Prologue
One year ago
Holidays were supposed to be all about good weather, late evening sunsets, and sipping on fruity drinks while toes burrowed into warm sand. One should be staring wistfully out to sea as the waves crashed onto the shore like rumbling lions.
This should especially be the case when it was the only holiday Josie had taken in over a year.
But alas, her luck had run out. She blamed the incident at the airport, where she had accidentally walked beneath a ladder, and now rain had fallen consistently and heavily over the last five days in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica.
It was fine.
It wasn’t the end of the world.
Who needed to go hiking in Sendero Punta Catedral, which apparently promised gorgeous views of the Pacific Ocean, or kayak through the Damas Island mangroves and possibly spot caimans and boa constrictors?
Clearly, it wasn’t necessary to zip-line through the rainforest canopy, feeling the wind rushing through your hair.
Not Josie.
It was fine. Not a problem. It wasn’t like she had been having the worst time in the world. Hiding in pubs and restaurants, surrounded by other sticky, restless bodies, all grieving for the holiday they had thought they would have when they first bought their airline tickets, wasn’t that bad.
In an alternate universe, the entire situation was actually comical.
And when Josie got back home, she would tell her sister and everyone at the fire station that she had the most amazing time. The best time. She would tell them that it was absolutely amazing, and the food was great, and the weather had been average, but not terrible.
Stepping onto the covered deck of yet another tourist-infested pub, Josie ran her fingers through her wet hair, detangling a vicious knot when a creature suddenly caught her eye. It was a fuzzy thing walking with a surreal kind of slowness across one of the beams.
A sloth.
She nearly squealed and pointed to it, but quickly realized that most of the other patrons had noticed it already and were snapping shots. At least that wasn’t something Josie saw all too often. Certainly not in California where the wildlife mostly only included deer and raccoons.
Feeling just a bit better, relieved even, that the week away wasn’t a complete disaster, she stepped through the entrance flanked by large heliconia plants.
Inside, the bar was stuffy. It smelled faintly of sweat and dampness. All the tables were occupied, holidaymakers squeezing together on the benches and pressing into each other at the bar.
“Guaro Sour, please,” said Josie, squishing herself between a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and another in a sleeveless undershirt.
They both eyed her briefly, curiously, but Josie kept her attention on the bottles of liquor on the shelf behind the bar.
She wouldn’t be interested in either of them if they were Liam and Chris Hemsworth.
A short minute later, the bartender placed the drink down in front of her.
Taking a sip, Josie leaned against the bar top and glanced around the space.
A haggle of bikini-wearing women in see-through dresses were gossiping loudly at one end of the room.
At the other, three smooth-faced teenagers were hungrily watching the gossipers and another Hawaiian shirt-wearing man walked across the space and joined the guy beside her.
They hugged, despite the heat, and Josie immediately stepped out of their way.
The last thing she wanted was to touch a sweaty body.
It was then that her gaze was suddenly drawn to a table in the corner of a restaurant where a woman sat hunched over a book.
A gorgeous woman with a makeup-free face, broad yet slender shoulders, and one strap of her shirt sliding off as she turned the page.
Sun-kissed waves framed her face, some strands frizzier than others.
The woman tucked a wavy strand behind her ear, her fingers lingering on her cheek while her eyes remained glued to her book.
Josie was flabbergasted. It was impossible to read a book, and actually follow what was going on, with music springing from a jukebox playing nineties rock, and four men at a table nearby smashing down domino tiles.
Which was exactly why she found herself magnetized.
Josie’s feet moved before she even had time to make sense of what the hell she was doing. But the constant rain had a way of driving a person to madness, and she was one step away from being deemed insane.
“Hi,” said Josie, slipping into the chair across from her, and placing her drink on the table, cupping the cold glass with both hands. “What are you reading?”
The woman barely glanced up from her book, just a quick flick in Josie’s direction, before she took a deep breath in and turned the page. “I prefer to read in silence.”
“Silence?” said Josie, raising an eyebrow. “Well, you’re in the wrong place. This pub is noisy. It’s so loud I can barely even think.”
The woman’s eyes slowly lifted to Josie’s face. Ocean blue eyes. The bright summer kind you’d find in the Maldives when the sun shone hot and brilliant. “The pub isn’t the problem.”
