A Little Harmless Lie 4 by Melissa Schroeder

of each other, in the last couple of years. They had never spent time outside together in the sun.
    While he was a man who was dangerous in the moonlight, he was vivid and beautiful during the day. He would probably scoff at the idea, but he was. The golden undertone to his skin, along with the hint of copper from his Native America heritage, added a depth to his image that she hadn’t seen before. She had never observed him dressed so casually, if she didn’t count the times she’d seen him dressed in... well, almost nothing at the club. The sunlight allowed her to see the blue- black tone to his hair. She looked out over Waikiki Beach and sighed.
    “You’re right. But both of us are usually sleeping, until probably noon, right?”
    He laughed. “That’s true. Still, there’s something to be said for spending the day at the beach. Especially in Hawaii. I just find it odd that you love the sun so much but you work at night.”
    She shrugged. “Not really. This way I can spend time enjoying it during the day. If I had some kind of daytime job, I’d only have my two days off. And after several years in the Seattle area, I needed the sun.”
    “That was your last town, right?”
    She nodded. He knew that much because she’d had to apply for the job. “I had to get out of there. Nine months and I couldn’t shake the feeling I was sick all the time. I ached some days.”
    “Ah, so you have that disease where you can’t take the gloomy days.”
    “Yeah. Doc suggested California, but I figured if I was going to be at a beach, I couldn’t go wrong here.”
    He laughed. “That’s true.”
    “How did you end up here?”
    He took a sip of water. “I’d come over to find a fugitive, then I talked Evan into coming over for a vacation. We knew then that we wanted to live here. Neither of us had any family, so it was easy. I know Chris has a hard time with his family back on the mainland.”
    “Yeah, not having the ties makes things easy.”
    “But then, I have ties here now.”
    She looked at him as he studied the beach.
    “Ties?”
    He glanced at her. “Chris and Evan, their soon- to- be wives. The club. It has become sort of a family atmosphere.”
    “Yeah, but we never do anything like this during the day. Maybe we should.”
    “Like a picnic for Rough ’n Ready?” he asked with a chuckle. “It might work. Hell, I know that we could close down on Monday and not really hurt. I’ll talk to Evan about it.”
    She nodded and looked over as a kid went running by, squealing as his older sister ran after him.
    “Are you going to keep me at arm’s length now?”
    She smiled. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    “I didn’t count you for a coward.”
    A sigh of irritation escaped before she could stop it. “I’m sorry, but I told you that there would be nothing else.”
    “You can say it all you want. It doesn’t mean that you don’t want it. Don’t need it like every sub.”
    She looked away from him again, out to the crystal blue of the ocean, wondering just how she could explain it to him. How did she get him to understand things about her without revealing too much?
    “Dee.”
    She sighed again.
    “Tell me.”
    It wasn’t a question or a plea, it was an order.
    “I grew up with a very rich and very domineering father. Ruthless. He picked my friends, my boyfriends, he controlled just about everything from the clothes I wore to well, just everything. He isn’t a man who takes the word no that kindly. And I didn’t like that feeling. I didn’t want to be told what to do, even at seventeen.”
    “Especially at seventeen.”
    She smiled at him, then felt it fade. “My father would stop at nothing to control what went on in my life. People are easily influenced.”
    He studied her for a second, two. “You know it’d be different with us. You do have some control over what happens... a little.”
    She shook her head. “Giving you that power is something I’m not sure I can do.