by Annie O'Neil
Who was worth living for and who was worth dying for?
It was a lose-lose tug of war she’d never been able to figure out when it came to her personal life, and most likely the thing that had always compelled her to keep her relationships short and sweet. Which did beg the question: Why have them at all?
Because deep down you know you want it, knucklehead. You know you want to love that hard. That big. That generously.
She forced herself to dial back the deep thoughts and remember what had pulled her down this rabbit hole in the first place.
Babies. That was it. Babies...
A little shudder swept through her, then stalled...
Primary school kids...teens...her ever-increasing gaggle of nieces and nephews... She couldn’t get enough of them. Instead of decreasing the amount of love she had, each new arrival, whenever one appeared, opened up a fresh expanse of love she hadn’t realized she could tap into. And it wasn’t just her nieces and nephews. It was the kids down at the Superstars Surf Club. Harry...
The tug of longing turned into a tight, achy knot. Avoiding Zach hadn’t meant neglecting Harry. She’d continued to teach him to surf. He shouldn’t be penalized just because his dad had a fiercely grabbable ass and desperately kissable lips.
She closed her eyes as the knot in her stomach turned molten and started swirling around inside her. She could even smell him. That citrusy man scent that... Wait a minute...
She blinked her eyes open. If stomachs could plummet and flutter all at the same time, that was what hers was doing.
“Hey,” Zach said, giving her a hip-height wave.
Hips she had fit into as if they were Lego pieces, born to nestle together, snug and perfect.
She swallowed and tried to look as if her insides weren’t throwing themselves a party. “Hey, yourself.”
Nice one, Lulu. Way to show him you aren’t re-enacting your teenage how-to-snag-a-guy skills.
Zach cleared his throat, his body language shifting from wary to defensive. “Forgive me for being a bit slow on the uptake, but is this whole taking a vacation to work another job your way of saying you don’t want to represent the OST at the games?”
Her entire body leaped to attention. “No. Absolutely not.”
He didn’t move, but she was pretty sure his eyes had turned a warmer shade of blue. “Okay. Well, in that case, you are aware we have to leave for the Big Island tonight, right?”
“Yes,” she scoffed.
Duh. She knew the start date of the games like she knew the Fourth of July. It was one of those dates branded into her annual calendar. Which day, which island, which resort...
All of a sudden her brain was flooded with images of the resort where they’d be staying...the cocktails she’d have to resist drinking to stay out of the bed where Zach would be sleeping. And Zach must be having a similar sort of mental slideshow, because the already humid air had turned about as thick and sultry as it could without actually plunging the two of them into one of Hawaii’s sudden downpours.
“How’s Harry?” she asked.
“Good.” Zach nodded. “Still loving his surf lessons, so... Thanks for keeping your word about that.”
A protest caught in her throat, but she caught it just in time. She’d told Zach she’d train with him and she hadn’t, so she deserved that jibe. Harry, though... She wasn’t about to let her mixed-up feelings about his dad get in the way of their relationship. He was just a kid. He didn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire of whatever it was that was happening between them.
“Well...” Zach shifted a pile of sand from one foot to the other. “Shame we’ve missed out on a week’s worth of training.”
His tone was impossible to read. Which, of course, made her insanely crazy. She wanted to strangle him and kiss him all at the same time. Scream at him. How on earth do you think we’re ever going to win the games if all I’m thinking about is what you feel like naked?
And then, to her horror, she realized she’d just said all that in her out-loud voice.
“Hey, bruh.” Lulu’s colleague for the day, Jason, came round the corner, holding a couple of popsicles. He looked from Zach to Lulu and said, “Shift’s over.” He handed her one of the frozen treats, then gauged the energy surging between the pair of them. “I would’ve got another if I’d known you had company.”
Lulu took her popsicle, made the introductions and then, to give herself something to do other than go back to her sexy, angry staring contest with Zach, began to eat it.
When she realized Zach was watching her with something a lot more like lust than disdain, she felt herself coil like a boa constrictor, seeing his desire.
“We’re going to the Intra-Island Search and Rescue Games tonight,” she said to Jason, and then, to Zach, “What time is the flight?”
“Seven. I can pick you up if you like,” he said, his eyes not leaving her mouth as she tried and failed to stop her tongue from swirling round the top of her popsicle as if it were—
The ambulance radio squawked out a report.
“If you two lovebirds will excuse me?” Jason said.
Neither of them acknowledged the comment. They weren’t lovebirds. They were lust monsters. One of them in a grotty end-of-shift uniform, one in a disturbingly sexy pair of completely ordinary cargo shorts and an old NYFD T-shirt.
How on earth did he do that? Make off-the-rack athleisure wear look as if it demanded attention? Demanded fingers on buttons, on zips, tugging, pulling, getting that waistband off those perfect hips and tugged down until—
“Lulu!” Jason banged on the side of the ambulance. “Someone was playing Tarzan up the road and needs an ambulance. Want some overtime?”
She could barely remember her own name right now, let alone divine if she wanted overtime or not. “Yes...”
“Wanna do a ride along?” Jason asked Zach. “See how the real rescue crews work?”