Ignoring the obvious jab, Josie glimpsed the book cover. The Shadow Broker. “You like thrillers, then? I’ve seen the movie. Have you? It’s pretty good. Not Bone Collector good, but good enough. You know, I always wondered if people read the book first before they watch the movie or the other way—”
“I like people who leave me alone.”
Great. The hot chick with the book was a bitch.
If Josie wasn’t so bored, she would just get up and leave.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she was so intrigued by this bitchy book-reading stranger who didn’t seem to mind taking up an entire table when people were literally crammed like sardines around the bar.
“So, what brings you here?” asked Josie, wiping sweat off the back of her neck. If the rain wasn’t going to drive her mad, the humidity surely would.
“What does it matter,” said the woman coldly. She moved her eyes down to her book once more. One hand held the pages down and the other tapped a lovely finger to the beat of the song.
“A holiday, then?”
“If you must know, I’m here for an undercover sting operation,” said the woman, still glancing down. “I’m just waiting for my mark before I kill her. One shot to the head and she’s dead.”
Josie’s stomach sank. Was that a joke? It had to be, although the woman didn’t exactly radiate comedic prowess.
Luckily for her, Josie was named the class clown in sixth grade—but only because Jeff Franklin, who was deemed the real deal, had been off sick for three months with meningitis.
“Snap. I think we might be working for the same company. Hmmm… that complicates things.”
A faint twitch quipped the side of the woman’s mouth, but she kept her head down, turned the page, and took a sip of her half-drunken beer.
“You’re from California, right?” asked Josie, leaning back into the chair, using a finger to wipe the moisture off the side of her glass. “I’ve got a knack for guessing where people are from. A gift some would say.”
“I’m from Nevada.”
Well, that was awkward. Luckily Josie wasn’t easily embarrassed. “What’s your name?”
The woman looked up. Somehow her face was both smooth and sharp, both stunning and frightening. She was like a version of a woman that shouldn’t exist but somehow did. “Names don’t mean anything, not when we won’t see each other again.”
“Who says we won’t see each other again?”
“I do.”
“Well, I don’t agree,” said Josie sharply, defensively, as if her entire holiday would miraculously improve if she did, in fact, see the woman again.
The woman snapped her book shut, placed it right way up on the table, and flicked her gaze over to Josie.
She studied her closely. Her blue eyes momentarily rested on Josie’s chest, on her cleavage which stuck out from the spaghetti string top, and then moved up to Josie’s lips, her nose, her eyes, and finally landed on the pansy shell necklace hanging against the dip above her sternum.
If there was ever a time to feel self-conscious, this would be it.
Josie was as hot as a furnace and was just about to fan herself with her hand while her brain thought of something to say when the woman pushed back her chair and left.
“Where are you going?” called Josie, her voice blending into the noise of the pub as she watched the woman walk through the throng of people toward the exit and out of sight.
For a minute, Josie considered staying there, reading the thriller the woman had left, ordering another drink, a stronger one perhaps, in hopes she could forget the entire encounter. But instead, she grabbed the book and ran out of the pub.
Rain pelted down hard. Josie could just make out the slender, willowy silhouette a few long steps away. In less than an hour, the sky would darken and tomorrow evening she would be heading home. Of course, it was her luck she met a hot woman on the last day of her holiday. Ironic, wasn’t it?
Tucking the book under her shirt, Josie ran out onto the gravel-lined parking lot toward the stranger. “Are you seriously just leaving? What about your book?”
The woman turned around, slowly, languorously, as if rain wasn’t soaking them to the bone. She stepped forward and took the book out of Josie’s hand, fingers brushing momentarily. “Thank you.”
A jolt of something hot ran along Josie’s arm. Even the rain on her skin couldn’t dull it. “Umm… you’re welcome,” she muttered.
The woman stepped forward, so close, she was barely a foot away. Her gaze flicked down to Josie’s mouth, and without pausing, she dropped the book to the ground and buried her hands in Josie’s hair, pulling her closer.
There was nothing slow and careful about the kiss.
It was like a gunshot had gone off. Josie’s heartbeat was thundering, skating down her arms and legs, sitting thick in her head.
She could barely move. She was like a person under a spell, hypnotized by the shock, intensity, and spontaneity of the moment.