Chapter 8

CHAPTEREIGHT

“You’re disappointed,” Baker said Monday morning after he’d greeted Jody.

“Well, yeah. I was hoping Ben would be here and I could talk to him,” Jody said.

“I’m sorry, Tink.”

“Me too.”

“I started looking into him Saturday night,” Baker told her.

Jody frowned. She was sitting at her usual place on the picnic table, feet on the seat, so she could watch the kids out in the surf. “But you left kinda late.”

“Yup.”

“Baker, you need to make sure you’re getting enough sleep.”

He chuckled. “Worried about me?” he asked.

Jody frowned harder. “As a matter of fact, yeah. You got a problem with that?”

“Fuck no. It’s been a long time since anyone’s given a shit if I get enough sleep or not. Usually all they care about is whether I’ve been able to find them the intel they need.”

“Well, I’m not ‘them,’, whoever they are. And you can’t be off making deals with nefarious people if you’re tired.”

Baker chuckled. “Right. Anyway, I should’ve looked him up a week ago, but I got sidetracked. Decided to stop putting it off. Partly because after all you’ve told me about Ben in the last week, I’m worried about him too. But also because I know if I don’t find out what I can, it’s likely you’ll head off on a reconnaissance mission of your own.”

“He’s a kid,” Jody told him softly. “I know there could be lots of reasons why he changed up his routine and no longer comes to the beach before school…but I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Yeah.”

“So? What did you find out?”

“No time to talk now. I’ve got some waves to catch and I want your full attention when we do chat. And I know you don’t like to be distracted while you watch your kids. So I’ll call later. Give you a chance to get some work done.”

“Is it bad?” she couldn’t help but ask.

Baker’s lips pressed together. “It’s not bad…specifically. But that doesn’t mean it’s good either. It’s…unusual. And part of the reason why I’m getting pretty interested in talking to Ben too.”

“Shoot,” Jody said.

Baker grinned.

“What?”

“That your version of a swear word?”

“I was a mom,” she protested. “Couldn’t exactly go around swearing like a sailor.”

“Are a mom,” Baker countered.

“What?”

“You are a mom,” he repeated.

“Baker,” Jody said in a whisper, almost overcome with emotion.

“Mana’s death doesn’t strip that title from you, Jodelle. Besides…look at you. You’re here at the ass crack of dawn watching over a bunch of children you didn’t give birth to. You feed them, make sure they get to school on time. You’re worried about Ben. I’ve never met anyone who is more of a mother than you are.”

Now she was crying.

Baker put a hand on the side of her neck and leaned in. “Don’t cry, Tink.”

“I can’t help it,” she told him. “You’re being too sweet this morning.”

“Better get used to it,” he said. “Because I’m thinking you need more sweet in your life.”

“You need to go surf,” she told him.

“I will. Once I know you’re good.”

“I’m good,” Jody said without hesitation. And amazingly, she was.

“Okay. How much time does everyone have?”

Since Baker hadn’t dropped his hand, and she didn’t want to do anything that would make him stop touching her one second before he needed to, Jody picked her arm up and looked at her watch. “About an hour.”

“I’ll do my best to corral them when it’s time.”

Jody smiled at him. “Thanks.” There had been times when it was impossible to get the kids in from the surf, especially when the waves were good. This morning she didn’t think that would be a problem as they seemed kind of messy, which in surfer speak meant they were irregular and unpredictable. Not ideal conditions for surfing.

Then Baker leaned down and kissed her lips. It wasn’t a long, passionate kiss like the ones they shared before, but it was no less intense.

He pulled back way before Jody was ready and studied her for a long moment. She had no idea what he was looking for, or what he saw when he nodded in satisfaction.

“Doesn’t bode well for me,” Baker said mysteriously.

“What doesn’t?” Jody asked.

“That the smell of plumeria gets me hard. I can just see in the future, I’ll be minding my own business, walk by a plumeria plant, and boom—erection.”

Jody giggled.

Baker grinned at her. “Like the smile better than the tears,” he said, caressing her cheek with a thumb before dropping his hand and backing away.

“Be careful out there,” Jody couldn’t help but warn.

“I will. See you in a bit.”

Jody watched as he grabbed his board where he’d stuck it in the sand and jogged toward the ocean. She sighed. Baker really was a good-looking man. She could totally picture him decked out in top-secret SEAL gear, slipping into the ocean to plant a bomb on a boat or sneak around in the waves gathering intel on the bad guys. Okay, so she had no clue what it was SEALs really did in the water. All she had to go on was movies like Under Siege and The Rock.

