by Lucy Kevin
“I’ll try not to cause any problems,” Nicholas promised just as they pulled up to the curb.
The house he’d be staying in for the next week was a big, old-fashioned place, obviously built many years ago, with plenty of space for a large family, but obviously well cared for.
Michael led the way inside, letting himself in with the ease of a man who obviously felt right at home. He took the bags into the hall while Nicholas carried his surfboard.
A spritely older woman stepped into the hallway. She was elegantly dressed in a long skirt and a pale blue blouse, and she moved with the grace of an athlete. Her features were beautiful and full of character. Nicholas could easily see the resemblance to Rachel.
She took his hand in a firm grip. “You must be Nicholas. I’m Ava. It’s lovely to have you here. Why don’t you leave your things here for now and come through to the kitchen? You can prop your surfboard against the stairs.”
Nicholas followed her into the kitchen, where she began to make coffee, waving away Michael’s attempt to help. “If you really want to help, you can tell me why my social network accounts all seem to be going wrong at once.”
“More computer troubles?” Michael went over to a big, family-sized kitchen table and started tapping away on a laptop.
“You’re a professional surfer, aren't you?” Ava said. “That must be a lot of fun. I tried surfing a couple of times when I was younger, but Walker Island doesn’t really have the waves for it.”
Nicholas wasn’t sure whether she was serious or not, but he did know that he hadn’t met that many grandmothers with quite so much life in them as this one. He liked her a great deal already and knew he was going to have a great time staying in her home.
“The guest bedroom we’ve made up for you is just upstairs. You won’t have trouble finding it.”
“It's a great house,” Nicholas said. “I'll bet a lot of great memories were made here.”
She smiled at him then, a smile that reminded him of the one Rachel had given him. “You're right about that. So many wonderful memories. With more being made all the time.” She handed him a cup of coffee. “Emily and Paige are at work at the moment, but I’m sure they’ll be home for dinner. Paige helps me run my dance school. I think you’ll like her when you meet her. All that training and athleticism—you’re bound to have a lot in common. And Emily is probably finishing up a meeting with one of her students about which university they'd like to attend in the fall.”
Was Ava trying to set him up with one of her granddaughters? If so, she was choosing the wrong sisters. There was only one of her five granddaughters that Nicholas was interested in knowing more about.
“Tell me more about Rachel.”
“Rachel?”
“Morgan asked her to give me a ride over from the ferry, and we were en route when Charlotte got sick at school, so we went by to pick her up and took her over to the doctor together and then immediately home to bed. Michael brought me over from Rachel's house.”
“Charlotte’s such a lovely little girl,” Ava said, a frown marring her brow. “I so hate it when she doesn't feel well. I'll have to call over there—”
He put a hand on her arm in hopes of calming her worries. “The doctor said Charlotte has the flu that's been going around and will hopefully be better in just a couple of days.”
“I hope so. Rachel is such a good mother, and I know how hard it is for her that there's little she can do to help her little girl until the bug runs its course.”
Ava was right about Rachel and Charlotte. They had an amazing mother-daughter dynamic, one that was sweet and pure. As an adult, Nicholas had been so busy flying around the world to surf that none of his relationships had lasted very long. Yet, spending time with the two of them today had shown him exactly what was missing from his own life: family.
“Thank you for the hospitality, and the coffee, Ava. I’ll take my bags up to my room and get out of your way for a while.”
“I’ll help find a better place to store that surfboard,” Michael offered as he followed him into the hall.
Nicholas didn’t really need the help, but he was grateful for the opportunity to ask Michael another question. “Is Rachel seeing anyone right now?”
“No,” Michael said with a shake of his head. “She doesn’t really date, and she's probably not even your type anyway. I mean, you’re a professional daredevil, right?” He didn't wait for Nicholas to reply before saying, “She’s all about playing things safe. I seriously doubt she’d be interested.”
Playing things safe. Funny, Nicholas hadn’t seen her like that. Careful with her daughter, of course, but there'd been fire in her eyes more than once in the short time he'd spent with her.
“I’ll leave you to get settled in,” Michael said as he headed off with the surfboard.
It didn’t take Nicholas long to unpack. He was, after all, used to life on the road. After getting organized, he headed out onto the upstairs landing toward the stairs, but when he passed by an open door and realized that it was Rachel’s old room, he couldn't help but want to take a closer look.
There were dozens of pictures of her and her friends and family stuck around a floor-length mirror, and none of them fit with the idea of playing things safe. She was rock-climbing in one picture, water-skiing in another. A third had been taken from what was obviously the limb of a very tall tree. In each of them, Rachel was smiling, obviously enjoying the excitement of it all. The same man was beside her in most of the shots and “Rachel and Guy” was written on the bottom of one of the pictures.
At the very center of the photo collage was a page torn from a high school yearbook. Most Likely To Have Fun was the caption and Rachel’s features stared back at him, happy and beautiful as the ocean breeze blew through her blond hair and waves crashed over her bare feet.
