by Anne Marsh
She was lucky to be here, even if she’d come alone. The Fantasy Island marketing team had reached out to her about advertising on her blog and, ka-ching, she’d found herself here on an all-expenses-paid vacation. Now she had to earn her keep or her chance at big-time success would go poof.
The place was paradise, so how hard could it be to talk the island up on her blog? The only thing missing was the naked hot guy. Or loincloth-wearing hot guy. She preferred a man of mystery to a letting-it-all-hang-out-in-the-breeze guy. If she’d understood the island’s advertising correctly, she might be able to have her choice of either. Or both.
Whatever she wanted.
Fantasy Island advertised itself as an idyllic slice of paradise located on the Caribbean Sea—the perfect place for a destination wedding or honeymoon. The elegant type on the resort brochure promised barefoot luxury, discreet hedonism and complete wish fulfillment. Maddie’s job was to translate those naughty promises into sexy web copy that would drive traffic to her blog and fill her bank account with much-needed advertising dollars.
The summit beckoned and she stepped out into a small clearing overlooking the ocean.
“I need to work out more.” At least her asthma hadn’t kicked in. After a quick check of the camera that she’d set up yesterday to do time-lapse photography, she unwrapped her breakfast. She had a purloined croissant and a mocha, which was the perfect sunrise-watching food. While she munched and she shot, the air lightened around her, the birds and the howler monkeys competing to see who could make the most raucous noise. Being awake this early was…almost okay.
The noise of a boat coming in hard and fast on the quiet side of the island was a surprise. With her camera lens, she zoomed in on a pair of black rubber dinghies bouncing over the lagoon’s calm surface. Huh. She squinted, trying to make out the details. Not only did the guys riding the Zodiac look mean, but they were toting a small arsenal, too.
“Good view?” At the sound of the deep male voice behind her, Maddie flinched, arms and legs jerking in shock. Her camera flew forward as she scrambled backward. As adrenaline surged through her, she sucked in air—happy place, happy place—but her lungs betrayed her anyhow, her airway closing up tight. It felt like an elephant had parked its ass on her chest.
Strong male fingers fastened around her wrist. Panicked, she grabbed her croissant and lobbed it at the guy, followed by her coffee. He cursed and dodged.
“It’s not a good day to jump without a chute.” He tugged her away from the edge of the lookout, and she got her first good look at him. Not a stranger. Okay, then. Her heart banged hard against her rib cage, pummeling her out-of-air lungs, before settling back into a more normal rhythm. Mason. Mason I-Can’t-Be-Bothered-To-Tell-You-My-Last-Name-But-I’m-A-Stud. He led the cooking classes by the pool. She’d written him off as good-looking but aloof, not certain if she’d spotted a spark of potential interest in his dark eyes. Wishful thinking or dating potential—it was probably a moot point now, since she’d just pegged him with her croissant, followed by her mocha. Usually she couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn, but she’d scored a bull’s-eye on the front of his T-shirt.
She sneaked a peek at him. He didn’t seem pissed off. On the contrary, he simply rocked back on his haunches, hands held out in front of him. I come in peace, she thought, fortunately too out of breath to giggle. The side of his shirt sported a dark stain from her coffee. Oh, goody. She’d actually scalded him. Way to make an impression on a poor, innocent guy. This was why her dating life sucked.
She tried to wheeze out an apology, but he shook his head.
“Let’s get you breathing.”
She had to agree with his priorities. Plus, if he wanted her breathing, he clearly hadn’t morphed from resort chef to serial killer, so he had some other reason for being up here. Who knew? Maybe he was a secret sunrise aficionado. With a grimace, she dumped her bag upside down on the ground, looking for the inhaler hiding somewhere in the mountain of stuff she carted around. Mason made a choked sound, but she ignored him. So she had a lot of stuff. Preparation was the key to surviving, right? Plus, she really, really hated cleaning out her bag. Mason rifled through the contents, his fingers skimming over her secret chocolate stash, mini samples from her Birchbox subscription, three pairs of sunglasses, a paperback and a clear plastic pouch of emergency tampons. Since he didn’t look as if he wanted to run back down the hill screaming, she concentrated on breathing.
