Chapter One
For the fourth time in less than ten minutes, Maura Dillon found her mind wandering. She looked out over the late afternoon Miami traffic and tried to concentrate on her brother’s voice in her ear, and just spaced out. A second later, she realized that her brother had stopped talking.
“What did you just say?” She asked, leaning back in her desk chair closing her eyes. She felt herself drifting again, as if she were floating in the Pacific, enjoying the warm sun on her skin. She could almost smell the salt of the ocean and feel the breeze shift over her. It did nothing to help the pounding in her head. She felt as if she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in three weeks. Probably because she hadn’t.
“You sound distracted,” Conner said.
Inwardly, she sighed. Her brother could always sniff out her mood, even five thousand miles away. It was one of his most irritating traits—and he had a lot of them.
“I’m not distracted. I’m just a little tired.”
There was a beat of silence. With most men, it didn’t mean anything. With Conner, it was a lethal situation. She turned her chair back so she faced her desk waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“No, this is distracted, not tired. When you’re tired, you’re bitchy.”
She ignored that comment, mostly because it was true. “I got the preliminary report on that group you want us to work with.”
“You’re going to ignore my question then?” her brother asked.
“Yes. When did you get all loving and want to talk feelings?”
“I didn’t say it was about feelings. You just did. So you are distracted.”
She was, but how did she tell her brother she was testy because she needed sex. She didn’t. She shared a lot with her brother, much to his irritation, but this, she could not. It was hard enough dealing with the dream team of Zeke O’Brian and Rory McAllister.
“I’m distracted by this job. It doesn’t help that I’m now a blonde.” She shoved her hand through her now chin length hair. It had been a whim a few days ago and she had loved it. But, now she wasn’t so sure.
Another beat of silence. “You only mess with your hair color when you’re depressed.”
She held the phone out from her ear and looked at it, then put it back. “This is Conner Dillon, right? Or has Jillian been giving you inside information?”
“Jillian hasn’t and I know you better than you think I do.”
That was probably true. Conner was devious that way. He seemed like the ultimate Alpha in any group, but one thing that had made him an excellent FBI agent was his observation skills. It was the bane of her existence when she was growing up—especially when he was left to raise her on his own. Nothing like having a criminal profiler watching your every move. Not that her teenage years had been that exciting.
“How do you know about the hair color thing, then?” she asked.
Maura recognized the aggravated sigh. She had first heard it when she was fifteen and asked her brother about lubricant. “The first boyfriend breakup you dyed it that disturbing bright red shade.”
Of course he would bring up her breakup with Tommy Foster—otherwise known as the Scumbag from Boca Raton. “There was nothing disturbing about it.”
“It glowed in the dark.”
She remembered the look on Conner’s face when she stepped out of the bathroom and chuckled. “Okay, I will give you that. It was pretty bad.”
“If you aren’t going to tell me, talk to Jillian when you get over here.”
“I can talk to Jillian some other time, but there’s nothing to talk about.” Then she realized what he had just said. “Get over there? What are you talking about?”
“I want you to come over to Hawaii for a week.”
Stranger and stranger. It was never a good idea to underestimate Conner, especially when he was scheming. And she definitely defined this as scheming. He was devious and most people wouldn’t pick up on it. They would see him as being efficient. She knew better. Conner was born creating plots.
She cleared her throat and readied herself for battle. “I wasn’t planning on coming over anytime soon. I was just there six weeks ago for your wedding.”
No matter how much she wanted to run away from the office and her personal infatuation with Rory and Zeke, she would not use a trip to Hawaii to get away. Which, even as she thought it, made her crazy. Insane. Bonkers. Any sane woman would do it without much thought. She had gone over the edge.
And that is what those two had done to her. They had pushed her to the point that she was turning down vacations from her brother.
“I need someone who is good at being a nerd and it comes to you naturally.”