Holding Out For A Hero

by HelenKay Dimon

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Too Close For Comfort. . . Deana Armstrong needs a hero--not for herself, but for the nephew all her money and time can't seem to get out of jail. Unfortunately, the best hero in all the Hawaiian Islands is set on turning in his badge and getting his excellent butt into another line of work. If that wasn't enough, Josh Windsor also has a big-time grudge against Deana herself. But if there's anything being rich, smart, and stubborn has taught Deana, it's never to settle for second best. . . Josh has had it with saving people. He's had it with getting hauled into court. And boy, has he ever had it with Deana. Or well, he hasn't had it. Yet. But the more she pops up sounding infuriating and looking good enough to eat, the more her hot bod and her cold case wriggle into his mind. And there's only so much even a hero can resist. . .

Release date: September 10, 2009

Publisher: Brava

Print pages: 305

Sample

He sensed her before he saw her. The dangerous mix of high-end perfume and wealth gave her away. Josh Windsor knew some men found the combination attractive. He sniffed and smelled nothing but trouble.

Tucking his pen in his inside suit-jacket pocket, he crossed the marble courthouse hallway to meet Deana Armstrong before she materialized at his side. She would track him down anyway. Might as well take the offensive and be done with it.

“Ms. Armstrong.” He nodded. “What brings you here?”

“To Honolulu?”

“To the fourth floor of the Circuit Court.”

She took a step forward and put them less than two feet apart. “You.”

Somehow he knew she would say that. “How’d you guess I was even on Oahu?”

“I flew over to Kauai and went to your office.”

As if that was a perfectly normal thing to do. “Of course you did.”

“I couldn’t get near the Drug Enforcement Administration. Not even on the same floor.”

“Government buildings are funny like that.”

“I also checked your house while I was there.”

“You…” Surely he heard that wrong. “Wait, what?”

“Your house.”

Nope. Heard it just fine. He ignored her behavior before, wrote it off as annoying, and moved on. Not this time. “Care to explain?”

“Well, it’s really a condo.” She had the nerve to throw out an innocent, wide-eyed look.

To shut that down he leaned in, letting her feel the looming presence of every inch of his six feet. “You actually went to my place in Lihue?”

“Do you have another house?”

“Only one of us has a trust fund and owns multiple properties.” Including a sprawling estate on one of the best beaches on Oahu. That person sure as hell wasn’t him.

“What does my housing situation have to do with our conversation?” She waved her hand in front of her face. “Look, none of this matters.”

“Yeah, it kind of does.”

“Can we focus on the topic, please?”

Was she trying to annoy him? “Which is what?”

“I heard you were on some sort of leave from your position with the DEA—”

“Jesus, lady. Is there anything you don’t know about my life?”

“—which is why I took the chance of catching you.” Her voice increased in volume from cool to almost booming as she talked over him.

“Keep yelling like that and courthouse security will be all over you in two seconds.” Which, the more he thought about it, was not a bad way to get out of this conversation.

“My point is that your home address isn’t exactly a secret.”

“I guess not to people with detectives on their regular household payroll.” When he fixed every other part of this life, Josh vowed to fix that as well. Make it so no matter how much money folks like her waved around, no one would find him unless he wanted to be found. And right now he didn’t. “Did you at least water the plants while you were at the condo?”

She frowned.

He was impressed she managed to show any emotion.

“I didn’t go in,” she said. “That would have been inappropriate.”

At last, a boundary. No sense to know when someone was flinging sarcasm right in her face, but a boundary. “Looks as if we agree on something.”

Deana laced her fingers together in front of her. “I read in the newspaper that you were testifying here today as part of an old case, so I flew back home to Oahu and came downtown to find you.”

Under different circumstances he might be flattered with a woman being interested enough to chase him around Hawaii, but he knew better than to get excited about this one. “So, you’re stalking me now.”

“Of course not.”

“Harassing a federal officer is illegal.” He nodded hello to the judge’s clerk when she stuck her head out of an office. “Sorry. We’ll keep it down out here.”

Deana waited until the younger woman disappeared again before whispering. “You’re overstating my actions a bit, don’t you think?”

Oh, he had done a lot of thinking about Deana. The woman was a walking contradiction. Round face, high cheekbones, big green eyes and long near-black wavy hair that fell below her shoulders. Five-six and slender. An objectively beautiful woman. That part suited Josh just fine. The rest of her, not so much.

