Chapter 11
Apparently, my approach to undercover investigation involves getting trapped by holiday decorations in hundred-degree heat, which explains why I’m not employed by actual detective agencies and probably why my guidance counselor suggested hospitality management instead of law enforcement.
Also, we decided to put off our visit to the community gardens for a bit once we realized it was an outdoor event that required spending more time in the relenting heat and away from an actual beach.
Not that I’m at the beach now.
It’s later that afternoon, the heat has reached biblical proportions, and I’m crawling through the resort’s attic space looking for any clues about our mysterious owner, Mr. X—the man who signs my paychecks but doesn’t exist in any searchable database or have a physical form that anyone’s ever seen.
The air up here is thick enough to swim through, heavy with the scent of old wood, dust that’s probably older than I am, and what might be decades of accumulated gecko droppings, which is honestly the least concerning thing I’ve encountered today.
Sweat drips into my eyes with persistence as if it’s trying to make a point, and I navigate around boxes labeled things like Pool Filters (Broken), Towels (Condemned), and my personal favorite, Hope (Abandoned).
“Come on, Mr. X,” I mutter, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand and leaving what I’m sure is an attractive streak of grime across my face.
“You’ve got to have left something up here that tells us who you actually are.
Tax returns, love letters, a conveniently detailed confession—I’m not picky. ”
I spot a promising box in the corner labeled Office Files in handwriting that looks like it was done during the Reagan administration, and I army-crawl toward it with the determination of a women who’s definitely making interesting life choices.
This is when my luck decides to take its usual vacation to somewhere far away from me.
My knee goes through a rotted floorboard with a crack that sounds expensive.
I lurch forward to catch myself because falling through the ceiling would be hard to explain to Detective Hale, and somehow—through what I can only assume is a conspiracy between physics and the universe’s sense of humor—I manage to fall directly into the world’s largest box of twinkle lights.
Because when it’s not Christmas, this is where holiday decorations come to die, and they’ve been waiting for me.
The lights explode around me like confetti made of wire and tiny bulbs and decades of tangled frustration, and within seconds, I’m wrapped up tighter than a burrito made of bad decisions and regret.
My wrist gets caught behind my back at an angle that definitely isn’t natural, my ankle is twisted in what feels like seventeen different directions, including some I didn’t know existed, and I’m pretty sure there’s a string of lights trying to strangle me while another one is attempting to saw off my circulation.
“Perfect,” I say to the universe at large. “This is exactly how I wanted to spend my afternoon.”
“Ms. Julep?”
That voice.
That low, gravelly, annoyingly perfect voice that makes my knees forget how to work properly, and my brain forget how to form coherent sentences.
I freeze, which is unfortunate since freezing just makes the lights tighten around me like a festive boa constrictor that’s really committed to the holiday spirit—and constricting.
“I heard a noise and decided to investigate,” Detective Koa Hale’s voice continues from somewhere below me, and he sounds concerned, which somehow makes this worse. “What are you doing up there?”
“Oh, this?” I try to sound casual, which is challenging when you’re wrapped in Christmas lights and probably turning purple.
“Just some light afternoon yoga. Very advanced poses. You probably wouldn’t understand unless you’ve achieved enlightenment and also lost your mind. ” Which, evidently, I have.
I hear footsteps on the ladder leading up to the attic—confident, measured steps that suggest he’s climbed many ladders and never once fallen through a ceiling—and then his head appears through the access opening.
He takes one look at me—trapped in a nest of twinkle lights like the world’s least successful Christmas ornament, possibly the worst one on the tree that gets hidden in the back—and his eyebrows rise toward his hairline in what I can only interpret as a mixture of concern and bewilderment.
“Let me guess,” he says, climbing into the attic with considerably more grace than I managed. “You were looking for evidence.”
“I was looking for... air conditioning repair manuals?” I say because I’ve decided lying while trapped is a good strategy.
“In a box labeled Christmas Decorations?”
“You never know where people keep important documents. I once found my birth certificate in a box of Girl Scout cookies. Different situation, but same principle.”
He moves closer, and even in the stifling heat of the attic, I catch that scent—ocean salt, soap, and something indefinably masculine that makes my brain short-circuit.
His uniform shirt has given up the fight against the humidity, clinging to his chest in ways that should be illegal in seventeen states.
“How exactly did you manage this?” he asks, crouching down beside my prison of Christmas lights with an expression that tells me he’s genuinely curious about human stupidity.
“Talent,” I say, trying to maintain some dignity while wrapped in festive wire. “Years of practice at making simple tasks unnecessarily complicated. It’s a gift, really. Some people have perfect pitch—I have perfect disaster.”
