Ellie shook her head, enjoying the breeze in her hair.
Ellie: He’s in LA till tonite. So I’m plainclothes today.
Celine: If you spend the night at his house tomorrow, text me. I’ll take a cab from the airport.
Ellie: Not happening.
Celine: Just saying.
Ellie turned off her screen and skipped across the grass into the ocean. Warm water caressed her calves. Small white fish flitted in the shallows, casting gray shadows on the sand. She squatted for a closer look, cupping her hands around her face to shield herself from the glare. Her yellow sundress billowed, reminding her of another day she’d submerged herself in the water fully clothed.
She lay back, suddenly sensing the emptiness of the space around her. Buoyed by the ocean, she let tears for Brandon mix with the infinity of the salty water.
***
At seven Saturday morning, the Kahului Whole Foods parking lot was nearly empty. Ellie parked under a tree she hoped would provide shade for most of the day and sat on the hood.
A black Nissan Altima pulled in the slot next to her and honked. Ellie frowned at the shape behind the tinted driver’s side window. It lowered to reveal Denver’s sparkling eyes and dashing grin.
“You going my way, lady?” He turned off the engine and stepped out.
Ellie hopped down and Denver embraced her. His athletic arms seemed to wring the fear and anxiety of the past days from her soul. Myna birds squawked in the trees overhead. Sparrows tweeted in the grassy medians. A crisp ocean breeze lifted the hem of her shorts. The morning seemed suddenly fresh and bright, her chest and shoulders free, her heart light.
His lips found hers and she melted against them, her tongue entwining with his. Their dance made her think of sex, of lying together naked in Denver’s car, in her car, even on the empty pavement. One leg wrapped involuntarily around his, pushing his hips into hers. Denver’s laugh broke their embrace.
“I take it you missed me.”
Ellie blushed. “Not really.”
His fingers ran possessively through her hair, pulling it back from her face. “I missed you too. And I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. Work’s been kind of crazy.”
Ellie took his hand. “You’re here now.” She looked at the black sedan. “I thought you had a green Escape.”
Denver chuckled. “You stalking me?”
Color rose from Ellie’s chest to her forehead. “Who me? Stalking?”
“Just kidding. It’s a rental.”
“You don’t have your own car? I thought with a house and all…”
Denver opened the passenger side door. “In you pop.”
A smiling woman took the swap meet’s fifty-cent fee at an entrance to a fenced enclosure on the University of Hawaii Maui College campus. She beamed at Ellie and Denver. “Honeymoon?”
Denver winked at Ellie, who coughed into her hand.
“Wait.” The woman reached into a bag at her feet and handed them each a star fruit. “From my neighbor’s tree. You enjoy.”
They strolled among the first stalls. Ellie tried shoving the odd yellow fruit into a pocket of her shorts and then handed it to Denver. “I feel bad I took it.”
“We made her happy.” He pushed one fruit into his front pocket.
Ellie shook her head. “I’m not going to say what that looks like from here. But you have to take it out or you’ll get expelled for indecency.”
“I should have brought a bag.”
“I should have brought one. I have, like, a lifetime supply of Target bags back at the house.”
A soft mist fell from the clouds hovering over the nearby mountains and wafted intermittently across the fenced grounds, providing a cooling alternative to the rapidly rising sun. Vendors displayed coconut shell art, t-shirts, hand crafted soap, cut flowers, original paintings and photography, and ceramics. Ellie and Denver wandered hand in hand among the fruit and vegetable stalls. They bought ripe apple bananas and fresh bread. They washed it down with rainbow shave ice. They talked about her family and his. Ellie felt the same intrinsic comfort in his presence as she had the first day at the beach. The horror of Olivia’s situation slipped into the past. Her present telescoped, focused on their laughter, his hand in hers, the fresh Maui air, and a pleasant feeling of anticipation mingled with contentment. Before she knew it, almost two hours had passed and they were headed back to his car.
