Читать книгу Making Waves - Джулия Кеннер, Джулия Кеннер - Страница 8

LACI MONTGOMERY collapsed on the sand, her entire body tingling from exertion and excitement.

She’d just ridden in on one beauty of a wave, a killer bombora that had fought her all the way in, determined to trip her up and pull her under. She’d conquered it, though, and her victory was a beauty.

“Damn,” Drea said, running up the beach with Laci’s video camera in her hand. “Too bad the competition hasn’t started. You would have earned some serious points on that ride.”

“Enough to beat you,” Laci retorted, biting back a smile.

“True enough,” Drea said. “Good thing the competition hasn’t started.”

“Enjoy your status while you can, rookie,” Laci said, continuing the good-natured ribbing, “because I am going to totally blow you out of the water when the competition gets going.”

“Smile when you say that,” Drea said, aiming the camera at Laci. Laci obliged with a wide grin, then stuck her tongue out at her friend. The teasing was all in fun, and Drea knew that Laci was only playing. Well, mostly only playing. The truth was that Andrea Powell, Laci’s friend and roommate, was the hot new thing on the female surfing circuit, the rookie of the year who was usually the subject of the cameras. Laci and Drea had only known each other a few weeks, but they’d bonded fast, and Laci genuinely wished Drea all the best. Well, mostly the best. Because if Laci had her way, Drea was about to be seriously out-classed by the new girl in town: Laci Montgomery, this year’s wild-card entry in the Girls Go Banzai surfing competition.

“You’re going down, girlfriend,” she said, but with a smile.

“Am I?” Drea said as she pointed toward the surf. “Or are we both going to get our asses seriously kicked?”

Drea’s finger was aimed right at JC Wilcox, a world-class surfer with the trophies to prove it. Laci would have had to hate her if JC wasn’t such a great friend. She contented herself with being annoyed at JC’s habit of leaving her towel draped over the curtain rod in the one-bathroom bungalow the three of them were sharing until after the competition.

“She’s looking really good,” Laci said with mixed envy and pride. She and JC had been friends for over a year, and during that time, Laci had learned a lot about JC. Mostly, she knew that the Hawaiian-born beauty was one hell of a surfer, and she deserved all her accolades and honors, but right then, JC had what Laci coveted: an actual corporate sponsor.

She sighed, telling herself it was the steady income of a sponsorship that she wanted. However, that wasn’t entirely true. She could always find a way to make money, JC’s trophies and sponsorships meant more than a paycheck. They meant that JC had earned her place in surfing.

And so far—although Laci had busted her tail and had some solid accolades and competitions under her belt—Laci still didn’t have the holy grail. She still didn’t have validation. And so help her, she craved it.

“You okay?” Drea’s head was cocked, examining Laci’s face.

“I’m fine.” In fact, she wasn’t. She was desperate for a win; desperate to prove herself here at Banzai. And that fierceness in her left a guilty hole in her stomach. But she couldn’t help it—she wanted to win. Wanted it and needed it.

More than that, she was certain that Drea and JC wanted it, too. But that was the kind of thing the girls didn’t talk about unless they disguised it as joking. Sure, they were friends. But hanging out on the beach and discussing their pasts and their boyfriends and their surfboard wax was one thing. Copping to the hope of unseating both of her friends and taking a world-class championship? Well, that was an unspoken given, with unspoken being the key operating word.

Tease about it, yes.

Seriously state out loud that you want to beat your friend? Just not done.

But Laci wanted it. Oh, yeah. She wanted it bad.

“You don’t look fine,” Drea said. “Are you nervous?”

“A little,” Laci admitted. “I’m still in a bit of shock, I think. I mean, I’m in Hawaii, competing in one of the hottest competitions on the planet. I’ve seen my picture on the Internet and in the local paper, and when we go into the bars and diners, the waitstaff actually knows my name. It’s—”

“A trip,” Drea said.

