The Wrong Brother for Brooke (Hot Tide Book 3)

by Michele De Winton

  “It’s free. And trust me, you’ll love it,” he said and got out of the car.

  “Free is good,” she said to herself and after struggling with her seatbelt, got out of the car and followed Kai into the reception building.

  #

  “When you said this place was cheap, I thought it was some sort of trade you’d done. You did say my insurance would cover it, not that I’d have to work,” Brooke complained as she folded yet another white linen napkin. “Don’t think of it as work. Think of it as therapy,” he said with an annoying smile and Brooke wished she could have swatted him with the napkin she was folding, but he was too far away.

  Tucked in behind the kitchen, she was in a laundry. Only it was like no laundry she’d ever seen. Linen was stacked floor to ceiling. Everything from bedsheets, to towels, to the white starched table napkins she was folding. When they’d arrived, Kai had led her down here instead of their room and then told her to take off her sling. She’d expected him to take her into a treatment room or something but no, he’d announced they were going to fold linen for the next half an hour.

  “Five more minutes,” he said. “How’s the shoulder doing?” “Are you sure you know what you’re doing? The doctor told me I was supposed to rest it completely.”

  “He also told you to expect not to get back in the water for a month, didn’t he?”

  Brooke wrinkled her nose but said nothing.

  Finally, Kai called time. “Come on, time to check out your room.”

  She followed him down a set of stairs and then through a tunnel made of live bamboo. It had been trained to grow over a frame and so walking along the path felt like being inside a green growing room rather than being outside. She felt immediately calmer. And when she reached her room, everything else fell into place. It was a vision of white and wood. A huge bed with airy drapes surrounding it to keep mosquitos out, white walls, white stained timber floor, with timber beams and a intricately carved doors at the entrance and bathroom. And what a bathroom. For someone who loved the water, it was a dream. A huge bath and…no ceiling. No, that wasn’t quite right, there was a ceiling, it just wasn’t man-made. Huge leaves grew over the space, vines grew up the stone wall and the scent of tropical flowers was everywhere.

  “Wow.”

  “I know. Now, let me see. He led her back to the bedroom and had her sit on the bed. With fingers that were impossibly gentle, he probed her shoulder. “How is it feeling?”

  She closed her eyes, trying to zone in on what she was actually feeling rather than what she was thinking. “It aches,” she said. Then, surprised, she added. “But not like yesterday.”

  “Good.” He kept up his gentle manipulation, extending her arm out in front of her then to the side, checking for her range of movement. She let him concentrate. But when he seemed satisfied and helped her strap her arm back into its sling, she couldn’t stop the snarky tone in her voice. “Good that you didn’t break me by making me fold napkins.”

  She’d expected him to snap back at her. Heck, maybe she even wanted that, but instead he sat down on the bed next to her and put his hands on his knees. “Watch,” was all he said. He started miming a paddling motion, his arms and shoulders taking turns moving through space. “What am I doing?” he said.

  “Making an ass of yourself?”

  He laughed. “Try again.”

  “Okay, okay, you’ve changed careers overnight and you’re following your life long dream of becoming a mime. This is your dog paddle? You going to start barking next?”

  Again, he didn’t bite, and Brooke wondered what she had to do to get him to drop the nice guy act. This just wasn’t normal.

  “You’re right. I’m paddling. Not full strokes, I’m not in big surf. But I could get out the back on a calm day with this. You agree?”

  “I guess,” she said begrudgingly.

  He nodded, satisfied. “Now what am I doing?” He started miming the same thing but with slightly less extension in his arms.

  Brooke frowned. “Are you having a moment? It’s the same thing. Maybe a bit smaller.”

  “You sure?” he did it again.

  “I give up. Is there some secret here I’m missing? Or have you been drinking rice wine on the sly?”

  Kai pulled a hand towel from the neatly arranged pile of fresh linens on the edge of the bed and did the same motion with it. Click. Brooke’s jaw dropped. “Folding napkins.”

