Her stained clothing hung on her and her muscles burned from all of the unexpected exercise. It was hard to tell what looked more rumpled, her or her once white T-shirt. The bottoms of her feet thumped, and she was pretty sure she smelled.
“How’d it go?” Ed hustled out of the office and over to the helicopter.
Cassie stood and waited for a greeting of some sort, but Ed was too busy running his hand over the aircraft. If Ed were alone, he’d probably kiss the thing.
Cassie’s crankiness got the better of her. “Yeah, we’re fine; thanks for asking.”
Cal came around from the other side of the plane to join them. He nodded to Ed and received one in return. “She had a rough day.”
She was tired but not so much that she could not fight back. “I had the same day you did.”
“I was talking about the helicopter.”
He held the ragged duffel and two others in his hands and somehow managed to look fine. More than fine. Other than ruffled hair and dirt on his pants, the man did not show one sign of having hiked for miles and gotten stuck in a downpour.
Cassie wondered if he was human.
“Afraid I wrecked it?” Cal chuckled as he watched Ed inspect the plane from a distance of about three inches.
“She’s my baby. Just protective.” Ed wiped some dirt off the metal. “No offense meant.”
“None taken.” Cal dumped the bags on the tarmac.
Ed finally paid attention to something other than the aircraft. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks for noticing,” Cassie grumbled back.
“Find out anything interesting?”
Too many things and only some of those dealt with a murder. “Dan’s bag.”
Having it this close and not rummaging through it was killing her. She wanted to rip into it and inspect every stitch. Something in there had to explain what happened to Dan and why.
“What bag?” Ed asked.
Cal picked up the laptop bag by a ripped handle. “This.”
Ed frowned. “That? Are you sure?”
Her spirits fell. “What now?”
“Well, Cassie darling, I’ve never seen that before.” Ed bent down and poked at the items inside. “Why do you think it belongs to Dan?”
The question knocked her speechless. “It was in the tree at the crash site. The documents have his business letterhead on them.”
“Who the hell else would it belong to?” The frustration in Cal’s voice mirrored hers.
Ed shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“There is no other reason for this stuff to be sitting down on the ledge,” Cal insisted.
Cassie’s stomach dropped to her feet. Their one clue was turning out to be another dead end.
Cal reached for the sack and pulled out a document. “You think this is fake?”
Ed glanced at it, then whistled. “I agree it looks real.”
The bag had to belong to Dan. Cassie could not tolerate another false lead. “Of course it’s his,” Cassie said, a bit too loudly.
The men stopped their conversation and stared at her. Ed’s glance contained pity. Cal looked at her as if she had lost her mind.
Cal’s eyebrows lifted. “You okay?”
No, no, no. Between the flying and her defenses being down, she exploded. “Maybe it’s the exhaustion or the starvation. Or maybe the idea that someone planted false papers in a tree makes me freaking crazy.”
Cal continued to stare. Ed no longer looked too sure of her mental state, either.
She touched a hand to her forehead wondering if they had a valid concern. “Forget it.”
Cal skimmed his hand up and down her arm. “Look, let’s not panic.”
“Too late,” she mumbled.
“We don’t know if the bag is authentic. We’ll have to look at Dan’s other papers and figure it out.” Cal sounded so reasonable.
She debated knocking him over. After hours in the rain he managed to radiate confidence. His graceful movement and slight swagger were both irritating and irresistible.
“Hello, folks.” Ted Greene snuck up on them without warning. Stepped right around the front of the helicopter as if he dropped from the sky.
“You’re far from the office.” In an almost imperceptible move, Cal slid Dan’s bag closer with the side of his foot.
Ted smiled. “You’re just the man I was looking for.”
Cassie’s heart fell down to her sneakers at that ominous statement.
From the flat line of his mouth, Cal didn’t appear impressed, either. “I’m a popular man today.”
Ted took a quick glance down at the bags at Cal’s feet. “What does that mean?”
“Ask your DEA friend.”
“Okay.” Ted hesitated for a second before moving on. “Well, I wanted you to know that I looked in on Dan’s house.”
Another violation in a series of violations. Fury ripped through Cassie at the thought. “Now? You finally decided to check out something I said? Where have you been?”
Cal’s eyebrows eased together. “Uh, Cassie.”
She didn’t feel like being reasonable. She had tried that. Went in being nice and asking questions. All the good-girl routine had gotten her was a stone wall planted in her face. Her brother was dead, her emotions were a mess, and she just had sex in a cave with a virtual stranger who excited her more than any other man on the planet. A woman could only take so much.
She ignored Cal and centered all of her pent-up outrage on Ted. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”
“You told me someone shot at you. I investigated the allegations. That’s what I do.” Ted tapped on his badge. “Police, remember?”
“And?” Cassie realized she was tapping her foot and stopped. Being surrounded by this many blockheaded males put her on edge.
“I think what she’s so nicely trying to ask is if you found anything,” Cal said.
Ted nodded. “Bullet holes.”
It was an “ah-hah” moment. Cassie thought about turning in a circle with her hands raised in triumph to the sky. She settled for rubbing it in. “So now you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“About freaking time.”
