Page 7 of One Kind Soul

Chapter Two

“Hey . . . wait a minute.” Nicole picked up her phone from the table beside the checkerboard. She tapped the screen then looked from the man sitting across from her to the screen and back to the man. “Aren’t you my ride?”

The picture Tessa had sent her didn’t do this guy justice, but it was clearly him. In the photo, he had unruly black hair, but this guy with her now had much shorter hair. The blue eyes on both the picture dude and the in-person dude, however, solidified his identity. They were a Hawaiian sky blue and Nicole suddenly had the urge to see him on a Kauai beach in nothing but swimming trunks. From the way he filled out his gray T-shirt, she’d bet her waitressing paycheck he looked amazing without his shirt on.

“I am your ride.” He extended a hand over the checkerboard. “Christian Henley.”

That hand was big and those fingers suggested strength. The moment Nicole’s hand slid against his palm and the rough skin there scraped along hers, her libido took note. It’d been a while since her libido took note of anything. The last guy she’d fooled around with had been a dude she’d known in high school that she’d hooked up with when visiting her parents at Christmas. They’d enjoyed two weeks together, but when it was time for Nicole to go back to Hawaii, High School Guy washed his hands of her. If Nicole was being honest, they’d had fun, but he wasn’t the type of guy a girl rerouted her life for.

So she hadn’t. Then she’d steered clear of any new relationships, preferring instead to miss Tessa terribly and work excessively at The Nalu Resort to keep herself too busy to think.

But she was thinking now with Christian Henley sitting across from her.

“Nicole Travers,” she managed to say as they shook hands.

He offered her a smile and she quickly diverted her attention to the checkerboard. Tessa had told her Christian was a flirt. With a smile like the one she’d witnessed, he probably didn’t even have to use words.

“Ready to have your ass kicked, Nicki?” Christian set up the red checkers on his side of the board.

“It’s Nicole.”

Those blue eyes flicked up to look at her and she almost told him to call her whatever he wanted. “But Nicki sounds more fun.”

“So does Chrissy.”

His lips turned up at the corners. “Call me Chrissy. I don’t care. I’m secure enough in my manhood.” He sat up a bit straighter in his chair, his T-shirt stretching against his chest muscles and providing way too much distraction. In fact, Nicole was pretty sure a female patron behind her used the words hot cowboy to refer to him.

Nicole angled her head to study him. While he didn’t wear a literal cowboy hat, his T-shirt and the slight scruff around his mouth did give him an outdoorsy vibe that could be considered cowboyesque. Picturing him atop a horse wasn’t that difficult.

And why did she immediately picture herself behind him on that horse, her arms wrapped around his waist?

Shaking her head slightly, she said, “One game and then let’s hit the road.” She desperately wanted to get to Tessa.

“Okay.” Christian rubbed his hands together. “Reigning champ should go first.”

Nicole made her initial move and the game progressed, but her concentration was shot. She’d beat the other patrons in the pub in mere minutes, using the least amount of moves possible. It’d been child’s play, but Christian played more strategically, often making moves she hadn’t seen coming.

“She’s not creaming this guy,” the red-headed dude she’d beaten before Christian showed up said.

“He might actually win,” the woman who had called Christian a hot cowboy said.

These comments made Nicole recommit to the game. It shouldn’t matter that Christian was more attractive than pretty much anyone in that pub right now. Perhaps more attractive than anyone in Boston. She always won at checkers.

Always.

Only a few pieces remained on the board and the winning confidence Nicole usually sported while playing checkers dissipated each moment Christian stayed alive in the game.

“Is that sweat I see on your forehead there, Nicki?” Christian asked.

Nicole shook her head. “Nope. You must have sweat in your eyes, Chrissy.”

He laughed a pleasant, raspy sound, making Nicole picture him sitting on a log fence rail, faded jeans molding to sturdy legs as horses milled about in a paddock behind him.

Hot cowboy indeed.

This hot cowboy was going to win if she didn’t focus and she didn’t want to let down all the onlookers who had been cheering her on even when she’d beaten them all. Yeah, it was only checkers, but checkers was usually something that went right in her life. She wasn’t going to let Christian ruin her streak.

Nicole concentrated on the board. She ignored the crowd around them. She blocked out Christian’s hand as he moved his pieces and focused on the moves themselves. She let those red and black squares guide her and suddenly . . . her path to victory revealed itself.