“Disconcerting,” Laci countered. More than that, all this unanticipated press was exactly the reason she was so anxious to prove herself. She was the wild card in this competition—here because she was plucked out of the pile of all the potential surfers by XtremeSportNet, the corporation that was hosting and sponsoring the Girls Go Banzai competition here in Hawaii.

Most of the competitors had arrived at the competition through what Laci thought of as the usual route. In other words, they had entered a less prestigious, more locally oriented contest that fed into a bigger contest that fed into a bigger contest, until finally the top-ranking surfers in a dozen or so competitions were eligible to compete at Banzai.

In contrast, Laci hadn’t played the competition circuit. Instead, she’d been invited by the sponsor—XtremeSportNet—to compete at Banzai as a wild card, which traditionally meant that the sponsor had seen the surfer at exhibitions or other competitions, had liked what they saw, and thought the wild card would be an asset to the overall competition.

She scowled, thinking of all the possible ways a sponsor might consider a surfer an asset. Media appeal, for example. But Laci was interested in none of that, and now that she was here, she figured it was her job to prove to everyone that she was picked because of her skill and only her skill.

Drea’s eyebrows rose. “What’s eating you?”

“Let’s just say I don’t get it,” Laci said. “It’s not like I’ve won anything yet, so what’s the big deal? All this attention. It feels like I’m getting something for nothing.” And that scenario grated on Laci. Always had. Always would. “I didn’t even go through the trials.” She’d been in Australia tending to her little sister after a car accident. The accident had been minor, but Laci had practically raised Millie, and not even the trials for Girls Go Banzai was going to keep her from Millie’s side.

“Big deal. It wasn’t like you’ve been blowing off surfing or losing your edge. You’ve been doing exhibitions and contests nonstop for the last fourteen months. Ever since you backed out of San Clemente.”

Laci licked her lips. That one stung.

Drea glanced at her sideways. “So I’m thinking that you’ve got something to prove.”

“Maybe,” Laci admitted.

Drea studied her, then nodded. “Well, obviously it worked. They only bring in girls who deserve it as wild cards, and that would be you.”

“Deserve it,” Laci repeated, her mind drifting back to San Clemente, a highly touted but very new addition to the competition circuit run by one of XtremeSportNet’s competitors. She’d been brought in as a wild card there, too, and she’d been foolishly, stupidly giddy about it. At least she had until she heard the rumors that she’d slept her way into the competition, trading sex for a slot. And no matter how much she denied them, the insinuations wouldn’t go away. Why would they, when her then-boyfriend was Taylor Dutton, the man who’d been in charge of promoting that competition?

He’d denied it, of course, but considering that the media was already all over the story and her reputation was shot, nothing he said made a whit of difference.

The trouble, of course, was that she’d trusted him. No, more than that; she’d loved him. They’d been dating on and off for two months, and they’d fallen into a pattern of easy familiarity that had tingled around the edges. Simply sitting next to each other at a table eating breakfast cereal had moved her, and he could turn her to mush with a soft brush of his thumb against her cheek as easily as with a deeply passionate embrace and a slow slide into bed.

She’d loved him and she’d trusted him, and because she had, the hurt had gone that much deeper when the media broke the big story that he’d pulled the strings to get her into the competition as a coveted wild-card contender. Not because she deserved it, which she did, thank you very much, but because she’d been sleeping with him.

She’d wanted to dump him in a flurry of curses and flying pieces of furniture, but instead she’d dumped him with a quiet fury she liked to think was elegant and controlled. Then she’d scurried away to lick her wounds and tell herself that if she never saw Taylor Dutton again, it would be too soon.

For a few weeks there, she’d even considered leaving surfing behind, but then JC had kicked her butt and told her to get out there on the circuit and prove that Laci didn’t have to sleep her way to a trophy or a world ranking—she could surf her way there just fine.

