Summer Secrets by Barbara Freethy Page A

job. There wasn’t a lot of excitement in the accounting field. But he did a heck of a job on her books.
    No, not Neal. Dating someone who knew her finances wasn’t a good idea. Maybe Connor O’Brien, one of the bartenders at the Oyster Bar. No, she couldn’t date a bartender. Besides, Connor knew her father and had heard many stories about her. How embarrassing would that be?
    Maybe dating an out-of-town stranger was a good idea. Someone who wouldn’t be around forever. Not that she was dating Tyler Jamison. Good heavens, where was her mind going?.
    Kate banged her head gently against the steering wheel, hoping to knock some sense into herself. She was attracted to Tyler, no doubt about it. But she didn’t want to be attracted, didn’t want little shivers running down her spine. They reminded her of the past, of feelings she didn’t want to feel again. Love hurt. It was an irrefutable, inescapable fact of life. She knew that without a doubt. But she also knew that someday she would have to try again, that she wanted the things that came with love, like marriage and children. She just had to find the right man, one who didn’t sail into the wind, didn’t lead with his heart, didn’t do anything remotely dangerous or risky.
    Someone who wasn’t anything like Jeremy.
    Eight years had passed, and Jeremy still had a grip on her heart. It was funny, in an odd way, because Jeremy had never been possessive. He’d been too busy leading his own life to worry about what she was doing, who she was seeing. He’d trusted in their love, figured it would always be there.
    Even when her father had taken her to sea, Jeremy had assured her that they’d still be together when she got back. He hadn’t worried about anything. He had taken life as it came, and he’d lived every minute of it. He wouldn’t want her wasting her time like this. He’d want her to move on. In fact, he was probably looking down on her right now, tilting his head to the right the way he’d always done when her behavior confused him, muttering, Katie, what are you thinking? Life is going to pass you by while you’re making all your plans.
    So, she’d stop making so many plans, stop trying to second-guess Tyler Jamison and his intentions. It was just dinner. She’d survive. And she’d handle whatever came her way. Checking her watch, she was relieved to see a good ten minutes had passed. She was now sociably late. Getting out of her car, she walked into the restaurant, prepared to look like she’d almost forgotten their date.
    Kate was disappointed not to find Tyler cooling his heels on one of the nearby benches. She walked into the dining room, a large airy room with windows overlooking the water. Fishnets hung from the ceiling, poles decorated the walls, and photographs of fishermen displaying their prize catches covered every other available space. The room was crowded, but there was no ambitious, handsome reporter at any of the tables.
    Tyler could not be late. He wouldn’t take the chance that she’d wait for him. She tapped her foot impatiently as she considered her options. It would serve him right if she left. Then again, she’d just be delaying the inevitable. The sooner she steered Tyler Jamison in another direction, the sooner she could get back to her life. Maybe she’d wait a minute -- or two.
----
    Tyler was running late, but he couldn’t break away from the conversation in the Oyster Bar. He’d gone there to look for Duncan McKenna. Instead he’d run into Ashley’s friend, Sean Amberson. They hadn’t exchanged more than a few words when a boisterous crowd at a nearby table captured their attention with swaggering stories of a ferocious storm.
    “It was a beautiful spinnaker run down the coast,” one sailor said.
    “Magic conditions,” another man added.
    “Twenty-four hours later, we had gale force winds of ninety miles per hour and waves eighty feet high.”
    “I thought we were going to die.”
    A murmur of admiration