Sun Kissed (25 page)

“She told me privately that she wanted to give their relationship a second try. But contractually, she couldn’t leave without the risk of the show suing her. My job was to keep her as steady as possible and get her to the end.”

“Which didn’t happen,” he guessed.

“Wow. You really didn’t watch much TV. Or YouTube.”

“I was a bit busy tracking down a serial killer,” he reminded her. “That didn’t leave much time for entertainment.”

“Touché,” Lani said with a long sigh. “Anyway, I thought we were going to make it. Then she miscarried.”

“Hell.”

“That’s putting it mildly. I argued that now we had to let her go home to her family. And maybe the baby’s father. But the producer—”

“Who you had the sort-of thing with,” he said.

“Yes. And I could add that it was
nothing
like our thing, but it’s a moot point. So, moving on, that’s when the show’s attorneys stated that since she’d lied on her contract about how long she’d been out of any relationship, she wasn’t owed anything. Her medical bills weren’t even going to be paid. That was bad enough, but when I went to the hospital to try to break the news to her, I walked in the room and found a camera crew.”

“Jesus.”

“Different team,” she corrected with a shake of her head. “That’s when I lost it and blew up, and all my pent-up frustration and anger came boiling out. Unfortunately, the camera was still rolling, which risked ruining her life and any chance she might have had of reconciling with her boyfriend, who wasn’t at all happy that she’d been keeping that secret to stay on a TV show, never mind that she was contractually obligated. Also, she’d told me that she’d gone on partly because she needed the money after the breakup since she’d been living in a house that her boyfriend had bought, and was suddenly in a financial bind.”

“That’s tough.”

“Isn’t it? Although the video of my tantrum was edited from the program, someone sold the outtake to one of those horrid Hollywood gossip blogging sites, and I became a viral sensation. I was even a popular Internet meme and Twitter GIF. Then fortunately, for me, at least, two weeks later, a paparazzi cameraman caught a big-name pop star naked on a beach with one of his bandmate’s wives, and I became yesterday’s gossip news.”

“Do you know what happened to her? The contestant?”

“I do, actually. She emailed me. She married the boyfriend, and they have a nine-month-old daughter they did not name Beauty.”

“So, all’s well that ends well. Do you ever think that you could be happy doing something else, like working in a library, back on the mainland?”

Lani shook her head. “I belong here on Orchid Island.”

“You’re hiding from reality here,” he insisted.

“I understand why you’d think that. And maybe I am. But I like the person I’ve become, Donovan. I thought you did, too.”

“Of course I do, but you can be that person in Portland just as well,” he insisted, almost shouting.

Lani had been considering that from the beginning. From the day she had first started falling in love with a man from the mainland. She shook her head decisively.

“No, I couldn’t. If I moved there, I couldn’t just sit around waiting for you to come home. Pretty soon I’d be back in my old routine of losing myself in a job, and you’d either be spending all your time trying to soothe the commissioner and wheedle money out of the city council for the police department, and there we’d be, two workaholics who’d be lucky if they saw each other for five minutes a week.”

She was close to tears. “We’d destroy everything we have together, Donovan. And that would break my heart.” Her eyes filled and she forced herself to look out over the sparkling turquoise water.

“But you’re tossing it away by not coming with me,” he argued.

She rubbed away the free-falling tears with her knuckles. “I don’t have any choice.”

“We’re going to have to talk about this some more,” he insisted. “You can’t just drop all this on me out of the blue when I have a plane to catch.”

“There’s nothing left to say.”

He reached out and cupped her downcast chin in his hand, lifting her tear-stained face to his. “We’re not finished yet, Lani, not by a long shot.”

As his mouth covered hers, a treacherous sob escaped her lips.

As he began walking down the beach, back to Nate’s house, with plans to turn the rental in to Kenny at the ferry dock, Donovan felt his own eyes burning.

Two weeks after leaving Orchid Island, and Lani, Donovan sat in the dark, nursing a tall glass of Scotch, which had, until his trip to the island always been his drink of choice. Now he found himself wishing he’d stopped at the liquor store on the way home and picked up a bottle of rum.

