she was about twenty-nine hours past exhausted and couldn’t be expected to control anything more than the urge to weep. Or maybe scream.
And that was only because she was clenching her teeth hard enough to pulverize bone and enamel.
With a cheerfulness that Eve wished she felt—she was in the South Pacific, for heaven’s sake—the driver wrestled her bag from the cab and dropped it at her feet, along with her heavy winter coat. Then he hopped back into his decrepit vehicle and took off like a lost soul out of hell, singing at the top of his lungs to the song blaring from his boom box.
Sucking in air so heavy with moisture she thought she might be forced to grow gills, Eve hoisted her bag and coat onto her shoulder. Clutching her laptop close, she headed across the road to the small building squatting like a smug hen in a bed of exotic flowers and dense vegetation.
Suddenly she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.
The wooden doors to Tiki Sea & Air were open, and Eve climbed the stone stairs to a wide wraparound porch decorated with hanging baskets exploding with exotic-looking flowers. The heady fragrance reminded her of the perfume counters at Bloomingdale’s. Rich, lush and exotic.
Inhaling the humid air, Eve looked around and decided she must be dreaming—heck, she was exhausted enough. It was as if she’d stepped into a brochure advertising glamorous holiday destinations. But since she’d never taken a holiday, let alone been tempted to research one, she couldn’t tell for certain.
Okay, that was a lie. She and her sister had used to dream all the time when they were kids about finding some exotic island where they’d live with their father and eat coconuts and fruit and maybe learn to catch fish. A place where they’d be safe and adored.
She snorted. Yeah, right. That had been so long ago it might have been someone else’s dream. Before she’d stopped believing in fairy tales. Before she’d learned that if she wanted “safe and secure” she’d have to create it herself.
Swiping at a trickle of perspiration, she glanced over to where an old man lay dozing on an old rattan sofa and experienced a moment of pure envy. She’d be willing to harvest her own kidney for a soft bed, clean sheets and about twenty-four hours of oblivion.
Oh, yeah...and air-conditioning.
She groaned as sweat ran down her throat and disappeared between her breasts. Definitely air-conditioning.
Deciding that she didn’t have the energy to fight the old guy for sofa space, Eve headed for the open door and stepped into an old French Colonial–style building that looked about three decades past its sell-by date.
The room looked like something out of a movie. There was a scattering of worn rattan furnishings, coconut fiber mats dotting the floor and a large overhead fan that lazily circulated the heavy air.
A large curved bamboo counter took up most of the far end of the room, and behind that, through the open slatted wooden French doors, Eve could see a back porch leading down to a long, wide wooden dock. Bobbing on the insanely bright turquoise water was a large white seaplane. Beyond that she could see a headland and the open sea, sparkling like a trillion jewels in the sun.
Approaching the counter, Eve peered over the scarred surface, hoping to find someone who could help her. Other than an empty mug, an overflowing wastebasket and about a ton of boxes, the only sign of life was a quietly humming computer and the soft clunk, clunk, clunk of the overhead fan.
She glanced through another open doorway behind the counter into a small messy office, but it too was deserted.
“Dammit,” Eve muttered, huffing out an irritated breath. “Where the heck is everyone?”
A loud, hoarse, “Ia ora na e Maeva!” had her jumping about a foot in the air. She looked around, wide-eyed, for the owner of that raspy voice. But other than the loud snoring coming from the old man on the front porch the building was quiet.
Quiet and deserted.
Wonderful. Now she was hearing voices on top of everything else.
Telling herself she wasn’t losing her grip on reality, Eve dropped her belongings onto a nearby chair and headed for the open doors, determined to find the source of that raspy voice. And hopefully someone who could tell her where to find a pilot named Chase.
She stepped onto the back porch and was instantly blinded by the midday light. Heat rose from the dock and the large bay reflected sunlight like a laser show.
Resisting the urge to retreat inside the blessedly dim building, she lifted a hand to shade her eyes as the raspy voice yelled, “Ia ora na e Maeva!” in her ear.
Heart lurching with fright, she swung around, expecting a hatchet-wielding psycho, and found herself face-to-beak with a large bright blue-and-scarlet parrot perched on a tree stump, watching her with baleful eyes.
“Oh!” she said to the bird on an explosive exhalation of relief, and took a cautionary step out of range of the wicked-looking beak. “Hi. Do you know where I can find, um...Chase?”
The bird cocked its head and Eve sighed. Now she was talking to a bird. Which probably meant lack of sleep along with stress and panic was sending her right over the edge.
“Okay. How about your owner?”
The parrot ruffled its bright feathers.
“Anyone?”
“Squaaawk!”
“Fine,” she said a little shortly. “I’ll just go find him myself, then, shall I?”
“Ma-oo roo-roo ro-aa,” the parrot crooned, and bobbed up and down.
“Yeah, you too,” she muttered, heading for the porch railing. She leaned over, looking past the abundant vegetation to follow where wide wooden planks led straight toward a fancy marina and the bustling business center. To her right it disappeared into the cluster of houses perched along the water’s edge a couple hundred yards away.
Not a living thing stirred, everything having most likely locked itself away from the suffocating heat.
Feeling a little queasy, Eve sank onto the top step, expelling a weary breath just as a long, tanned arm appeared out of the water and slapped onto the dock.
Almost instantly another appeared, holding a string bag of fish. And then, with both large hands planted on the dock, the rest of him followed—all six foot plus of him—emerging from the bay like a sea god visiting lesser land mortals.
Eve’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes were locked on the gush of water lovingly tracing all that tanned masculine magnificence as it rushed south. Waaaay south.
She licked her parched lips, following the streams of water that cascaded over his wide chest and the almost perfect lines of his shoulders and biceps as though lovingly caressing the hard planes it traversed. Moving down spectacular pecs, racing over delineated abs toward the happy trail that disappeared into the waistband of his low-riding board shorts.
Eve sucked in a stunned breath—holy molasses—his legs were just as long and tanned and perfect as the rest of him. She blinked as the image wavered and wondered if she was hallucinating. But when he remained, bathed in sunlight that cast his
