by Anna Lowe
“So why do you do it?” he asked, more softly this time.
She ran her fists over her thighs, deliberating whether to tell him. She hadn’t even explained to her father, for goodness’ sake. Which might have been why she ended up telling Cruz, just to get it all off her chest.
“My family needs the money.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“My dad…” she started then trailed off. This wasn’t just her secret. It was her father’s, too. Should she really share that with Cruz?
If Cruz had pushed and prodded and insisted, she might have clammed up. But he just sat there, letting her tell as much — or as little — of her story as she was comfortable with.
“My dad is my main sponsor — well, the surf shop is. That way, I can compete on the tour without being trapped in too many contracts. Even back in his day, my dad hated how commercial the pro tour was becoming, and now it’s even worse. Especially the women’s tour, where some of the sponsors don’t see us as athletes — more like so much tits and ass. I’ve even heard a couple admit as much — off-camera, of course.” She scowled, remembering the first time she’d discovered how right her father was. “Having my dad’s business sponsor me is a win-win, because it really has brought attention to his shop.”
So what’s the problem? Cruz’s furrowed brow implied.
“The problem is, he’s gained enough attention for bigger operations to want to buy him out. They have the money to buy the place out from under him, too. He’s been holding out, and I thought everything was okay, but I just found out he mortgaged the business.”
“Your dad has a problem he never told you about?”
She made a face. No, her dad didn’t have an addiction or owe money to a loan shark or anything like that. “Problem? Yeah, he has a problem. He loves us too much.”
Now Cruz really looked confused.
“He sponsored me so I could surf on my terms and make the most of my chance, in part because he couldn’t make the most of his chance, back in the day.”
“Why couldn’t he?”
She couldn’t resist a smile, because the story always lit her up inside. “He quit the pro tour after he met my mom and my sister and me. When I was little, I mean. My mom was a single mother with two young kids. But one day, my mother and Ross met on a bridge. So technically, he’s my stepdad, but he’s always been just Dad to me.” Now she was beaming, because she loved imagining the scene, though she only had the vaguest memories of that day. “My mom’s car broke down in the middle of the bridge, and no one stopped to help her. No one. She was stuck with the two of us crying in the back, but then my dad came along.” She chuckled. “He always says it was destiny.”
“Destiny…” Cruz’s face grew serious. Deadly serious.
Jody nodded. “And my mom always said it was love at first sight.”
Most men rolled their eyes at that, but Cruz just studied her with his lips drawn in a tight line.
“His pickup wasn’t much better than our car, but he towed us home — my mom couldn’t even afford tow insurance — and, well… The rest was history. They fell in love, got married, and he adopted my sister and me. He quit the pro tour and opened his shop to help make ends meet. And it worked. We went from barely getting by to doing okay.” Jody took a deep breath. Before long, she’d be telling poor Cruz about every bedtime story her dad had ever told her. How he’d wiped her tears when her mother died of leukemia, and how he’d quietly shed his own before picking up the pieces and managing to keep them going through all that.
“These were my mom’s,” she whispered, showing him her bracelets. Each was a flat, quarter-inch titanium bangle etched with a geometric design — a family heirloom her father’s aunt Tilda had given to her mom on her wedding day. “She had six, and we each got two. I never take them off.”
Cruz sat motionless, looking at her.
She cleared her throat. “Anyway, my sisters and I grew up working in the shop.”
“Sister or sisters?”
“Sisters. I have an older sister and a younger sister — my mom and dad had her two years after they got married. My older sister still works in the shop.”
So what’s the problem? Cruz didn’t quite ask, though it was written all over his face.
“My older sister and her husband have been trying to have kids for years, and they’re running out of options. Mike is a welder, but he just started out, and the treatment they’re trying is expensive. So my dad mortgaged the shop to loan them money. Not that he told us about the mortgage part, of course.” She’d tried to be annoyed at her father for that, but she’d never really succeeded. “Like I said, my dad loves us too much. He’s put his business on the line for both of us. Now, the property tax on the shop is going up, and he’s left himself without any leeway to meet the difference. So I figured I would accept this one contract just this one time and take care of it all.”
