Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  The surfer shot Frankie a “what the fuck” look before accepting Taffany’s hand.

  “Taffany, yeah? That’s an… interesting name.”

  “I rebranded myself,” Taffany announced proudly, shoving her hand toward his mouth. “Kiss it!”

  Frankie stepped between them and broke Taffany’s hold on the surfer. He shook his hand to get the circulation back.

  “Anyway, I’m happy I ran into you. I was hoping I’d see you here.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Frankie said. Her brain wasn’t working fast enough. She could feel Aiden glaring holes into her. “You want to dance? Way over there. Away from here?”

  He flashed a dimple at her. “Love to.”

  Frankie wrestled her hand away from Aiden. “Be back in a few minutes, Pru,” she called to the bride.

  “Have fun storming the castle,” Pru sang.

  “Feed her and water her,” Frankie ordered Chip as Brendan led her into the crowd.

  She’d held hands with two men tonight. One she didn’t like at all and one she’d developed an insta-crush on. So why didn’t insta-crush give her the pterodactyls in her stomach like Aiden had?

  Brendan spun her around, and the crowd flashed by in colors and scents. He pulled her back, and she laughed.

  “So, what’s a pretty American like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, dimpling adorably for her.

  Frankie felt… nothing. God. Damn. It. A cute, sexy, funny guy who was built to be on some kind of fundraising calendar holding a puppy was swirling her around a dance floor, and all she could think about was Aiden’s finger prints on her thigh. That son of bitch was ruining her life.

  “I’m babysitting several drunk women so everyone will show up for the wedding tomorrow. How about you, surf here often?”

  He grinned, and again she felt less than nothing. Aiden Kilbourn was the fucking devil, and she was going to murder his face.

  Brendan launched into an explanation of his travel habits, following the surf and whatnot. She should have been charmed, excited, hell, she should have been wet. She must have had some bad rum or beer or fish. It was the only logical explanation.

  “Excuse me, Franchesca.” The hand on her shoulder sent a prairie fire racing through her veins. “Pruitt requires your attention,” Aiden announced a bit too smugly for Frankie’s liking.

  Cressida, all five foot eleven of her, was peering over his shoulder. “I will dance with you,” she announced, pulling Brendan into her leanly muscled arms.

  “Uhhh,” Brendan looked over his shoulder at Frankie as Cressida dragged him into the night.

  “What the hell was that?” Frankie hissed.

  Aiden gripped her around the waist. “Exactly what I was wondering. I’m not used to being thrown over, Franchesca.”

  “Look, we either had too much to drink, or we’re coming down with food poisoning. Those are the only explanations I can come up with for why—”

  He cut her off and pushed her behind a fish stand. She could hear the cooks and servers shouting at each other from the open window above her head. “I thought you said Pru needed me,” she snapped.

  He reached out and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear, and there were those fucking pterodactyls. It wasn’t fair.

  “Maybe it wasn’t Pru. Maybe it was me.”

  “Aiden, this is a terrible idea. And maybe Brendan showing up was the best thing that could have happened. He saved us from making a huge mistake.”

  “Don’t fuck him.” He laid down the gauntlet, and despite the lack of pterodactyls where Brendan was concerned, Aiden’s proclamation made the surfer more attractive.

  “I fuck who I want, when I want.”

  “You want me.”

  If Aiden put his hands on her here, there’d be no denying it. She’d be too busy climbing him like a mountain and unzipping his shorts. Distance was her friend. Distance would keep her sane.

  She held up her hands. “Let’s not get carried away. We’re here for Pru and Chip and their wedding. That’s it. Not some tropical sexathon.” Though when she put it that way and Aiden was looking at her like she was a popsicle begging to be licked, Frankie had trouble reminding herself why she couldn’t have both.

  “Franchesca.” The way he said her name sounded like a threat.

  “Aiden,” she shot back.

  “Fuck.” He took a step back, rubbing absently at his forehead. “I don’t know why you’re saying no.”

  “I’m worth more than a quick bang on the beach. I take sex seriously. I have to like the person I’m fucking.”