A shout sounded from the area where the kids were lined up to wait for a wave, and Jody tensed. But then she realized they were just greeting Baker. It was pretty impressive that the high schoolers actually liked it when he surfed with them. They didn’t hang with other adults in the water, and it was obvious Baker had earned their respect. It was just one more reason Jody was falling for him.

She supposed she should be worried about how fast things were moving with them, how they’d gone from barely speaking to each other to almost being connected at the hip. But Jody had known Baker for quite a while now. She knew the kind of man he was simply by watching him interact with people around him. A good one. The kind of man any woman would do anything to have at her side. And while Jody had been on her own a long time, she couldn’t deny having Baker around was…pretty wonderful.

As she watched the surfers and the sun slowly moved higher in the sky, her thoughts turned to Ben. Worry hit her once more. She racked her brain to come up with other reasons why he’d been sleeping in his car in the middle of the afternoon, and had been so tired that he’d ignored the onset of heat exhaustion. Maybe he’d just stayed up too late the night before and was totally beat. The possibility that he’d gotten involved in the wrong crowd and had started taking drugs or drinking could be another reason.

Jody shook her head. No. Ben wasn’t like that. She’d often thought he reminded her a lot of Mana. He was always respectful and she truly didn’t feel as if he would turn to drugs, no matter what was going on in his life.

But she couldn’t help but worry about those clothes, the pillow, and the tons of fast-food wrappers she’d seen in his car while he was being seen by a paramedic. She was even more sure now that he’d been living in his car, and that scared the crap out of her.

Ben sleeping in his vehicle made no sense, he had a family and a home here on the north end of the island. There was absolutely no reason for him to be homeless.

Unless his parents had moved and he refused to go to another school. Or maybe something had happened to his folks and he was on his own. Or he could’ve had a fight with his parents.

Resolve hardened inside Jody. She had to find him. She didn’t know why he was sleeping in his car, but if she and Mana had a fight and he left home, not even one night would’ve gone by before she’d hunted him down. The fact that his parents didn’t seem to be looking for him worried her. If they were, surely they’d have come to the beach at some point, since it was one of his regular hangouts.

True, she didn’t know the dynamics of his family, but something just didn’t feel right. He needed someone to give a shit about what was going on with him—and that would be her.

She had one project she had to finish this morning for a client, but everything else could wait. She’d head out and see if she could find Ben.

He should be at school, but if she couldn’t find his car there, she’d check all the other parking lots at popular surfing spots, and even the touristy beaches. He had to be somewhere, and the sooner she found him and talked to him, the better Jody would feel.

Something relaxed inside her now that she had a plan. She wouldn’t mention it to Baker because she knew he’d want to go with her. And while she wouldn’t mind that, she also knew that he had work of his own he needed to accomplish. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was doing anything dangerous. She was simply looking for a teenager who may or may not need a helping hand getting back on track.

Fifty minutes later, the kids started paddling back to the shore. Jody was ready for them by the time they walked up the sand toward her. She stood to grab her cooler and handed out sandwiches as they strolled past her, making a point to greet each and every one of her kids, letting them know in her own small way that she cared about them.

“Here, take two, Rome. Water looked kinda gnarly this morning. Is that a new wet suit, Felipe? I like it. I made this one especially for you, Brent. No meat, just eggs and cheese. Good luck on your math test today, Lani! Did you grow another inch since I last saw you, Kal? I swear you’re getting taller by the day!”

They smiled and joked with her as they rinsed the saltwater off in the outdoor showers. They ate Jody’s breakfast sandwiches as they headed for the bathrooms to change out of their wet suits and into their clothes for school.

An arm snaked around her waist, and Jody jumped until she realized it was Baker.

“You’re good with them,” he observed.

She shrugged. “They’re good kids.”

“Not everyone would think so. They’d look at them and think they were beach bums. That they’re not gonna go anywhere in this world because all they want to do is surf.”

“Well, those people would be wrong. Lani’s in advanced-placement math. I think that’s why she’s such a great surfer, she can somehow calculate angles and trajectories of the waves and know which ones will be good and which ones she should pass on. Rome wants to be an engineer. Brent wants to work with sea turtles. And Kal is a genius when it comes to cars. They’re good kids, Baker, and anyone who only sees them as lazy beach bums is an idiot.”

