Sun Kissed (2 page)

His ability to slip unconsciously into a public persona of masculine authority was, along with the suit, evidence that he was no longer that reckless young cop she’d met so many years ago. He’d changed. But hadn’t they all? Nate’s name now appeared on all the bestseller lists, and she certainly wasn’t the petulant, self-centered teenage girl she’d been back then.

Still, Lani was somewhat saddened by the idea that Donovan had changed so drastically. All the professional success Nate had told her about hadn’t been kind to him. His six-foot, broad-shouldered frame had lost weight to the point of being almost gaunt.

“Hello,” he called up to her, dropping his luggage onto the sand. “I’m looking for Nate Breslin’s cottage.”

Of course he was. Remembering Nate’s promise to send her something special for Christmas, Lani vowed to give her older brother a piece of her mind at the very first opportunity.

“You’ve found it.” Her calm voice betrayed none of her annoyance.

“Thank God. I was beginning to feel like Robinson Crusoe.”

“This is one of the most deserted stretches of beach on the island,” Lani acknowledged. “That’s why Nate picked it. He values his privacy.” She didn’t add that the beach’s remoteness held the same appeal for her.

“I know about his penchant for being off the beaten track,” Donovan said. “His house on the Oregon Coast is even more remote than this place. You practically need a mountain goat to climb up that road of his… I’m forgetting my manners. I’m Donovan Quinn.”

He’d taken off the aviator sunglasses, revealing deep shadows beneath midnight-blue eyes. “Introductions aren’t necessary, Donovan. Despite the fact that you seem to have taken to dressing like an undertaker, I had no problem recognizing you.”

Donovan shaded his eyes with his hand as he looked up at her. There was something naggingly familiar about the redhead. They’d met before, he determined, but as demanding as his life had been, especially the past few months, what with Tess’s stalker, followed by his partner’s suicide, Donovan couldn’t imagine forgetting this woman.

Although her eyes were hidden by an oversized pair of shades that reminded him of Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, it was her fiery hair, pulled up into a messy knot atop her head, that rang a distant bell. He forced his mind to concentrate, to remember.

Eventually, a hazy vision stirred. One of a fourteen year old with a mouthful of braces who’d surprised her older brother with a visit one long-ago winter vacation. A teen who’d been less than pleased to discover that she would be sharing that brother with an outspoken rookie cop.

The friendship between the novelist and the patrolman only six weeks out of the police academy had begun purely by chance. Nate had been researching his second novel, and since his protagonist was a Portland patrolman, he had arranged to spend his nights in a cop ride-along program.

After a week of boring, routine calls, they’d gotten involved in a hair-raising adventure. The high-speed chase of an armed robbery suspect, which made every police movie they had ever seen pale by comparison, had ended abruptly at a warehouse by the docks where the suspect took an elderly night watchman hostage.

The standoff had gone on for hours before Donovan was able to convince his superiors that he had learned his way around every inch of this particular warehouse while working on the loading dock to put himself through Portland State.

As dawn had broken on the horizon, his heart beating wildly and his body pumped with adrenaline, he’d crept stealthily through the shadows, ultimately freeing the watchman and apprehending the perpetrator, who’d still managed to put a twenty-two slug in Donovan’s shoulder before being handcuffed.

The following week, the rookie cop had been rewarded with a departmental commendation, Nate had enough material for ten books, and the kid sister had returned to Orchid Island in a teenage huff.

No. It couldn’t be her.

“Lani?” he asked hesitatingly, still having problems processing the idea that this hot female could be Nate’s skinny, redheaded, smart-mouthed kid sister.

“Got it on the first try. Congratulations. I was wondering how long it’d take for you to make the connection.”

“How could I forget you?” he hedged, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t immediately recognized her. That admission would lead to the less-than-complimentary implication that Lani Breslin had changed dramatically over the past fifteen years.

“How indeed?” she asked with a shake of her head. “Especially after I ruined your holidays.”

“You weren’t that bad.” Okay, that was a lie. She’d been a petulant pain in the ass even as he’d done everything humanly possible to welcome her to Portland.

He’d offered to take her to the zoo on his day off, but she’d professed an allergy to wild animals. The Japanese Gardens were out, as was a Trailblazers’ game since she had no interest in basketball. And FYI, according to Nate’s sister,
The Nutcracker
, which he’d also suggested, despite having preferred to be zapped with his own Taser than spend a Sunday afternoon at the ballet, was for little kids.

