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I described where I’d found it, and Blake actually scratched his head. I had to look away because the gesture was frankly adorable.

When he looked back up, he smiled. “Thank you. My mom gave me this, before…” He shrugged.

My arms itched to reach for him, but I picked up my coffee with both hands, holding it in front of me like a shield.

“Well, thank you, Cass. It means a lot.”

It meant a lot that he’d tossed his beloved fishing rod aside to pull some strange woman out of the water, but I didn’t want to bring that up again. I couldn’t, not when I wasn’t sure what kind of confusing feelings it might pull out of me.

He lowered the rod, leaning it against the wall, and our eyes met. That old heat burned, incinerating the restraint I’d put up over the past few weeks. It was like my body knew we were going to be alone together within an hour.

What did it expect was going to happen?

Something my mind wouldn’t entertain. Couldn’t entertain.

“Should we get out of here?” I asked, my voice coming out tight.

He nodded, looking down. “Sure. Sounds good.”

* * *

We hadto meet Jude to get the keys to one of the golf carts before heading out to the course, which was our first order of business. Blake was going to scout spots all over the property to photograph for the funding prospectus Lila was going to be preparing as a part of their final report. This would be a thoroughly researched and vetted application to submit to financiers who would help us fund the work we would do to fulfill the project’s vision. The golf course was one of the key assets at the resort that we needed to highlight, which was why we were spending half the day there today.

Jude told us he’d be in the tennis dome, and we found him there a few minutes later, standing in the middle of a crowd of women, all looking adoringly up at him as he spoke.

“Of course,” I laughed.

“Does this always happen with him?” Blake asked.

“Ever since he was a teenager. Actually, before then, though it got way worse once he got famous.”

Jude had always attracted the attention of members of the opposite sex with his blonde hair, easy grin, and naturally flirtatious demeanor. Members of the same sex too, though he always said it was a shame he didn’t swing that way. But it wasn’t his looks that made him cocky. It was his prowess on the tennis court, or at least it used to be, until his injury.

He was the best, and he knew he was the best.

Mom told me once that his cockiness was a product of how much pressure he put on himself. That he used it to try to talk himself up, when really he was a scared little boy half the time, terrified of failing.

I tried to remember that at times like these, when all I wanted to do was roll my eyes and tell the blushing women around my brother that he had a giant wart on his toe he couldn’t get rid of for years as a teenager. That his gym clothes smelled like a rodent had died in them.

That he hadn’t been with anyone seriously since he’d been injured—and had his son Jack—because he was too scared of disappointing anyone.

But if I sat here psychoanalyzing my brother, we’d be here all day.

Besides, I was on edge. Something had shifted when I’d given Blake his fishing rod; some fundamental thing in the energy between us. As we stood there next to each other, I felt as if there was a new heat radiating off him, and my body was responding. My palms were beginning to sweat, and I felt like I could feel my pulse throbbing.

I thought Blake had felt it too—or at least some version of it—from the way he’d looked at me after I’d laughed, and the way we’d walked most of the way here in mostly charged silence, our small talk coming off in awkward spurts.

But he seemed okay now. He gave a soft laugh as Jude answered questions from a wealthy-looking blonde woman who kept interrupting the other women to ask even more questions.

Blake leaned in to me. “Should we rescue him?”

Heat roared across my skin at his sudden proximity, but I responded as normally as I could. “I’d rather not, but seeing as we need him,” I said, trying to be light and funny. But when I lifted my hand to try to get Jude’s attention, my fingers brushed across the length of his bicep.

We’d accidentally touched before. I’d even ‘not untouched him’ in the cafe that time, and I hadn’t imploded. But this time it was like I’d struck a live wire. Or stroked a live wire.

I jerked my hand down. “Sorry.” It had been a while since that had happened. I was good at making sure it never did. So this time, the shock of it washed through me hard. By the way Blake was looking at me, I could tell it was going through him, too. Or at least, something was.

“We could just stop, you know,” Blake said quietly.