by Elle James
Hawk gave Parkman a firm handshake. “Understood. I’ll protect her with my life, if necessary.”
“That’s all I need to know.” The older man’s lips twisted. “Good luck keeping up with her. She’s had free run of this ranch from the day she learned to walk. She knows it like the back of her hand.” He lifted a photo off his desk. “Kalea’s mother was pure indigenous Hawaiian. She passed when Kalea was a little girl. I promised I’d take care of Kalea. I love her with all my heart.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “Sometimes, she looks so much like her mother, it hurts.”
Hawk’s chest tightened.
The loss of his wife obviously still grieved the older man.
Parkman waved toward the French doors on one side of the study. “Don’t let me hold you up. You don’t have much time to look around. You can leave through these doors.”
Hawk stepped out onto the porch that wrapped around the sprawling ranch house. He studied the view, enjoying the lush green fields dotted with Charolais and a surprising backdrop of the Mauna Kea snow-capped mountain.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” John Parkman joined him on the porch. “Did you know that mountain is the tallest mountain in the world?”
“I thought Mount Everest was,” Hawk turned to look at the older man.
“It’s a matter of perspective,” Parkman said. “If you consider from base to peak, Mauna Kea is the tallest. You see, the base is almost twenty-thousand feet below the Pacific Ocean. The mountain extends more than thirteen thousand feet above sea level, making it over thirty-three thousand feet high. Mount Everest, in comparison, stands just over twenty-nine thousand feet above sea level.”
“I did not know that. Thirteen thousand feet is impressive enough. I knew Hawaii had a tall mountain, but snow-capped peaks seem so incongruous against the green pastures and palm trees found around the coast.” Hawk smiled. “Still, it kind of reminds me of home.”
Mr. Parkman laid a hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “This ranch has been home to my family since the early 1800s. We love the land and respect what it gives us.”
“I can understand why,” Hawk said. The pastures weren’t all that different from the ones he knew in Montana. Perhaps they were a little greener and lusher, but cattle and horses grazed the land, and cowboys still wore jeans and cowboy hats. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll take a look around.”
Parkman nodded and returned to his study.
Hawk circled the house, studying the entrances, the windows and access to the second floor where Kalea’s room was located. A shadowy silhouette appeared in the window behind a thin white curtain. He couldn’t make out the details of her face, but the shape of the body was all female from the curve of her hips to the swells of her breasts. When she turned sideways, the tips of her perky breasts were clearly outlined, causing a decided tug in Hawk’s groin.
He dragged his gaze away from the window, chiding himself for being a gawking, peeping Tom. Kalea was his client. He wasn’t there to fall for the cattle rancher’s spoiled daughter. He was there to keep her safe. Hawk stuffed his hands in his pockets, reminding himself to keep them there and off the woman.
As he completed his circumference of the house, a bright white Lexus SUV pulled up in the driveway, and a beautiful, sophisticated blonde swung out her legs and emerged. She wore a gray pinstripe business suit jacket and matching skirt and a pair of black patent leather pumps with three-inch heels. Long, trim legs peeked out from beneath the narrow skirt, and a fair amount of cleavage was on display in the neckline of a filmy white blouse. She carried a black leather briefcase that probably cost more than Hawk’s first paycheck as a Navy SEAL.
“Excuse me, are you looking for someone?” she asked as she walked with purpose toward the house.
“No, ma’am,” Hawk replied. “Just looking.”
“Then perhaps you should leave before I call 911. You’re trespassing on private property.” She stood with her head held so high she looked down her nose at Hawk as if he was something smelly on her expensive shoes.
Hawk usually gave people the benefit of a doubt before forming an opinion about them, but this woman rubbed him wrong from the get-go. “I was invited.” He pinned a tight smile on his face. “Perhaps you’re the one trespassing.”
The woman’s perfectly made up gray eyes narrowed. “Don’t be rude.”
He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Not rude. Truthful.” He raised his eyebrows. “Are you looking for someone?”
She snorted and started past him.
