Hunter's Pride

by McKenna, Lindsay

  Gripping the doctor’s long, thin hand, Kulani whispered, “Thank you—for everything. I—I didn’t think he’d survive.”

  Laughing a little, Dr. Derin said, “Frankly, we didn’t either. But he’s a tough buzzard. Where I come from—Arizona—we rarely see a person like Mr. Hunter. He’s got a strong will to live and that’s what really pulled him through.”

  Feeling grateful, Kulani released the doctor’s hand. Shep moved closer, offered his hand to the surgeon and thanked her, and so did Morgan. After the doctor left, Morgan patted Kulani on the shoulder. “Tell Dev we’ll visit him later today? Shep and I have some business to attend to.”

  “What? The professor? Did the FBI pick him up with the three mercs Dev took down?”

  Morgan glanced at Shep, who stood quietly at his side. “The FBI helicoptered in and found the three mercs still unconscious. Right now, they’ve got a search party looking for Valdemar.” He gave her a proud look. “You retrieved the anthrax. That’s what really counts here. You’ve saved a lot of lives, the two of you.”

  “But what about the professor? What if he gets away?”

  “He won’t,” Shep growled.

  Morgan nodded. “I’m sending Shep in to track him down.”

  Just the icy glimmer in Shep’s eyes told Kulani about the man’s abilities. His last name was Hunter, and she was sure he lived up to it. She had the distinct feeling that Shep was an extraordinary individual with certain skills that few people would ever possess. “Good luck on finding him. He still has a rifle, and I don’t know how much ammo he took with him,” she warned.

  A bare hint of a smile crossed Shep Hunter’s thinned mouth. “Doesn’t matter, Kulani. He’s mine. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Kulani saw the look in Morgan’s eyes. It was obvious that he highly respected Shep’s talents. “Good. Be careful. He’s deceptive. You wouldn’t think a man of that size would fight so hard, but he did. He’s fanatical.”

  “Listen,” Morgan told her, guiding her to the couch, “just sit here and rest until they bring Dev up. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you when he finds you in his private room, waiting for him.”

  Kulani nodded. There was nothing more that she wanted right now than to be with Dev. “I’ll see you two later.”

  Shep rubbed his square jaw briefly. “Tell my little brother I’ve gone hunting. After I find that low-life bastard, I’ll come and see him.”

  Dev hovered between semiconsciousness and waking. As they wheeled him on the gurney into his private room, he saw Kulani standing impatiently near the head of the bed, her arms crossed against her breasts tensely. She was still wearing her black, dirty uniform, her hair in disarray, the thick braids hanging across her shoulders. Never had she looked more beautiful to him. Pain drifted in and out of his body, taking all of his attention for a moment. But he saw her straighten and her arms fall to her sides when the nurses wheeled the gurney closer, and he felt his chest explode with joy. Kulani was safe. She wasn’t hurt.

  Dev remembered pain erupting through him when he took the second bullet. His last thought had been that they were going to die. And he couldn’t stand the thought of Kulani dying.

  “Hi, stranger.” She greeted him softly when the gurney was parallel to the bed.

  He gave her a sloppy, one-sided smile. “They said there was a beautiful Hawaiian goddess waiting for me in my room. I’m a lucky man….”

  Tears filled her throat, and Kulani swallowed them. That was her Dev—the charming, teasing man whose smile, even now, made her feel euphoric. She watched as the nurses gently transferred him to the bed and set up the IV drip next to it.

  Waiting until they left, Kulani moved to the side of his bed. Dev looked ashen and there was dampness across his furrowed brow as he looked up at her. There was darkness in his green eyes, and Kulani reached out and slid her hand into his.

  “You deserve this,” she whispered, leaning over the bed and finding his mouth. His lips were cool against her warm ones, but as she clung to his, she felt his returning strength and promise of life. Now she was unable to stop her tears and they ran down her cheeks to their clinging mouths.

  Dev was weak. He wanted to claim her soft, gentle kiss and deepen it, but he just didn’t have the strength. He tasted the saltiness of her tears. As Kulani lifted her head inches from his and met his eyes, he saw the joy burning in her gaze. “You know what?” he croaked.

