You have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Only she really didn’t believe that and wished, for the first time all vacation, that Ty would come back. And hurry.
A man’s voice interrupted her growing panic. “Looks like you’re ready to tackle the big one.”
She turned and stared into the exotic almond-shaped hazel eyes of the man from that ill-fated dinner cruise. The man who’d been staring at her then and was staring at her now as if she were a cup of fluffy cotton-candy-pink Hawaiian shaved ice.
“Oh,” she said, wondering how he’d sneaked up on her. “I … where did you come from?”
He had a deep, rich laugh. He wasn’t as handsome or buff as Ty or any of the other instructors, but he wasn’t bad-looking, and seemed to have a larger vocabulary than “dude” and “awesome.” Something about him drew the eye.
“You mean you didn’t notice me paddling madly through the crowd toward you? I’ve wanted to meet you since last night on the cruise. And now fate has tossed me another chance.”
“Oh,” she said again, flattered. “That cruise is something I think we’d all rather forget. What a tragedy.”
“Yeah, very disturbing.” He nodded toward the small, meek waves rolling in. “Ready to try?”
“I’m only just learning,” she stammered. “I’ve never actually been up before. They guarantee that here, to get you up on your board and surfing in your first lesson.”
She glanced down at her board. She wasn’t exactly flustered. She wondered, though, if she should seize this opportunity to show Ty she was moving on and considering other men. Maybe then he’d get the message that she was over him.
“I’ve been surfing since I was a kid.” He nodded toward Ty who was trying, along with one of the dudes, to get Laci on her feet on her board. “Looks like he’ll be tied up for a while.”
He did a head tilt toward the surf. “The waves are perfect for a beginner right now and not too crowded. Wait much longer and it’ll be harder to get up. You’ll be fighting the crowds and only get a couple of rides in.” He smiled at her. “Come on. I’ll help you. I’m a great coach.”
She bit her lip and glanced at Ty again, not liking the easy way he ignored her and flirted with Laci. She felt a sudden stab of jealousy and defiance.
Carrie paddled up beside her and gave the new guy a once-over. She flashed Treflee a conspiratorial look and said, “Who’s your friend?”
Treflee looked at him helplessly and broke into a grin. “I don’t actually know your name.” She glanced at Carrie. “We just met.”
“Oh.” Carrie shot Treflee a look that said she didn’t mean to interrupt.
“Halulu.” He grinned. “Means to roar or make a racket. My mother’s Hawaiian. She said I was born screaming. What else could she call me? My dad’s a
haole.
He and all my friends call me Hal.”
Treflee found his name story charming. “I’m Treflee. This is my cousin Carrie.”
Carrie’s instructor came up beside them at just that moment. “
Wahines,
time to stop posing and catch a wave. The surf is pure sex today!”
Treflee forced herself not to glance at Ty. Sometimes word association was a terrible thing. Instead she looked at the waves. They didn’t look pure sex to her. He was probably trying to psyche them up. She eyed him cautiously. “Can you take both of us out at the same time?”
“Dude!” He winked at her.
“Well.” Treflee shrugged. “How can I resist the pleas of two handsome men? Why not! Here goes nothing.”
“Schweet!” Carrie’s coach said.
* * *
Ty was using his hypnotic you’ll-do-what-I-say voice on Laci to calm her down. A famous Hollywood hypnotist to the stars had taught this technique to him one afternoon in Vegas. Unfortunately, it had never worked on his wife.
Laci was clinging to him, nearly choking him, as she pretended fear of the water. If that woman had a fear of anything it was ending up in bed alone at the end of this day.
He glanced up to see Treflee paddling out to sea with one of the instructors, Carrie, and—
His heart stopped and he felt himself losing his legendary unflappable cool. She was paddling out with Hal Rogers, the Langley geopolitical analyst and suspected traitor Ty had been watching. The man who was selling top secret software to RIOT. A man who in all likelihood had aligned himself with the Fuk Ching gang, and besides selling his country out, was somehow implicated in George Hsu’s murder.
Treflee knew how to pick them. This was both perfect and perfectly disastrous. Treflee could be his in to Hal, his unsuspecting mole. The man looked like he wanted to eat her up, which made Ty want to punch him out. How was Ty going to win Tref back while encouraging her to encourage Hal? How was he going to keep Hal out of her pants? And keep her safe at the same time? All without blowing his cover?
Damn it all!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Carrie’s instructor paddled with the three of them out to where the surfable waves broke. The technique was simple. You sat on your board facing the waves until you reached the right spot. As a wave came toward you, you spun around to face the shore down on your board. When you felt the current of the wave catch you, you pushed up to a crouch—and you were surfing!
“Here comes da kine,” Dude said above the roar of the surf. “Dudettes, spin!”
Treflee spun her board toward shore, heart pounding, surfer music going through her mind, trying
not
to think about wiping out. She lay down on the board.
“Wait for it,” Dude called above the roar of the surf. “Wait until you feel it.”
“
How
will I know?” Treflee yelled back.
“It’s like love, dudette. You know it when you feel it. It sweeps you away.”
Totally unhelpful analogy. What did she know about love? She was on the brink of a failed marriage. Her heart pounded. She felt sick with excitement and dread. And then she felt the wave swell, felt the crescendo, and the motion swept her up.
The trill of excitement. The pulse-pounding thrill. The giddiness. This was it! She pushed to a stand, teetered, caught herself just before losing her balance and going over. She bent into her goofy-foot crouch. She was riding a wave!
Dude was right! It
was
like love. Like intimate lovemaking with your soul mate. She laughed and whooped. She was surfing! Surfing!
