Slammed (6 page)

He had other sponsors, but they were small peanuts compared to Jackson Cole. Yeah, he’d just won big prize money, but if he wanted to keep going, if he wanted to win it all, he needed money and he needed sponsors. He wasn’t stupid. He knew if one sponsor dumped him because of bad behavior, it would be next to impossible to find another one.

The last year had been rough, with more losses than wins, meaning he wasn’t exactly rolling in dough. It had also been rough mentally. Losing wasn’t something he particularly liked. He had goals. He was going to be the best. He was going to win it all. He loved surfing. It was the only thing he was any good at, and last year when he’d come
that
close to losing it, it had totally fucked with his mind. If he didn’t have surfing, he didn’t have anything, and
that
was enough to pucker his asshole.

Brooke emerged from the bathroom, still a little heavy-eyed, which was bitchin’ sexy. She shoved her pajamas into the case then brushed the skirt of her pink-and-white flowered sundress down over her hips.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go. We can see if we can find out more about the storm. Maybe the airport will reopen later.”

Yeah, not likely. But he didn’t say that.

Down in the lobby, she surveyed the chaos with a crease between her eyebrows. “Whoa,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it right now,” he said. “Luckily you have a room. Let’s grind.”

She made a face at him that didn’t hide her amusement and followed him to the coffee shop. When he ordered eggs and fruit, she shrugged and requested the same. They waited as the server filled their coffee cups.

“What do you know about the storm?” Dylan asked the young Tahitian girl.

“Tropical cyclone Joyce.” She smiled. “It hit Bora Bora last night and is slated to hit here later today. The center is about two hundred miles west-northwest of here.”

“How bad at Bora Bora?” Dylan asked, picking up his coffee.

“Gale-force gusts and bursts of torrential rain. There are trees down, power’s out. If it turns more south it could be worse here, but they don’t think that will happen.” She smiled again, seemingly taking it all in stride.

She left and Dylan met Brooke’s worried eyes. “Are we safe?” she asked in a near-whisper.

“Yes. Of course.” He reached out and covered one of her hands in a gentle squeeze.

“What if there’s a tsunami?” she asked.

He laughed. “That would happen after an earthquake,” he said. “It’s just a tropical storm.”

“It has a
name
,” she said. “They only name
big
storms.”

He laughed again. “True. It’s a big storm. It could cause some damage, but they’re used to it here. It happens. We’re safe here in the hotel. Though it would be hectic out on the waves.”

She gasped. “Don’t even think of that!”

He grinned. “I’m kidding. Sort of. I’m not stupid. Well, sometimes a little reckless. But no, I’m not going surfing today.”

“I guess not.” She sipped her coffee, looking a little more bright-eyed. “What are we going to do today?”

“Good question. I thought you might want to see some of the sights, but I guess we’re not going anywhere today.”

She pouted a little. “I get one day in a tropical paradise and a freakin’ cyclone hits. That is so not fair.”

“True.” He sent her a sympathetic smile. “But you’ll probably get more than one day now.”

“Damn. I need to get home. I have work to do. I left Tim with a whole list of things to work on to get in place for you when we get back.”

He curled his lip. “Oh yeah. Okay, tell me what you’ve got in mind for polishing up my image.” As if there was anything wrong with his image. People loved him. Didn’t they?

“I contacted an organization in San Diego that deals with kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods. We’re planning to bus a group of kids in so you can teach them how to surf. We think we can make it a regular thing. Of course you won’t always be there, but maybe we can find someone else to keep it going.”

He sat back in his chair. “Huh. Okay. I like kids.”

“Good. That’s good. How do you feel about the environment?”

He gazed at her blankly. “I’m in favor of it.”

She laughed. “Also good. There are a lot of environmental groups who work to preserve oceans. I thought that might be something important to you, seeing as you spend so much time in the ocean.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. True. I guess I’m not that up on the problems there are.”

She leaned forward. “I found a group called Oceans Alive that’s implementing programs to reduce urban runoff and preserve the environmental integrity of southern California’s beaches and coastal waters. They’re really keen to hook up with you and use your star power to further their cause.”