  There was a tic in his jaw.

  “You were seconds away from letting me shove my fingers—”

  “Stop!” She cut him off, not mentally prepared to hear what he’d been about to do with those beautiful fingers. “I made a mistake. I got carried away. But I have the right to change my mind at any time whether your dick’s out or not.”

  “I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  “Damn it, Aiden. Look. Maybe my body wants your body. But if I don’t want the rest of you, then it’s not happening.”

  “I don’t do relationships. But what I can offer—”

  “Christ, I’m not talking about relationships. I’m talking about liking you as a person.”

  “You keep saying you don’t like me, but I think you’re trying to convince yourself.”

  “My prerogative. Got it? Bottom line, you’re not getting in my pretty pink thong. I don’t like you enough for that. Now, I need a minute and some air. Do me a favor and check on Pru and the rest of those idiots.”

  She turned, ruining her exit by tripping over an empty crate outside the shack’s back door. But she didn’t fall on her face. Picking her way toward the sidewalk, Frankie didn’t relax until she could no longer feel the burning weight of Aiden’s gaze on her.

  “What is with that guy?” she muttered under her breath. She didn’t like him, yet she was more than happy to let him meander a trail up her thigh to her happy place. She felt like her blood had turned to electricity, zinging through her veins at impossible speeds. He was cold, judgmental, reserved. Hell, he’d assumed she was a stripper. That alone should banish him from her bed for life.

  Frankie picked her way through the crowd on the sidewalk. Cab drivers catcalled fares, and drunken tourists stumbled into ZRs, the island’s minivan transportation. For a buck U.S., you could get pretty much anywhere from Bridgetown to St. Lawrence Gap. A group of local girls dressed to the nines wandered by giggling as a group of boys followed a half step behind.

  She spotted Chip ahead, looking around as if he was lost. He was standing on the sidewalk ahead of the cab line weaving like a man who’d ingested nothing but rum for an entire weekend.

  She raised her hand to hail him. But before she could call out to him, a dirty white van roared up to the sidewalk, the rear door sliding open before it stopped. Chip leaned in, and that’s when Frankie saw the hands reach out. They dragged him into the van.

  “Hey! Chip!” She started running. The driver, a red cap pulled low, looked her way. “Stop! That’s my friend!” Frankie yelled.

  “Hey, Mami,” the driver said, tossing her a wave as he floored the accelerator. Tires squealing, the door slammed shut with Chip inside, and the van sped away from the curb.

  The groom had just been kidnapped.

  Chapter Nine

  Aiden was under a full head of steam as he stormed his way through the fish festival crowd. When he found Frankie, he was going to explain that she was being an idiot. Which would probably go over well. Aiden liked having the edge, the advantage in negotiations. And Frankie’s weakness was when she let her emotions off the leash. Mad, turned on, that’s when she was vulnerable to suggestion.

  It was callous, calculating. But he was a Kilbourn. It’s what they did.

  He spotted her on the sidewalk, and his calculations disappeared as if they’d never been when he saw the fear on her face. She was hailing a c
ab.

  “Franchesca!” he pushed his way to her just as a rusty ZR van clunked to a stop in front of her. There were a half dozen people already on it.

  “Aiden!” She grabbed his arm. “Get in!”

  Instinctively, he followed her onto the torn-up vinyl of a bench seat.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Where you going?” the driver asked.

  “Follow that car,” Frankie announced, pointing at taillights ahead.

  The ZR lurched to a start, and Aiden braced his hand on the seat in front of him. “What in the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  “They took Chip.” Her breath was coming in heaves as she peered over the front seat…

  “What? Who took Chip?”

  “I don’t know. One second he was standing on the sidewalk, and the next, someone was dragging him into a minivan.”

  Aiden yanked his phone out. And dialed Chip’s number. There was no answer.

  A bell rang and the ZR jerked to a stop in front of a sports bar.

  “Why are we stopping?” Frankie asked. “They’re getting away!”

