Chapter Twenty-Seven
It took a solid ten minutes for Kayla to gather herself enough to stand up and walk down the beach.
She had intended to chase after Mack immediately, but her knee had other ideas.
By the time she reached the beach access stairs, she could barely move.
A passing employee offered a supportive shoulder up to the closest bar and made her a bag of ice for her knee.
She had ample time in the following hour of intermittent icing to thoroughly berate herself for her stupidity, selfishness, and cowardice.
What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she listened to her gut and not said anything to Skye?
So what if she married someone else? So what if she had come all the way down here to St. Lucia just to witness firsthand losing a future she’s been so intent on saving?
None of that seemed important now after Mack looked at her with such hurt and anger.
Just the thought of Mack’s hurt had her on her feet.
She ignored the shooting pain in her leg and shuffled as fast as she could out of the bar and up to their room.
On the landing, Mack’s resort cat whipped its tail menacingly.
When Kayla tried to pass, she hissed, and Kayla had to dodge a paw full of razor-sharp claws.
“Whoa. What the hell was that?” The cat glared at her and began a low, threatening growl. “Look, I get it. I was a total jerk. I’m trying to fix it, okay?”
The cat blinked, ended her growl abruptly, and sat up tall, licking her lips but otherwise placid as usual.
“Did you understand me?”
The cat only blinked in reply, but she allowed Kayla to scoot past and fumble the door open.
She burst into the room, calling Mack’s name at the top of her lungs.
It was a silly gesture since the room wasn’t big enough to hide anyone.
She could see from the moment she walked in that Mack wasn’t there, but it felt good to shout.
In fact, she did it again and again. While it felt good on her throat, it wasn’t awesome for her mind.
The sound of panicked shouting unsurprisingly made her panic more.
Where was Mack? Why wasn’t she here, ready to accept Kayla’s apology and forgive her?
Okay, it would probably take more than that.
After her shitty behavior, some intense groveling was definitely called for.
“Well, I can’t grovel if she isn’t around,” Kayla said to the empty room.
Just for good measure, she checked the balcony, bathroom, and even the tiny closet. Nothing. All deserted.
She rummaged in her toiletry bag for the old elastic bandage she kept there for when she did boneheaded things and hurt herself.
While wrapping it around her throbbing knee, she devised a plan.
A systematic search for Mack in every public location on the resort.
She would use the same method she had while searching for Skye on the first day.
Although she hated to borrow anything from her ill-advised and ill-fated Plan of Seduction, she needed to find Mack and she didn’t have time to make up a new plan.
She didn’t have time to waste, and she didn’t want to carry the whole notebook around the resort, so she impulsively tore out the page where she had listed the best places to find Skye. Her heart gave an unpleasant lurch, and her hand shook like she had ripped off her own arm.
Looking down at the map, she saw the black streak and the faded sauce stain from their first night.
She had panicked then when the least thing happened to this book, but here she was so cavalier with it.
This notebook had been her compass rose.
It had been her anchor when she was adrift after Skye’s news.
She’d treated this flimsy notebook as the one thing keeping her from another breakdown.
Now the sauce stain held more weight than the plan itself.
What about the future she had so carefully cultivated? Who was she without that?
“Fuck it. I’ll figure that out after I find Mack.”
The notebook hit the floor like a discarded candy wrapper as Kayla bolted for the door.
Two hours later, with the resort finally waking up and every location on Kayla’s list mournfully devoid of Mack, there was less pep in her step.
Her knee throbbed and she couldn’t quite seem to fill her lungs.
With each empty pool deck, restaurant, and beach, the reality set in a little deeper.
Maybe Kayla had finally pushed Mack too far.
Maybe she’d lost her for good this time.
The thought stole the last of Kayla’s energy, and she dropped into the nearest chair.
It was a wide, wicker chair under an umbrella on the secluded pool deck where she’d first spotted Skye and where the two had shared a heated conversation in the water a couple of days earlier.
Had it only been a couple days? It felt like a lifetime.
The person who had been so intent on seducing Skye away from her wedding seemed like a completely different person.
In fact, Kayla couldn’t care less where Skye was and what she thought of her right now.
All she cared about was Mack. The way Mack supported her and challenged her.
The way she felt, pressed into Mack’s arms every morning.
The look of hurt and anger from the beach earlier.
The way just seeing her made Kayla feel joy and safety.
That joy and safety were gone now, and she was adrift.
It hurt more than anything she had ever felt.
It made her want to leap back to her feet for another hours-long, desperate search around the resort.
A burst of laughter drew Kayla out of her head and back to the world around her. Part of her was shocked that it looked so normal, not the cratered hellscape that was her current heart and mind.
Across the pool deck, a pair of chaise lounges had been drawn close together under an umbrella.
The burst of laughter had come from the chaise on the right, which was occupied by Linda, the older woman they’d shared a shuttle ride with on their first day in St. Lucia.
She was wearing a stately one-piece with all the ruffles and frills Kayla recognized from the swimsuits worn by women of a certain age.
She was staring across the umbrella at her husband, who was pulling faces as he adjusted a ridiculous straw hat.
He raised a seductive eyebrow and then stuck his tongue out, clearly making fun of himself.
Something about the way these two laughed together smoothed over some of the fear that had settled into Kayla’s heart since Mack had bolted that morning.
They looked so…cozy. So comfortable in each other’s presence.
And yet there was a subtle intimacy in the way his eyes settled on her.
A lingering sensuality in the way her fingertips trailed against his skin.
Kayla remembered that these two were here for an anniversary trip, and she suspected the spark had not come close to dimming, despite a long marriage.
Not far away from the older couple was another pair of chaises, these empty because their owners were standing between them.
This was a younger straight couple that had the look of newlyweds.
They stood close to each other, as though their bodies were magnetically connected, but they were clearly arguing.
Tears cut channels in her foundation, dragging it down to stain the strings of her bikini.
His face was red with anger and maybe a touch of sunburn.
As Kayla watched, he threw up his hands in annoyance, and she crumpled a little more into her sobs.
Then he grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her into a rough kiss.
Kayla was halfway out of her seat to defend the woman when she pulled back, slapped his face, and then pulled him into an even rougher kiss.
Kayla averted her eyes, having seen enough of their sloppy kissing to recognize where this would be heading.
Sure enough, a moment later, they were scrambling to collect their belongings so they could head somewhere more private.
The older couple had seen the display as well.
They shared a look that included an eyeroll and some fond chuckling.
They leaned toward each other at the same moment.
Linda’s hand caressed his cheek, and they shared a much quieter, sweeter kiss.
It spoke of lessons learned and devotion earned.
The younger couple tripped on their way through the pool gate.
Kayla’s lip curled as she watched them go.
That wasn’t love. Sure, it was passion, and maybe that would keep them going for a time.
But passion cooled, and only love endured.
Love was fond looks and silly hats. Love brought you back to the site of your twenty-five-year-old passion, not to rekindle it, but to celebrate the growth you both had from it.
Love was enjoying each other’s company and respecting each other.
Love was safety housed in a body that still made your heart race when the passion cooled.
Kayla’s back smashed against metal and wicker before she recognized that she’d dropped back into her chair.
Her mind raced faster than it had during her beach race that morning.
It was really that simple, wasn’t it? The passion, the fire, all those things she saw between the younger couple were what she had with Skye.
It had felt like the end of the world when they fought—which they had often—and correspondingly wonderful when they had made up.
Every day with her had been like running through fire.
It was exhilarating, and it was what love was supposed to feel like.
At least that’s what she’d thought then.