I wanted to crawl under a rock.
“You two must have had some argument. Especially if it brought you all the way to my tiny island.”
“That’s an understatement.” She was being so polite and understanding and so unlike Kale Poppenhouse or his wife. Maybe she was adopted too?
I set my small travel bag on the porch and stepped just inside the doorway. The house smelled like coffee and toast. Yum. “Mrs. Poppenhouse—”
“You can call me Malipeloku.”
My eyes went a little wide with panic. “Umm ... I don’t think I can!”
She laughed heartily. “Keilana said you were funny.”
I licked my lips, covertly glancing around. “Speaking of Keilana, is she here? I’d like to speak with her, please.”
She gave me a thorough once over before deciding what to tell me. “She’s reading on the beach. Would you like to have some coffee and bring Keilana hers? I just made a fresh pot and was about to walk it down to the beach myself.”
Relief washed over me. “Yes. I’d be glad to bring her some coffee.”
I followed Mrs. Poppenhouse into the kitchen and sat down at a small breakfast bar while she carefully took three large cups from the cupboard. She filled them in silence and passed two of them over to me.
I took the cups, hoping my hands weren’t twitching as badly as I feared. “Which way do I go?”
She opened the kitchen door, allowing the bright sunlight to pour over me. “Turn left and keep walking until you see her.”
Gingerly, I took a sip of my hot coffee so I’d have less chance of spilling it down my shirt as I stepped out onto the sand.
“Ms. Blaisdell?”
I turned back and raised my eyebrows in question.
“Don’t blow it.”
Our eyes met and I got the distinct impression that she was holding out on me. “I won’t.”
I can’t.
yx
The beach was deserted and I began to think that when Keilana’s grandmother had said “my” island, she’d really meant it. The fresh air felt nice against my bare legs and arms and the wind fluttered my T-shirt. I pushed off my shoes after a few hundred feet, wanting the comforting feeling of the sand between my toes.
It was at least fifteen minutes before I saw her, sitting under a short palm tree on a soft blanket in the sand. She was beautiful and I drank in the sight of her, my heart racing with fear and anticipation. I guess it wasn’t broken after all. I’d known I was missing her. How could I not? But it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized just how much.
I got within twenty feet of her before she glanced up at me. She did a double take, and startled, she dropped her book.
“Hi,” I said softly, joining her on her blanket without waiting for an invitation.
“Cad— I mean, Ms., I mean Belin ... ugh.” Confused, she finally gave up stumbling over my name. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“I didn’t do anything shady.” I nearly tacked on “I promise” but I suspected my promises wouldn’t mean much to her at the moment. “Your roommate told my friend where you’d gone for Thanksgiving break and then he told me. But it was your Granny who gave me directions to this spot on the beach, if that’s what you mean.”
I took in our surroundings, giving her a few minutes to adjust to my presence. She still looked shocked. “This is beautiful.”
“It is.”
When I turned back to her, I caught her staring right at me and she quickly looked away. “You’re growing out your hair. It looks pretty,” she murmured, a little embarrassed.
A kernel of hope ignited inside me. “Thanks. This is for you.” I held up her cup that was now lukewarm at best, the aroma of the beans mingling with the fresh scent of the ocean.
Gingerly, she took it, still unwilling to look me in the eye. “Thanks.” She took a sip and then set it back down on the sand next to mine, the glass clinking gently.
Well, at least she hadn’t told me to go to hell yet. That was an improvement over the first dozen times I’d tried to talk to her since that night.
She gazed out at the water and I couldn’t help but think of our trip to the beach at Del Mar and how close I’d felt to her that day, and how awkward things felt now. I had more regrets than I knew what to do with.
“When are you going to give up?” she asked, unconsciously wringing long fingers.
I examined her profile, strong and angry. She looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes more prominent than I’d ever seen them. “Never,” I said simply. “I’m never going to give up.”
Her forehead creased. “Nobody means that when they say it. Not really.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” I longed to touch her and had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching out. “I understand that if you’re going to trust me again—and I pray that you are—that it’s going to take some time. I’ll wait as long as I have to.”
“What it if never happens?”
“Then I guess I’ve got a long wait ahead of me.” She wanted me to say that I’d bail on her when I didn’t get what I wanted fast enough, but I wouldn’t do it. I wanted to be in this for the long haul, if she’d only let me.
She swallowed a few times and looked like she might actually start to talk to me.
I leaned forward in anticipation.
Then, abruptly, she picked up her book and started searching for the spot she’d stopped reading. “You’re wasting your time. Go home and back to your slimeball spying.”
I grabbed the book and tossed it over her head before she could use it as a prop in her latest production of Let’s Ignore Belinda.
“Hey! Give it back!” she said through clenched teeth, her eyes sparking.
“No.” I gentled my voice, which was threatening to rise. “We need to talk.”
“You’ve got some nerve!” She looked like she wanted to scream. “I already have enough people in my life who don’t care what I think and who want to control me. I don’t need you joining the party.”
