Sun Kissed (8 page)

“I’ll bet you were a Boy Scout.”

“Eagle.”

She smiled at that. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I wouldn’t think anything could ever surprise you.” Proving that he could, indeed, surprise her, Donovan stroked the inside of her wrist and caused a jolt in her pulse.

How could what should have been a casual touch make her tremble? Because, Lani realized, for Donovan, there were no casual touches. No simple conversations. Everything the man did, what he said, was serious and seemingly meticulously planned.

Would he be so controlled in bed? No. From the pheromones jolting back and forth between them like lightning bolts, she’d bet her new titanium diver’s watch with electronic depth meter that Donovan was a sex god. After all, so much pent up energy had to go somewhere.

Lani grieved for the young man she had not appreciated when they’d first met: the rookie patrolman who had acted on his instincts. Instincts that were undeniably dangerous, perhaps even a bit foolish. That young man probably would not have risen through the ranks as far as the one now sitting with her in Nate’s sunny kitchen. But she doubted he’d have that aura of sadness hovering over him like a heavy Oregon fog.

She could make him happy. That was what she did. Her true talent, like her father’s bedside manner, her mother’s art, Nate’s writing. Hadn’t her baby-chick contestants assured her it was her calling? Which was, of course, why she’d had no choice but to leave them.

Right now, even as part of her wanted to strip off her clothes and lie beneath him, hot, sweaty, and naked, while he did anything and everything to her needy, tingling body, an equally strong part of Lani wanted to put her arms around him, put that beautiful dark head on her breast, and assure him that he deserved better than the life he seemed to have made for himself back on the mainland. That she could make things better. That he could have that life with her right here on Orchid Island.

And wasn’t that a dangerous, impossible fantasy?

Oh, Nate
, she thought with an inward sigh.
Even if I had been wanting to fall in love, you couldn’t have sent me a more unlikely candidate.

“You’ve surprised me, Donovan,” she admitted quietly. She’d never been one to hide her thoughts. Not even when it cost her a lucrative and satisfying career. “More than I would have thought possible.”

Instead of looking pleased by her admission, Donovan frowned. “Lani—”

“We’re losing the day,” she said with forced brightness as she pulled away. Nothing about Donovan Quinn was going to be easy. Then again, was there anything really worth having that was? “Come on, Detective. I’m going to get you to unwind if it’s the last thing I do.”

The hell with Nate and the hell with island time, Donovan decided. Lani Breslin was no longer Nate’s petulant underage sister. She was, as he’d informed her brother, an adult woman.

An adult, deliciously scantily clad woman he wanted with every awakened atom in his body.

He ran a slow, insinuating hand up her bare thigh. Hadn’t she told him to go with his impulses? “I can think of better ways to relax than running around playing tourist all day.”

She backed away so quickly you’d think she’d been zapped by one of his unstable, electrically charged breakaway atoms. “There you go again, city man. Rushing things.” She patted his cheek. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that anticipation is half the fun? Unless you’re up for skinny-dipping, go put some swim trunks on beneath those jeans, because you’re going snorkeling.”

Knowing determination when he saw it, Donovan did as instructed and returned to where she was waiting in the great room.

“Well?” she asked over her shoulder when he hesitated for a glance at the abandoned laptop sitting on the table. “Are you coming or not?”

Apparently, he considered, as he followed her out the door, not any time soon.

“Sugar is one of Orchid Island’s major industries,” Lani said as she steered the fire-engine-red Jeep through the forest of tasseled sugarcane.

For all her talk of the pleasures of life in the slow lane, Donovan estimated that she was going at least sixty miles an hour down the pitted dirt road.

She shifted gears and pressed down on the accelerator, passing an enormous truck loaded with freshly cut sugarcane on the right. Donovan resisted the impulse to close his eyes.

“Actually,” she said, waving gaily at the truck driver she was fast leaving behind in a cloud of dust, “sugar’s so dependable that it’s almost a religion on the island.”

“I thought you said that things move more slowly down here,” he said as the sugar cane became a blur.

“Time,” she corrected. “I don’t remember discussing driving.”

