by Edie Claire
Maddie looked up. Kai was far away in the parking lot, still talking on the phone. Another flash of interesting feathers fluttered across her field of vision. Pale yellow, a soft olive brown… perhaps a Japanese bush warbler?
Kai would have to catch up with her. She followed the bird past the pavilion and into the forest as it flitted from tree to tree. She wished she had her binoculars. Regardless, as she moved quietly through the thick woods, listening closely to the mingled tunes of a variety of unseen birds overhead, her spirits lifted. She always felt soothed when she was alone with nature. Even if “nature” meant camping out in the Humpty in the boondocks of Lee County, Alabama in ninety-eight degree heat and two hundred percent humidity trying to trap one feral cat eaten up with fleas and ear mites. Even then. Nature was her home.
Could she help it if this particular room of the house was her favorite? Warm and slightly breezy, with dappled sun shining through the gently waving mesquite trees, with just a hint of sea salt on the air?
She had long since lost the warbler she’d been tracking, but the forest was full of other birds, and she kept moving. When she heard an odd sound she couldn’t identify, she stopped. It was a strange sort of popping sound. And then… was that a moan?
Whoops.
Maddie froze. Perhaps she had approached a little too quietly. She was not the only person who appreciated the romantic beauty of the forest, and the couple who had arrived before her had taken their appreciation to another level. They were leaning against a fallen tree trunk, wrapped in each other’s arms and thoroughly enjoying what they thought was their privacy.
Maddie began a covert retreat, then froze again. Wait. She knew that head of hair! It was Ben the boat captain, who had brought her to Lana'i on the catamaran. Her heart fell, and the sick feeling she’d just gotten rid of came back again. Ben was married. What the hell was he doing hiding out in the woods making out with some skinny brunette in the middle of a Sunday afternoon? She could have sworn he wasn’t the cheating type. When he talked about his wife, he had sounded like a man who was genuinely in love. And he hadn’t flirted with Maddie at all. Was she losing all sense of judgment? And furthermore, if he was the cheating type, why hadn’t he hit on her?
She turned and started walking back out of the woods, not caring whether the couple heard her or not. She emerged into the open to see Kai near the pavilion, obviously searching for her. When their eyes met, he hurried over.
“Good news,” he announced happily. “My dad says Riku’s headed to the mainland tomorrow. The family got enough money together for the ticket and the lawyer. He’s going to take leave from work here and look for a temporary job out there until he can get custody straightened out.”
Maddie smiled warmly. “That is good news. Excellent work, Nakama.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t have any money. But a whole lot of people gave all that they could afford. It’s such a relief that Riku has a good lawyer on his side. I really don’t think he’ll lose those kids, now.”
“You did help him, Kai,” Maddie repeated. “You got him a lawyer in the middle of Idaho, didn’t you? What are the odds he could have made that connection this fast if you hadn’t located another BYU grad?”
Kai’s smile was crafty. “I told you the LDS community was a wonderful thing. But that’s not all the good news. My dad had a talk with Gloria. She told him she did break up with Dylan! She wouldn’t explain, though. All she said was that she figured she could do better. And he said that she actually seemed to be in a really good mood.”
Maddie grinned broadly. “I’m sure she’s happy to be rid of him. And the conflict.” Her smile turned into a smirk. “Told ya.”
“Yes, you did.” Kai smiled back at her, and Maddie had the feeling that she should be happy. She was happy, for Riku and for Gloria and for the whole Nakama family. But the various rotten feelings that had been gnawing at her all morning were gnawing worse than ever now, thanks to the disturbing spectacle she’d just been forced to witness.
Why, oh why, did Ben the boat captain have to be sucking face with some other woman when he had a perfectly nice lawyer-wife at home on Maui? Was there no male human on the face of the earth who could be trusted when it came to sex?
Damn, it was getting hot.
