by Elle James
Ule followed with a platter of bacon, sausage and ham slices.
Mr. Parkman entered the room. “Smells good, Ule.”
“Just hold off on the bacon and sausage,” Kalea warned her father. “You know what your heart doctor said.”
“A little bacon and sausage won’t kill me.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not according to Dr. Adams.”
Ule returned to the stove and brought back a bowl of steaming oatmeal.
Kalea smiled. “That’s more like it.
Her father’s frown made Hawk smother a chuckle.
Kalea patted the older man’s arm. “I’m not trying to be mean. I want you to be around for a long time. Clogging your arteries won’t achieve that goal.” She leaned up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love you, Dad.”
He hugged her close. “Love you, too, sweetheart.”
Hawk could feel the love between the father and daughter. It made him all the more determined to keep them safe from whomever was trying to hurt Kalea.
“There’s enough food on this table to feed an army.” Kalea shook her head and took a seat.
“You need to eat a good breakfast, Miss Kalea. You rarely eat lunch, and you work really hard,” Ule said.
Mr. Parkman sat at the end of the kitchen table. “What’s your plan for the day?”
Kalea scooped fluffy yellow scrambled eggs onto her plate. “I want to see if our new paniolo is as good as he says he is.”
Hawk’s hand froze for a brief moment halfway to the platter of bacon and sausage. Schooling his face to poker straightness, he continued in his pursuit of bacon. “What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing drastic. I’m riding out to the north forty to check on some of the cows due to calf. We’ll save the guest cabins and dude ranch operations for another day. They’re a few miles south of here and run by Keli’i Palakiki, our guest operations manager.”
Her father chuckled and glanced across the table at Hawk. “How long did you say it’s been since you’ve been riding?”
“A year,” Hawk admitted. “I know where you’re going with this. I don’t doubt my ability to ride, but you’re right. I’ll be saddle sore the first couple of days.” He shrugged. “The only way to get over it is to get on with it.”
Kalea’s lips twitched. “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”
He nodded and went to work cleaning his plate of food. Once he was done, he excused himself, ran up to brush his teeth and was back out in the barnyard in less than ten minutes.
Kalea was in the barn slinging a saddle over her horse’s back.
Maleko had a gray appaloosa tied to a post. He gave Hawk a nod. “Mr. Parkman said you wanted to ride Pain Killer. We call him PK for short.”
The gelding was steel gray except for white stockings and white hindquarters speckled with spots of black.
PK pulled at the lead rope, trying to catch a glimpse of Hawk. He pawed at the ground and tossed his head, as if to say, Bring on your best.
Having ridden broncs in the rodeo, Hawk knew he could hold his own. And if he was tossed from the back of the beautiful animal, he’d get back up in the saddle and show PK he wasn’t afraid.
Apprehensive…but not afraid. Hell, he wasn’t getting any younger at thirty-three years old.
Maleko handed Hawk a brush and disappeared into a tack room.
Hawk smoothed the brush over the horse’s body, neck and belly.
By the time Maleko returned with a saddle blanket and saddle, Hawk had the horse shining and calm. He laid the blanket over the animal’s back and settled the saddle over the blanket. When he tightened the cinch, PK puffed out his belly.
Hawk left the stirrup up and fit the bridle over the horse’s nose and slipped the bit between his teeth. After he had the straps in place, he returned to the leather strap around PK’s belly and tightened it another two inches. He wasn’t a green cowboy who didn’t know the saddle would be too loose once he’d gotten out of the barnyard. He adjusted the stirrups to a length that would fit his legs and led the horse out into the yard.
Kalea was already outside, mounted and heading for the gate to a pasture. She wasn’t going to wait on him. If he wanted to learn about the Parkman Ranch and what his duties would be, he had to keep up.
Hawk stuck the toe of his boot into the stirrup. As he swung his leg over the saddle, PK spun around. He was ready, holding onto to the saddle horn until his leg was completely over and he sat hard on the saddle. Once he had both feet in the stirrups, he felt at home. Yeah, he’d be sore after a day’s riding, but being back in the saddle was where he’d longed to be.
So, it wasn’t Montana. The lush pastures and blue skies of Hawaii were beautiful, and the powerful muscles of the horse beneath him promised to be a challenge he was prepared for.
Kalea leaned down to unlatch the gate, walked her horse through and paused briefly on the other side. She didn’t walk away, leaving the gate open. Other animals could get through if she did that. No, she had the sense of a cowgirl. No matter how confined she might feel about leading the new hand around, she wasn’t going to risk losing or injuring animals just because she was irritated.
Hawk gave PK a gentle nudge with his heels. The gelding leaped forward, nearly leaving Hawk behind. If he hadn’t been as skilled as he was in the saddle, he would have been left sitting on the ground.
Instead, he leaned forward and breezed past Kalea.
The ranch owner’s daughter closed and latched the gate. Then she took off at a trot across the pasture.
Hawk followed, urging PK to keep up.
Challenged by a horse in front of him, PK picked up speed and galloped after Kalea and Pupule.
Soon both horses ran neck-and-neck, one trying to get ahead of the other.