“Got it.” Uncapping her inhaler, he handed it to her. Dark brown eyes watched her as she primed the device and shoved it into her mouth. “I scared you.”
“You think?” The albuterol went to work, her lungs opening up like her puffer was a magic wand and she’d just chanted open sesame. She hated having to rely on the device, but sometimes she couldn’t talk herself out of panicking.
“That wasn’t my intention.” The look on his face was part chagrin, part repentance. Worked for her.
“I’ll put a bell around your neck.” Where had he learned to move so quietly?
“Why don’t we start over?” He stuck out a hand. A big, masculine, slightly muddy hand. She probably shouldn’t want to seize his fingers like a lifeline. “I’m Mason Black.”
“I know who you are.” Or mostly. The last name was new information.
Belatedly, she shoved her hand into his. Good Lord, the man had her acting as though she was fifteen. Not that she’d mind having her fifteen-year-old body back, but that year in high school had been the Year of Brody. Brody had sat next to her in her chemistry class, his mere presence driving textbooks straight out of her mind and reducing her to a stammering, drooling idiot. He’d made her tingle and flush, transforming chemistry class into both her favorite and her worst period of the day.
Mason Black was even more devastating. And, like her chemistry crush, she wasn’t entirely positive he knew her name. After all, he’d just introduced himself to her as if they were total strangers and she hadn’t ogled his body while he taught Fantasy Island’s guests to make ceviche. Which she totally had.
She was also still holding his hand.
Oops. Letting go, she took a step back.
“I’m Maddie Holmes.”
“Uh-huh.” He cleared his throat. “I owe you an apology.”
She leaned toward him before she could stop herself. “Okay.”
Did she still sound breathless? Maybe she could blame her asthma. He examined the ground and her gaze followed his. Right. Her camera…and her breakfast. Her breakfast was beyond repair—even she wasn’t going to eat a chocolate croissant that had bounced off Hot Chef’s chest and hit the jungle floor—but her camera was a different story. He picked it up, turned it over in his hands and then handed it to her.
“The first apology is for scaring you. It wasn’t intentional.” His lips curved up in a grin. “And the second apology is for your camera. And your croissant.” She liked the slow way he smiled at her. It made her feel all melty, like the insides of her croissant.
“It was chocolate,” she pointed out. “One apology may not be sufficient.”
“Call me crazy, but aren’t cameras a bit more expensive than breakfast pastries?”
“I have more than one camera,” she explained. “But at the moment, I’m completely croissant-less.”
“I make a mean chocolate-chip pancake,” he offered, surprising her. With that brawny body, she’d assumed he was an oat bran and protein powder kind of guy. “I could make you a replacement.”
Somehow, she didn’t think his pancakes would take second place. Nope. Just like his smile, she had a bad feeling his pancakes would be addictive. He was a big, scary-looking guy offering homemade breakfast. Talk about checking all the right boxes.
“You cook,” she blurted out when the silence stretched on too long, and then wanted to smack herself. Duh. Obviously, he cooked. He was a chef at the resort, even if he wore camo pants, a black T-shirt and combat boots, and looked more like a badass than a chef.
“Ye
ah,” he agreed, rocking back on his heels to survey her, presumably for further damage. “I do. Really well, although I’m hearing a no on my offer.”
Only because she was biting her lip. She wanted to scream “yes, please” and not just for his pancakes.
“That’s not what chefs wear.” She flicked a finger up and down, indicating his clothes.
He grinned. “I’m not in the kitchen right now, sweetheart. I’m allowed to be out of uniform.”
And now she was thinking about him naked.
“I’m playing paintball with some of the guys,” he continued.
“At dawn?”
He shrugged. “You all like to eat. I have a job to do most of the time.”
“You don’t have any paint on your shirt.” Although if his alleged teammates had hit him on the butt, she’d be happy to check out that portion of his anatomy, too.