Lulu whirled on Jason. “Zach worked for Fire and Rescue in New York,” she said, far more defensively than she probably should have.
Jason smiled and put out his fist to Zach. “Respect, dude. Things run at a different pace out there. Wanna come along and see how we roll?”
“Sure.”
“You two strap yourselves in the back,” he said, with a wink to Lulu. “Give you a chance for some alone time.”
They did as they were told, each of them buckling into a bench seat with nothing but a stretcher between them. It might have been the entire expanse of the Pacific Ocean or a toothpick. He felt both near and far away. Impossible to have and just as impossible not to.
After what felt like an eternity, but was actually about thirty seconds, Zach broke the silence. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”
“It’s a bit late now!” She held out her hands, pointing out the obvious, then lurched forward as Jason took a sharp turn. Her hands landed on Zach’s chest. He wrapped his fingers round her wrists and leaned in, holding her there, close. Too close.
“The games,” he said.
She tugged her hands free. “Oh, no. No, no, no, you don’t. We are definitely doing those.”
Zach flinched, as if scorched by the fire in her pronouncement. “Why? Why’re they so important to you?”
“Because it’ll prove to my brothers I don’t need to be protected. If I don’t win these games and prove I have what it takes, they’ll never leave me alone!”
There. She’d said it. She needed to prove her strength to her brothers once and for all. Now that Zach had taken her job, her house and her common sense, the games were all she had left.
He studied her in silence, his eyes searching hers in the same way he inspected a patient. Looking for the pain. For the real source of the injury beyond the superficial.
How could she explain what she was going through and not sound insane? How could she
tell him that falling in love the way her parents had...the way she was doing with Zach this very second...was the most terrifying thing in the world? Love like theirs meant crossing the line. Paddling out into an ocean you knew could devour you whole.
It was why she pushed so hard. Accepted rescues that might mean possibly never coming back. She wanted to see just how far she could go and still retain control. Only when she’d pushed those limits far enough so that her brothers had to acknowledge her strength, her resilience, could she finally start to allow those other things she wanted in life some oxygen.
“Is that what you really want?” Zach finally asked. “To be left alone?”
It was a loaded question and they both knew it.
If she said yes, she knew he’d come to the games, behave impeccably, give them his all. But he wouldn’t have that extra fire, the charged glow he always had when they pulled off some feat or another together.
If she said no...
Her heart strained at the thought of stopping this—whatever it was—before it even had a chance to begin.
“No.”
“Well, then,” Zach sat back, his eyes sparking with a determined resolve she’d not seen in them before. “What do you propose we do?”
* * *
Zach folded the cocktail napkin into ever-reducing squares, then watched it unfold when he released it. It was a metaphor, he told himself, for earlier this afternoon.
When Lulu hadn’t answered his question in the ambulance he’d stayed quiet. He’d offered an extra pair of hands when “Tarzan” had needed his ribs wrapped but refused because it would “totes mess up” his tan line. He’d changed his mind when Zach had started asking Lulu about the dangers of punctured lungs.
He liked how they worked together. How they could each read a patient, pick an angle and go with it after a small shared acknowledgment. Her amber eyes would glow with the love of a challenge, with the rush of adrenaline that came from every rescue, every patient—no matter if it was a lack of sunblock on a toddler or a surfer with a bloodied nose and a concussion after his board had smashed against his face.
He liked her.
Plain and simple.
Probably more.
Definitely more.
But that was a drawbridge he wasn’t yet prepared to cross. Not until she figured out what she wanted. He hadn’t planned on falling in love, let alone finding himself neck-deep in unrequited love, but something deep in his gut told him this wasn’t unrequited. More...undecided. And not because of him.
But he had his son to think about. To prioritize. Forever and always. And if that meant backing away from a girl who made his heart pound against his rib cage every time he saw her so be it.
“Here you go!” Lulu appeared in front of him holding two cocktail glasses shaped like pineapples, one in front of each breast.
He looked away. They were here for the games. Not for him to ogle her breasts.
“Hope you like rum,” Lulu said, putting the drink in front of him and taking a rather large gulp of her own. “It’s pretty much all a mai tai is made out of.”
He took a sip and choked. “Wow!” He drank deeply from his water glass. “You weren’t kidding.”
Lulu raised one of her eyebrows at him and, her eyes still connected to his, took a long, thirst-quenching drink of her own mai tai. No flinching. No wriggling as the alcohol hit her nervous system. Nothing apart from a tiny quirk at the corner of her mouth as if she’d just given him a test and he’d failed.
Maybe hers was a virgin cocktail.
Zach was about to ask what else was in the drink when a towering figure of a man thundered across the open-air bar.
“It’s Mini-Menehune!”
“Oh, Lordy...” Lulu took another large gulp of her drink, shot a quick, “Prepare yourself,” to Zach, then jumped up and did a double shaka. “Hey, bruh. Howzit?”
She threw a quick glance back at Zach. One that said, Stand up. Don’t let him tower over you.
He stayed where he was. He’d met plenty of men like Makoa. Physically intimidating, made of machismo, but when push came to shove, if you found the right trigger, made of molten caramel inside. He had a pretty good idea that Lulu was his trigger...so he’d stay where he was.
