Meryl Sawyer - Better Off Dead

“No way.”

“Yes. Way. I was trying to talk to her and she walked off.”

“You didn’t come on too strong, did you?”

Chad shrugged one shoulder. “She walked in and—wham—a guy would have to be dead not to stare at her.”

“I might have guessed. Big tits.”

“No, not centerfold material. She’s hot, though. Slim, long legs, blond hair.”

Keke tsked. “Looks aren’t everything. Beautiful women are often conceited and looking for a rich husband. Better watch out. Playing hard-to-get is the oldest trick in the book.”

“Mommie! Mommie!” screeched Keke’s youngest. “Watch!”

“I’m watching.”

The three-year-old leaped over an incoming wave that was six inches high at most.

Keke clapped, and yelled, “Very good.”

“Way to go,” Chad shouted.

He waited until he had Keke’s attention again. “I don’t think Devon is playing a game. I usually have a sixth sense about women from living all those years with you three.”

Keke giggled. “Well, you should. Remember the time you had Eddie and the guys to the house for a sleepover? We put all our panties and bras in your room so the guys would think you were gay or a pervert.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t strangle you.”

“Mom stopped you. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here today.”

They both were silent for a moment. Chad was positive his sister was thinking the same thing he was. Their parents should be here today, celebrating their granddaughter’s birthday, but they both had died, his father in an auto accident and his mother two years later of ovarian cancer.

“About this Devon person. Think of hyenas.”

Chad groaned. Keke adored animals. Every time she could, she made a point with an example from the animal kingdom.

“Despite what people think about the law of the jungle, male hyenas who are too aggressive and try to dominate the females, don’t father as many pups as those who make friends before mating.”

“I guess I do come on too strong sometimes, but it always seems to work.”

“And we sisters—the fab three—have always warned you that some women don’t like it, especially if she’s had a bad experience with a man.”

The stupidity of allowing a brief encounter with a stranger to bug him like this made him groan inwardly. Aw, hell, he didn’t know what to think. Since his first sexual experience at fourteen, he’d called the shots in his relationships with women.

Sure, a few had blown him off. It hadn’t bothered him, but Devon had managed to get to him, Chad realized, perplexing emotions coursing through him.

Why her?

SHELBY SOMETHING—an unpronounceable Hawaiian last name that Devon couldn’t say let alone remember—gushed wedding trivia nonstop from the office to the posh residential area near Diamondhead.

“Why do brides wear something blue?” Shelby had asked, then immediately answered her own question. “It symbolizes faithfulness.”

“Who, like, thought of wedding cakes? They began in England in the Middle Ages. People would bring small cakes to weddings. They would, like, pile them up high. Soon people frosted them, like together. Get it? The tiered wedding cake.”

Devon had smiled indulgently. Surely, if Shelby could remember so much trivia, the girl could be a bigger help with the details of wedding planning. No such luck. Shelby was content to be an airhead.

Devon had come in early, prepared to give Chad Langston the brush-off. She’d worked all morning and had made a lot of headway with the three upcoming weddings, thanks to her crash course on the Internet. Chad hadn’t dropped by the office, even though Eddie was in and scheduling party boat cruises in a voice so loud that it was difficult to concentrate.

“Mostly we, like, do fab weddings on Eddie’s yachts,” Shelby explained for the second time, “but occasionally we get a request for a private home. You know, an awesome place with an ocean view like the mansion we’re using Sunday evening.”

Devon nodded, resisting the urge to say anything. Shelby had an overly friendly attitude, like a puppy who wanted its master’s attention. She didn’t want to encourage the girl to become too friendly.

She feigned interest in what was known as the Gold Coast. It ran along the shore east of Diamond Head along Kahala Beach. Most of the elegant homes were behind custom-made gates. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of lushly planted grounds.

Devon hadn’t expected to fall in love with Hawaii, but from the moment she’d stepped off the plane, she was greeted by a sky so blue, so clear it made her heart soar and momentarily forget her problems. Diamond Head stood nobly in the distance, burnished purple by the angle of the sun. The heady scent of plumeria mingled with the loamy smell of the tropics and the bracing scent of the sea.

I’m going to love it here, she’d thought.

Shelby drove her Honda through a set of open stainless gates flanked by towering, stately royal palms. In the center of the enormous circular courtyard was a huge bronze dolphin spouting water into a reflecting pool. The modern home had a curved wall of glass to view Diamondhead and the ocean.

Devon tuned out Shelby as they left the car and rang the doorbell next to towering stainless-steel doors etched with a wave pattern. She noticed how the contemporary lines of the home had been softened by banks of ferns and brilliant pink bougainvillea.

A barefoot, shirtless guy in his early twenties answered the door. His spiked hair was bleached a blinding white by the sun. His skin was as bronze as the dolphin in the courtyard.

“Hi, Rory. Aren’t you, like, surfing today?” gushed Shelby.

From the looks of the home, Devon had expected a house-boy in some sort of outfit. But the rich were different. Apparently this was the owner’s son.

“I surfed already. I was up at the Pipeline before dawn.”

“Getting ready for the contest?” she asked in a breathy voice.

“Right.”

Shelby turned to Devon. “Rory’s surfing in the Rip Curl Cup. The winner, like, gets two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“Wow!” Devon hadn’t realized there was so much money in surfing.

Rory pointed in the direction of an infinity pool visible off to the side. “He’s out there.”

Rory disappeared around a corner, and Devon followed Shelby through the dramatic black marble foyer where a dust mote would have had the good sense not to land on the pristine floor. They walked through a living room the size of a hotel lobby. What must be glass doors disappeared into the walls so the room naturally flowed outside.

“Ahoy, there,” Shelby called to the man on a plush chaise lounge with its back to them.

Ahoy? Sheesh, but this girl acted embarrassingly young. Devon wondered how she’d landed the job as the coordinator’s assistant. Obviously she wasn’t capable of taking over the coordinator position or Eddie would have promoted her.

“Ahoy? Shelby, you need to learn to be more professional,” called the man.

Oh, my God! Chad Langston. What was he doing here? Sunning himself obviously and toying with a handheld video game or perhaps a GPS.

Could this be his home? The Crockett Building was a modest office complex. It didn’t seem to be the type of place where a person who owned this mansion would have an office.

“I’m more professional, like, every day. Right now, I’m showing the new wedding coordinator around. Have you met Dev—”

“We met yesterday.” Chad deliberately glanced at her for only a split second, then turned his attention to Shelby.

He told Shelby, “Get Devon up to speed so the wedding on Saturday goes smoothly. I’m here if you need me.”

He settled back in his chair, pretending to be more interested in the gadget than her. No way was he going to hit on Devon. Let her come to him, he’d decided after his talk with Keke.