Jacked - The Complete Series Box Set (A Lumberjack Neighbor Romance)

by Claire Adams

  I smiled. Ha. Got her.

  I grabbed my wallet and phone and left my suite for the lobby. When I got there, she was standing, talking to her friend. Her back was to me. Her friend saw me first and seemed to tell her because she turned to look at me. They waited till I was right at the desk.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Stone," her friend said, smiling. "You and Abby can leave as soon as you're ready," she said. I could feel Abby shooting daggers at me from beside her. She was so mad.

  "I'm ready now; let's go." Abby said goodbye to her friend and came around the desk. I wondered how much her friend knew. They always seemed to be together; what had Abby told her, if anything?

  "Come this way," Abby said, walking towards the exit. Her voice was strained, like being polite to me was the last thing she wanted to do.

  I'd never had someone so upset about spending time with me. She wasn't even going to suck it up and pretend. She was letting me have it. A lot of people tended to kiss my ass because they were scared of me. I liked that she wasn't. I'd have been upset about it if it wasn't so cute.

  "Was there something important behind that desk you had to do today?" I asked.

  "You mean my job?"

  "I don’t know why you're so upset. This is what you wanted, wasn't it?" I teased.

  "To spend the day babysitting you? What fun," she said sarcastically.

  I chuckled. This was great. I hated when people would just roll over on me. I never pulled punches; I didn't expect people to do it for me. She was giving me hell, and it was great. We got to the parked car, and she went around to the driver's seat.

  "You like taking days off, so here's another for you."

  She looked at me from across the car, shocked. "Your inability to have a good time in a place like this is only a limit of your own imagination, Nate," she said. "The ocean stays salty with or without me."

  "And you still have to cater to me, whether you want to or not," I said back.

  She huffed and got in the car. I got in after her. I watched her adjust her seat and the mirrors and put her belt on, obviously doing her best not to look over at me. I didn't want to push her buttons so hard that she snapped.

  She had been worried about what she'd seen when she'd come into my room — me passed out and stuff — but she'd been upset, too. She had almost been offended by the fact that I used. Like she couldn't believe I did that shit. Not only that, she had tried to get me to let her help me.

  She cared. She was a stranger, and I wasn't her problem. I could die tomorrow, and it wouldn't make her coffee any sweeter, but she still tried to help.

  I learned pretty fast after Remus had been signed that unless people could get something out of you, they didn't give a fuck. You were only as good as what you could offer them, and if you stopped being useful, they had a replacement waiting in the wings. I’d been living in LA too long. How sad was it that I was surprised by human decency? I thought.

  We had been driving for about five minutes. The resort was already behind us. I didn't know anything about this place, so I had no idea where she was taking me. She had not said a word since the trip had begun.

  I looked at the side of her face. She was pretty from that angle, too. Her hair was down again, falling in waves over her chest. It looked like it would be really soft if you touched it.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Are you worried? Do you have any illegal substances in here that I should worry about being found with?" she asked. That was funny. She wasn't going to give me a break, was she?

  "No," I laughed. "If I did, I'd take the fall myself. I wouldn't let you get into trouble."

  "Why do you-" she cut herself off. "How?" she asked simply, taking her eyes off the road for a second to look at me. What a good question. I asked myself how the fuck I ended up like this sometimes, too.

  "You don't have to talk to me, you just have to take me somewhere," I said, halfheartedly trying to discourage her.

  "I just don't understand," she said. "You were right about it being none of my business, and I don't want to act like I know anything about who you are and your life, but... What happened?"

  "I used to be in a band, one that you've probably never heard of," I added so she didn't ask and find out which one. "While on tour, I got pulled into using, and as badly as I want to stop, it's an addiction."

  "You're trying to beat it?"

  "It's a lot easier said than done. I mean, you saw."

  She was quiet after that, but a better quiet than before. It wasn't the calm before the storm anymore, she was just, I don't know, processing what I had told her. I'm able to tell her a lot more easily than I had thought I would have been able to, I thought. She’d already seen me with the needle in my arm anyway, so lying to her now would have just insulted her.

  "I can't imagine how difficult that is for you," she said.

  "Well, it's not fun," I said. I had been passed out when she'd seen me, so I didn't know how much she had seen. She had seen my arm, though, if she had seen the needle.

  I'd been good about keeping my shit clean, which isn't something to be proud of, but I was a fucking junkie — the standards were low. I'd never gotten infected, or accidentally hit an artery. I'd missed a few times and shot into the muscle, but as far as junkies went, I'd say I was doing okay. My arm looked like I'd taken the butt end of a cigar to it, but I didn't think she'd seen anything she'd have nightmares about later.

  Despite that, I kind of wanted to apologize to her for what she had had to see. I hadn't really thought she had come to my room for any reason other than the one she had given me. I had no reason to. I was just being an ass. I heard her take a deep breath next to me.

  "We have about a twenty minutes’ drive to go," she said.

  "What?"

  "Twenty minutes," she repeated, looking over at me. "We're going to Keahiakawelo. The Garden of the Gods."