  “No. What?” Just getting to hold his hand and hear his roughened voice was enough for Kulani.

  “I’m the luckiest bastard on the face of this earth. I have you….” He choked back tears as he saw more fall from her large, expressive eyes. She looked incredibly exhausted by the demands of the mission. “Hey…why don’t you go home? Get a hot shower, eat some chow and then hit the rack. You look tired….”

  Kulani understood the effort it took for Dev to talk. His eyes were cloudy looking from the aftereffects of the anesthesia, and she was sure the pain meds were making him groggy, too. Squeezing his hand, she told him about Morgan and Shep. Dev closed his eyes and sighed raggedly.

  “Good…Shep’s a lethal hunter. He’ll find that son of a bitch one way or another. No one can track like my big brother can. Morgan was smart to fly him over.”

  His last words slurred badly. Leaning back over Dev, Kulani pressed a kiss to his damp brow. “I’m going home to clean up, but then I’m coming back. You just get your rest, okay?” How badly she wanted to tell him of her love for him. Did Dev love her? She wasn’t at all sure. Still, the driving need to share her feelings with him was almost her undoing. Right now, Dev needed to sleep in order to heal and get rid of the anesthesia.

  “Okay…” he whispered, and dropped off into a deep, healing sleep.

  The next time Dev awoke, Kulani was standing beside his bed watching him through her thick, black lashes. It took him a precious moment to realize where he was, what had happened and why. She was dressed, to his delight, in a rayon sarong that was tied behind her neck. Bright red, yellow and pink hibiscus lay on a wine-colored background and lovingly outlined every delicious and feminine curve of her body. He grinned weakly. “You’re not wearing a damn thing under that, are you?”

  Laughing softly, Kulani reached out and threaded her fingers through his short, dark hair. “No. I find it interesting that after coming out of major surgery, your mind, even now, is on things like this. You’re incorrigible, Hunter. You really are.”

  Dev gave her a tender look. “But you like me—just a little bit, maybe?” Closing his eyes, he absorbed the feel of her slender fingers moving gently across his scalp and down his neck. Even now, the tense, tight muscles were loosening beneath her magical touch.

  Kulani smiled. “Just a smidgen, Hunter. I don’t want to feed that big ego of yours any more than I have to.” And then, as she held his drowsy-looking eyes tenderly, she said, “I need you, though. A hundred percent.”

  Kulani had headed home, taken a hot shower and gone straight to bed. Awakening six hours later, she had grabbed something to eat and hurried back to the hospital. The night sky was bright with twinkling stars, and on the way over to see Dev, her heart had flown with joy in her love for him.

  “Mmm, I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Dev murmured as she continued to lightly massage his head and neck. “That feels so good….” More than anything, her soft admission that she still needed him, even though the mission was over, flowed through him like golden sunlight. He hoped she would need him forever, because he needed her for that long, too.

  Heartened, Kulani moved her fingers across his gowned shoulders, kneading the heavy muscles there. “I give great foot massages, too, if you’re interested. My mother taught me that by massaging a person’s feet, you stimulate the rest of the body in a very positive way. Interested?”

  Dev barely opened his eyes. “You can touch me anywhere, anytime. I’m yours.” And he was. He saw the laughter come to her sparkling midnight eyes and he feasted on the sight of her. Kulani had
washed her hair, and it hung straight and full across her shoulders, down across her small, firm breasts.

  “You’re easy to please,” she whispered as she moved to the end of his bed. His right leg was suspended in a sling. She chose his left one. Taking a bottle of lotion from the nearby bathroom, she gently pulled the sheets and blankets away to expose his foot. He must wear at least a size ten or eleven shoe, she thought as she squeezed some lotion on her hands and then rubbed it gently across his foot, being very careful not to jar him.

  Dev groaned in enjoyment as her slender fingers moved in a slow, sliding motion across the sole of his foot. “Can I get this done every day?”

  “Yes, you can,” Kulani said. “As a matter of fact, Morgan was going to put you up in a condo here on Kauai for your recuperation, which is going to take almost a year.”

  Dev opened his eyes. “What?”

