by Cathryn Cade
“Anyone else want a drink?” she asked.
“Yes, please.” Jack held out one long arm. Claire handed him a Coke, and he chugged it steadily.
The motor rumbled to life, shuddering through the deck under her feet, and Claire turned to look. Frank Lelua stood at the helm, and Zane and another equally dark-haired man were bent over the mooring cleats, undoing the lines.
Her heart stuttered and then began to pound faster as the other man straightened, huge frame, golden skin and raven hair visible. Daniel Ho’omalu, clad in blue swim trunks and a gray tank that did little more than highlight his incredible physique. His sunglasses were tucked on the back of his head. He held the boat for Zane and then leapt aboard after him.
Turning, he met Claire’s gaze, his own enigmatic, his tattoos vivid and barbaric in the bright sun, his beard and mustache emphasizing the sculpted angles of his broad face.
She flinched at the visceral slap of memory—the rasp of that beard against her face as he kissed her. The taste of that mouth opening over hers, and those powerful arms holding her in a sensual vise. Heat curled in her middle, her nipples tightened in her bikini top.
Realizing she was staring like a fool, she turned away sharply, her cheeks burning. Zane had taken her seat beside Bella, so she stepped past Jack to sit on his other side.
Daniel Ho’omalu sat down directly across from her. He leaned back, his shoulders covering a wide expanse of rail. His long legs stretched out before him, his bare feet brown against the white deck. He looked at her, his gaze trailing over her bare legs. Her toes curled in her flip-flops, and his mouth twitched up at one corner.
With a huff of disgust, Claire turned her shoulder to him, leaning on the rail to watch over Jack’s shoulder as the pier receded behind them. It didn’t help. She was still aware of Daniel, as if he were sitting beside her instead of across an expanse of deck.
“You’re joining us, Daniel?” asked Gabe Paalani, raising his voice over the twin engines as Frank sped up at the mouth of the harbor. Claire watched the buildings of Kona Town recede into dollhouse size. The mountain loomed behind them. She took a deep breath of the air, full of the scent of the sea, tinged with the ever-present smell of heavy vegetation, and listened in spite of her determination not to.
“Just catching a ride,” said the deep, rough voice.
“Where do you live, Daniel?” Grace asked.
“Other side of Nawea.”
“Didn’t think there was anything past Nawea.” Gabe sounded surprised.
“There’s not, except my place.”
Frank slowed to let a pair of long rowing canoes pass, and then sped up, the sail whipping crisply overhead.
As much as she tried to concentrate on the beautiful scenery as they headed south along the Kona coast, Claire was consumed by curiosity. What kind of place would Daniel live in? Ha, a cave, most likely, where he could grunt and snarl to his heart’s content.
“Have you been to Nawea Bay?” Bella asked Jack, raising her voice over the motor and the breeze.
He nodded gingerly. “A few times. You’ll like it. Great snorkeling.”
“’Specially if you go with Daniel,” Zane called, leaning forward.
Claire turned, curiosity winning over caution. Daniel was smiling at his cousin, the smile he never gave her.
“He finds all the best i’a me puhi,” Zane continued. “Fish and eels. He knows when da nai’a, the dolphins, are coming in too.”
“Maybe you can find me a big shark,” Jack said. “Manō look da kine on the wall of my realty office.”
Daniel’s smile disappeared and he growled something Claire couldn’t understand. She tensed at the danger in his voice, but Jack laughed. “I’m just jackin’ you, big D. I’m not a spearfisherman. Wouldn’t mind seeing a big manō, though.”
He nudged Claire. “Ever seen a shark when you were diving?”
She started to admit she hadn’t done much diving outside of playing around with the old gear her uncle used to check the hulls of the fishing boats. But knowing Daniel could hear every word, she smiled at Jack, holding on to her hat as the boat sped up and the wind whipped at them. “I’d rather see some turtles and dolphins.”
“And lots of fish,” Bella added. “Is it true the Big Island has the best snorkeling, Daniel?”
