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.
“Yeah,” 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
