“This day just gets better and better.”
“Not yet, but there’s plenty of time left.”
Chapter 6
Annie finally found something scarier than being alone in the dark ocean. Being alone with Kane. The man had walked back into the kitchen a few minutes after the crowd left, and everything stopped, including her breathing.
His tall, looming presence should have scared the hell out of her. Instead, he made her stomach tumble. He was the only man who had made her look twice in over a year. There was something about him that pulled at her and made her want to know more.
She hoped it was one of those freaky things where a victim mistook gratitude for her rescuer for interest. A good night’s sleep, some food and an hour or two of planning her next move, and she’d be fine. Everything would go back to normal. She’d get back on Sterling Howard’s trail. Kane would get back to whatever it was he did all day on this secret vacation of his.
The time between now and getting back to normal made her nervous. Sure, she’d eventually forget all about Kane, but right now he was on her mind. That made Kane Travers, alleged Police Chief of Kauai, the number one threat to her plans.
Unfortunately, he was also her best chance for protection and information. Without him and his resources, she’d never track down the missing yacht. If the police and DEA couldn’t find it, neither could she.
That wasn’t an option. No, she needed to stop Howard before he hurt another woman.
“It’s time for a chat.” Kane grabbed another mug and the coffee pot and sat down in the chair across from her.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“You’ve been evading and posturing.” He set a bowl of sugar packets in front of her.
“I didn’t—”
“Flirting and ignoring. Not talking about anything that matters or that I want to hear.”
“Flirting?” That one stunned her enough to make her ignore the nastiness behind his other comments.
“I’m serious, Annie. I want answers.” He poured a fresh cup of coffee and topped hers off. “It’s just us. No more audience to play to. No more time for games.”
She ripped open a pink packet and dumped the contents into her drink. Maybe some sugar would help jump-start her brain cells. For some reason, they seemed to be frozen from all that ocean water.
“You sound like a cop,” she said.
“I am a cop.”
She sat back and folded her arms across her stomach. “Not according to Derek.”
“Tell you what.” He drained the cup and poured another. Black and strong. “I’ll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”
“Okay.”
He smiled. “That was too easy.”
“You’re not the best winner I’ve ever met.” Of course, he really hadn’t won since she didn’t plan to answer anything.
“Truthfully this time, Annie. No more lies.”
“I said okay.”
“Ever been on the Samantha Ray?”
Did being thrown overboard count? “Who is she again?”
He made a face. “Do I need to define what truthful means?”
“A woman should be able to ask for some clarification without being called a liar.” She twisted the empty pink wrapper between her fingers.
“Fine. The missing yacht. She docks at Port Allen. Owned by Sterling Howard, wealthy businessman and all-around scumbag. Any of this ring a bell?”
All of it. Especially the scumbag part. “That’s more than one question.”
“It’s a description.” Kane leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Right now, I’d settle for you telling me how you know Howard.”
Kane hadn’t said how much of the truth he expected, which was good, because he wasn’t going to get much. This was her battle. Not his. “I’m in town to photograph him.”
“What the hell for?”
She made a tsk-tsk sound. “I answered your question. Now it’s my turn. How did you get kicked off the force?”
He hesitated for a second before answering. “I didn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
He tsk-tsked right back at her. “One question only, remember? Your rules.”
“You’re a—”
“Don’t say it.” He stood up.
She decided to push him. “You’re telling me that if I called police headquarters right now, someone would pick up the phone and confirm your job. Your title.”
He grabbed the phone off the wall and pushed the receiver under her nose. “Ask for Ted Greene.”
Okay, fine. He was the police chief. That still didn’t explain the vacation-versus-leave debate. She’d get to the bottom of that mystery once she solved her own.
She slapped the phone away from her face. “I’m sure you could get this Ted person to cover for you.”
“Not very trusting, are you?”
“The handcuffs and interrogation ruined my mood.”
“I asked one question, Annie. Not exactly a white-light-in-the-eyes shakedown.” Kane hung up the receiver.
“You say potato…”
“As fun as this is, it’s late. We should get to bed.”
The word bed shot through her. “I’m not tired.”
More like exhausted. The adrenaline rush had died down, leaving a trail of sleepiness in its wake.
“You should rest. You’ll need it.”
“A threat? I’m terrified,” she said in a bored, flat tone.
He ignored the sarcasm. “Tomorrow you’re going to give me the answers to all of my questions.”
“More tit for tat?”
“Then we’re going to go on a little field trip to your hotel.”
“What makes you think I have one?”
“Unless you’re sleeping in a car. Where is it parked again?” He poured another cup of coffee.
By her count, that made five. The guy must have a rock-hard stomach. At two cups, she tested her body’s tolerance. The hanging out and drinking part of her job never got easier. Alcohol or coffee, it didn’t matter. She preferred her own company. Just her and her camera and the room to explore.