  Kai nodded. “Repetitive movement without strain or pressure and with no resistance. We’re starting small but this is part of how we’ll get you better. We’ll start with pendulum exercises tomorrow and then keep building.”

  She hadn’t wanted to be impressed. Heck, she hadn’t wanted to give the guy an inch, and here he was being smart and right and, damn him, hot. Because the ache in her shoulder was a good ache. It felt like she’d had a swim, not like she’d just been part of a slave labor syndicate. And the way he’d made her realize it, not by being patronizing and reacting to her snark, but by calmly and clearly showing her what she was doing…double damn him, she was impressed. She looked at him through lowered lashes as he refolded the towel. His muscles were clearly visible through his thin cotton T-shirt. This was wrong. Her blood was not supposed to be running far hotter than was natural. But, she took a breath, her heart was racing, she could hear it’s hammering in her ears.

  “Trust me yet?” he said and turned his body so that his knee was touching her thigh.

  “Maybe,” was all she could manage, because right at that moment she was doing her very best not to stare at his full, luscious lips. Lips that she knew very well felt like all kinds of delicious.

  He leaned a little closer and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good, because I need to give you a massage this afternoon.” He stood and she missed his proximity immediately. Then the full implications of what he’d said hit her. “Massage?”

  “We’ll start gentle. I won’t even touch your shoulder. And you can leave your clothes on.”

  “Damn right,” she snapped, but he just laughed. Again. God the man was insufferably confident. “Are you always like this?” she asked.

  “What? Calm, considered, focused on getting my client back into top physical shape?” He said it with a dead-pan expression on his face but with mirth in his eyes. She could hate someone who thought he was right all the time.

  “Get some rest, settle in, take a few breaths, I’ll see you for lunch downstairs.” And with that he left.

  Brooke fell back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling fan going around and around. Rest? She couldn’t remember the last time she rested. What was she supposed to do? Spotting a remote she turned the television on and flicked through the channels but there wasn’t much to choose from in Bali. A few international news channels, an infomercial station that only seemed to sell kitchen supplies and one local channel that she had no hope of understanding. She tried to watch it for a moment. The gorgeous Indonesian girl clearly had a crush on the guy. She tried baking him a cake, then doing a dance and by the time she was about to burst into song Brooke had had enough. “Have some self-respect woman,” she yelled at the television. “He’s not into you.” She switched it off. “He’s not that into you,” she said again, this time to herself. Holo wasn’t into her, that much was clear. Although from what Kai had said it wasn’t that he wasn’t into her, just he wasn’t into anyone at the moment. That was something at least.

  Thinking about Kai wasn’t what she wanted to be doing right now though. She couldn’t afford to let go of her resentment of him. If she didn’t focus solely on getting better she might get distracted by those luscious lips and his constant flirtation and then…no. She was here to work on her shoulder. Period. Better she held on to her anger about the fact he kissed her when he shouldn’t have. What, when you slid into his hot tub and told him you were his mermaid? Yes. He could have checked better. He should have checked better. Really? She shut down her reasonable side and held on tight to her irrati
onal indignation, even while she knew it was bitchy. He was a douchebag, Summer had agreed with her.

  She swung her legs off the bed. She couldn’t rest stuck in here. If she couldn’t swim, she could walk.

  The resort was on the edge of a rice paddy field, just like in the picture. The rice paddy itself was sludgy with water, the ground kept constantly flooded to keep the rice growing, but there was a path, she discovered. Stones had been set into the flooded ground to make way through the lanes of rice. Looking around to check no one was going to stop her, she started walking down the path.

  Soon she was surrounded by verdant green. The tops of the rice plants whispered and hushed when the warm breeze blew through them. Brooke watched, captivated, when they all bent in one direction, marking the path of the wind a shimmering echo of green that stretched on as far as she could see.