She tugged at the neckline of her jacket, fanning it to bring in a breeze. The woods had been cooler, but she was standing in the sun now, and the temperature was climbing. She pulled down her zipper an inch, but couldn’t lower it any farther. She’d packed for the weekend at the end of a laundry cycle and was down to her last shirt. It was perfectly decent, of course, but the scooped neck caused problems. It showed a hint of collarbone and cleavage both, and though she’d had no choice but to pack it, she knew she should keep her jacket on around Kai.
“Are you hot?” he asked.
She stared at him. It was a stupid question. He had beads of sweat on his own forehead, didn’t he? And he was wearing a perfectly comfortable lightweight tee shirt. A shirt which, she couldn’t help but notice, fit his nicely shaped torso like a glove. “Of course I’m hot,” she said testily. “It’s a hot day.”
“Then why don’t you take that jacket off?”
Maddie’s temper flared. Partly because she was hot, partly because she was mad at Ben the boat captain, and partly because Kai was looking at her with that ten-year-old-boy, smugly superior, what-you’re-doing-isn’t-logical-and-I-know-better expression that had always made her blood boil. “Excuse me?”
Her tone was snippy, caustic. She sounded ten years old herself and she fully expected “polite adult Kai” to recoil and apologize.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe something had been eating at him all morning, too. Whatever the reason, polite adult Kai disappeared wherever civil grown-up Maddie had gone, and obnoxious know-it-all kid Kai took his place.
“You said you were hot!” he snapped back at her. “I said take your jacket off! How complicated is that?”
Maddie fumed. “I can’t take it off!”
“Why not?”
“You know perfectly well why not!”
“Because all men are animals who can’t possibly control themselves?”
“You said it; I didn’t!”
“Well, it’s not true!” he decreed.
“Says you!” she sneered.
“Well, I ought to know!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
Maddie’s next words died on her lips as a crackling of brush drew her attention to the edge of the woods. The previously caught-in-the-act couple stepped out from the trees a few yards away. The woman stared straight at Kai.
He looked back at her with an expression of pure horror. “Hello, Haley.”
Chapter 25
“Hello.” The woman stepped closer to them both, a sly smile playing on her lips. She was tall and somehow commanding in presence, despite her casual dress. Her long brown hair was unstyled and she wore little makeup, but her intelligent green eyes gave her a businesslike demeanor, nevertheless. Ben followed behind her, and as his gaze came to rest on Maddie, his own friendly hazel eyes lit up.
“Maddie!” he greeted cheerfully. “How’s Lana'i treating you? Is it everything you’d hoped?”
Maddie looked back at him in confusion, but only for a second. His wife’s name was Haley! A surge of relief swept through her, and she smiled broadly back at him. “It’s been great. Thanks.”
Ben turned to look at Kai, and his brow furrowed. “We’ve met, haven’t we?”
Kai extended a hand. “Kai Nakama. I work at EarthDefense. You came by the office a couple months ago.”
“Oh, right!” Ben enthused, returning a hearty handshake.
“Kai grew up here on Lana'i,” Haley explained to her husband. Even as the couple stood, undoubtedly aware that they had been caught necking like teenagers, Haley leaned against her husband’s side, and he snaked out a long arm and wrapped it around her thin waist.
�
�Is that so?” Ben replied, looking back at his wife. “Well, so did Maddie! She’s the ecologist I told you about. The one who’s going to single-handedly save the monk seals from toxo!”
“So that was you?” Haley asked, smiling at Maddie and shaking her hand with a grip every bit as firm as a man’s. “Nice to meet you.” She looked from Maddie to Kai, then back again, her keen gaze missing nothing. “Let me guess. Childhood sweethearts?”
“No,” Kai said quickly.
Maddie glared at him. “You said that awful fast.”
“Well, we weren’t, were we?” he defended. “We were friends.”
Maddie looked at Haley. “I only lived here until I was ten. Kai still had cooties then. Plus he was a shrimp.”
She looked sideways to find Kai glaring at her. She chuckled playfully, and he grinned back.