“Get me to the trail before this sugar high wears off.” Ellie bounced in the passenger seat as they wound up a narrow road on the northwest side of the island. Dilapidated wooden houses clung to the steep mountainside. Dark blue ocean stretched wide to the horizon on their right. Green folds of West Maui peaks soared above them to the left.
Denver turned at a Boy Scout camp sign. The sedan crawled and bumped up a steep trail at ten miles an hour.
Ellie looked around. “You sure you know where you’re going?”
“Trust me.” An empty dirt parking lot with one other car opened up to the right across from a field of black cattle. On the backs of a number of them perched thin white egrets, balanced like precarious porcelain statues.
A few steps into the hike, a cow ambled across the trail. Ellie hung back. “I haven’t seen this part of Maui before. I didn’t know they had cows.”
Denver laughed. “Cows don’t bite.”
“I don’t like the look of those horns.” She bent to try and look at the cow’s underside. “Are you sure these aren’t bulls?”
“Where’d you grow up again?” Denver took her hand and pulled her past a lowing animal.
“Delaware.” Ellie broke free and sprinted up the steep trail.
Denver jogged on muscular legs and easily overtook her. “They don’t have cows in Delaware?”
“Not that I noticed.”
Well past the grazing area, Ellie stopped, panting, at an overlook. Before them the grassy verge pitched straight down for miles into a steep valley where the faintest echo of a waterfall rose from the depths. Beyond the gorge, the mountain folded in upon itself again and again, an undulating fabric worn by water and time. In the distance, the buildings of Kahului harbor glistened as the morning sun reflected off countless windows. Heavy surf broke across nearby reefs, creating a frothy white contrast in the cobalt sea.
Ellie rocked on her heels. “For the record, they don’t have views like this in Delaware either.”
“I’m glad you’re not in Delaware any longer.” Denver pulled her against him, urgent and determined.
In his embrace, she again lost track of her surroundings and of time. Where he led, she followed, letting her hands roam over his body in equal proportion to the way his explored hers. His lips nuzzled her ear. She ran her tongue along the contour of his earlobe. He cupped her face in his hands and slowly ran his fingers through her hair, letting it cascade down her back like a trail of silken threads. She gripped his short wavy hair and tousled it, massaging his scalp with her fingernails. Her heart thumped when his fingers brushed across her breasts. She flitted her palms across his chest, rising against him as he pressed firmly into her.
Their progress to the top was hindered by periodic kissing sessions: beneath banyan trees, while gazing at the ocean, after eating fallen guava fruit, and before retying a shoelace. But the trek rewarded their perseverance.
At the trail’s end the ridge continued before them. A sign warning of abrupt drop offs, complete with a visual of someone plummeting off a cliff, marked the end of the recommended passage on foot. Helicopters giving guided tours of the island flew overhead, hovering deep in the valleys below and then streaking up the mountainsides.
“You couldn’t pay me to ride in one of those.” Ellie leaned back against Denver.
“Scared of heights?”
“Scared of falling.”
His arms encircled her. “I’d be happy to be your seat belt.”
On the way down, Ellie’s head swam with primal energy. She capered along the slippery clay path, enjoying the sight of Denve
r’s broad shoulders bouncing in front of her. No man she had ever known had buried his way into her heart in such a short time the way Denver had.
Something sparked for me that first moment on the beach.
As a teenager, she’d dreamt of love at first sight. But she had only participated in love as a gradual and awkward transition from friendship to lust to something more.
What is it that draws me in now so completely?
Preoccupied with her assessment, she forgot to watch the path at her feet. An exposed tree root caught her foot. She stumbled. Suddenly, the green brushy hillside rushed toward her. As she sailed through the air, she marveled at the calm thought that flashed in a millisecond through her mind.
This could be worse than initially anticipated. Better let him know where I’ve gone.
