Drew was shaking his head. “So tell me that when your boyfriend got home, he tore the guy a new one.”

“No. I told Cal about it as soon as he got back—by then Kyle had left for his own room and was taking, as he put it, a cold shower, and I was shoving everything I owned into one of Cal’s suitcases, because all I could think of doing was getting the hell out of there—and Cal just laughed it off. He said I was overreacting.”

Drew blinked. “Overreacting?”

“Yeah. He said I knew perfectly well that Kyle had a substance-abuse problem, and we all needed to cut him some slack, because he was doing the best he could. He said it was really petty of me to be so judgmental of someone who was struggling so hard to get his life together.”

Drew frowned. “Tell me that you judged that guy with extreme prejudice.”

I looked down at my empty plate. “Honestly? I didn’t know what to do. Not at first. I mean, I’d just lost my dad. And . . . and this other thing had happened, as well. I didn’t want to lose my boyfriend, too.”

“What other thing?”

“After my dad passed away, a friend of mine got me one of those DNA ancestry testing kits for Christmas. She thought it would cheer me up. We could both do one, she said, and compare our results. So we did. Right before the Kyle thing, I got my results, which was another reason I was doing so badly in school. They revealed that I’m fifty-two percent British, Irish, and Scottish . . . which was expected, since my father’s ancestors are from there. But the rest of my results were almost all Scandinavian.”

Drew shrugged. “I don’t get it. You have something against our Nordic friends?”

“No. But my mom’s ancestors are strictly Sephardic Jews, with roots in North Africa and Spain. She’s always bragging about it.”

He looked puzzled. “What are you saying? Your mom’s a liar?”

“Not about that. About me. I’m not her biological daughter.”

He blinked at me. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. As soon as I asked my mom about it, she confessed that she had fertility issues, so she and my dad had used an egg donor to conceive me. They never told me because . . . well, apparently there just never seemed to be a good time, and I can be overly sensitive.”

Drew gave a wry smile and lifted his glass. “To family,” he said. “Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”

I clinked my glass to his. “To family.”

We both sipped.

“No wonder you ran away,” he said. “Not only had you lost a father, but you must have also felt as if you’d lost a mother, and then, after what happened with this Kyle person—”

“I felt as if I’d lost my boyfriend, too,” I said. “Especially when he blamed me for being so judgmental of Kyle. My mother said the same thing, too, at first.”

Drew whistled. “Well, good riddance to all of them.” He reached out to pour more wine into my glass. “You did the right thing, especially coming here. This is the best place in the world to heal from old wounds and start life over. But the school thing—is that forever? You definitely don’t strike me as a quitter. You had a rough semester, but you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, so you could easily make up the work if you wanted to go back.”

My eyes filled with tears once more. He’d tossed me so many compliments at once—and not the kind Caleb always had, about my beauty, but about my character and intelligence—that I hardly knew how to handle it. I lifted my wineglass and brought it swiftly to my lips, hoping the bowl of the enormous glass would hide my suddenly shining eyes.

“I don’t know. I guess I grew up thinking I should be a lawyer because my mom and dad were, and helping people is something I’m definitely interested in. But in my heart—”

He nodded. “I get it. In your heart, you’re an artist. No one who’s seen those paintings of yours could ever think otherwise.” He raised his glass toward mine. “Cheers to having the sense to follow your true path.”

I laughed—a half sob, half laugh, because I was still fighting back tears—and leaned forward to clink my glass to his. “Thanks. But that’s the problem. I don’t know what my true path is. So far it seems to have led me toward waitressing and a hurricane.”

He looked slightly hurt. “And me.”

“And you,” I said, this time laughing without a hint of tears.

“On the other hand,” Drew said, gazing up at the stars, “now you have two moms. Not many people can say that.”

“That’s true,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure my egg donor mom is the one from whom I inherited my artistic talent. I was able to see her application. It was an open donation, meaning that she checked off that she had no problem with me contacting her once I came of age.”

“That’s great,” Drew said, looking interested. “Did you look her up?”

I shook my head. “No. Not yet. My mom really pressured me to. I think she thought maybe it would make things better between us. But I just haven’t felt ready. Maybe when things get more . . . settled.”

“Hmmm.” He grinned and reached for me, pulling me against him. “If there’s anything I can do to help you settle things, let me know.”

“Aw.” This so warmed my heart, I leaned up to kiss him.

I’d only meant it to be a playful kiss across his cheek. But he turned his head so that the kiss landed on his mouth.

And just like every other time, the second his lips met mine, fireworks seemed to go off inside my shorts. It was all I could do not to launch myself at him, I so badly wanted to be in his arms . . . and his bed.

I needn’t have worried, however, since he was apparently feeling the same way about me. A second later, he scooped me up from the deck chair and carried me back into his room—no trouble tripping over tools this time, since we’d lit plenty of candles to light the way.

Unfortunately, in our ardor, we forgot to put away the leftovers, so the Bobs climbed up onto the table and feasted on what was left of our steaks.

But that was all right, we decided when we discovered our empty plates, much later. They deserved a treat, too. The way we were feeling, the whole world did.

Chapter Thirty

Residents are encouraged to dispose of the following hurricane debris at the designated landfill: yard waste, appliances, furniture, and any hazardous materials, including paint, fuel, and batteries. (No sludge will be accepted.)

When I woke the next morning, it was to the gentle, rhythmic sound of ocean waves lapping at the shore. Ocean waves, an unfamiliar grinding noise, and . . . voices?

At first, I thought the voices belonged to the gulls, chattering away out on the beach as they’d been doing the whole time I’d been at Drew’s house.

But the more conscious I grew, the more I realized these voices were forming words. And that one of them sounded a lot like Drew’s.

I sat up, looking around Drew’s bedroom. Sun was pouring in through the skylight. I had no idea what time it was because his only clock was digital, and without power the screen was blank, as was the screen to my cell phone.

Drew’s side of the bed was empty, his clothes gone. The only sign that he’d been there were the flung-back sheets and the sliding glass door, which was open. Since no dogs were piled on the bed beside me, I could only assume he’d taken them down onto the beach with him. That’s where the voices appeared to be coming from.