“Kai Nakama,” Haley accused. “You’ve been holding out on me. I thought I recognized your voice when I was coming out of the woods, but I didn’t believe it was you, because I couldn’t believe you would ever use that tone with a woman.”
Kai looked horrified all over again. “You mean, bickering like a fifth grader?”
“I said the tone, not the words,” Haley explained. “You were arguing with Maddie like she was an equal. No kid gloves. No pedestal. No worry that you were offending some delicate female sensibilities that demanded special treatment.”
“Ha!” Maddie scoffed. “As if!”
Haley grinned at that. Kai still looked horrified.
“All I’m saying is,” Haley continued lightly, “I may have less pro bono work ahead of me than I thought. All you have to do is channel the little boy who used to like arguing with this little girl — back when you didn’t give a damn whether she was a girl or not.”
“Oo-kay!” Ben said good-naturedly, lifting his arm to circle his wife around the shoulders and pull her away. “Enough shop talk. It’s a weekend.”
“Hey, who was talking about toxo?” Haley protested with a grin, twisting in his grasp.
In response, Ben swept her off her feet. “You want to go back in the woods?” he asked playfully.
“We never got the mesquite!” she reminded.
“Oh, right.” Ben set her back down and cast a glance toward the picnic area. “Our passengers,” he explained to Kai and Maddie, tilting his head that direction. “We brought her sister’s family up for the day — they’re headed back to the mainland tomorrow.” He turned back to his wife. “You think they’re going to miss us soon?”
Haley laughed. “I think they missed us ten minutes ago.”
Ben sighed. “Better go.”
He and Haley waved goodbye to Maddie and Kai and headed off.
“That,” Kai said slowly when the couple was out of earshot, “was not the same Haley I see at the office.”
Maddie studied him. “Sounds like she could say the same thing.” The beads of sweat on Kai’s forehead had turned into rivulets. Not only had the encounter been tense for him, but they had been standing in the sun the entire time. Maddie’s own bangs were plastered to her forehead and underneath the accursed jacket sweat was now running down her front and back like a river. Lana'i was almost never this hot in January.
Kai studied her too, then exhaled heavily. “Come over here.” He led her a few feet away to a patch of shade, then stopped again.
“Maddie,” he began uncertainly. “It’s none of my business. I grant you that, okay? But you really can take that stupid jacket off. You shouldn’t have to wear it. It’s ridiculous.”
Maddie bristled. This again? “You’re right. It is none of your business.”
“So call it a justice issue, okay?” he pleaded. “I know you think I’m obsessing, here…”
He paused a moment, as if deciding whether or not to go on. Maddie found herself hoping that he would, if only out of curiosity. Kai was no control freak. Why did he even care what she wore?
“Maddie,” he began again, his voice softer. “The truth is, all this frumpy stuff you’ve been covering up with… it makes me crazy, and I can’t stand to watch it anymore. But not for the reason you probably think. This isn’t the single guy in me talking, it’s the crusader. You just… happened to hit on an issue that’s bugged me for years now.”
He held her gaze. “You have a right to wear normal, comfortable clothes like any other woman. You have a right to wear makeup and dress any way that makes you feel good about yourself. If men choose to harass you, and we both know that some will, that’s a consequence you’ll have to deal with. But the blame is theirs. Not yours.”
Maddie’s eyebrows lifted. That was hardly what she expected him to say.
He sighed and looked away. “At BYU there was a dress code. Girls weren’t supposed to wear anything sleeveless, or low-cut, or any dress above the knee. Forget shorts or even capris. It was supposed to be helpful to all concerned. Not that the guys weren’t still held responsible for their own behavior. They were. But the idea was that the girls should cooperate by providing as little distraction as possible.”
Dress code? Maddie never had gotten around to looking up that mysterious BYU behavioral honor code. How intrusive was it, exactly? She made a mental note to check it out as soon as she could get a signal.
“I always hated it,” Kai continued. “I felt like it gave men no credit and sent women the wrong message at the same time. And watching you walk around this weekend dressed like a potato and swimming in a man’s tee shirt is like the worst part of BYU all over again.”
