Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
B end. Stretch. Breathe.
Hollis held the downward-dog pose, breathing calmly. She was on the beach, doing yoga to relax. The morning sun was warm on her skin, the sand was cool under her feet, and the gentle sounds of the waves lapping on the shore echoed in her ears.
But she didn’t feel relaxed.
With a huff, she dropped onto her towel. She was in literal paradise, and she still couldn’t relax.
She’d slept badly…again. Dreams of Reuben standing over her, holding a knife, had plagued her. She knew she shouldn’t have accepted that role in that horror movie a few months back. It had been a fun cameo, where she’d been brutally murdered in the opening scene. It had only been one day of filming, and it had been lots of fun.
Except, it had left her with perfect mental images of messy stabbings.
“Michael Reuben doesn’t know where you are,” she whispered. “Just breathe.”
She did some deep breathing. Two days in Hawaii, and she was still edgy and tense. She pushed her hair back.
The only time she hadn’t been stressed was when she’d been talking with Deputy Hottie.
Sawyer.
Okay, last night in bed with her vibrator she hadn’t been stressed, either. She bit her lip. She’d been imagining Sawyer’s head between her legs instead of her toy.
Phew, Hollis, enough. You’re not here for a holiday fling.
No, she was in hiding until things cooled off, until she could come up with a way to deal with her situation.
Maybe she should shoot a movie far away? Africa? Scandinavia? Antarctica?
Something made her turn her head, and everything inside her stilled. The powerful form of Sawyer Lane was jogging up the beach. He was only wearing black athletic shorts, and no shirt.
Her heart thudded. Holy hotness . Her mouth went dry. As he got closer, every line of his chest and abs became visible in perfect detail. A band of black ink circled one large bicep.
God, she’d seen plenty of hard bodies in Hollywood before, but Sawyer was pure muscle, and so real. He wasn’t lean and perfect, sculpted by a trainer. These were muscles he used.
Her gaze traced the deep V of muscles that disappeared into his running shorts.
He stopped a few feet away, pulling his earbuds out of his ears. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Her voice was a little hoarse. Stop staring, Hols . “You run every day?”
“No, just when I have the time to get down here. It’s my day off today.”
She waved at her towel, and he sat down beside her. She got a whiff of soap and male sweat. Her belly coiled.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I was trying to do yoga. To relax.”
He eyed her. “You don’t seem very relaxed.”
“I’m not. Yet.” She gritted her teeth. “I’m working on it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You need to stop trying.”
She turned to look at him. “What?”
“You’re overthinking it.”
“I’m really good at overthinking.”
He snorted. “It’s like when you’re trying to go to sleep, and you’re concentrating on it really hard, and it does the opposite.”
“Oh, I’m well acquainted with that, too.”
“You running from something, Hollis?”
His deep voice shivered through her, and she turned to look at the ocean. “No. I’m just an overworked actress who needs to learn to relax.”
He stayed silent.
“I promise,” she said. “There are no horrid tabloid exclusives I’m running from, or rumored pregnancies.”
His gaze dropped to her belly.
Hollis was really glad she was wearing her cute, mint-green leggings and matching top.
“Jealous boyfriend?” he asked
“No. No boyfriend.”
“Crazy stalker?”
She managed to laugh, since that one was a little too close for comfort. “Not this week.”
“You got a cellphone?”
“Yes.” She grabbed it off the towel.
“I’ll give you my number. In case you need anything.”
She felt a pulse in her belly. How about no-holds-barred, hot sex? She cleared her throat. Get your mind out of the gutter, Hollis. He’s just being nice and friendly. It’s his job.
He rattled off his number and she tapped it in. She saved it as Deputy Hottie, but was careful to tilt the screen away so he couldn’t see.
They sat together for a moment in the quiet, and Hollis was surprised at how nice it felt. Back home, everyone was always clamoring to fill the silence. She watched some windsurfers in the distance, zipping across the waves.
“Have you ever windsurfed?” Sawyer asked.
“No.”
“My cousin’s really good. He’s an instructor, if you want to learn.”
“Thanks, but no. My agent would have an aneurysm if I did something like windsurfing. Do you windsurf?”
He shrugged one broad shoulder. “I tried it a few times when I first moved here. It’s fun, but not for me.”
She toyed with the end of the towel. She felt this strange urge to know more about him. “Was it hard for you? Adjusting to life here after the military?”
He was silent so long, she was worried she’d overstepped.
“Sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“It was hard. It still is some days, but it gets better over time. Slowly.” He rose and dusted the sand off. “Whatever’s stressing you out, Hollis, you can change it.”
Damn . He’d warned her that he was observant. She wrapped her arms around her legs. “Not every situation is that easy,”
“No, but you can still take action.” He stuck his earbuds back in. “If you need anything, just call.”
She watched as he jogged away.
Okay, okay, she watched his ass and those thick, muscular thighs as he jogged away. She was only human.
At least she was thinking of something that wasn’t her own miserable situation.
