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She cut me off. “I don’t need you to buy me a new bike—my sponsor will handle that—and I’ve no interest in bringing charges, so calm your tits, will you?”

I was thrown by the implication she didn’t want anything from me. “Then, uh…”

Apparently, she understood my confusion. “I was only calling to apologize about Kyle. He can get carried away sometimes.”

“Oh.” I uncurled my toes from the carpet. Despite what a douche bag her boyfriend had been, it didn’t feel right that she was apologizing. I was the one who’d hit her, after all. “I—um, it’s fine, really. I mean, he must have been really scared for you…”

“Nah,” she saved me from my rambling, “he can just be a real arsehole. But listen—instead of blathering on, and talk oflawyers and all that tosh, why don’t you meet me for a pint? We can shake hands on it, call it a day, and go our way. I owe you that much for Kyle’s bullshit and you owe me as much for introducing me to the hood of your car.”

“I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t owe me anything, and I, well, getting a drink with the woman I’d run over seemed… odd. I half wondered if she was playing a joke on me. If she’d convince me to meet her somewhere, and then have a good laugh with her boyfriend while I stood around looking like an idiot waiting for her to arrive.

But it didn’t seem like it. There was a directness to her—a candidness that didn’t feel contrived. If she was pulling a fast one, she was a better actress than I’d ever be.

“Okay,” I said tentatively. “Where?”

Two hours later, I found myself waiting by the trickling fountain in front of the hotel lobby, where a blanket of water irises covered the black pond. I was twenty minutes early, and felt antsy, shifting from foot to foot, fiddling with my keys. Why had I agreed to this? What if she brought that asshole with her? How would I politely excuse myself and tell her I’d changed my mind?

Five minutes before our allotted meeting time, I finally decided to bail. I was going to get back to my room and call her, apologizing that something had come up and I couldn’t make it. But before I could make my getaway, she came strolling up the footpath from the seaside bungalow suites that fell way out of my price range.

“Alright,” she greeted, one hand lifted in a half wave, the other still stuffed into the pocket of her baggy black joggers, her bright coral sneakers scuffing along the asphalt, “how are we?”

Without her cussing at me, I found I liked the lilt of her accent. It was subtle, different. English, maybe, but I wasn’t sure. I offered a wave in return, trying not to stare at the purplebruising and scabbed gravel rash her white tank top left on display.

“Hi.” I forced myself to look away from the mess I’d made of her arm and cringed when I saw she also had a pretty rank black eye.

Smiling at my alarm, she jerked her thumb toward her face. “Sorry, but you don’t get credit for this one. Hazard of the job, I’m afraid.”

I nodded. Whatever that meant.

She stuck out her hand. “Dillon Sinclair.”

“Kam.” I faltered. “Kameryn.” As I shook her hand, I became overtly aware of my sweaty palms. I don’t know why I was so nervous. Maybe it was a reaction to her easy confidence. The way she assessed me behind her placid gaze.

“Well, Kam-Kameryn,” her smile lifted at only one corner of her mouth, dimples appearing, “mind if we take your ride?”

I hadn’t really expected we’d be going anywhere. There was a bar at the resort—the kind with thirty-dollar cocktails for a bobbing slice of pineapple and a splash of bottom-shelf liquor. But she was alone, with no jerk-of-a-boyfriend in sight, so I decided I didn’t mind. “Sure.” It took me a beat too long to realize she was waiting for me to hand her my keys. “Oh,” I said, placing them reluctantly in her palm. “It’s a rental.”

God, I was stupid. Of course she knew it was a rental.Ninety-percent of this island was driving a rental.

“I’ll be certain not to hit anyone.” She winked, closing her fingers around the fob, and then we were in my Jeep, cruising down Hana Highway, and unbeknownst to me I was just beginning to experience the tip of the iceberg that was the wild adventure of Dillon Sinclair.

We turned south, away from the small town of Hana and the few restaurants dotting the northern stretch of road headingtoward Kahului. I figured we were heading for Mokae Cove—I’d seen a tiny restaurant on the way to Dani’s ceremony—but we drove straight past the turn-off without so much as a glance at the hand-carved Huli Huli sign. I wasn’t an expert on the local geography, but I’d been pretty certain the chicken shack was the last bit of civilization before the multi-hour backroad trek to Kula. The longer we wound around the bumpy road—away from the resort—the more I began to wonder if, with my impeccable luck, I’d somehow managed to run over the only serial killer cyclist on Maui. Leave it to me to make it simple for her to drive me to an isolated beach and extract her revenge.

But if she was a psychopath, she was one who appeared to have a great sense of dry humor, and an affability that managed to put everything about the evening at ease. I guess if I was going to die by homicide, this wasn’t the worst way to go.

We didn’t chat much. I learned quickly she wasn’t one for small talk, and I somehow managed to keep myself from prattling on, a habit I had when nervous. Despite working in entertainment, I had a tendency to be shy, but for some reason, my timidity dwindled as the Jeep bounced along the coastal highway. Part of it was the complete carefreeness about her, the way she seemed so comfortable in her own skin. She wasn’t looking to impress me—or even befriend me, as far as I could tell—which was so different than everyone I met in Hollywood. The nature of my career meant the circles I traveled in tended to always be looking for an opportunity. A leg up. A favor. Anin. We all wanted something from each other—and in turn, were willing to kiss ass, to brown-nose, to lay it on thick, pretending to be whoever we thought the other person wanted to see.

That wasn’t Dillon. She appeared to live at face value. And regardless of my earlier concerns that she might be luring me to my death, I found myself settling in for the drive, content with her explanation that she ‘knew a tidy place’ but it was ‘offthe beaten path.’ So we drove on, the windows rolled down, her humming to the radio as we cruised along the vistas overlooking the endless stretch of Pacific Ocean.

“Now then,” said Dillon, breaking our companionable silence as she suddenly turned off the highway onto a single-lane road heading toward the sea, “bloke in here can waffle on forever, but he’s an alright guy. The nosh is fair, but the view makes the drive worthwhile, promise.”

“How’d you ever come across this place?” I ventured to ask as she parked in front of a ramshackle hut that looked as if it may have already been past its golden era when King Pi’ilani conquered the island in the sixteenth century. There was no sign, no other cars in the narrow strip of dirt serving as a parking lot, and no indication anyone living had graced its threshold in the last four hundred years.

“I’ve run here a time or two.”

She’drunhere? I didn’t know exactly how far we’d driven, but we’d been on the road well over half an hour. I wouldn’t have made it a quarter of the hilly distance on a bike, let alone on foot. It explained a bit of how incredibly fit she was.

Before I could comment, the cockeyed door was thrown open, and the massive figure of a heavily tattooed man filled the entire threshold.