Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OTHER BOOKS BY ABIGAIL STROM
Winning the Right Brother
The Millionaire’s Wish
Cross My Heart
Waiting for You
Into Your Arms
Almost Like Love
Nothing Like Love
Anything but Love
Tell Me
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2018 by Abigail Strom
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542048804
ISBN-10: 154204880X
Cover design by Damon Freeman
For Robert A. Heinlein, who introduced me to the Red Planet, and for my father, who introduced me to Heinlein
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chapter One
She was free.
Airin Delaney looked over her shoulder for the tenth time, just to be sure. No sign of her mother; no sign of anyone who worked for her mother; no sign of anyone but tourists, strolling around Waikiki on a beautiful evening in February.
Her tense muscles relaxed. She was just a person in a crowd now. Ordinary and unremarkable.
Normal.
She was only a few blocks away from her luxury hotel, but it felt as though she were in a different world. Bars, restaurants, souvenir shops, neon lights—all combining to create a kind of honky-tonk atmosphere, brightly colored and a little seedy.
She loved it.
Taking a deep breath, she inhaled a hundred different things—the smell of beer coming from the open door of a bar, steam rising from a dish of Chinese dumplings on an outdoor cart, the scent of plumeria from a stand selling leis. On an impulse, she stopped and bought one, bending her head as the proprietor placed the lei around her neck.
When she continued down the street, the scent went with her.
She’d stopped to stare at the sign above a strip club—the first time in her life she’d seen an actual strip club, outside of TV and movies—when someone bumped into her from behind.
“Oops! Sorry, ma’am.”
A strong hand closed around her upper arm, helping her recover her footing. She turned and found herself looking into the hazel eyes of a very tall, very good-looking man.
They stared at each other for a few heartbeats.
She wasn’t used to being touched by strangers—except, of course, for the medical professionals who’d drawn her blood and changed her IVs and poked and prodded her for so many years.
This was different.
There was nothing professional or antiseptic about this man’s touch or the way he was looking at her right now. His eyes widened as he took her in, his gaze neither blatant nor furtive. A slow smile lifted one corner of his mouth.
“Or maybe I’m not sorry,” he went on, his voice low and husky and intimate.
Her heart began to beat faster. Her pulse throbbed at her wrists and the base of her throat. There was a prickling under her arms—adrenaline, she knew. She’d experienced all these things in hospitals, waiting for people to do things to her body that she couldn’t control.
But while the physical sensations might be the same, the emotions that went with them were utterly different. It wasn’t panic she was feeling, or dread, but exhilaration.
With a little nervousness mixed in.
The man was wearing a brown leather jacket she recognized as the kind worn by fighter pilots. Her father had been one. He’d died when she was twelve years old, but her mother had kept his jacket.
Of course, plenty of men who weren’t pilots wore jackets like this. But something about the way this man held himself—not to mention the close-cropped military-style haircut—made her think he might be the real deal.
One of the things she remembered about her father was how present he always was. In the moment, ready for anything, with a grasp on everything happening around him.
This man was like that. Intensely alive, with an energy that seemed to crackle in the air.
And right now all that energy was focused on her.
He was flirting with her. There was actual flirting happening here, and she was the object of it.
How did women respond in situations like this? How would she respond?
She wanted to find out.
But before she could, they were interrupted. A big blond man came up beside them, shooting her a grin as he slung a heavy arm around the hazel-eyed man’s shoulders.
“No beautiful women, Hunter. Not unless they’re onstage wearing a lot less than that.”
His name was Hunter.
A third man joined them now, this one with longish brown hair and a Stetson.
“Not onstage, either,” the third man said. “I promised Jane no strip clubs. Anyway, why go out for hamburger when you’ve got steak at home?”
The second man looked at him. “Caleb, my dude, this is your last night of freedom. You don’t belong to Jane yet.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m whipped like you’ve never seen a man whipped before. No naked women, Stu. But I’m in favor of drinking whiskey until we can’t stand up.”
“I guess we can start there. Pick a bar. Any bar.”
This must be a bachelor party. Which meant that the man who’d bumped into her—Hunter—had plans that didn’t include flirting with her.
It was probably just as well. She’d come out tonight looking to be part of normal life, but that didn’t mean she had to jump into the deep end of the pool right off. She had another week in Hawaii, after all. Maybe tomorrow she could look into the whole man/woman thing.
Still, she felt a twinge of regret. If she were going to try her hand at flirting, she couldn’t imagine a sexier man to experiment with than this one.