CHAPTER SIX
Amazingly, the following morning Charlotte looked as right as rain and really wanted to go to school. Immediately after Emily and Rachel's father came to pick Charlotte up to take her to school, Rachel headed into the small insurance office on the island to try to finish up the risk assessments she'd promised her boss.
The reports for the salvage crews were every bit as complex as she'd thought they would be. Along with the usual issues that came with shipping—from the state and model of the individual ships to the knowledge the captains had of the waters in the area—there were the risks associated with diving and the recovery of material from the ocean bed. Basically, the salvage crews were making massive bets on finding treasure at the bottom of the ocean. All of which contributed to high premiums, but exactly how high? Rachel had been working on the math for most of last night and today, as well, but every time she finally started to get a grip on it, it felt as if the numbers kept slipping away.
“How is the report coming, Rachel?” Frank asked, putting his balding head around the door. “Will you have it for me by the end of the day?”
“Absolutely, Frank,” Rachel promised.
The truth was that if she'd been able to think straight, she might have already had it done. But every time she tried to focus, the image of Nicholas wrapped in nothing more than a towel came back to her. She’d continually pushed it away, but it really wasn’t an easy image to ignore.
Beyond irritated with herself and her weakness over a pretty face—and an even prettier physique—she forced herself to concentrate, ruthlessly pushing aside any stray thoughts that tried to sneak into her head. For the next several hours, she gave one hundred percent of herself to this risk assessment. And, thankfully, in the end she put together a great report. One that Frank seemed impressed with as he flipped through it while she waited to see if he wanted any revisions.
“Well done, Rachel. I know I can always count on you. I'll let you know if I have any questions after I dig in deeper.”
Walking out of Frank's office, she breathed a sigh of relief just as her cell phone rang. It was Morgan calling.
“Hey, sis, sorry
to bother you again,” Morgan said in a rasping voice that made it clear she wasn't yet all better, “but would you mind doing me another favor by giving Nicholas a ride out to my studio in about thirty minutes? Grams dropped by with some chicken soup yesterday and told me how you went the extra mile to get him to her house. I owe you big-time for being so helpful.”
Silently, Rachel wondered if Nicholas would agree that being picked up from the ferry a half hour late and then having a six-year-old get sick all over him in the backseat of a car could be considered going the extra mile and being so helpful. But of course all she said to her sister was that she would be more than happy to go pick him up again.
Yesterday, she had looked awful with axle grease all over her. So while she couldn't get a chance to make a new first impression, she decided she could certainly make a better second one. Not because she wanted anything to happen with Nicholas, of course. And not because anything was ever going to happen with him, even if she did want it. She simply couldn’t stand the idea that he would remember her as someone who looked as if she’d just got off shift as a NASCAR mechanic.
Once home, Rachel changed into dark blue skinny jeans and a silky pink top that Morgan had brought her as a present from Fashion Week in New York City. Casual but stylish. She took her time fixing her lip gloss and eye shadow, too. Again, she told herself that it wasn’t about impressing Nicholas. It was simply a question of taking pride in her appearance. Just because she was a single mother didn't mean she had to look ragged all the time, did it?
Rachel was just about to head out when her boss called. “Hi, Frank. I’m guessing you want to check on some figures?”
“I was taking a closer look at the data on diving accidents in relation to salvage and noticed that you hadn't broken them down by depth of water here, so—”
“Frank, can you hang on for a sec?” Rachel said, interrupting him mid-sentence when she heard someone knocking. “There’s someone at the door.”
Rachel was shocked to find Nicholas standing on her front step, holding a huge stuffed rabbit in one hand, looking every bit as handsome as he had after getting out of the shower. Although, unfortunately, wearing more clothes today.
Unfortunately? She meant fortunately!
“I was just coming to pick you up from Grams’ house to take you over to Morgan's studio,” she said, so stunned to see him that she forgot to even say hello first.
“It’s a nice day,” Nicholas offered by way of an explanation. “I thought I’d walk over and save you that part of the journey. I got this for Charlotte.” He held up the toy rabbit. “I hope it will help make her feel a little better.”
It was such a sweet gesture that Rachel felt her heart melt in her chest. Sexy and sweet was quite a combination...one she was finding harder to resist by the second.
“She’s actually fine today,” Rachel told him, smiling as she thought about how wonderfully resilient her little girl was. “She woke up and went to school as if nothing had happened yesterday. She's even at dance practice now. But it was so kind of you to think of her.”
He smiled back, then pointed to her phone in her hand. “Is there someone on the line?”
Oh no! She'd forgotten all about her boss. Gesturing for Nicholas to come inside and put down the stuffed rabbit, she said, “Sorry about that Frank. You’ll find breakdowns by water depth in Appendix C.” After she answered a couple of other quick questions, she hung up, then told Nicholas, “Let me just get my keys, and we can head out.”
“No rush. Everything will work out fine.”
Rachel wished life could really be that easy, that she didn't always have to feel like she was needed in three places at once or everything would just fall apart.
When they got out to her car, she realized he was missing something. “No surfboard today?”
“People have seen me surfing plenty of times. With this show, I'll get to introduce the audience to a bunch of fun new sports, like rock-climbing, parasailing and hang gliding.”