As surfing competitions went, San Clemente wasn’t yet a blip on the world-class radar. So her surfing career hadn’t taken too much of a hit when she’d backed out, in spite of all the local media attention. Even so, there was no way—no way—she’d been willing to hang in there and let people think that sex had eased her entry into the events. And for the next fourteen months, she’d aimed for the gold standard—highly prestigious competitions. Competitions that could kick a girl up into the world rankings. Competitions that could get her noticed and get her a sponsor.

Girls Go Banzai was one of those competitions, and even if Millie’s accident had meant that she’d missed the primary feeder competition for Banzai, nothing changed the fact that Laci had spent weeks carefully selecting which competitions and exhibitions she surfed. She’d done her best, busted tail on the waves, and she’d gotten herself noticed.

Herself. Not her former jerkwad of a bed partner.

So, yeah. She deserved this wild-card spot. And with a quick “I absolutely, totally do deserve it,” she told Drea so.

“Well, there you go,” Drea said, as if that solved everything. Laci sighed. Maybe it did.

Besides, once she won, that queer, uncomfortable feeling would go away. No one could say that she hadn’t earned the attention (or, she hoped, the endorsements) because the trophy would be sitting on her mantel. But until she actually won, she was just a pretender. And that was a role that didn’t sit well with Laci at all.

“Is Millie coming?” Drea asked, shifting the subject to Laci’s little sister.

Laci shook her head. “I wish. But she’s in Sydney doing The Magic Flute. A small role, but she’s got a solo, and she totally steals the show.” The car accident, thank goodness, hadn’t slowed Millie’s career one iota.

“Really? That’s awesome. You must be totally proud.”

“Enough to bust a gut,” Laci admitted, though Drea didn’t know the half of it. The truth was, Laci had been more like a mom to Millie than like a sister. No one knew the full story because Laci had never felt close enough to anyone to share. Couple that with the fact that dredging up her sub-par childhood was not on Laci’s list of fun things to do, and it made for a topic that was definitely not discussed in polite conversation.

She’d never even shared the details of her childhood with Taylor. He’d known she was close to her sister, of course. But all the other baggage…That stuff was best left buried.

Drea whipped the towel from around her hips and laid it out on the sand, then settled in, faceup to the sun, the pink zinc oxide on her nose making her look cuter than usual.

Laci swallowed a frown as she settled back, towelless, on the sand. Next to Drea and JC, she’d always felt plain. Brownish-blond hair, a smattering of irritating freckles and a mouth she’d always considered too big. Fresh, the press was calling her now, which Laci interpreted as code for “not sexy in the least.” Not that it mattered. She was here to surf, not to win a beauty pageant.

Besides, the press chatter about her looks was a lot better than the alternative. So far, at least, not one reporter had mentioned the San Clemente scandal. As far as Laci was concerned, it couldn’t get much better than that.

Drea turned her head, opened her eyes and frowned. “Do you want to share my towel?”

She squirmed a little, digging her heels into the warm sand, enjoying the feel of the grains against her back and legs. “No thanks.” The sensation teased her, reminded her of what she was there for and of how far she’d come. All the way from her screwed-up childhood in Laguna Beach, California, where she wasn’t allowed to take a towel to the beach because her mom didn’t want to risk tracking any bit of grit or grime into their blindingly white, paid-for-with-other-people’s-money beachfront condo.

All of that hadn’t mattered then, and it didn’t matter now. Laci had grabbed Millie’s hand and marched the two of them jauntily through the glitz-and-marble lobby. They’d crossed the walking path to the dunes and plunked themselves down on the sand, Laci’s six years on this earth qualifying her for elder-statesman status over her four-year-old sister. The California beaches weren’t warm like the ones in Hawaii, but to this day she could remember the smell of the surf, and she could still feel the suction beneath her toes as she wiggled them in the warm, wet sand.

They’d stay outside as long as they could, cooking under a layer of sunscreen, and cooling off with quick dips in the surf and slushies from Joe who worked the concession shack. Then they’d traipse back to the condo, only to be waylaid by Manuel, the doorman, who’d invariably tell her that her mom had a “special guest,” and suggest that Laci and Millie get cleaned up in the poolside shower and maybe take a quick swim for, oh, another thirty-five minutes.