“There’s that mama bear coming out again,” Baker said into her ear.

Jody shivered. She loved being in his arms like this. Being held against him. She didn’t have a chance to answer, as the kids began to exit the bathrooms. They all waved at her as they headed for the parking lot.

“Drive safe!” Jody called out.

“We will!” they all yelled back.

Jody looked up and back at the man behind her. “Want a breakfast sandwich?”

“Yup.”

Baker loosened his hold on her and Jody reached into her cooler. “I made you one with all the trimmings. The kids don’t usually like all the stuff on it, they stick to the basics.” She pulled out the sandwich she’d made just for him. It was kind of silly, but if the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, she would work that angle.

She handed him a sandwich that was in a reusable silicon pouch. “And don’t give me any crap about the reusable bag. There’s way too much plastic in our oceans and dumps as it is. I don’t want to contribute to the problem.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Baker promised as he pulled out the sandwich. Jody took the container and threw it back into her cooler. She turned as Baker lifted the top piece of bread to see what he was about to eat.

“It’s kind of a southwest omelet inside a sandwich. Egg, bacon, green pepper, tomato, slices of provolone and pepper jack cheese, lettuce, and a slice of ham for good measure. There’s also some salsa in there to give it a jolt of flavor.”

Baker looked up at her then, and Jody couldn’t read his expression.

“Are you serious?” he finally asked.

“Um…yes?”

Then he took a huge bite of the sandwich, closed his eyes, and groaned as he chewed.

Jody bit her lip as she watched. Even eating, the man was ridiculously sexy.

The second he swallowed, Baker said, “Marry me.”

Jody laughed. “I take it the sandwich doesn’t suck?”

“No, it fuckin’ does not,” Baker told her. “It’s amazing. And totally hits the spot after being in the waves this morning.”

“I’m glad.”

“You eat?” Baker asked.

Jody shrugged. “I’ll grab something when I get home.” There was no way she was going to admit to Baker, looking as fit and fabulous as he did standing in front of her in the skin-tight wet suit, that she ate a Pop-Tart every morning.

He took a step closer and held out his sandwich. “Here, have a bite.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a small shake of her head.

“Humor me,” Baker said in a tone of voice she didn’t understand.

So she did. She took hold of his wrist to hold his hand steady, then leaned forward and took a much smaller bite than he had. The flavors from the combination of ingredients hit her taste buds, and she smiled as she chewed.

“Thanks,” she said once she’d swallowed.

Baker took another bite, then held the sandwich back out to her. They didn’t speak as they shared the meal, but it was still the most intimate moment Jody had shared with another human being in years.

After he popped the last piece of sandwich into his mouth and licked his fingers, Baker reached for her and pulled her against him. Jody could feel every inch of his hard body against hers. The dampness of his wet suit seeped into her T-shirt, but she didn’t care. She was already wet from him holding her earlier anyway.

“There will never be a time I eat in front of my woman when she’s not also eating,” Baker said.

“Baker, I made that sandwich for you.”

“Don’t care. I mean, I care that you went out of your way to make me the best fuckin’ sandwich I’ve ever eaten, but I will still not stuff my face and leave you hungry. Ever.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Jody said softly.

“Not happening, Tink.”

She stared at him for a moment, and saw that he wasn’t going to back down about this. “Next time I’ll make two,” she finally told him.

“Appreciate that. Here’s the thing…you may not have had anyone looking out for you in the last five years, but you do now.”

Jody liked that. A lot. Not because she needed looking after; she didn’t, not really. But because Baker was acknowledging that Mana had done what he could to take care of his mom.

“You sleep all right this weekend?” he asked.

Jody nodded.

“You wake up at all?”

“No.”

“Good. After I do some more digging on Ben and his family, I have to go down to the Naval base,” Baker said.

“Okay,” Jody told him, not sure why he was telling her.

“Thought I’d stop by Leonard’s Bakery and grab some malasadas on my way home. You interested?”

“In malasadas? Duh,” Jody said with a smile.

Baker returned it. “Didn’t get it before.”

Jody waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, she asked, “Didn’t get what?”

“Why Mustang and the others go so far out of their way to do shit for their women. But I get it now. I’d do just about anything to see that smile on your face.”

Jody melted into him. “You don’t have to buy me stuff to make me smile, Baker. You do that just by being you.”

“Glad to hear it, but I like spoiling you. When’s the last time you had Leonard’s malasadas?”

