She blinked into Joe’s eyes. He had her wrist in a firm grip.

“Here.” He stood, then pressed her to the driver’s seat. “Sit.”

“I’m okay.” She went for a smile but couldn’t quite stick the landing as she continued to suck air into her lungs too fast. “It’s just…hard to be here.” She waved a hand in front of her face to fan it and gulped air like water.

“Yeah,” he said, watching her carefully. “And it’s going to get worse. You probably shouldn’t hang around for longer than necessary.”

“No.” Keep breathing, Summer. It took a few minutes to even it out, to gain control. Humiliating.

His mouth was grim as he waited, his eyes blazing with emotion. This was hard on him too, incredibly so, and yet she could still hardly believe it was him standing here. “You look good, Joe.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

It was a shock that she couldn’t read him, not at all. “You used to wear your emotions on your sleeve.”

“Yeah, well, that never really worked out for me.”

She nodded and stood on legs she told herself were steady now. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I left things badly. I never said good-bye. I—”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He sounded as weary as she felt. Just yesterday she’d been in San Francisco, planning and organizing a hiking trip through the Sierras for a large group of businesswomen. Then her mother had called at two in the morning. An oddity in itself because in all these years Camille had been extremely cognizant of the fact that Summer didn’t like to come back to Ocean Beach and had never asked her to.

As a result, Summer’d had an amazing freedom to do as she pleased. And what had pleased her was to roam, far and wide.

But her mother needed her now, an event shocking enough that Summer had hopped in her car and driven seven straight hours to get here. She’d had no sleep and it was catching up with her. But looking into Joe’s eyes she could see that he’d had a long night too. And probably an even longer morning. “I’m sorry,” she said again. After a hesitation, she reached past him for Socks. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

“Watch out, she’s still skittish.”

“I’ll be careful.” Her shoulder brushed his. Beneath his shirt, he was warm and hard with strength, but that wasn’t what struck her with an almost unbearable familiarity as she found herself in such close proximity to him. No, his scent did that because he smelled the same, and it took everything she had not to throw herself at him for a desperately needed hug.

But he sucked in a breath and stepped back.

To avoid her touch.