Relapse In Paradise. Roxanne Smith
of time to make it up to him. I’m sure his one requirement is you be an appreciative tourist. Not exactly a chore.” Quinn stopped talking abruptly before continuing in a quiet, hefty tone. “Em, listen to me. I know divorce isn’t something you bounce back from like one of those little rubber balls. I would never send you off in the hopes that a little island nookie might solve your problems. In case you are attracted to Boston, I only want to you stop and recall I’d been apart from Blake for over a year when I fell for Jack. It took time. First, I had to come to terms with Blake not really being the one for me. It felt like a big mistake. For a long time, I clung to these images of our past together, instead of scrutinizing who we’d become. But we’re not talking about me, and this trip Jack and I forced on you isn’t about a man. In fact, I hereby ban you from men for the duration of your vacation. You do you, Em.”
Emily gazed down the mountainside she’d climbed yesterday. The dirt-packed parking spot where Boston had parked the van peeked through the web of branches. “And no one else?”
“Right. Thoroughly enjoy Boston, but only in his capacity as someone who can turn your time on Oahu into something magical and special.”
“He did seem well versed on an array of trivial facts.”
“The guy knows everything. It doesn’t surprise me, since he taught high school in a past life.”
The teacher thing again. Emily tried to imagine Boston with properly hemmed clothing and a respectable haircut. Nope. It didn’t jibe. She caught a glint of reflected sunlight through the trees from below. A black sedan sat parked in the drive. “I’m going to ask you more about that later, sis, but I better go. It seems my magic rental car has arrived to whisk me off for some island adventure.”
“Call me anytime. Jack and I are taking Seth back to California in a few weeks to visit Blake. I’m trying to get this rough draft done before we leave. I hate taking work on the road.”
Emily mumbled her good-byes and went back inside to find suitable clothes. Maybe if she rolled up her shirt sleeves and sprung for a pair of flip-flops she could get by with her stuffy wardrobe until she had time for a real shopping trip. Perhaps Boston wouldn’t mind taking her. Heck, he might like her better when she wasn’t trussed up like a corporate monkey. It’d make the impending apology she owed him easier to stomach. If not, she had jet lag and terrible airliner coffee to blame.
She yanked up the zipper on her mid-calf skirt and promised to henceforth value Boston for his expertise, instead of judging him by his shorts. Even as she thought it, she couldn’t help but shake her head. “God, but they’re some awful shorts.”
* * * *
“I don’t know, man. That kind of thing can backfire real easy. And if it does, you can kiss your golden reputation good-bye, brother. It ain’t stealing, but it’s damn close.”
Hani’s doubtful words lingered in Boston’s mind like onion breath, strong and clingy, as he drove through the small village of Haleiwa on his way to retrieve Emily.
Stealing seemed a tad strong for what Boston had done. More like he’d allocated funds and been stingy with the information regarding where they’d gone. Quinn had trusted him enough to let him keep the refund from Emily’s room at the Hilton. Why bother her with specifics of what he’d done with it?
Okay, so telling her he’d used it to rent Kumu Pili was a small white lie. The tree house belonged to his friend, Mongo, and hadn’t cost Boston a dime. But, knowing Quinn, she probably would’ve supported his humble act of goodwill, bailing Ryder out of jail this morning.
Leave it to Hani to get technical.
They needed the money. Boston had come through, as usual. In fact, he’d daresay Emily benefited righteously from his minor deception. No way the Hilton’s manufactured atmosphere came close to what she had to be experiencing at Kumu Pili. The tree house was the real deal.
Boston slowed to a cruise and turned onto the dirt and gravel road leading up to the house. As he reached where the path ended at the beginning of the stone steps, he hit the brakes harder than he’d meant to. The sudden stop and moment of panic sent twin jolts through his body.
A black sedan sat parked under an overhanging tree. Boston jumped from the van and walked around the car. It was a rental, given away by the barcode sticker on the front window. Either Emily had a knack for making friends, which didn’t strike him as the likeliest option, or Boston was in deep shit.
He hadn’t actually told Mongo he’d be bringing anyone to Kumu Pili. He’d made the decision on the fly after picking up Emily at the airport and idly doing the math on what an open-ended stay at one of the Hilton’s tower suites must’ve cost. They were high-end. As primo as primo got, literally feet from the world-famous Waikiki Beach. Boston wouldn’t have had the stones to try it during peak season, but in February, what were the odds Mongo had booked other clients for this particular guesthouse?
Boston’s heart skipped a beat. Please let me be wrong. I want to be wrong. Tell me I’m wrong, damn it. He bounded up the stone staircase, slowing once he came to where the wooden switchback steps took over.
Apparently, his good karma tank was on empty. Hani would say he’d used it up robbing Emily of her Hilton suite.
She stood on the veranda with a young, pastel-washed couple and their small child. The kid held a little basket of mangoes close to his chest and looked every bit as strained as Boston felt. Every pair of eyes locked on Boston when he reached the landing.
The man sported a pair of wrap-around sunglasses hanging around his neck and wore a pale orange polo shirt. Boston had a sudden longing for an orange-flavored Creamsicle. The man frowned at him. “You’ve booked Kumu Pili, too, huh?”
His wife in a lavender and yellow plaid eyesore of a shirt, huffed. “Who ever heard of such a thing? We’ve had our reservations for a month. You expect this sort of confusion in the summer—”
“Which is exactly why we came in February!” her husband finished with a flourish of his arms.
Boston refused to even look at Emily. The relief on her face at seeing him come up the stairs plunged him into a cocoon of guilt, and the worse part had yet to come.
He offered the family his best smile, the one normally reserved for police officers and his mother. “Folks, I apologize for the mix-up. I’ll help Mrs. Buzzly-Cobb get her luggage together, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time. A simple mistake, I assure you, and the fault is entirely mine.”
He couldn’t risk pissing off Mongo’s legitimate paying clients for the sake of one he put up for free. Forget burning a bridge—it’d be more like packing that sucker with C4 and filming the explosion over a soundtrack of gleeful laughter.
Friendships didn’t come back from that.
Emily’s face went round all over, from the perfect O of her mouth to her quarter-sized eyeballs.
He sucked in a breath and took her hand. “C’mon.”
She followed him as though dazed.
He lifted a finger to Mongo’s guests as if to ask for a moment while he pulled Emily behind him. They didn’t look happy, but they weren’t shouting or throwing mangoes.
Boston and Emily slipped inside the house, and Boston started snatching up items he assumed were Emily’s; a half-empty can of Sprite and a silk-lined black blazer tossed over the back of the couch, among other things.
Once out of earshot from the unexpected company, Emily rounded on him with gritted teeth. “What’s going on?”
Pretty damn obvious, wasn’t it? “I screwed up. Hurry. Get your stuff together.” He bounded for the spiral staircase. “If we’re quick, Mongo will never have to hear about this. More importantly, I’ll never have to hear it from Mongo.”
Emily didn’t budge. “Who is Mongo?”
Boston