Aim For Love

by Pamela Aares

  “We’re cousins,” Alana said as Kaz shook her hand. “One big crazy family of cousins.” She turned to Nari’s painting. “Your sister’s work puts a whole new spin on art—metal and paint in one medium. See how the light spills from one color to the next in that subtle ripple effect? It’s stunning.”

  The flash of cameras outside the gallery door told Kaz that someone noteworthy had arrived. When his heart sped up, he forced it to slow. Perhaps it wasn’t her. Perhaps it was some art-loving celebrity who liked to make a splash at galleries.

  His heart both settled and raced when Sabrina stepped through the door.

  Kaz wasn’t pleased to see Derrick Ainsley enter with her. Two of the gallery staff blocked the fawning photographers when they tried to enter behind them.

  “Good thing it’s the B-team paparazzi, or they’d need bigger guys than the two staffers guarding the door,” Alana said.

  Sabrina saw him talking with her cousin and Matt and aimed straight for them.

  “I hope your sister won’t mind that I extended your invitation to my gang,” Sabrina said.

  Just seeing Sabrina’s face sent spikes of conflicting emotions rushing through Kaz. The bluish-purple circles under her eyes blasted a message: she hadn’t been sleeping any better than he had.

  “I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” he said, wishing he could come up with something more eloquent. Sometimes words fled, leaving him with only images, especially where Sabrina was concerned.

  He could’ve done without Derrick. The terse greetings from Alana and Matt told him that Derrick wasn’t a favorite of the extended family either.

  “I was just pointing out the rippling, almost breath-driven effect that Nariko has accomplished with this painting,” Alana said, breaking the tension. “It’s as though clouds are rising from the metal to float across the wall.”

  “It’s called hamon,” Kaz said. Just saying the word took him back to the long nights he’d spent at the side of the katana swordsmith. “It’s a traditional process of hardening steel. The same technique is used to form Bizen samurai swords.”

  “Peach farmer, ballplayer and now metallurgy expert. You astonish me,” Derrick said as he slid his arm around Sabrina’s waist.

  Kaz kept his eyes on the painting and bit back the urge to skewer Derrick.

  “You might remember that Kaz knows something about swords,” Sabrina said. She pulled away from Derrick and turned to Kaz. “I’ve discovered that he also knows how to wield them.”

  “Showing off for the ladies again, dear brother?” Nari said as she approached and extended her hand to Sabrina. “I’m Nariko.”

  “Sabrina Tavonesi,” Sabrina said.

  It charmed Kaz that though it was obvious to him that Nari knew who she was, that fact didn’t register with Sabrina.

  “And this is my cousin Alana, her husband, Matt, and my friend Derrick. I hope you don’t mind that I brought them along.”

  Nari shook her head and smiled. If most of his family had a hundred smiles, Nari had twice that many, and Kaz had learned to read most of them. The one now on her face told him she was scheming—matchmaking was written all over her.

  “Alana is an accomplished painter,” Sabrina said with a nod to her cousin.

  Kaz appreciated the effort she was making to develop the conversation. Nari might be a schemer, but she was also quite shy.

  “Your painting is like an ever-changing horizon,” Alana said, moving closer to inspect Nari’s work.

  Nari blushed at the compliment.

  “How do you get the fine gradations of color?” Sabrina asked.

  “I layer dye, pigments and lacquer, sometimes resins. It all depends on the final properties of the metal.” Nari was beaming now. She knew how to talk about her art. “The colors play with the reflection of the light.”

  “Speaking of light reflection, how do you like your new bungalow, Sabrina?” Alana asked.

  “Sea. Miles and miles of sea every morning from the deck. I don’t even care that the place is a bit ramshackle.” She smiled at her cousin and then looked at Kaz’s sister. “I hope you’ll visit, Nariko. The front room has perfect light for painting.”

  She didn’t extend an invitation to him. He shouldn’t have expected her to. He shouldn’t be wanting her to. Oh, but he did.

  The gallery owner motioned to Nari from across the room.

