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Her aim was off, but good enough to make him fall away from her with a groan.
Leaping to her feet, she took off again.
“Not that way, you idiot!” she heard the man gasp behind her. “Toward the street! Run to the houses!”
And Ellie finally understood what her attacker was trying to tell her.
He was right. Like the idiot he’d called her, she was running up the beach when escape lay toward the neighborhood just beyond it. Heck, Chad’s apartment was only a block away.
Something didn’t make sense here.
Still running, but slowing a bit, she risked a look over her shoulder.
Her assailant remained where he’d fallen, only now he was sitting up and hugging his knees tightly, his head drooping.
Ellie jogged in place, considering the situation, then turned fully around to stare at the hunched figure from a safe distance.
Other than waving an arm toward the town behind them, he ignored her.
“Are you all right?” she asked, taking a few steps toward him but ready to speed away again at the least hint she hadn’t completely clobbered him.
“Peachy. But at least I know all of me works.” He groaned. “Did work.”
She took a few more steps in his direction, the better to give him the full effect of her glare. “Take it as a warning the next time you attack a woman,” she replied coldly. “Just be glad I didn’t connect as well as I should have.”
“Oh, I’m glad. Trust me.” His bitter laugh checked abruptly. “And I didn’t attack you.”
“No? Guess we don’t read the same dictionary. What do you call chasing a woman so you can knock her down?”
“Ah, you can read.” The man’s forehead still rested on his knees, but his tone matched hers for sarcasm. “So why didn’t you? And I call it trying to save your stupid neck.”
“Why didn’t I what?”
“Read the sign,” he growled.
“I did. Since I wasn’t swimming, I don’t see what the problem is.”
At last the man lifted his head so he could gaze at her, his handsome face a study of disgust.
Handsome? The man was drop-dead gorgeous!
“It doesn’t just say No Swimming,” he bit out. “It says, and this is a direct quote, ‘Danger no swimming stay out of the water.’ No commas, no periods, no question marks.”
“I barely had a foot in it,” Ellie replied coldly, then paused. “Are you saying the water is polluted?”
“Of course not. But the water here is dangerous. The sign says so, and I know so. Yet there you were, ignoring the warning like the mainlander you are.”
Ellie sighed. Talk about overreaction! But the night was far too beautiful to argue. So what the heck.
With opportunities in short supply for rescuing damsels these days, let the guy have his water dragon.
“All right. I should have paid attention,” she conceded, by now standing beside him. “Thanks for your, um, efforts on my behalf. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
His smile did weird things to her knees.
“And I’m sorry I frightened you,” he said, putting out a hand. “Even?”
Her knees might be weak, but Ellie’s brain wasn’t. She eyed the out-thrust hand for a long, cautious moment. Still, judging by the lingering pain in the man’s eyes, he probably wasn’t up to much.
Bending toward him, she, too, extended her hand.
“Even,” she said.
As the warm fingers wrapped around hers, the moon came out from behind a cloud and she saw his face clearly.
And liked what she saw.
Movie-star looks honed by an aristocratic bone structure and fine features. A good strong nose set off by an equally strong jaw and wide mobile mouth. Pale hair washed even paler in the moonlight. Eyes…
His eyes looked familiar.
“Have we met?” she asked, finally remembering to withdraw her hand.
Appearing a little unsettled himself, he released it. “Uh, no. I, er, saw you at the party.”
“The Kamehanas’? I don’t remember seeing you there.” She would have remembered.
“There was quite a crowd. You were dancing with a short charmer with a missing front tooth.”
Ellie chuckled. Here was another charmer, she’d bet. And after that unexpected moment of traitorous loneliness at the party, she was in the mood to be charmed…to prove to herself that she could be, perhaps, but also because the night simply begged for light flirtation.
Who better than this extremely handsome man to practice on?
She sat down on the sand. “That was Georgie,” she told him.
“I know. Another cousin, I hear.”
“Really?”
He grinned. “In this case, really, but not always. To Hawaiians, every guest becomes an honorary cousin and is treated like family.”
“It’s a lovely custom.”
They sat silently a moment, listening to the low murmur of the waves brushing the sand a few feet away and to the distant music coming from the neighborhood behind them, probably from the luau they’d both just left.
“Feeling better?” Ellie asked at last.
“Working on it.”
Actually, Daniel felt pretty damn good but was afraid the woman might leave if he admitted it. Even though he had a lot to do himself with the business of getting home again, he didn’t want to break this up just yet.
