Page 27 of Two Tickets to Paradise

"Yep! That's mine!"

Vince set his duffel down and grabbed the handle of the bag, smiling at the multicolored yarn pompom on the handle. When he turned around and set it at her feet, she put her hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks. I could have gotten it."

"Harrumph."

Vince almost burst out laughing, but managed to hold it in. "Happy to get it for you. Did you check in anything else?"

She shook her head and craned her neck to look at the conveyor belt. "What does your bag look like?"

Vince gestured at the duffel he set down at his feet. "This is it."

"That's all that you brought with you?"

Cameron's laugh was just a snort of sound. "He's a guy. What does he need to bring to Hawaii?"

Cora smiled at Vince and looked up at her brother. "You're right. All he really needed was a skimpy Speedo and a t-shirt."

Cameron tensed beside his sister and Vince took a moment to remember where his medical card was.

And then Cora lifted her hand and gave Cameron's stomach a pat with her hand. "Calm down, Cam-bot. Vince is a nice guy. No need to turn into Terminator mode. He's not going to put me in any danger and you," she gave Cameron's stomach a couple of pats and her smile brightened, "aren't going to put him in any danger."

Cameron's phone pinged and he fished his phone out of his pocket, keeping an eye on Vince. His gaze dipped down to the phone screen before he answered it. "Yeah?" He slid a side-ways look at his sister and smiled, making Vince smile at him in turn.

"I've got her and her..." Cameron gave Vince a pointed look, "baggage. Meet me outside where you dropped me off."

Before Cameron could reach for Cora's bag, Vince wrapped his hand around the handle. "You two go ahead. I'll bring the bags."

Cameron nodded and gave him a grudging head nod that said Vince wasn't a complete asshole before heading for the exit.

Vince followed behind them, rolling Cora's suitcase beside him. He smiled at the whole scene. He couldn't believe that he was actually in Hawaii with a woman he'd met less than twelve hours before.

As the double doors slid open, a wave of heat rushed in to hit him like a wall.

Ahead of him, Cora turned around wide-eyed and mouthed 'WOW' at him.

He smiled and nodded.

The heat was incredible.

Certainly not what he'd packed for.

He hadn't packed a heavy-duty jacket, he had thermals under his clothes and knew that he could use one of the jackets he'd left behind in Maine when he got there. His grandmother had already told him that she wanted to take him to the store to get something new and heavier for him. "The wind in Chicago," she'd said to him half a dozen times, "isn't something to turn your nose up at, Vinnie. You should be warm. You can't get sick."

Now, as he stepped out into the heat, he had to suck in a breath.

He started sweating and not just from her brother's chilly greeting, but the crazy wall of heat he was currently slogging through.

Vince knew he should have taken off that layer while they were on the plane, but he didn't want to waste a single minute of the flight with Cora, so he'd kept to his seat and now, he was hoping that the car picking them up wasn't that far away.

And he let out a breath, relieved when Cameron lifted his hand in the air to wave down a car.

The bright red Chevy Silverado pulled into the curb with ease and a man hopped out of the driver's door, but Cameron waved him off. "I got this, Buck. Thanks."

The silver haired man shrugged and called out over the hood. "You want to drive?"

Cameron nodded. "You know it."

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