The apartment building was located on the river, the scene from every window spectacular. As the purple shadows of dusk gave way to night, the moon created mysterious shadows in the mist that hung over the icy waters of the river.

The city lights were wrapped in a soft blanket of fog that dulled their brightness, and down on the darkened streets, the car lights looked like fallen stars. The magnificent view had never failed to lift his spirits. That night was an exception.

He wasn’t a special agent. But he
was
chief of police. After years of climbing the ladder, the mist-draped city was his. So why did he feel so fucking rotten? The answer was simple: Lani wasn’t here to share it with him.

Before the appointment had been announced that afternoon, he’d had lunch with a furious Nate. Over thick steak sandwiches, Lani’s brother had accused him of being at best a damned fool. Or at worst, a bastard. Donovan had readily agreed on both counts.

“So go to her,” Nate had insisted.

“And lose my job? I’m not the kind of man to let my wife support me.”

Nate had muttered a pungent oath that Donovan, in years of police work, had never heard. “So you get a damned job on Orchid Island,” he said. “What’s so hard about that?”

“Doing what? Tending bar at The Blue Parrot?”

Nate had tossed back his head and polished off his beer. “You’re supposed to be an intelligent man,” he growled as he got up from the table. “You fucking figure something out.” With that, he had marched out of the restaurant.

*     *     *

Lani was aware of him the moment he entered the beach house. First there was the slight squeak of the screen door being opened, then the soft swish of her bedroom door, followed by his footsteps as he made his way toward the bed. All these sounds drifting into her subconscious mind as she slept told Lani that Donovan had returned.

But it was something far more elemental, emanating from the very essence of the man, that roused her to instant awareness. She sat up, pushing her tumbled hair out of her eyes.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered.

The mattress sagged as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You don’t sound very surprised,” he said, his lips caressing her scented hair.

Lani traced his face with her fingertips, as if to reassure herself that this was not a dream. “I wished for you. And here you are.”

Nuzzling against the soft, fragrant cloud of her hair, Donovan nodded. “And here I am.”

He drew her into his arms, running his hands up and down her back. The satin of her sleep shirt was cool against his palms, but Donovan knew that her skin would be warm.

He kissed her then because they had been much too long apart. Although by the calendar it had been two weeks and two days since they’d been together, since he had held her in his arms, Donovan felt as if it had been a lifetime ago.

“You didn’t lock your door.”

“This is Orchid Island, remember?”

“How could I forget… I’ve come to a decision,” he said, fighting to remain calm while his stomach went on a roller coaster ride.

His lips, as they lingered at her throat, were more intoxicating than champagne. Her blood hummed under their touch.

“A decision?” Lani asked.

He reached out and turned on the bedside lamp, flooding the room with light.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, staring at him as a glimmer of hope made her dizzy.

“What?” Donovan demanded, feeling unreasonably nervous. He followed her gaze to his vivid aloha shirt. “Oh, this. I bought it at the airport when I got in.”

His casual white cotton slacks that Lani had talked him into buying for the luau were rumpled from all those hours on the plane, his eyes were bleary and red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and he needed a shave. Lani thought he looked wonderful.

“It looks very good on you,” she said.

“Think so?” Donovan had felt a little foolish buying the red-and-orange flowered shirt, but the saleswoman had assured him he looked just like a true
kamaaina
. “I have to admit it’s comfortable.”

“You look very sexy,” Lani assured him. “Even better than Tom Selleck. Why, you’ll have to fight the women off with a stick.”

“I don’t want any other women. I only want you, Lani.” His expression suddenly became sober as he handed her a small box tied with gold cord. “I brought you a present.”

“I absolutely adore presents,” she said with a warm smile that reminded Donovan of a tropical sunrise.

“It isn’t emeralds,” he apologized uneasily. “Or diamonds or any of the expensive things you deserve.”