  “I told him no,” Kulani said as she slid her warm fingers across his toes. “I told Morgan that you could come to my place and recover.” She held his foot between her hands and looked up at him gravely. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to stay at my place?”

  His brows shot up. “Your place?”

  “Yes. Are you game?”

  His mouth pulling into a grin, Dev held her tender expression. “Are you? Do you really need a cripple in your life?”

  She gazed at him in the gathering silence, moving her hands down the length of his foot. “You were crippled,” she began gently, “thinking that no one needed you. Well, you found out that wasn’t true. And as for your leg making you crippled physically? I can handle that with no problem.” She smiled. “I make a mean pot of chicken soup, Hunter. And I’ve got some herbs in my mother’s garden that are good for healing broken bones. I can make you a tea from them every day.”

  His chest grew warm and he felt his heart beating hard in his chest. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am.” Kulani traded a look of humor with him. “I have a spare bedroom in the bungalow. You’ll need a special bed for that broken leg of yours. Morgan will see that you get what you need. All he needs to know is where you’re staying to recuperate.”

  Just the look in her eyes told Dev so much more than ever before. He was weak, but his mind whirled with questions. “Home?” Dev hadn’t meant the word to slip out, but it had. He gripped the sheets with his hands momentarily in angst over the faux pas. He couldn’t help but see Kulani as his home. His wife. The mother of his children. And Kauai as their home. Love had smitten him. He couldn’t look at her any other way because he did love her, and he wanted a home with her…and babies, lots of them….

  Hesitating fractionally, Kulani heard the hope, the promise in Dev’s voice when he said “home.” Carefully replacing the sock on his foot, she looked up and held his anguished gaze. “Yes,” she whispered softly, “home, Dev. You’re coming home with me….”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “This is incredibly beautiful,” Dev told Kulani as she approached him at a trot after her swim in the ocean. “But not as beautiful as you.” He relaxed on the dark red cotton blanket beneath the palms, shaded from the noonday sun on Secret Beach. His mending leg was stretched out in front of him and he was wearing nothing but a set of cutoffs, his chest bared to the sunlight and shadows. He held up a paper cup filled with guava juice in a toast to her.

  Glancing at the dark red incision, finally healed, on his thigh, Dev shoved his toes into the warm golden sand. It felt exhilarating to be out of the house and the rehabilitation center. He was getting a little stir-crazy, as he’d told Kulani earlier. She’d suggested going to the beach for lunch and he’d leaped at the idea. The teak cane sat off to one side, a reminder that he still needed physiotherapy on his broken leg and that he couldn’t walk without assistance yet. Still, it was a helluva lot better than that set of crutches he’d had to endure for the first two months of his recovery efforts.

  Kulani laughed delightedly at his charming compliment. She stopped just short of the blanket where he lay propped up on one elbow, and shook the last of the salty water off her arms before she sat down cross-legged next to him. “After twelve weeks of rehab, I figured you’d want a change of pace.” Secret Beach was a hideaway that the locals kept to themselves. The crescent-shaped bay lay on the north shore of Kauai, hidden by a range of grass-and-brush-covered hills. Only a steep climb down a very hard-to-find path yielded access to the beach. Although Dev did not know it, Secret Beach was a place for lovers. Through the decades, it had garnered that reputation because it was so exceedingly hard to find, nestled lovingly as it was between white coral rocks on either side. The coral, long dead, reminded Kulani of huge, misshapen pearls, their whiteness a stark contrast to the deep blue of the ocean and the shimmering gold of the sand. The effect was one of incredible beauty that she never failed to appreciate.

  Snorting, Dev looked up. “I was getting ready to scream. Anything to get out and get active again.” His fractured thigh was healing surprisingly well, but until just last week, he hadn’t been very mobile at all. As a matter of fact, Dev ached to get his hands on Kulani, to love her and make their relationship complete. Since his wounding, she had divided her time between her job flying tourists and taking care of him at the bungalow. She’d cut her flight days in half to make sure he got a ride to the hospital every other day for long, painful rehabilitation sessions. His wounded, broken leg was not as muscular looking as his other one. Healing had come slowly, and Dev looked forward to the day when he could work out hard in a gym.

