The Big Break. Cara Lockwood

zero patience for self-pity, even the hint of it. Self-pity was just a selfish, useless waste of time. She thought about all the days she could’ve wallowed after Po’s dad left or later, when her mother died. But she hadn’t. She had things to do, a son to raise. Kai needed a good shake. Her tiger mom would’ve agreed if she’d still been alive.

      “Well, I’ve got to go.” Jun turned the keys in her hand.

      “Uh...wait. Maybe you could bring Po around sometime? I’d love to see him.”

      “No,” she said before she could even think about it, imagining an orgy of alcohol and sex and half-naked tourists.

      “No?” Kai looked taken aback by her flat refusal. She got the impression women didn’t tell him no very often. Which was why two of them were standing near his front door. “Just no? Come on, at least pretend to consider it!”

      Usually, men were put off by her bluntness. She’d rarely had one take rejection so lightheartedly before.

      Kai flashed his bright white smile, radiating warmth from his brown eyes, the ones she’d thought about often in the past year. He reached out and touched her arm, and the electricity nearly bowled her straight over. For the briefest of seconds, she found herself leaning into him. She glanced down at his hand and wondered what it would feel like on the small of her back, pulling her in for a kiss. She glanced up and found him looking at her, longer than he ought to, and all she wanted to do was sink into those eyes.

      That was before Jun’s brain kicked in again. What was she doing? Pining over a man who plainly had more women in his life than he could handle? She wasn’t going to throw herself on top of the pile. She wasn’t a maiden who planned to sacrifice herself to the volcano.

      “I mean, it’s not a good idea.” Po already hero-worshipped Kai. He didn’t need to learn the fine art of being a heavily partying bachelor at age four.

      Kai looked at her intently. It was as if he could sense her inner conflict, as if he knew she was struggling to keep control, as if by grasping her arm, he could feel her pulse tick up.

      “Kai!” called one of the women from his front stoop. “Kai, we’re hungry!”

      “You’d better go,” Jun managed.

      “Jun, wait...” But Jun ducked into her car and turned over the ignition. She drove off, not looking back.

       CHAPTER TWO

      KAI SAT IN his manager’s office waiting room in Kona, nursing the headache that only seemed to get worse the longer the day went. He’d had a hell of a time extricating himself from the two tourists who seemed to have wanted to move in with him overnight. Thank God they’d had a flight to catch, or they might still have been lounging around his pool, drinking his booze and eating his food. He was a man who appreciated women, but he vowed, once more, to stop. He couldn’t keep falling into bed with strangers. Well, technically, he could. It was a fine way to spend a Saturday. Or hell, a Tuesday. But even he knew they were just a quick fix, a way of distracting himself from his real problems. Chasing women meant he didn’t have to chase waves. He didn’t need a psychologist to tell him he was deep into avoidance.

      He frowned, thinking about his damn knee. He flexed it, wondering whether it would ever be 100 percent again. The World Big Wave Surf Championship was coming up soon. He was nowhere near ready, and he knew it, and that thought scared the hell out of him.

      The damn tsunami.

      Everything had been fine before the wave tore through half the island and broke his leg in three places and completely dislocated his knee. Doctors told him he was healed, but he didn’t feel healed. His knee felt as if it was going to slip out of place. The ligaments like loose rubber bands. It could’ve been worse. He knew that. And he was glad he’d gotten the broken leg and not Po.

      Jun and Po.

      He had almost forgotten about them. He’d been so fixated on the tsunami and his own leg that his thoughts had crowded out little Po. In some ways, the boy was impossible to forget. Kai couldn’t look at his battered knee and the long ugly scar that ran the length of his thigh without thinking about the dreadful day, about being washed out with Po, about barely surviving. But Kai didn’t look at the day the same way Jun did. He didn’t know why Jun was trying to thank him. She kept sending him food all through that first month and then the second, too. Kai had thought maybe she’d forgotten him at last, but then she showed up on the anniversary of the damn thing. He really wished she’d stop thanking him.

      He hadn’t done anything. He’d simply stayed with the boy. In the end, it had been just dumb luck they’d not both been killed. He’d thought countless times, what might have happened if he hadn’t gone to the day care that day to check on his cousin? If he’d simply headed straight to higher ground?

      He remembered Po, the small dark-haired boy, recalled that the two of them had huddled in the second story of the day care before the first wave hit. He’d obviously been scared, but he’d worked so hard to be brave. Just three then, barely older than a toddler, he’d swum for his life and made it. After the wave had wrecked half of the building and torn them from it, he’d lain crippled in the flood with Po, who was magically unharmed. He’d done nothing special then but pray.

      But he couldn’t convince Jun of that. Jun, with those serious dark eyes and that delicate heart-shaped face. He’d forgotten how striking she was, how pretty. His thoughts wandered where they shouldn’t, and he felt sleazy for even wondering what her petite, toned body might look like naked in his bed. She was a mother, for goodness’ sake.

      There you go again, avoiding the real problem. It was easy to avoid problems, he thought, when he had a pretty face to think about.

      Kai reached into his pocket and pulled out the small business card Jun had slipped into his gift bag. It read “Jun Lee, personal trainer, life coach. Live life organically.”

      She must be one of those New Age nuts, the kind that ate only granola and rabbit-pellet food. Kai had never been in that camp. He had always been a barbecue-rib kind of guy. He flipped the card over and saw the “Good for One Free Tai Chi Class” scrawled on the back. He thought that was something only old people did, but Jun wasn’t old. At least it wasn’t yoga. Kai couldn’t see himself doing yoga. But Tai Chi, maybe he’d try it.

      Or maybe he’d just call her and ask her out for a drink.

      Then he remembered the look of complete horror when he’d asked her if he could see Po, how quickly she’d squealed out of his driveway. Maybe she had a boyfriend. Po’s dad, maybe?

      Or maybe she’s just not interested.

      Somehow, the thought electrified him just a little. It had been weeks since he’d found any girl a real challenge. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman flat out told him no.

      He held the card between his two fingers, thinking about her lean, athletic body. She was sexy, no doubt, but there was something else that intrigued him about Jun Lee.

      You could change that. She’d seemed so sure he could turn around the disaster his life had become, as if she had some magic bullet to solve all his problems. He knew she couldn’t, that it was probably just talk, and yet the way she’d said it, with unwavering conviction, got him wondering. Could he?

      He glanced at her card again and then nearly laughed out loud. What was he thinking? The Tai Chi instructor didn’t have the answers. It was just his little head doing all the thinking again. It was just about him being attracted to the woman, nothing more.

      Besides, she was far too serious for him, he reasoned. A grown-up. That was what came to mind when he thought of Jun Lee. The exact opposite of the tourists he’d been having fun with lately. They never took anything too seriously, which was fine by Kai. Right now taking anything seriously just seemed like a waste of effort. After all, in the end, what was the point? You get all serious and the next thing you know, a freak national disaster