Just a Pesky Little Crush (Maui Firefighters #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

MIA

“I did it myyyy wa-aaay!” Mia belted, hair whipping around her face as she drove down the most beautiful stretch of highway she’d ever beheld. Though she had to admit the four-lane road didn’t feel much like a highway, despite her electronic maps telling her otherwise.

Mia blinked away the tears that pricked her eyes and pretended it was the wind from her rolled-down windows that had made her eyes water.

She wasn’t sad anymore. This new life gave rise to a happy Mia.

The life she’d fought tooth and nail to achieve since the idea had come to mind a few months before.

Gone were snowy winters and looking over her shoulder to see if the man she’d once adored was living by the restraining order she’d had to file against him.

She was on the road to happiness. Well, technically she was on Hana Highway.

But things were going her way now. She could feel it in her bones.

Her flight had cost only half of what she’d budgeted for it, some fluke deal.

She’d had no problem getting her car loaded at the port in Seattle, and even though it had meant ubering through the last of her move, she’d arrived on Maui with her car waiting for her in Kahului.

The flight itself had been fantastic. She’d sat beside a mom who had to be younger than Mia was, and her two adorable children.

While the mom had been busy with her newborn, Mia had been able to play with the toddler until she’d fallen asleep against her. A literal little angel.

And now she was on this scenic road, and her biggest decision of the day was should she turn right to go up Haleakala Highway to her new home or should she continue on Hana Highway to the nearest beach.

Mia laughed as she passed the turnoff for Haleakala. Her new home could wait. The beach could not.

Countless numbers of Mia’s friends had visited the islands before her.

Some had tried to describe to her what their vacations had been like.

But no one could have prepared her for this.

The scent of flowers on the air and the gorgeous expanse of blue sky sprinkled with perfectly white clouds. She had experienced nothing like it.

Mia struggled to enter her new destination into her maps since she wasn’t sure what the name of the nearest beach was.

But when she entered beach, a few locations popped up and she picked the closest one.

Or she did as well as she could. If she missed a couple of beaches and had to drive a few more minutes down this road, she wouldn’t be complaining.

The turn came up sooner than Mia had anticipated, and she went left into a parking lot covered in sand, the beach and ocean just beyond.

A smile lifted her lips as the smell of salt, those exotic flowers and a faint whiff of sunblock hit her. This was nothing like the place she grew up and yet she felt like she’d come home.

The parking lot was relatively empty, surprisingly, but considering it was midday on a Friday, that began to make more sense. Most locals must have been at work. It was one of the last days of summer break, though…where were all of the families? And where were the tourists?

Maybe Mia had gotten lucky and stumbled upon one of the lesser-known beaches on the island. Things might possibly be going her way now.

She wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She exited her car and retrieved the swimsuit she’d purposely packed in her carry-on just in case a moment like this presented itself.

The restrooms weren’t great but serviceable, and soon Mia was walking toward the water, sand between her toes.

Those pesky tears fought her once more. She’d worked so hard for this.

It had been scary to leave everything and everyone she knew to make this fresh start.

She’d interviewed with the principal of a school she’d never heard of and taken the offered job without actually having set foot on the school’s campus.

She’d found her new accommodations on social media, paying her first-and-last-month’s rent to a man she’d never met so that she could live in his family’s “ohana unit” as they were called here.

After googling, Mia discovered that ohana unit meant mother-in-law suite.

She felt proud of herself for getting all the details of her new life worked out.

Mia blinked away the tears and headed straight to the ocean.

There were only a couple people in the water, but with how empty the parking lot had been, that didn’t surprise her.

She paused for a moment as she took in the size of the waves, but they actually weren’t bad.

She wasn’t really an ocean swimmer since she’d lived pretty far inland in Washington state, and even if she had been closer to the beach, the colder temperatures would have kept her from swimming often.

But she had lived close to a lake that had been lovely during the summers, and as a kid she’d often be found at the local pool the rest of the year. Mia wasn’t a stranger to water.