  “Lady, this is a Zed-R. We stop for everyone.”

  A man dressed in all white with a hand carved cane climbed out of the back and over Frankie to the door. The van sat as he shuffled his way across the street toward the bar.

  Aiden reached for his money clip. “How much for no more stops?” he questioned, handing twenties to the remaining passengers.

  “I can be late,” a woman with a sleeping toddler in her lap said with a smile stuffing the twenty into her bra.

  “WooHoo!” A man in an orange and black Hawaiian shirt with a peeling sunburn on his nose and forehead triumphantly held up his twenty. “I love this country! I’m getting’ paid to take public transportation.”

  “Whatever you say, mister,” the driver said, accepting his bill and flooring it.

  The minivan was well out of sight and Franchesca was practically vibrating beside him. Aiden slid an arm around her shoulder, anchoring her to his side.

  The ZR shuffled forward slowly building speed like a freight train. The driver cranked up the volume of a reggae song and merrily swerved around a trio of potholes. Aiden dialed Chip again. Still nothing.

  He swore quietly, his brain turning over the problem. Who would take Chip the night before his wedding, and why?

  “Franchesca, tell me everything you remember,” he said, squeezing her shoulder.

  “Everything I remember? Our friend was just dragged off the sidewalk into a fucking van!” Conversation in the ZR shut down as everyone leaned in to listen.

  “I got that part already. Now, walk me through everything that you saw.”

  She went over it again and then once more as the van careened north. Her body shifting against his around turns.

  “The driver—he looked at me when I called for Chip—he had a gold tooth and a dirty red cap. But he had it pulled low over his face. That’s all I saw. I didn’t see who grabbed Chip, but the drunk dumbass stuck his head right in the van. He made it easy for them.”

  They careened around a sharp turn, slipping into a traffic circle six inches in front of a city bus. The driver tooted the horn in either a friendly thank you or a fuck off. Aiden couldn’t tell.

  Frankie’s hands were white knuckled on the seatback in front of her.

  “Are you sure he didn’t get in willingly?” Aiden asked squeezing her arm.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t hear him scream or anything, but he didn’t climb into that van by himself. Everyone he knows here is back at the fish stand. Who would do this?”

  It was a question Aiden had been asking himself. Chip Randolph was squeaky clean. No gambling debts, no secret second lives. Just a trust fund kid amiably enjoying his very privileged world. Aiden scrolled through everything he and Chip had discussed in the past few weeks. Had his friend mentioned any issues? Any squabbles in the family? At work?

  “You don’t think Pru’s dad would have done this. Do you?” Frankie asked, eyes wide.

  “He hates Chip,” Aiden conceded. “But I don’t see R.L. Stockton plotting an abduction. He’d stick it to Chip in the prenup.”

  “Which he did,” Frankie pointed out.

  “That he did,” Aiden agreed. He’d cautioned Chip against signing it, but his friend wouldn’t hear of it.

  “Still, maybe something Chip did pissed R.L. off?” Franchesca mused.

  There was a loud bang, and the ZR slowed. Smoke rose from its engine. The driver swore over the reggae pouring from the speakers as the dashboard lit up with warning lights. He pulled off to the side of the road and jumped out, a small fire extinguisher in his hand.

  “Get out,” Aiden said, nudging Frankie to the door.

  “How are we going to catch them?” she asked, ducking to hop out of the door and the hem of her dress rose indecently high over the curve of her ass. Aiden gripped the material and pulled down as he pushed her out of the vehicle. “We can’t give up.” She slapped at his hand.

  “We’re not giving up,” Aiden insisted. “We’re refocusing. Come on.” They left the van and its now ride-less occupants and started walking briskly.

  The night air was thick with humidity. He could hear the steady thrum of ocean waves on the beach over a thousand tree frogs chirping.

  “Shouldn’t we be heading north?” Frankie asked, trotting in her heels to keep up with him.

  Aiden slowed his pace in the hopes that she wouldn’t break both ankles.

  “We’re not going to be able to catch them.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “I don’t know, Franchesca. I need to think.”