He shot an arm out, stopping her from reaching the porch.
“Well, I never—”
“—treated a stranger with kindness?” he finished for her. “Again, are you looking for someone?”
“Ah, Clarise,” Mr. Parkman’s booming voice sounded from the front door of the house. “I didn’t expect you back until the morning. The marketing plan could have waited until then.”
Clarise smiled up at Parkman. “John, darling, I said I’d get it to you as soon as possible. And this is the soonest.” Her professionally whitened teeth gleamed in the dusk. Then she looked down her nose at Hawk. “John, is this…someone?”
Parkman chuckled. “Clarise Sanders, meet Hawk. He’s our latest paniolo hire. He’s fresh out of the military and ready to go to work here at Parkman Ranch.”
She blinked and stood back as if he might give her cooties. “What is he doing at the house? Don’t you have ranch hand quarters more suitable for your cowboys?”
Hawk fought to keep from rolling his eyes. The woman irritated the crap out of him, but not enough for him to sink as low as she was in her attitude and treatment of other employees of the Parkman Ranch conglomerate. He stood back and let her act the fool.
“Hawk is staying at the house. I’ve put Kalea in charge of training him, so I wanted him to be close by.” The half-truth slid right off of John’s tongue, though he shot a glance at Hawk during his explanation.
Hawk gave the slightest of nods, indicating his concurrence with the man to keep his real purpose under wraps.
“Well, can he sneak around somewhere else?” She glared at Hawk. “We have work to do.”
John held out a hand to Clarise. “We have dinner on the table. Work can wait until after our meal. Would you care to join us?”
The woman’s brow smoothed. “As a matter of fact, I worked straight through lunch. I’m famished. Thank you.” She curled her hand into the crook of John’s elbow and let him lead her into the house.
Hawk shook his head. The woman knew who to play up to, and a lowly cowboy wasn’t it. Clarise couldn’t take Kalea in a fight, and she certainly wouldn’t want to break a nail. But she might know someone who could easily overpower a woman. He added her name to his mental list of people Patterson should run through a background check.
Quickly finishing his inspection of the outside of the house, Hawk made his way through the back door and found the dining room in time to be seated for dinner.
Mr. Parkman sat at the head of the table. Clarise took the seat to his left.
Hawk glanced around the room and looked toward the door. Kalea had yet to arrive. He stepped out into the foyer and looked up the sweeping staircase.
Kalea stood at the top, her hand on the rail. Her eyes flared when she spotted him, and she hesitated.
Hawk’s breath caught and held.
Wearing a flowing white dress that hung down to mid-calf, she was stunning. Her dark complexion contrasted perfectly with the pure white of the dress. She’d left her hair hanging down her back in a long, wavy damp mass, reaching all the way past her waist. On her head, she wore a crown of pale pink and white plumeria. Unlike Clarise’s three-inch high heels, Kalea wore flat-soled white sandals that laced up her ankles.
She floated down the stairs like a cloud, drifting toward him.
It took every one of those stairs before Hawk could pull himself together.
Her brow puckered. “Am I last?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“We both are.” He held out his arm.
For a moment, she stared at his arm but finally tucked her hand into the bend of his elbow and allowed him to lead her into the dining room where her father and Clarise were already seated. All the way into the room, he caught whiffs of the fresh flowers in her hair and knew, forever after, he would always associate that scent with Kalea.
A hint of a frown appeared on Kalea’s forehead when she first entered the room and spotted Clarise. But the frown disappeared and a smile replaced it when she turned to her father.
John Parkman stood and kissed his daughter on both cheeks. “Beautiful…just like your mother,” he whispered.
Hawk held out her chair, seating her on the other side of her father, before taking the seat beside her.
The meal was served, starting with a salad topped with walnuts, dried cranberries and a vinaigrette. Next came a steak grilled to perfection with a side of asparagus and a sea-salt coated baked potato.
