Chapter 17

When Burke didn’t show up on the bench outside the Petals & Leis administrative offices for a third day in a row, he knew his father would come find him. He ran at a punishing speed, Ash’s words on a loop in his head.

Figure things out. Figure things out.

He had no idea how to do that. And she hadn’t shown up for their morning run for the third day in a row.

So he ran, and he ran far and long and hard.

When he made it back to his condo, one step through the door told him his father either was there or had been there.

“There you are,” he said, confirming that he was still on the premises. He came around the island in the kitchen fully, a cup of coffee in his hand that he’d obviously made while he waited for Burke to show up.

It was fine. Burke hadn’t cooked in his kitchen in a very long time. Someone might as well get some use out of the coffee maker.

“Here I am.” He took off his T-shirt and used it like a towel on his sweaty head and face. “How long have you been here?”

“Maybe an hour.” His father wore sympathy in his eyes, but none of it came through in his voice. He watched Burke, not missing anything, and while Burke had never enjoyed it, today he found it downright obnoxious.

“I’m going to shower.” His muscles hurt, and his brain was cranky, and he did not want to talk to his dad.

His dad was the reason he was in this mess with Ash.

No, he thought. That was all you.

But it was easier to blame his dad than to figure out where Burke had gone wrong. There were too many choices if he was really going to attempt to analyze what he’d done wrong over the course of the last few months.

“This will just take a moment,” his dad said.

Burke paused in his flight toward the hallway that would save his sanity. “What, Dad? What now?”

His dad blinked at him, his eyes hardening. Burke never talked to his father with much disrespect, and he rarely glared as he was now.

“I was just going to say I’m sorry.”

“You’re—what?”

“Your mother says I put too much pressure on you. That I made it sound like if you weren’t engaged you couldn’t have Petals and Leis.”

Burke settled his weight and breathed deep, trying to get some reason infused into his brain. “That’s exactly what you said.”

“Well, I didn’t mean it like that. What I wanted to tell you was that we wanted you to have someone to pass the farm to. Someone you meet and fall in love with and want to marry. It doesn’t have to be this year or even next. You’re young still.” He cleared his throat, the very first sign of nerves from his father that Burke had seen in years.

“So.” He looked away and sighed. “The farm is still going to be yours come January first. And you can find someone you want to marry, no strings attached. No time frame.”

Burke had no idea what to say. This was a completely different father than the one who’d walked with him under the plumeria, expressing his desires for the farm to stay in the family for six more generations.

Had Burke misunderstood him? Or had his father really miscommunicated his ideas so badly?

“All right?” His dad clapped his hand on Burke’s shoulder. “You take the time you need to find someone. Maybe it’s Ash. Maybe it’s not.”

Burke’s heart crunched inside his chest, but his dad grabbed him and gave him a hug. “I love you, son.” His voice tumbled through Burke’s chest, ragged and gruff as his father didn’t express himself or how he was feeling all that often.

No wonder Burke had a hard time doing the same thing.

A week later, Burke still had no idea what to do about Ash. Then two weeks passed, and all he seemed to be able to do was run, go into work, and stay until lunch. Then he’d wander around the beach for a while until he thought of something he wanted to eat.

He didn’t admit to himself until the second week that he was wandering the area closest to Ash’s sewing studio, hoping to see her. Causally run into her. Maybe drag her behind Manni’s again and kiss her until she believed that he hadn’t pretended with her.

By the beginning of the third week, he was done moping around. Ash had said to call her later, when he had things figured out, and it was time to get that done.

His first stop: Leo.

Burke felt like a complete idiot driving up the winding roads to Leo’s new, sprawling mansion. Only billionaires lived up here, men like Marshall Robison, the owner of the largest pineapple plantations on the island.

But Leo opened the door wearing a pair of joggers and a T-shirt, clearly having just completed a workout. “Hey, man.” He shook Burke’s hand and added, “We can meet in my office.” He led the way down the hall and into a room with the largest desk Burke had ever seen. And with Leo behind it in such informal clothing almost made Burke scoff.