Millie was too young to understand, but even at six, Laci got it: stay out of their mom’s way for a while longer, and by the next day, they’d have a few new clothes, food in the fridge and a mother who wasn’t in a perpetually pissy mood. Usually, Laci scored a new toy—which she immediately dropped in the charity box at the grocery store, though she’d never, ever tell her mother for fear of one of Alysha’s famous spankings. Their mom had a temper, no doubt about that. And woe be to any adult or child who looked askance at the way she provided for her kids.

It had been a surreal kind of life, all the more so during the school year when the other moms would pull their daughters away from Laci and Millie, whispering to their girls about associating with the “wrong sort.” Laci didn’t want to be wrong, and she hated the fact that her mother took and took and took, getting by on looking pretty and having the men fawn all over her. She hadn’t known it at the time, of course, but Alysha Montgomery had been the worst kind of whore, trading on her looks, doling out sex and not doing one damned thing to earn herself a place in the world.

Alysha had never crossed the line into out-and-out prostitution, but she’d certainly been “kept.” And when Child Protective Services started poking around to investigate how well she was looking after her two young daughters, Alysha had decided that her girls weren’t worth fighting for and had insisted their father come from Australia to pick them up.

Laci had been terrified at first by the prospect of going off to live with a man she didn’t remember. Then the reality sank in: she was getting to leave her leech of a mother. And no matter what else happened, that had to be a good thing.

Fortunately, she’d been right. Moving from her mom’s dolled-up condo to her father’s ramshackle shack had constituted serious culture shock, but Duncan had made them feel more welcome in two days than their mom had in their entire lives. Without breaking stride, he’d brought his daughters into his life, and he’d never once complained, even though two little girls had taken up more than their fair share of his four-hundred-square-foot shack.

They’d arrived during the summer, and while Duncan had sat at the lifeguard stand, his daughters played in the surf and got to know the vendors who hawked food, air rafts and surfboards to the locals and tourists.

By the end of that first summer, Laci had learned to surf, and three months later—during their first Christmas/summer break Down Under—she’d competed in her first surfing competition, coming out of nowhere to take second in the junior division.

After that, she knew what she’d wanted to do for the rest of her life, and she’d gone after her goal with single-minded obsessiveness. Her first surfboard had been a present from her father, but after that, she’d eschewed trading product for favors. No way—no freaking way—was she turning into her mom.

She intended to climb to the top of the surf world, win trophies and world championships and get her face on cereal boxes. And she was getting there on her own merits—her own wins. Or, dammit, she wasn’t getting there at all.

“Thinking serious thoughts?” That comment came from JC, now standing over Laci and blocking the sun, so that the backlight through her damp hair made her appear like some sort of Amazon surf goddess.

“Always,” Laci said, pushing up on her elbows and conjuring a smile.

Beside her, Drea rolled over, joining the conversation. “You looked good out there,” she said, and Laci nodded agreement.

“Thanks,” JC said, plunking down on the sand beside them. “Hard to believe the first heat’s in just two weeks. I’m totally digging this relaxation time.”

Laci laughed. “Some relaxation! We’re working our tails off.”

“Okay, you have a point.”

“Should we say it now,” Drea asked. “Just to get it out of the way?”

They looked at each other, then each grinned as they stuck out their hands, putting one on top of the other. “Good luck,” they said in unison. “But I’m gonna kick your ass.” They tossed their hands in the air and fell back, laughing.

Nice to laugh about it, Laci thought. She wondered if the others meant it even half as much as she did.

JC climbed to her feet. “I’m going to go grab a shower and some lunch. You guys?”

“Sure,” Drea said, shaking out her towel and securing it back around her hips. “Laci?”

Laci shook her head, the thought of spending some alone time on the beach too enticing to pass up. “I’m going to hang here for a while, but I might swing by Da Kine later for a snack. You want me to call you?”

“Sure,” Drea said, and although JC nodded, there was a shadow in her eyes.