“Yeah. The water on our reefs is clearer because so much of our waterfront is lava rock instead of beach. Over on Maui, they have miles of beach, but all that sand in the surf clouds the water.”
Claire gazed fixedly at the glistening wake rolling off the side of the big cat. He was friendly to Bella too, his deep voice a pleasant rumble instead of curt. He was probably even smiling at her again—the jerk.
She’d like to grab him by that stupid, sexy bundle of braids and…and kiss him senseless, she admitted miserably to herself. If they were alone, she’d straddle him, sit right down on his lap and tease him until he was crazy with desire, pushing against her the way he’d been last night. She squeezed her thighs together, biting her lip to stifle a moan of sheer frustration.
A shining silver form suddenly rocketed up out of the depths just off the railing. Claire gasped. Jack turned his head as a second silver form joined the first, and then another, and another.
“Hey, dolphins.” He twisted around to lean on the rail beside Claire. She clapped her hand over her pounding heart.
Bella turned as well. “Oh, they’re beautiful.”
“What are they doing?” Claire asked. The sleek creatures were awfully close to the boat.
“Da nai’a love to play,” Frank called. “You watch, they’ll take turns surfing the wake.”
Now Claire could see the dolphins’ faces. She laughed with delight at their expressions, merry as if they were sharing a good joke with the humans in the boat. They were incredibly fast, racing with the boat until one gave way and another took its place.
“There’s a baby.” Bella pointed. “He’s as fast as his mother.”
The little dolphin was an exact miniature of its parent. It stayed on mama’s far side, away from the boat.
“Look at all of them over there.” Jack put his hand on Claire’s shoulder, pointing across the boat.
Claire turned and cried out in wonder. On the far side of the boat, the water flashed silver with sleek bodies. Daniel Ho’omalu leaned over the rail between Grace and the Paalanis. Beyond them, a steady stream of dolphins leapt.
Claire stared, not at the dolphins, but at Daniel’s profile, silhouetted against the bright water and leaping dolphins. Hard face relaxed, cheek creased in a smile, white teeth flashing. He held out one arm over the water and laughed, a deep huh-huh of pleasure. She had never seen anything so rawly gorgeous.
It was almost more than she could take. She rubbed at the aching bruise lodged in her chest, as if her heart had been tumbled in the surf. She just wanted a little tropical romance before she had to head back to school. But instead she had to go and fall for a Hawaiian badass who was nice to everyone but her. Like trying to cuddle a shark—all she got was bitten. And then he didn’t even want her to bite him back.
Out on the edge of the pod, a dolphin leapt high into the air, spinning around two full twists before falling back into the water. Another leapt, flipping end over end.
Frank slowed the boat, and Claire forced her eyes back to the water as the nai’a danced. Since it seemed the only wildlife she was going to enjoy here was the marine variety, she’d better do it.
She clenched her hand on her empty Coke can, restraining the urge to throw it at the back of Daniel Ho’omalu’s head.
Daniel settled back on the bench seat as Frank pushed the throttle up again. The nai’a were diving again, sun-dappled shadows disappearing in the deep.
“Hele, hoaaloha. Go, my friends. I will see you again soon,” he promised silently.
He turned back to the boat. Zane grinned at him, and Daniel jerked his chin in acknowledgment of their private joke. His young cousin was a typical twenty-
year-old, his head full of surfing and wahine, but he was a Ho’omalu. He could keep his mouth shut. He wouldn’t tell the others that this show had been in Daniel’s honor. Of course, with three wahine on the boat, perhaps the nai’a thought Daniel was bringing home a mate.
Unbidden, his gaze shot across the boat to the tall wahine seated there. One arm was hooked on the rail, her hat held against her middle with the other, her blonde hair streaming behind her as she gazed into the wind. She wasn’t smiling now, a droop to the corner of that mouth.
Guilt roiled in his gut. Had he wiped the smile from her face? She’d sure as hell kept him awake half the night. Even after sex with Kahni, he’d remembered silly little things like Claire’s laugh and the sexy way she’d hulaed with Melia and Zoe. Her excitement when she’d asked about snorkeling at Nawea. Their dance at the reception, and the way her arms had been sliding up around his neck when he’d finally come to his senses and let her go. That kiss…ah, Pele, that had been hūpō. It was gonna take a long time to forget the taste of her, of her sweet, wet mouth opening for his, the pliant heat of her in his arms.
