Alana’s Hero (Brotherhood Protectors Hawaii #9)

Prologue

“We’re here! Can you believe it?” Gina rolled her carry-on into the honeymoon suite at the hotel in Las Cabos, Mexico, and spun it away from her, her eyes dancing with excitement.

Alana Neal gave an exhausted sigh. “Yeah, we’re here.”

“Oh, come on.” Gina grabbed Alana’s hands and spun her around like she’d just spun her suitcase. “Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. From the way I see it, you dumped that loser, and he’s the one who looks like the asshat he’s proven to be.”

“I’m the one who got dumped, but yes, he’s the asshat.” She started to kick off the spike heels she’d worn on the airplane from Maui. “But I look like the poor, pathetic loser who wasn’t good enough to keep my groom.”

“No way. He wasn’t good enough for you. If Vance hadn’t gone off with the wedding planner, he’d have cheated on you somewhere down the line after you’d combined your bank accounts or bought a house together.

It’s much better that you saw his true colors before you said I do.

” Gina frowned down at Alana’s attempt to shed her shoes. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out of these. They’re killing me.”

“You can’t get out of that outfit now. We’ve got some major celebrating to do.” She held onto one of Alana’s hands and dragged her toward the door.

“We just got here after a thirteen-hour, red-eye flight. Whose idea was that anyway?” Alana shook her head. “My eyes are bloodshot, I’m physically and emotionally exhausted and in no way ready to party.”

Gina dragged Alana toward the door. “You can’t let that rat bastard win. You have to hit the ground running and show him you don’t give a flying flip that he ran off with the wedding planner as you walked down the aisle.”

Alana snorted. “Thanks for the brutal reminder.” She had a recurring flashback of standing in the middle of the church aisle with guests looking from the empty space where her groom should have been and back to her.

The bride… stiffed at her own wedding. The guests’ shocked expressions quickly turning to pity replayed in her mind like a movie film stuck on a cycle of rewind and replay.

While Gina had fallen asleep before take-off from Maui, Alana hadn’t slept on the plane from Maui to Honolulu, nor from Honolulu to Los Angeles. And she sure hadn’t slept from Los Angeles to Las Cabos.

She wasn’t sure how she’d face any of those guests ever again.

Alana Neal, the poor bride, whose fiancé ran like a thief escaping with the loot.

Granted, most of those guests had been Vance’s.

Alana’s invitees had been a tenth of Vance’s, consisting mostly of her girlfriends who were also her bridesmaids.

When the best man had read Vance’s note out loud to the guests, Alana had marched back down the aisle, and done the only thing any right-minded, jilted bride would do. She’d grabbed a friend and gone on her pre-paid honeymoon without the groom.

Now that she was in Las Cabos, she wasn’t sure she should have come at all.

She wasn’t in the mood to party, and hanging around another beach town hadn’t been her idea of a great place to honeymoon in the first place.

Not when she lived on the beautifully lush, tropical island of Maui.

Still, Vance had paid for the honeymoon, and Alana had had a non-refundable flight. She was going.

The stubborn anger had faded since, leaving behind a tired woman in the red party dress she’d worn since leaving Maui over thirteen hours ago.

“Isn’t it a little early in the afternoon to party?” Alana dug in her heels before Gina got her to the door. “Can’t we just sleep for now and think about what we want to do tomorrow?”

Gina dropped Alana’s hand and planted a fist on her hip. “And what will you do if we stay in the room? Sit around feeling sorry for yourself? Wallow in self-pity? Grieve for a man you really never loved and who obviously didn’t love you?”

Heat filled Alana’s cheeks. “Well, yes. I should be allowed to wallow a little, right? I mean, I was jilted. At the altar, no less. Don’t I rate a pity party for at least one night?”

“You had it on the plane ride over. It’s time to celebrate dodging the bullet, my friend.” Gina flung open the door and called out into the hallway, “Gird your loins, Las Cabos. We’re going to paint this town as red as my friend’s go-to-hell red dress!”