After years of silence, just sitting on a beach and talking of nothing much with a pretty girl was a small miracle.
“I know I frightened you,” he said tentatively, “but will you tell me your name?”
“Ellie. Yours?”
“Daniel.”
“Not Dan or Danny?”
“Only when my mother isn’t around.”
“My mom tried to make everyone call me Eliza Ann, but she was outnumbered,” Ellie replied with a light laugh. “I guess your mom carries more clout.”
His answering chuckle delighted his ears. People ought to realize how truly special laughter is to the human race.
“My mother is never outnumbered,” he responded, reveling in this wonderful, meaningless conversation.
Yet for a moment he thought about his mother.
Even the disappearance of her only son probably didn’t throw Catherine Morgan for long. His mother…she’d certainly never been a “mom”…most likely set up search headquarters in the living room, had her senator call in the FBI, gave everyone drinks and hors d’oeuvres, then took it as a personal affront when her son ruined the party by not being found immediately.
“She sounds formidable.”
But Daniel didn’t want to talk about his mother. Or himself. After all, what could he say?
“Are you in Hawaii on vacation?” he asked.
Ellie’s smile glowed out at him.
With her long silvery hair, and with her face turned up to the night sky, the woman could be mistaken for a moon goddess.
Maybe she was. Daniel stilled. He didn’t trust this cove.
But her answer couldn’t have been more normal.
“Yes and no. I came for a pediatrics convention in Honolulu, but I have a brother here with the marines. He’ll be leaving for Japan soon, so I’m taking the opportunity to spend time with him.”
“Pediatrics? You’re an M.D.?”
“Pediatric nurse. How about you?”
“Small world. I’m a doctor. Just finished my residency.”
All true, but how many years ago? Four? He wasn’t sure anymore.
“Oh, were you here for the conference, too?”
“Um, no. So how do you like Hawaii?”
“It’s beautiful, what I’ve seen of it. I haven’t had a chance to be a tourist yet, except for a visit to the cultural center.”
She wiggled her toes in the sand, and Daniel thought he’d never seen anything so lovely as the shine of pale nail polish on the sweetest feet in the islands.
He smothered an inward grin at this new appreciation of feet. If nothing else, the past years had been a lesson in what to appreciate. Things once taken for granted he now considered in a whole new light. He could hardly wait to go home.
But there was something else he’d learned in the Kamehanas’ back garden.
Enjoy the moment.
And at this moment, he was on a beautiful beach—as long as one stayed out of the water—enjoying a beautiful night, talking nothings with a breathtaking woman.
Talking? On a night like this? What was he thinking!
After years of isolation, he wasn’t greedy. But a modest little kiss with a moon goddess wouldn’t be asking too much, would it? Would Ellie be willing?
Sifting sand through her fingers, Ellie idly watched it catch the breeze, very much aware of being observed.
On a deserted beach with a total stranger, she should be afraid. But fear was the farthest thing from her mind. It was all she could do not to stare back.
Something about Daniel attracted her as she hadn’t been attracted in years, though he wasn’t her type at all.
Too handsome, for one thing. She’d never been susceptible to handsome men. Fashion-model looks and muscled physiques might be the stuff of most women’s fantasies but not hers.
The touch of vulnerability she sensed that had her wanting to reach out to him was another thing. Normally she found vulnerability a turnoff in men because she equated the word with “needy.” Her ex-husband sprang to mind.
If you love me, you’ll stay home with me. Let someone else take the extra shift.
Ellie shook the memory away. It wasn’t that kind of vulnerability she sensed in Daniel. Behind the easygoing charm that said he’d been practicing it for years, she sensed strength in him. And sadness.
She shook that thought away, too.
So what was the attraction? The man was just too perfect for her taste.
Handsome, charming and a doctor? Yeah, right. Surely he’d made that last up. What were the odds? Most likely he was the male equivalent to a beach bunny.
Aha! Ellie swallowed the urge to laugh outright. That was the attraction.
On a lovely beach on a moonlit night in Hawaii, she’d met the perfect kind of man for her—a studly beach bum. Here now, gone with the tide.
And she’d bet the ranch this particular stud-muffin wanted to kiss her.
She would let him, too, Ellie thought. What fool ignored perfection? And after a kiss or two, she would put on her sandals and return to Chad’s apartment.
Alone.
If Daniel found her tomorrow or in the days ahead and wanted to continue where they left off, maybe she would.
