Wrecked (Sons of San Clemente Book 2) (4 page)

“Nice alliteration. Going back to poetry?”

She sucked in her breath like he’d punched her.

The quiet pounded in her ears. Why couldn’t she just laugh things off like he did?

“The night has a way of sorting things out.” he said finally.

“So does silence,” she ground out.

And when he didn’t shoot off his mouth again, she felt disappointed and mentally kicked herself for wanting to hear his voice, for wanting to engage. Again.

H
ollis sprinted along the beach, ran up the white wooden staircase, and hopped over the railing on the back of the deck. Sweat ran down her back and between her breasts, squished together by her sports bra. The ten mile run had done little to clear her head, but at least she felt human again.

A loser. But human.

She shook her head, pulled off her T-shirt and wiped her face and neck with it. She had to stop thinking like that. So not helpful.

There were a million things she could do. A million. She just needed to shut off her anxiety long enough so that she could think. She didn’t want to take medication that might dull her mind. She wanted to conquer her anxiety by herself. Besides she didn’t have money to see a doctor.

She breathed in the early morning salty air and began her post-run stretch, feeling her muscles lengthen, her breath fill every part of her body. The fragrance of the ocean mingled with the potted citrus, jasmine, honeysuckle, and Daphne plants and her eyes pricked with tears again. Home. She had missed San Clemente. The upscale boutiques next door to beach shacks hawking flip flops and plastic sand pails. She even noticed Mia Santos had a shop.
Good for her
. The cafes with bright umbrellas facing the Pacific, the endless stretch of blue grey that had permeated every aspect of her life growing up before it had taken it all away. But the minute she’d graduated early, she’d run far from here, only returning to visit her grandmother. And to fall in love, over and over again and again.

So.

Kadan was here. Seemingly as trapped as she was. Hollis pulled off her running shoes, banged out the sand and stared at the periwinkle blue door. She squared her shoulders. Hopefully Kadan would still be sleeping, and she could catch a shower and not think of him while she was wet and naked and he was only a wall away.

“Still an early bird, but I don’t see the worm.”

She spun around. Kadan lounged on a wicker couch that faced the ocean. He didn’t bother to turn around so she stared at the back of his head, his dark hair fell in waves and curls that teased below his nape. Her fingers actually flexed as if they planned to weave through all that luxurious silk.

“Yeah, I’ve gone vegetarian.” It was a bad joke so she tried again. “You’re up early, considering.”

She winced at how crass that must sound to him. ‘Considering.’ Considering he couldn’t surf. Considering she’d woken him at midnight and they hadn’t slept again until...she didn’t even know if she’d managed any sleep. An hour. Two, tops.

He turned and looked at her. His dark, blue eyes pierced her soul. His face was somber. She held herself as stiff as any soldier under review. His opinion meant nothing anymore. What could he say or know about her that could hurt her more than he had? Something flickered in his gaze and it dropped, ran lower on her body. Hollis flinched. She’d forgotten she was wearing only red booty running shorts and a red and black sports bra. It took everything to fight the instinct to cover up.

“What happened?”

“Wwwhat?” she stammered, surprised by the question. “On the run? Nothing.”

His smile was slow, but when it reached his eyes, she could barely breathe.

“Why are you here?”

“Just a visit home.” She tossed her ponytail like a banner. “I did grow up here.”

She cringed at how arctic she sounded. And rude, since he, too, had grown up in San Clemente in vastly different circumstances.

“But no family,” his voice whispered, and despite that she meant to flee and take a shower, she stepped closer as if he were the sun and she a planet drawn by the laws of physics into his orbit. “The main house is crawling with construction workers. Your grandmother’s in France with friends for months and your mother’s at her place in New York City. And duchess comes home. No family. No friends. No heads up.”

Hollis swallowed. Was she that obvious? Of course she was.

“Just a break,” she said.

“So, still lying?” He asked lightly.

The hurt and fury rose, black and thick and fast, and burst the confines of her shattered heart before she could even feel it.

“I wasn’t the one who lied,” she hissed and hurled her balled up T-Shirt at him like it was a grenade. “And cheated over and over and over.”

He didn’t even have the decency to lurch to his feet and confront her. Or defend himself. Instead, he remained calmly seated, his eyes roving over her face dispassionately, her T-shirt held in one strong, bronzed hand. Then he had the nerve to pick up his coffee cup and sip from it.

Hollis had to fight back the urge to kick the couch’s wicker leg. Dump him over. But that would seriously hurt him and her brain managed to abdicate lizard status long enough to remind her of that.

“You are so sexy when you are furious. I’d forgotten that”

Hollis curled her toes to remind them to stay put. “One track mind.”

“I can usually manage two or three.”

“Women. Women and more women.”

“Tracks,” he said mildly, which only pissed her off more. “But if you are offering two more women, now that is definitely something many men would like to have the opportunity to consider,” he drawled out.

He’d probably done that, too. Jerk.

“Not even one,” she said and turned away from him, towards the door.

Towards a bit of safety. She bit her lip, indecisive, wanting to go, but unable to leave his orbit. It had been like that forever. He’d exerted a gravitational pull on her even when she knew she should break off, pull away. He called to her without ever opening his mouth. He affected her even when his attention was totally focused elsewhere. Surfing. Business. Fans. Buddies. Women. Always everyone and everything else but her.

“I made a latte for you with your almond milk you brought,” he said.

She bit down harder as her heart lurched. He’d always been like that, considerate. Kind. Taking care of her even when things had been bad. She’d tried to forget that.