“Do you think we could take this tour at a pace somewhat less than the speed of sound?”

She looked somewhat surprised by his ironic tone, but eased up on the accelerator. “That’s the Sleeping Lady.” She pointed toward a rock formation that did indeed resemble a reclining woman. “Kekepania was a giant
akua
, or goddess, who befriended the Menehune.

“Little people,” she explained at his questioning look. “They were here even before the first Polynesians arrived. They were two feet tall and did all their work at night. They also had magical powers.”

“I suppose you believe in them,” Donovan responded, venturing a guess.

Lani turned her head to give him a knowing grin. “I like to,” she admitted, “although there are those horribly unromantic souls who persist in believing that the Menehune were actually a class of pygmy laborers from Tahiti.”

“You have to admit it makes more sense than the idea of pixies.”

Apparently Lani was not prepared to concede any such point. “To some. Those with limited imaginations. However, while historians and anthropologists continue to argue about the Menehune, no one has come up with a logical explanation for all the stone water projects that were supposedly built by them in a single night.

“Anyway,” she continued, “one night Kekepania was asleep when enemy canoes were threatening to beach on the shoreline. The Menehune threw boulders onto her to wake her up so she could come and protect them, but she was snoring and swallowed some of the boulders and died.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Isn’t it?” she agreed on a sigh. “Still, a few rocks ricocheted off her breasts and sank the invaders’ canoes, so it all worked out in the end, I suppose.”

She belonged here, Donovan determined. In fact, he had never met an individual more suited to her environment. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, King Arthur, all would feel at home in this fantasy land of nature and legend. Donovan was having difficulty picturing Lani living anywhere else.

“That’s Moon Cove Beach,” she said, waving her right hand in the direction of a quiet stretch of sand they were passing. “The water’s calm there; it’s ideal for swimming.”

She downshifted, slowing the Jeep to allow Donovan a leisurely look at the glistening beach. “Because it’s so old, Mother Nature has more time to create our gorgeous beaches.

“Shipwreck Beach is great for windsurfing, Nalu Beach and Makani Beach are good for bodysurfing, windsurfing, and catamaran rides. Makalapua Beach is also where you’ll find a lot of swimmers, Crescent Beach is good for surfing—”

“I get the point,” he broke in. “And it’s nice of you to play tour guide, Lani, but I don’t really think I’ll have time for surfing and catamaran rides. I do have—”

“Work to do,” she said, cutting him off, just as he had interrupted her.

Donovan thought he detected the hint of an accusation in her dry tone. “Studying,” he corrected. “I have an exam coming up when I get back that scores twenty-five percent on the written, and seventy-five percent for the interview.”

“Both of which I have no doubt you’ll ace,” she assured him.

“That’s probably what most of the would-be agents who made it through the first part of the acceptance process thought, despite knowing the odds. Which can be as low as one percent of the applicants.”

“If you’re serious about becoming a special agent, you’ll make the grade.”

“I appreciate your confidence, but I need to study. I bought these guides.” All, on their online sales pages, promising success in winning one of the toughest, most prestigious jobs in the world.

“If all you plan to do is keep your nose stuck in a book, why did you come down here?” she asked, genuinely curious. “Surely you could have studied in Portland.”

“Of course I could have. But Nate and Tess convinced me a change would be helpful.”

“A change of location? Or pace?”

“Is there a difference?”

As they continued down the highway, the scenic bay curved out toward the backdrop of mountains. Rainwater scored the lush green mountain face in rivulets of molten silver. Donovan tried to remember when he had seen anything so magnificent.

“It depends,” Lani answered at length. “If you lock yourself away in Nate’s beach house and do nothing but pore over those study guides, you might as well have stayed home. A change in location isn’t going to make any difference.

“However, if you forget about work for a while and open yourself up to everything the island has to offer, then I’d say you did the right thing coming here. Because even if you do go through with the test, you’ll undoubtedly score better if you’re not so tense.”

“I’m not that tense.”

“Liar,” she said without heat.