“Why you?”
She stared at him. “Why not me? All my life, my dad has made sacrifices for us. It’s about time I make a sacrifice for him and help my sister at the same time. Maybe you see that as selling out, but I don’t.”
A truck rushed by on the road, buffeting the sports car with its drag, but Cruz didn’t blink. He just watched her like a new species he’d never encountered before.
“That’s not selling out,” he whispered.
Jody exhaled. Funny, how good it felt to have someone else say that. She tipped her head back to the perfect blue sky. A java finch fluttered past in a blue and gray blur, and she smiled.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. “Look — that bird is beautiful. Maui is beautiful. Life can be beautiful if you just concentrate on the right things.” Her parents had taught her that.
Cruz, though, was looking in the side mirror, watching clouds gather over the jagged mountain peaks. “Sometimes life is beautiful. Sometimes it sucks.”
She was tempted to smack his arm for ruining the moment, but his eyes were focused somewhere far, far away, and the corners of his mouth turned down. Then all she wanted was to cup his cheek and ask him what he had done or seen — or lost — to feel that way.
“Sometimes it sucks,” she agreed. “But mostly, it’s beautiful. I picture my sister holding a baby, and I know how precious it would be to her. And even better — I picture her handing her baby to my dad, and how over the moon he would be. And that is beautiful.”
Cruz looked over, his eyes shining with pinpoints of — hope? Denial?
“Seriously?” he asked. “Bringing a baby into a world as messed up as this is beautiful?
She nodded firmly. “Beautiful. Now repeat after me, Mr. Cruz Khala. Life is beautiful. Love is beautiful. You just have to believe.”
One side of his mouth went up while the other went down. “Believe, huh?”
The word sounded foreign, as if he was just learning it. Or trying to, anyway.
“Yep. You ever try that before?” She meant it as a tease, but the longer she looked into his eyes, the more serious the moment felt. The more time slowed down. And the more she wondered if this was how her mother had felt the day she’d met Ross Monroe on that bridge.
Cruz shook his head slowly. “No. Not for a while, at least.”
“Maybe you should,” she whispered so as not to jar herself out of the magical, mystical feeling of the moment.
Cruz’s chest rose and fell with each deep breath, and his voice was a low rumble. “Maybe I should.”
Chapter Ten
“Hey. What’s gotten into you?” Silas prodded Cruz.
Cruz snapped to attention, trying to remember where he was. Right — in the akule hale, the meeting house on Koa Point. His feet were propped on the lower edge of the stool he’d pulled up to the breakfast counter, and Tuesday’s newspaper lay before him. A mug of coffee steamed at his elbow, and the rich scent woke a dozen memories, like his father and mother standing in the kitchen of the house Cruz had grown up in. A place far away in place and memory.
/> Always crooked, his mom would fuss over his dad’s tie and jacket in that mix of adoration and exasperation she’d perfected over the years. A tone she had used on Cruz, too.
Good thing I have you, his dad would say, giving her a parting kiss. And you and you and you, he’d say, kissing each of the kids in turn.
Cruz closed his eyes. So many good memories, but so much pain, too. And, damn. The more time passed, the more he had let himself get mired in dark memories instead of good ones.
Life is beautiful. Love is beautiful. You just have to believe.
He took a sip of coffee — carefully, because it was hot. But, oops. The steaming coffee was lukewarm. Apparently, he’d drifted off again. He’d done a lot of that in the past few days, sometimes reliving the pain of losing his family, other times marveling over the sunshine that Jody seemed to carry wherever she went.
Jody. Let’s think about Jody, his tiger said, preferring more recent memories. Good ones.
So, yeah — he’d spent far too much time thinking about her. The two of them had spent Sunday confronting her slimeball manager then retracing her steps at the club. Despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to pick up any clues to the gunman. Then they’d hunkered down at Koa Point for most of another day, with Cruz making investigative calls while Jody worked out on the shore and in the water, carving stunning moves into the waves at Koa Point’s private surf break. Not that Cruz had been watching or anything.