“Donovan—”

“But,” he said gruffly, “it reminded me of you.”

His rough, serious tone almost proved her undoing. With fingers that trembled slightly, Lani slipped the gilt cord from the white box. She lifted the lid, giving a small sigh of pleasure at the piece of stained glass that nestled on a bed of white tissue paper.

“It’s lovely. Thank you.” She lifted the rainbow suncatcher up to the light. Her walls, her ceiling, the floor were all suddenly covered with rainbows.

“There’s a card.”

So there was. Lani was nervous as she plucked the small card from the tissue.
There’s a lifetime of rainbows out there
, Donovan had written in his bold, precise hand.
Let’s wish on them all together
.

“Oh, Donovan.”

His stomach was twisted into knots as he took both her hands in his. “I know we had an agreement,” he began seriously.

“That doesn’t—”

He immediately cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. “An agreement that made a great deal of sense at the time. You were happy here living on the island; you had your family, your work, your snorkeling. Horatio. Moby Dick.

“I was fighting off a case of professional burnout and planning on getting on an even faster track than the one that had killed my partner. Neither of us had the time or the inclination to get involved. It would have been highly impractical.”

“Highly,” Lani agreed quietly.

“Well, I don’t care about practicalities any longer. I don’t give a damn about what’s sensible and what isn’t, what’s prudent or not. I know I swore I wasn’t looking for a wife, but that was before I met you. Before I knew how good things could be between us. So I’m revoking that agreement here and now.”

Frustrated by the clumsy way he was handling this, Donovan had to stop. Nervously, he jammed his hands into his pockets and began pacing the bedroom.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said. You’re right, I wasn’t very happy anymore as a detective and I would have been miserable as chief. I became a cop to help people, to try to make a difference. Not to spend all my time playing political football.”

“When did you come to that conclusion?” she asked.

He lifted his shoulders in a weary shrug. “I don’t know exactly. I suppose tracking down Britton had something to do with it. I’d been in a supervisory position for so long that I’d forgotten how much I liked to get out on the streets.”

His expression was grim, unyielding. “I’ve resigned, Lani. And I’ve come back to Orchid Island because I need you.”

Lani examined her nails. “Are you by any chance asking me to marry you, Donovan?”

“Of course I am.”

“Oh.”

This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. Donovan wondered if Nate could write a how-to-deal-with-women manual between novels. He’d be the first customer. “Damn.”

“Now that’s romantic.”

“I forgot the most important part.”

Seeing the distress on Donovan’s face, Lani took pity on him. Rising from the bed, she kissed him with all the fervor of a woman in love. When she finally tilted her head back, her eyes were sparkling.

“I’m listening.”

Donovan took a deep breath. “I love you, Lani Breslin.”

Joy, pure and bright, bubbled through her. “How handy. Since I love you, too.”

He ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “I don’t want to give up investigative work.”

“We have policemen on Orchid Island, too, Donovan,” she reminded him.

“I know. But I don’t want my life to be so regimented anymore. I want to be able to slow down. Live on island time with you. Which is why I decided to open up my own detective agency.”

“Like Magnum P.I?”

“But without the Ferrari. And no short shorts. And I wouldn’t expect to be living in a gated mansion anytime soon.”

“I’ve never wanted to live in a mansion. But maybe you could wear those short shorts around home? Just for me? Because I think you’d look amazingly hot in them.”

“For you… anything. There’s something else.”

“What’s that?”

“I know you have your library work, and your handywoman work, but I thought, just maybe, you’d like to help with research.”

“You want us to be partners?”

“Only if you want to,” he said.

“Quinn and Quinn Island Investigations.” She said it out loud. “I love it.”

“Then you’ll marry me?”

“Since my entire family would disown me if I didn’t,” she said, “I think I’ll let you talk me into it.”

Her smile was dazzling, rivaling the brilliant radiance of the Orchid Island sun as it gifted the early morning sky with shafts of purest gold.

Lani held out her arms. “
Aloha nui
, Donovan. Welcome home.”