Hidden
A Hiding From Love Novel
Selena Laurence
Hidden – A Hiding From Love Novel (#1)
by Selena Laurence
Nick Carlisle comes to Hawaii to hide—from what happened during his military service in Afghanistan, from relationships, from his future. Lyndsey Anderson came to Hawaii to hide too—from the man who abused her, from the sacrifices she made, from her dark past. But when Nick meets Lyndsey, Hawaii gets a whole lot hotter, and they find they can’t hide their hearts. As Nick fights to come to terms with what he’s done, Lyndsey struggles to forgive herself for the choices she’s made. But when the dangerous past threatens the beautiful present, can they survive to learn how to love? And who will finally reveal what’s hidden?
Coming October, 2013: Camouflaged – A Hiding From Love Novella (#.5)
Coming November, 2013: Concealed – A Hiding From Love Novel (#2)
Coming February, 2014: Buried – A Hiding From Love Novel (#3)
Find out more at www.selenalaurence.com
Acknowledgments
Every book is its own being, and the process for putting it out into the world is slightly different each time. This time around I want to thank the following people for their support and advice: Jamie Raintree, Debra Kayn, Nicole Flockton, Rachel Cross, and the lovely ladies of WWR (you know who you are!). I’d also like to thank my beta readers who let me know that I’d written a worthwhile story and helped me make it better. Also, my fabulous editor Kristin Anders of The Romantic Editor. Any errors in this work are entirely mine, as she did her part to perfection. And as always, my sincere love and thanks to the ever patient Mr. Laurence, who doesn’t read the books, but has to listen to me talk about them night and day.
Dedication
To my four beautiful children –
Always remember this: There is no mistake so big that you can not move on, no lesson so harsh that you will not recover, and no shame so severe that you don’t deserve to be forgiven, especially by yourself.
Chapter 1
Lyndsey
I was late, and I hauled ass through the back door of The Grill, berating myself for not remembering to bring my goldendoodle his chew toy. The previous night’s lack of sleep was affecting me, or I’d have remembered the last time I left Jack without something to gnaw for an entire shift, he ate another waitress’s pretty platform shoes. That adventure had cost me a night’s tips. Telling him to lie down in his bed we kept on the restaurant’s enclosed back porch, I went on in to the kitchen.
“What’s the rush, girl?” Leesa, one of the owners of the Hilo Bar and Grill, asked me without even turning around.
“I’m fifteen minutes late, in case you hadn’t noticed,” I responded through my huffing and puffing as I tied my apron and pulled my blonde dreadlocks up in a ponytail.
Leesa was standing at the enormous kitchen stove stirring a pan full of red meat and vegetables. I could smell the pineapple relish she’d probably spent all afternoon preparing, and I felt my stomach clench up because I hadn’t eaten since eight that morning. The sauce she had on a back burner made a gentle bubbling noise, and through the doors to the front of the restaurant I could hear laughter and dishes clinking.
“And what’s that fifteen minutes going to do?” she asked, laughing, as she turned to look at me. “Is it going to mean all of our customers quit eating here? Is it going to pollute the beach or stop the waves from rolling in?”
I sighed. Even though I’d been in Hawaii for three years now, I still couldn’t manage to adopt the native’s lax view of time. Leesa was constantly lecturing me to slow down, enjoy myself more, take it easy, and as much as I wanted to follow her advice, I just didn’t have it in me to hang loose the way the Hawaiians did.
“Alright,” I said. I smiled back at her as I reached into a drawer and grabbed a handful of flatware. “I’ll slow down, but I do want to get everything set up before the rush starts.” I filled salt and pepper shakers, as well as rolled table settings. It wasn’t long before Heidi, one of the other dinner-shift waitresses, came in and set up the tables as I got the items ready for her to take out to the main dining room. We sang the newest Pitbull song as we worked, my iPod cranked on the kitchen speakers. Heidi chimed in with the chorus each time she reentered the kitchen. I did the rapping parts and Leesa looked at us both and smiled.