She possessed a demeanor chilly enough to freeze steel. Her serious affect and ever-present blank stare made her appear far older than the twenty-nine years he knew her to be. But that wasn’t the oddest thing about her. Even now the woman hid most of her potentially impressive body under a pile of clothing. A long-sleeve navy blazer with a collar cut high enough to strangle. The only piece of skin exposed above her waist, other than her hands, was a thin slice of wrist…with a watch shiny enough to advertise incredible wealth.

Somehow Deana Armstrong lived her whole life in informal Hawaii and yet insisted on dressing as if it were winter at a convent in Nebraska. Few people wore full business suits in Hawaii except him and anyone else in a federal law enforcement position, most opting instead for a more casual look. Certainly no one without a job dressed anything other than casual. And the one thing Deana didn’t do was work.

“Is this a good place?” she asked.

He glanced around the empty hallway leading back to a restricted corridor to the judge’s private chambers. “Depends on what you want to use it for.”

“Excuse me?”

He pointed to the back corner of the wall above the emergency exit and her head. “Security is watching.”

“I don’t care about that. I’m here because I’ve been trying to reach you.” She rubbed her palms on her knee-length skirt.

He tried not to stare at the legs peeking out of all that buttoned-up stuffiness. “And?”

“You haven’t called me back.”

Clearly the woman didn’t tune into not-so-subtle hints. “True.”

“Are you available now?”

If she asked him two days from now the answer definitely would be no. He planned to be free of all ties by then, specifically those related to his work at the DEA. No reason not to get an early start on that. “No.”

“In a few hours or tomorrow?”

“Still no.”

She crossed her arms over her middle. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you were ignoring me.”

He thought about lifting his fists toward the ceiling in victory. “We’re finally understanding each other.”

Deana was two seconds away from strangling him. She had hoped Josh would be reasonable. At least give her a chance to explain. Instead, he hid behind a heaping pile of attitude.

If she hadn’t needed his help she would have shoveled a load or two right back on top of him. But that wasn’t her style. Not in public anyway. She had a persona, a role, and she would play it even while her insides burned.

Then there was the problem with their past run-ins. Thanks to her decisions more than two years ago, she had to take hesitating steps here. Hiring every expensive lawyer she could find to fight Josh Windsor and question his credibility had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now her actions proved to be a liability.

Back then she had made sure to know about every aspect of Josh’s life, down to his family history and bank account balance. With his rawness and “knows his way around a bedroom” style, she figured disgruntled men and women would line up to turn on him. That didn’t happen. Seemed Josh walked all over the line but rarely crossed it to the point where someone with standing in the community had any information that could help her.

Their adversarial relationship then and her island hopping to Kauai and back to find him now made the entire courthouse scene all the more frustrating. She had better things to do than hunt down an angry man and try to talk some sense into him.

“I need your help.” Getting those words out almost killed her.

“With?”

“Ryan.”

Josh started shaking his head before she got to the second syllable of her nephew’s name. “No way.”

Not an unexpected reaction but still not helpful. “Listen to me.”

“Your nephew is in jail, Ms. Armstrong.”

The conversation had seemed much easier when she practiced it in her bathroom mirror. “That’s true.”

“He’s not getting out.”

She closed her eyes on a wave of paralyzing sadness. The type that kept her locked in her house curled up on a couch some days. “I am well aware of Ryan’s current residence and the reason for it, thank you.”

“Then you also know I’m not a defense attorney.”

When Josh took a few steps back she thought he was signaling the end of their conversation and cutting out. Instead, he leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. Probably hoping to put as much space between them as possible in the six-foot-wide area.

The distance allowed her to take a quick look at her opponent. This was not the first time she indulged in a peek since meeting Josh years before. Wide shoulders and all, she hated him then. She needed him now. That made all the difference.

And whether he wanted to admit it or not, they could help each other. She read the papers, heard all about Josh’s legal issues. His latest actions on the job had angered the higher-ups at the DEA and landed him in the middle of a huge mess. For a guy who lived his life as if he had nothing to lose, he was about to lose something big.

Well, she had something to offer as an alternative. He needed to fill the hours. She needed a miracle. It was as perfect as their strange relationship would ever get.

“I don’t need more attorneys. Ryan has enough legal representation for four people right now.” And she had the outrageous legal bills at home on her desk to prove it. All that money and still a guilty verdict. Kind of killed the theory about how juries could be swayed with purchased experts. Certainly not how it worked in the Hawaii courts from her experience.