Hawk settled in for the wonderful meal, aware of the woman at his side’s every move and word. The more he studied her, the more intrigued he became. How could someone who’d shown up earlier in dusty jeans and a cowboy boots transform into a beautiful Hawaiian beauty in a matter of minutes?
He figured he had his job cut out for him, if he hoped to keep up with the many sides of the rancher’s daughter.
* * *
Kalea picked at her salad, choosing to eat the cranberries and walnuts. She’d never liked vinaigrette dressing but didn’t want to hurt the chef’s feelings. Ule had been on a kick to try different recipes, much to John Parkman’s dismay. As the steak was served, Kalea smiled.
Her father preferred meat and potatoes. Apparently, he’d gotten his way for the majority of the meal.
Kalea wanted to dig in, hungry after a hard day out on the ranch, but dressed as she was, she didn’t feel right wolfing down her meal. Her mother’s voice in her head made her sit with her hand in her lap, acting like a lady, not a ranch hand. Across from her, Clarise picked at her salad, and then pushed her steak around on her plate.
Fortunately, her father and Hawk had no qualms about eating beef. They polished off their meal, speaking very little until they’d consumed more than half the food on their plates.
Kalea forced herself to take smaller bites, relishing the flavors Ule had worked so hard to create. But by the time her father and Hawk had finished their food, she couldn’t hold back any longer. To hell with the fancy dress. She was hungry!
“I would think after working with the animals as much as you do, you’d be less inclined to eat them,” Clarise said, her steak still intact on her plate.
Kalea popped the last piece of her steak into her mouth and chewed without a comeback to the other woman’s comment. She owed Clarise no explanation or apology for what she ate.
“My daughter likes what she does and what she eats,” her father said. “And she works harder than most men.” He winked at her. “Eat up, Kalea, you need to put some meat on your bones.”
She sat back in her chair and smiled at her father for sticking up for her. “Ule did a great job on the meal.”
“Yes, he did,” Hawk said. “Was the steak from one of Parkman Ranch cattle?”
Her father’s chest puffed out, proudly. “It’s the only beef we eat around here.”
“It’s the only beef we want all Hawaiians to eat,” Clarise said. “In fact, we want to expand our current exports to the contiguous forty-eight states and Alaska,” Clarise said.
Kalea’s father nodded. “I know. The marketing plan you wanted me to see.”
“Yes, I wanted to go over the plan and a proposal for expanding our tourism trade. We’ve been approached about building a spa resort on the ranch.”
Kalea stiffened. Clarise had been pushing for some time to expand the role of tourism on the ranch. Kalea didn’t want more people wandering around than they already had.
“I’m not interested in expanding much beyond our current dude ranch experience,” her father said. “We’re primarily a cattle ranch, not a spa resort. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“But, if you’ll just look—”
“You’re not going to change my mind, Clarise,” he said, smiling as he shook his head.
Clarise pouted. “John, darling, you can be so stubborn.”
He nodded. “Yes, I can, my dear. We’ll discuss this—after dessert.”
Ule entered the room. The older Hawaiian chef frowned. “I didn’t make a dessert. Miss Kalea insisted you didn’t need a dessert.”
Kalea cringed as her father turned a glare toward her. “You know what Dr. Brennen said. You need to cut back on your carbs. That huge potato you just ate contained more carbs than you need in a day, much less one meal.”
“Damned quack doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Except for high blood pressure and cholesterol.” She reached out and touched his hand. “I’d like to keep you around a lot longer,” she said softly.
Her father grimaced then tossed his cloth napkin onto his plate. “I guess that concludes our meal.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Clarise, if you want to show me that marketing plan, we can go over it in my study now.”
“And no sneaking chocolates,” Kalea said. “For that matter, I’ll come with you.” She followed her father and Clarise out of the dining room, shooting a glance over her shoulder at Hawk. “I’ll see you at dawn tomorrow morning.”
She’d rather have stayed and gotten to know the new paniolo better, but she didn’t trust her father to keep his hand out of the chocolate he kept stashed in his desk.
