened to Lily.

Over a mountain of crap food that she was holding on to with her chin. And those Cheetos stains weren’t going anywhere …

Thankfully, Mrs. Myers’s cell phone rang, and she got busy searching for it in a purse the size of Texas.

Lily let out a breath and stole a quick peek at Aidan, nearly collapsing in relief because he didn’t appear to see her.

Miracles did happen …

Before her luck could run out, she said a quick “Nice to see you” and hightailed it to the door.

Chapter 3