“God…years?”

“So it’s all right for me to come by when I get back later?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Baker’s expression softened. “No hesitation. You didn’t ask when I thought I might be back or anything.”

“Baker, you want to come over, no matter when it is, you’ve got an open invitation. If I need to do some work, I’ll tell you. I’m assuming since you’re half a century old, you can entertain yourself until I’m done. Then we can talk, eat, watch TV, or whatever.”

“The same goes for you, Tink. Open invitation for you to come to my place.”

Jody smiled. “Thanks.”

“Although your place is nicer.”

“Baker, it’s practically the same as yours.”

“Nope. Yours smells like you.”

Jody rolled her eyes.

“And it has your computer, which I’m assuming has the programs and shit you need to do your graphic stuff.”

That was true.

“Besides, Mana’s there, so it’s more like a home.”

He wasn’t wrong. Mana was there. Not physically, but in spirit. She’d felt that more and more since her conversation with Baker about reincarnation. Not to mention everywhere she turned, Jody could see his face in all the pictures she had.

“You’re gonna make me cry again,” she warned.

“Don’t want that. How about you kiss me and we get on our way. I have research to do on Ben, a meeting to attend, and malasadas to buy,” Baker said.

Jody immediately went up on her tiptoes and tipped her head back. Baker’s hand pressed against the small of her back, steadying her as his head dropped.

Their kiss this time was deeper than earlier, but not quite as carnal as it had been on her couch a few nights ago. Jody was finding that she liked all the different kinds of kisses Baker gave her.

She pulled back way before she was ready, but she didn’t think a public beach was the time or place to drag her new boyfriend down to the sand and have her wicked way with him.

“Like that look in your eyes, Tink, but we both have shit to do.”

“Darn,” she whispered.

Baker laughed, then he sobered. “I’m gonna take care of you,” he said.

“Can I take care of you back?” she asked.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

“All right then.”

“All right then,” Baker echoed.

Jody licked her lips, tasting salt, sandwich, and Baker. “Drive safe going down to Honolulu today.”

“I will. I’ll text you when I leave, when I get there, and when I’m on my way home.”

“You don’t have to,” she said, worried that he might start thinking it was a pain in the ass and he didn’t like having to tell her where he was all the time.

“I know I don’t. You gonna worry?”

Jody bit her lip. She totally would.

“Right. So I’ll text,” he said, not needing her to say the words.

“Okay.”

Baker leaned down and kissed her hard and fast with closed lips. Then pulled back. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your van.”

“I can make it on my own,” she couldn’t help but point out.

“I know.”

Right. She guessed this was one more way he wanted to “take care of her.” She was all right with that. He grabbed her cooler and wrapped his arm around her waist as they began to walk to the parking lot. As she climbed into the driver’s seat and rolled down her window, he put her cooler in the back, pulling the sliding door shut. “Talk to you soon,” he said.

Jody nodded.

Baker reached out and gently palmed the back of her head. He pulled her in for another short kiss, then let her go, sliding his hand through her hair as he did. Then he gave her a chin lift and stepped back.

That chin lift. Lord. It was such a guy thing to do. Her thighs tightened. It was silly to get so turned on by something as small as that, but there it was.

“You gonna go, or sit there staring at me all day?” he quipped.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Jody said. “Baker?”

“Yeah, Tink?”

“Thanks.” She wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for. Maybe for being so good with the kids. Maybe for being appreciative of her making him the sandwich. Maybe for being the kind of man who didn’t think anything of telling a woman that he was going to take care of her. Maybe it was all of it, wrapped up in one intoxicating package.

But typical Baker, he didn’t question her. All he said was, “You’re worth it.”

Yeah, it was safe to say Jody was falling hard and fast for this man.

She waved at him like a dork, then pulled out of the parking spot and headed home. As much as she loved being with Baker, she needed to finish the urgent job she was working on, then head out to find Ben. She hadn’t forgotten about the young man. She prayed that nothing was wrong. That she’d find his car at school and her worry would be appeased.

But deep inside, she suspected that wouldn’t be the case.

Looking in her rearview mirror, she saw Baker still standing where she’d left him. He hadn’t immediately gone back to get his surfboard, he stayed where he was, watching her until he couldn’t see her anymore.

Another shiver went through her body. Yeah, Baker may have tried to convince her he wasn’t really a good guy while explaining what he did for a living—but he was wrong.