Not Quite Enough (Not Quite series) (16 page)

“If God wanted us to fly, he’d have given us wings.”

Trent laughed. “Or pilots.”

Monica relaxed in her chair and stretched her arms over her head.

The movement caught Trent’s attention and his appreciative smile spread over his lips. He wore a T-shirt and shorts, his normal attire since she’d met him. His hair could use a trim, but he didn’t carry the surfer look from back home. “Well, Mr. Testosterone, what does one do on this island when they’re not flying tourists at death-defying heights, or cleaning up nature’s mess?”

She wasn’t sure if he had a desire to pick up where their kiss had left off the day before. He hadn’t so much as touched her since
helping her into his home the night before. Of course, she was doing her best zombie interpretation at the time, and wouldn’t have been able to do much more than snore in the poor guy’s arms.

He rubbed his chin as if in thought. “There’s usually plenty of steel band music and rum concoctions to entertain on a free day.”

“Not a lot of that going on,” she said.

He swiveled in his chair, his knee nudged against hers. The contact was about as innocent as it could get, but her breath caught anyway. When his hand dropped to her thigh, she knew he hadn’t forgotten their kiss or his promise to make up for his mistake about Jack. “If you come up with some cheesy line about making our own music…”

He slid his hand down the back of her thigh, gripped her chair, and slid it closer.

She caught herself against his legs, and met his sudden stare.

“How about we skip the lines?” he said.

The heat in the room shot up ten degrees. Both of his palms were against her thighs but they had yet to do anything but sit there.

“Lines are for people who don’t know what they want,” she told him.

A smirk played on his lips.

“That doesn’t define us.”

No. She’d pictured him close since he told her his name. Monica slid her hands over his and moved them up her legs. She didn’t like lines or games. “Do we have a definition?”

He took her lead, moving his hands along her bare skin, sending tendrils of anticipation over every nerve in her body. A squeal escaped her lips when he gripped her hips and plucked her off the chair and into his lap as if she weighed nothing. She gripped his shoulders for balance and enjoyed the feel of his hands holding her ass.

His clever move had her straddling him and terribly needy without even a kiss. “We don’t need a definition.” Trent’s heated breath blew across her lips, his stare so charged she couldn’t look away.

Monica leaned forward, not wanting to wait for whatever made him hesitate.

Trent, the big tease, leaned back. “Are you sure?”

She didn’t answer. Her lips met his, all heat and tongue and it was Trent’s turn to moan.

Everywhere he touched was on fire. His hand found skin under her T-shirt and skimmed up her waist, burning a path to her breasts and through her bra.

“You feel amazing,” he managed to say as his lips left hers to kiss her jaw, her neck.

The hard pack of his muscles met her palms.

“So soft,” he uttered.

Monica wiggled closer; the chair quickly became an obstacle to the pleasure of pressing her body closer to his.

His lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear and the quivering that was hovering low in her belly turned into something palpable. “Oh,” she whispered.

Trent released a soft chuckle and repeated the kiss to her neck.

Somewhere in the back of her head, Monica heard Ginger bark. Trent was lifting her off his lap and placing her on the kitchen counter. She reached for his shirt, to help rid him of the barrier.

Ginger barked again.

Damn dog.

One second Trent was reaching to remove her shirt, her only thought was how quickly they could cover each other skin to skin, the next Trent was pulling her shirt back down and pulling her from the counter.

That’s when Monica heard the noise.

People. Kids… Ginger barking.

Monica met Trent’s smoky gaze. He was breathing as hard as she was.

“Trent?” someone called from the hall leading to the front door.

“Company?” Monica whispered.

He ran a hand over her hair and pulled his own shirt down. They didn’t have time to recover much in the way of composure before a family piled into the room.

Ginger ran around the room, a playful bark in her throat. A man Monica recognized was half carrying a woman into Trent’s home.

“Reynard, Kiki?”

One look from Reynard to Trent and Monica knew the man understood exactly what they’d interrupted.

Color rose to the cheeks of the woman Trent called Kiki. “We’re too early,” she said.

“No. No.” Trent flashed a sympathetic glance toward Monica and grasped her hand. “It’s fine.”

Monica forced a smile to her face and felt her libido cool as if ice water had been dropped on her from the sky. One of the children, not five, ran up and hugged Trent’s knees. “Uncle Trent.”

Clearly, the family wasn’t related. Yet this child had some affection toward her would-be lover. “Micha. This is my friend Monica.” The boy smiled up at her.

“Monica you remember Reynard from your first day on the island.” Trent continued the introductions.

Oh, now she remembered. “Nice to see you again,” she managed.

“We’ve come too early,” Kiki said again. “We should go.”

Trent tugged Monica’s hand. “No. Please… I told you to come.” Trent turned toward Monica and explained. “Their home was destroyed by the earthquake. I asked Kiki and Reynard to stay here.”

“Oh,” Monica said.

Micha had engaged Ginger in a game of fetch with a plastic bone. The other children were all smiles and completely oblivious to any tension in the room.

Kiki leaned on her husband for another couple of steps. Monica took notice of her pale skin and obvious discomfort and promptly dismissed her own sexual frustration. “Are you OK?”

“Just out of the hospital,” Reynard told them. “The doctor said she needs a bed and rest.”

Monica passed a half smile to Trent. The same frustration inside her swam behind his eyes. “Guest room?” she asked him.

He nodded.

“Come with me.” She walked Reynard and his wife to the room she previously occupied.

So much for their private oasis and alone time. The population in the house quadrupled in minutes and all thoughts of intimacy were now on hold.

Dammit!

Chapter Twelve

Trent helped Reynard unload his family’s possessions from the truck and into the house.