  “Would you excuse me?” she said, bowing as she left them.

  “I’m going for a drink,” Derrick said as he headed to the back of the gallery, where waiters were pouring champagne.

  Matt and Alana had moved down to another painting, with Alana gesturing and talking in animated tones. Matt appeared mesmerized, but not by the painting. From the look on his face, he had eyes only for Alana.

  Kaz studied Sabrina. If he was going to speak his mind, now would likely be his only chance.

  Sabrina scanned the room. The luminous art and chattering crowd was a stark contrast to her mood. Derrick had shown up at the bungalow for a tour of her new home less than an hour after Alana and Matt had arrived. He’d inserted himself into her family group, and she hadn’t had the strength to resist him. And seeing Kaz had stirred her up more than she’d anticipated. When she’d accepted the invitation, she told herself it was just to support a fellow artist’s debut and she swore she wouldn’t get wrapped up in any more fantasies about Kaz. So much for her good intentions.

  “I’m glad you came,” Kaz said in a low tone, as if the walls might take issue with his words.

  “Wouldn’t miss such an occasion,” she said, feigning a light tone. “You must be proud of your sister.” She felt Kaz’s eyes on her. And wished she didn’t know him well enough to know that she might fool family but she wasn’t fooling him.

  “I am, but I think you know that’s not why I invited you here.”

  She nodded. It was useless to pretend.

  “Let’s talk over there,” he said. She followed him to a dimly lit section of the gallery.

  “I have no right to ask you this,” he said, “but as you were leaving the farm, you made a comment about the script, about the character you play.”

  Okay, that wasn’t the conversation opener she’d anticipated. “For just one night, I’d like to forget about the film project,” she said. But she couldn’t forget. Yet maybe she could avoid obsessing over it.

  Kaz shifted his weight and clasped his hands behind his back. In that moment, in the dim light and dressed in somber colors, he reminded her of the monks she’d seen in the temples in Japan. But those men hadn’t been as tall as Kaz, not within a foot of his height. And Kaz was no monk. His kisses and his body had told her that.

  “I was worried about you.”

  It wasn’t his words that unlocked some pent-up part of her, it was his tone. Caring. Tender. Strong. Until she felt the tears roll down her face, she wasn’t aware she’d been blocking her feelings, pressing them deep. He lifted his hand and brushed a tear off her cheek.

  “Tell me, Sabrina.”

  And she did.

  About Hayne.

  About her nightmares.

  About her doubts of being able to act the role of Kristen a second time.

  And though some part of her knew better, she told him about her discomfort with Derrick.

  “He’s manipulating you.” Kaz’s usually modulated tone took on a harsh edge.

  “That’s impossible,” she said, perhaps too quickly. “Besides, other than wanting to marry me—”

  She stopped. She hadn’t meant to go that far with the details of her story, and she regretted bringing Derrick into the mix. A murderous look blazed in Kaz’s eyes when Derrick strode up to them.

  “Sabrina does not need anyone upsetting her,” Derrick announced in his most stentorian voice as he put his arm around her waist. “You’re tired, darling. We should go.”

  Sabrina wriggled out of his grasp.

  “I’m staying, Derrick. I haven’t seen the rest of the exhibition.”


  “Hardly my fault that you’ve been sequestered back here with your trainer, who clearly does not know what’s best for you, or he wouldn’t have upset you so.”

  Derrick was a master; he didn’t glare, he didn’t smirk. He just used the subtlest vocal inflection to put Kaz in his place.

  “My darling Sabrina never knows what she really needs,” Derrick said in a false honey-sweet voice as he reached to pull her back to him.

  Kaz’s hands were around Derrick’s throat before Sabrina could blink. A man standing nearby snapped a photo with his phone, blinding her with the flash.

  Kaz’s sister ran to them and said something in Japanese. Kaz loosened his hands and stepped away.

  “You should leave now,” Nariko said to Derrick.

  Kaz’s sister might be only a shade over five foot two, but in that moment she stood her ground like a giant. She obviously knew how to stand in her power, a lesson Sabrina still hadn’t grasped.

