Hawaiian Medic to Rescue His Heart

by Annie O'Neil

  “Load up—we’re late,” she said, instead of I think I love you—which, of course, would have been insanity. She didn’t love Zach Murphy. She was crushing on him. Hard. But that was a hundred percent superficial and could be quashed with some concentrated mind over matter. He was her boss. And just because her entire body felt more alive than it had in years, that did not equate with a deep lifelong love. Certainly not the kind her parents had experienced.

  “The moment I saw her... I knew.”

  And they’d wed two weeks later.

  Lulu and Zach had known each other for five weeks and could barely be in the same room together, let alone on the same island, so it was pretty clear the two of them had nothing on her parents’ love. Nor was this cloud cuckoo land.

  She revved the engine and reversed out of the drive, doing her damnedest to ignore the fact that Zach had sat in the back seat. Right smack-dab in the center of her rearview mirror.

  Twenty minutes later they were down at the beach.

  Harry and Zach climbed out of the Jeep and followed Lulu up a small bluff, from where they could see the crowd on the beach.

  Zach stopped in his tracks. “Wow.”

  Lulu beamed. She always felt that weird kind of teary happy on Superstars Surf Club day, and today was no different.

  “I didn’t expect there to be so many people,” Zach said, his voice a bit scratchier, a bit deeper than normal.

  “It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

  Below them on the beach was a crowd of about sixty or seventy people, about a third of them children, the rest of them family members and, of course, volunteers in their bright orange T-shirts.

  “And do all these kids—”

  “They’ve all got obstacles to surmount,” Lulu finished for him. “All sorts. Blindness, Down syndrome, autism, epilepsy, paralysis... But once they’re out in the water with our volunteers—”

  “None of it matters?” Zach finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  “Mini!”

  Lulu cringed as Harry virtually leaped into his father’s arms at the sound of her brother’s huge foghorn of a voice.

  “Mini-Menehune!”

  She lasered her best evil eyes directly at her brother’s chest. Don’t call me a magical dwarf! And then caught herself adding, Especially in front of Zach!

  “Hey! Mini! No shaka for the Mak-man?”

  “Who’s that?” Zach asked. “Friend of yours?”

  “Brother,” she growled.

  She’d been hoping for a bit more time before Makoa spotted her, but that was the thing about her brothers. Always there when she both did and didn’t need them. Her father’s last words to Makoa had been Look after your sister and all five of them had taken the instruction to heart.

  She popped on her brightest smile, hoping like hell that Mak would, for once, play it cool. “Hey, bruh! How’s it hanging?”

  “Great.”

  Her brother jogged up to them. Every insanely solid, muscled inch of his six foot five frame. He looked like a warrior with tattoos just about everywhere except his face. And that was only because their mother had made each of her sons promise that they’d never look battle-ready when she’d worked so hard to teach them the power of peace.

  Makoa threw her a look. One that said, You’re being nice. What gives?

  She shrugged and nodded at Zach, as a reminder that they weren’t alone.

  Makoa rolled his shoulders back and turned to Zach. “Aloha.”

  Lulu was so used to men squaring themselves off against her brothers—each as big as the other—that she was more than quietly impressed when Zach stayed as he was, one arm casually slung over his son’s shoulders, stance relaxed.

  “Aloha,” he said.

  Her brother gave him the chin-lift and a shaka sign, then looked down at Harry. “Who’s this little surfer man?”

  Zach looked to his son. “Want to introduce yourself?”

  Harry was staring up at Makoa as if he was Poseidon himself. In complete awe. Lulu was tempted to tell him that Mak’s favorite dress-up outfit had been an old hula skirt and a coconut bra their mother had given them to play with as kids, but thought it best to let the moment play itself out. Her brother might drive her crazy, but he was a sucker for little kids, having three of them himself.

  Mak knelt down, one knee on the sand, one tattooed forearm on his bent knee. He held out his hand. “I am Makoa. My friends call me Mak. You can call me Mak.”

