I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the back door, the images replaying over and over in my mind until a noise brought me to attention. It sounded like someone was outside the front of my house.
Carefully easing myself up, feeling more than a bit drunk, I made my way through the cool house to the front door. I opened it and had to blink a few times at what I was seeing.
It was my surfboard, leaning against a potted Phoenix palm. I walked over to it and ran my hands down the smooth sides, then looked around. The street was empty except for a lazy cat waddling through the neighbor’s grass. Who dropped it off, and more importantly, how the hell did they know where I was staying?
For the first time that day I felt uneasy, my skin prickling with gooseflesh. As empty as I had been, the fact that someone must have followed me to my house to return it to me was a bit unsettling, yet considerate. I took in a steadying breath and picked up the board, about to take it inside, when a piece of paper fluttered to the pavement.
I placed the board back against the palm and scooped up the paper in my hands. In neat cursive handwriting, the note read: “The next time I save you, you’ll want me to.”
A strange thrill ran through me as I remembered the man with the face of danger.
I wondered if he really knew how hard it was to save me.
Chapter 2
I spent the next morning pacing up and down the hallway, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my day. Every now and then I’d wince as my bare feet found yet another slice of glass that I’d missed when I cleaned up the mess from the day before. From time to time I’d stride over to the windows and nervously peer out past the palm fronds, looking for a sign of that man who wanted to save me again.
It was kind of ridiculous, actually, but I was enjoying the suspense, the way my nerves rattled every time a car drove down my street. It gave me a strange sense of focus that had been missing the last few weeks . . . or months. Or years.
Finally around noon, after I managed to get down a bowl of cereal, I decided I’d had enough. I packed a beach bag, grabbed my board, and got in the Jeep. Though Hanalei was my favorite part of the island, I didn’t want to head back there. I knew that the November surf was notoriously wicked on the North Shore, part of the reason why I had wanted to go there in the first place.
But this time, it wasn’t really about being saved.
It wasn’t about dying either.
I steered the Jeep onto the highway and decided to head southeast to Larsen’s Beach. It wasn’t the easiest beach to get to—I’d have to travel down a road that would coat the car in the island’s infamous red dirt before heading down a dangerously steep path to the beach itself. But if this man really wanted to find me, if he wanted to chase me, to save me, all the way there . . . he would.
I parked the Jeep at the end of the red road, finding space along a fence of buffalo grass. I wasn’t the only person that day with the idea of surfing at Larsen’s; about seven other cars were crammed into the same area. Apparently everyone wanted to take advantage of the sunshine and light winds. Maybe some surfers would have been mad that other people would mean they’d be sharing the breaks, but it made me feel safe, as if I were going on a blind date with someone.
Except that I’d seen him before.
I took my time unloading my board and putting on my sneakers for the hike down, constantly looking over my shoulder in hopes of seeing a plume of red dust rising up through the air. Nothing yet. Maybe the man had just been nice in that note. Maybe he had no intention of saving me again.
I pulled my long black hair into a ponytail and headed past the open gate and down the steep, uneven path that went from the very top of the cliff to the golden beach below. I wasn’t far along, still near the top, when I decided to take a moment and observe the waves. Steadying myself with my board still under my arm, I climbed onto a few volcanic boulders that were wedged into the cliffside, rising above the tall grass that obscured my view.
Below, the ocean glistened with patches of turquoise where the bottom was sand, and royal blue where it was rocky. The waves crashed on the reef just offshore, and the tiny figures of surfers were already catching the steady swells. You’d think that just looking at the water, imagining myself back out there, would have brought some fear into my chest, but my fear was different now.
The hair rose on the back of my neck.
“Don’t jump,” a low, accented voice growled.
I gasped and quickly spun around to see a man—my man—standing on the path and watching me. His eyes widened just as mine did. I had turned so fast with the board that I was toppling to the left, my foot trying to find stability and finding none.
I was going over.
Falling.
I cried out, whipping my head back around to see where I was going to end up, what my doom would be. I wasn’t fearing death, but the amount of pain before death.
Or endless pain without death.
Then, with reflexes like a cat, he was at me, grabbing on to my arm as the
