Hell.
What was he going to do? Rafe lived by the code of the corps, but he had his own code, as well. Before he’d ever thought about the Marines, his mother had instilled in him a profound respect for women. His father was strict when it came to treating others as equals. Rafe had grown up in the melting pot that was New York, and on his block everyone knew everyone else’s business. There was no chance of getting away with treating a girl he dated any less than was expected.
Kelly leaned over to hand someone a drink, and he couldn’t avoid it—the way her shorts stretched over her butt nearly sent him back to the showers for a cold one. As he approached the group of other guests, he noticed the man she’d given the drink to follow her with his eyes. The appreciation on his face didn’t sit well with Rafe.
Hey, weren’t you doing the same thing?
Shut up.
There were several people gathered in the mansion’s central room. A big flat-screen was on in one corner where some of the men watched a soccer match. An older couple admired the fish in the aquarium that separated the room from the dining area. Rafe wondered how they kept the tank clean. It was enormous.
“Rafe, I’m so glad you’re here,” Kelly said as if she were surprised to see him.
The confusion must have shown on his face.
“After so many hours on the plane and the swim you took earlier, I thought maybe jet lag might have taken over.”
He returned her smile. “It did—I passed out for a while, which is why I’m late. Sorry about that.” In truth, it had taken everything he had to push himself out of bed and into the shower. Only the curiosity of wanting to see Kelly again had kept him going.
Careful there.
“Can I get you a drink?” she asked.
Rafe shook his head. He’d taken two pain pills so that he could make the walk over, and the doctors had warned him not to mix them with liquor.
“Nah, I’m good. Maybe some water?”
“Kelly, the dinner is ready,” announced a lithe teen with the same beautiful skin of the Fijians and bright blue eyes that spoke of another ancestry.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Kelly asked the young girl.
She nodded.
“Okay, but if you spill anything—”
“I know, I know.” The girl almost rolled her eyes but stopped. “Sorry. Yes, ma’am.”
The girl left them, presumably for the kitchen.
“Nari reminds me of myself,” Kelly said softly. “I would do anything to surf when I was a kid.”
“I don’t follow,” Rafe said.
“Oh, she helps out around the resort and occasionally waits tables to pay for her surf lessons here.”
“You give lessons?”
“That she does, mate,” said the man who had been watching Kelly when Rafe had shown up. The Australian was nearly as tall as Rafe’s six-foot-four, but he had white-blond hair and the body of a boxer. Big biceps, short neck. Rafe couldn’t imagine the guy on a surfboard.
“This is Josh,” Kelly said as she introduced them.
“Rafe,” he said as he stuck out his hand.
“Ah. You’re the soldier Kelly was telling the Seymours about. Been in Afghanistan, I heard, and you were shot up pretty bad.”
Rafe glanced at her to find her cheeks were pink.
“Gracie is a doctor,” Kelly said. “I...had heard about how you’d been wounded and I wanted to make sure we had the right therapies for you, and that we didn’t push you too hard. I promise we weren’t gossiping.”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Rafe said. “As long as there’s a gym, I can follow up with what my trainers started in Germany.”
“Best facility on the island,” Josh told him, and slapped him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. Rafe struggled not to wince as a shot of pain raced down his back and into his aching hip. He reminded himself he was lucky to be alive. Unfortunately, there were few places on his body that hadn’t felt the effect of his time in the military.
“Yep, they’ll get you fixed up, all right. Came here a couple weeks ago to recover from a bruised hamstring and lower back troubles, and boom!” The man clapped his hands together eliciting a few startled glances. “All better now. This little chicken knows what she’s up to. Got me back to fighting form months before the docs thought it would be possible,” Josh announced to the group, squeezing Kelly into the crook of his arm.
Rafe took pleasure in the fact that she didn’t seem too happy about being smashed up against the guy.
“Josh, can you check that the doors to the kitchen are closed? I want to make sure we don’t get sand in there and it looks like the wind is picking up.”
“On it.” The Aussie lumbered through the main room over to the dining area.
“Are you okay?” Kelly asked softly. The light caress of her hand on Rafe’s forearm was enough to send him over the edge. “He has no idea how strong he is.”
“No worries,” Rafe told her, his voice deeper than usual because her hand was still gently stroking his arm. “Do you always order your guests around like that?”
It was a subtle way to find out if she and the Australian were close.
“Yes,” she replied with a laugh. “I’m bossy that way. Just ask my sister.”
At the mention of her sister, she lifted her hand from his arm and frowned. “Sorry. What were we talking about before that?”
“About you being bossy,” he said as he studied her carefully. Was there something bothering her about Mimi?
“Oh, yes. And with Josh, well, he was supposed to be here for a week and it’s turned into several. That happens a lot. Almost everyone who visits says they feel like family, so I guess it doesn’t hurt to treat them that way. We have a fairly exclusive clientele who are used to plenty of perks, but they like it here because they get all that and they get to be surf bums at the same time. There’s no paparazzi or helicopters flying over to see what kind of bikini they’re wearing or what they’re drinking, or who they are with for that matter.” She shrugged.
“I thought I recognized some faces on the beach today.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure you did. They keep coming back, since no one bugs them here. It’s always been my sanctuary when life got to be too much on the circuit, and I wanted to create that for other people as well.”
Sanctuary. If it weren’t for his dilemma with the sisters, this place would definitely be that. The waves had put him to sleep in seconds after his head hit the pillow. The bungalow was warm, but the sea breeze kept it from being miserably so.
Rafe wasn’t overly impressed with the boxer, but he understood why he was drawn to the place. It was the kind of environment a person could get used to easily. As Rafe sat down at the table across from Kelly, she gave him another smile.
Yep. He could definitely see why people never wanted to leave.
* * *
KELLY CROSSED HER legs on the special platform Nari’s father, Duke, had made for her.
Meditation was part of Kelly’s regular routine and, no matter what was happening around her, she did it twice a day. Settling on the raised part of the deck outside her bedroom, she took a deep, calming breath and tried to clear her mind.
Adrien would kill her for not finishing her dinner tonight, but Kelly’s nerves were like taut guitar