“I don’t know anything about urban runoff. But I do despise fudge tunnels.”

She gave him a blank stare.

“When you’re in a tunnel that’s all brown and yellow because of the pollution. That’s sick.”

“Fudge tunnel. Um, yeah. So, good. In the next few weeks you’ll be learning all about runoff and pollution, as well as learning about the challenges those kids face. You’ll be talking to people about the importance of preserving the ocean and coastline around San Amaro and all of southern California.”

He rubbed his face. “You make it sound like I’m going back to school.” Bleh.

“Well, we’ll try to make it as fun and interactive as possible, but you’ll have some reading to do. In fact, I brought some materials with me, thinking that the long plane ride home might be an opportunity to get started. Maybe we could do that today.”

“Sounds like fun.”
Not
. Although he was kind of intrigued by her ideas. Last summer when he’d been back in San Amaro he’d hooked up with a couple of sisters who ran a surfing school that taught mostly kids how to surf. He hadn’t been in the water with them because of his broken foot, but he’d spent some time with them and it had been kind of fun.

“There are a whole range of things we could do,” she continued, her voice warming and her hands moving as she talked. “There are a lot of environmental groups, there are skin cancer foundations—”

“Skin cancer!”

“Yes. Because you spend so much time outdoors and in the sun, it’s something you should be aware of for yourself, and promoting sun safety would be a good link.”

“Uh huh.”

“But we thought it’s probably best to pick a couple of key things and focus on those, rather than spread yourself too thin.”

He shoved a hand through his hair as their waitress appeared with their meals. They waited as she set plates in front of them then refilled their coffee cups. He pulled a pill out of his shorts pocket and downed it with his orange juice, then looked up to find her staring at him.

“What?” he asked.

She blinked. “What was that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Just some medication for the acid reflux thing. Don’t worry, Brooke, I’m not popping illicit drugs at breakfast.”

She bit her lip. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Okay,” he said. “So no skin cancer stuff?”

“Well if you feel really strongly about it, we could…”

“No. No, that’s okay. Kids and the environment sound good.”

She frowned a little, picking up her fork. “You have to come across as sincere about these things,” she said. “For this to be really effective. We need passion and commitment from you.”

“Passion and commitment.” He stared down at his plate. Well. Passion he understood. He had it for surfing, lots of it. And commitment too, he supposed, although that word did always make him clench up a little. He definitely liked his freedom. Being tied down to anything gave him the willies. He looked back up at her. “You do know that once the competition is over, I’m out of there? I don’t live in San Amaro anymore and I can’t stay.”

She picked up some of her scrambled eggs and he watched her mouth open to pop them in. She chewed and swallowed. “Yes,” she finally said. “I do know that. We hoped you might stick around for a while after, but we know you have your surfing to concentrate on. That’s your first priority and we recognize that.”

“Okay. Good.”

“What is it with San Amaro?” she asked. “You don’t want to spend any more time there than you have to, do you?”

Chapter Five

Dylan shrugged, again dropping his gaze to his food as he cut a piece of pineapple and stabbed it with his fork. “Nothing. It’s just…there’s nothing there for me anymore. I don’t need to spend time there.”

Once again, a tingle of intuition told her there was more to it than what he was saying. She didn’t want to push him but geez, if she knew what was bothering him, maybe she could help him get past that and then this wouldn’t be so painful for everyone involved. She’d anticipated some resistance when she came here, because he was probably having fun living a wild party life and probably didn’t want to be dragged back to reality and working for the sponsorship money Jackson Cole was paying him. But she hadn’t anticipated
this
much resistance, and it was clearly because of going back to San Amaro.

“Do you still have family in San Amaro?” she asked. She already knew he didn’t, but this could be a starting point to finding out what the problem was.

“Nah,” he said. “My parents split up years ago and they both moved away.”

“Was that a tough time for you?”

He blinked at her across the table. “What? My parents splitting up?”

“Yes.”

He snorted. “Not hardly. They never got along. Fought all the time, made everyone miserable. Ending their marriage was the best thing they could’ve done.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it happened after I’d left home. I guess they probably stayed together because of me, and then when I started traveling and surfing, there was no reason to stick it out any more.”