She sat now with one leg curled underneath her and the other bared to her hip by her little sarong. He let his gaze trail the long, tender curve down to her arched, bare foot, the ball of her foot planted in her white flip-flop. Slippahs, the islanders called them.
He’d like to slip that one off and lift her foot onto his lap while he slid his palm up the inside of her bare leg and under that bikini. His fingers twitched as he imagined the warm silk of her skin and the wet, sleek folds beyond. Heat curled in his groin, his cock stirring.
Yeah, if they were alone, he’d have her turn to face him and open those pretty legs wide, so he could admire her before he dropped to his knees before her and pulled down his own trunks.
The boat hit a wave, jolting him from his hot imaginings. Ah, he was hūpō, all right, with another wahine only the night before and still lusting after this one. He wasn’t some man-whore, for Pele’s sake, trying to spear every woman he could. He needed to remember who he was and why he’d pushed her away.
Maybe he should just dive over the side and swim to Nawea.
The wind picked up as they headed south. Despite the rough rocking of the boat, Daniel sat relaxed against the rail.
Claire had her face into the wind, her chin tipped up and her hair streaming behind her like the figurehead on an old sailing ship. His fingers twitched for a charcoal. He’d like to portray her in that pose, with her lovely breasts bare as a mermaid’s.
The ride south along the Kona coast was beautiful, as always, with Mauna Loa towering above them, top lost in clouds, lush, green-forested flanks punctuated with homes and small businesses. The sail snapped in the wind over their heads, the rainbow stripes bright against the blue sky.
As they rounded the point of Kealakekua Bay, Gabe pointed out the white spire of Captain Cook’s monument.
“How did he die?” Claire asked.
“He pissed off the natives,” Daniel called over the wind. She twisted to look at him, and he smiled at her, baring his teeth.
Gabe laughed. “They thought the haoles in their white-winged ships were gods. Cook was a pretty good guy, for the times, but the natives felt he and his men took advantage of them.”
“So now we get even,” Daniel added, still to Claire. “We have laws, and our haole visitors have to obey them. And leave us their money.”
He could see her blue eyes well enough through her sunglasses to know she was rolling them at him, as usual. Damn, that made him want to spank her ass and then kiss it. Maybe do some tongue work while he was down there.
“Well, Grace certainly left plenty of money in Kona,” she said. She turned to smile at the older woman, her soft lips curving up. She hadn’t smiled at him, not since last night. Yeah, before he mauled her. He moved restlessly, as if he could throw off his discomfort at the memory. His cheeks heated—had he really told her he’d have her right there, a few feet from his family’s guests, or not at all?
South of the bay, they passed the most recent lava flow, a long ebony streak down the mountainside that spilled into the sea, a stark reminder of Madame Pele’s power and of how she had created her islands in fire.
In the next bay, a traditional village lay peaceful in the hot sun, tourists wandering through the steep, thatched-roof huts of the traditional village.
“What’s this?” Claire asked, pointing.
Daniel rose and walked a few steps to stand behind her.
“Puuhonua o Honaunau, now a historical park,” he explained. Pride swelled in his chest as he surveyed the home of his ancestors. “That big, flat platform of lava rock is the heiau, or place of worship and sacrifice.”
“Can you climb up onto the heiau?” Bella asked. Claire turned, looking up at him to hear his answer. He looked down at her as he spoke.
“No,” he said. “It’s walled off to protect it.” She turned away, and he clenched his hands into fists to keep from reaching out to tell her that he’d been speaking of the heiau, not himself.
“What are those wonderful wooden statues in front of the buildings?” Grace asked. Daniel dragged his attention back to the conversation.
“Kii, gods. They warn visitors that this is the home of a ruler, and one may only enter by invitation.” Faded silver by the sun, the kii scowled their fierce warning from the beach.
The need to show her—no, show them—made him go on.