Dangerous new things, by the sound of it. But she wasn’t here to try to talk Nicholas out of anything. She was just there to get him to her sister’s studio. And if there was a part of her that thought those sports actually sounded like the most fun imaginable? Well, Rachel would just keep pointedly ignoring it. Just the way she'd been working so hard to ignore the memory of Nicholas wearing nothing but a towel...
“This really is a beautiful island,” Nicholas said as Rachel drove.
“I agree,” Rachel said, “but you must have seen plenty of beautiful places before now. I mean, you’re from Hawaii, which sounds amazing.”
“Hawaii is definitely amazing, but just because Walker Island isn’t all white sand and tropical beaches doesn’t mean it isn’t incredible in its own right. At least, from what I’ve seen of it.”
For a moment, Rachel was hit with the urge to offer to show him more of it. The berry fields with their surrounding wild flowers. The cliffs on the north side of the island. Even the small town had a kind of quaint antiquity to it that would be great to walk through with Nicholas beside her. She could easily imagine sitting with him on one of the small beaches.
But she knew she couldn’t afford to think like that, couldn't let herself be drawn in even deeper by him. Not when he would be leaving the island just as soon as he'd finished having his adventures for the TV show. The last kind of man she needed in her life was one who didn't have a prayer of staying in one place.
“I had assumed you’d only be interested in the waves around the island.”
“Good waves are definitely a bonus, but often the best parts of my job are the places I get to visit. Thailand, Australia, Brazil.”
“And now Walker Island,” Rachel said with a smile.
“Yes,” he agreed with a smile. “Walker Island is definitely one of my new favorite places. And I have to say that staying with your grandmother is a lot of fun. She is such an interesting woman.”
“What about Emily and Paige?” Rachel asked. “Did you get a chance to spend some time with them last night?”
She could imagine Paige—lithe and athletic from hours of dancing every day—being the kind of woman Nicholas would go for all too easily. If the two of them did connect, Rachel vowed not to be jealous. Paige was one of the sweetest people on the planet and deserved to be happy. If a fling with a gorgeous surfer would make Paige happy, Rachel would support her sister. No matter what.
“Actually, no, I haven't met them yet.”
“Weren’t they home for dinner last night?”
“I'm not sure. I was out, and by the time I got back, everyone was already asleep.”
Rachel could easily imagine the kind of activities that might have kept Nicholas out that late. The island had plenty of opportunities for tourists who wanted to have a good time.
“You never told me what you do for a living,” Nicholas said, breaking the sudden silence.
“Oh, you don’t want to hear about that,” Rachel insisted. “If I start talking about my work, you’ll be bored in about five seconds flat.”
“It isn’t ever boring to hear a smart, sexy woman talk about something she’s passionate about.”
Rachel flushed slightly at the smart, sexy part of his reply. Was he flirting with her? She’d felt the spark between them when they’d met, and part of her wanted to believe that it might be possible to reach out and touch it, but she was too smart—and too wary—to let herself risk getting burned by another gorgeous man who flitted from port to port even faster than her ex had.
“How do you know that I’m passionate about my work?”
“Why would anybody spend their time doing something that they aren’t passionate about?”
Most people lived lives where they had to do whatever was needed to meet their responsibilities. But it occurred to her that Nicholas had probably never even had a normal job, so it was no wonder that he could be so idealistic.
“I work as an actuary.”
“That's fas
cinating.”
“You're joking, right?”
He was clearly surprised by her response. “Why are you assuming I’d find that boring?”
“How can a guy in your line of work not find the idea of sitting in an office, assessing risks and looking at ways of managing them for insurance purposes at least a little bit boring? Especially when everything you do is such an adrenaline rush? And so incredibly dangerous, too.” She was well on a roll now, but couldn't seem to stop herself from adding, “Did you know that in a recent study, 38.4% of a group of surfers had suffered an injury bad enough to keep them out of the water in the year just before the study was done?”
“That’s the New South Wales report, isn’t it?”
“You know the report?”
“Trust me, I know exactly how dangerous the sports I do can be, but just because surfing can be dangerous, it doesn’t have to be. Not if you take the right precautions. When I’m teaching surfing, my students have to learn my safety routines before they get near a board.” He grinned at her as he said, “Handing them my big laundry list of safety checks comes as a shock to some of them.”
Not as much of a shock as it was to Rachel. Serious safety checks and insurance statistics simply didn’t fit with his daredevil image. They did, however, serve to make him more alluring...especially on the heels of showing up with the surprise gift of a stuffed rabbit for her daughter.
Morgan was standing in front of her studio when they drove up. Her normally glowing sister still looked horribly drained and washed out—not even close to a hundred percent.
“Morgan, you should still be in bed.” Rachel put an arm around her sister. “I'm going to take you back to your cottage now, and I'm not going to take no for an answer.”
The three of them left the studio and headed across Morgan's property to her house. Once they were inside, Morgan said, “I'm so sorry I haven't been able to greet you better than this, Nicholas. Grams was so pleased to meet you, though.”