“Thank you,” she said tonelessly. “But I’ll take a shower first.”

“It will be cold by them. And it was a ball buster to manage the machine and the mugs and the crutches.”

He indicated the mug on the table beside him.

She closed her eyes. This man was so perfect and so awful all rolled up into one potent, masculine, muscled...she shook her head, not wanting to go there when he was in the same breathing space, but the things he could do with his mouth, those full lips and tongue, even years later she shivered.

He didn’t say anything to interrupt her tumbling thoughts, but she could smell him, that combined smell of the ocean, pine, and sandalwood that had always shot straight through her nose, bypassing her brain, and lodging deep in her core, making her body weep and wail for him, and it was all starting over again. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. She wasn’t a young, dreamy girl obsessively in love anymore. She could control herself. She would.

She sat in the chair opposite him, holding her hand out for her shirt. He still held it, one eyebrow arched as if in challenge. What did he expect her to do, lunge for it in a game of keep away? Only her brother Holland wasn’t there to complete the triad. Another spear of sorrow shot through her.

“Truce?”

“We aren’t fighting.”

“We will be.”

“Always the optimist.”

“Of course, so temporary truce?”

“Give me my shirt.”

“I like the color.” He held it up for inspection. “Coral, I believe it’s called. Bet it does spectacular things for your golden eyes that shoot sparks at me and your luminous complexion.”

The words were laughable, like a cosmetic ad, but it was his tone that caught her. So playful, conciliatory.

“You’ve changed.” She breathed, puzzled, pleased, yet hurt and confused all at once. Kadan threw her so off balance it was as if she were at sea in a storm.

“So have you.” His voice hardened.

He handed her the shirt. She put it on. Picked up her latte, trying to think of a less volatile or evocative topic of conversation. Too much history and pain and desire swirled around them for her to even make a stab at safe.

“Your grandmother called.” He tossed out casually as if it weren’t explosive.

She choked on her latte and stared at him. “What did you say?”

He let the silence stretch again. He was so good at that where she’d always jumped in with words. Words and pleas and demands.

“Nothing. Yet.”

She took another sip of her latte. He had her. He might not know how he had her. But he definitely suspected something major was up and playing it cool was so not working for her. She palmed her mug and held it near her chin, feeling its warmth permeate her chilled bones. Cool had never worked for her when she’d been a child or a teen or a young woman in her early twenties, so desperately and utterly in love with him. Why think it would now? She’d always waved her heart in his face and shouted.

“Why’d she call you?”

“I’m recuperating in her guest house. Therefore, I am a guest and she feels responsible. The Remington Way.”

Hollis nodded. Her grandmother had always felt responsible for so many things. She’d helped Kadan with so much. Tutoring. Part-time jobs. A place to stay. Of course even though he was a successful surfer who competed around the world, she would still keep in touch. Still be there for him.

“She asked you to stay here,” Hollis said. “Because she knew you needed time alone.”

He’d always been fiercely proud and private in a way that she’d understood.

“She knew I’d never cope in one of those rehab facilities, and she knew I didn’t want a successive group of so called friends helping me, so she offered this place so I could be alone and think and manage mostly on my own. But she wanted me to have a nurse at least to check in with me every other day and a home aid worker to drive me to PT appointments and such.”

Long speech for him. Hollis nodded the whole time. It sounded so reasonable, but still she’d been found out, her secrets and failures would be revealed for everyone in San Clemente to scorn because Kadan had been injured and her grandmother still cared. They would know she was a fraud. Not so smart. And so far away from perfect. Who limped home with a degree from Stanford and two graduate degrees from UCLA, broke and unemployed, and suffering from absurd panic attacks?

“I said no to the nurse.”

Of course he would.

“So she’s called each day and she wants to set up grocery delivery and a driver to take me to my PT appointments.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“But that’s a lot of people when I, and apparently, now you want and need privacy.”

Hollis braced herself, not knowing what was coming next.

“So...”

“Yes?”

“Throw me a bone, duchess.”

“What do you want from me, Kadan?”

He was the last person she was going to unroll the scroll of her spectacular failures for. He, who’d started in nearly the worst circumstances and had become a stellar success on every front, and she, who started out as a golden child, admittedly second place to her platinum twin brother, but still golden, had gone on to experience failure after failure.

“I don’t want to lie to your grandmother, but I don’t want her to worry.”

Hollis angrily wiped a tear that threatened to fall. Bastard. He was so worried about her grandmother’s feelings in a way that he’d never ever been worried about hers.

She wanted to tell him to go to hell. Again. Tell him to say what he wanted to her grandmother. But that would bring her grandmother home. And then it would all start again. The sympathy.
Poor, lost Hollis. Unable to grow up. Be responsible. Take care of herself. Make a career. Keep a man. Maybe if we’d just sent her to a psychologist all those years ago...

But she wasn’t going to beg. And she had nothing to bargain with unless...she caught her breath at the idea. But she couldn’t do that again. She was done with that profession. Could she be so close to him, help him, and not lose her heart?

He sipped his latte, his blue eyes assessing her.

“She calls every day.”

Hollis swallowed hard. She knew her grandmother had always cared for Kadan. But that much?

“So what to tell her?” He mused. “I could tell her an old friend came to visit who could drive me to appointments and pick up groceries.”

His blue eyes caught hers and Hollis found it difficult to breathe for a whole different reason than panic attacks.

“Would you tell her that?”

“Only if it’s true.”