AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t have a thing for surfers.” Jun saw Kai’s inviting dark eyes once more in her mind’s eye. Or did she?
“Okay, then, well, you owe Kai a debt. You know how Mom felt about debt.”
The woman had paid cash for everything and had never owned a single credit card. If a neighbor brought her a basket of fruit, she’d somehow turn it into a full meal, which she’d return the following day. Jun knew herself well enough to know that her staunch independence came directly from her mother. She knew she couldn’t turn Kai down. She owed him.
So why did working for him fill her with dread? Why did repaying a debt feel as though somehow she would just be asking for more? Because she had a sinking feeling that Kai was so far into self-destruct mode that she might not be able to help him. What if she tried and failed?
“It’s not how I wanted to repay the debt,” Jun said. “Besides, how is it being repaid if he’s paying me to do it?”
“You want to take the job for free, that’s your business, but he’s asking you for help. You know you can’t turn him down.”
Jun knew her sister spoke the truth. Yet, as she thought about his devilishly charming smile and the way his dark eyes suggested he knew just how much he got under her skin, she really wished she could.
“He told me to think about it for two days.”
“So?”
“So I’m going to take two days to think about it.”
CHAPTER SIX
KAI SAT OUTSIDE Island Fit in his open-top Jeep, the warm tropical sun beaming down on his wavy dark hair. His golden-brown skin didn’t need more of a tan, but it was a crime to put the fabric top up and shut out the beautiful Hawaiian weather.
It had been two days and change since the Tai Chi lesson on the beach, when he’d offered Jun a job. He’d not heard a word from her. He had to admit, he’d expected a call that same day. The fact that she hadn’t jumped on the opportunity made him wonder if he was losing his charm. Women rarely told him no. Hell, he hadn’t even found a woman who’d told him maybe in a very long time. He’d been the recipient of so many enthusiastic yeses, so many women who threw themselves at him, that he’d forgotten what it was like to actually chase someone.
Personally or professionally.
Not many people on the Big Island had the kind of money he did, and those who didn’t succumb to his smile usually rolled over when he opened up his checkbook.
Jun, clearly, was different. But why? He wanted to find out.
It had been a while since he’d cared enough about a woman to get out of bed before noon. Here it was, eight in the morning, and he was sitting outside the gym, watching Jun move about inside. He didn’t know what it was about her. Maybe the grounded confidence she wore easily, like a second skin?
He might have saved her from a rude client on the beach, but part of him thought she would’ve handled it just fine on her own. He’d never met someone so completely independent, someone who had herself together the way she did. He used to be like her, before the tsunami. He remembered feeling as if he could tackle any challenge, surf any wave, no matter how big. But now he wasn’t sure he could even get out of the bed in the morning. He wanted a little bit of Jun’s certainty, a little of her glue to hold himself together.
That was why she had to work for him.
It had nothing to do with the fact that she was 100 percent alluring: athletic and gorgeous yet delicate all at the same time. She was like a hormone cocktail that made his head buzz.
Even now he shifted in the front seat of his car, his groin growing taut as he watched her march across the gym in black spandex capris that hugged her fit curves, her gleaming black ponytail bouncing as she went. His body’s response surprised him. It wasn’t as if he lacked for sex, but to be so struck by a single mom? He believed in the power of family, of ’ohana, as his aunt called it. But when it came to having one of his own, he always thought he would someday, but that always seemed far away, years down the road, when his surfing career was long done. He’d never been one to seriously consider dating a single mom, and he’d never once found one as sexy as he found Jun.