“Do you have bad memories about their fighting? From when you were a kid?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What is this? Some kind of counseling session?”

She smiled, trying to appear relaxed and conversational. “Just talking.”

“My life wasn’t that bad,” he said. “I had friends. And surfing. I had a lot of fun.”

“Yeah, you seemed like a guy who had a lot of fun in high school.”

“I wasn’t exactly a serious student.”

“No. But we all have different talents.”

“True.”

Well, that had gotten her exactly nowhere. “Do you keep in touch with friends there? Who did you hang out with? Oh, I remember…Matt Ferber. Wasn’t he your best friend?”

The flicker in his eyes told her she might have hit on something. “Yeah. That’s right. And yeah, I keep in touch with him. Some. Haven’t seen him a lot since high school, since I’m traveling so much.”

“But you were back last year, you must have seen him then.”

“Yeah, I stayed with him.” He set his cutlery down on the empty plate and pushed it away from him. “I’m done. How about you?”

“Mmm.” She picked up the last piece of sweet and juicy papaya and popped it into her mouth. “This fruit is so good.”

“I think I’ll hit the hotel gym and work out,” he said. He pulled out a wallet and drew out money to pay the bill.

“Hey, I’ll get this,” she said. “It’s a business trip.”

“You got dinner last night,” he said. “No worries.” He tossed the money on the table. “Let’s go.”

Well. Just when she thought she might be getting somewhere, he changed the subject and now he was bolting.

“I should work out too,” she said. She pushed back her chair and followed him out of the restaurant and into the lobby, still crowded with displaced guests. Through the front doors and windows, rain poured down in gray sheets, wind tossing it at the window where it beaded and ran in silvery rivulets. “Wow, look at that.”

“Storm’s picking up,” Dylan said.

“When do you think it will be over?”

With unspoken accord, they began walking toward the elevator.

“No idea. I guess we could check on that.”

“I should call the office and let them know what’s happening. We weren’t sure how long I’d be here, but yesterday I sent them an email telling them I’d be back Tuesday.”

“Guess that’s not going to happen.”

“Guess not.”

She pulled out her phone as they stepped out of the elevator but frowned at the small screen. “No service, dammit.”

He peered at her phone. “Nope. I guess the storm’s interfering with cell service.”

“Shit. Well, I can try the room phone.”

But once in her room, she discovered the phone lines were down too. “Oh man.” She sank onto the side of the bed with a sigh. “This is awful.”

“At least we still have power.”

The lights flickered ominously. She glanced around. “You’re jinxing us.”

He grinned. “Don’t use the elevators any more today.”

She bent her head. “Jesus. Wouldn’t that be perfect, getting stuck in an elevator?”

He started unbuttoning the loose, brightly printed shirt he wore.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Changing. To go to the gym.”

“Oh. Um…”

“They said they’d find me another room, but apparently that’s not going so smoothly down there.” He shrugged out of the shirt, revealing that chest she remembered so well from yesterday. She gulped, remembering how much of his body she’d seen yesterday. And how much she was apparently about to see again. “So I may as well stay here with you.”

“What?” Her mouth fell open. “You can’t stay here with me.”

“Why not? I have to stay somewhere. Do you want me sleeping on the floor of the lobby?” He sent her that sexy grin as he flicked open the button of the knee-length shorts he wore then unzipped them. She averted her eyes. He apparently felt no need to duck into the bathroom to change as she had earlier. But then yesterday he’d had no problem walking around and having a conversation with her while completely nude.

She almost sighed. If she had an incredible body like that she probably wouldn’t mind showing it off either.

“I don’t want you sleeping on the floor,” she said. “But I’m sure they can find another room for you.”

He walked over to the bags he brought in with him earlier and unzipped one. She snuck a peek at him. He was wearing a pair of black boxer briefs that hugged his round butt and muscular thighs. Her heart fluttered in her chest and she forgot to breathe, watching him crouch there, his thighs flexing and the muscles in his back rippling as he rummaged around then pulled out a pair of black athletic shorts and a white T-shirt.