“It’s hard not to since the place was a wreck and the window blown out. Unless you two did some serious partying, the house was a target of something bad. I have twenty-four-hour protection on it now.”
“Any idea what’s going on?” Ed asked.
“Still investigating. We’re dusting for prints. Doing the usual. I suspect we won’t find much.”
Cassie snorted but Ted talked right over her. “In the meantime, I think you two should get out of town.”
She stopped him before he got started on that theory. “No way.”
Ed looped an arm over her shoulder. “It might not be a bad idea, Cassie darling. No one wants to see you hurt.”
All the men in charge of the island had been telling her to leave for weeks. She ignored them before. She was ignoring them now. “There is no way I am leaving.”
“You’re in danger,” Ted said.
“No one believed I got shot at until someone also aimed at Cal, too.”
“You could sound more apologetic about that,” Cal pointed out.
Funny how he got the who-should-apologize-to-whom thing backward. “You’re lucky I didn’t finish the job myself.”
Ed clapped his hands together. “We need to focus.”
Cal leaned back against the helicopter, that is, until Ed’s harsh scowl had him standing straight again. “Sorry for touching the equipment.”
“Just stay off it,” Ed said.
“Look, I’m not talking about leaving forever.” Ted raised his voice, sounding more like the cop-in-charge than ever before. “Just a few days until we can sort this out.”
As far as she was concerned, the police, the DEA, even the boy scouts had weeks to settle the case and blew it. “You’re not getting rid of me.”
“I think—”
C
al cut the officer off. “Cassie’s right. We’re staying.”
The stern statement made Cassie downright suspicious. Having Cal agree to anything that fast spelled trouble for her.
“She shouldn’t be alone around here, Cal,” Ed said.
“Agreed, but she won’t be alone.”
“I almost hate to ask.” Cassie mumbled the comment but they all turned to her, so she figured they heard it just fine.
“You’ll be with me.” Cal’s bravado dripped with testosterone.
No way could she stay attached to Cal’s side without stripping him naked. The man acted like a complete idiot, but he was a fine-looking idiot. And, like it or not, they had a connection. The attraction stretching between them…well, whatever it was, it wasn’t going away. Being in close proximity would only magnify it.
She could tolerate that if it weren’t for the look that came over Cal’s face the second after he gave in to his lust in the cave. That same look reappeared on their hike back up the canyon. He had a pattern. He ceded some of his bedrock control, opened up to her, panicked, and ran. Not actually, but mentally.
For a guy who prided himself on protecting the women of the world, he sure knew how to blindside them with sexual nonsense. One minute he could not keep his hands off her. The next he could not get away fast enough.
She refused to deal with days and days of that behavior. “You didn’t ask, but the answer is no.”
“Just a second, Cassie darling. Let’s hear Cal out.”
“Yeah. How do you expect to pull this off?” Ted asked in a slow and tentative voice as if turning the idea over in his mind.
Cassie did not need to engage in that much analysis. “Does anyone care what I think?”
She knew the answer—no.
“Not really.” Cal had the nerve to wink after he said that.
She knew she should be flattered on some level. At the very least, she should be understanding. After all, Cal saved lives for a living. Dan had been the same way. Turning off that part of his personality proved tough, even after he traded his high-stress life for a more casual one in Kauai.
She originally wrote off Ted as negligent and useless. Now she wasn’t so sure. He kept popping up. Unlike Josh, Ted’s concern appeared genuine. The same protective strains Dan had possessed seemed to run through Ted.
“We’ll figure something else out,” she said.
Cal actually laughed. “You’ll do what you’re told.”
“Excuse me?”
Ted whistled. “You’re a brave man to say something like that to a woman.”
Cassie turned to the deputy. “Can I use your gun?”
Ted treated Cassie to a small smile. “Tempting, but I better say no.”
“So what’s the plan?” Ed didn’t laugh, but he didn’t listen to her protests, either.
Cal shrugged. “We’ll use Dan’s house.”
Ted started shaking his head before Cal got the suggestion out. “Not an option. I cordoned off the cabin.”
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s a crime scene now. No one goes in or out without my approval.”
“Give me the okay right now and it’s settled.” Cal made the statement into an order.
Ted did not buy the idea any more the second time. “No.”
If she had her gun, she’d fire into Ed’s precious helicopter to get their attention. “I’ll decide where I go and with whom. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“A prison guard is more like it,” Cal said.
“I can take you any day, flyboy.”
“Oh please.” He scoffed as if to emphasize how unlikely he believed that idea to be.
He made her crazy. “Want to try me right now?”
Ted coughed over a laugh. “I’d say no if I were you, Wilson.”
Cal exhaled loud enough to drown out the sound coming from a group of men walking by on the way to a private plane. “Cassie, the bottom line is that we need to be around to investigate.”
She could tell from the way Cal’s jaw locked that he thought he was being reasonable. She thought he was acting like an ass.
“Hold up a sec.” Ted’s angry voice drowned out everything including a landing plane. “Let me make one thing clear. We are not investigating. I am.”