  Derrick fingered his throat and looked to Sabrina. “I can’t leave you with him,” he said. “It’s clearly not safe.”

  Nariko shouldered in next to Kaz. “Your teammate Matt was looking for you,” she said. “He’s over at the bar.”

  Kaz took the hint, shook out his hands and strode off without looking back.

  “And you, sir,” Nari said. “You have to leave now.”

  “Let’s go, Sabrina,” Derrick said, circling her wrist with his fingers.

  “I’m staying.” She pulled her hand free. “I’ll catch a ride with Alana. It’d be better if you left, Derrick. Better for me. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Kaz stalked to the back of the gallery and hauled out his phone. Before things went any further, he wanted to speak with Alex.

  “This must be important,” Alex said in a sleepy voice when he answered Kaz’s call. “It’s three in the morning, Kaz.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Rome. Visiting a cousin who is insisting on bringing the whole damned Tavonesi clan from Italy to California for the summer.”

  Though Kaz would’ve liked to have Alex’s blessing for what he was about to do, he realized there wasn’t anything Alex could do from a distance. Alarming Alex while he was so far away wouldn’t help anyone.

  “Kaz? You there?”

  “I’d forgotten you were headed to Italy. What I have to say can wait. Nothing urgent. Sorry I woke you.” He clicked off his phone.

  And knew what he had to do.

  “My bungalow is that way,” Sabrina said, pointing to the freeway ramp heading west.

  When Kaz had offered to drive her home from the reception, she’d agreed. He’d avoided her after Derrick had left, but she wanted to clear the air between them. Part of her wanted to thank him for sending Derrick on his way. The party had been much more fun without him hovering over her, she had to admit, even if Kaz’s forceful reaction had shocked her.

  “You can turn up here and take Wilshire,” she said, pointing again.

  “I’m not taking you to your place.”

  He glanced over at her. The intermittent light from the street lamps they passed made his expression hard to read.

  “I’m tired, Kaz. I’d like to go straight home.”

  “I’m kidnapping you,” he said flatly.

  She laughed. But he didn’t. He didn’t even crack a smile.

  And as he turned onto Highway 101 and headed north, she realized he was serious.

  Sabrina was groggy when Kaz woke her. Dawn was just breaking when they pulled up in front of the Tokugawa farmhouse.

  Under her grogginess, she was still steaming from his earlier deception. Still, she’d agreed to go with him. When he told her he was taking her to see his grandmother, at first she’d thought he’d lost his mind. But as he laid out his bizarre plan, a strange hope blossomed in her. In spite of her misgivings, she’d agreed to give his plan a try. But as he helped her out of the car, she was beginning to doubt both her sanity and his.

  “It sounds like exorcism,” she said, her wariness ramping up as she came more fully awake. She stretched out her neck. She’d slept deeply, better than she had in weeks. Maybe from the lulling motion of the car. “It’s not like I’m possessed.”

  Kaz didn’t respond. He walked beside her to the front door, held it open, and followed her inside.

  His grandmother padded down the stairs, stopping halfway when she saw Sabrina.

  “I’ve brought Sabrina back for harai, Obaa-chan.”

  Obaa studied Sabrina. Then she slanted her gaze to Kaz. “She’ll need a change of clothes. I have some loose-fitting gardening clothes I was mending for your mother. Nari’s would be too small.” She slid her gaze to Sabrina. “And you’ll need a proper breakfast. The harai could take a while.”

  She turned, took two steps up and then turned back. “And you must prepare her, Kazi. It is only right. You are the one who has seen the taisan in her. Set up by the stream. Bring the baku and the shimenawa. And your flute. I will bring the sword down with me.”

  Kaz nodded, and she turned and padded up the stairs.

  “Baku? Taisan? Shim…shimena?”

  “Shimenawa. It’s a sacred rope. We use it to mark ritual space. The baku are the eaters of nightmares, have been for thousands of years. Obaa-chan is referring to a small carved wooden elephant-like statue that represents them.” He shook his head. “I should’ve thought of that.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  He lightly touched his hand to her arm. Her skin burned where his fingertips rested.