“You’re not asking me to chip in for Ryan’s expenses, are you?” he asked.

“Of course not.”

“’Cause you don’t strike me as a lady who needs a loan.” Josh’s eyes wandered with his comment.

She refused to fidget under his visual tour up and down her body because she knew his plan. He wanted to throw her off stride. Make her skittish. She could feel his eyes on her down to her shoes, and she wasn’t going to flinch.

“Money is not the issue,” she said in her iciest voice.

“I never could figure out why you were bothering to put all of this effort into saving a kid who is determined not to be saved.”

The sharp edge of the jab slid off her midsection. “I’m an aunt who cares about her nephew.”

“You know something?” Josh cocked his head to the side as the corner of his mouth tugged upward. “I just figured out what it is about you that doesn’t fit.”

“Pardon me?”

He pointed at her forehead. “The way you talk. It’s what throws off this whole picture.”

A wave of confused dizziness hit her. “I have no idea—”

“There’s emotion in your voice, well, sort of, but your body never moves.” He nodded his head as if warming to the subject. “Makes me wonder if there’s any feeling inside there anywhere. I’m betting no.”

The shaking moving through her turned to fury. Ten more seconds of his garbage and he’d be feeling her hand smack across his face. “You don’t need to worry about my body.”

His eyebrows rose. “If you say so.”

“I need your detective skills.”

The lazy grin vanished as his back snapped straight again. “No way.”

“What kind of response is that for a grown man?”

“The only one you’re going to get.”

“Could you at least try to be civil?”

“You killed that possibility a long time ago, lady.”

Okay, she deserved that. He refused to understand her position, but she couldn’t exactly blame him for the anger. “I’m not asking for me; I’m asking for Ryan.”

“You pay a whole team of professionals to poke around in other people’s private lives for you. Get some of them to do your work. You don’t need me.”

Lot of good all that money did so far. “I actually do.”

“Well, that’s a damn shame, since I already have a job.”

Time for a reality check. “Word is that might not be true soon.”

“Visiting my office again, Ms. Armstrong?”

As she watched, he turned into a serious, uncompromising professional. His disdain lapped against her. He didn’t say the exact words, but he didn’t have to. His actions spoke for him. He hated her.

Gone was the laid-back surfer-dude laziness that hovered around him making the business suit seem all the more out of place. Blond, blue-eyed, with a scruff around his mouth and chin, he could play the lead role in any woman’s bad-boy fantasies. But behind those rough good looks lurked a man serious and in charge, tense and ready for battle.

Well, he wasn’t the only one in the room fighting off a deep case of dislike. He needed to know she was not one of his frequent empty-headed bedmates. She could match his intellect and anger anytime, anywhere.

“Most of the information I need about you and your current predicament is in the newspaper,” she said.

“Most?”

She shrugged, letting him know he wasn’t the only one who could tweak a temper.

“More snooping, Ms. Armstrong?”

“I call it investigating.”

“Well, just so you know.” His back came off the wall, slow and in command. “Sneaking around in my personnel file isn’t the way to make me listen to you.”

“Then let’s try this.” She reached into her purse and grabbed her checkbook. “I want to hire you.”

“Don’t.”

She clicked the end of her pen. “Some money should get us started.”

His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist before she could start writing. “Trying to buy me off isn’t going to get you where you want to be.”

When she dropped her hand, he let go as if touching her one more second repulsed him.

“That’s not what I was doing.” It was, but she figured pointing that out would only make him less receptive to her plan to help Ryan.

“Sure felt like it.”

She skipped the crap and went right to her point. “Ryan didn’t do it.”

“Look, Ms. Armstrong. I get that this is a family issue.”

She refused to blubber or beg. She’d cried enough for ten lifetimes since the whole mess started. “Call me Deana.”

“We’re not friends or colleagues, so Ms. Armstrong is fine.” Josh took his pen out of his pocket and tapped it against his open palm. “And you may as well know I don’t really care what happens to Ryan from here on.”

She refused to believe Josh would be satisfied to let an innocent kid rot in prison. “You can’t really mean that.”

“I do. Trust me on this.”

“You think it’s okay to lock him away?”

“He had a trial.”

“Well, I don’t have the luxury of forgetting Ryan, since I’m all he has at the moment.”

“I’m sorry about your brother and his wife.” Josh’s voice softened along with his bright aqua eyes.