Hawk let PK have his head, the wind in their hair, the ground a blur beneath them.
As they approached another gate, Kalea slowed her horse to a trot then a walk.
Hawk did the same.
Kalea shot a glance toward him, her hair windblown and beautiful, her eyes shining bright. “So, paniolo, you can ride.” She gave him a brief, approving nod. “Perhaps you can get the gate, this time.”
Hawk nudged his horse forward, leaned down and unlatched the gate. PK danced backward. In order to hold the gate open, Hawk had to dismount. When he did, PK jerked his head high and pulled backward, slipping his reins free of Hawk’s grip. Caught between holding the gate for Kalea and catching his horse, Hawk held the gate.
Kalea and her horse moved through the opening, PK lunged, pushing past Kalea and her mount, and raced back toward the barn and house, which had been out of sight for the past fifteen minutes.
Kalea laughed out loud. “You might as well start walking. It takes a while to get back to the barn on foot.” Her laughter followed her as she rode away, leaving him standing there, without a horse and without his body to guard.
“Damn.”
PK had already disappeared over a hill, heading back to the barn.
Kalea was moving at a trot, quickly putting distance between them.
After promising her father that he’d take care of Kalea, Hawk couldn’t go back to the barn. That would leave Kalea unprotected for far too long. The only choice he really had was to follow Kalea and hope he could catch up with her sooner than later.
Chapter 6
The farther Kalea rode away from Hawk, the tighter her chest grew. She felt bad. Really bad, for leaving him standing out in the middle of the ranch, with no other way to get back to the barn than to walk. Had it been her father, Maleko or any other ranch hand, she’d have offered to let him climb on the back of her horse and given him a ride back.
Then why had she left Hawk?
Because she felt uncomfortable around him. Not in a creepy way. More in a want-to-get-naked-with-him way. She’d never met a man who had affected her in such a way within hours of meeting him.
She’d lain awake well into the night with the t
ingling sensation he’d caused when he’d wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her off the fence as if she weighed next to nothing. Having grown up on the ranch, Kalea prided herself in being capable of doing anything a man could do and doing it better. In that one move of lifting her off the fence, Hawk had torn down her man-walls and revealed the woman behind them.
He’d made her feel feminine, vulnerable and desirable all in that moment. She thought she was mad but, in reality, she’d been scared at her own reaction to sliding down his chest until her feet hit the ground.
While she wanted to turn back and do what was right, her body burned at the thought of having Hawk riding behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, his chest pressed to her back. The more she thought about it, the hotter she grew. Urging her horse to go faster, she steered him toward the one place on the ranch she loved most. Soon, she turned onto the trail beneath a canopy of trees, leading to her favorite creek and the pool of water where her mother and father had taught her to swim. As an adult, she came here when she needed to think. Something about the sound of the waterfall at the far end of the pool soothed her mind and soul.
She’d come here when her mother died. The waterfall had cried with her. When she’d finished crying, she’d entered the water and swum until her tears were washed away. She’d felt closer to her mother, who’d loved this place as much as she.
With her heart beating too fast and her thoughts tumbling over and over her unsettled feelings for the new paniolo, she dismounted and tied Pupule to a bush.
As always, the pool stretched out before her, the water smooth but for the ripple caused by the little waterfall. Sun found its way through the trees in bright spots dappling the water’s surface.
Having left Hawk to walk home alone and still hot from her ride and her thoughts, Kalea pulled off her boots and socks, rolled up her jeans and waded in.
The cool liquid felt good against the skin of her feet and ankles.
Kalea closed her eyes and inhaled the scents of the trees, plants and water, willing the sound of the waterfall to soothe her thoughts and cool her heated body.
Inhale…exhale…inhale…
Her chest rose and fell with each breath. An image of Hawk standing at the gate, horseless and alone, intruded on her meditation.
Guilt gnawed at her gut.
Then an image of him standing in the moonlight looking up at her where she sat on the fence flooded her memory and her core heated.
Damn the man.
Though her feet were cool, the rest of her body lit up like the 4th of July. Her core heated and coiled inside.
The warmth of the air around her didn’t help to tamp down the fire building deep in her loins.
Stepping out of the water, she unbuckled her belt and unzipped her jeans. She cast a quick glance around and laughed at herself. Even if he had followed her, Hawk wouldn’t have caught up to her by now. Besides, he wouldn’t know where to find her. She was completely alone.
Kalea shucked her jeans, her shirt, her bra and panties, and stacked them neatly on the branches of a bush. She pulled out the elastic band that held her ponytail, rearranged it to hold her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, and slid into the water.
“Ahh,” she murmured as she slowly swam across the pool to the waterfall on the other end. She’d been skinny-dipping in the pool since she’d been a young teen. Her father hadn’t wanted her to be there alone, but she’d escaped there often. She’d learned early on to strip out of all of her clothes, swim naked, dry in the sun, redress in her clothes and return to the house with no one the wiser.
This was her oasis, the place that gave her a sense of peace she could find nowhere else on the ranch. Only this time, as she swam across the water, the water was cooling but the peace was elusive. Hawk’s image would not shake free of her mind. His ruggedly handsome face with his gorgeous green eyes stared at her in her memory, reminding her she’d left him to walk several miles back to the house and barn. What if he got lost?