“Besides, it was only natural that you’d resent Nate spending so much time with a stranger after you’d flown all the way across the Pacific to be with him,” he said.

“You don’t have to be so chivalrous, Donovan,” she said, waving away his attempt to excuse her behavior. “I was a brat. I’m surprised you didn’t toss me into the river.” A smile played at the corners of her full lips. “Especially when I crashed that intimate little New Year’s Eve party you and Nate had planned with those two hot Air France flight attendants.”

“I thought about it a time or two,” Donovan was surprised to hear himself saying. He was always more circumspect, having learned to carefully weigh his words when he was a Portland patrolman because cops with runaway mouths weren’t very likely to rise through the ranks. And they damn well didn’t get invited to join the elite FBI. Which had been another of the reasons he’d gone along with Nate and Tess’s idea to come to the island. He’d hoped that the bright, tropical sunshine might burn off the fog dulling his brain.

Lani didn’t appear to take offense. “What a relief to know that the outspoken Donovan Quinn I remember so well is lurking somewhere inside that funeral suit. I was afraid rubbing elbows with all those politicians and cable news talking heads might have ruined you.”

“I haven’t changed that much,” he insisted, knowing it to be another lie. Sometimes lately, he found himself wondering if the rookie cop who had crawled through those dark and threatening shadows in that warehouse so many years ago even existed any longer. “I’m still just a cop.”

“You’re a detective who could well end up chief of the department,” Lani corrected. “Nate told me all about you tracking down that Cascades Killer. And he also mentioned, when he and Tess were down here for Thanksgiving, that you’d nearly gotten killed while working to keep a Russian mobster in prison.”

“I wasn’t injured that badly. Some glass in my eye, bumps and bruises. And a sprained ankle.” Which was taking its own sweet time getting back to full strength. “And it never would’ve happened if I’d just moved faster.”

She tilted her head. “Gracious, I had no idea being a detective required superpowers capable of outrunning an SUV.”

She still had a smart mouth. As he found himself wondering if it would taste as good as it looked, Donovan firmly reminded himself that this was his best friend’s sister. Still, one thing Nate hadn’t embellished was the beauty of at least one of the island’s women.

She picked up her hammer and slid it into a loop on the tool belt she wore low on her hips. “Why don’t I come down so we can continue this conversation without you getting a crick in your neck?”

As he steadied the ladder, Donovan decided watching Nate’s sister’s butt, as she deftly backed down the aluminum steps, was definitely off-limits.

“You’re not in the market for a wife, by any chance, are you?” she asked as she reached the ground. She yanked the elastic band from around the knot, allowing a cloud of sunset hair to tumble over her bare shoulders. When she took off the oversized sunglasses, he found himself drowning in her mermaid-green eyes.

“Absolutely not.” Realizing how that swift rejection might have sounded, he backtracked. “It’s just that my life is complicated, and in flux right now and I don’t believe I could give a relationship the time and energy…”

Hell, if he’d stumbled around for words that badly during all those Cascades Killer’s press conferences, the FBI never would have come calling. His only excuse, as lame as it admittedly might be, was that it had been a very long time since he’d been with a woman capable of muddling his thoughts and tangling his tongue.

“Don’t panic,” she said, gilt lights sparkling in those remarkable eyes. “I was merely curious about whether or not you were in on Nate’s devious plot.”

“Plot?” He rubbed the spot between his brows where a headache had begun to throb.

“My brother has been threatening to marry me off,” she said conversationally. As she bent to pick up one of the pieces of luggage, the cutoff jeans rode up enticingly, momentarily capturing his attention with the backs of smooth, tanned thighs. “He obviously sent you down here as bait.”

“I seriously doubt he’d do that,” Donovan objected. “Here, let me take those.”

“I’ve got them,” she said as she headed toward the door. “You bring the large bag and that other case. Which, please tell me isn’t a computer.”

“It’s a new laptop. I figured I’d use the peace and quiet to get some work done.”

“You came here to work?” Lani’s incredulous expression suggested that he’d confessed to plans to settle beneath the banyan tree in the front yard and spend his holiday vacation watching Internet porn.