I had worked at The Grill, as it was called around town, ever since I’d come to Hilo. I’d started off working full time, and then when I qualified for in-state tuition, I enrolled in classes at the university and cut back on my work hours. At twenty-one, thanks to taking classes year round, I was now a sophomore in college, and the de facto head waitress at The Grill.
The swinging door from the bar area to the kitchen opened and Leesa’s husband, Raoul, peeked in, his eyes lighting up when he saw her leaning over to get a pan from underneath the large stainless steel island. I looked at him and pointed my index finger in his direction.
“Don’t even think about it, mister,” I chastised.
“What?” he responded, barely able to take his eyes off of his wife’s ass.
Leesa stood up, turning and fixing him with a scowl. “Listen to him,” she reprimanded. “You’re a dirty old man, you know that?”
Raoul threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m just admiring the most beautiful thing in the room,” he said. “And I’m not a dirty old man if I’m looking at equally old women.”
I tried to smother my laughter as Leesa’s face grew red and her lips pursed tightly. Muttering to herself in a mixture of Hawaiian and English, she stomped off into the storeroom.
I glanced at Raoul. “You are in so much trouble.”
He walked over and gave me a one-armed hug, his face somewhat pale, even beneath his dark complexion. “How are you sweetheart?”
“I’m good. Classes start tomorrow so I registered for everything today. How’s it looking out front? You seem tired, has it been a rough day?”
He headed over to the stove and took a spoon out of a drawer underneath the cooktop, then dipped it in the large vat of bar-b-que sauce on the burner. He winked at me, placing his finger over his lips. “That. Is like nectar of the gods,” he whispered as he closed his eyes and savored the tangy sweetness of the best bar-b-que sauce this side of Honolulu. He put the spoon into the sink and crossed his arms as he leaned against the counter. “Heidi’s got the front handled, but it’s starting to pick up. You want to come help out at the bar until your section starts seating?”
“Sure,” I said. “But let me check on Jack before I head out there.”
“Just bring him on out front,” Raoul responded.
Jack was the one thing I’d brought with me to Hawaii after I left my old life. Well, the one thing I’d brought that I got to keep. I’d lost everything else the night I ran, and the fact that he’d been with me through it all made him even more special. But he was also a fifty-pound dog who wasn’t really supposed to be in a restaurant.
Raoul whistled sharply, the sound echoing around the hard surfaces of the kitchen, and Jack came scrabbling across the hard tile floor to him. “That’s right, keiko,” Raoul said, reaching down and patting Jack on the head. “You come up front with me and the other guys, these women might give you a nice bed, but we’ll give you beer.”
I frowned at Raoul. “You know he’s not supposed to go past the back porch. You’re going to get a health code violation for sure.”
“Ah, hell,” he responded as he started walking toward the front of the restaurant, Jack hot on his heels. “The last time that health department guy stopped in you were still in diapers, and I gave him so much free Beachside Porter he had to leave his car here and walk home.”
Nick
Gabe and I spent the first
half of the day surfing, and then the remainder standing in fucking lines trying to get the classes we needed at the university this semester. We were tired and sweaty and if ever a beer was needed it was then.
I’d moved to Hawaii a few weeks earlier, after spending the last year at my folks’ place in Northern California. Gabe had been here three months or so, coming straight to Hawaii after his commission was up. When I got to Hilo we rented a two-bedroom apartment near campus, and I’d spent the last few weeks on the beach and laying low, getting a feel for the place. This was my first real night out since I’d moved, and while I was a little unsure about the whole bar scene, Gabe had promised me that the bars at night here were as mellow as the beach during the day.
We pulled up to the Hilo Bar and Grill and hopped out of my truck, making sure that our shortboards were locked up in the bed before we headed inside.