He sighed. “That’s because I’m good.”
Again…maybe. Not that he had any reason to lie to her about paintball, but she had a suspicious nature. She tried to peer over his shoulder, but it was roughly the size of a small tree and offered plenty of places for a gal to dig in. His black T-shirt clung to him in all the right places, and black and green paint streaked his face. The colors drew attention to the strong line of his jaw and a really great pair of brown eyes.
She was staring.
Shoot.
“I saw boats.” She pointed to the lagoon over his shoulder. “Two of those black inflatable dinghy things.”
He turned around, crossing his arms over his broad chest. That move pulled the shirt tight. Since she was an equal-opportunity kind of gal, she checked out his ass, too. Which was tight and firm, unlike hers. She definitely needed to take up paintball.
He shrugged and pointed to the dinghy-less, bad-guy-less lagoon. “There’s no one there now.”
“But there was.” She hated mysteries.
“It could be the Belizean police doing a routine drug check. They patrol up and down the coastline, and we’re only a few miles offshore.”
That sounded feasible. On her last visit to Cancun, back when she’d had vacation time, benefits and a nine-to-five job, she’d spotted AK-47–toting Mexican police patrolling the beaches. The hotel had assured her that was standard operating procedure, although she’d almost choked on her margarita the first time she’d spotted the patrols. She stared at the camera in her hands.
“I have photos,” she said.
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” he pointed out. “But I’m happy to look at anything you want to show me.”
That almost sounded like a double entendre, but he said the words with a straight face, making it impossible to be sure. Instead, she focused on her camera and—damn it—its trip to the ground hadn’t done it any favors.
“The memory card’s gone. It must have popped out when I dropped the camera.”
And flown over the edge, she decided a few minutes later, on its way down, down, down for a tropical swim. Mason helped her look, but the card was nowhere to be found. Of course, since she was searching for a teeny piece of plastic in the great outdoors, her odds hadn’t been high to start with.
“I’m thinking I owe you more than a short stack,” he said with a grimace. “Now you’ve lost your pictures, too.”
This was where being prepared came in handy. “Not really. I had the camera set up to do time-lapse, and all the shots should have been transferred to my laptop if the Wi-Fi isn’t moving on island time.”
“Good to know,” he muttered, his eyes on the camera in her hands. “What were you shooting?”
“Not what you were shooting.” When he gave her a lopsided grin, she told him the truth. “Sunrise pictures. Romantic stuff for my wedding blog. Brides will love having their pictures taken up here. I’m shadowing a wedding later this week, and the bride already picked out this spot for her photos. They’re a gorgeous couple.”
She whipped open her planner and flipped to the section where she’d jotted down her notes for the beach wedding. There were certain shots she definitely wanted to make sure she captured, and she did better with a list.
“This is my bride and groom. He’s a hottie. My blog readers will love him.”
Mason took the groom’s picture from her. “This is your guy?”
“Uh-huh.” She’d been in correspondence with Julieta, the bride, more than once before she’d arrived. The Mrs. Guzman-to-be was a pretty blonde, while her groom had the Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome part down. He rocked a white linen suit in the photo Julieta had sent to give Maddie an idea of what they’d be wearing and, if he showed up looking like that, her photos would be outstanding. “What do you think?”
Mason snorted. “Not my type, sweetheart.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Well, Mr. Guzman clearly appeals to the future Mrs. Guzman, and that’s all that counts.”
“They here on the island already?” He returned the photo and she stuck it back in her planner.
“Not yet.” Which was both surprising and not. “Julieta’s dress is here—that’s the bride-to-be—but I haven’t actually seen them check in yet. Mr. Guzman runs some kind of import-export business and has stuff come up at the last minute all the time. Maybe he had a business thing. It must be nice to have a private plane and go where you want, when you want.”
“Maybe.” Mason gestured at her tripod. “You done here? Want a hand bringing this back to your villa?”
“A hand down the hill would be great,” she said, still thinking about her missing bride and groom. She’d been counting on shooting their wedding for her blog; if they were no-shows, she’d need to make alternative arrangements. “Maybe I’ll see if his brother has arrived yet. Ask him if Mr. Guzman’s plans have changed.”
