The Big Break. Cara Lockwood

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      KAI OFFERED TO take Jun’s bag, but it was clear by her expression that she wasn’t going to let it go. She stood there looking uncertain, clutching her boy’s hand, and he wondered for a minute if she was actually not glad to see him. He wasn’t used to cool welcomes. Po, however, didn’t disappoint.

      “Kai!” the little boy cried, his voice pure joy as he whipped his tiny hand free of his mother’s grasp and ran to him. Surprised that the boy even remembered him after all these months, he grinned. The boy charged straight to Kai, arms wide. Po’s enthusiasm was infectious as Kai instinctively picked him up and swung him in the air, causing him to squeal in delight.

      “Good to see you, Po!” Kai said, and meant it. Seeing him happy and healthy meant something. It reminded him how precious life was. In this moment of pure joy, Kai didn’t think surfing even mattered. He wondered why he had stayed away from Po for so long. The elation on his innocent face warmed Kai’s heart. He felt better than he had in months.

      Kai caught the disapproving look on Jun’s face and put Po down, suddenly noticing how much the boy had grown in a year. He’d lost some of the baby fat he’d carried then. His dark hair was shorter, but the devious smile on his lips as his mother whispered something in his ear was exactly the same. In his hand, he clutched a plastic Spider-Man figure, and he was dressed nearly head to toe in clothes depicting the web slinger.

      Thinking back to the tsunami, Kai remembered Elmo tennis shoes as the boy scrambled up the stairs to the second floor of the day-care building just seconds before the first wave hit. Kai could hear the loud chest-thumping roar of the wave even now, could feel it reverberating in his bones.

      “I have a poster of you in my room!” Po exclaimed, breathless. “You’re like this!” Po mimicked a surfing pose.

      “A poster, huh?” Kai glanced over at Jun.

      “He saw it at the store and wouldn’t let us leave until I promised to get it for his birthday,” Jun admitted as she juggled the beach bag, a bottle of water and a clipboard.

      “Can I take that?” Kai again offered to take the bag, but she resisted, moving her shoulder away from him.

      “I’m fine,” she said, tightly, like a woman who didn’t want help. She probably didn’t like men who opened doors, either. Stubborn and independent, he could tell. Yet the obstinate set of her chin just made her look even prettier, a fact she’d probably hate to know. “Can I...uh, we...help you? I’ve got a class here...” She nodded anxiously down at the modest crowd milling about in the shade of palm trees on the beach.

      “That’s why I’m here.”

      Jun looked at Kai as if he’d grown horns. He wanted to check to make sure his hair wasn’t doing something strange. She cocked her head to one side, her dark ponytail flowing down one pale shoulder as her brown eyes studied him, confused.

      “Your free class?” He held up her business card between two fingers and then her face lit up in recognition.

      It had been on a whim he’d even come, but after Gretchen had quit, he’d been at loose ends. The card she’d given him had felt like serendipity.

      Gretchen’s words still ricocheted around his head. It’s not me who’s quitting. It’s you.

      He knew she was right, and yet he didn’t know how to snap out of it, or he would. He glanced at the beach, at the people there in loose-fitting shorts, waiting on class to start. Part of him hoped Tai Chi would help him. But deep down, he knew Tai Chi wouldn’t replace Gretchen’s grueling training sessions. Tai Chi wasn’t the answer, but it was a way to spend the afternoon that didn’t involve heading to a tourist bar and seducing another hotel guest, which he thought had to be an improvement.

      Unless it involved seducing a beautiful Tai Chi instructor instead.

      He glanced at her fitted leggings and her bare toned calves. Yes, he wouldn’t mind that at all.

      “Oh...yes, of course.” Her demeanor changed. “I didn’t expect you today, but you’re welcome to stay. Although today might not be the best class. Po, uh...is usually at day care, but...”

      “I bit my teacher!” Po exclaimed, in the blunt honesty of a four-year-old.

      “You bit your teacher!” Kai echoed, surprised. “Why?”

      Kai saw Jun wince.

      “She wanted to throw me in the pool!”

      “But I thought you liked to swim,” Kai said, remembering how amazed he had been at the then-three-year-old’s advanced dog-paddling skills in the flood after the tsunami. They’d saved him. The boy’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head slowly side to side. Kai got a feeling then that there was more going on with Po than his mother had let on when she’d dropped by his house. The look СКАЧАТЬ