The Grill was right on the beach, with a deck on the sand, facing the water. The air around the deck was hazy with moisture, and the dark-tinted windows reflected the setting sun. It looked like the perfect place to decompress after a long day. We headed inside through the main doors, my stomach rumbling as we stepped in and I smelled beef grilling and the yeasty odor of microbrews. Burgers and beer. It didn’t get much better than that.
Then I saw her . . . and realized it could get a whole lot better and a whole lot worse all at the same time.
She stood at the bar that dominated one long wall of the restaurant’s interior, a tray resting on the bar top alongside her arm, and her other hand idly playing with the end of one of her long braids. She laughed and looked adoringly at the bartender, a guy old enough to be her father, and kind of small and wiry to boot. Then he reached over and patted her face in a distinctly fatherly way and I realized I hadn’t breathed in a full thirty seconds or so.
“Nick? Dude, there’s people trying to get by us,” Gabe said, shoving me forward a few inches.
“What? Oh, sorry, man. Sorry,” I said to the couple trying to skirt around us on their way to the hostess stand.
“What the hell?” Gabe griped. “Now they’re going to get our table. What are you looking at anyway?” he continued as he tried to step around me as well.
“Ohhhh.” He smirked as he followed my line of sight to the dreadlocked blonde with the long tanned legs and big brown eyes. “Now I see.”
I wondered if he really did. See her. Because I was looking at about the most beautiful thing I’d ever encountered: glossy skin that went on for miles, eyes like dark chocolate, and lips that gave the word plump new meaning. I shook my head, trying to clear the lust out of my brain.
“Shut up,” I muttered at him as we reached a tiny, curvy hostess who stood smiling at us expectantly.
“Are there just two of you?” She looked at me with a coy expression.
“Yeah, just two for some dinner.” I smiled politely, but I also tried to convey not interested to her.
“Would you like inside or out?” she continued, now moving her gaze to Gabe and sizing him up like a pork chop she was going to eat for supper.
“Outside,” I answered. The noise of dishes clattering and people’s voices echoing off each other was especially annoying right now. I needed to be outside where I could hear the waves break and the sand would absorb the sounds made by people.
The hostess gathered up the menus to lead us to the deck, but Gabe placed a hand on her arm, giving her his best I wanna fuck you smile. She stopped, looking at him like a startled Bambi.
“The waitress over there by the bar? The blonde?” Gabe said.
Oh hell no.
“Does she serve tables outside?” he asked.
The hostess’s smile dropped off of her face like melted cheese off a tilted pizza.
“Yeah, the whole deck is Lyndsey’s section,” she replied woodenly.
“Perfect,” Gabe said sliding a sideways glance at me. “My friend will really like that.”
The hostess smiled up at him again—her faith renewed—and the two of them marched off toward the deck, while I ambled along behind, not sure what to think.
* * *
After we got seated and a busboy grabbed us some water and bread, I scowled at Gabe, “You’re subtle, man.”
He looked back at me and attempted to flutter his eyelashes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re also a dick,” I muttered.
“And you need to get back out there, dude. It’s time. Even the damned therapist said so, your mom told me.”
I groaned and dug my fingers through my hair. My fucking mother. I knew she meant well, but shit.
“Look, it’s not that simple, alright. The therapist said she thought I should get out there if I wanted to, it’s not required.”
Gabe snorted as he took his sunglasses off from the top of his head and laid them on the table, their metal frames rattling against the glass tabletop. “Only if you want to keep from having your balls explode,” he replied. “I mean what’s it been? A couple of years at least?”
“God, do you not have any boundaries?” I growled, taking a big gulp of my ice-cold water in the hopes that it would cool my humiliation.
“Hey, I’m just calling ’em like I see ’em. It’s not my fault you’ve forgotten how to use your dick, man.”
Something between a snort and a giggle broke out above my head and my stomach flipped over as I looked up from the table into the eyes of our totally hot waitress. Shit.