“A hotel,” she admitted.
“Which one?”
There was no use in hedging. He’d figure it out, so she gave him the name of the beach resort where she’d stayed before boarding the yacht. She should have checked out by now. She’d get right on that as soon as she figured out what to do about not having any identification or a key or her stuff.
With the yacht missing, she needed everything in her room. She’d also need protection to escort her inside in case the same someone who pushed her off the yacht was waiting in there to finish the job. And Kane would fill the role of escort just fine. Once there, she’d figure out how to get him out of the way.
“Hotel first, then we’re going to the marina,” he said.
She couldn’t figure out if that was a good idea or a bad one. “Not to state the obvious, but the yacht isn’t there.”
“I’ve heard.”
She toyed with the sugar packets, piling them in a neat stack, knocking it down, then building again. “Then what’s the point? We can see the water from your front yard. Lovely view, by the way. Oceanfront on a policeman’s salary? Hard to imagine.”
“There was a time when people could afford to live here. I bought then. Before the overbuilding and before everyone from…Where are you from?”
“Seattle.”
“Everyone from Seattle barged in, acted like they were the first to discover the beach and ocean, and started building street after street of overpriced houses.”
She photographed the outdoors for a living. She understood the swell of anger and frustration when people took nature for granted or acted as if they owned it rather than borrowed it as a caretaker. “Bitter much?”
“Just honest.”
“We don’t need to drive around the island looking for beauty. It’s right at your doorstep.” She had ha
d enough trouble lately. Tracking down more was not on her agenda.
He watched her fingers, his stare following the placement of every pink packet. “Yeah, but this way if you continue to lie, I can always open the truck door and throw you back in the water.”
He acted as if he meant it. “You don’t have to sound so damn happy at the thought. Where are we now anyway? I mean, I know we’re on Kauai, but where exactly?”
He leaned back against the sink with his ankles crossed in front of him. “Your new temporary home is in Kapaa.”
“Home? You keep thinking I plan to stay the night and hang out with you tomorrow.” She did, but that wasn’t really the point.
“That’s not up for debate. The only question is where. You can sleep on the front porch. The trade winds are cool this time of year, and the waves tend to be loud, but you should be fine if you curl up under the deck chair.”
She refused to dignify that comment by responding. “How many bedrooms do you have?”
“Two. One for me. One for Derek.”
She should have been happier to hear that news. “Problem solved, then.”
“You can’t have Derek’s room.”
She didn’t want to displace the kid. “A gentleman would let me have his bedroom while he slept elsewhere.”
Kane frowned. “Then you should have washed up on that guy’s beach.”
A scream rumbled up the back of her throat but she shoved it back down. “You’re infuriating.”
“Strange talk from a woman who claims to want to sleep inside tonight.” He rinsed out the coffee pot and dropped it in the sink.
“Were you fired for how you treat tourists?”
“One last time, I wasn’t fired.” He stepped back to the table and knocked over the pink packet wall she’d been building. “I’m the police chief and, from what I can tell, the only person you know on Kauai. So, left side or right?”
She forgot all about the sugar. “You’re serious? You expect us to sleep together?”
“Sleep being the operative word.” His face stayed blank and his voice neutral.
The thought of lying next to Kane, of having his scent and arms curl around her, sent her nerve endings tingling.
She hoped that rescuer gratitude wore off soon. With everything else she’d been through, all those months of putting her needs behind her mother’s, her resistance lingered at an all-time low. The idea of a meaningless one-night stand with a hot Hawaiian guy tempted her more than she cared to admit.
If his white-knuckled grip on the back of the chair was any indication, she guessed Kane fought his own battle on that front. Unaffected, her ass. The guy felt the tug and pull between them just like she did.
“I’ll take the couch,” she choked out.
“Not an option.”
Okay, maybe not a good option, but the only option. “Of course it is.”
“Only if you want the handcuffs back on.”
“If you even—”
“Yes?”
“I’ll kick you square in the—”
“Understood, but the answer is the same,” he said with a wink. “I don’t trust you not to run.”
The wink should have been swarmy. On him, it came off as sexy. “I have nowhere to go.”
“You’re a resourceful woman, Annie. So, you either sleep next to me, where I can feel you and hear you, or you sleep on the couch with the handcuffs to keep you warm and toasty. You choose.”
Did he have to say “feel”? “That’s not a choice.”
“It’s the only one you’re going to get.” Kane walked to the doorway and shut off the light, leaving her sitting in the dark kitchen. “Ready?”
“Would it matter if I said no?”
“Not one bit.”
Chapter 7
A few hours later Kane decided that being in bed with Annie could be described only one way: pure torture. Lying on top of the covers in sweat shorts and a tee with her tucked underneath the bedding provided a small barrier. A thin cotton shield between his body and hers. Too thin.
