Island Love Songs: Seven Nights in ParadiseThe Wedding DanceOrchids and Bliss

by Kayla Perrin

  “You ever heard of Jerry Noland?”

  “The baller with the Detroit Pistons? Of course. He was traded to the Lakers about...” Jesse’s voice faltered.

  Baden cocked her head, waiting.

  “Your cousin is married to him? The NBA player?”

  The incredulousness in his voice made her smile.

  “Yep.”

  “And Sasha is...”

  Jesse broke in, slapping his head with his hand. “Sasha Calloway, the TV news anchor? I never even made the connection. Is everybody named Calloway in North Carolina related to you?”

  She laughed. “Probably. Our roots run deep and the Calloways are generally breeders. You know,” she said, “my folks and my cousin Vanessa were the only ones who had just one child. I was never lonely, though. Who had time to be lonely with tons of cousins always around and about?”

  In that moment she realized she didn’t know much about Jesse other than that he was a detective.

  “What about you?” Baden asked. “Do you come from a big family?”

  Jesse glanced out his window for a moment. “I didn’t think Hawaii had so much traffic.”

  “It’s the tourist season. Well, it’s always tourist season here, but summer brings even more people. Just remember, you’re on aloha time now.”

  He grinned. “Slower than CP Time, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  He settled in his seat.

  “My family is mostly in Charlotte,” he said answering the question he’d interrupted with one of his own. “I moved east to go to school at East Carolina. I had a full-ride scholarship, so that was one kid my moms didn’t have to worry about. I have a sister, older, and a brother, younger. We’re stair steps with barely a year separating each of us. So we were all pretty close growing up. Even now. And everybody’s still in Carolina, but we’re all over the state.”

  “Being an only child, I think it made it a little easier for me to pick up and leave the way I did.” She paused for a moment, her mind going back to the how and why of that leaving. Then, shaking her head as if shaking off the past, she continued. “I didn’t have parents or siblings to dissuade me. Aunt Henrietta and Uncle Carlton put up a valiant effort though,” she added with a grin.

  “They’re really good people.”

  “The best.”

  She pulled the Jaguar into a parking spot of a complex with lots of palm trees and a waterfall in the front courtyard.

  “We’re here. I think you’re going to like this condo.”

  He did, and signed the lease on the spot.

  “Welcome home to Hawaii, Jesse.”

  * * *

  Jesse didn’t see Baden for two or three days. It seemed like two months after finally having her in sight again. She’d called once in full Realtor role, checking in to see how he liked the condo. Was everything to his satisfaction with the space? Did he need anything from the maintenance office or the building’s concierge?

  His best effort to steer the short conversation to a more personal level was thwarted by the arrival of one of her overseas clients. He stayed in a state of semiarousal just anticipating the next time he would see her, smell the scent of her, feel the softness of her skin, receive the brilliance of her smile.

  “You got it bad, bro,” he muttered as he settled into a chair and accepted a menu at a place he’d heard a lot about at the pool.

  In the few days he’d been in Maui, he’d developed a taste for the multicultural blend of the local cuisine and especially Portuguese sweet bread and bean soup. Jesse already knew what he would probably order, if they had it here.

  Baden would meet him at the restaurant for lunch after she got her clients back to the airport. He’d been looking forward to it with the same amount of anticipation that a six-year-old awaited Santa’s arrival on December 25.

  He saw her before she spotted him.

  She looked like a tropical flower in full bloom. The lightweight, probably silk dress was one that hugged her curves and wrapped at the waist. His gaze traveled the length of her. Again, high-heeled shoes, much higher than her version of “flats.” Jesse wasn’t complaining. He was a leg man, and Baden was perfection personified in that department...and everywhere else.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only person to notice.

  Male heads turned as she wound her way through the tables to him.

  To him.

  That helped tamp down the licks of irritation—jealousy?—that made him want to do some serious bodily harm to a couple of the more aggressive leerers.

  Chill out, man, he thought. That is what got you in trouble in the first place.

  Jesse rose and she saw him. The smile that blossomed on her face and in her eyes made his heart sing.

  The waiter held a chair for her, but Jesse waved him away. Baden stepped into his arms, practically vibrating. She hugged him hard and then kissed him smack on the lips.

  His body responded to the nearness of her, the scent of her. But before he could parlay that exuberant kiss into something more, she was out of his arms and dropping her bag in her chair.

  “I sold it, Jesse! I sold it!”

  She did a little shimmy dance that had a couple men at nearby tables giving her appreciative once-overs. Glares from Jesse nipped that interest in the bud and, while he was delighted to share in her joy, he damned to hell the Japanese couple who just messed up his play with Baden. In this economy, who had that kind of money to just toss around?

  Dammit! He’d just leased a condo because Baden planned to be on Maui until the garden house sold. If she up and went home to Honolulu now, he was screwed and stuck on this island while she was on another.