  Harry beamed up at his father, then back at Mak. “I’m Harry. My friends call me...um... Harry.”

  “I like it.” Her brother gave the boy’s dark hair a scrub, then narrowed his gaze, as if inspecting him properly. He leaned forward conspiratorially and said, “You know, there was a King Harald. A Viking. A strong warrior of the sea. I bet you’re like him. Show me your muscles!”

  Mak struck a pose and then Harry did.

  They all laughed. Lulu’s brothers might be the most overprotective bears on the island, but moments like this reminded her that their hearts were made of solid gold. They also reminded her of how much she missed their big family gatherings. They were just so...complicated.

  Did she show up with a plus one who would be put through her brothers’ proverbial “boyfriend mangle”? Or did she show up single and endure the endless parade of men her brothers thought she should date?

  She threw a surreptitious glance at Zach, who was still standing tall, relaxed and completely unintimidated by her big brother. Something tingled inside her. The unfamiliar heated spray of possibility.

  Mak made a big show of being impressed by Harry’s tiny little boy muscles, then challenged him to grab on to his flexed arm and be lifted up in the air. He swung him back and forth, much to Harry’s delight and his father’s concern.

  Lulu knew that Zach had erased the crease in his brow before his eyes met hers, but she saw something there that she hadn’t seen before. A core-deep need to protect his son at all costs, which sometimes involved stepping back and letting mishaps happen and at other times meant throwing himself in front of a speeding bus. It was a role that took precedence over everything.

  Which made her wonder... What on earth had happened between him and his wife? Who could fail to be attracted to a man who honored his role as a parent so strongly? How on earth could you not want to do everything in your power to keep a kid this great safe and happy?

  Whatever it was, there was definitely something dark and twisty keeping a stranglehold on Zach’s free-and-easy side. It was a part of him she’d caught microglimpses of but had yet to properly unravel.

  “So!” Mak pushed himself up to stand, his dark eyes still on Harry. “You looking forward to surfing with a champion today?”

  Zach looked to Lulu. “Are you a champion surfer?”

  Mak laughed. “I meant me.”

  “What?” Lulu bristled. Really? Just because he had one more measly medal than she did, he was pulling rank? “I’m taking Harry out. You take your own kids out.”

  She felt Zach’s eyes zap to her as both he and Mak absorbed the protectiveness in her voice.

  She knew Mak would use it against her. Tease her pretty much until the world ended. But Zach...?

  She didn’t know.

  She barely knew his little boy, but they’d hit it off and she’d genuinely been looking forward to his first, inevitable laugh of delight when the wave and the board connected. When he recognized the harmony that came from working with the ocean’s strength rather than against it. Watching a child who had the cards stacked against him realizing he could be just like everyone else... There was no better feeling than that.

  “Chill, little sister.” Mak patted her head as if she were a sweet-natured but not very bright dog. “I meant champion of the games.”

  Lulu felt her forehead crinkle undern
eath her brother’s hand, which was still absently patting her head. “What games?”

  “The Intra-Island Search and Rescue Games,” he said, in a way that also said, Are there any other games worth talking about? He gave her head a final scrub, then reached out to shake hands with Zach. “I presume you’re the new boss-man? I’m Makoa Kahale.”

  “Good to meet you.” Zach shook her brother’s hand, then threw Lulu a quick look she couldn’t read.

  “What’s going on? Those games are between the Coast Guard and your Ocean Safety lot, right?”

  “Yes...” Mak drew the word out, then continued as if she were a simpleton. “And this year your little-bitty operation is in on the games.”

  “What?” Lulu looked at Zach and instantly saw that this was something he had known about and had actively chosen not to tell her. “Who’s on the team?” she demanded.

  “You are,” Zach said, his blue eyes cinching with hers.

  He looked nervous. Wary, even. As if he was waiting for a reproach for not having told her the instant he’d known. She didn’t care. This was the best news since...since news had been invented.