It might have been her im
agination, but she thought she saw a twinge of regret in Hunter’s eyes as well. He hadn’t moved yet, and he was still looking at her.
The other two men were looking at her, too, and she was starting to feel awkward.
She took a step back, and Hunter took his hand from her upper arm.
“I hope you enjoy your evening,” she said. She didn’t know if that was what an ordinary woman would say in these circumstances, but if she second-guessed herself too much she wouldn’t make any progress tonight.
Feeling more awkward by the second, she decided to exit the scene as quickly as possible. She turned her back on Hunter and found herself facing the strip club and the building next to it—a bar. A few steps took her to the door of the latter. She started to open it, but a man and woman came out before she could.
They had to be tourists. They were wearing plastic leis, their Hawaiian shirts looked brand-new, and the man’s bald spot was pink with sunburn. They seemed very happy and a little drunk.
This was what she’d come out tonight to experience. She wanted to be a normal person doing normal things, carefree and happy and sunburned.
Not literally sunburned, of course. But metaphorically.
Why not start with a drink, like this couple had? That would be the shallow end of the pool, as opposed to the deep, dark, sexy waters represented by the hazel-eyed Hunter. And since she’d never been in a bar before—other than the fancy ones in hotels, where she’d always drunk club soda or Perrier—it would count as a brand-new experience.
The sound of someone tuning a guitar floated out through the open door. She knew from talking to the musicians who performed nightly at her hotel that it was a steel guitar, played slack-key style. She’d fallen in love with the uniquely Hawaiian sound, and hearing it now was the final push she needed. She smiled at the couple holding the door for her and stepped across the threshold.
Hunter watched the black-haired beauty until she disappeared inside the bar. Leilani’s, according to the sign in the window.
Her eyes had caught him first. They were big and lustrous, dark brown with deep red notes like cinnamon or teak or mahogany. Incredible eyes.
But it was the whole package that had held his attention.
She wore a crisp white collared shirt, the kind professional women wore to business meetings, and a pair of gray pinstripe trousers. Her shoes were expensive leather with chunky square heels. Her hair was loose, but the elegant perfection of the black satin waves made her look as though she’d just come from the hairdresser. Surrounded as she was by tourists and locals in shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops, and bathing suits, she looked as out of place as it was possible to be.
Was that what had intrigued him most? Or was it the fact that she was one of the most gorgeous women he’d ever seen?
“I think she has the right idea,” Caleb said. “This place looks as good as any. May as well start our bar crawl here.”
It was his brother’s bachelor party, so he got to decide where they went. The fact that Hunter wanted to get another look at the woman he’d bumped into was completely irrelevant.
Stu, Caleb’s best friend from college, led the way into the bar. It was big, dimly lit, and crowded, with a local musician tuning up on the small stage. Stu snagged them a table in the back.
“I’ll grab us some drinks,” Hunter said. “Whiskey all around?”
“Sure, but there’s a waitress,” Caleb said. “She’ll make it over here eventually.”
“Nah. Why wait? I’ll be right back. If she does come by, order some food. Chicken wings for me if they’ve got ’em.”
Of course, the real reason he wanted to visit the bar was to get another look at his mystery woman.
She was perched on a stool near the door. Hunter came up behind her in time to hear her conversation with the bartender, a skinny Asian man with tropical flowers tattooed on his arms.
“What’ll it be, Snow White?”
Not a bad nickname for a black-haired, fair-skinned beauty.
She put her elbows on the wooden bar and rested her chin on her folded hands. Her eyes traveled slowly from left to right, reviewing the array of liquor bottles.
“What would a normal woman order?” she asked after a moment.
Okay, that was weird. She sounded like an alien visiting Earth, tasked with the mission of trying to fit in with the local population.
The bartender was taken aback. “A . . . normal woman?”
She seemed to realize how odd her question sounded.
“Sorry. I mean, what do most women order when they come in?”
“Well . . . if you’re talking tourists, I guess a Blue Hawaii or a mai tai.”
His mystery woman looked intrigued. “What’s in those?”
Rattling off drink ingredients put the bartender—Kaleo, according to the name tag on his faded Hawaiian shirt—on more familiar ground.
“A mai tai is light and dark rum, orange curaçao, lime juice, and simple syrup. A Blue Hawaii is rum and vodka, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, and sweet and sour.”
She thought for a moment. “A blue drink sounds lovely. I’ll have that one. A Blue Hawaii.”
