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  “Hey.” He stroked her cheek when her smile crumpled. “You look so…sad.”

  She had no idea how to tell him that what had started out as fun had turned to something else entirely.

  “Did I hurt you last night?” he whispered.

  “No.” Dios Mio. “It’s just that…” She had nothing to lose by telling him. “You’re leaving.”

  He sighed and sat next to her. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Princess.”

  “If I were really a princess, I could come and go as I please. Like you do.”

  The water rushing over the rocks was the only sound for a long moment. “And where is it you want to go?”

  “The States.”

  “To do what?”

  “Something. Anything.” She threw up her hands. “I just want out of here.” She closed her eyes. “Wait. That’s not quite true. I do know what I want. I want to teach there. I dream about it, it’s my calling. But my father wants me here.” She smiled at him but it didn’t meet her eyes. “I love him but I can’t live my life for him, Brody.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So…you understand? You think I should do as I please?”

  Brody looked into her earnest eyes and didn’t know what to say. He was leaving any moment now. Typically, leaving was something he did extremely well, and yet this time…

  He didn’t want to.

  “I want to teach kids Spanish in a country that gives so much to most of its population, but forgets others. I want to be a proud American, or half American, anyway. I want to make a difference.”

  “You don’t make a difference here?”

  “In a cantina?” Her laugh was harsh. “I want so much more than this. I can make a difference there as a teacher, a true difference to help immigrant children.” She went up on her knees, wrapped her arms around his neck. “You helped me forget for a few days, and for that I’m grateful, but now the wanting is back.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “And there is more.”

  “More?” He didn’t know why, but his heart started to beat faster.

  “I want to be near you.”

  “To…practice reading?”

  She bit her lush lower lip. Watched him with those expressive eyes that heated him from the inside out. “Not exactly.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I want to be with you, Brody.” She laid her two small, work-roughened hands on either side of his jaw and looked him right in the eyes, honest and open, daring him to be that way back.

  But he wasn’t good at the open, honest thing.

  In fact, this was usually where he took off running, but oddly enough, his feet weren’t so much as twitching. His stomach hadn’t even fallen.

  His heart raced, though, and it had nothing to do with panic or needing to run.

  “I don’t mean I want to tie you up,” she said.

  “You don’t mean to tie me down?” He managed a smile. “Because, darlin’, you can tie me up anytime.”

  “You are making a joke and I am being serious.” Leaning back, she crossed her arms over her chest. Her lower lip became even fuller and he had the most insane need to nibble at it. “Are you making a joke because I’m scaring you?” she wondered. “Or because you’re scaring you?”

  Wise beyond her years. And dead-on accurate. Okay, hell. Here came his honesty, though it was rusty. “What I feel for you, Nina, terrifies me.” In another unusual move for him, he pulled her close, cuddling where he’d never felt the need before. “I’m not exactly known for having these conversations while sober.”

  “I am not asking for anything from you other than being able to see you again. I like you, Brody. I lust for you, too, but I have lusted for many men. I haven’t liked many men.”

  Again with her honesty, leaving him humbled to the core. “I’m not the kind of guy you bring home to meet Mom and Dad.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m also not the kind of guy to go back for seconds.”

  She smiled sadly. “I know that, too. It’s okay—”

  “But I would do anything to see you again.” He let out a rough laugh. “And if anyone in my world could hear me say that, they’d fall over in shock.”

  “You are telling me the truth?” She looked breathless, and filled with so much expectation it almost hurt to look at her.

  “I am telling you the truth. But sweetheart, I’m leaving. This morning. Any minute. I’ll come back when I can, but—”

  “But if I was in the States it would be easier.”

  “Well, of course it would—oof,” he said when she flung herself at him. He fell to his back on the damp bank of the creek.

  “I will see you again.” On top of him now, she grinned as her hair fell all around him like a curtain, closing them in together against the rest of the world. “I will see you soon.”

  The dew seeping in through his shirt, he stared up at her, then hauled her down to him. “God, I hope so—”

  His words were halted by Nina’s hungry, talented mouth, which she used until he’d forgotten about the dew, until his eyes were crossed and his body hard and aching again. Then, all too soon, she stood, calmly brushing off her clothes.

  “Nina—”

  “It’s time for good-byes,” she said, and held out her hand.

  Right. It was. He’d never minded a good-bye in his life, but now, his feet felt like leaden weights as he allowed her to pull him around to the front of the inn, where Griffin and Lyndie were talking to Rosa. Tom was in the Jeep already, waiting to take them to the plane.

  Brody watched Rosa engulf first Griffin and then Lyndie in a hug. It occurred to him that Griffin looked far better than he had when Brody had laid eyes on him last week for the first time in a year. Then his brother had been lean, haggard, and edgy. He’d filled out slightly now, and had lost much of his hollowed despair.

  Lyndie turned from Rosa and nearly walked right into Griffin, who put his hands on her arms, murmuring something softly in her ear.

  In response, she tilted her head up and smiled into his eyes, and whether she knew it or not—and Brody suspected she did not—her entire heart shone through.

  When Griffin smiled back, still holding her, it too was with everything he had.

  Brody didn’t think he’d seen Griffin smile this entire weekend, and he sure as hell hadn’t seen him smile the weekend before, when he’d blackmailed him into coming here in the first place.

  For the first time since then, Brody could see he’d really done the right thing, and it made him almost weak with relief and even hope.

  Griffin still had his hands on Lyndie. Things were clearly different between them, and far more…tender.

  Obviously, he’d not been the only one getting lucky. And if that was the case, then Griffin was good to go. Brody’s job was done.

  He could leave now, and not ever look back.

  Except for the tug on his heart, and the woman beside him who’d caused it.

  23

  What are you going to do when you get back to San Diego?”

  The question from Lyndie startled Griffin. They’d been flying northwest for forty-five minutes, mostly in comfortable silence. She’d look at him every once in a while, searching his expression for a moment, looking for what, exactly, he had no clue, but then she’d smile—a balm on wounds he hadn’t even realized he’d had. “I don’t know what I’ll do when I get back,” he said.

  “You going home?”

  To South Carolina, she meant, and his parents. To the friends Brody insisted he still had. He glanced back at Brody, crashed out on the seat behind him and dead to the world. Griffin still couldn’t quite believe that his lazy-bones, laid-back brother had gotten him to a fire. The Brody he knew didn’t like to tax himself.

  And yet he’d worked his ass off in Mexico this weekend, as hard as any of them. He’d changed a lot in this past year, apparently.

  And so had Griffin. “I’m not sure,” he admitted.

  Lyndie nodded, as if that was a perfe