  For her though, he put on the best happy face he could manage.

  “The Kapule Garden Estate? That’s terrific, Baden.”

  She pouted with a little moue as she slipped into her seat with his assistance.

  “No, not that one. I wish,” she said. “It’s going to take a while on a property that size. This place is nearby though, and it has been on the market for forever. It was just waiting for the perfect buyer to come love it and I found them.”

  “Well, congratulations,” he said.

  And thank You, Jesus.

  He got settled at his own place and a waiter appeared with water, menus and a plate of miniature manapua, the steamed and stuffed dough balls that he’d first encountered at his time-share place’s nightly reception for guests. The tasty little treats were another that Jesse wished he could send home to North Carolina by the gross. Maybe Mrs. Hookano—Mama Melia—could give him a recipe.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  The words were out before he could stop them.

  Her buoyancy turned quizzical, and she reached for her water goblet. Her eyes never left his as she took a deliberate sip. Then his hand covered hers as she placed the goblet back on the table.

  The moment seemed weighted and expectant with the sort of tension that had always existed between them. A tension that neither had been willing to acknowledge...because of Sean.

  Then she said, “I missed you, too, Jesse.”

  “What do you propose we do about this mutual missing?”

  Although he’d asked a question, the husky timbre of his voice left no room for doubt about what he had in mind as a suggestion.

  Baden’s mouth curved up for a moment and then she shook her head, sitting back, releasing the pent-up tension that so easily flowed between them.

  “Do you know what you do to me?” he asked.

  She ran a hand between them. “Yes,” she murmured. “I think I do.”

  “Ah, Baden.”

  Lunch was a tortured affair as each thought of a better way to spend the time. But neither of them seemed willing to actually take the next s
tep in the relationship, a relationship which was awkward at its best—and at its worst had unfinished business by the name of Sean Mathews. She had left Sean at the altar because she knew she had feelings for Jesse.

  “I have to go back to work,” she said.

  “I know. Tonight.”

  “Tonight what?”

  “My place,” he said.

  His eyes raked her, his gaze hovering first at her mouth before dipping to the V of her dress and lingering for a moment. When his gaze finally lifted back to hers, Baden was breathing deeply.

  After barely a pause, she nodded.

  Jesse lifted a brow and his glass in mini-salute. “To tonight.”

  Chapter 4

  Later that evening, a multi-vehicle accident blocked access to the street where Jesse’s rental condo was located. Their rendezvous was moved to Baden’s temporary residence, the guest cottage at the Kapule Garden Estate.

  Secretly, Baden was glad for the distraction. It gave her some breathing room. Since lunch, she’d thought of little else but the heat generated between the two of them. The rest of the workday’s business and then the traffic delay and change of venue for their tryst afforded her some room to both breathe and to think—mostly about the consequences of what she’d planned to do with Jesse.

  She wanted him. There was no doubt about that—or about the fact that he clearly wanted her.

  He was single. She was single.

  And Sean stood between them—even from the grave creating a metaphysical divide.

  Physically, however, it was the big island in the guest cottage’s kitchen that separated them right now. After some awkward chitchat when he’d arrived a few minutes ago, they’d agreed that wine was in order. Instead of waiting for her to return with a bottle and some glasses, Jesse had followed her to the kitchen where she uncorked the wine.

  “Looking for more cookies?”

  She grinned at her own joke. Jesse smiled, but didn’t engage.

  My God, she thought. Is he nervous? That was a trait she had never associated with him.

  When he shoved his hands in his pockets, she knew something was up. In the time she was with Sean, Baden had learned a little about cop body language. The vibe was suddenly wrong. And everything about Jesse right now had her suddenly not thinking about seduction, about the way his sweet enchantment would make her feel, or about the rhapsody that she would find in his arms.

  She was having a primal reaction right now and everything in her told her to run.

  “Baden, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  She stopped midpour. Something in his voice told her that he was in cop-mode now. She’d heard that tone before, and it never boded well.

  The wine forgotten, she came around the kitchen island to stand a few feet from where he stood.

  Her insides suddenly in a knot, she braced a hand on the granite counter to steady herself.

  “What is it?”

  “Let’s go sit in the living room and talk.”

  “We can talk right here, Jesse. What is it you want to say?”

  He sighed, then looked toward the living room.

  Baden didn’t move.

  “I need to tell you why I really came to Hawaii. Why I came to see you.”

  She eyed him warily.

  “You said you were on vacation.”

  He grunted. “Yeah, well, that’s one way to put it. I’m on a...forced vacation...from the department.”

  Baden’s mouth dropped open even as she felt a weight lift from her. Was that all?

  His eyes narrowed, and she realized she must have voiced the question aloud. She quickly added. “The way you said ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’” she said mimicking his deeper voice, “that had me scared and worried and thinking the worst.”