  “There’s nothing to fear, Sabrina. Nothing, that is, except what you already fear. And those fears we will take care of soon. But my grandmother is right—breakfast is in order.”

  He removed his hand from her arm. She felt cool where his fingers had been moments before, as if a breeze blew only on the spot that he’d touched.

  “After we eat, I’ll explain and help you prepare. But first we eat.”

  She barely tasted the miso soup he ladled from a pot on the stove. He made coffee. They both needed more than green tea, he said.

  She wrapped her fingers around the mug he handed her but familiar aroma didn’t comfort her as it usually did. She’d gotten nervous when Kaz outlined what his grandmother was going to do. Could she really expose her inner self, her fears, to near strangers, put herself into their hands?

  Their hands? Who was she kidding? It was Kaz she was worried about. Kaz seeing inside her, seeing her fears and doubts and the shadow she’d come to dread. The shadow exposed by her nightmares. The shadowed darkness that she desperately feared was not something trying to work its way into her, but something, some intrinsic part of her, trying to get out.

  She fought off her dark thoughts after breakfast as she washed her face at the small sink in the guest room bathroom and then changed into the clothes Kaz’s grandmother had brought to her. She tightened the belt of the cotton kimono and admired the block print of elephants running along the front and sleeves. Then she donned the pair of loose-fitting drawstring pants. They hit her midcalf. Evidently she was much taller than Kaz’s mother.

  For a moment she stood gazing into the mirror. Yes, she’d put herself into the care of near strangers, agreed to undergo an unfamiliar ritual. And yet Kaz was no stranger. Deep within herself, she felt Kaz belonged in her life, as if everything she’d ever done had drawn her to this moment, to meeting and coming to know him. She hugged her hands across her chest and took a long breath, but even a relaxing breath didn’t banish the eerie feeling unfurling in her chest, unmasking the raw power of destiny, of fate, pulling her to its path.

  That feeling dogged her as she followed Kaz down to the shrine.

  “I thought we were going to the stream?”

  “First we prepare. Here.” Kaz placed a cushion on the floor in the center of the space. Then he pulled another one off the carefully stacked pile to the side and knelt on it, facing her.

  “Are you familiar with ritual, Sabrina?”

  He
was so matter-of-fact, as if he did this every day.

  “Yes, I was raised as a Catholic. The rituals of the church are a favorite part of my early memories—the incense, the songs, the prayers—maybe most of all the prayers.”

  “Then consider the harai a long prayer. It’s really no different.” He stood and lit a stick of incense, then propped it in a bronze bowl.

  “You’ve put your all into preparing for these film roles. After you left last week, I studied your last film; I saw the power in it. And I saw why you think the story is important.”

  He knelt next to her. “The woman you play stands against great forces, against great odds, facing enemies she can’t see or feel or touch. I should’ve guessed that those forces were at work in you. But I was thinking only about your shoulder, about your recent trauma, the physical damage and pain.”

  He shifted, put his hands to his knees and looked directly into her eyes. “And I was distracted by your beauty. I shouldn’t have been, but I was.”

  She felt the heat of her blush, hoped it didn’t show. But from the way his pupils widened ever so slightly, she knew it did.

  “In Bushido training, when studying an enemy, we take on their persona, inhabit the world from behind the enemy’s eyes. To stand as the character Kristen does—as you do when playing the role—you have to fully engage, becoming her and taking on her persona. Yet at the same time, you have to protect yourself. You didn’t have adequate protection against her world, the world you entered by stepping into the story of her life. By taking on her story, you took an unspoken oath to also take on her struggle.”

  He shifted, watching her closely. “In Greek, the word exorcism means oath. Unlike the way it’s portrayed in the media and movies, exorcism isn’t some scary process—it’s a simple changing of the oath.” He leaned closer to her. “You still with me?”

  She nodded. Though she’d never considered any of the things he was saying, what he’d proposed began to make sense.