Alana sighed as Gina pulled her through the door and down the hallway to the elevator. “Where to first?”

“I don’t know about you,” Gina said, “but I’m hungry, and it’s best to have food in your stomach before drinking the night away. So, pick your poison. This is an all-inclusive resort, is it not?”

“It is.” After so many hours in transit, Alana wasn’t hungry. For Gina’s sake, she’d nibble on something and go through the motions of “showing Vance” she was better off without him.

Gina hit the buffet with gusto.

Alana chose a few items with little interest and asked for tea.

“Tea?” Gina shook her head. “Girl, have a beer, drink some wine. Hell, go for whiskey. It’s all inclusive.”

“I want to pace myself,” Alana insisted. “I want to find my way back to my room later and remember my victory dance tomorrow.”

After a few bites of food and over an hour with her feet on the ground, Alana felt a little better.

Gina leaned back in her chair, sipping on a beer. “Personally, I would’ve dumped Vance’s ass when he didn’t bother to fly straight back from New York City when you and Kimo were kidnapped.”

“We were rescued before he ever heard about it.”

Gina wrinkled her nose. “If he was keeping in touch with you the way a man in love should, he’d have known about it. Instead, he was probably sexting his new boo-thing, Kinsley the wedding planner.”

“Do you think he was already dating her at that point?” Alana asked.

“They had to have had something going. He spent so much time with her planning the wedding details.”

Alana frowned. “That’s partially my fault. I didn’t want a big wedding and didn’t want to spend a lot of time planning it.”

“Sweetheart, Vance defecting with the wedding planner is not your fault,” Gina said. “He’s a lying, cheating, dirtbag who didn’t deserve you and saved you the trouble of dumping his ass in divorce court.”

“You’re right.” The anger returned, lighting a fire inside Alana.

“If you’re done with your beer, I have some serious celebrating to do.

I want to drink my weight in tequila and find the hottest guy in the bar to dance with.

I’m counting on my wingman to get some really great pictures to post on my social media.

I want all those wedding guests who gave me pitying glances to know I’m not grieving for one second. ”

Gina laughed out loud. “Now, that’s the Alana I know and love. Let’s do this!”

As they left the restaurant, Alana followed the sound of music to one of the resort’s bars where a mariachi band had just started playing.

“Come on, let’s dance.” Gina grabbed Alana’s hand and tried to drag her to the dance floor.

“Not yet. I need some lubricant to loosen me up.” She headed straight for the bartender and ordered two tequila shots. She handed one to Gina and lifted the other. “Here’s to being young and single and not being stuck with one loser schmuck for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Gina held up her shot glass. “Why settle for one guy when you can sample a smorgasbord of men?”

Alana threw back the tequila shot. The liquor burned a path down her throat, warming her insides. She slapped the empty glass on the bar and demanded, “Another!”

The bartender complied.

After tossing back the second shot of tequila, Alana turned to find two more waiting on the bar.

She grinned at the bartender. “Gracias.” Handing one to Gina, she turned her back to the bar, her gaze sweeping the room, a warm glow spreading through her body.

“Find me the hottest guy in the place. After this shot, I’ll be ready to dance.

” She tipped the glass up, swallowed the tequila and swayed a little as she placed the glass on the bar.

Gina set hers beside it and glanced around the bar. “What about him?” She nodded toward the man who’d just walked in from the entrance, wearing a tropical shirt, khaki cargo shorts and socks and sandals.

Alana snorted. “I can’t with those socks.”

Gina nodded. “Right. He’s cute, but no. Socks with sandals are an automatic no-go. Next!”

“What about the guy in the white polo shirt and pink shorts?” Alana asked.

“Where?”

“Standing just inside the other entrance.” Alana tipped her head toward the man.

Gina’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. He’s almost too...pretty.”

A moment later, another man entered wearing a pastel purple guayabera with navy shorts. He leaned in and kissed the man in pink shorts full on the lips.