  “You don’t think me being off the job, on an...extended vacation is the worst?”

  She turned and went around the island to resume pouring wine for them. “What happened?”

  “I beat up a guy.”

  She lifted a brow at that news. Taking a sip of wine, she held out the second glass to him. When he didn’t take it, she brought it around to him and placed it on the island countertop near him.

  “What did he do to deserve getting beat up?”

  “You’re quick to take my side,” Jesse said. “You don’t even know the details.”

  She shrugged. “What I do know is that you’re a good guy, Jesse, and a good cop. If memory serves correctly about how police internal operations work, you’re on desk duty or something—is it called administrative leave?—until they finish up the investigation. Then the bad guy will go to jail, and you’ll be back on the streets working major crime or whatever and putting douche bags behind bars.”

  She took another tiny sip from her glass and regarded him.

  Jesse didn’t say anything for a long while. So long that the silence became uncomfortable.

  “Jesse?”

  “I beat the hell out of him because of Sean,” Jesse said.

  Sean.

  There it was. The elephant in the room.

  “Sean died six months ago,” Baden said.

  “I fucking know that,” Jesse said.

  He ran his hands over his face and head, then apologized. “It’s not you I’m angry and frustrated with, Baden. And my timing is all wrong here, but I...” He sighed as if the weight of the world were pressing on his shoulders.

  “I need to get this off my chest,” he said. Jesse paced for a bit, as if he felt confined.

  “You’re scaring me, Jesse.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention. Was never my intention.” He took a step toward her, but Baden backed up two steps.

  He paused. Sighed. “I knew I’d screw this up,” he muttered.

  The vulnerability she heard in that simple statement eased her. She didn’t know what he was trying and failing to say, but it couldn’t be as difficult as what she wanted him to know, the very thing she could never confess.

  “Baden?”

  From her side of the island, she clasped her hands on the granite countertop and waited. “Yes, Jesse.”

  “I love you.”

  Chapter 5

  Baden stared at him uncomprehending.

  Did he just say what she thought he’d said?

  She shook her head as if to clear it after an afternoon at home swimming in the waters of Waikiki Beach.

  “I came to Hawaii to tell you that,” Jesse said. “I know it probably seems out of the blue, but I’ve been crazy about you since the first day we all met. But you fell for Sean, and I just had to deal with that.”

  Eyes wide, she stared at him.

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t even grasp the meaning of the words coming out of his mouth.

  “Baden, say something, please.”

  She shook her head.

  “I...”

  She shook her head again and then focused on the one thing that she could begin to comprehend even though it made about as much sense as everything else Jesse was saying.

  “What did Sean have to do with the guy you beat up?”

  “Huh?”

  The dam broke then.

  The pent-up emotions and regret and fear and anger, that she had managed to control with a steady will, broke through the emotional dam she had so carefully constructed and maintained all these months.

  She thought she was ready to face this, but the truth was, on this topic—on the subject of Sean—she was a coward.

  “I knew answering the door and letting you into my life, into my house was a mistake,” Baden wailed. “Why don’t you just go back to North Carolina and wreak some em
otional havoc on the people who still live there? I don’t, and I don’t care about the past.”

  “I also came to Hawaii to deliver to you a message from Sean.”

  “Arghh!”

  The inarticulate sound was the only thing that came out of her mouth.

  If a pot had been on the kitchen island, she would have thrown it at Jesse’s head in a fit of temper.

  Instead she ran from the kitchen berating herself for always running away from life instead of running toward something.

  Jesse followed her.

  He caught up with her in the living room of the cottage where she stood near the same chair in almost the same pose as the one she’d been in that first day when he’d arrived. With one arm wrapped about her slender waist, she had the other lifted, her fist pressed to her mouth as if biting back either a full-fledged scream or tears.

  She looked as if she wanted to crawl inside herself and disappear.

  It hurt Jesse to see her this way, especially since he knew that what was to come would knock her for an even bigger and probably more devastating emotional loop.

  “I think you should go, Jesse.”

  Her voice was calm, quiet. She had reined in the storm.

  She’d run out of steam.

  The resignation in her voice let him know the immediate storm had passed.

  He came up behind her and gently guided her to the chair. Without argument she sank into the fluffy white cushions.

  “If you really want me to leave, I will,” he said.

  Jesse wasn’t necessarily a praying man, but he prayed then and there that she would let him stay.

  She didn’t say anything. She just sat there.

  “Baden?”

  She gave a slight nod. He would have missed it had he not been studying her so intently.

  He let out a breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Thank you.”

  He settled on the edge of the sofa near her and braced his hands on his knees.

  “I need to be honest with you and with myself,” he said. “I came here, to Hawaii, specifically to find you.”

  “Why?”

  Her look clearly conveyed the “as if I care” message as if it were in glowing neon.