Kaleo grinned at her. “No problem, Snow White, but you look about eighteen. ID, please.”
Hunter was standing a little behind her and to the right, but he wasn’t close enough to see the name on the card she handed over. Kaleo gave it a long squint before saying, “A-I-R-I-N? I’ve never seen that before. Pronounced Erin?”
She nodded.
“Irish?” Kaleo asked as he began mixing her drink.
“My father was Irish, but my name is Kurdish. My grandmother came here as a refugee from Iran in the seventies. I was named for her.” She sighed. “Airin means ‘fiery and passionate.’”
Why the sigh? Did she think her name didn’t fit her personality? Did she wish it did?
Kaleo started to say something, but a man standing to the left of Airin interrupted.
“Waaaaaait just a minute,” the guy said. He was maybe forty years old, big but out of shape, and something in the tone of his voice put Hunter on high alert. “You’re a refugee? Did I hear that right? From Iran? You’re a goddam Muslim?”
It only took a split second for Hunter to insert himself between the man and Airin.
“Hey there,” he said pleasantly, keeping his broad back to Airin and giving the guy his full attention. “Where are you from, friend?”
He held out a hand, and when the other man took it automatically, Hunter gave him the kind of shake he’d still be able to feel tomorrow.
The guy looked bellicose and intimidated at the same time, which was as good an indicator as any that he was well lubricated with alcohol.
“I was having a conversation with a Muslim bitch,” he said, articulating his words carefully. He tapped Hunter on the sternum. “If you see something, say something. Who the hell knows what she’s planning? These people are animals.”
Anger shot through him, but he controlled his impulse to strike. This asshole was his size but older and out of condition—reason enough not to smash his face in.
“Hey, man,” Kaleo said, taking the empty glass that had been sitting in front of him. “You finished your drink, you’re all paid up, and now you’re gonna leave.”
The guy turned his belligerence on the bartender. “Was I talking to you, Chopstick? I’ll leave when I’m done with this Muzzie.”
Then he actually raised a fist.
Hunter grabbed him by the wrist and spun him around, twisting his arm behind his back.
“I think you’ll leave now,” he said, and marched him out to the Waikiki street.
Once he was free, the man turned and began to sputter at him. Hunter leaned in close, and the man got real quiet real fast.
“Here’s a pro tip at no charge,” Hunter said, his voice low and controlled. “If you ever get yourself arrested for assault with hate crime charges attached, you’ll find out what happens to racist cowards in prison.”
His intervention had taken less than a minute. Airin and Kaleo were exactly where he’d left them, the bartender with a bottle of blue curaçao in his hand and Airin sitting frozen, her brown eyes enormous and her soft lips pressed together in a thin line.
Seeing the shock and fear that still lingered in her expression, Hunter regretted the restraint that had kept him from punching the guy in the teeth.
Kaleo nodded at him. “Thanks, brah. What are you drinking? It’ll be on the house.”
Hunter shook his head. “That’s all—”
Then he heard his brother’s voice from behind him. “Three shots of Jack Daniel’s.”
The bartender laid three shot glasses out in the blink of an eye. Then he reached behind him without looking, grabbed a bottle of Jack, and filled them up.
“And here’s yours, Snow White,” he added, handing the finished Blue Hawaii to Airin. “This one’s on the house, too.”
Another customer was calling for his attention, and he went to take the order.
Caleb held a hand out to Airin.
“My name’s Caleb Bryce. You’ve already met my brother, Hunter.”
She took his hand automatically. “I’m Airin.”
“Nice to meet you, Airin.” Caleb nodded toward the other side of the room, where they could glimpse Stu through the crowd, sitting at their table in the back. “That’s a buddy of mine from college. I’m getting married tomorrow, and this is my bachelor party. How’d you like to join us while you drink that blue thing?”
Hunter gave his brother a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look, but Caleb kept his eyes on Airin.
Airin looked from Caleb to him and back again. “But . . . I couldn’t. You’re having a bachelor party. That’s men only, isn’t it? Except for strippers.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think I’m a stripper, do you?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re not a stripper, ma’am,” Caleb said gravely, though Hunter spotted the quirk at the corner of his mouth. “But you are a beautiful woman, and Stu keeps telling me I’m supposed to have beautiful women around tonight. If you join us for a drink, he’ll shut up about that for a while. So you’d be helping me out.”
She frowned a little. “That’s not your real reason. You’re making fun of me.”
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