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“Shut up,” I muttered.
“Hmm?” Faith murmured.
“Nothing.”
Ten minutes later, I pulled into the Pono Kai parking lot. The condo complex wasn’t a resort, but not a dump either—a midrise of condos, most of which were now likely vacation rentals. I woke Faith up and carried her past a koi pond to her condo’s front door. She keyed the door and I kicked it open.
“Ooh, that felt very firefighter-y,” she said.
She was smiling up at me, and it took all I had to keep my gaze on her clear green eyes and not let it drop to her mouth. But staring into her eyes was just as bad. Rimmed with long dark lashes, they glinted with humor and more than a little heat, too.
I tore my gaze away. “Where?”
“Couch.”
The condo wasn’t huge but modern, with all the usual Airbnb-approved-ocean-themed crap on the walls. The setting sun’s soft orange light streamed in from large windows, and the beach was a short walk from her lanai, for all the good it would do her now. I pulled the coffee table closer to the couch so she could rest her foot on it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You need ice.” I went to the freezer in her chrome and marble kitchen.
“They just wrapped up my foot…”
“I can rewrap,” I said, putting ice cubes in a Ziploc. “Besides, don’t you want to get cleaned up?”
Faith arched a perfect eyebrow. “Are you heroically offering to bathe me?”
I brought the kitchen mallet hard on a bag of ice cubes and coughed. “I’m a professional. I cut clothes off people every day.”
“I’ll bet you do,” she purred.
Christ…
“I’ll call a nurse friend.”
“That’s very sweet of you, Asher…?”
“Mackey.” I came around to sit on the coffee table. Carefully, I removed the boot and bandages from Faith’s ankle. Gripping the delicate muscle in her calf, I set a dish towel over her swollen foot and a bag of crushed ice over that.
“Hurts,” she whispered.
“Already looks better than earlier.”
Her gaze darted to me hopefully. “You think so?”
“Definitely. I bet you’ll be walking by the end of the week.”
She shook her head. “I’m not staying a week. I’m done.”
“Giving up already? I thought you were here for a reset?”
“Did I say that?”
I shrugged. “Something like that.”
“Well, whatever I came to do isn’t happening. It’s back to Seattle for me.” She watched me gently settle the ice so that it stayed put. “Where are you from?”
“New York City.”