There is no greater truth.
He reaches out and starts working at the knot near my wrist, his fingers brushing against my skin. The contact sends electricity through me that has nothing to do with the string lights.
“Hold still,” he says, his voice low and focused.
“I am holding still.”
“You’re vibrating.”
I am vibrating on a molecular level, but still.
“That’s just my natural state of panic. Plus, it’s roughly four hundred degrees up here, and I think my body is trying to escape through sweat alone.”
His hands work methodically at the tangles, and I try very hard not to notice how his forearms flex as he manipulates the wires with a competence that screams he’s good at other things too, or how his jaw ticks with concentration in a way that makes me want to trace it with my finger, or how a bead of sweat is slowly making its way down his neck in a path I suddenly want to follow with my tongue, which is absolutely not helpful right now.
Did I just say that?
“This is impressive,” he says, freeing my wrist and moving to work on the lights around my ankle. “I’ve seen crime scenes with less complex knot work. You could teach a class.”
“I aim to please.”
He crouches down to work on my ankle, which puts him entirely too close to entirely too much of me. This should not be as distracting as it is.
“You know,” he says conversationally, “most people would just ask for help instead of creating an elaborate light sculpture in an attic.”
“Most people are quitters.”
“Most people have functioning survival instincts.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Also, survival is overrated. Darwin had some good points, but he never worked in a resort like this one.”
He looks up at me, and those soft brown eyes are entirely too close to my face, close enough that I can see the darker ring around his iris and the laugh lines at the corners that suggest he smiles more than he lets on.
“Fun. Right. Because getting strangled by decorative lighting while conducting illegal searches is everyone’s idea of a good time. ”
“Technically, I work here. So it’s not illegal; it’s just... an enthusiastically thorough employee orientation. I’m currently learning about storage solutions.”
His mouth twitches. It might be the beginning of a smile, or he might be fighting an aneurysm. With him, it’s hard to tell.
“There,” he says, freeing my ankle with a final twist and standing up with the fluid grace of someone who definitely works out. “You’re liberated.”
“My hero,” I say, carefully extracting myself from the remaining lights and trying not to think about how his hands felt on my skin. “How ever can I repay you? I don’t have much, but I can offer you a free pass to our green pool or possibly a slightly used cinnamon roll.”
He frowns at the thought. “Stay out of trouble for more than five minutes.”
“Where’s the challenge in that? Also, have you met me? Five minutes feels ambitious.”
He shakes his head, and this time I’m sure I catch the ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’re impossible.”
“I prefer enthusiastically challenging,” I counter.
“I prefer walking disaster with a questionable talent for finding evidence.”
I pause for a moment because that last part sounded almost like a compliment. “Evidence?”
“You were looking for information about your mysterious owner, weren’t you?” He says it like a statement, not a question, because I guess I’m that transparent.
I debate lying, but the heat has melted my ability to be deceptive, and also, he just rescued me from Christmas decorations, so I feel like I owe him some honesty.
“Maybe.”
“Find anything interesting before you got attacked by festive decorations?” He gives me a look that suggests I try honesty this time.
“Just a lot of broken pool equipment, some tax returns from 1987 that I’m pretty sure are meaningless, and what I’m pretty sure is a family of geckos running a small real estate operation in the corner. They seem very organized.”
He helps me toward the ladder, his hand on my elbow steady and warm in a way that makes me feel both safe and entirely too aware of how close he is. “Ms. Julep?”
“Yes?” I try not to sound breathless, but between the heat and his proximity, I’m not sure I succeed.
“Why don’t we go somewhere and have a little chat?”
It’s not really a question, but the way he says it—low and careful and maybe a little bit warm—makes my stomach do interesting things that have nothing to do with being trapped in an attic and everything to do with the way he’s looking at me.
“What kind of chat?” I ask, though I’m already following him toward the ladder like I’ve been hypnotized or possibly suffered heatstroke.
“The kind where you tell me what you’re really looking for, and I decide whether to arrest you for obstruction of justice or just shake my head in bewildered resignation.”
I pause at the top of the ladder, one hand on the frame, looking back at him in the dim attic light. “Those are my only two options?”
He looks back at me, and there’s definitely something that might be warmth in those brown eyes. “We’ll see how the conversation goes.”
And despite the heat, the humiliation, the Christmas lights still clinging to my hair like tinsel, I find myself smiling.
Because for the first time since arriving in paradise, I’m starting to think maybe—just maybe—not everything here is a disaster waiting to happen.