Mason started breaking down her tripod. “He’s bringing family to his wedding?”
She shrugged. “Just his brother, Santiago, according to Julieta. He was planning to get to the island a few days before her, so she was hoping to pawn some of the prewedding tasks off on him. He should have arrived yesterday or today.”
She let him help her fold up the tripod, and then they headed toward the path that led back to the resort. Since the sun had risen, the lighting was no longer ideal, and she now had a date with her bed. A date that would be even better if Mason followed her home. No. He wasn’t a stray puppy. She didn’t get to bring him home.
He strode ahead of her, so she followed along, admiring the way his cargo pants bunched over his butt as he walked. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him—and she’d definitely take a rain check on those pancakes.
2
WHEN THEY REACHED the base of the hill, Mason called squad halt on the operation. Maddie had given him permission to lead her down the hill, and down the hill only, so he handed over the tripod and flashed her a quick salute.
She blinked at him, taking the tripod automatically. “Uh. Thanks.” Her gaze dipped to the coffee stain on his shirt, her face radiating embarrassment. “Sorry about that. And about scalding you.”
She turned pink as if he were actually bothered by a few ounces of hot coffee. He’d been shot at, pinned down and ambushed more times than he could count. Coffee was the least of his worries, although her blush was cute.
“No worries, sweetheart. See you around?”
“Pancakes,” she answered, sounding slightly breathless, and he couldn’t hold back his grin. God, she was fun. When she went left, he hung back. Partly just to watch her go because, hell yeah, he enjoyed the sassy swing of her hips. Maybe she was trying to drive him crazy. It was a possibility.
Mr. Guzman, his ass.
The groom-to-be in Maddie’s photo was Diego Marcos and he would be arriving precisely never. His reservation had been canceled, courtesy of SEAL Team Sigma. The possibility of Marcos’s brother showing up on Fantasy Island, however, was an unpleasant wrinkle that he’d need to alert the rest of the SEAL team to. If they didn’t have intel on where the brother was, they
needed to get it stat.
And added bonus… If Maddie ever found out what Mason had done, he’d be on her shit list for more reasons than scaring the bejesus out of her.
He opened his hand and looked down. He’d taken advantage of her panic to pop the memory card out of her very expensive camera. He’d always used an inexpensive point-and-shoot himself, but then his usual model was a dead enemy target that needed documenting. Sunrises clearly required better technology.
Unfortunately, boosting her memory card might not have been enough. If she’d transferred pictures via the resort’s Wi-Fi, he had a bigger problem than the square of plastic in his hand.
By the time he’d made it back to their base camp, the prisoners were long gone on the Zodiacs, and the rest of the SEAL team was waiting for him. He’d take camping over five-star luxury resorts any day. The entire team, minus Remy, who was now somewhere between here and Belize, was present.
Gray nodded acknowledgment when Mason stepped into the campsite. Gray was one of the biggest SEALs Mason had ever met. The team’s standing joke was that Gray didn’t parachute out of the plane so much as he plummeted. Like a rock. Although he sprawled at ease on a pile of backpacks, there was nothing casual about the glance he raked over Mason. Blood stained his camo. He’d stayed with the injured Remy until the medevac lifted off.
Mason was last to arrive at the debriefing about to start. It was standard operating protocol to review every mission, identifying areas of concern where they could improve next time. The team sat in a semicircle, their attention focused on Gray. As soon as Mason dropped to the ground next to Levi, Gray reviewed the mission that they had just completed, beginning with their target’s arrival on Fantasy Island and ending with Remy’s medevac to Belize for emergency surgery. Since Gray’s maybe-girlfriend Laney Parker was a surgeon and she’d accompanied Remy on the flight, Mason figured his teammate had a fighting chance.
When Gray finished the medical update and Levi had confirmed Marcos’s handoff to the US Navy, Gray dropped a new bombshell. “We’re not done here,” he said.