Leo simply looked at him, and Burke supposed he had called his best friend and asked if they could meet.

“So I’m sure you heard about me and Ash.” The whole company knew, which meant the entire island did too.

“Gen mentioned something about a double chocolate doughnut and why she got to bring it home.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t call,” Burke said. “Come beat me up.”

“It’s….” Leo exhaled heavily. “I thought about it, but then I remembered my sister’s face when she told me it was none of my business. And it’s not. She made her choice, and she’ll have to deal with it.”

“Deal with what?”

“You breaking her heart.”

Instant fury shot through Burke. “Try the other way around.”

Leo opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. “I’m sorry, what? Are you saying you fell for her?”

Burke scoffed. “Of course not. I mean, I liked her.” He felt like he was on a slippery slope, about to lose his footing and then lose everything else. “She said I was pretending. But I wasn’t. Leo, I swear I wasn’t.”

He simply wasn’t sure he could fall in love again.

All at once, he knew what he needed to figure out. And wasn’t that half the battle?

He stood, said, “Thanks, Leo,” and started to leave.

“Thanks for what?” Leo called after him, but Burke didn’t turn back or try to explain. He had to figure out how to get over Bridgette so he could find out if he could love Ash.

And if not, at least he’d know. At least maybe he could salvage their friendship. He was tired of running alone. Tired of waking up alone. Tired of being alone.

And not just alone. But without Ash.

He now had two lives—with Ash and this new one where he didn’t have her. No one to talk to. No one to just be with while the sun sank into the ocean and she talked about her mom.

Burke didn’t want someone else to share those things with. He wanted his friendship with Ash.

And maybe more, if he could open his heart to the possibility of…getting hurt again.

He started his car and began the winding drive back down to the water’s edge. “That’s what you have to decide,” he told himself. “Whether or not you’re willing to get hurt again. Ask her to marry you and be told no one more time.”

His heart pulsed once, twice. A clear warning that it did not want to be hurt again. That it still had old scars he hadn’t dealt with.

“How do I deal with them?” he asked himself, a measure of desperation in his voice that mirrored how he felt inside.

In any other situation, he’d go to see Ash. Ask her what she thought, and then he’d do what she said.

He pulled to a stop at a red light, wondering if he really could turn left and wind through the beach community until he pulled up to her cottage. She wouldn’t be there anyway. He’d been running by her house in the morning, and no matter how early he got there, her car was gone already.

He knew where she was, and his fingers flexed on the steering wheel. Could he just show up in her sewing studio and ask her for her advice? Would she even talk to him?

She had picked up the phone when he’d called, weeks ago. She had said “call me later.”

And she didn’t like drop-ins. So he should definitely call first. But if he called first, and she said he couldn’t come….

Burke yanked the wheel to the right, earning him a honk from the car behind him. “I can’t do it,” he said to himself, wondering when he’d decided to be one of those people that talked to themselves in their car. “I can’t go through another day without Ash.”

Apparently today he needed her back.

He pulled into the parking lot that served the strip mall where her shop sat. He had no plan, and if there was anything he’d learned from all of his botched proposals to Bridgette, it was that a man should have a plan.

He put the car in reverse, ready to back out. Then pushed it back into park. He couldn’t go back to his house tonight. Lie on his own couch. He just couldn’t do it.

“Time to face her,” he muttered to himself, and he got out of the car. The bells on her front door would alert her to someone’s presence, and he could judge her mood and level of exhaustion by how fast she appeared in the doorway where she worked.

He put his hand on the handle and drew in a deep breath. “Now or never,” he told himself, wondering what that really meant. Because if he didn’t go inside now, he certainly could tomorrow.

Maybe.

If he had the nerve.

So he better just get it over with now.

He opened the door, the bells ringing.

And then he counted.