“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just—” How did she explain? He was a stranger. She didn’t even tell her—brief—life story to people she saw every day. Viv and Morrie were the only ones who knew the whole story. Even Joey, the cook at the Shark and Fin, only knew part of it.

“Just what?” he prompted.

“You remind me of someone,” she said finally. “I don’t…” This question terrified her. What if he didn’t just remind her of someone? What if he was someone she’d known? Unable to avoid it any longer, she finally asked, “I don’t know you, do I?”

She felt as if her stomach had fallen to her feet while she waited.

“No,” he said very quietly, watching her. “You don’t know me.”

Leah swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry,” she said for about the tenth time in the past ten minutes. “I guess I was just… I don’t know.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he said briskly. “Why don’t we start over?” He held out his hand.

God, could he be more cool, more self-possessed, more hellaciously good-looking? Danger, danger.

“Start over?” she asked, trying to get her thoughts under control.

“I’m Roman Bradshaw,” he said again. He still had his hand out. “I’m from New York. I’m looking to invest in a business in the Keys. I’m interested in Morrie’s bar.”

She took his hand. Electricity shot all the way up her arm, and it was all she could do not to yank her hand back.

“I’m Leah. Leah Wells.” She sounded almost normal, thank God. “I’m taking care of the bar for Morrie. I’d be happy to provide you with any information—”

He hadn’t let go of her hand. The electrical pulses hadn’t stopped coming, either. And simply being this close to him was making her knees shake.

“Good,” he said. “I’m free this morning, if you have time for me.”

There was something unguarded in his expression. His burningly intense eyes seared her still, but she realized there was a vulnerability there, too.

“The bar opens at ten,” she said, quaking inside with unnamed emotions. “Meet me then.” She withdrew her hand and walked away, but she knew he didn’t move, that he watched her all the way down the street to the beach.

The water glittered in a kaleidoscope of blues and greens, light reflecting up from the bottom of the ocean. Graceful sea birds glided and dipped. It was a sight she loved, craved to drink in each morning. But for the first time, she was in a rush to get back to the bar.

She felt his gaze long after she knew she was out of sight. She took the stairs in the back hall of the bar by twos and went straight to the shower. With water pouring down over her face, she cried for no reason at all.

“Darling, I just pray that you will find the same kind of happiness that Genevieve and Mark have. You know that’s all I care about. All I think about. Your happiness. You simply must come home.”

Roman held the bungalow phone in his tense, impatient hand, listening to his mother try to convince him to return to New York. He’d come back to the White Seas after seeing Leah at the coffeehouse, biding his time till their scheduled meeting at the Shark and Fin. He needed a few moments to collect his thoughts, calm his pounding heart.

He didn’t need this conversation with his mother.

“We miss you,” Barbara Bradshaw continued. “You need us.”

“I need Thunder Key,” Roman said plainly. “This is where I want to be, where I need to be right now.”

“What good can come of wallowing in that girl’s death?” his mother demanded, her voice breaking.

“‘That girl’ was my wife, Mother. Leah. She had a name.” Is my wife, he corrected to himself. Has a name.

He hadn’t told his mother about seeing Leah. Even after eighteen months of thinking Leah was dead, his family hadn’t softened their attitude toward her. They wouldn’t gladly accept her back, and his gut instincts told him they would attempt to convince him that her memory loss was some kind of fraud. Hadn’t they tried, over and over, to find a way to tear him and Leah apart? They never had.

He’d destroyed their marriage all by himself.

After she’d been declared dead, he’d gone back to work. His work had always been so important to him. His grandfather had been the founder of Bradshaw Securities, a professional trading firm. It was a family business—his father, his uncles, his cousins, his sister. It had always been assumed that Roman would take his father’s place as the CEO and chairman of the board someday. But now it was all so empty. Stocks, bonds, trading options. Who cared?