Makoa, as anticipated, saw that Zach hadn’t stood up and, sensing his sister’s nerves, crossed to him and put out his hand. “Hey, bruh. Good to see you again.”
Tick!
Zach took the hand and shook it. “Nice to see you.”
“Ready for the games tonight?”
Zach shook his head, confused. “I thought they didn’t start until tomorrow?”
“No, bruh.” Makoa unleashed one of his belly-jiggling laughs. “The proper games start tomorrow...the team building games start tonight.”
“Team building?” Lulu’s eyebrows arrowed toward her nose.
Makoa swiped an enormous paw in the air. “Aw, you know... It’s all of that touchy-feely If I trust you, we can do anything sort of stuff.”
“Oh, right. I see.” Lulu took another, immensely large gulp of her drink and then, with a casual air Zach knew she wasn’t owning, asked, “Are there prizes?”
Makoa patted her head, changing his voice so he sounded like a kindergarten teacher. “Yes, my darling little sister. There will be prizes.” Then he leaned back and roared with laughter. “Probably the only ones you’ll be winning this weekend.”
Zach bristled on Lulu’s behalf. Sibling rivalry was one thing, but he was pretty sure Makoa didn’t understand how much these games meant to Lulu. Which killed him. She was smart, beautiful, fun, adventurous, talented and a thousand other things he shouldn’t be thinking about if he wanted his feelings to stay anywhere near neutral. The last thing Lulu Kahale needed was a medal hanging round her neck to prove she was worth caring for.
As if sensing his understanding, she shot a glance at him, her amber eyes bright with ambition and a sliver of vulnerability. She rarely gave away her trust. And she was trusting him.
“Wanna join in?” she asked.
“Of course,” Zach said, as if not joining had never occurred to him.
He pushed his drink away, then wove his fingers together and stretched them as if preparing for a workout. He silently thanked whatever Hawaiian gods were out there for the excuse not to get tipsy enough to try to kiss Lulu again. He didn’t know if that ship had sailed, but he certainly wasn’t going to try anything this weekend.
He pushed up and out of his chair and began to jog in place. “I’m ready when you are.”
Makoa snorted. “Looks like my little sis is dropping you in it, my man.”
“We’re up for anything,” Zach said, putting out his arm and pulling Lulu to his side, trying his best to ignore the physical satisfaction that came from feeling her nestle in close beneath his arm as she slipped one of her arms round his waist. “Aren’t we, Lulu?”
He looked down at her, his entire body getting a full-force injection of pride when he saw her beaming back up at him.
“Totally,” she said to him. Then, to her brother, “Bring it on.”
* * *
An hour later Zach was deeply regretting the whole all-for-one-one-for-all bravura that had propelled him and Lulu up onto a stage with Makoa and his teammate—the last four standing—where they would complete the final trust exercise of the night.
Makoa’s colleague—a petite woman, Kiko—was the human form of a firecracker. Fast, charged, and prone to go off when you least expected it. And Makoa was, of course, a mountain of muscle. Immovable if need be and surprisingly nimble when called to action. He’d be tough to beat tomorrow. He’d be tough to beat tonight.
Everyone had thought the very first trust exercise—the one where one partner had to fall into the arms of the other while wearing a blindfold—would finish Kiko because, of course, Makoa was t
he one chosen to fall into her arms. But she’d performed a circus-like stop-drop-and-roll maneuver that had broken his fall. Not strictly a pillow-soft landing, but...
Here they all were. In the finals.
The crowd, juiced up on mai tais, was whooping and cheering. Makoa and Kiko were obvious favorites because they were known commodities, whereas Zach, a mainlander haole and Lulu, the kid sister he was quickly realizing everyone had been forewarned to treat with kid gloves, were not.
As the evening had progressed, he’d gained a genuine understanding of what it must’ve been like for Lulu growing up in the shadows of her big brothers. He, after all, had only met one. And there were four more of them out there. As such, he’d put his all into the evening, easily allowing himself to unbuckle his tendency not to trust. This was for Lulu.
With each passing challenge the energy exchange between the pair of them had grown more and more fine-tuned. To the point where they’d even managed to gain some of their own cheerleaders—rescue crews who clearly liked seeing the underdog challenge the reigning champions, as Makoa’s team had been for the last ten years.
“Quiet, you lot!” The emcee for the evening—a man with a steel-gray crew cut, who would also be leading events over the weekend—held out his hands to quiet down the whistles and the whooping. “The final event of the night is...” he paused for dramatic effect “...the handcuff challenge!”
The audience erupted with explosive laughter, hoots and hollers.
Zach threw Lulu a look. What the hell was the handcuff challenge?
She shrugged. This was her first time, too. She was as much in the dark as he was.
The emcee explained. The pair of them would be handcuffed together with “team-building cuffs”—whatever they were. It was possible to break free, they were told, but only by using the highest level of teamwork and taking onboard hints and suggestions from the audience, who would be split in two. One half for Makoa and Kiko. One half for Zach and Lulu. They’d have five minutes.