Tropical Holiday Tails - Zoe Chant Page 0,3

that a mere roof served as plenty of protection.

Julie was looking up at the stars as she walked, listening to the white-noise of the water features, trying to memorize all of it. This would be a beautiful memory to cherish someday in the future.

Then she realized that there was already somebody sitting in front of the book exchange shelf. She frowned, not eager to share the quiet joy of picking out a new book with a stranger, and then caught her breath as she realized that it was him.

One bank of the bar lights was switched on, a row of spotlights that did little to illuminate the space. But it lit up Lars’s blond head, and the broad expanse of his shoulders.

Inside, her caribou gave a caper of excitement and urged her to approach.

Fear rooted Julie to the spot.

Before she could decide between obeying her animal’s fascination with the stranger or her own urge to flee before he noticed her, Lars looked up, directly at her.

It wasn’t something he heard—the noise of the waterfalls into the pool below drowned out all the quiet sounds of the night—but something caught Lars’s attention and he felt compelled to look around.

She was standing in the shadows just beyond the puddle of lights from the empty bar, but Lars would know her curvy figure anywhere, in any light at all. The moonlight behind her turned her silhouette to silver.

Julie.

He scrambled to his feet and stood there uncertainly for a long moment as they stared across the space between them.

He wasn’t sure who started moving first, but they met at a half-lit table halfway between, gazing hungrily at each other. Lars’s heart hammered in his chest, and he tried to make sense of what his moose was insisting.

If he’d been drawn to Julie before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. He belonged to her, he was utterly, wholly hers. There wasn’t a language in the world that could encompass how complete she made him feel, at least no language for tongues.

Then she nervously licked her lips, and Lars thought maybe it was a language for tongues.

Her gaze flickered down. “Are you reading that?” she asked breathlessly, and Lars looked helplessly down at the book in his hands.

War and Peace.

“I have already,” he said, not sure why he wasn’t kissing her. “But the Russian version.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “You read Russian?”

“Da,” Lars said. “And German. And a little French. In case I got drafted to a Canadian team.”

She blinked in surprise.

“Julie…” Lars didn’t know where to go from there.

“You…know my name?” She said it full of wonder. “I never thought you noticed me.”

How could I not? Lars should have said. I never noticed anyone except you. Or maybe, You are the only thing in my world now.

Instead, not wanting to seem like a stalker, he desperately said, “Your name is on your pyjamas.”

Julie looked down at herself in sudden consternation, the blush that rose in her cheeks obvious even in the dim light.

“Oh, I…of course. I didn’t think anyone would be up. It wasn’t…I should have changed…I was just coming to find a book.”

Lars wanted to gather her into his arms and kiss away her confusion; it took all of his willpower not to.

“You like to read,” he observed.

“Yeah,” she said shyly, pushing her glasses up on her face. “Tom keeps teasing me about coming to an exotic tropical island to do the same thing I’d do at home.”

“But it’s a nicer place to do it, yes?”

Julie gave a low, musical laugh. It was a sound that Lars wanted to coax from her again. “Much nicer,” she agreed.

“Where are you from?” Lars asked. He wanted to know everything about her.

“Montana,” Julie said. “You?”

“Sweden—er, New York now,” he said swiftly. “I am American soon.” It didn’t feel quite true yet. Should he explain that he had been drafted for professional hockey? He wanted desperately to impress her. But he still hadn’t remembered the word for professional, and kept forgetting to look it up on his phone when the rocky resort connection was working.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Sweden,” Julie said wistfully. “It sounds beautiful.”

You’re beautiful, Lars wanted to say.

She was, with her not-blonde, not-brown hair soft around her face. Her eyes were huge and blue behind her glasses, and her pajamas did nothing to hide the entrancing curves of her figure. She was smiling, slowly and shyly, as they talked. He wanted to kiss her, so badly. His moose was encouraging