Blame It on Paradise by Crystal Hubbard

Jack had paralyzed her for a moment. There was no shortage of tall, handsome, interesting men on Darwin. The bulk of the island’s visitors were ordinary tourists, but a small percentage were more dangerous. They were adventurers drawn by Darwin’s unusual landscape, treasure hunters looking to pick at the submerged wrecks of ships that had come off the worse against Darwin’s deep, ragged harbors, or romantics looking for creative inspiration in one of Earth’s lesser known corners. No matter their reason for coming, that sort typically left Darwin, but not before leaving a part of himself—usually a child—behind.
    Unable to determine which sort Jack was, Lina had stood in the shadow of the news kiosk, tracking his progress alongside Levora. At first glance, he seemed the most destructive visitor of all to her island—the kind who came to take advantage of any and all native women foolish enough to succumb to his physical charms.
    People from all over the world had settled in Darwin, producing a gene pool so wide and varied that most natives never knew what their children would look like upon birth. Lina herself had the nose of a French ancestor, the eyes of an English one and the dark complexion of her grandmother, an Australian-born Aborigine. Darwin tea brought women to the island all year round, but Darwin’s women drew the men.
    Even before she’d asked around about him, Lina had known that Jack was American. Levora loved Darwin, but she’d never surrendered her American citizenship, and she always befriended the Americans she encountered on the island. Jack had been stingy with information regarding his reason for coming to Darwin, but Lina wasn’t especially interested in it. For what she had in mind, the less she knew about him, the better. Past experience had taught her and every other Darwin resident that stiffs in suits meant nothing but trouble. So she’d followed Levora and Jack, eyeing him with suspicion from a distance.
    His impatient gaze had roamed right over her when he was looking around while Levora emptied her boot of road grit. Unreasonably insulted—he was the first man she had ever encountered who’d failed to at least notice her once she’d turned her eyes on him—she’d continued to watch him as he spoke to Levora. She couldn’t hear what he was saying. She hadn’t cared to, not when simply looking at him was so enjoyable. His honey-gold hair, easy to spot amid the shorter, darker heads around him, was on the long side of business professional. It was the hair of a busy man who cared about his appearance for professional reasons, rather than vanity. He had the strong, straight and square features of a movie star, but his shrewd, jewel-colored eyes radiated intelligence and cool cunning.
    Unlike most visitors to Darwin, he hadn’t looked awed or intimidated by what must have been a totally alien environment. His confidence was apparent in the way he moved, and Lina had found that brand of self-assurance mouth-watering.
    She’d gone about the rest of her day after he disappeared into the old factory building. Later, a few careful inquiries had directed her to his homestay, where she had been able to study him discreetly through the thick foliage surrounding his temporary residence. When he’d popped into the shower, she’d arranged to have dinner brought to him, and she’d waited just beyond his terrace, hoping to steal another look at him.
    She’d gotten a look all right, and it had been a pair of knit sports briefs short of a Full Monty. She had stared at him, stunned at how a man could be so beautiful in both form and movement. He possessed an elegant strength she wouldn’t have expected from a man of his size and build, and her desire for a look had evolved into the need to touch.
    Like most American men she’d met, he’d started talking and kept on talking once she’d approached him. The only difference with Jack was that he’d actually had something to say,