“But we both know that’s old ground. Like I really could have picked up and gone to Greece now anyhow. I have a business to run, obligations to my business partners, my sisters. Still it sounds really exotic.”

Her foster sister Claire would have relished experiencing the exotic foods. They served mostly down-home Southern cuisine at Beachcombers, but Claire still enjoyed adding something a little different every now and again.

Once upon a dream, Starr had contemplated taking a trip or two to study the great artists of the world. Except, bottom line, she didn’t want to spend her entire life on the road. She’d done enough of that for the first ten years of her life with her gypsy family.

Now, she thrived on the security of waking up to the same gorgeous ocean sunrise every morning. Her little carriage house behind Beachcombers might not be much, but it was hers. A home.

“Exotic?” he quipped. “Time was you thought that sounded too far from home.”

Suddenly she couldn’t hold onto the fantasy any longer. No princess clothes or armor. Nothing but old pain and a worn out T-shirt. “Do we really want to walk down that road again today, David?”

He plucked at the shoulder of her shirt and pulled off a crumpled bit of a tissue-paper flower. Great. The fates must be plotting against her. Not only did she look like crap, but she also had arts-and-crafts bits and pieces stuck to her like a third grader.

David held up the silvery flower she’d been using to make personalized wrapping bags for wedding-shower party favor gifts for her restaurant. One corner of his mouth kicked into that confident smile that never failed to flip her stomach into somersaults to rival her circus gypsy cousins’ talents. David tucked the crackly bloom behind her ear.

His knuckles skimmed her cheek in a touch so soft but undoubtedly deliberate. She knew him. Knew his touch well from their high-school romance.

And yes, from their brief time together a year ago when she’d been unable to resist him. Heaven help her, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life jumping into bed—or against a wall—with David Reis every time he breezed through the United States.

Starr stepped back. “I’ll keep my eyes open for your mother. Leave your cell-phone number and I’ll call if I see her wearing herself out.”

“Thank you.”

She thought about asking for more details about his mother’s health, even sympathizing since it was his mother after all, but then realized that would keep him on her porch longer. And when they spent any lengthy amount of time together, they ended up arguing and he ended up kissing her silent. She mentally kicked herself and mumbled, “God, we’re both such idiots.”

He cocked an arrogant brow. “What was that?”

“We both need to get to work.” She backed up to grip her door. “I really need to get dressed, so…”

“Drag my sorry ass off your porch.”

A laugh bubbled before she could squelch it. She so enjoyed his dry sense of humor. She couldn’t resist it, either. “You said it, not me.”

Starr slid away and sagged against the door inside her carriage house filled to the brim with her arts-and-crafts supplies. Victorian eclectic. Hers.

She exhaled long and hard.

She’d held strong, gotten her way. She was alone in her little house. She’d kept her distance from David. And she’d managed to shoo him away before her folks made their morning showing.

Thank you, Aunt Libby, for putting in a good word with the Man upstairs on that one.

But she couldn’t count on Aunt Libby holding back the tide forever. With her luck, her family would set up Porta Pottis and charge folks for using them. Her ma and da never missed a chance to make a buck, and if they could land a dollar without working, all the better.

Ma and Da. Why she couldn’t distance herself enough to call them Gita and Frederick instead, she didn’t know. She wanted Aunt Libby, her foster mother, Mom.

All a moot point and waste of time to consider at the moment. Gather up those scattered thoughts before David had a chance to slip past her defenses.

But she couldn’t understand why the fates had been so vengeful as to send those campers full of ex-family, who’d rejected her, used her, stolen from her, at the very same moment that David had chosen to make one of his rare appearances in Charleston.

“The way you wield that hot glue gun, it’s no wonder you sleep alone. Men must be hitting the floor in terror.”

Claire’s words rattled around in Starr’s head with a little too much accuracy. Nothing like a sister—even the foster sort—to put you in your place. Starr spread her gift bags, glitter and shells along the kitchen butcher block as she put together the tissue paper. At least the RV crew had decided to sleep in today and give her a couple extra hours to gather her thoughts after seeing David had rocked her balance.