Mistletoe in Paradise (Wildstone #5.5) - Jill Shalvis Page 0,9

to have?”

“It’s your dad. So yeah, probably.”

Hannah found another laugh in her, and apparently James did, too, and as she soaked up the sight of his quick smile, she had to remind herself not to even think about falling for him again. Been there, done that, and it had been more than enough heartbreak for a lifetime.

Chapter 4

James held out a hand to Hannah and tugged her up, and okay, maybe into him just a little bit. But hell, no one had ever accused him of being smart when it came to matters of the heart. Even so, for that brief moment when she was off-balance and against him, his world stopped spinning.

And he’d like to think that little hitch in her breath meant she felt the same. Which was bad because that meant that neither of them was thinking straight, always dangerous when it came to dealing with Hannah.

She cleared her throat. “James . . .”

“Captain called,” he said, and gestured for her to climb down first. Not, it should be noted, because he was a gentleman, but because if he had to watch her ass for that agonizing thirty-second climb down as he had on the way up, he wasn’t sure he could keep his hands to himself.

They found Harry waiting on the aft deck, Santa hat firmly in place on top of his head, hands on hips.

“Dad?” Hannah moved to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, which is a damn good thing. If it’d been a fire or some other emergency, you’d both be toast. Need to put a hitch in your giddyup, kiddos. The day’s a-wasting.”

Hannah blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Harry gestured dramatically behind him, where for the first time James realized they were within sight of the small private island that had been their Day Two stop on every trip he’d ever made on this ship. The island belonged to a friend of Harry’s, who allowed him to use it for his guests to play on. James and his family had spent a lot of time on that tiny little oasis of sand and bluffs, his mom and dad sitting on the shoreline reading or snoozing, or just watching James and Jason and Hannah go full-out in competitive spirit at whatever they’d been up to. They’d snorkeled here, played Nerf football on the beach, climbed palm trees, and raced to the top of the bluffs to jump into the water far below . . .

So many adventures, and all of them had not only shaped James’s childhood but had also fueled him to want more adventures from such an early age. It was the reason he’d finally, a year after Jason’s death, started his own expedition company. He and a select group of people he’d hired worked as travel guides, taking groups out on adventures, specializing in high-end extreme vacations.

Just this year, his company had finally started to take off in a big way and he needed, wanted, to dedicate his time to it.

Which was why he was here. He, too, needed to talk to his dad. He’d tried a bunch of times over the past few years, but his dad, brilliant and stubborn, had managed to evade any real decision. James suspected he knew what his son wanted to talk to him about—leaving the family business for his own. So it was with no other choice that he’d come here, away from work, to get his dad’s full attention. What better way than being stuck on a boat together for three to four days with no other distractions?

But he hadn’t expected the biggest distraction of them all—Hannah.

“You two take the dinghy,” Harry said. “Sally and I will be right behind you on the inflatable. Set up for the day while you’re at it, huh? What?” he asked at Hannah’s dry look. “Gotta earn your keep, Smalls. This is a no-dough-earned trip for me. I let Hugo and Mateo have the week off. But even with that, my baby costs big bucks to keep running. There’s no such thing as a free ride. Or a free anything.”

“Which is why you should’ve turned around when I asked,” Hannah said.

“Maybe I wanted to give you a Christmas gift, too.”

While Hannah looked to be trying to find a comeback for that, James tugged her to the dinghy, hoping to avoid having a fight.

“Are you serious?” she asked him when they were alone.

“Would you rather stay on board all day and scrub the decks?”

He figured the point was made when she