Read Sins of the Flesh (Half-Breed Series Book 2) for Free Online Page B

I don’t need to be back until dinner.”
    Her dark eyes danced, and with a nimble push, she was off the car hood and climbing into the driver’s seat. “How do you feel about fish burgers?”
    I slid into the seat beside her. “I feel like I want to eat one.”
    She grinned, and there was a spark of heat in her eyes. “Good, because we’re going to Paia.”
    Paia was a one-street town. In fact, I think it might have been a one-block town. Little mom-and-pop shops lined the main street. Every outlet seemed to sell locally sourced organic products. The tiny town had a hippy-funky-surfer-dude feel to it.
    “Lots of celebrities come to Maui.” Kai parked the Jeep. “We have laws that prohibit paparazzi, so it’s not uncommon to see Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Oprah Winfrey, or Steven Tyler. Heck, the CEO of Oracle owns one of our islands.”
    What was this place, Monaco? I shifted on the seat, uncomfortable with the thought of someone actually owning an entire island in the U.S. I got the feeling Maui had been chopped up and auctioned off. Water rights. Industry. Land. Where was the public interest in all of this?
    Climbing out of the Jeep, we stood in front of a nondescript one-story building on a street corner. From first glance, Fish Market Restaurant looked like a butcher shop or small grocery.
    Inside wasn’t awe inspiring either. Long wooden tables with shark-tooth inlay lined the dining area in neat rows. I sat on the hard wooden bench facing a chalkboard menu that hung over a kitchen pass-through, under which sat a veritable hedge of brilliant Birds of Paradise plants. Kai faced the other way. Twisting about, I saw a wall lined with huge paintings and photos of eclectic sea-themed characters. Stuffed fish dangled from the ceiling, and I squinted at them, wondering if they were real or not.
    “Ono or Mahi?” Kai asked.
    “Huh?” I replied intelligently.
    “Two Ono burgers and two drafts,” she told the waiter. “Ono means ‘sweet and good’.” She told me. “It’s a firm fish, mild but with a distinct flavor so it doesn’t need a ton of spices. On the mainland, they call it ‘wahoo’.”
    Wahoo. I’d occasionally encountered it in restaurants in Maryland, although it was more common in Florida and the Caribbean. I was eager to try it, putting myself in Kai’s capable hands as my island expert. Once the fish burger arrived, I forgot all about celebrities owning homes here, my disastrous attempts at paddleboarding, and environmental issues. It was good — very good. This fish burger put Kobo beef to shame. I tried to eat at a moderate pace and shove my demon-self aside for some elven manners.
    “So, you own Dreamwaves?” I asked.
    “Oh, Lord no.” Kai laughed. “The owners are really nice, though. They’ve got contracts with quite a few of the resorts on Maui. I’m just a lowly employee. Aaron and I handle the Sarafina Resort. He does scuba and snorkeling, where I do parasailing, surfing, paddleboarding, and ocean kayaking.”
    “How’d you get stuck with all that?”
    She sighed. “There’s a lot more snorkeling and scuba. Most of what I get is surfing with a few of the others thrown in here and there. I help him out if he gets too booked, but it’s a pretty overall.”
    “Sounds like a dream job.”
    “Tell my mother that.” She grimaced. “My brother and I are both disappointments. I hang on the beach all day, and he pays the bills by supplementing his firefighter’s income with odd jobs. Not exactly the doctors and lawyers Mom wanted.”
    “Do you like it? Your job, I mean?”
    Her eyes met mine, and I saw contentment in their depths. “Yeah, I do. I really do. I can’t imagine doing anything else and being this happy.”
    “Good. Life is too short to do shit you hate.” It was, especially for humans. We sat for a few moments in silence.
    “So... thesis, huh? Are you going to be Doctor Amber by summer?”
    “Hardly. It’s my undergraduate degree. I thought about