“Stop it.” My anger flared. “Stop being such a Goddamn baby. I don’t want to control you and I sure as hell care what you think or I wouldn’t be here at all. You might not ever love me. You might not even ever like me again or come close to accepting my apology, but at least listen to it! I’ve been crafting it for weeks and have come twenty-five hundred miles to give it.”
She ground her teeth together but I could see that she was teetering on the edge.
“Will you just listen to me? Please, Keilana.” I wasn’t above begging. “Please?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
I could feel my heart pounding painfully and I drew in a nervous breath. Failure wasn’t an option. Okay, I told myself, here goes everything. No pressure or anything. “My name is Belinda Blaisdell.”
She blinked a few times and I could tell she was surprised by how I’d started, but that was okay. At least she was listening. Besides, I was more concerned that we ended up in the same place than whether we agreed on the road we took to get there.
“My middle name is Cadie. My mom used to call me that when I was teensy tiny, but my dad didn’t like it much and so she stopped after a while. I’d forgotten that I liked it until you started using it. You can call me Belinda, like everyone else does, but you aren’t like everyone else to me. So you can call me Cadie if you want.”
Bewildered, she slowly said, “Okay,” and I guessed that she was wondering why she’d have to use my name at all if she decided never to speak to me again.
I had to admit, she had a point.
“You’ll want to have a name to use when you curse me at least, right?” I ventured, hoping I’d guessed right.
She sighed, both sadness and frustration leaking into the sound. “I don’t want to curse you. Well, actually I do. But I’m trying to get over wanting that and ...” her voice dropped to a whisper, “a lot more.”
I struggled not to fall into those beautiful eyes that had
somehow grown more intense in the weeks we’d been apart. “So long as you don’t get over me,” I said in a rush, my anxiety rising. “At least not until I’m done talking. Promise?”
Her eyes flashed. “I can’t promise you any—”
“Promise?” I asked frantically. “Or I swear to God I’ll do something horrible like ... like ... I’ll start singing a wretched love song at the top of my lungs, humiliating myself, and scaring the birds, and sickening you in the process. I’m not bluffing, I’ll really do it! I will!”
Somehow, a tiny smile cracked through her stony veneer. “In that case, and because I’ve heard you sing in the shower, I promise.”
That was better. I took a calming breath. “Okay, you already know that I’m a private investigator.” I got up and sat down in front of her so that she didn’t have to turn her head to look at me. That put me off the blanket and onto the damp sand. My butt was wet again, but I was actually getting used to that. “I have my own tiny business that was doing okay up until a few months ago, but I’ll be back on my feet again soon.”
She tried not to look concerned. “The job my parents hired you for ruined your business?”
“No. I ruined my business. But that doesn’t matter now.”
“I’m a California native, a college drop-out, and Russ, you remember him, the other slimeball spy? He’s my best friend. I haven’t forgiven him for his part in this, but we’re talking again and I’m trying my best not to hold a grudge or want to kill him every second.”
She was looking at me funny. “What?” I asked, allowing her expression to derail me.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing. Why are you telling me these things?”
“I’m telling you about myself.” I swallowed hard. “Keilana, there are a thousand lies between us and I can’t take them all back or change what I’ve done. You deserved the whole truth. And so you’re getting it now.” I smiled bravely. This didn’t sound nearly so cheesy when I was rehearsing it on the airplane. “Even though it’s long overdue.”
I let out a little groan. “I messed up already, I think. Because I should have started off by telling you that I love you.”
Her nostrils flared.
“You haven’t gotten to hear me say that nearly as much as you should have, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I also need to tell you that from the very bottom of my heart, I’m so, so sorry that I deceived you.” My eyes begged her to believe me.
Her chin began to quiver.
“Oh, God, please don’t cry,” I said helplessly. “I can’t stand to see you cry. It’ll make me cry and then I’ll never get through this.” I didn’t think I had any tears left, but I’d been wrong every one of the twenty-one days I’d thought that for the past three weeks.
She nodded and I could see she was struggling with her composure. I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t force her to open her heart to me or to forgive. All I could do is ask her to take a chance on me. On us.
“What I felt for you ... what I still feel, is real. No matter what, you have to know that.” My chest still felt like a fat guy was sitting on it and I let out a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. I’ll do my best to be honest with you from now on if you’ll give me the chance.”
She opened her mouth but I didn’t give her an opportunity to contradict me. If I did, and she told me to get lost again, then what would I do? I had no ideas left! “What else should you know about me?” I was babbling but I didn’t care. “Oh, right, there is one thing that I was faking the entire time we lived together.”
“That you speak French?
Her voice startled me a little. Then I realized what she’d said and my eyes narrowed for a split second. “Okay, there were two things I was faking the entire time we lived together.”
Her expression filled with dread and her entire body tensed. “What?”
“I’m not neat. I’m a messy pig who was only pretending to be neat so that you wouldn’t be repulsed by me.”
She gasped. “That was you being neat?”
I nodded gravely. “My neatest. Oh, and I have a dog named Smelly and instead of being twenty-one I just turned thirty-three years old.”
“Shut up!” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “That can’t be true!”
“I know, I know. Cats are way less work.”
