Between Hello and Goodbye(20)

“Is this guy best friend-enough to actually know where you are?”

“Yes, he’s very supportive. You remind me of him, actually. You’re both sweetness wrapped in grumpy packaging.”

Asher looked away. “You keep calling me that. I’m not—”

“Yes, you are. Why else would you give up your four days off to help me out? Especially if you’re not getting any sex out of it.”

“Is that all you’re good for?” Asher asked. “Because I don’t think that’s true.”

My cheeks heated. “No, that’s not what I meant but…okay, I guess that is what I meant. My point is you’re not getting anything in return.”

“Let me worry about that. And I have a question for you,” he said before I could protest. “How come you didn’t call me out for giving you shit about your job when mine in New York was just as bad?”

I smiled. “Not my style. I’m not a very judgmental person.”

“Except to yourself.”

“A necessary evil for the time being. My boss has required that I do some serious introspection.”

“You get in trouble?”

“I closed a multimillion-dollar deal and they want to make me partner.”

Asher laughed, shaking his head. “Sounds dire.”

“It is!” I said and gave his arm a playful shove that didn’t budge him an inch. “I don’t know if I’m ready to take on that kind of responsibility. If I accept a job like that, I should know for sure it’s what I want to do, right?”

“Probably. Sounds like you’re being awfully responsible to me.”

“Does it? Thank you! I mean, just look at the sheer volume of willpower I’m exhibiting right now with you.”

He cleared his throat, not looking at me. “We both might be better off if you stop saying stuff like that.”

“I don’t have much of a filter.”

“You don’t say?”

“What’s the point of being coy or shy? I like telling the truth and the truth is, Asher Mackey, you are every woman’s fantasy.”

He shook his head with another laugh, but his cheeks reddened slightly.

“But Jesus, I didn’t even ask if you were seeing someone,” I said. “Or…married?”

“None of the above.”

I drowned a twinge of happiness in a swig of coffee. “I would imagine it’s pretty slim pickings on an island this small. How—and who—do you date?”

“Tourists,” he said. “And I don’t know that I’d call what we do dating.”

The rough timbre of his voice and heat in his deep brown eyes sent a lick of flame down my spine.

“What if you want to settle down?”

“I don’t.”

“Not ever?”

“Do you?” he challenged.

I shrugged. “I think so. Someday. I can’t quite imagine it in my current state, but I know I don’t want to still be dating when I’m fifty.” I took a bite of cold açaí, watching him. “Tell me for real. How do you live in such an isolated place?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Kauai is the opposite of a big city, and four years ago, that’s what I needed. Still do.”

“That’s what vacations are for. But to stay forever?” I shook my head. “I’d get a terminal case of island fever.”

“How do you know? You’ve only been here”—Asher pretended to check his watch— “thirty-six hours.”

“And I’m already wondering where the Sephora is.”

He chuckled and went back to his food, allowing me a few moments to take him in, starting with that watch on his impressive—and ridiculously sexy—forearm. It was heavy-duty and manly but also retailed for about nine grand. His clothes, upon closer inspection, were simple but high quality, and his Jeep was no junker either. Seems as if Asher had brought something from his finance days with him across the ocean, which wasn’t even the most interesting part about him.

Asher Mackey is entirely made up of interesting parts.

The man was an iceberg: what he gave up front was just a fraction of who he was down deep. Granted, I’d only known him a handful of hours (thirty-six, by his count), but my finely-honed interpersonal skills told me I’d barely begun to scratch the surface. He was a mass of contradictions: full of kindness but trying—and failing miserably—to hide it; an outdoorsman whom I could easily picture ordering fine wine in a fancy restaurant; a guy who traded stocks and bonds to be an EMT on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific.

Why?

“Nice watch,” I said after a moment. “TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph, right?”

He frowned and automatically covered the watch with one hand. “I guess. How do you know?”

“I put one on Tom Brady for an ad campaign two years ago.” I arched a brow. “Not bad, Mackey.”

“It’s durable,” he said darkly. “Something wrong with that?”

“Not at all,” I said. “Quite the opposite; I would think it’d take a few luxuries to survive out here in the wilderness.”

“I haven’t given up civilization, just the bullshit.”