The ocean, though new to her, couldn’t be that different.

Mia kicked off her slippers—she’d been told by her best friend Natalie that’s what the locals called them—and pulled off the shirt she’d worn over her swimsuit and laid it on the sand.

She intended to attack this new experience with the tenacity she was attacking her new life.

If she could do all that she’d done, surely she could take a quick dip.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mia murmured under the breath. The water was so warm. Not quite bathwater but maybe the most pleasant water temperature she’d ever encountered. She let the baby waves at the shore envelope her feet.

Mia noticed that the people in the water all had surf boards.

And though she wasn’t an ocean aficionado, she knew enough to steer clear of them as a swimmer.

She walked along the edge of the water to pass the surfers, trying to recall the facts she’d researched about the Hawaiian waters.

Sharks weren’t a huge concern, but Mia did look out into the water for a dorsal fin just in case.

Her eyes took in the sand behind her and there were no blue bubbles indicating that Portuguese man o’ wars hadn’t invaded the beach that day.

Her type-A personality might not make her the most fun companion, but it did help prepare her for… well, everything.

Feeling quite confident with her quick survey of the surroundings, Mia began to surge forward into the water.

Until her old doubts and fears tried to make their way in.

What if her research hadn’t been extensive enough?

Mia had never experienced life all on her own.

What if she failed? Starting with this beach excursion.

Feeling a new resolve, happiness-filled Mia refused to let thoughts like those plague her. She ran the rest of the way into the water before diving under the first wave.

She bit back a yelp of surprise as she came out of the water. She’d done it. She’d made it past the break and was swimming in the Hawaiian ocean.

With confident strokes, she swam farther out, her feet not touching the bottom. She bobbed in the water, unable to help her giant smile as salty water streamed down her face.

Her fears had been conquered. And Mia had never felt so alive.

She floated for a few more minutes, her eyes facing the far horizon. She took in the beauty of water meeting sky as the sun began to dip lower. The sight made her hold her breath—almost as if breathing was too mundane a thing to do in the face of such an awe inspiring sight.

Mia kicked her feet to turn toward the shore. She wasn’t quite ready to be done with her swim, but she should probably see where she was in relation to where she’d entered the water. Her research had taught her that the Hawaiian undercurrent was stronger than many realized.

Mia blinked as she noticed the distance between herself and the shoreline. She couldn’t even make out the place she’d started. The surfers, who’d seemed so far from the shoreline when she’d stood on the beach, were much closer in than where she was now.

She needed to get back to shore. Stat.

Mia’s strokes were now not quite as confident as she had felt just moments before, fear making her arms quake as she lifted them out of the water. She swam in the direction of the shore for as many minutes as she’d taken to swim out and was sure she had to be closer to safety.

She tried to stand, but her feet still felt nothing as her eyes betrayed her. How could the beach seem even further away now? It made no sense. She knew she was putting in the necessary effort…. Panic clawed its way into her heart as her breathing became more rapid.

“Calm down,” she commanded herself, knowing she’d need that breath she was wasting.

With one huge inhale she surged forward again, head down with intensity. There was no time to panic. She had to keep swimming if the current was taking her farther from shore.

Some forgotten part of her research niggled at the back of her mind, but Mia had no time to ponder that. She was swimming. All of her strength, mental and physical, had to go toward that.

Mia glanced up toward the shore once more, not taking the time to break her stroke even as her arms screamed at her. She had to have been swimming for ten minutes straight, something she hadn’t done in years.

But the shoreline wasn’t any closer. That panic came back with a vengeance.

She was a strong swimmer, or so she’d thought, but she’d never had to swim for her life. Which was exactly what she was doing now.

She pushed the panic away again, steeling her resolve. She’d swim forward with all of her might, and she’d get there. There was no other option.

But what if she didn’t make it back? The thought came unbidden, and she pushed it away.

“Grab the lifebuoy!”

Mia paused her swimming, unsure if she’d imagined the gravelly voice.