This time the smile stretched her cheeks, even if it was brief. I was getting to her, I could tell. She wanted to hate me the way I wanted to hate Russ, but hating someone you really cared about did nothing but suck out every bit of your energy and make you miserable. It was hard, horrible work and I hoped, in the end, Keilana would risk happiness instead.
“You said before that all we had between us was lies.” Unable to stop myself, I reached out and stroked her cheek with my hand. Her skin was smooth and warm from the morning sun and I was thrilled when she closed her eyes and leaned into my touch. “You were so wrong. Everything I said about you, and how special you are, was true. Everything I felt was true. Everything you felt between us, the attraction, the affection ... it was all real, Keilana. Every bit of it.”
Dismayed, she peeled my hand from her face but held it in hers as she looked into my eyes all the way down to the bottom of my soul. “How can I believe you after you tricked and used me?”
Nothing hurts like the bitter truth. Nothing. “I don’t know,” I said with brutal honesty. “What I did was unforgivable. But I’m asking ... I’m begging you to forgive me anyway.”
She bit her lower lip, and didn’t say anything else, leaving me to wonder what she was thinking and feeling. I wasn’t sure which I’d do first—pass out, or go insane. Keilana was still so much of a mystery to me, maddening and fascinating at the same time.
My worry was somewhere in the stratosphere by the time she finally started to speak. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed cooking dinner with you and talking with you after we’ve both gone to bed. I’ve missed playing with you. I’ve even missed arguing with you.” She licked her lips. “I’ve missed my friend.”
“Oh, Keilana,” I had to clear my throat to be able to speak. “I’ve missed you too.”
She wiped at her teary eyes. “Umm ... After you left, I read your notebook. It was hard to see what you really thought of me at the beginning, but harder to read how you kept up your lies even after you knew how it would hurt me when I found out the truth.”
Looking at Keilana’s pain-filled face, I wasn’t sure whether it was possible to hate yourself more than I did at that moment. I was relieved that things were all the way out in the open now, but it made me feel vulnerable too, like I was stripped to the bone.
She knew everything, even the ugliest, most unflattering details of my deception. She knew about my self-doubts, indecision, and endless mistakes when it came to her. My empty stomach twisted. How can you ever apologize enough for shattering a fragile trust?
“Keilana,”—I lifted a handful of sand and let it trickle through my fingers, willing something brilliant to come to mind and help save me from myself. It didn’t of course; all I had was the inadequate truth—“I didn’t know how to put an end to things and not hurt you. Once I took that damn job and started to care about you, there was no good way out.”
I glanced up at her and our gazes locked. “I couldn’t stop myself from falling in love with you no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t mean for it to happen. And to be honest, I’m not sorry that it did, I’m just sorry that I disappointed and hurt you.”
Her chest jerked and she started to cry in earnest. “I couldn’t have stopped myself either,” she said miserably.
Fuck it. I pulled her into a hug, unwilling to clamp down on my urge to comfort her any longer. We both needed it desperately and if we could help each other, even for just a few seconds, it would be worth the pain that would surely follow when she pushed me away.
But she didn’t push me away. She held me closer.
“Forgive me,” I whispered emotionally, my cheek pressed tightly against
hers. “You won’t be sorry. I think we can make each other happy, if you’ll just give us a chance. If you’ll just be brave and crazy and stick your heart out on the line one more time. I’ll guard it with everything I have.”
She felt so good in my arms, her heart thudding against my chest, her soft skin melded to mine, that I never wanted to let her go.
She sniffed a few times and let out a long breath that brought us even closer together. “No more lies?” she said directly into my ear, her lips tickling the sensitive skin.
I felt lightheaded. “Never. I swear.”
She pulled back from me and wiped her cheeks with shaky fingers. Her eyes were brimming with something I hadn’t seen since that night at the strip club. Hope. And I knew mine reflected the same thing.
I threaded my fingers with hers. “Can we have a do-over?”
She smiled and I was sure she was remembering when she’d asked me that same thing weeks ago. At the time, her request had seemed unrealistic and childish. Now, I clung to the words, to the hope for a second chance, like a lifeline.
She sighed. “I don’t think I have a choice about the do-over. I want to be with you more than I want to stay angry or afraid.” She smiled a determined smile and her bravery took my breath away. “Even though you make me crazy, the chance to be together is worth the risk. I don’t want to walk away from what we could have.”
“Thank God!” I flopped back on the sand, grinning like an idiot.
Keilana laughed gently, sweet and low, and the weight of the world tumbled off my shoulders and into the sea. Then a soft pair of lips covered mine, and I was in heaven.
Stolen Souls
KG MacGregor
Welcome to the Denver International Airport. Please keep a close watch on your belongings at all times. Unattended bags will be ...”
From her vinyl-covered chair near the exit, Lorna watched as the throng of passengers arriving from San Francisco walked stiffly toward the baggage claim area. Mentally, she crossed off her list those who were greeted by family or friends, along with the businesspeople who carried briefcases or hanging garment bags. That left a handful of stragglers, one of whom was her quarry.
Undercover Tales Page 21