“Are you sure it’s OK we’re here?”

Trent hoisted one strap over his shoulder and picked up another sack. “I won’t hear another word about it, Reynard. Like I told your wife, I’m going to be leaving soon. I have little to worry about here if the house is taken care of while I’m gone.”

The stress behind Reynard’s eyes started to fade. “I will pay you.”

Trent shook his head. “You’ll save your money and rebuild your home.” However, Trent wasn’t sure how possible that would be or how long it would take. The economy on the island had never been great. It would be even worse now.

He turned to walk back into the house. Reynard’s hand grasped his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I’ll keep my room until I leave,” Trent said as they walked into the house. “And keep you informed about my plans while I’m away.”

“When will you go?”

Trent thought of Monica and shook his head. “I’m not sure. Week or two at most.” He’d told Jack Morrison he’d keep an eye out for his sister-in-law and Trent didn’t go back on his word. He’d be lying to himself if he said he was sticking around
only
for his promise to a virtual stranger. The fact was, he wasn’t ready to see the last of his nurse.

Not yet anyway.

Back in the house, Monica was in the kitchen again, this time heating up soup from a can. Reynard’s children were sitting up at the counter talking obsessively about living in such a big house and how theirs had fallen down. It was as if their duty in life was to relay a play-by-play of their life to Monica as she cooked their lunch.

“A house this big is going to take your help to keep clean,” she told the kids. “Your mom has to be in bed for a few days.”

Micha puffed out his chest. “We’ll help,” he said.

Monica removed bowls from the cupboard and ladled in the soup. Reynard carried the bags into the second guest room while Trent watched the kids and Monica talk. Tanya, the oldest daughter, was ten and she held the youngest in her lap. “Mother needs to sleep so we need to keep quiet,” Tanya told the kids.

Trent moved behind the brood and offered his advice. “There’s lots of room outside to play. Just keep an eye on each other.”

Monica offered Trent a smile, her eyes lighting up.

In short order, she had the kids eating lunch and worked her way to Kiki’s bedside to make sure she had something to eat as well.

Trent felt guilty for the work Monica was doing on what was supposed to be her afternoon off. Within a half an hour, she was removing clothes from the dryer and folding them into her backpack. It appeared as if she was packing to leave.

He wasn’t sure they’d ever have another opportunity to get away, so instead of staying in his house, which had been overrun with kids and excitement, Trent packed a few bottles of water and an attempt at a picnic into a bag. He grabbed a beach blanket and a couple of towels as he passed his linen closet.

Monica cornered him in the hall. “Maybe you should just take me back to the clinic. I might as well—”

He silenced her with a finger to her lips. “It’s your day off,” he reminded her. “We still have half of it left.” He slid his hand to her
shoulder and down to her arm. “How about I show you a quiet place on the beach where tourists don’t play and the waves hardly touched?”

She leaned against the wall and sighed. “Sightseeing?”

No, more like procuring a secluded spot away from kids and chaos so they could pick up where they left off. “Sure, we’ll call it sightseeing.”

“All right.”

Trent loaded their day’s provisions in the Jeep and encouraged Ginger to stay at the house. The last thing he wanted was another interrupting bark.

He informed Reynard that he’d be back later that night after dropping Monica off at the clinic and then the two of them drove away.

“You surprise me, Barefoot,” Monica said as they turned out of the driveway.

“Oh, why’s that?”

“One minute I think maybe your personal walls are high since you live here alone, and then you invite an entire family to move in with you.”

“I have other options. Reynard and his family don’t.”

Her window was rolled down and the warm air rushing past them blew her hair in different directions. Most of the time he’d spent with her, those blonde locks were bound into a ponytail or some kind of clip. He liked what he saw. It gave Monica a wild look that made him think of warm nights and hot passion.

“You’re really going to leave the island?” she asked.

“For a while anyway.”

“Will you go back home? The East Coast?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t seen my brothers in a while. I’ll probably start there.”

Monica gripped the edges of her hair and stared out the window. “I can’t imagine not having any ties and the whole world open to explore.”

“What ties do you have?”

“My job, for one. Although that might not be the case when I get home.”

He pulled off the main road and onto a dirt one. The locals knew of the secluded beach and even more private cave within, but the road wasn’t often traveled. The overgrowth told Trent there hadn’t been a car there in a while. Not since the last rain anyway. “Jack said something about your job being in trouble. What’s up with that?”

“My boss is a bitch. I’m not being catty about that either. She’d always looked for a reason to write me up or in some way move me on. I don’t get it either. It’s not like I’ve ever done a thing to her. A friend from work called me the other day to tell me she took me off the schedule. Said I didn’t fill the holes my coming here left. Claimed I abandoned my patients.” Monica air quoted the last words and her smile fell into a thin frown line.

“How can you abandon anyone you’ve not taken care of?”

“I have no idea. Walt will raise holy hell when we get back. But the truth is, the doctors on staff don’t work for the hospital. They work either for themselves, or in the case of the emergency room, they work with a doctors’ group. The rules for Walt don’t apply to me. I work for the hospital and they don’t have to grant time off. I had vacation time coming and arranged for someone to take my shifts.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My replacement called in sick and staffing didn’t fix it.”

It sounded to Trent like Walt was the name he needed to pass on to Jack.

“Nurses are needed everywhere,” he said, hoping to put her at ease. Her hand on the edge of the door had gripped the side as she spoke. “What else is waiting for you in California?”

“My apartment.” She laughed as the word came out of her mouth. “I guess that doesn’t count. My friend Katie and her husband, Dean, are there… although they talked about moving back to Texas.”