“Denver.” She sailed over the edge of the trail. Her voice betrayed only a glimmer of anxiety. Hips flew over her head. She summersaulted backward down the steep ravine.
Grab something.
Thick spongy tangles of brush broke her fall. She flipped twice before a tree caught her legs and she slithered to a halt.
Denver’s anxious face peered down at her from a surprisingly far distance.
“Hang on. I’ll come get you.” He threw a leg over the side.
“No. Stay there. I can get back up.” Ellie clung to vines and shrubbery and heaved herself up the cliff. At the top, she brushed herself off.
Denver’s face was pale. He took her hands.
“Are you hurt?”
Ellie laughed. “Not unless you took a video.”
“No, really. You’re okay?”
“Let me prove it to you.” She snuggled against him and showered his neck with kisses.
On the drive back to her own car, Ellie fought an internal battle.
Go home with him? Don’t go home with him? What her body wanted and what her mind told her were too different to reach any compromise. When she thought one side had the upper hand, the other pushed back.
Denver’s hand rested on her knee. She traced the outline of his knuckles with her index finger. In the now crowded parking lot, Denver searched for a space.
“You know.” He squeezed her hand. “It might be easier to leave your car here.” He glanced at her as a Range Rover backed into the lane. “You have to be back in Kahului to pick Celine up tomorrow, don’t you?”
See? I knew he was going to ask.
Ellie bit her lip.
“You could come back home with me. I could bring you here tomorrow before her flight.”
Heart or brain. Why is this so damned hard?
Denver redirected his gaze. “I’m not pushing you. I’ll be here all week. When’s Celine leaving?”
“Wednesday afternoon.”
He shrugged. “We could make a date for Thursday.”
Ellie mentally kicked herself for her indecision. “This isn’t easy for me. It’s just that I’m so…”
Scared.
“…busy. I’ve got so much work to do…”
On myself.
“…at the house. There are so many…
Relationship issues in my past.
“…workers coming every day. And I’m not even…”
Telling you the truth about everything.
“…ready for Celine’s arrival.”
Denver ran his fingers through her hair with one hand and pushed the emergency flasher button on the dash with the other. He turned to face her.
“I get it. My neighbors are having construction done while they’re somewhere else too. It’s noisy from dawn until after dark. I hide all day in the guest cottage with earplugs just to do my work.”
Tell him you’re the neighbor. Go home with him.
Ellie tugged the door handle. “If I don’t leave now…”
I’ll never leave.
“…I’ll be up all night preparing.”
He drew her to him. “One more kiss isn’t going to make a difference.”
A few minutes later, Ellie slumped at the steering wheel of her car. She watched his black sedan pull out of the lot.
One more kiss almost had made the difference. But not quite.
Chapter 12
Denver’s body throbbed with thoughts of Ellie. He maneuvered the car into the slower of the two lanes that ran between the red dirt fields where the last sugar cane had already been harvested. He let the eager tourists rush past him in their search for the perfect Saturday afternoon in paradise. He focused on the taillights of the car in front of him and put his driving on autopilot while his mind relived the morning with Ellie.
Throughout, his phone vibrated incessantly in his pocket, tickling his thigh, a welcome distraction from the strong sensations his body was experiencing elsewhere. But the more it wiggled, the more the intoxication of the last few hours waned. When he pulled into his driveway and shut off the engine, one glance at the phone screen popped the few remaining bubbles of joy. The sensations left over from the outing floated up, out of reach, through the palm fronds, and into the clear blue sky. His feet dragged along the concrete pathway to the guesthouse. He called the number that had left five voicemails in the past hour.
“What’s up?…Sorry. I couldn’t get to the phone. Bad reception…Do I want to hear this?…Christ.”
Denver let himself into the small guest bungalow. The venetian blinds were closed against the strong sun, but shafts of brilliant light streamed through the cracks, illuminating the open floor-plan room. A laptop swam in a sea of computer printouts of graphic designs on a dining table that separated the living space from the kitchen. Cereal bowls and coffee mugs rose in towers from the sink basin. The large king-sized bed in the far corner was unmade, its cover sheet and pillows crumpled into mounds.
