White Ginger Read Free

road. From the directions, the cabin should be a quarter mile along that dirt track. She walked back and checked the map, before dragging her suitcase and the brown bag containing the fridge groceries out of the trunk. She couldn’t carry more than that.
    “Shoulders back, one foot in front of the other,” she told herself. “You can do it, girl.”
    She’d walked barely fifty meters when a horn beeped and a vehicle pulled up behind her.
    Thank goodness.
    She turned, readying a smile for the good Samaritan. The man from the grocery store emerged from the jeep.
    “Well, what a pleasant surprise.” He smiled at her. “Need some help?”
    Amelie dropped her bags and tried not to grin like an idiot. That she should be rescued in this out of the way place was good, but that her rescuer should be the gorgeous man she had been daydreaming about was unbelievably good luck.
    “Yes, please. This piece of rental junk has given up the ghost and I just want to get to my cabin and go to bed. It’s been a very long day.”
    He checked over the engine before pronouncing it past hope, and then lifted her suitcase and groceries easily into the back of his jeep. Night fell as he helped her into the passenger seat.
    “Anything else you need from the gray beast?” His even white smile set her heart racing again.
    “No, thanks, unless you’ve a gun to put it out of its misery?”
    He grinned at her levity in a time of frustration. “Did you get it from Hertz at the airport?”
    “Unfortunately, yes. Oh, I’d better get the hire brochure out of the glove compartment. It’s got all the details I’ll need to make a claim.”
    She hurried back to the little car and fumbled in the glove box before carefully locking the doors. “Now why would I bother to lock it? Anyone is welcome to it.” She grinned ruefully.
    He grinned back at her. “I know the Hertz owner, Jimi. If you like, I’ll contact him tomorrow. He’ll sort it out double time for you. By the way, I’m Arne, Arne Keloki.” He held out his hand. She shook it, unprepared for the little shock that ran through her body at the contact, yet enjoying the feel of him.
    “Amelie McKenzie.”
    “Scottish name, Australian accent?” He raised an eyebrow.
    “And a French grandmother thrown into the mix,” she added. “I’m a bitsa.”
    “A what?” His right eyebrow rose again.
    “You know, bits of this and bits of that. A bitsa.” She chuckled. “I guess it’s an Australian saying. It’s a colorful language at times.”
    “So, where to?”
    He turned off the bitumen at the spot she had decided was her road.
    Amazing. My sense of direction is still intact .
    The jeep bounced along a dirt track lined with close-growing palms whose fronds all but blocked out the stars. Arne eased the jeep to a standstill in a clearing and the view opened up. Amelie’s heart hammered with joy. A nearly full moon hung low in the sky, lighting a path across the water to the cliff where they now sat, silently appreciative of the beauty of the scene spread out before them. Could this really be hers for the next three months?
    She drew in a long, slow breath. “What a beautiful sight.”
    “Indeed it is.”
    She turned from the beautiful vista to meet his gaze. Arms crossed atop the steering wheel, his attention was squarely on her. Heat crept up her cheeks. She looked around for something, anything, to divert his attention from her obvious embarrassment. Moonlight cast a glow over a cabin to their left.
    “Is this my cabin? How wonderful.” Fascinated, she looked over the small wooden structure as she climbed out of Arne’s jeep.
    A miniature plantation style building with verandas around two sides faced the south overlooking the sea. Three shallow wooden steps gave access to the middle of the veranda. And to the left of the steps, almost aglow in the full moonlight, was a Hawaiian white ginger bush.
    “Oh, my favorite.” She leaned into the gleaming white bloom, savoring the heady