Sawyer startled awake, his heart pounding, his chest tight.
“Fuck.”
He was in the armchair in his living room. He didn’t bother trying to sleep in his bed anymore. It never worked. In the armchair, he usually dozed off and caught some catnaps.
He glanced at his watch and swallowed a curse. It was only 11:30 PM. He’d only been asleep for forty-five minutes. His skin was slick with perspiration. He sat there, breathing hard, as the nightmare slowly faded.
But the screams never quite went away, nor the memory of the flicker of flames.
With another curse, he rose. When he’d fallen asleep, it had been to the pleasant image of Hollis in leggings and a tiny top that hugged her perfect breasts.
But not even that had kept the nightmare at bay.
Grabbing his phone, he padded into the kitchen. He never knew when work might call him in.
He was no stranger to late-night wake-ups. It had been almost eighteen months since he’d left Ghost Ops. To be fair, the last few years on the team hadn’t been the same. Not since the best commander he’d ever worked with had left, but Sawyer had stayed on because he knew the team did important work.
Until…
Until he couldn’t stay any longer.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge. He didn’t care that he was only in his boxer briefs; he walked out onto his deck.
The darkness surrounded him. The cool, night air dried the sweat on his skin. He set his phone on the railing, then leaned against the wood, and sipped.
His gaze moved toward the roof of Hollis’s place. He imagined her in bed, red hair everywhere.
He took another sip.
There was a story there. Something was bothering her. Sawyer had a finely tuned sense for trouble, and something was making her afraid.
What would terrify a wealthy, A-list actress, who had it all?
It sounded like her family wasn’t tight. It was hard to picture a mom who wasn’t impressed when their kid won an Oscar, and had starred in some of the most popular movies of the last decade.
He stared out toward the ocean. He should be keeping his mind and eyes off her. He had no time for a woman. All the shit he had lurking inside him…he had no desire to inflict that on anyone.
Those long-ago screams echoed in his head again.
He shook his head, and took another sip of beer. At that moment, his phone vibrated with a message.
The screen lit up, and he glanced at it.
You doing okay?
Damn, Vander Norcross—best Ghost Ops commander Sawyer had ever known—was uncanny as fuck. The man could sense stuff no one else would notice.
He tapped back a message.
Another night in paradise.
A second later, his phone rang.
“It’s late in San Francisco,” Sawyer said. “How come you aren’t asleep?” Vander ran a successful security business and was married. The thought of Vander as a married businessman always made Sawyer shake his head. He still couldn’t quite picture it.
Still, if someone had told him a few years back that he’d be a deputy sheriff on Maui, he probably would’ve laughed.
“My lovely wife is out on a case,” Vander said. “She’s due home soon.”
So, Vander was waiting for his police detective wife. “Ah. Got it.”
“How’s Maui?”
“Good. The work is…interesting. Mainly tourists doing dumb stuff.”
Vander gave a low chuckle. “Nice change of pace.”
“Yeah.”
Vander’s team had lost three members on a mission. Sawyer had been one of the new recruits to replace them, coming out of the Navy Seals. Ghost Ops teams were made up of the best of the best of special forces from all branches of the military.
Vander and his men had been hurting after their loss, but they’d welcomed him. He wished he’d gotten to serve with them longer before Vander had retired. But Vander kept in touch, and Sawyer knew that the man kept his finger on the pulse of what all the old team members were doing.
Just recently, one of them, Ren Santoro, had his research ship attacked off the coast of Hawaii. The attackers had been after a top-secret military Navy research project.
Ren and a scientist had washed up on Molokai, on the run from Chinese operatives. Vander had called Sawyer, and asked him to help them. Sawyer had pulled in some favors and hauled ass to Molokai to help Ren.
His buddy had taken the attackers down, saved the military research, and fallen in love with the scientist.
“It’s not too slow for you?” Vander asked. “There’s always a place at Norcross Security, if you want it.”
“Thanks, but I need to be here for now.” Sawyer looked out at the ocean.
“I get it, Sawyer. I know what you went through. I also know you. I know you’re battling a hefty dose of guilt, and survivor’s guilt is the worst. None of it was your fault.”
“My head knows that, but how I feel…”
“Yeah. That takes time to untangle.” Vander paused. “It’s better doing that when you’re not alone.”
Sawyer laughed. “I’m not alone. I’ve got Benny and Kalani, and her family. And there are a lot of them.”
“I’m glad you’ve got family, but I’m talking about the female type of company.”
“I don’t need a woman.”
“I thought that too, for a long time. Now she’s my entire world. I’m fucking glad she pushed her way into my life.”
Sawyer was happy for Vander, but it wasn’t what he needed. Of course, that immediately made him think of red hair and blue eyes.
“You need anything, you just call,” Vander said.
“Thanks, Vander. And if you ever want to take Brynn on a vacation, Maui is a great spot.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Once Vander had gone, Sawyer stayed there in the dark, staring at the ocean.