He wasn’t going to get into an argument he couldn’t win. Since she was right and they both knew it. “What, exactly, does the island have to offer?”

“The best way to find that out,” she said, decelerating as she suddenly turned off the main highway, “is to take things one day at a time and leave yourself open to surprises.”

Donovan wondered if Lani realized that she was the most unsettling surprise he’d had in years. In a lifetime, he amended, casting a quick, sidelong glance at her profile.

The short road cut through the lush, fragrant greenery, ending at a tall white lighthouse.

“Lanikohua Lighthouse,” Lani announced in her tour-guide voice as she brought the Jeep to a sudden stop with a screech of brakes. “Standing on the northernmost point of the island, it serves as a beacon to ships and planes en route to and from Asia. It also claims the second largest clamshell lens in existence, right after the one on Kauai. These days it’s fully automated, but as you’ll see, the view is spectacular.”

“It is certainly that,” Donovan agreed, his eyes on Lani as she jumped out of the Jeep. The shirt fell midway to her thighs, drawing his attention again to those smooth, golden-tanned legs.

The urge to touch her again was suddenly overwhelming. Donovan reached out and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. “All these years that he’s extolled your many virtues, Nate forgot to mention what a beautiful woman you grew up to become.”

“You know how brothers are,” she said lightly. “Nate undoubtedly still thinks of me as having red braids down to my waist—which he yanked more times than I’d care to count, by the way—a hot temper, and a mouth full of railroad tracks.” Taking his hand, she led him to the edge of the bluff. “Check this out, Detective.”

Multihued blue water swirled dizzyingly far below them, breaking on the rocks in sprays of frothy white sea foam. Lani was standing on a rock beside him, her eyes bright with exhilaration.

“Isn’t it glorious?” she asked breathlessly, throwing back her head to gaze out over the water, which reflected every color of blue from shimmering turquoise to deep indigo and all the shades in between. “Whenever I come here, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to fling open my arms and fly off into the sky.” Her lips curved into a wide smile. “Some kids dream of digging to China. I always wanted to fly there.”

Her cheeks were flushed a deep apricot and her hair was blowing free in the warm breeze, like a gilt-and-copper halo. She looked every bit as carefree, as welcoming, as the native Orchid Island women must have looked, standing on this very bluff, watching Captain Cook’s ships sail up the coast.

No wonder that long-ago Breslin mutineer from New Bedford, Massachusetts, had fallen in love with the island, Donovan mused. Lani Breslin was part fantasy, part flesh-and-blood female. And he wanted both more than he could remember wanting anything in his life.

He was struck by a sudden urge to capture the breathtakingly sight of her. So that years from now, when he was chasing down terrorists, worrying about rising crime statistics, or whatever other sleep-stealing problems the future might bring, he could look at the photograph and remember what total freedom looked like.

“Really, Donovan,” Lani complained lightly when she heard the unmistakable click of a cell phone camera. “If I’d known you were in the market for a model, I would have brought along one of my father’s.”

“I don’t want one of your father’s models. I want you.”

His meaning was clear. There was a hint of annoyance in his tone that Lani opted to ignore. After all, from what she could tell, he’d tamped down his emotions so tightly for so long, awakening them would have to be initially uncomfortable for him.

“We need to get back on the highway. I still have a lot to show you.”

Donovan ran his fingers down the back of her neck. “What about the smiles you collect along the way being more important than the miles covered?”

In spite of her heart pounding like a tribal tiki drum, she managed a smile at the familiar saying. “You’re catching on, Detective Quinn. There may just be hope for you yet.”

“I certainly hope so,” he murmured huskily as he leaned down to kiss her.

His lips were firm, yet rather than demanding a response, they coaxed silkily, enticing her into the slow, but definitely serious kiss.

The breeze cooling her uplifted face was tinged with the crisp, tangy scent of the sea, and the sun felt warm, blissfully so, against her eyelids. Below, Lani could hear the crash of the surf as it beat endlessly against the rocks, and somewhere in the distance a seabird called out as it scanned the surging tide for silvery fish.

The reality of place and time gradually ebbed, like sands being washed away beneath a retreating wave.