No, he couldn’t get lost. The fields were wide open with few trees to disorient him. But what if he did get lost?
He’d eventually run into a fence and follow it to a junction…and walk a lot farther than he would have had to if he’d known the way.
Kalea reached the waterfall and stood under the spray, letting the water wash over her head and shoulders. No matter how long she stood there, the falling water didn’t wash away her guilt or the nagging worry that Hawk could get lost and spend a lot of time wandering around the endless pastures.
“He’s a Navy SEAL,” she said out loud. “He’s been through a lot worse in BUD/S training. A long walk won’t hurt him.
She lifted her face to the water and let it run over her eyes, her cheeks and mouth.
What would it feel like to stand beneath the waterfall with Hawk naked beside her?
She moaned. Why did she have to go there? The purpose of coming to the pool was to cleanse her heart, mind and soul of troubling thoughts, not make them worse.
Giving up on the waterfall, she lay on her back, staring up at the interlacing branches of the trees shading the grotto. Shafts of sunlight found cracks in the canopy and shone down into her eyes.
Kalea blinked and closed her eyes to the brightness. She floated in the pool, her ears beneath the water, her face in the sun, but the peace she sought proved more tenuous than in past visits.
Just when she was about to give up and go back to find Hawk, the water around her exploded in a loud splash, rocking her on a wave that sent her under.
Kalea sucked water into her nose and came up sputtering and gasping for air. Her first thought was of an earthquake, possibly brought on by another eruption of the volcano, Kilauea, on the other end of the Big Island.
Then the water parted beside her as a dark head surfaced.
Kalea squealed and backpaddled.
When the face cleared the surface with a broad grin, her squeal turned angry. “What the hell, Hawk?”
His grin broadened. “What a wonderful place. Why didn’t you tell me we were going to go for a dip? Is this something all the ranch hands get to do on their first day at Parkman Ranch?”
Kalea splashed water in his face. “You scared ten years off my life.”
“Really?” His eyes widened…all innocence.
With a snort, she treaded water with one hand while she used her other arm to cover her breasts. She prayed the water was murkier lower down. Hell, he’d jumped in while she’d been floating on her back. He had to have seen everything.
Mortified, her cheeks burned. “How long have you been here?”
His lips curled. “Not long.”
“Why didn’t you head back to the barn, like I told you?”
He frowned. “I didn’t figure I’d learn anything on the walk back, so I decided to follow you. And boy, am I glad I did. This place is great.” He tipped his head back, allowing his body to rise to the surface.
And he was completely naked!
Kalea forgot to move her arms in the water and sank below the surface. She came up coughing.
Hawk was beside her in a second, his hands on her arms, pulling her up to the surface and to a shallower position where her feet could touch the ground. “Are you okay, Miss Parkman?”
She coughed. “No, I’m not okay. You’re naked.”
He looked at her with a confused frown. “And?”
She shook her head. “You’re naked,” she repeated, unable to think of other words that would go along with her shocking discovery.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said, “so are you. I was just following your example.”
“Yeah, but this is my spot. My pool. No one comes here but me.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes wide with what appeared to be feigned regret and embarrassment.
“I thought you were showing me yet another perk of working on Parkman Ranch. But if my being naked embarrasses you, I’ll get out.” He started for the shore. With each step, his
body rose further out of the water until his butt crack appeared at the surface.
“Wait!” Kalea yelled.
He started to turn.
Kalea should have closed her eyes, but she couldn’t.
Then he was facing her, in all his incredibly muscular, sexy glory.
Her breath lodged in her lungs. She had no air to push words past her vocal cords. Not that her mind could engage to form a single coherent thought.
“Yes?”
Yes, yes, yes. Oh, man, yes!
Kalea opened her mouth, forming the word yes, when her mind kicked back in. She clamped her lips shut, physically shook herself and then said, “You didn’t go back to the barn because you’re another one of my father’s bodyguards.”
He stood still for a long moment, that impressive poker face in place.
“I knew it!” Kalea embraced the anger bubbling up inside, glad for the distraction over the blast of lust of a moment before. “Had you been a cowboy like my father painted you out to be, you would have gone after the horse. But no, you followed me. Because I’m the job…the client…the real reason you’re here on Parkman Ranch.”
Hawk reentered the water until it was up to his waist. “Your father loves you, and he’s afraid for your life.”
He kept coming toward her.
Her anger slipped a notch the closer he moved, replaced with that awe and lust of a moment before.
Though his man parts were submerged, she couldn’t get the image of them out of her mind. Her blood hummed through her veins, sending heat to her core.
When he stopped in front of her, she backed up, sinking deeper into the pool until her nose was barely above the water.
Hawk gripped her arms and brought her back to stand in water only up to her chin. “If you’re being targeted, don’t you think it’s a good idea to have someone watching your back? On the Navy SEAL team, we all looked out for each other. We knew no man could survive on his own.”
“I’m not in the Navy, nor am I a SEAL,” she said, her voice sounding breathy and completely unlike her normal confident tone.