Free Caribbean Cowboy: Under the Caribbean Sun, Book 4 by Jenna Bayley-Burke Page B

happened in Alaska would stay in Alaska.
    She knew better than to get attached, to try and make the memories of a beautiful weekend into more. She wanted to get to know Nik, to indulge in more fantasies with him, to figure out exactly why she’d let him take her places she’d never dared before. But those were all romanticized notions from her reading obsession.
    Thank goodness, she was getting the hell off this rock. Distance would surely shut this down, and she could go back to her regularly scheduled life with no scars, just decadent memories. If she stayed longer, there was no way she’d get out unscathed. The man knew he could have his way with her, at any time and in any way. That kind of vulnerability was dangerous.
    “Are you feeling okay?” Kristin asked as she settled into the seat across the aisle.
    “Fine, why?” They were used to the small planes of interisland travel, but this tin can pushed the limits. Not to mention how landing on this rock had felt like falling out of the sky.
    “You seem…I don’t know, preoccupied. Please tell me it has to do with Holly’s brother.”
    “What are you talking about?” She usually liked talking with Kristin on planes, but this flight was going to require her ereader, and possibly a marriage of convenience. Or a royal wedding. She needed brain candy, stat.
    “Nik, you know, the guy you left the reception with? He’s gorgeous, if tall, dark and handsome does it for you.”
    Janny nearly dropped the device. “But Holly’s brothers are fishermen.”
    “The older ones. Nik is a rancher and Val is in medical school. It was in the wedding program.”
    Which she hadn’t read because she’d been looking for a bad-boy biker and avoiding Sebastian. Fantastic. She couldn’t even manage to have a fling right.
    “You didn’t know he was her brother?” Kristin leaned across the aisle as two more people climbed aboard. “Did you sleep with him?”
    “What are you talking about?” Her mind blinked a bright-red deny signal.
    “You left the reception with Nik, and now you’re all out of sorts. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math.”
    “I left with Nik to get away from Sebastian. And if you must know, I’m hung over. You know I don’t drink. The Prinsens bring it out in me.” She never kept things from Kristin, but what had gone down with Nik was too…well, too damned much to explain. Especially since he was Holly’s brother.
    Which made it even harder to reduce him to some vacation indiscretion. Damn it.
    “That’s too bad. I was hoping that maybe…”
    Janny shot her a glare that read cease and desist.
    “Fine, I get it. No sparks with Nik Hansen. What about any of her other brothers?”
    “I couldn’t tell one from the other.” She hadn’t bothered to think of them that way. They were Holly’s brothers and therefore, not holiday-fun material. She would have avoided Nik if she’d known.
    “One of these days, you’re going to find a man who blows your mind.”
    Been there, done that, and apparently, he was their best friend’s brother. Bitchcakes. She cleared her throat. “I’m much more interested in a Prinsen-free week. In fact, let’s make a pact. No talk of men at all.” She wiggled her pinkie until Kristin caught it with hers.
    “Fine. We can talk about my wedding instead.”
    Nik leaned back into the weather-worn Adirondack chair on his parents’ deck. He’d headed out here with a cup of his mother’s cinnamon coffee to watch Janny’s plane leave. Now the coffee was gone and so was she.
    He’d planned on taking a couple of days to ride back to Oregon, but now that much time alone with his thoughts seemed too daunting, dangerous even. He’d had a life plan for as long as he could remember. And two days with Janny had him rethinking.
    He wanted to follow her, the woman, not the fantasy. Everything about their time together felt otherworldly and unfinished. He never left a job undone.
    “I knew I’d find you here.”