HIGH TIDE Read Free Page A

her parents.
    After nearly twenty years, their faces never faded. Her father, Thomas Holt, the strong lieutenant at Kaneohe’s Marine Corps Base, and her Mother, Maria, the teacher at the Haiku Road Middle School. Maria Holt was a woman with exotic eyes that hinted at Polynesian influence. People often told Briana that her high cheekbones and striking features were the mirror image of her mother, and that the sun-streaked hair and rapt azure gaze distinctly intimated her father. At one time, the pain over their absence was devastating, but years had passed and left her with only a hollow sense of loss.
    As the sun dipped into the Pacific, Briana’s reflection was cast back from the fluorescent light in the empty corridor. Her face was in shadows, her meditative expression concealed by the dim glow behind her. She recounted the events of the past month, searching for any mistake, any chance that she had inadvertently damaged the integrity of the nearby beaches. But she kept coming up empty .
    Why had she been so quick to believe Nick McCord? Was she that much of a masochist that she doomed her achievement before it ever came to fruition?
    With her eyes closed, a brief image of the tall geologist formed. A tanned face with a strong jaw , and an intense gaze that could paralyze a person with the briefest perusal. His body was lean and strong, an observation that was confirmed when the wind molded his shirt to his chest. Briana had been left helplessly staring as he unjustly berated her.
    Well, next time they met the roles would be reversed. She would be in control. Nick McCord was no longer attractive to her. Instead, when she conjured up his face, she formed the image of an adversary .
    She peered out over the black ocean, where a sparkling cruise ship lumbered peacefully past the lights of Waikiki. Beyond it, she studied the dark void, unaware that only a mile offshore, the sea floor churned. It erupted in soft recurrent swells. Tiny flares, doggedly assaulting the coast.
    ***   
    Seated on the edge of the lanai, Nick’s legs dangled over a drifting mound of sand. The ocean was discerned only by its placid splash against the shore, a shimmering strip beneath the moon.
    Nick lifted a bottle of beer to his lips, but forgot to sip. His thoughts were monopolized by the initial results of the tests he ran today. It made no sense . There were traces of sediment from a coral reef far off shore that couldn’t have been disturbed without human interference. The only likely candidate for that interference had to be the new housing development going up in Kaneohe.
    Unwillingly, this thought triggered images of the stunning contractor. First on his agenda for the morning was to pay a visit to Moku Land Inc. and apply more pressure on Briana Holt, and anyone else within that firm that could shed light on the erosion of the northern tip of Manale Beach. He had already appealed to the Marine Corps Base, and was satisfied that none of their research ventures produced the damage he had witnessed.
    That left only Briana Holt’s project as the primary suspect.
    Nick rested his head back against one of the wooden columns that suspended the roof over his porch. Finally, he took a swig of beer.
    Glossy blond hair, endless legs, striking azure eyes and soft lips that looked entirely too kissable were not going to thwart his efforts. It was his responsibility to ensure the quality of Hawaii’s water and to preserve the natural beauty of its coastline. The fact that he had not been with a woman in well over a year wasn’t going to make him any less sharp.
    It was a damn shame, though. A damn shame that the woman he had met on the beach today, the woman who entranced him with her wary reaction, the woman whose golden hair was whisked into silky waves by the coastal breeze—it was a damn shame that she had to be chin-deep in the very project he was about to take down.
    But power-play women weren’t his thing. Been there, done that. Yeah, he