Kalea sighed. She’d have all the next day to find out why Hawk had really come to Parkman Ranch. With all the skills of a Navy SEAL, it didn’t seem right he’d come to be a cowboy on the massive ranch. Something smelled fishy, and she suspected it was the SEAL.
Chapter 4
Full of one of the best steaks he’d had in a long time, Hawk needed to walk off some of the calories he’d ingested. Since Kalea was occupied with her father, that left Hawk to wander around on his own. He stepped outside into the cool night breeze and stared up at the sky, brightly lit with billions of shiny stars. The night sky in this part of Hawaii was very much like the big sky of Montana. Far from city lights, he could see the Milky Way and a couple of the planets, gleaming in the heavens.
A horse’s soft nickering drew his attention back to Earth and the nearby paddock. He loved horses but liked taking a treat with him when greeting the animals for the first time. Hawk ducked back into the house, found the kitchen and introduced himself to the chef.
“Hello, I’m Jace Hawkins, the new paniolo.” He held out his hand to the man in the white apron.
Dark eyes narrowed as they looked him up and down. “I’m Ule Kekoa, Mr. Parkman’s personal chef.” The man took his hand. “I hear you were a Navy SEAL.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I spent eight years in the Navy. It’s where I learned to cook.” He gave Hawk a firm handshake. “Thank you for your service.”
“Thank you for yours. Our soldiers and sailors need fine cooks to keep us healthy and able to fight.”
Ule waved a hand around the kitchen. “Is there anything I can do or get for you?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Hawk smiled. “Could I get a carrot?”
“Of course,” Ule said. “For you or a horse?”
Hawk chuckled, glad the chef understood the needs of a rancher. “For a horse.”
Ule reached into a bin. “You’ll find the horse carrots in this bin. Miss Kalea grabs a few every morning. I make sure to keep it stocked for her and the horses.” He handed Hawk a long, orange carrot.
Hawk took the offering. “Mahalo.”
The older man nodded, a smile tilting his mouth. “Ho’omau.”
“I’m sorry. My grasp of the Hawaiian language is limited to aloha, mahalo and luau,” Hawk admitted.
“Ho’omau means persevere,
keep going. Never give up.” He straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Our ali’i is strong-willed and stubborn. But her heart is kind, and her love for the people and her home is solid. Don’t give up on her.”
“I’m honored that’s she’s agreed to train me.” Hawk wondered why Ule had asked him not to give up on Kalea. Did he know the real reason Hawk was there? He left the house, stepped down from the porch and crossed the lawn to a split-rail fence. The sky full of stars created enough of a glow he didn’t need to carry a flashlight.
A dark gelding trotted up to the railing, tossing its head and nickering softly.
Hawk held out his empty hand to see if the horse would come up to him.
The animal snorted and danced away.
Holding out his hand with the carrot, Hawk waited for the horse to reconsider.
Without hesitation, the gelding nuzzled the carrot with his lips and sank his teeth into the treat.
Hawk held onto the end as the rest was snapped off. He reached out and smoothed his hand along the animal’s neck, inhaling the scent of the animal. It brought back many good memories of growing up on a ranch in Montana.
“You’re spoiling my horse,” a familiar voice said behind him.
He held out his hand with the other half of the carrot. “Would you prefer to do it?” Hawk turned as Kalea took the other half of the carrot and held it out in the flat of her palm to the horse.
“His name is Pupule.” Kalea lifted the edge of her skirt, climbed up to sit on the top rail and rubbed her horse’s nose.
Hawk tried not to but couldn’t help admiring her trim calves and a hint of thigh beneath the hiked-up hem of her dress. As his groin tightened, he cleared his throat. “Is that a Hawaiian name?”
“Not so much a name as a word that describes him.” She smiled and scratched the horse behind the ear. “It means crazy or insane.”
Hawk laughed. “I’m afraid to ask…does he live up to his name?”
Kalea leaned her forehead against Pupule’s head. “He was a spirited colt, dancing around the pasture for no apparent reason. Some thought he was crazy. It took me many months of work to calm him enough to ride.”