  The stones took a turn to the left and she found herself leaving the rice fields. The ground became firm and trees sprouted around her. Taking a deep breath, Brooke let the rich, clean oxygen fill her lungs. She was tired, she realized, and not just physically tired. Her body and mind felt like they were over-full. When Kai had told her to get some rest her first reaction had been distain. The only time she wasn’t moving was when she was asleep. She didn’t rest in the day. But here, surrounded by green and without anything except lunch in her immediate future, Brooke felt the pressure she’d put on herself for the last few years softening a little.

  A child giggled further along the path. Brooke didn’t spend much time with kids, but their laughter always made her smile. It was unfettered, unrestricted by ego. The child laughed again and Brooke followed the sound. All of a sudden, the path opened out and there was a clearing, with a couple of simply built homes that were really no more than corrugated tin and bamboo, set at the back of it. The child was in the center, watching a man leaning over an old woman. It was Kainui, Brooke realized with a start. She hung back in the trees, not revealing herself yet.

  “You shouldn’t be working so many hours, tutu,” he said gently to the old woman. He picked up her leg and bent the knee back and forth. “We talked about this last time I was here. And now look at you. Worse than before.”

  She cackled and said something in Indonesian that apparently Kai understood as much as Brooke because he beckoned the little girl over. “What did your grandma say?”

  “She said bending over the rice keeps her alive. And that you’re too good looking to be spending time with her.”

  Kai laughed and kept up his careful manipulation of the woman’s legs. “I’m terribly sorry about that. Perhaps I should be spending time with you. Ask her if that would be better.”

  The little girl translated and then looked up at Kai with big eyes and an even bigger grin. “She said yes. I’m to marry you. I will make the blessing.”

  This time instead of laughing, Kai stopped what he was doing with the old woman and put his hands to his chest. “I would be honored to marry such a beauty, but my heart already belongs to another.”

  Brooke bit her lip. Surely he didn’t mean her? But Kai continued. “Tell your grandmother that she will always be my one true love.”

  No. He hadn’t meant her. Brooke felt like a fool and was glad she was hidden behind the trees.

  “Your grandmother sprained her ankle and possibly her knee. It means she’s been trying to keep weight off it and so she’d ended up putting a lot of stress on her hip. See here, the bruising is fading on her ankle but she’s starting to get inflammation in her hips instead. She needs to stay off it for a couple of days. Can you tell her?”

  The little girl translated again. “She says only if you pick her rice for her.”

  Kai smiled. “Deal.”

  Seriously? Brooke didn’t know what to do with this sort of altruism. Everyone she knew was focused on winning. She looked at Kai through the trees and wondered at who this guy was. Everything about him screamed player, from his behavior in the hot tub to him being pretty transparent about wanting to finish what she’d started, but then he was this apparently amazing therapist, and some sort of grandmother whisperer. His offer to the old woman gave her all the feels, and she wasn’t ready to have any types of feels around Kainui Keanu. Not now, not ever.

  “I can get my friend to help me.”

  “Wait? What?” The feels disappeared. Brooke gulped but the words were already out.

  “Ha. I knew that was you,” said Kai. “Come meet everyone.”

  Good one. Brooke stepped out from behind the tree line. “I went for a walk.”

  “Good.” He didn’t say anything else and she was forced to put out a hand towards the old woman. “I’m Brooke Evans, nice to meet you.”

  The old woman looked at her hand and then said something to her granddaughter.

  “She said you are too beautiful for your own good too. Maybe it’s you who should marry the beautiful man.” The little girl pouted. “But she’s wrong. He’s going to marry me.”

  Kai put a hand on the little girl’s shoulder “Don’t you worry. Brooke here isn’t going to marry anyone except the ocean. She’s a mermaid.”

  The girl’s face lit up.

  “But you know I can’t marry you for a long time. And by then I’ll be old and ugly. Probably better for you to find someone else to marry. You pick the boy and point him out to me. If he’s mean to you then you can come tell me and I’ll make him pick your grandmother’s rice.” Could he be any more charming?

  He stood and patted the little girl on the head. The old woman struggled to try and stand and reached behind her for a bag. Kai bent down again and put his hand over hers. She’d been about to pay him, Brooke realized.