  “Are you kidding me? I’m on the team?”

  She whooped and threw her arms around Zach, pressing her face against his chest before her brain caught up with her body and she pulled away.

  He smelled good. Ocean, little boy...and maybe pineapple? He felt good, too. Strong, but lean. Not with that big monster-truck-style chest her brothers all had. And she wasn’t positive, because her own heart had been hammering so hard, but she was pretty sure she’d felt his heart pounding through his T-shirt.

  Panic? Or the same fizzy frisson she’d felt?

  Whatever...

  She started happy-dancing in front of her brother. “I’m gonna kick your booty!” She wiggled and shifted her dance toward Zach. “Who’s going to be my teammate? Casey?”

  “Me.”

  Her body stopped mid-dance. “You?”

  “Yeah.” He shifted his weight. “We’re the team.”

  About a thousand feelings she couldn’t identify fought for supremacy. Panic. Horror. Skittishness. But one overriding feeling canceled out all the negatives one by one.

  Excitement.

  She’d not seen him in proper rescue mode yet, but she had a feeling Zach Murphy was one of those quiet men who rose like a giant when challenged. And she was the one who was going to get to see his hidden talents revealed in all their glory. And then, of course, figure out how to smush all of her sexy feelings into competitive energy, so she could show her brothers she could stand on her own two feet once and for all.

  “That’s cool,” she said, with an air of indifference she definitely didn’t feel. She pointed two of her fingers at her own eyes then zapped them at her brother. “You’re going down, bruh.”

  Mak laughed and slapped Zach on the back. “Good luck with that.”

  Zach didn’t lurch forward under the weight of the thwack—instead he held his ground. “I’m willing to bet a barbecue dinner we’ll win.”

  Lulu’s eyes snapped from Zach to her brother and back again. He was? Wow.

  She crossed her arms in front of her and gave her brother a Now who’s nervous? nod.

  Mak stuck out his hand, still laughing. “I am more than happy to take that bet. I like my chicken spicy and my burgers pink.”

  Zach shook his hand and Mak wandered down to the beach, still laughing and shaking his head.

  “Wow,” Lulu said finally. “That was brave.”

  * * *

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, thought Zach. What had he been thinking? Challenging a man mountain who knew the islands as if they were part of his DNA to a search and rescue duel?

  No prizes for guessing the answer to that one.

  He’d wanted to impress Lulu.

  The way she’d looked at him... The way she’d felt as she’d thrown her arms around him when she’d found out she was on the team... It had been like being hugged by an energy bomb. A surprisingly cuddly energy bomb. A surprisingly sexy energy bomb.

  He hadn’t missed the way her breasts had pressed against his chest. How perfectly her head had tucked beneath his chin. Her cheeks had pinked when, for a nanosecond, she’d looked up at him, and there had been nothing but sheer joy in her eyes.

  So, despite every silent vow he’d made not to cross into the land of romance ever again, he’d found himself crossing it. Like a lovestruck knight intent on jousting for his lady’s honor. Only this time the lady in question would be wearing a high-vis vest, a safety harness and belaying down the side of a cliff. She didn’t need her honor saved. She needed it championed. And something he’d never before tapped into made him want to be the man who did just that.

  A whistle sounded down at the beach.

  “We’d better get down there.” Lulu held out her hand for Harry, still taking little skippy hops of excitement, broken up by the odd victory swing of her shoulders and hips. “We’re gonna beat my big brother!” she sang as she guided them down to where a dark-haired woman was beckoning everyone to gather in front of a row of wetsuits and surfboards.

  “That’s Chantal,” Lulu whispered. “She teaches surfing, but her day job is lifeguard.”

  Something about the way she said the word lifeguard resonated with Zach. It was the same way he said fireman or EMT. Respect and humility mixed in with the complicated mess of emotions that went with really knowing the job—knowing the people who sometimes lost their lives because of it.

  He wondered...