She could not let her mind go there. Not now. She had to keep her focus directly on Ryan. It was either that or lose her control, and that was the one thing she could not afford to do in front of Josh. “Then help me.”

“I can’t.”

“You mean ‘won’t.’” Despite her attempts to stay calm her voice increased in volume as his decreased.

“We can use whichever word you prefer.”

“Why not?”

“Simple.”

“I have to tell you that I’ve found nothing simple in dealing with you so far.” And she wasn’t kidding about that.

“Then try this: I’m out of the rescuing business.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s a fact.”

This was one brick wall she might not be able to work around. “I hardly believe you can turn it on and off like that.”

“I didn’t think so, either.” He shrugged. “What a surprise.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Basically? Find another hero, because I’m done playing the role.”

Two days later, Josh officially retired from the DEA. Sure, he hadn’t actually told anyone that little fact yet, but leaving today’s administrative hearing during the middle of testimony probably sent a message of sorts. He figured someone would get the idea when he failed to show up for the afternoon session.

“You know you’re welcome here anytime.” Derek Travers walked out onto the porch of his one-story fixer-upper wearing swim trunks and holding a beer in each hand.

Josh reached for a bottle without taking his eyes off the ocean in front of him. Settling back into the lounge chair, he surveyed the rocky coastline of Waimanalo. The few newer houses right on the water came with huge price tags, but the rest of this part of Oahu consisted mostly of hardworking locals who had lived there forever. Solid folks without fancy jobs, living tucked away in a quiet piece of paradise.

Most families bought long before the prices bounced past reasonable or they’d be forced to live in shacks. The downside for many was that the area lacked the tourist trade, hotels, and shopping that made Honolulu and the other side of Oahu so popular. That also qualified as Waimanalo’s greatest asset in Josh’s eyes.

The open land and vast quiet reminded him more of Kauai, the Hawaiian island where he lived in a condo a couple miles away from Kane Travers, Derek’s uncle and Josh’s best friend. Kane also happened to be the chief of police on Kauai and a character witness of sorts at Josh’s hearing today. That meant Kane would pop up sooner or later, likely pissed off about the early departure from the rigged hearing.

“So”—Derek took a long drink—“why are you here again?”

“Now that I’m out of that suit my goal is to steal your liquor.”

“As long as you replenish the supply, that’s fine.”

“Understood.”

“My real question had to do with you being here instead of downtown.” Derek put his bare feet up on a white paint-chipped railing in front of him and rocked back on two chair legs.

“You trying to ruin my beer?” Josh took another swig, letting the ice-cold liquid rush down the back of his throat.

“You’re at my house in the middle of the day, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Since you actually live and work elsewhere, and generally wear a suit Monday through Friday, which makes the reality of you being a government agent pretty obvious, by the way—”

“Is this a geography lesson or a fashion critique?”

Derek leaned his head back against the chair. “My only point—”

“You have one?”

“—is that you’re supposed to be somewhere else right now.”

“You’re not making me feel welcome.”

Now there was a lie. Derek was twenty-three and a graduate-school research assistant working at a place called the Oceanic Institute, which was right down the road. Josh didn’t understand the finer points of this kid’s job, but he knew that despite Derek’s outward calm he possessed a genius-level IQ.

They’d known each other for years. Kane raised Derek. Since Josh spent most of his free time with Kane, or did until Kane got married, that meant spending a lot of time getting to know the kid.

Josh glanced over at Derek. Some time over the past nine years the kid had grown up. He stood over six feet. Athletic and part-Hawaiian with dark hair and a deep tan. Women of all ages swarmed around him. With buying the house, Derek now had an impressive place to take those young ladies.

Kane chipped in the money for the place and now they were all renovating it. That meant Josh spent a lot of time there. Oahu and Kauai were a quick commuter flight apart, and he appreciated the relatively safe work of banging nails with a hammer compared with fighting off the drug problem all over Hawaii.

“I have a deal for you,” Derek said.

“The last time I bet you I had to rip down the crap metal garage on the back of your property.” It was almost two months ago and Josh still had the blisters on his palms to prove it.

“Thanks for that.” Derek laughed. “But be warned because this wager could turn out even better for me.”

“Do tell.”

“If you give me the number of that redhead I saw walking around your condo last weekend wearing nothing but a bikini you can move in here for all I care. No questions asked about this afternoon.”

Josh didn’t even remember the woman’s name. “She’s all yours.”

Derek nodded his head. Even deli. . .