  “Tell your grandmother I don’t take money from old ladies. Especially ones who have beautiful granddaughters.”

  The little girl beamed and Kai stood again. “See you tomorrow morning. With some ointment for your grandmother. Promise you’ll show me what to do?”

  Charming and generous? This was getting ridiculous. Brooke narrowed her eyes. No one was this nice without ulterior motives.

  Kai started down the path and Brooke was forced to follow him if she didn’t want to be left standing around by herself like an idiot. She followed him back along the path under the trees and then through the rice paddy fields, scattering a flock of birds as they went.

  “If you think I’m getting up to pick rice, think again.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of asking you. It’s the wrong type of movement for your shoulder right now. In a week’s time though it’ll be perfect.”

  “Dream on.”

  “Oh I am.”

  Brooke looked at him sharply, but she couldn’t tell if he was talking about dreaming of her in the rice fields, or somewhere else entirely. And the worse thing was, she wasn’t sure if she was that offended by him putting her in any of his dreams.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m so full.”

  Kai smiled as Brooke flopped down in the chair in his room. The lunch had been a buffet, and freed from the restrictions of knowing she needed to train or compete that day, Brooke had let herself try everything. “I’m impressed you managed to fit that much in,” he said.

  “I have hollow legs. That’s what my brother always said.” Her face was blank, unusually blank for a woman who wore her heart so obviously on her sleeve. But there was hurt in her eyes. An old dark pain that spoke of more than the casualness the comment was supposed to.

  For a moment she paused and Kai checked her. Her brother had been a crack surfer in his day. Top of the leader board more often than not, but he’d never actually met the guy. Not with Holo so new to the surf circuit. Looked like there was more under the surface of that relationship though.

  “So. I folded the napkins. I rested. I ate the lunch. Now what?”

  “Patience Mistress Mermaid. I want to get to know your body better.”

  She snorted. “I already told you that wasn’t going to happen.”

  “Not like that.” H
is face felt cracked wide open from the smile. “At least not yet.”

  “Any more hot-sauce on you and you’ll burn the roof of your mouth.” She said rolling her eyes. This was good, she was smiling, laughing.

  “The muscles in your other shoulder will be compensating for your injury, as well as that sling pulling at your neck. I want to give them a bit of love.” Brooke rolled her eyes. “It’s your own fault, you know that right?”

  “What?”

  “You make everything seem like innuendo. I mean, get to know my body better?”

  He grinned. “Can’t complain about me not telling it like it is.”

  “Get on with it then.” She stood and walked to the massage table he’d set up in his room next to the neatly made bed that had felt too big for just him last night. Her words might have sounded exasperated, but she was still smiling, and her over-dramatic eye roll had been quickly followed by a wrinkle of her nose that was cute rather than snarky.

  “If you could lie on your back please.”

  She did as he asked. It was the first time he’d looked at her whole body like that. Resting, sprawled back, relaxed in only a thin cotton tank top and shorts. Her arms were long, he realized, with tapering fingers that wouldn’t have been out of place on a piano. The tattoo on her arm wasn’t a traditional design like the ones he had on his shoulder and thigh but they suited her. A woman and waves, with birds flying through it. It was done all in black, a stark image, but one that made him think of freedom, of flying. “How long ago did you get that?”

  She bit her lip and the urge to kiss her was strong enough he had to fight it. “When my brother had his accident. He wanted one on his leg to remember where he’d been, how close he came to not being alive anymore. We got them at the same time.”

  “But yours means something else.”

  “I was only just getting started.”

  “So yours is about coming out from under his shadow?” he asked. “It’s about flying solo and feeling the wind under you. Is that it?” As he said the words he watched her eyes widen. She looked scared. “Sorry, did I say something wrong?” he said. “Tattoos are personal, sorry if I over stepped.” Kai took a few steps and went to the head of the table, behind her, out of her line of vision. But standing just behind her head, he could still see her expression.