“You forfeited that right when you ignored Cassie and her theories about her brother,” Cal shot back.
She had one little problem with his phrasing but the basic idea was right. “They’re facts, not theories.”
All of the amusement faded from Ted’s face. He took a threatening step toward Cal. “I will take you in right now if I have to.”
“The boy is trying to help. He has a vested interest.” Ed glanced in Cassie’s direction. The other men followed his gaze, staring at her.
The sudden attention made her nervous. “Wait a minute. Why is Cal my responsibility?”
Ted broke the stalemate. “Find somewhere else to stay.”
As far as Cassie was concerned, the man with the badge and the big weapon won the contest. “Okay.”
“You gonna shoot me, Deputy?” Cal asked.
A tentative smile appeared on Ted’s lips. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Won’t look good. A cop shooting an innocent Florida tourist and all.”
“That’s the only thing saving you.”
And like that the mood lightened. Cassie chalked the entire incident up to some weird male-bonding ritual. Something masculine and hairy that she didn’t understand. But none of this solved the immediate problem at hand.
“Now that we’re all civilized again, where am I going to stay while the police are doing whatever it is they should have done weeks ago?”
“She doesn’t let up,” Ted said to Cal.
Cal snorted. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“You could go back to Oahu,” Ed suggested.
Cal answered before she could say anything. “No.”
Ted gave it a try. “Then you could try doing what everyone else in Hawaii does.”
“Sleep on the beach?” Cal sounded serious.
Ted scowled at the thought. “Hell no. I meant check into a hotel.”
Now that was a dangerous combination. Clean hotel room, wide bed, and Cal. They’d be twisting the sheets in no time.
She rushed to shut down that option. “Maybe Ed has extra room.”
She was all but begging but Ed wasn’t taking the hint. “Can’t do, Cassie darling. You’d be better with Cal anyway. He looks big enough to protect you.”
Being protected wasn’t her concern. Keeping out of a prone position was.
“Good plan. We’ll check in, get settled, and regroup,” Cal said.
She thought about arguing but couldn’t think of a better option at the moment.
“Fair enough,” Ted said with a nod. “Anything I should know from you two while I’m looking around?”
“Like what?” Cal’s blank look was impressive. Cassie thought the guy played innocent pretty well.
“Like whatever you found on your hike. Look, I’m not a simple, country officer. You two are hiding something. If you don’t come clean, I can’t help you.”
“We got caught in bad weather,” Cal said.
“Someone is causing trouble around this island and I want to know why. If you two get in my way or hide information I need, I’ll bring you in on obstruction of justice charges. That’s a promise.”
This time Cal balanced a hand on the plane and ignored the way Ed’s eyes popped in response. “Understood.”
Ted’s dark gaze traveled between Cal and Cassie. “Maybe a hot meal will help. Come into my office in a few hours. Your memories should be healed by then.”
Cal pressed his lips together. “Doubt it.”
“Humor me.” Ted stalked off.
Cassie waited until he was out of hearing range to take one final shot. “I thought we were.”
Chapter Twenty
“I may well move in.” Cassie twirled aroun
d in a circle in the center of the spacious hotel suite’s family room.
Cal tried to smother his smile, but it kept creeping out. Watching Cassie prance around the expensive room, her eyes wide and her arms outstretched, mesmerized him. She was dirty and grimy. Her hair fell over her forehead, partially hiding her eyes. Her T-shirt, once sparkling white, now resembled more of a bland shade of gray.
He had never seen a more beautiful creature in his life.
This woman should be locked up for her own protection and for his peace of mind.
“I take it the room meets with your approval,” he said.
She threw back the curtains and stared out at the manicured grounds and the midnight blue ocean outside the balcony. “It’s amazing.”
“I’d say.” His voice barely registered as a whisper.
She shot him a startled glance over her shoulder. “Much better than staying at Dan’s house. How are we paying for this?”
An interesting use of the word “we.” “I got a military rate.”
It was a lie but a small one. The way he figured it, she deserved to be spoiled for a day or two. He had the money and spending it on her seemed like a better investment than beer, though he planned to have a few of those later.
“This is one of those resorts I drive by and admire but never dream of staying in. Not in an oceanfront suite, anyway.”
The room wasn’t his style, either. Frivolous purchases had never been Cal’s thing, and this room definitely qualified as frivolous. Bright yellow walls and big windows. Pillows everywhere. A butler available for the entire floor. A living room with a plasma-screen television. A bedroom with a huge-ass bed.
Other furniture adorned the suite, but all Cal noticed was that bed, seeing and thinking that he could make good use of it. It was so damn inviting that he almost tackled her and threw her in the middle of the bed the minute they walked through the door.
But forget all the dressing. He only needed a mattress. Firm or soft, it didn’t matter so long as Cassie was there beside him. How he had gotten used to her being around in such a short time was a question he refused to dwell on. Not now, anyway. He tried to concentrate on mindless conversation instead.
“We’re only renting all this magnificence for a few days. We have to give the dream back sooner or later,” he said.
It’s Hotter in Hawaii Page 13