  He hadn’t brought any security with him, doubted that the Randolphs or Stocktons had either. The hotel had its own. Why would they need a personal security detail in paradise? He cursed himself for it now. His friend was missing, and he had no one but the local authorities to turn to.

  Frankie stumbled and yelped.

  “Your shoes are ridiculous.”

  “I wasn’t planning on walking eighteen miles tonight.”

  “Clearly,” he said dryly. He stepped in front of her. “Get on.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She sounded haughty as a queen who had just been asked to perform the Cupid Shuffle.

  “Hop on and save your feet.”

  “You’re not lugging me around Barbados on your back, Aide,” Frankie argued.

  “Get on my back now, or I throw you over my shoulder and show the entire island your pretty pink thong.”

  She hopped nimbly onto his back, her thighs settling on his hips, arms wrapping around his shoulders.

  “This isn’t exactly how I saw the night going,” Aiden announced conversationally. He cupped his hands behind his back under her ass. “I thought I’d have you on your back.”

  She pinched him through the crisp cotton of his button down. “Hilarious, big guy. Fucking hilarious. Come up with a plan yet?”

  “Still thinking,” he said, boosting her up higher.

  “I don’t think it was random,” Frankie said thoughtfully. “I don’t think it was like ‘Hey, nice watch, now get in my van.’”

  “Which means he was specifically targeted,” Aiden added.

  “This is going to crush Pru,” Franchesca said half to herself. “She loves him so damn much. Did you know that when he broke up with her after college, she couldn’t get out of bed for a week? We just laid there and stared at the ceiling. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t get dressed. She didn’t even really talk for days. Her dad had the family doctor visiting her every day.”

  Aiden felt the stirring of guilt. “I didn’t realize she cared so much for him back then.” He hadn’t. Had thought she’d been indifferent and immature.

  “He crushed her when he left, and it took her a long time to get back on her feet. Now, if I were her, I would have spent the rest of my life hating him. But not Pru. She never stopped loving him. And now here we are in paradise f
or their wedding all these years later, and look what happens.”

  “We’ll get him back,” Aiden promised.

  “Do you think they’ll hurt him?” Her arms tightened around him.

  Aiden heard the fear in her tone and reacted to it. “No,” he said, his voice gruff. “Odds are they took him for money. They lose their bargaining tool if they rough him up or—”

  “Or worse,” she finished for him.

  “They’re supposed to get married tomorrow. What am I going to tell her? God, why would anyone do this? Money? Ransom? Oh, Jesus. He doesn’t have ties to the mob, does he?”

  “Doubtful,” Aiden said wryly.

  They heard the groaning of brakes as a city bus eased to a stop beside them. Aiden let Frankie slip off his back to the ground. “Let’s go get some answers.”

  Chapter Ten

  As much as Frankie enjoyed seeing all six-feet four-inches of Aiden Kilbourn crammed onto a bus seat, nothing could take away the icy feeling in her stomach. Someone had taken her friend right in front of her and who knew what was happening to him right now. She hated the not knowing.

  Her phone buzzed from inside her clutch.

  “Oh, shit.” She showed the screen to Aiden.

  “Answer it. Maybe someone contacted her?”

  “Hey, Pru,” Frankie said.

  “Where are you, Frankenstein?” It was Pru’s drunken moniker for drunken Frankie.

  Frankie eyed Aiden for a moment. He shrugged. “I’m with Aiden,” she said.

  “Ohmygod. I knew it!” Pru’s shriek put a couple of pin holes in Frankie’s eardrum. “I knew you two would hit it off. I’m like literally the smartest person ever.”

  “The smartest,” Frankie agreed.

  “Ask her about Chip,” Aiden whispered.

  Frankie held the phone out so Aiden could listen too. “Sorry for bailing on you. Is everyone else still there?” she asked.

  “Well, I think so. Margeaux passed out under the picnic table, so we had the driver carry her back to the car. And I haven’t seen Chip for a little while. I think he went to the bathroom a few minutes ago.”