  Sunlight danced beguilingly between the leaves of the overhead palms. The peekaboo shadows moved across them, teased by the breeze. Looking over at Kulani as she sat down, Dev found his body going hot with intense longing for her. Ever since she’d brought him to her bungalow for recovery, they had not made love. Oh, he’d steal a molten kiss from her more and more often, especially of late, but Dev knew in his heart they had needed the last three months to really get acquainted with one another. Never had he laughed so much, felt so happy, as during these last twelve weeks.

  He watched through half-closed eyes as Kulani munched enjoyably on a golden-skinned papaya he’d cut up and placed on a paper plate for her for after her swim. Her hair was slick and shining from her recent dip in the cobalt sea. The doctors had told him to wait awhile before swimming in the ocean, as the fractured femur couldn’t stand the lashing and pounding of the waves. In another month, he could go swimming in that sparkling blue-and-green water that crashed in foamy froth and champagnelike bubbles along the curve of the sun-gold beach.

  “You look delicious,” he growled. And she did. She wore a bright red bikini. Her curving breasts, small and firm, were exposed to a large degree, and he enjoyed absorbing her natural beauty into his heart. Tendrils of drying dark hair fluttered around her face, at the whim of the breeze. Kulani looked up and smiled at him, her lips glistening with papaya juice.

  “You look kinda tasty yourself,” she said and laughed, her heart expanding with a wild kind of joy. Dev looked absolutely scrumptious in his cutoff jeans. “I always like looking at you, Hunter. You’re my dessert.”

  His grin widened considerably. “You’re bold today, Ms. Dawson.” More than ever, over the last weeks, Dev realized he no longer needed his pride. Kulani made it easy for him to work on getting rid of it. He liked her in his heart. He liked the fact she needed him in small and large ways, every day, all the time. But he found he needed her in the same ways, too.

  Setting the papaya skin aside, Kulani wiped her lips with a dark pink paper napkin. She saw the implike quality dancing in his forest-green eyes as she moved to her knees and eased over to where he lay. Leaning down, she captured his very male, smiling mouth with her own. For a moment, she felt him tense in surprise. Kulani had been careful not to tease Dev during the months he’d been living with her. They’d never made love. They’d never talked about it. Instead, she had a sense that their time together was about discovery of one an
other, and indeed, it had been.

  As she moved her lips along his, she tasted the sweetness of the chocolate bar he’d just consumed. His arm slid around her waist and she eased herself down the length of his tall, powerful body. Breaking the heated kiss, Kulani gazed into his slitted eyes, which held a hot, predatory look in them for her alone. Easing her fingers up his arm and across his shoulder, she whispered, “It’s time, Dev. I want you. All of you. I think we’ve waited long enough?”

  His mouth drew into a grin. “I like your brazenness, Kulani Dawson.” He threaded his fingers through her very damp hair. “And yes, it’s been a long, hellish time waiting for you.” She closed her eyes as he gently massaged her scalp with his fingers. “I’ve missed you in my bed, at my side at night. That’s where you belong, you know.”

  Kulani opened her eyes and drowned in his. Because of his broken leg, there was no way she could sleep at his side, or even make love to him without aggravating the healing bones. They both knew that if his leg didn’t heal properly, he’d have ongoing problems with it for the rest of his life, and they had grudgingly accepted the reality of the situation. Kulani sensed that if Dev hadn’t broken his leg, they would have loved one another a lot sooner. Still, there was something torturously delicious about waiting, too. Now it was safe to love him. His leg had healed well. As she skimmed the hard line of his jaw, she said softly, “You don’t know how many nights I’ve lain awake, alone in my bed, and wished you were there beside me….”

  Untangling some damp, dark strands of hair from behind her delicate ear, he nodded and became serious. “I know, sweetheart, I know….”

  She framed his face with her hands and held his burning gaze. The soft trade winds caressed them like the lovers they were going to become shortly. The beach was utterly deserted, and to Kulani, this was a very special place, the place where she wanted to give herself in a sacred way to Dev. Sunlight danced across his form and she was once again reminded how much a part of nature they really were. Animals with a veneer of civilization, really. She thrilled to Dev’s touch as he ran his finger in a provocative motion down her cheekbone to her parting lips.