He could feel the heat radiating off her through the sheet. Could smell her scent, a mixture of his shampoo and her skin, on the pillow. When she turned on her side and snuggled her firm bottom against his thigh, he broke out in a cold sweat.
“I’m hot,” she grumbled.
That made two of them. “You’re wearing four layers of clothing. You could trek through the Arctic and not worry about frostbite.”
She sat up and punched her pillow. Probably pretending the defenseless thing was his face.
“I’m wearing what I had on before bed,” she said between shots.
“Plus my robe.”
“The air was cool.” She slapped the pillow a few more times.
“It’s eighty degrees.” He didn’t own an air conditioner, preferring to throw open the windows and let the trade winds drag in the breeze off the ocean.
“A cool eighty,” she said.
She’d said she lived in Seattle, but now she found Hawaii cold. Interesting. Made him wonder if the Seattle story suffered from the same problem as the amnesia one—being false. “So you needed the robe and my sweatshirt?”
She stilled in mid pillow fluff. “How did you know about the sweatshirt?”
“I saw you digging through my drawers.” Leaving her alone still wasn’t an option. Not until he knew her story. Having her last name would be a start. Until then, he’d piss with one eye on her and one on the toilet.
This time she punched his shoulder. “You were in the bathroom.”
“Hey!”
“Were you watching me?”
The woman packed a punch. “Don’t hit me. Ever.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Absolutely nothing. “Throw your pretty little ass in jail. That’s assault.”
Even in the dark room, he could see her mouth fall open. The woman had to know how enticing her butt could be. Her shock must have been a result of the threat.
“Just answer me.” She balanced her head on her elbow and hovered over his left shoulder.
Her soft hair brushed against his cheek and tickled his nose. He could see her sexy auburn curls in the pale light from the window. A deep, dark sultry red.
“It’s my damn house.” Unexpected desire whipped through him, making his voice gruff.
Maybe he should try a real vacation. Fly to Arizona. Take in a football game. Find that nice woman who could tell the truth for more than three seconds at a time and sleep with her. Meaning not sleep at all.
“You invaded my privacy,” she insisted.
Was she kidding? “You mean like you did when you went into my drawer without asking?”
She flopped back on the bed. “Anyone ever tell you how annoying you are?”
“Never.”
Plenty of folks used stronger language than that. Being in law enforcement guaranteed a wide variety of enemies. He counted a few of Kauai’s finest families on that list. Busting up their baby boys’ drug-selling operation had been his most recent task. A task that had earned him the families’ wrath and an internal investigation.
“They should try sleeping with you. You’re a bed hog.”
“Never had any complaints before.” Not on that score.
Of course, since Leilani, he hadn’t kept any woman around long enough to move to the disgruntled stage. The women in his life tended to die young, so he didn’t see the point in getting attached. Breast cancer, car accidents, the reason for the death didn’t matter. Death was death.
His mother. His sister. His wife. He took the hint and backed off. He was done burying the women in his life.
She flipped her pillow over once, twice, and smacked it with her fist a few more times.
He waited until she settled back into the pillows. “You done squirming?”
Lying on her back with her hands folded across her chest, she did a great impression of a corpse. “Unless it bugs you, then I’ll keep moving around.”
“Keep your nose out of my clothes…” She choked a little. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Where did you say I should put my nose?”
“Shut up.”
“I’ve seen you naked. The mystery’s gone.” He tried to sound uninterested, as if her body were nothing special.
“Don’t remind me.” She tugged the covers up to her chin.
“We’re grownups.”
“One of us is. The jury’s still out on the other.”
He could not drop the conversation for some reason. “We should be able to talk about this like adults.”
“We’re not talking about it at all.”
He was. “Why not?”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
He turned on his side and watched her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. His gaze traveled up to her face. The small upturned nose. The deep-set eyes. Flawless complexion.
“There’s no reason to get shy all of a sudden,” he said. In my line of work, I’ve seen—”
“Forget what you’ve seen.”
Like that was ever going to happen. “Fine.”
“About my body, I mean.”
“Already forgotten. Couldn’t even tell you were a woman. Seen hundreds better than you. Happy?”
The mattress dipped in front of him as she rolled over and fell right into him with an “ompf.” Her breasts crushed against his chest for a second before she reached across him and clicked on the light next to his head.
To keep from being blinded, he threw an arm over his eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”
The woman had some trouble taking a hint. Instead of going to sleep, she poked and shoved against his shoulder. “Wake up.”
“What the hell makes you think I can sleep through your acrobatic routine?”
He dropped his arm next to his ear to get a better look at her. All wrapped up in his robe and glaring, she kneeled next to his hip.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“You are.”
“I thought we weren’t talking anymore tonight.”
Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy Page 5