“Well excuse me for not providing more entertaining visuals,” Maddie said sarcastically, albeit with a smile. Thinking about Kai’s spending the last seven years unable to see his classmates’ bare shoulders amused her greatly.
“The problem with a dress code like that,” Kai continued, his voice irritated, “is the subtext of the message it sends to women. Namely, that having an attractive body is a crime. I see that same attitude in you, Maddie, even though I doubt you’ll admit it. I bet every time you wear something that makes you look good, you feel like you’re doing something wrong.”
“I do not!” she protested immediately.
He threw her a look.
She withered a little. Was he right? Because if he was, that would really tick her off.
“You know rationally in your brain that you’re not at fault when men approach you,” Kai continued. “But there’s some part of you that still feels responsible.”
Maddie’s teeth clenched.
“I can see it because I remember how you used to be,” he pressed. “You couldn’t care less what you wore or how you looked. You were such a free spirit. Hair flying. Not a care. And now you’re about to faint from heat exhaustion because you’re too afraid to take off that damned jacket.”
Maddie growled. “I am not afraid.”
“Then what?”
“I am being considerate!” Maddie said rudely.
“Well, cut it out!” Kai shot back. “You think you’re not desirable with the jacket on? I’ve got news for you — you’re ridiculously sexy no matter what. The incremental difference isn’t worth your suffering.”
Maddie said nothing. She could think of nothing to say.
Kai blew out a breath. He studied her a moment. “I don’t blame you for being afraid. Men can be jerks. And you’re absolutely right that the more gorgeous you look, the more attention you’ll attract and probably the more trouble you’ll invite.”
“I am not afraid of… that,” Maddie insisted. “I can handle myself just fine, and you know it. You’ve seen it. I just get tired of doing it!”
Kai’s dark eyes held hers. “If that’s the real reason you feel like you have to hide yourself, then fine.”
Maddie’s ire sparked again. Stinking know-it-all! “What do you mean ‘the real reason?’ What do you think ‘the real reason’ is?”
“I already told you,” he answered. “I think you’re afraid of feeling guilty.”
Maddie faltered a little. Co
uld he be right? She really, really hated it when he was right.
He lifted his arms as if to touch her, then thought better of it and dropped them again. “Do you remember when we would swing on the Tarzan trees, and everybody said you were the best?” he asked.
“I was The King,” Maddie corrected.
“Yes, well,” he replied. “Do you also remember that I never fell? Never hurt myself? Not once? Whereas you got banged up and bruised all the time? I could make the case that I should be the king.”
Maddie snorted. “You never got three feet off the ground, you wuss! I was the one out there climbing the tallest trees and taking off on all the longest vines!”
“Right,” Kai agreed. “Because you weren’t afraid of falling.”
Maddie sucked in a breath. Her little Kai had indeed turned into a lawyer, darn him. And she was pretty sure she had walked straight into his trap.
“I know you’re brave, Maddie. Bruises and banged up shins have never scared you. But feeling guilty gets to you. It gets to you like nothing else does.”
He took a step back. “Now, how about instead of that walk in the sun, we drive over to the beach and cool off instead? And just so we’re perfectly clear, you do not have to wear that jacket for my benefit. You are free to look and feel as gorgeous as you want, and I promise to control myself. If anybody else is rude to you, I’ll give him the stink eye and you can bus’ hees ala-alas. Okay?”
Maddie felt something inside herself crumble. She could see what Kai was doing. Both things he was doing. First off, he was going out of his way not to say that as long as they were together, other men were unlikely to bother her anyway. But they both knew that was the case. He could be eighty-three years old and toting oxygen, and if he was male and not flagrantly gay, his mere presence would deter far more pests than her own cold stare and well-developed biceps ever could. That fact was annoying and humiliating, but true, and Kai seemed to know she would perceive it that way. He could so easily have played the macho card, making a show of defending her, protecting her. The fact that he did not made her want to rip off his sweat-stained shirt and pounce on him.
