off and showing her scars.
She shrugged it off with a quick piece of trivia. “Did you know that, worldwide, the odds of getting mugged are 260,463 to one?”
“I guess I do now.”
He grinned at her, making his dark, almost black eyes crinkle at the corners. He was the first honest-to-God guy she’d met with a Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin. Maybe that was why his mouth had a little curl to the lip that reminded her of someone.
Someone else. Hazy, dreamlike, the notion tugged at her mind though she couldn’t put a name to him.
“Of course the odds increase depending on where you live.”
“Bet you never thought you’d become a statistic in a little place like Tahiti.” He lifted the bottle to his mouth and drank.
It was unrealistic to envy an inanimate object. The bottle had no way of knowing how lucky it was. “Guess I’m now a three-time loser.”
His drink halted midway to the table. “I don’t know about the other two, but you didn’t lose this round. Better to say third time’s the charm.”
Charm? Dare she give any credence to that stupid good-luck sign on her case working? She felt like a dweeb carting it around, but it had been a condition of her trip. As if anyone in the South Seas would be interested in the whereabouts of the Blue Grasshopper? So they’d taken a ratty old building and done it up into a variety of bars, restaurants and nightclubs. That was only a smattering of the attractions in Chinatown.
When she didn’t answer, he said, “Jeez, I hope you don’t think I was minimizing your ability to look after yourself.”
His dark eyes glinted above high slashed cheekbones as he pushed a curl of thick dark hair from his forehead. Sheesh, he was disarming. Something about this man called to her, no matter that there wasn’t a hope in hell of this meeting leading to anything more.
“It’s just that I’m not very big, right?” she murmured, her voice as low as she’d learned to set her expectations.
They perked up at his “From where I’m sitting you look just about perfect. A real live doll.”
His top lip lifted in a half smile. The guy was hitting on her, she could tell. Pity the line wasn’t new, but it did make her smile. Men had to have a secret phone number that dished those lines out, so many a dollar.
The trouble with hope, it kept floating to the surface. “I have taken self-defense lessons for women.”
Taken them, taught them, what was the difference?
“What kind? Judo or karate?”
“Neither. Hapkido…” She took a slug of orange juice, anything to stop from talking. If she didn’t fill her mouth, her life story would come spilling out. Keep telling yourself that those muscles are more poster boy than superhero.
“That deserves kudos. Women should know how to defend themselves.” He stretched across to take her hand. “We didn’t exchange names. Mine’s Kel.”
Good grief, she was going to have to touch him. She put down her glass, wiped a palm that had gone sweaty on her pants, until she could no longer leave his hand floating in midair without looking as dweebish as her luggage.
No good pretending her hesitation had anything to do with knowing the average amount of germs on the human hand. It was the thought of ending up as a wet puddle melting all over his shoes.
Too late, she laid her hand in his. Held it a moment too long as the shock sent the blood rushing from her extremities to vital organs like her heart, which was pounding fit to burst. “Ngaire, I’m called Ngaire,” she repeated like an idiot with a few brain cells short of a mind.
“Now, I guess that’s spelled N-y-r-e-e?”
“No, N-g-a-i-r-e.”
“That’s Maori, isn’t it? I thought you were an American.”
He leaned closer, interested, maybe too interested. And, with the response he’d wrung out of her gone-haywire body, dangerous. Before she knew it she’d be spilling her guts about the package she had to deliver. Too dangerous.
She shrugged, dropping her gaze to hide the lie. “I guess my mother read it in a book.” A book with her grandmother’s name in the flyleaf.
She decided to turn the tables, ask questions and let him do the talking while she got ready to leave. “Are you a native of New Zealand?”
“Yes, but it’s been a long time since I was home.” Kel put the bottle back to his lips and took a long swallow.
The movement in his throat, the earthy slide of his Adam’s apple while he downed the rest of his beer in one, hypnotized her. Keep away from there, girl, she scolded herself. This isn’t a pleasure trip you’re on. It’s more important than sex. A life depended on it.
Her own.
Leaving her unfinished juice on the table, she stood. “I need to freshen up. You have a nice visit back home. Bye, now.”
He stood. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“I doubt it. We’re just two planes who had a near miss, never to waggle wings again.”
“Take care, now.” He held out his hand. It hurt to ignore it, but the cost of touching him was way too high.
“Don’t worry, I will.” She’d take care not to run into him again before her plane left. Ngaire glanced around, her eyes seeking the nearest rest room and safety. It was one thing to shake a man off physically, emotionally it was a whole other ball game. She didn’t need anyone taking her mind off her goal. That track led to trouble.
Kel’s time was running out. A pleasure though it had been talking to Ngaire as he gave the other passengers the once-over, his target needed identifying before he got onboard that plane. Not that her back view wasn’t as easy on the eye as the front as she strode away with her small navy day pack swaying above her hips.
Ngaire’s unwitting remark about near misses reduced his sex life to a metaphor. Brief encounters were his specialty, a quick fumble beneath the covers, a halfhearted satiating of the soul, then back to work. That’s how he liked it, with nothing to come between him and his career—no wife, no family, not even a relationship. Not anymore.
Yeah, he had no regrets about watching her walk away. Not that she would be alone for long. Something about her set men’s mouths drooling. Even the guy on the phone broke off his conversation, holding the receiver at chest level as he watched her go by.
“Thank you, Ngaire,” Kel muttered as an idea struck him that put a wide cat-that-got-the-pigeon grin on his face. She’d given him the perfect solution simply by walking out on him.
He didn’t feel so bad now about the distraction. One look at her braid swinging behind her chair, like a come-hither signal, and he’d been lost, driven to speak to her.
Having rescued her sunglasses from the gutter seemed the perfect excuse, but the second he got within sniffing distance of her honeyed scent, all had been forgotten.