  Right, I had asked her where she was taking me. She wanted to tell me that? She didn't feel like talking about it more, what she saw and my addiction...that stuff. She wasn't going to tell me about an uncle she had who could be my sponsor in NA or whatever. I never brought my drug use up, but I sort of wanted to talk about it now, with her. I’d probably made her uncomfortable. It wasn’t really polite conversation.

  "What's that?" I asked her, instead of getting back into it.

  "You’ll see," she said, smirking. "The road near the place isn't paved at all, so it's going to get bumpy," she warned.

  “You’re not telling me?” I asked.

  “If you took the time to look at those pamphlets I left you with, you’d already know,” she said. I laughed. I wasn’t going to hear the end of that.

  The road became bumpy, just like she’d warned. We passed miles and miles of nothing. No developments or properties. A section of the road was surrounded by trees, but they started thinning until there was hardly any plants at all. Just rocks.

  She started slowing down as the road basically disappeared. I looked outside the window.

  "What the fuck," I whispered. It looked like the surface of Mars or something. She parked the car, and we got out. There were rocks everywhere, in stacks and towers, spread out like someone had put them there.

  "Come on," she said, walking past me. I followed her.

  "What is this place?"

  "Keahiakawelo. The Garden of the Gods. It's a natural rock garden," she explained.

  "Natural? So it just looks like that by itself?" I asked. She smiled.

  "That depends on who you ask,” she said. She started walking down a slope between these large, stacked boulders. I followed her. “Today, we know that it was natural forces that made it look like this. Wind. Water. Centuries of erosion without human activity. It’s red like that because of the volcanic rock and clay soil.”

  “Why is it called the Garden of the Gods? Was it a spiritual site or something?”

  “It’s named after Kawelo, an ancient priest who presided over the island. The legend says he
and the priest over on Molokai got into a little contest. They challenged each other to build a fire and keep it burning the longest. It’s bare like this because Kawelo used all the vegetation up for his fire. You should see it at sundown,” she said.

  “What happens at sundown?”

  “If I tell you, you’ll use it as an excuse not to come out again,” she said. Was that an invitation? I didn’t care; I was calling it one.

  Whether the rocks were like that because of Ancient Hawai’ian gods, or just natural causes didn’t really make a difference to me. It was surprisingly really cool. Not just because I was on the island and needed to see it before I left. It was just cool. It was weirdly, really beautiful.

  I was no history buff, but from what I’d seen, this place was practically virgin land, just like my driver had said when I’d got here. So much of it was just allowed to be instead of being made into something else. I liked it. It was different from LA in a good way. Even old Los Angeles was still pretty new. The oldest buildings in LA were what, a couple hundred years old, if that? This place had been this way for centuries.

  We walked around some more, climbing up to some of the higher points so she could point out the bay and Molokai Island in the distance. I took some pictures. I wanted to remember it. Not just how it looked, but how I felt here. It was harsh, and empty and desolate, but it made me feel calm, like it existed independently of the island around it, and if I was here, I was somewhere else. Detached.

  We got back into the car, driving a little farther before we started heading back to the resort.

  “Thanks for taking me out today,” I told Abby once we’d gotten past the rocky stretch of road.

  “You have my manager to thank for getting me out today, not me,” she said glancing over. “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “I’m sorry about what I said to you. I know you were just trying to help.”

  “Have you been okay today?” she asked.

  “I’ve been good, actually.”

  “Maybe you should get out more often,” she said. Maybe I would. I was thinking about what she said when I felt a chill. My palms started sweating, and felt clammy. Shit. Not now, I thought. Not when I was so far away from my kit. Why did my body always choose the worst times to get dope sick?

  I rolled down one of the windows to see whether it would calm me down. I couldn’t get comfortable. My body was going to feel worse and worse till I shot up again.

  “Nate?” Abby asked. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just warm in here,” I said lamely.

  “Should I turn on the air?” she offered.

  “No. Just drive,” I said, getting irritated. None of this was her fault, but she was behind the wheel and needed to get me back to my suite right the fuck now.

  She was quiet after that. We were back at the hotel in about half an hour. It got worse when I could see the building. I was practically crawling out of my own skin.

  She started parking the car, and I undid my seatbelt, ready to jump out as soon as she stopped.

  “Nate?” she said. Fuck, what now?

  “Yeah?” I asked, distracted.

  “I’d really like to take you to see the island again,” she said.

  “Right now?”

  “No. Sunday? If you’re up for it?” she asked hopefully. Was a yes what would get her to leave me alone so I could go shoot up?

  “Yeah. Sunday sounds great,” I said, opening the door. She might have said something else, but I didn’t hear her. I didn’t look up again ’til I got to the door of my suite. Everything was harder when I needed a fix. I opened the door and made a beeline for the bed where I had left my kit.

  I unzipped it, pouring everything out onto the bed. Fuck. What was I doing? Everything was fine before we left. I’d felt great when we were at the Garden of the Gods. I’d felt calm and happy; why couldn’t I just feel that now? Without the drugs.

  Maybe I would one day, but today was not that day.

  Chapter Twelve

  Abby

  He's up there shooting himself up with drugs right now, I thought. Just like during the luau. Was that what the drugs did to you? I wasn't that familiar with what heroin was supposed to do when you put it inside your body. It was so hard to watch. He was sick. He became ill when he didn't have it.