  He scrubbed his head as too many memories of shouldering coffins leaped to the fore. He’d lost more colleagues than he cared to mention. He’d not seen what his father had, but he’d definitely offered his condolences more than anyone should have to.

  He clocked up another silent notch for Lulu. She had no doubt lost people, too. She wasn’t the type to get preachy, or parade around her life experiences to get respect. She wanted to gain it the old-fashioned way. By earning it.

  When the safety talk had finished, and they’d zipped Harry up into a light wetsuit, Lulu looked at Zach but held her hand out to Harry. “This is where I take over. Is that cool?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It was. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t nervous.

  Twenty minutes later he had absorbed the fact that his concerns had been for nothing. Everything that had set him on edge about Lulu that first day they’d met—her air of recklessness, her need to win rather than be right, a daredevilry that left health and safety in the wind—had proved to be groundless worries.

  Her work ethic should have resolved his concerns over the past few weeks, because in fairness it was flawless, but whatever it was that was sparking between them had kept him on edge.

  He hadn’t wanted to put a name to it, but now, seeing her coax his son into standing up on a surfboard on an actual wave, he knew what it was he’d been trying to deny. Attraction. It was a raw, untethered, grab-your-guts-and-won’t-let-you-go type of attraction. And it scared the hell out of him.

  It was completely different from what he’d shared with his ex. This felt bigger, somehow. More powerful. Impossible to walk away from. Like she was made of nickel and he was made of iron. Repelling and attracting one another in equal measure.

  It wasn’t even purely carnal. Not just about her slick of black hair trained into a thick plait down the center of her spine. Or her amber eyes, flashing with hints of copper whenever their eyes met. Or the curve of her hips as they swept into her thighs. Well...they all helped. But it was the smile on his son’s face that he’d thank her for forever. His carefree laugh. The ease with which she showed him what was possible rather than, like his ex had, what wasn’t.

  The memories stung like venom. The pain was deep and long-lasting. But today, here on the beach, watching Lulu and his son swimming and surfing and, yes
, occasionally falling into the sea, he felt a peace he hadn’t felt in actual years.

  He closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the sensation of trusting someone other than his parents with his son’s happiness. It gave him access to a hundred other things he hadn’t given himself time or permission for. Feeling the heat of the sun on his skin. Acknowledging the rhythmic cadence of the ocean. The soft whir of wind among the palm fronds.

  He’d spent so much time thinking about what he didn’t have these past few years. This was the first time in a long time that he’d sat back and felt grateful for what he had.

  A gorgeous boy.

  Loving parents.

  A cool, slightly ramshackle house on the beach.

  A job.

  A beautiful colleague who drove him to the edge of reason...

  He blinked his eyes open when he felt water dripping on him. “Hey!”

  Lulu stood above him, her pitch-black hair haloed by the sun behind her. Her expression was unreadable.

  His son threw himself into his lap, charged with energy and pride, asking over and over again if he had seen him up on the surfboard.

  “I did, Harry. You were amazing.”

  The comment was meant for his son, but somehow Zach’s eyes connected with Lulu when he said it. Her smile wavered for a second. She looked out at the ocean, then back at him, her fingers toying with the central zip of her short wetsuit. It took every ounce of strength Zach possessed to keep his eyes on hers and not dip them down to that sweet spot where her breasts arced away from her breastbone.

  “You wouldn’t want to go for a ride, would you?” Lulu asked.

  Not what he’d been expecting. “What? With you?”

  “No, with my brother,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “Yeah, with me.”

  He hesitated.

  “Forget it.” She turned away, as if to go.

  “No, I—wait.” He stepped toward her and caught her hand in his, scrabbling to form an actual sentence that was made up of real-life words, and short-circuiting because of the electricity buzzing between them, between their hands.

  “Honestly...” She shook her head. “It was a stupid idea. It’s hard for two adults to be on the same board together, anyway. There’s...” Her eyes flicked to his, then dropped to his chest, his hips, his legs, and moved back up again. “There’s a lot of contact.”