That whoop almost cost her her balance. She wobbled and corrected, vowing to concentrate.
Stay on your board, baby! Ride this thing for all it’s worth!
She caught a glimpse of Carrie on her board beside her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dude and Hal give her a thumbs-up. She focused on her reference spot on the shore.
Unfortunately, in the foreground of her beautiful focal palm tree, Laci was throwing herself at Ty as he tried to get her up on her board.
Curses!
Treflee wobbled, corrected, and bobbled, pointing her board directly at them.
Wouldn’t it be awesome to wipe them out?
She laughed.
Wicked woman!
Adrenaline and evil thoughts kept her on her board all the way to shallow water near shore. Fortunately for them, Laci and Ty moved out of her way long before she reached them. Concentrating like crazy, Treflee dropped to one knee, held on to the rails, then stepped off into the water, laughing.
Hal pulled up beside her with an idiot grin on his face. “Dude!” he said, imitating the instructors. “You’re a pro!”
“Finally! Something I’m good at.”
“I bet you’re good at riding lots of things.” Hal winked at her.
The way he said it should have made her blush.
Carrie dropped off her board beside them.
Carrie’s instructor dude paddled up. “Juicy, huh! Again?”
“Oh, yeah!” Treflee said in unison with Hal and Carrie.
The four of them turned to paddle back out. After several more successful rides, instructor dude left to watch them from a distance. Hal stuck with Treflee, who couldn’t get enough of riding the surf.
All too soon, the instructor signaled them from shore and yelled, “Last wave, dudettes! Then lesson’s over.”
“Hey.” Hal cleared his throat as they paddled out for their last ride. “Have lunch with me?”
The question took Treflee by surprise. She’d been having so much fun, she hadn’t really even been thinking of him. She’d just met him. A refusal danced on the tip of her tongue. He was attractive and fun, but …
Lunch should be safe enough and just the ticket she needed to get into Lahaina to see her lawyer. Lunch, lawyer appointment, grab her papers, and rejoin the group in time to catch the van back to the plantation.
“Sounds perfect. I’d love to.”
With that, they paddled out.
Laci and Ty paddled up beside them. If Laci didn’t get up on her board this time, the Don’t Drop-In was going to have to refund her money.
They paddled into the surf, waiting for da kine. Treflee saw one she wanted. She was on the inside and had the right of way. She spun her board and Laci, poser fakey extraordinaire, snaked in and cut her off. Treflee had to drop out and wait for the next wave as she watched Laci take to her feet like an expert and cruise toward shore with Ty surfing beside her.
The little bitch!
Treflee shouldn’t have been so jealous.
She spun her board around without paying much attention to what was going on around her and caught the next wave, picking out her reference-point palm tree onshore.
A Chinese man stepped from behind it and trained a pair of binoculars on her. She froze, feeling the hairs stand up on her neck as the ocean spray misted around her. He could have been bird-watching, or thought she was particularly juicy, but …
His height, his posture, there was something sinisterly familiar about him—
Wham! Something slammed into her board from behind. Treflee lost her footing and went flying face forward into the foam as the wave kicked her butt. Her board flipped, still attached to her ankle by her leash. As she hit the water, it koshed her on the back of the head. She saw stars and fought to hang on to consciousness. Above her, sunlight filtered through the crystal-blue water, illuminating the sharklike silhouettes of surfboards cluttering the water above.
Afraid of being hit again, she panicked and sucked in a breath full of water.
This is it! I’m going to die. Be sucked into the bottomless depths of the ocean never to be found again.
A second later, a strong pair of arms grabbed her and pulled her to the surface. She gasped for air and came face-to-face with Ty, mesmerized by his eyes, which sparkled with confidence, encouragement, and possession.
Déjà vu!
Her world tilted off kilter, just like it had the first time she’d ever seen him. Just like it had the last time he’d saved her from a wave pool.
Another wave hit them, nearly knocking them over.
She gulped in a mouthful of water. Ty shoved her board into her arms, pulled her into his arms and held her over his head into the open air as the wave crashed over them.
She took a deep breath, shaken by her own emotional response to him. Hero worship. Gratitude. That’s all it had to be. That’s all she felt for Ty.
As the wave rolled by, Treflee realized Ty was
standing
in just over five feet of water with her in his arms and her board still lashed to her ankle in hers.
He pulled her close and started walking toward shore. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
She trembled. “I’m bad with waves.” She started to sputter.
“Hang on. Take a breath, baby. Here comes another one.” He took a deep breath and lifted her up above the water, her Herculean hero, toward the sun as if making an offering of her.
For her part, she was happy to worship the sun, feel it on her skin, and breathe in the fresh marine air as the wave crashed beneath her around Ty. It was good to be alive. Good to be in Ty’s safe, strong arms above the danger.
When it ebbed, he brought her down, clutching her to his chest, and started walking again.
“How come you didn’t get out of the way when that girl lost control and barreled right into the back of you? These waters are full of beginners. Didn’t we warn you to keep a sharp eye? I waved at you and pointed for you to watch out. Didn’t you see me?”
She stared at him. “I didn’t see a thing.”
He frowned. “You have to pay attention, Tref. These are dangerous times. You can’t be oblivious.”
She knew he didn’t just mean the surf around them. “I
was
paying attention, until Laci snaked in and cut me off.” After that, she’d been preoccupied with trying to catch the next wave and then …
She shivered. Another wave rolled past them, but by now they were in shallow enough water that her head stayed above water as she cuddled into his chest.
“The Lei Strangler was watching me from the shore,” she whispered into his chest and pointed.