“Well, damn,” Alana said. “He’s taken.”

Gina sighed. “Why is it the gay guys are always the prettiest?”

“They know how to shop and wear their clothes.” Alana studied the two men. “Do you think they’d let me pose between them for my social media post?”

“Let’s save that for your backup plan. You deserve a real fling with a man as interested in you as you are in him.” Gina’s gaze swept the room as she tapped her chin.

Movement behind the gay couple caught Alana’s attention.

Apparently, it caught Gina’s as well. She let out a long, low whistle and said, “Now that’s a man I could sink my teeth into. As long as his wife or girlfriend doesn’t come in after him, we have a winner.”

Alana’s pulse quickened as she studied the tall, ruggedly handsome man with beautifully broad shoulders and narrow hips.

He wore black trousers and a plain white polo shirt that emphasized his dark, short-cropped hair and tightly trimmed beard.

Her imagination went right to the thought of how that beard would feel brushing against the inside of her thighs.

She cleared her throat. “I think the tequila is working.”

“Well, hell, let’s get you a margarita to chase the shots.” Gina spun to the bartender. A moment later, she handed the drink to Alana.

Alana raised the drink to her lips and murmured. “He’s headed this way.”

“I’ll just exit stage left and leave you two alone,” Gina said. “I’m leaving my margarita with you. Either drink it too or offer it to your next friend with benefits.”

“Don’t you leave me.” Alana started to reach for Gina’s hand, but she’d already darted out of range, landing at the far end of the bar, smiling at a man wearing a wife-beater muscle shirt and several layers of gold chains draped around his neck. “Oh, Gina. Be careful.”

Incoming hot guy headed straight for the barstool on the other side of Alana.

She spun around, afraid he’d catch her staring far too long.

Once he slid onto the stool, he grinned at the bartender. “Una margarita, por favor. Make it a big one. I’m here to celebrate.”

Alana, feeling the effects of the tequila, turned toward the man. “Celebrating?”

He nodded.

“Me, too,” she said and shoved Gina’s untouched margarita toward the guy. “Have one on me.”

His brow wrinkled. “Isn’t that your friend’s drink?”

Alana nodded toward Gina at the other end of the bar. “She left it for me, but I’m not quite up to two-fisted drinking yet.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do I know you didn’t spike it?”

“I’ll drink some to prove it.” She lifted the glass, took a big enough swallow and slowly licked the salt from her lip. “Mmm. So good.” Who was this woman, sexy-flirting with a complete stranger?

The kind who has been dumped at the altar and needed a good ego-fuck to remind her of her own worth.

“When you put it like that…” He reached for the drink.

Their hands touched, sending a bolt of electricity through Alana despite the numbing tequila.

He raised the glass. “To new beginnings.”

“That’s right. Out with the old and in with the new.

” She touched her glass to his and drank.

As she lowered the glass, the band started playing a sensuous salsa.

The man had all the right looks. So had Vance, though this stranger was bigger, broader and more rugged, not polished.

Much better than Vance. One of Vance’s negative traits was that he refused to dance.

She met and held his gaze. “How do you feel about dancing?”

“I come from Irish stock on my mother’s side. We believe in dancing. If you do it right, it’s like making love with your clothes on.” He winked.

Heat rose up her chest and down to her groin. “Can you salsa?”

“I’ve done a little.”

She drank a big swallow of her margarita and then held out her hand. “Come on. I’ll teach you everything I know and bumble through the rest.”

“Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse.” He took her hand and led her out onto the dance floor, twirled her around and stepped right into a sexy, sassy salsa.

Alana’s head spun with each twirl. She laughed and danced with the hottest man in the bar, thanking her lucky stars Vance had skipped out on their wedding.

He and Kinsley deserved each other. And Alana deserved a great un-honeymoon with a man whose name she didn’t know, who was hotter than Vance and could dance.

The night was definitely shaping up into an epic experience she wouldn’t soon forget.