She cleared her throat and struggled to maintain her composure. “Um, hi. I’m Lyndsey, your server. I hope I’m not interrupting? I mean I could come back . . .” At this point, Gabe looked up at her with this expression that said, Go on, I dare you not to laugh, and she snorted again, her face turning pink as she pinched her lips together. I thought I’d quite possibly died and gone to hell.
“You’re not interrupting at all,” Gabe said smoothly. “In fact, I think you might be just what my friend here needs. Isn’t that right, Nick?”
I sighed and leaned back in my chair as I took her in this close. She had long dark-blonde hair that was up in a ponytail, but it was full of gorgeous dreadlocks and braids and beads. They made me want to inspect them all with my fingers. Her eyes were a true brown, big and fringed with thick black lashes. She had the cutest damn nose I’d ever seen and a set of curves that had me thinking maybe I’d better lean forward again so my lower half wasn’t so exposed. It had been a while, Gabe was right about that, and even though I knew I shouldn’t be thinking about it, a girl like this one made it pretty hard not to.
“Lyndsey, I apologize for my friend here. Gabe is hopelessly ill-mannered and also a huge liar, so ignore him whenever possible,” I said as I glared at Gabe.
Gabe chuckled.
Lyndsey turned that sweet shade of pink again and I squelched the urge to groan. This was going to be the longest damn dinner in the history of dinners.
“Alright then.” She smiled. “Warning taken. Would you boys like something to drink to get you started?”
We ordered a couple of The Grill’s famous microbrewed beers and she traipsed off to another table further down the deck, her tight denim shorts and tiny Hilo Bar and Grill T-shirt showcasing every damn curve.
I leaned forward and said quietly, “God, you are so smooth. Do you have a lot of success with all that charm?”
Gabe laughed, not in the least worried that I was pissed at him. “Hey, it got you noticed, man. Now all you’ve got to do is prove to her you do know what your dick’s for and it’ll all be good.”
“I know good and well what to do with it. Do you need me to elaborate?” I smirked.
“Hell no. Then what’s the problem, if you’re such a stud?” He pushed back at me harder.
“You know damn well what the problem is. I’m not getting involved with anyone right now, so leave it alone.” I shoved my bread plate and it slid a few inches until it knocked into the saltshaker, upending it. While Gabe talked I scraped hard granules of salt
across the table. They reminded me of the way his words scraped across my raw conscience.
“Hey, I never said a damn thing about getting involved, just getting laid.”
“Yeah, she’s not the one-night stand type, I’ll tell you that much,” I replied as I watched her swish through the doors back inside the restaurant. “And I’m not anymore either.”
“So, maybe you date her a little before you get laid. You might even like it, cowboy.”
“Would that be before or after I tell her how dangerous I am?” I said, bitterness leaching out of my words.
Gabe finally quit joking. He leaned forward and his voice blended with the sound of the waves hitting the shore and the gulls screeching as they fought over beach trash. “You’re not dangerous, Nick. You’re a guy who made a mistake and all of us do every single day, so you’re not alone.”
“Yeah, but your mistakes never got anyone killed.”
Gabe let it drop after that, but as the night wore on and I watched Lyndsey in all her tan, blonde glory, the idea seeped further and further into my head. “So maybe you date her a little before you get laid. You might even like it.” Yeah, I thought, but what I’d like to do and what I should do were two very different things.
Lyndsey
The dinner crowd was light for a Thursday night, but the bar crowd picked up after 8:00 p.m., and just kept growing. By ten, the place was filled to the brim with twenty-somethings getting their last party in before the semester started. I always liked working nights like this, because even though I was doing a job, it was the closest I ever got to feeling I was having a normal night out with friends my own age. Leesa and Raoul were always asking why I didn’t date and have girlfriends, like other college students. They could never know my mistakes in the past insured I’d never deserve a life like that. I had rules for myself: no dates, no friends—just me, Jack, school, and a job.
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