Well, okay — maybe he had watched for a little while. How could he resist? It was so damn effortless, the way she harnessed those waves. Even the way she paddled out fascinated him. Left arm, right arm, left arm, all the way through the incoming surf. And just when he thought the next wave would push Jody back, she would duck and shove her board under the oncoming wave. Then she’d pop up on the other side, not even sputtering.
And that was just paddling out. Watching her lie on her board waiting for the perfect wave was just as fascinating. Quietly, patiently, she bided her time exactly the way a tiger lay in wait for his prey. Watching. Waiting. Coiling her muscles and coming out of nowhere to jump on the perfect wave. She would take off ahead of a ripple of water that looked like it wouldn’t amount to anything. But that ripple would lift and climb higher, chasing Jody in an all-out race to shore. A split second after the crest lifted and broke, Jody would rise, too, jumping to her feet and zooming down the face of the wave.
Of course, he’d seen plenty of surfers in his time. But he’d never really stopped and studied one — especially one as good as Jody.
It was breathtaking. Thrilling. Exhilarating — and hell, he was just observing from shore. What would it be like to fly down a rushing wall of water moving with that force and speed?
He had no idea, but, damn. It looked amazing.
The biggest waves, Jody rode diagonally, running away from the curling, foaming tip, crouching lower and lower in the tunnel of water underneath the breaking wave. Cruz crouched, too, listening to the roar of the waves, practically tasting the salt water on his sun-dried lips. He couldn’t even imagine how loud it must be for Jody inside. A thunderous roar? A continuous hiss? She wore a look of total glee all the way down the ever-closing barrel until Mother Nature gave up and let her go. Jody would surf out the waning wave, give her surfboard a barely visible pump, and turn around over the tail end. Then she’d drop down to her board to paddle out and do it all over again.
Of course, she switched it up every couple of waves. Sometimes, she rode out a wave in one long, effortless glide. Other times, she’d spin her hips and twist the board around, carving a white line across an aquamarine wall of water like an artist signing a masterpiece. And sometimes, she’d launch off the lip of a wave and rocket into the air. Like gravity didn’t apply to her. Like a bird. Her feet stayed rooted to her board even though she was nearly upside down, and she’d yank her head around to judge her landing the way a cat came out of a fall. When she landed, she bent her knees, adjusted her balance, and sliced right into her next turn.
Every once in a while, she’d goof, and the foamy crest of a wave would consume both woman and board. The wave would thunder as if to proclaim victory, but Jody would pop up laughing a minute later, still having a ball.
Life is beautiful. You just have to believe.
Cruz had to shake his head, impressed. Jody didn’t just say the words. She lived them.
You just have to believe, his tiger had echoed as she turned and paddled out again.
Cruz blinked a couple of times and cleared his throat. Okay, okay. So he had spent a little time watching Jody surf. So what?
“You have to stop obsessing about the past,” Silas said, pacing back and forth, pulling his focus back to the business at hand that Tuesday morning on Koa Point.
Cruz kept his eyes fixed on the coffee. Actually, he was obsessing about the lithe, lanky human who was getting closer and closer to his heart. A human he absolutely, positively, was not attracted to. Not in the least.
Not when she smiled that special way of hers — straight from the heart. Not when she brushed against him the couple of times they’d drifted close, sending shots of electricity through his body. Not even when she lay spread out on his futon at night, staring at the sky. Because yes, he’d prowled by once or twice in tiger form and peeked. Bodyguards had to keep an eye on their clients, right?
“Right,” he muttered.
Silas gave a satisfied nod as if Cruz was affirming his comment — whatever it had been.
“So, let’s go over this again,” Silas said, stalking around and around. His pacing was driving Cruz crazy.
“Yes, let’s,” Kai, Silas’s cousin, said. “I’m still not following you.”
