Page 70 of One Night in Hawaii

I knocked on his door but no one answered. I let myself in. “Hello?” I called out.

The place was quiet. I assumed they were all out or at work. It wasn’t like I hadn’t ridden out my fair share of storms on my boat. I made my way down the dock just as the wind started to pick up. The water was already getting choppy. I quickly boarded and changed into a pair of shorts and a hoodie before I went back out to secure the boat to the dock. I didn’t want it breaking free.

As I tightened the ropes, the rain started to come down in sheets. I had been in storms before, but this one felt different. The wind was whipping around with a ferocity that made me wonder if I had made a mistake coming out here. But I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t risk staying at Ryder’s because I knew the storm would only get worse. I had to stay on my boat, alone. If it did break away from the dock, I wanted to be able to navigate it through the water. Usually, I would take her away from the shore where the water might be a little calmer. But it was too late for that.

I went below deck to grab some food and water, and as I was rummaging through the cabinets, I heard my phone ringing.

I glanced down and saw it was Ryder. “Hey,” I answered. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m at the resort. Are you at the house?”

“I’m on my boat.”

“Go to the house. We’re all going to hunker down here.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him.

“How did your meeting go?” he asked.

Outside, I could hear the wind howling. “It didn’t go as planned,” I said, my voice barely audible over the sound of the storm. “But I’ll fill you in when I see you.”

“Alright, just be safe,” Ryder said before hanging up.

I sighed and put my phone back in my pocket. The storm was getting worse, and the boat was starting to rock back and forth violently. I knew I had to do something before I lost control of it completely. I made my way back up to the deck, leaning into the wind as I struggled to keep my balance.

The rain was coming down so hard that I could barely see in front of me. I made sure everything was secure before quickly going below deck once again.

It looked like I was going to be staying in for a while. Thunderstorms were pretty common. Usually, they blew through pretty quickly, but on occasion, we would get storms that wanted to linger.

I settled onto the sofa and stared out at the raging sea. The storm was getting worse by the minute, and I knew I had to do something to keep my mind occupied, to keep from going crazy. I decided to grab a book and lose myself in the pages.

As I was reading, I remembered the first time I saw Archer that day on the beach. He nearly fell over me. When he noticed the book I was reading, I had been just a little embarrassed. It never occurred to me how odd it was he knew anything about shifter romances.

I smiled at the memory of him trying to give me his drink after his foot smashed mine. I would have never guessed the man on the beach would end up being the man I was crazy about now.

I thought about texting him but didn’t. I always thought about texting him, but I didn’t want him to think I was clingy. He needed his space to figure out his life. I knew it was far more complicated than I could ever imagine.

I was just glad I didn’t have to worry about marrying the right man to please my parents. They trusted me to follow my heart. They wouldn’t care if he was dirt poor as long as we loved each other and made each other happy.

I heard a loud crack and jumped up to go see what it was. The wind and rain whipped my body. Along the shoreline, the houses and resorts were dark. The power was out. That was pretty normal. I went back downstairs and took my book to my bed to read for a while.

I heard another sound and strained my ears. It sounded like knocking, which made zero sense. “Dammit,” I muttered and got out of bed. Something must have come loose on deck. I opened the door and saw Archer standing there, soaked through with hair mussed and water dripping down his nose.

“Archer?” I exclaimed, surprised to see him in the middle of a storm. He looked different, as if something had shifted inside him.

I had waited for this moment for two weeks. I grabbed him and jerked him inside before launching myself at him.

29

ARCHER

Her mouth slammed against mine. Her hands slid into my wet hair with her body pressed against mine. To say she was happy to see me was an understatement. The wind howled outside and the rain pelted the ceiling over our heads, but in the cabin of her boat, none of that mattered. I had been thinking about the moment I would see her again for weeks. I longed to be in her arms, and now that I had her, I couldn’t get close enough.

Then I remembered I was soaked to the bone from my walk from the taxi down the dock. The taxi driver told me I was crazy to get out of the cab, but the pull to get to her was too strong. I would have walked through a hurricane to get to her.

“I’m soaked,” I said and pulled back a bit. “Let me get a towel before I get everything wet.”

“You’ve already got everything wet,” she said in a sultry voice. “But I have no problem with you getting naked.”

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