“Something wrong with that?”

“Everyone’s entitled to his own idiosyncrasies, I suppose.” She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder to give him a slow, appraising look. “Nate’s told me all about you, Donovan.”

“He did?” Donovan racked his brain for something, anything, Nate knew that he might inadvertently let slip during an FBI background investigation.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, apparently picking up on his concern. “According to my brother, you’re intelligent, honest, and a terrific judge of literature.” She flashed him a quick but still devastating female smile that took him back to high school when just the sight of Madison Mayhue crossing her legs across the aisle during first-period English class could give him a boner that would last until lunch. “That last is because you read all his books, of course.”

“He’s a great storyteller.”

“You don’t have to convince me. After he sent me the advance copy of
Nighthawk
, I locked my doors every night for a month.”

He frowned. “You don’t now?”

“This isn’t Portland, Donovan,” Lani replied mildly. “We’re not accustomed to much crime here on Orchid Island.”

“True, but…” His voice trailed off, and he forced an abashed smile. “Sorry. That was the cop talking.”

“I suppose, given your line of work, you could develop a jaded view of the world after a while,” Lani murmured.

“Or a realistic one,” he countered, even as her words hit a bull’s-eye, making him aware of the fact that she wasn’t the only one who’d changed since that long-ago winter. “So what other deep, dark secret about my personal life has your brother let out of the bag?”

“He said you’ve become a driven workaholic who needs to relearn how to relax. Tess, by the way, agreed with his assessment.”

“Which is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black,” he muttered, a little annoyed that he’d apparently been a topic of conversation during Nate and Tess’s visit.

“My soon-to-be sister-in-law was wound a little tightly when she first arrived,” Lani allowed. “But it didn’t take all that long for her to slip into island time. Watch that third step,” she warned as she continued toward the front door. “It’s loose. I was going to nail it down after I put in the skylight.”

“You’re putting in a skylight?”

“Nate suggested one when he asked me to do the remodel.” She entered the house, leaving him to follow. Zeroing in on the orchid tattoo rising from the waist of those cutoffs, he wondered how low that ink might go. “He didn’t tell me why he needed it done right away, especially since he and Tess are spending Christmas at her family’s winery, but as soon as I saw you struggling up the beach, I knew what my sneaky brother had in mind. He’s obviously selected you to rescue me from a lonely, celibate spinsterhood.”

“Nate only offered this place out of friendship,” Donovan assured her even as he wondered how celibate an existence any woman who looked like Lani Breslin could possibly be leading. Nate hadn’t mentioned that all the males on the island were blind.

“Not that you haven’t grown into a remarkably attractive woman,” he said sincerely, as they entered the open-concept home that, to his uneducated design eye, appeared to be a fusion of casual beach living and Asian Zen, punctuated with native carvings and bright art. “But I’m not in the market to get married right now.”

“Damn. There goes my big plan to go wedding dress shopping tomorrow. And I guess it also means we won’t be picking out a china pattern anytime soon.”

She crossed the wood floor scattered with sisal rugs. “Don’t worry,” she assured him, “we’re in full agreement on the topic. Although I think we’re in the minority these days. Even my best friend has fallen victim to the matrimonial bug.

“I’m going to be maid of honor at her ceremony at the Fern Grotto next June, and when she throws that orchid bouquet, I’m definitely going to duck. Not that I actually believe in that old wives’ tale of the woman who catches the bouquet becoming the next to wed, but there’s no point in taking any unnecessary chances, is there?”

She opened a door and waved a graceful hand in a sweeping gesture around the bedroom. “Well, welcome to Shangri-La.”

Donovan came to an abrupt halt in the doorway of the bedroom as he took in the tall, four-poster king-size bed. Draped in mosquito netting from the vaulted ceiling to the floor, the bed dominated the room. A broad beam of buttery sunshine from the overhead skylight Lani had mentioned installing cast a soft sheen on a leopard throw tossed across the end of the white sheets. The silvery sound of water tumbling over the lava stones, drew his attention to a waterfall fountain surrounded by lush, tropical green plants in a far corner of the vast room. Moroccan hammered lanterns and large, patterned pillows had been strategically placed on the dark teak floor, inviting occupants of the room to lounge in front of the fountain.