And what did it matter if Dax wasn’t the relationship type? What was the worst that could happen? She told him how she really felt, he rejected her, and they went back to being office enemies? It couldn’t be any worse that the last month without him had been.

She had missed him. God, how she’d missed him. She hadn’t even realized how much until all of a sudden he started appearing—at karaoke, at her house on moving day, at the white party.

The idea that he’d thought she was going back to Mason was impossible to bear.

She’d been trying to tell him she couldn’t make out with him in the pantry. Couldn’t be his casual fling. Because nothing about them was casual. She wanted all of him. Admitting that to herself was hard, because it meant that she would have to settle. Because she knew with certainty that no other man was ever going to measure up to Dax Harris.

Still, he deserved to know the truth.

Even more than that, she deserved to speak the truth.

The ping of an incoming text startled her—all this ruthless honesty was making her jumpy.

Come to the island.

A surge of adrenaline coursed through her.

Another text arrived.

Please.

It took her a long time to force her clumsy, shaking fingers to transmit her reply.

I’m on my way.

Amy saw Dax without him seeing her. Of course, he would have thought she’d been replying to his text from her parents’ house instead of from the boat and would not be expecting her this soon. As she drew near, he was just disappearing into Gary’s backyard. She stood for a moment, letting the cool wind blow against her overheated cheeks, and stared at his little house while she gathered her courage.

She knew then that this was why she was having so much trouble with moving, with the concept of home.

She loved her new condo, and she couldn’t wait for the construction to be over so she could take ownership. It was time to stand on her own two feet. But this place had felt like home from the first moment she saw it. It had been balm for her shredded soul that first night. She wanted to belong here, in this little blue cottage of Dax’s.

Well, this was never going to get any easier. So she took a deep breath and marched to the gate on the side of Gary’s house. “Dax?” she called, a little mortified at how lame and uncertain her voice sounded.

Cue the onset of urgent masculine whispering and unidentifiable banging. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. “I’m coming in!” she yelled.

“Amy! Amy, hi!” Gary appeared from around the house wearing a game-show-host smile.

“Where’s Dax?”

“He’s not here at the moment.”

“But I just saw him.”

“Come on around. I’ll show you the latest with the machine while we wait for him.”

She bit her tongue to keep from saying something mean and let herself be led into the yard. What could she do, short of starting to holler Dax’s name?

“I finally figured out what the machine was meant to do,” Gary said.

The setup was shaped differently than last time. There was a huge base obscured by a tarp, and the machine itself extended out over the oblong base.

Gary wrung his hands. “You ready?”

“Hit me.”

He led her to a lawn chair adjacent to one side of the shrouded base. When she tried to move the chair so she could get a better view of the whole thing, his hand shot out. “You have to sit exactly here.”

“Okaaay.” She leaned over to set the popcorn on the ground. “Any idea when Dax is coming back? Or where he went?”

Gary hadn’t heard her. He’d moved to the other side of the machine, and with a muttered, “Here goes nothing,” pulled a lever.

The beginning of the reaction was similar to what she’d seen last time. A ball ran down a seesaw and tripped a series of gears. The last gear caused a mallet to drop and hit a bell. She laughed at that, in spite of herself. The thing really was a hoot if you were in the right mood. Then a section of drops and pulleys resulted in the tarp covering the base being partially pulled back by a couple of mechanical arms. Just as she was about to turn her attention to trying to figure out what had been uncovered, a bunch of ball bearings were set loose along a sloped piece of wood. They gathered in one corner and then fell into a cup. Their combined weight tipped it. She laughed again in delight and appreciation. The cup had been connected to a golf club tied to a counterweight, and the club thwacked a ball that was larger than a normal golf ball.


Tags: Jenny Holiday 49th Floor Billionaire Romance