Leanne Banks - Island Promises

“It has a range of a hundred-fifty feet. I can be back in the cabana in a second.”

To her discomfort, he plopped down beside her, all those hard muscles just inches away. Again, she had to force herself not to stare, focusing instead on his kindness to her and the twins.

“Thank you for the boogie boards. That was a lovely thing to do.”

He shrugged, his expression embarrassed in the glowing sunrise slanting over his features. “I only rented them. I figured, what are you going to do with boogie boards back in Chicago?”

“It’s still wonderful.”

“It was a complete whim. I headed into Lihue last night for dinner and there was a surf shop open right next to the restaurant, advertising board rentals. It seemed like fate.”

“The girls will be thrilled. I was tempted to wake them up for a test run the minute I saw them on the porch. Fortunately, I came to my senses in time and decided to enjoy five minutes of quiet.”

His mouth twisted into a smile. “Until I came running along to disturb the peace.”

He definitely disturbed her peace, but not for the reasons he probably thought. She wasn’t about to tell him otherwise, though.

“What are you three planning today?”

She pointed to the water. “Sand, surf, sun. That about covers it.”

His low laugh sent nerves shivering down her spine—which only intensified when he shifted closer to her, stretching out long legs covered in dark hair.

“Are you interested in a drive around the island a little later? I wouldn’t mind playing tour guide. We could go see a couple waterfalls I know, visit some quiet beaches, maybe head up to Kailua.”

The invitation both thrilled and terrified her. Spending a few hours in a car with the man likely wasn’t the best way to protect her heart.

“I don’t know,” she stalled. “Things can be hard with Grace’s chair. She can use the walker most of the time, but we would have to take the wheelchair along in case she gets too tired.”

“I rented a big Jeep. There should be plenty of room for the chair and walker in the back, and I can easily lift her in and out.”

She should say no. The word hovered on her tongue. But the girls would love to see one of the plummeting waterfalls the island was known for and a little more of the island than this stretch of beach outside their cabana.

She supposed she could always arrange for a rental car and venture out on her own, but spending time with him was much more appealing. The twins would certainly love it, given how drawn they were to him.

“That could be fun,” she finally allowed, though she wanted to call the words back the moment she said them.

“Great. Shall we say noon? That’ll give you time to play around in the water for a while. And I know the girls have a hula lesson this morning, too. We can grab lunch on the way somewhere and still be back for the rehearsal dinner tonight.”

Ah, yes. The rehearsal dinner. Nick and Cara wanted the twins in the wedding party. They had to practice their role, which meant Megan wouldn’t be able to manufacture a convenient excuse to skip it.

“Sure. Okay. That would work.”

From the monitor, she heard a little cough that her maternal instinct told her came from Grace. She pulled it out to check and saw that both girls were still sleeping, cough notwithstanding.

“Everything okay?”

“For now. They’re pretty sound sleepers. I think I’m still safe for a few more moments.”

She turned her face back to the sunrise, which exploded with color now above the horizon.

“It must be hard, on your own with twins.”

She flashed him a look and saw his expression was compassionate, not judgmental. “Some things are hard. I won’t lie about that. Two parent-teacher conferences, two sets of homework every night, two girls nagging me in the store to buy them a treat. Most of the time they’re a joy, though. I wouldn’t trade our life for anything.”

“Do you ever wonder if things might have been easier if you had...” His voice trailed off, as if he had suddenly reconsidered what he’d been about to say.

“Stayed married?” she finished for him.

His expression turned rueful. “Sorry. That was a rude question and none of my business.”

She bumped his shoulder with hers. “My ex-husband is marrying your sister in roughly thirty-six hours. I’d say that makes it a little bit your business.”

“There is that.”

She wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees while the breeze lifted strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail. “I care about Nick. I always will. But we’ve both discovered we’re much better as coparents than we ever were as a couple.”

“I can see that. The girls seem very happy.”

“That’s the important thing, as far as I’m concerned.” She glanced over at him. “What about you? Have you ever gone through this?”

“What? Marriage? Not me. On the morning of my mother’s third marriage, when she was stuffing me into yet another tuxedo for another trip down the aisle with her, I decided that when I get hitched, it will be forever. I think this was a year or so after my father’s fourth wedding. I was about thirteen by then.”

She’d guessed something of the sort from what Nick had told her about Cara’s family. Sympathy squeezed her chest. She couldn’t imagine that. Her own parents had been deeply in love until the day they were killed together in a car accident when she was in nursing school.

Sometimes she thought their dying together had been a gift, as neither would have been able to live well without the other. A gift to them, anyway. As an only child who had always had a particularly close relationship with her parents, the loss of them both at the same time had been a devastating blow.

She’d figured out a long time ago that her grief after their deaths was one of the reasons she’d hurried into a relationship with Nick. She’d been lonely and adrift, seeking a connection that had never really been there.

“For the record,” Shane murmured after a long moment, “I like Nick. He makes my sister happy. But I’m beginning to question his sanity to let someone like you slip away.”

Heat seeped through her at his words, and she gazed at him with startled eyes. It seemed natural and perfect—there, alone with the sunrise and the water and the few shorebirds pecking across the sand—when he leaned forward and kissed her.

CHAPTER FIVE

HER BREATH CAUGHT and she froze, his lips warm and delicious on hers. Oh, it had been so long. She had really, really missed kissing, the slide of mouth against mouth, skin against skin, the wild flutter in her stomach.

The breeze swirled around them and the ocean whispered and she didn’t want this lovely moment to ever end.

She kissed him back, her hands curled into the cotton of his T-shirt. Since her divorce, she had focused only on being a good mother, a good nurse. The unleashed heat of Shane’s mouth and tongue and hands reminded her she’d lost something along the way. She had forgotten that, at her core, she was still a woman, with needs and desires she’d worked hard to suppress.

He eased away from her a little, breath ragged and blue eyes glazed with hunger.

“Yeah. Nick is definitely crazy,” he said, his voice gruff. He leaned in for another kiss, his arms around her, pulling her against his hard chest.

They kissed for a long time, while the sun rose higher in the sky. She didn’t want to stop, but a muffled cough from the monitor in her pocket acted like a cold splash of water.

Oh.

What was she doing here, wrapped around Shane Russell like some kind of tropical vine?

This close, she could see his irises, speckled glints of silver in the blue. She could also see a certain light reflected there that looked suspiciously...tender.