Heartbreak Hero. Frances Housden

in her mouth—muesli, judging from the amount of crunching going on. Her eyes widened, focusing on the chair opposite as she swallowed. He knew it was perverse to take satisfaction from her discomfort, though he had to admit she looked cute, and young.

      Too young for the game she was playing.

      “’Morning, and yes, I slept fine. Did you want to join me?”

      “No, I won’t disturb you.” I’ll leave that until later. “Maybe I’ll see you around.” Count on it.

      When he finally caught up with the hostess, she motioned him to a table by the window where the wind spattered the glass with sea and rain. Sitting farther back, he could keep Ngaire in plain view without affording her the same opportunity.

      He shrugged off his light rainproof bomber jacket, hanging it over the back of his chair before heading for the breakfast buffet to load up his plate. No problem there, he was a quick eater, a trait that came with being a member of a large family.

      Soon they’d have to board the bus for the Gannets and Grapes part of the tour northwest of the city. Their bus would leave at 0900 hours. Ngaire’s small day pack looked as though it was loaded for everything but bear. Being a guy he needed much less—a jacket to keep off the rain, his wallet and a gun to take care of the rest. Maybe even bears. The human kind.

      Kel planned to be last onboard. That way he wouldn’t have to endure sitting beside Ngaire with a libido still fragile from watching her this morning. He’d never had any trouble imagining a woman naked, but Ngaire had exceeded anything his mind could conjure up.

      Spearing bacon, eggs and mushrooms, he layered them up the tines of his fork and took a bite. If nothing else, he could enjoy the food. Everything was first class on this job.

      Including his target.

      Ngaire stifled a yawn as she squirmed farther down into the cushioned seat. “The tour is full, but I’ll find someone compatible to sit with you,” the tour guide had said, showing her to a window seat roughly halfway up the aisle. The guide’s accent had been pure Kiwi, though her looks were Oriental, and Ngaire found a sense of fellowship.

      Outside in the cafés bordering Prince’s Wharf, where the hotel was built, umbrellas drooped miserably, like sun hats caught in a sudden downpour, and what patrons there were hid inside. This wasn’t exactly the welcome she’d expected from paradise.

      Though she’d told Kel she’d slept well, last night her slumber had been filled with visions of Te Ruahiki. Not the war club, but its spirit, the original owner of the mere.

      At least she knew she wasn’t going mad. There had been no escaping the reaction of the others at Customs; their eyes had widened, bulged. Even Manu Pomare had looked be-mused.

      Once she’d had the temerity to tell her grandfather that no matter how much she’d enjoyed the legends as a child, stories of spirits locked up inside inanimate objects were way off the planet. The scary thing was, even though she’d long since done an about-face, she now believed with every fiber of her being that George Two Feathers had known best. There was indeed a spirit inside the greenstone mere.

      With five minutes to go, it looked like she’d have a whole seat to herself. This suited her. She’d soon realized she was the odd man out, since most of her fellow passengers appeared to be Chinese. Considering she’d won the trip from the Blue Grasshopper, she shouldn’t have been surprised.

      Although she’d picked up more than a few words of Cantonese, and even fewer of Mandarin, from living around Chinatown, she was anything but fluent, so from her standpoint it looked like this would be a lonely trip.

      “You two should get on well together.” The tour guide spoke softly, but there was a big stick behind her words that brooked no argument. “None of the others speak much English,” the guide continued, smiling at Ngaire. Her almost black doe eyes twinkled in the calm masklike perfection of her face, as if she thought she’d done Ngaire a favor by bringing her Kel. She guessed the guy must have international appeal. “I’ll leave you to introduce yourselves.”

      Kelvin Johnman. He’d honored her with his full name yesterday as they’d traveled in on the shuttle. Kelvin. She didn’t think it suited him. Nor did she know if she wanted the distraction he represented, even if he did have the smile of a fallen angel. Or that when he pushed his hair back from his eyes, like he was doing now, his palm ruffled his curls, making her wonder how his fingers would feel forking through her hair.

      “We meet again.” The shirred band of Kel’s bomber jacket lifted as the last swipe of his hand added a few extra damp spots to its shoulders. Ngaire’s eyes were caught by a glimpse of a slim brown belt that emphasized the narrowness of his waist and hips. Today, instead of the loose floating shirt that had hidden this very masculine trait yesterday, he wore a tan polo shirt tucked into his khakis.

      As she lifted her chin, and with it the level of her gaze, she saw his eyebrows quirk as if he expected some comment about seeing him again so soon after making an idiot of herself. She could still feel tenderness in her throat from trying to swallow her muesli without choking.

      Kel’s smile cut the thread of her thoughts.

      Darn the man. He had the cheek of the devil and he knew it. Plus he fitted every criteria of her wildest fantasies—tall, dark and devastating—making her wonder if Te Ruahiki had conjured him up just for her.

      A gurgle of suppressed laughter left her mouth as a gasp. Her far-fetched fantasies had as much chance of coming true as a snowball had of lasting in hell.

      Though if that little bundle of ice and slush should take its time melting, maybe that was the best reason in the world to reach out, hang on and let fate take her for a ride.

      The code her grandfather had lived by and had drummed into her at the worst moments of her life had been Never Give Up. She’d lost the most important people in her life, including George Two Feathers, whose words had been his legacy. But since her time in the hospital, when she’d won her last battle with life, Ngaire had never backed down from a challenge.

      She wasn’t about to change now, while the latest battle still had five weeks, six days until New Year’s Eve. “Are you following me?”

      His features froze for about a second before he answered. “Sorry, but I can see where you’d get that impression. Guess we have to chalk this one up to fate.”

      There it was again. Fate. And Kel felt it, too.

      How long was it since the last time she’d gone into a match blind, with no knowledge of her opponent or his moves? How long since she’d pitted her skills and enjoyed a contest where the balance of throws could go either way?

      Too long, according to her best friend Leena Kowolski, who’d urged her to indulge in a holiday fling, who’d been so insistent that Ngaire had had to laugh and say she’d think about it, but only if the guy was the kind dreams were made of. And he was.

      A small prickle of conscience stabbed as she arched her eyebrows in feigned disbelief and a darker slash broached the tanned skin covering his cheekbones. He leaned closer, resting one arm on the back of the seat her day pack still guarded, and swiped his other hand over his chest in a cross. “Honest.”

      His voice was low, husky, intimate. She fell into it, into his eyes, her heart skipping at the dark, liquid intensity in their expression, begging to be believed.

      “Returning your pink shades was deliberate on my part, but that’s all. Unless it was fate that made you drop them. Though if I’d known…”

      “I didn’t think men believed in fate.”

      His dark eyebrows knitted. “What else could it be?”

      What else? Let’s face it, she was a sucker for those eyes. She gave him a melting look, putting her own to good use. Leena said they were her best feature, canceling out the nose she’d inherited from her Modoc ancestors. “I owe you an apology. Blame it on the world today. It’s hard to know who to trust.”

      His