She went to paradise to find her words.
He came to forget the fire that took his.
Sarah never planned on breaking her rules-or letting a storm-quiet man with sea-glass eyes into her carefully ordered life. A solo escape to a Caribbean resort was supposed to fix her creative block, not deliver a grumpy former firefighter who keeps showing up exactly where her resolve is thinnest: at the pool, at breakfast, under a sky that smells like salt and second chances.
Henry isn't here for distractions. Recovery has a timetable and limits he hates. But the librarian with the sketchbook and the steel spine feels like the first clean breath in years. Sunlit mornings turn into moon-bright nights, banter into heat, and a promise neither of them meant to make.
When the past washes ashore-along with family, old wounds, and choices that don't travel well-they'll have to risk more than a vacation fling. To keep each other, they'll have to tell the truth they've both been avoiding.
Tropes: grumpy/sunshine - wounded hero - forced proximity (resort) - sister meddling - he falls first - HEA