“Once,” he went on, sweeping his hand over the scene, “the king and his people worked or relaxed in the shade of the palm trees there by the beach. Naked keikis played and dove from those flat lava rocks around the bay, instead of snorkelers, and wooden canoes plied the water instead of dive boats.”
“If only life could still be that simple for Hawaii,” Grace mused.
“Well, if it were, I wouldn’t have my sporting goods business,” Gabe quipped. The others laughed.
Daniel nodded wryly. “Like it or not, the islands are forever changed, open to visitors from all over the world.”
“And some Hawaiians are more…welcoming than others,” said Claire over her shoulder.
He waggled his brows at her. “Aloha.”
She turned away with a flounce, and he went back to his seat. He scowled out at the glittering surface of his native sea. Trouble here in the boat, and trouble in the water. Her, he could deal with as a man, but for the other he would need his ho’omalu powers.
His foreboding grew stronger as he neared his home. Evil had come once again to this peaceful place.
Past Honaunau, the coastline settled into rugged lava splashed with the white surf and few signs of habitation, until they rounded a point clustered with palm trees, and Frank slowed the boat. He stood as he always did and called to his passengers.
“Aloha! Welcome to Nawea Bay.”
Daniel stood up and walked forward, keeping his legs wide for stability as the cat rocked on the surf surging up against the reef and the point. He turned his head just enough to catch their guests’ reactions to Nawea. Hūpō, but he wanted to see one in particular.
Palm trees framed the small bay, rimmed with black lava rock and punctuated in the center with a small sandy beach. On the back edge of the beach, another cluster of palms shaded rattan tables and chairs grouped around a small fire pit. Green lawns sloped gently up to the two-story, yellow house, its deep roof poking up out of masses of flowering shrubbery, the lanais in deep shade, as was the dock under its thatched grass roof at the left end of the bay.
Claire Hunter let go of her straw hat to hang on to the railing as she craned her neck, peering into the bay. As he watched, her mouth rounded into an O of pleasure, and then curved into a wide smile of delight.
He turned away, at once satisfied and edgy. Damn, was there anything she didn’t get a kick out of?
Frank nosed the boat in alongside the cement dock, and Daniel leapt out, reaching for the tie-down ropes. He fastened the front end of the boat, then the
back, opened the railing and held up his hand to help Grace Moran from the boat. Gabe shepherded his wife from the boat with a protective arm.
Bella and Claire peered over the other side of the boat, exclaiming over something. Daniel stepped back onto the boat, knowing he shouldn’t. “See something?”
“A turtle,” Bella said happily.
“Honu,” he corrected her, looking down at the creature paddling gently over the sandy bottom in the clear, sunlit water. “You’re Hawaiian—gotta learn to say it right.”
She nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
“You’ll see more when you snorkel,” he said. Claire ignored him, turning away to cross the boat, her round ass rolling in her little sarong. He couldn’t wait to see the bikini under it. He scowled to himself—not that he was going to be looking. He’d done the right thing last night and shown her he wasn’t what she wanted or needed. Now he sure as hell didn’t need to hang around waiting for a smile. As he had been the entire boat ride, he admitted sourly.
He packed a double armload of luggage up to the house, and then, while the ladies were busy exclaiming over the beauty of the foyer, he headed out the back, across the lawn and into the thick tangle of trees that edged the lawn.
On the south end of the bay, a path wound through the palms and banana trees. An ancient fence fashioned of lava boulders by long-dead Ho’omalus ran from the beach up into the trees. Daniel didn’t even pause, just set his feet in crevices worn by long use into footholds and leapt to the smooth lava shelf on the other side.
The path led him past a mature fig tree on the surf side, its tangle of roots rising high above his head, into a secluded cove, even smaller than Nawea. Rimmed with lava boulders smoothed by centuries of tropical sun, rain and high surf, the bay appeared wild, uninhabited, unless one peered into the tangle of palms and figs.
Then his eye was caught by straight lines, by wood and stone a little out of place, although visually suited to the setting, with no paint or artificial ornament. It was a house.
