Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) by Cathryn Cade Page B

up through the forest, then climbed higher still, working her body to avoid her thoughts and the repercussions of her reckless actions the night before.
    “Lalei.” Lalei looked over her shoulder. As if conjured by her guilty thoughts, her mother stood there, her hand in the crook of Benton Choy’s arm.
    “Here you are,” Suzy said, her lips curving up in a sweet smile that belied the anger in her gaze. “You have been hiding.”
    Oh yes, she’d heard Lalei and Jack in his room, all right. So had Benton, if his cold sneer was any indication. He wore sunglasses. Lalei shivered—she was glad she couldn’t see his eyes.
    Mission accomplished. So why did she feel like a little girl caught playing naughty games with a boy? Lalei’s stomach knotted, her fingers clenching on her soda can. She felt her face burn with her second childish blush of the day. But she returned her mother’s sweet smile as if there were no hurt, no tension crackling between them.
    “Sorry, Mother. I went jogging and then came down for a swim. You two should go get your swimsuits and join us.”
    Like that was going to happen. Her mother wouldn’t dream of spoiling her hair or makeup in public. She swam only at the spa. And Benton would probably only swim if he thought it would net him a new business deal.
    Turning her back in a way she knew was rude, Lalei stalked back to Jack’s lounger. She sat down again, this time farther up the seat so that her hip was pressed against his leg. He was big and solid, and his skin was warm, the light furring of hair tickling her skin.
    She smiled at him, turning up the wattage, and rested her hand on his thigh.
    He started violently, letting out a yelp of surprise, and grabbed her hand, lifting her cold soda can away from his leg. “Damn. Is that payback for the hūpō remark?”
    “Sorry—I’m sorry.” Lalei winced, pursing her lips to fight a nervous giggle as he rubbed his leg with his palm. Her cheeks burned yet again as the others gaped at them. She’d successfully seduced Jack, and her plan was working. So why was she all thumbs around him? She’d forgotten she was even holding the can of soda.
    He leaned forward to take the can. “Here, let me open that for you,” he said wryly. “Then you can drink it and keep it the h—keep it away from me.” He pulled the tab with a snap and handed the open drink back to her.
    “Mahalo.” Toasting him with the can, she took a drink. It was cold, sweet and frothy—delicious. She shifted it to her other hand so she wouldn’t accidently use Jack for a coaster again, and pretended she wasn’t cowering against him.
     
    “Suzy, Benton, please join us,” David said politely. Lalei tensed, her stomach knotting with familiar pain as her mother and Benton walked onto the lanai. Lalei clutched her soda and leaned back against Jack’s bent leg, trying to appear as relaxed as Claire and Melia with their husbands. His warm, hair-roughened skin against hers grounded her, steadied her. Simple human contact or something more? Whatever, nothing on which she could depend. She needed to remember that.
    Suzy inclined her head as if conferring a royal favor and allowed Benton to hand her into one of the upright chairs in the shade. She was as out of place among the swimsuited younger group as a bird of paradise plunked in among native hibiscus, Lalei thought with a mixture of love and resentment. And Benton was the stake to hold her upright so she could queen it over this informal arrangement.
    Suzy turned her glass-sharp gaze on Jack. “Lalei, you have not properly introduced your…friend.”
    Lalei smiled past her clenched teeth. “Mother, Jack Nord. Jack, my mother, Suzy. And Benton Choy.”
    “How do you do?” Jack said pleasantly.
    Suzy nodded, her smile sweetening in a way that made Lalei tense with suspicion. “And what is that you do, Jack?”
    “Jack is a successful businessman in California, Mother,” Lalei answered quickly.
    The leg supporting her