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baby.”

    “She was worried. Can’t blame her for that.”

    He dropped down on the blanket next to her. His leg brushed against hers, totally by accident, she was sure. She just hoped he couldn’t see the look on her face. Nonchalant as possible, she shifted away. Not because she didn’t want him touching her, but if she wanted to actually carry on a conversation with him, he couldn’t be touching her. She’d start mumbling and stammering and acting like some stupid . . . girl. How embarrassing.

    “Since you didn’t go to the hospital, I guess you didn’t call the police, either,” Cullen was saying.

    “No reason to,” she said, shrugging. “I wasn’t hurt, not really.” Then she grinned, a mean, nasty grin. “Dante came home the next day, and his mama had to play doctor on his hands. He looked like he went a few rounds with a brick wall, the way his hands were torn up.”

    Cullen laughed. “Well, that would explain it. I ran into one of those guys at the store. He saw me and took off in the other direction, but not before I saw his face. He looks like he got hit by a brick wall. A few times.”

    A breeze drifted by, and she caught her hair in her hand, holding it out of her face as she stole a glance at him. “I don’t know if I remembered to say thank you.”

    He reached out, caught a thick curl, and tucked it behind her ear. “Nothing to say thanks for. Anybody—”

    She shook her head. “No. Not anybody would have done it.” Sadly, she knew that not even half of anybody would have gotten involved. Sucked knowing the things she knew sometimes.

    “Yeah, well . . .” He shrugged it off, and she grinned a little as she realized he was uncomfortable. His cheeks were tanned, but not tanned enough to hide the dull rush of color as he blushed. He focused his gaze out over the blue green waters of the Gulf. “I’m glad I saw you out here. We’re heading back home day after tomorrow, and I’ve been worried. Didn’t know how to find you, except going back out to your friend’s house. And I tried that. Got lost.”

    Taige grinned, hiding the rush of pleasure at the thought of him looking for her. Then she felt like an idiot. He was a nice guy. After what he’d done, she knew just how much of a nice guy he was. So he’d been worried. No reason to read anything else into it.

    But she knew it wasn’t going to keep her from thinking about him after he’d gone. She realized she was still staring at him and grinning like a fool, and she shifted her gaze back out to the beach. “So where is home?”

    “Georgia. Small town about an hour north of Atlanta, close to the Tennessee state line.” From the corner of her eye, she could see that he was staring out at the Gulf, smiling faintly. “Going to miss the beach. Easy to get used to it.”

    Taige had to agree. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

    “My dad bought one of the condos, so we’ll be back. Not sure when.” He paused for a minute, and Taige glanced over at him to realize that now he was the one staring. At her. “Maybe I’ll see you when we come back.”

    Her heart skipped a beat. She almost blurted out something totally lame, like Oh, I’d love that. But she managed, just barely, to keep her voice even and her comment to a simple, “I’m pretty much always around.”

    An awkward silence fell. He cleared his throat, and Taige busied her hands by combing through her mass of hair and separating it into sections so she could braid it. From the corner of her eye, she could see him watching her, and she fumbled a little and had to start over. “Can I ask you something?” Cullen asked softly.

    She tensed. She had a feeling she knew what he was going to ask—or at least some variation of it. “What?” she asked warily. She didn’t really consider herself touchy when people asked her, but it did make her a little uncomfortable and irritated her that people could be so damn nosy. She hadn’t thought that Cullen