  I waited for someone to come take the car and went back inside the building. It was late afternoon, heading towards evening. It had been a warm day and was still really pleasant. The sun wouldn't start going down for a couple hours yet. I needed to quickly change back into my clerk uniform before I got back to work.

  We'd walked around, but the hike wasn't that difficult. I didn't need a shower before I did. I got to the desk, seeing Makani sitting there on the phone. I waved, walking around the desk to sit beside her and see whether I'd gotten any messages before I went to the changing room.

  "Could you please hold?" she asked the person she was talking to. "Joseph asked me to tell you to go see him when you got back," she whispered to me.

  "Really?" I sighed.

  She shrugged apologetically, turning her attention back to the person on the other end of the line. I got up and went into the back towards Joseph's office. I guessed since he had been the one who had thrown me into taking Nate on the trip, he must want to know how it had turned out. There was no hotel without guests to fill it with, but Joseph either really liked Nate, or really feared him.

  An endorsement from someone like Nate Stone would probably be great for the reputation of the resort. I knew Nate’s father was really wealthy and influential; maybe he just wanted to make sure the Stones liked us. I had no problem letting Nate know about all the different stuff he could do on the island. I didn't even really mind being the one who physically drove him around to do them.

  Something had happened today. He wasn't really Nate Stone to me anymore. He was Nate, just Nate who hated being called Mr. Stone. A guy, like any other I had met in my life. One who had a problem that I wanted to help him with.

  I knocked at the door before going inside.

  "Abby, what took you so long? Where did you go?" Joseph said. One day, he would greet me like a human being before laying into me, I thought.

  "We went to Keahiakawelo."

  "Did he ask you to take him there?"

  "He didn't suggest anywhere. I chose it."

  "You didn't ask him where he wanted to go first?" he asked.

  "This is his first time on Lanai. Besides the beach, he hasn't seen the outside of his suite. Keahiakawelo is an important piece of Lanai history and culture."

  "Why doesn't he know where he can visit on the island? You didn't tell him?"

  "He wanted to be surprised," I said, figuring that was what it was. I knew he had the pamphlets with him telling him what he could do here. It wasn't my fault if he hadn't read them. "He had a good time."

  "He did?"

  "Yeah," I said. "He even said he wanted me to take him somewhere again on Sunday."

  "Where?" he asked.

  I felt like he was my parent, giving me the third degree before he let me go to a party with all my friends. I didn't know where; I hadn't thought of anywhere yet. He'd liked Keahiakawelo, so maybe somewhere like that.

  "I'll ask him ahead of time so he can pick," I said, thinking it would be a good way to get Joseph to stop asking me questions. He nodded.

  "I'm trusting you with this, Abby," he said. "It's your job to make sure he has a good time during his stay here. He is a person whose positive recognition would mean a lot of good things for the resort."

  "I understand. He's an important guest. I won't let you down."

  "Did he say anything about the hotel?" he asked hopefully. I shrugged.

  "He mentioned he liked the suite when he checked in," I said. "He hasn't said anything was lacking, so I'd say he was pretty satisfied." If the presidential suite wasn't enough for the guy, then I didn’t know what would be. He seemed comfortable. The man barely left his rooms
, if that was an indication of how much he liked it.

  "Whatever he needs, Abby," Joseph stressed. I nodded smiling. He had to be a little more careful with what he was asking me; this was cutting it a little close for workplace decency. I was answering directly to Joseph when it came to Nate now. A lot was at stake, probably my job if I really messed up.

  Helping Nate was important to me, too. I’d been so upset about taking him out today that I hadn’t realized what he had agreed to let me do. He was letting me help him. He was letting me take him out of his luxury prison of a suite and see that there were bigger things than his addiction. That was more important than whether he liked the kind of pillows the hotel used on his bed. It didn't matter if he thought the hotel was heaven on earth because he was still extremely ill.

  "Of course. I won't let you down," I assured Joseph before he let me leave. I hurried to get changed and put my hair up before returning to the front desk.

  "What did he want?" Makani asked as I came behind the desk and took my seat.

  "He was just asking about Nate. He's worried about whether he's having a good time."

  "I thought he was just a guy in a band. Why does Joseph care so much? Is he a fan, too?" I laughed imagining Joseph a screaming fanboy for Remus. Him enjoying their music wouldn't have shocked me that much. Their latest album had rocked the charts; they obviously had a huge fan base.

  "Yes, he is just a guy in a band, but his father is an extremely wealthy, influential man on the mainland. Just think, if he, on the recommendation of his son, came here and loved it, he could base himself here when he comes to Hawaii."

  "I guess," she said thinking about it. "For your sake, I hope this season flies by."

  "He isn't that bad," I said. "In fact, he's pretty nice."

  "Nice, huh? So you had a good time on your date?" she asked.

  "It was not a date."

  "Of course, it was. He asked for you specifically. He wanted to get you somewhere alone, and he knew that that was the best way."

  "He's an important guest at this hotel, and Joseph needs to make sure he's well catered for."