Kai and his mate Tessa had returned late the previous night from their trip to the Big Island — too late for Cruz or Silas to fill him in on the details, which they’d agreed to catch up on now.
Cruz frowned. He might be obsessed with Jody, but Silas was fixated on Moira, his ex-fiancée. In the past two days, the dragon shifter had grown sullen, haggard, and shifty-eyed. He’d been taking marathon flights in dragon form that lasted half the night. The beat of mighty wings had reached Cruz at his perch in the jungle, and he’d caught glimpses of Silas’s shadow sweeping over the trees. Years ago, Moira had betrayed Silas, and those wounds ran deep. Open wounds, apparently, not the healed scars Cruz had assumed them to be.
“How does Moira fit into all this?” Kai asked.
“Moira owns and runs the Elements fragrance line,” Silas said. “It took me a while to dig through all the middlemen she’s set it up through, but I was able to track the final connection yesterday. It’s her, all right.”
Kai scratched his brow. “So Moira owns Elements, and Jody is one of the models. And someone tried to kill Jody…”
Cruz scowled. He’d snuck over to the Kapa’akea resort a second time and still hadn’t been able to find a trace of the gunman. Not a whiff of a trail, not a footprint except for those of the police. It was uncanny. What kind of hit man didn’t leave a scent?
“And Jesus — what’s this about McGraugh?” Kai went on.
Cruz shook his head, because he still hadn’t digested the latest news from their friend Ella, a desert fox.
Silas heaved a weary sigh. “Ella has been assisting our investigation on the mainland. McGraugh was found murdered in his office twelve hours ago. Ella said the police were calling it a botched burglary, but she doubts that.”
“Moira…hitmen…modeling… And we fit into this…how?” Kai asked.
“I wish I knew,” Silas said. “Moira must know we’re based here on Maui. She could be trying to provoke us — or frame us. Cruz was close to killing Jody himself. And if he had—”
Cruz looked at his shoes. God, he’d been so damn close.
“—he might have been caught. Imagine the trouble we’d have with half the Maui police force investigating everyone at Koa Point.” Silas set his mug down with an aggravated thump. “That’s the last t
hing we need.”
Cruz scowled. Other than the occasional speeding ticket, everyone at Koa Point abided by the law. They were shifters, a secret that could never be revealed.
“Does Moira know about the gem?”
Cruz wanted to groan. Yet another complication he didn’t need. “Moira has to know about the three Spirit Stones we have. But from what Jody says, I doubt Moira knows about the jewel the product manager is trying to bring in. It’s all his idea, and he wants to pop the secret on his bosses to make a big bang.”
Silas stood wearily and checked his watch. “I’m going to go call Ella and see what else she might have discovered. That, and I’ll try to find out which jewel this Richard person is planning to bring in.”
Kai and Cruz watched him go, exchanging silent glances. Then Kai leaned closer. “Okay, now you fill me in on what’s going on.”
Cruz furrowed his brow. “We just did.”
Kai lifted one eyebrow. “Did you? Because I still don’t understand why you’re the one sitting here, clean-shaven like it’s date night, while Silas is the one pacing around like a caged tiger. Pardon the cliché.”
Cruz was about to protest when Kai caught sight of something behind him and murmured, “Let me guess. She’s the reason.”
Cruz whirled far too eagerly. Yep, it was Jody, who’d been teaching Tessa to surf in the calmest patch of water off their private beach. Jody broke off from saying something to Tessa and focused on him. Their eyes met and—
His breath caught, and his blood rushed.
Mate, his tiger rumbled.
Jody’s step hitched, but she covered up quickly, strolling up as casual as can be.
Cruz struggled to do the same. Every time he saw her, he lost his breath. And not from her clothes or her makeup or the way she did her hair, because he rarely noticed any of that. It was the sparkle in her eyes, the bounce in her step, the grin on her face. Yes, she was beautiful. But she could inhabit an entirely different body and still take his breath away. It was all in her personality, her breezy way of dealing with — even celebrating — life.