“What?” Laci demanded.

“It’s probably nothing,” JC said.

“Then spit it out.”

“It’s just that when I was in there last night, I thought I saw someone. I’m not even sure. It’s probably nothing.”

Laci was bolt upright now, her back straight, senses tingling. “Who did you see?”

“Thought I saw,” JC clarified.

Laci crossed her arms and stared down her friend.

“Fine. I thought I saw Taylor Dutton.”

Drea let out a low whistle even as Laci’s insides went cold. “Here? Working the competition? That doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t even work for Xtreme.”

Drea and JC exchanged looks. “Yeah, he does,” JC said. “Has been for a while, actually. But,” she hurried to add, possibly because she saw panic on Laci’s face, “there’s no way I could have seen him. I mean, he doesn’t have any reason to be here,” JC said. “Morgan Castle’s here for Xtreme. I talked to him yesterday.” She waved a hand, as if dismissing the whole conversation. “It was probably someone who looked like Taylor. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” Laci said. “It’s okay. Taylor doesn’t mean a thing to me anymore. For that matter, he never meant anything. He was a fling. That’s all.”

They both looked at her as if they didn’t believe her, which made sense considering she was lying through her teeth.

“Go on,” she said. “I’m gonna hang for a while and then go back to the bungalow. And don’t look so stricken. I’m fine. He’s not even really here, right? And I can totally handle bumping into someone who vaguely looks like a guy I dated a while ago. Really,” she added because her friends still seemed dubious.

Despite their obvious hesitations, they finally left, but not before making her promise to call if she needed anything.

She wouldn’t.

Even if Taylor were on the island—and why would he be with Morgan gunning to score big promoter points with his boss?—it wasn’t as if Laci were still pining for the guy. Yes, she’d been blindsided before, but she’d wised up a lot since then. She’d confused pheromones for love and she’d gotten seriously burned as a result, her surfing triumphs tainted with the sour stench of sex traded for prime publicity ops. Sodding scumbag.

She’d left him on the beach in California and she’d never looked back.

Laci was not like her mom. Everything she had, she’d earned. And now here she was at Girls Go Banzai, a competition that she’d only dreamed about, and certainly hadn’t hoped to achieve so soon. And, as Drea had said, XtremeSportNet saw potential in her, when they picked her as the Banzai wild card, and she was going to make sure they also saw a star.

Of course, for that to happen, she had to get up off this beach. And right at this moment, with the sun beating down on her, that seemed like the hardest thing in the world.

With a sigh, she wriggled deeper into the sand and said a silent thank-you that the first heat of the competition was still weeks away. JC was right—even though they had work to do in these upcoming weeks, relaxation was definitely on the agenda. Laci loved Hawaii, and although she intended to practice within an inch of her life, she also wanted to chill. Because in the end, the stereotypes were true: a laid-back, loose surfer would do way better in competition than a surfer wound tight as a spring.

And the news of Taylor’s possible presence on the island had definitely wound her up.

She just needed a few more minutes to let the sun and sand work their magic on her muscles.

Feeling utterly decadent, she arched her foot, then pressed her toes under the top layer of warm sand to the cool, wet mush below. The change in temperature shot through her, and that combined with the warm sun on her belly and breasts sent a sensual trill through her body.

She breathed deeply, enjoying the sensation and enjoying more the fact that she’d gotten here on her own. Taylor Dutton might have been an A-1 ass, but she’d kicked him firmly to the curb. She was here on this island in this competition because she’d earned it. Earned this sand. Earned this chance. And she intended to enjoy it.

“Heaven,” she whispered, her word coming out on a soft breath.

“Looks like it from here,” came the response in a deep, masculine drawl filled with Southern charm and ripe amusement.

Laci’s eyes flew open, and she found herself staring up into the ice-blue gaze of the one man she’d hoped never to see again.

The man who’d screwed her over.

The man who’d ruined her reputation.

And yes, the man she’d once loved with all her heart and soul.

Taylor Dutton.