“Fucking China. Idiots write stories about it being the biggest break small companies ever had. But how can we keep up when the have a new regulation every week?…I’ll see what I can do…Yeah, you don’t have to remind me. I know what’s at stake.”
He tossed the phone on the table and sunk into the one armchair, running his fingers through his hair. The phone pinged with a text message. Denver’s chin fell to his chest. He rubbed his shoulders.
He remained seated for a long time, ignoring the periodic beeps from the table. Then he heaved himself determinedly to his feet, searched for a contact on the phone, and hit the call button.
“Mom?” He covered his eyes with his free hand. “You free for a minute? I could use your advice.”
Half an hour later, he perched on a stool at the kitchen bar, chin resting on his hand, phone still to his ear.
“No. I’m not giving up. But this isn’t what I had in mind for the business.”
He spun a spoon on the counter with his fingers.
“In retrospect we should have waited. Teaches me not to be so greedy…No. I’m okay. I’ve still got a little money in my personal account.”
He laughed. “Yeah, thank the Kirkpatricks for me when you see them. Using this guesthouse has been a godsend. I wasn’t getting anything done at the Seattle office with people coming through the door every five minutes. Here the only way to get me is email or phone. At least I have some control over that.”
He kicked absentmindedly at the chair rungs. “Is that why you and Dad had that place here?…Yeah. It was great. Too bad you sold it…Yep. I check on the main house here now and then. You can tell them everything’s fine.”
His spine stiffened.
“Bad idea, Mom. We’re not together anymore. You know that…Sure. She’s got a lot of business experience. But knowing her, she’d laugh and then try to buy me out…Yeah. I’ll start packing. See you soon…Me too.”
Denver laid the phone face down on the counter. He pulled a carry-on suitcase from under the bed, opened it onto a chair by the table, and propelled the mass of papers into it with several sweeps of his arm. He shoved the laptop into a side pocket and zippered it shut.
Half an hour later, a pile of dishes lay drying
in a rack as he locked the guest cottage door and wandered, suitcase in hand, through the afternoon sun toward his car. A gust of warm air from the south emphasized the drilling noises from his next door neighbor’s lanai.
Denver shot a resentful glance at the barrier of hedges and palm trees that separated him from the workers. “At least I’m not going to miss that.”
***
Returning from her date with Denver, Ellie bounded across the lawn and up the steps to her house. Inside, she nearly collided with a man in white overalls.
“Careful. I almost speared you with this.” The worker held up a drill.
“No problem.” She skipped a step down the hallway and turned around. “I know I’m supposed to know, but there are so many jobs going on right now. What are you guys doing again?”
“Putting in new doors.” He pointed to the front door.
“Oh.” She cocked her head. “It kind of looks the same to me.”
The man gave her a funny look. “That’s because we haven’t replaced it yet. We’ve got the new one in the truck. We’ll get you the new set of keys when we’re done.”
“Right.”
The man eyed her. “In case you’re wondering, the crew with blue t-shirts is here about replacing the floors. They’re in the kitchen, I think.”
“Thanks. Those are the people I want to talk to.” Ellie meandered to the back of the house, taking a short run and sliding now and then across the dark wooden floorboards. She sang softly as she glided along the smooth surface.
Her phone rang before she reached the workers.
“Jacqui, darling.” Ellie tossed the phone gently in her hand. “What’s up?”
“You haven’t heard?”
Ellie skidded to a stop. “Heard what?”
“There was another murder.”
Ellie veered into her bedroom and closed the door. “What?”
“This never happens on Maui. I mean never. There’s a lot of domestic violence. And visitors die of heart attacks while snorkeling. But not this.”
Paradise Wild (Wild At Heart Book 2) Page 12
