“Perfect,” she said quietly. And we fell silent again.

A few minutes later, she added, “JFK.”

I shook my head, “No. My dad, actually.”

“He a sailor?”

I gulped. After a moment, I answered, “He was.” I swiped at a tear that had formed on an eye and was threatening to fall.

“I see,” she said softly, but didn’t probe.

We fell quiet again.

And then I chuckled, “But JFK, yeah.”

I glanced at her and saw her smile.

“He was supposed to have been a play-a,” I said, and then nudged her teasingly on her side with an elbow, “just like you, I understand.”

She looked at me, smiling at first. Our eyes began to search each other out, again. I could spend hours getting lost in those big, brown eyes, I thought.

And then she said softly, as her look turned serious, “I was. For a year, almost. And, to tell you the truth, even just twenty-four hours ago. But that was before tonight.”

I am in so much trouble, I thought. This woman could take my heart and crush it like a bug, and I would be powerless to stop her.

“Ummm … Aerin … I have to tell you something about the house,” I started, hesitatingly.

She smiled faintly, “Is that why you took me here, to sit next to you on the beach, wrapped in your fragrance, quoting about the romance of the sea … to talk about the house?”

She held a finger against my lips when I tried to explain, “It’s yours Harley. Draw up the papers, make it a rent-to-own, and tell me what would be an equitable way to share the taxes and other costs until you get to the point where you can purchase whatever part of it that you won’t already own, ok?”

I stammered, “Um… that’s great, Aerin, but that’s not what I meant.”

Before I could say anything else, she fixed a soulful look on me, and whispered, “Ok. But I needed to get that out of the way first, before….”

I swallowed drily, “B-b-before what?”

“This,” she murmured softly and then bent her head closer to mine to brush her lips against mine ever so gently.

How something that wasn’t even a kiss could curl my toes, make me wet, stop the world from turning and drown out the sounds of the sea?