by Lois Richer
Jared’s expression left her curious.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong but it’s been over-visited for many years.”
“Oh.” Scratch that off her to-do list. He grasped her arm, turned her so a foam-topped breaker rolled harmlessly past, buoying them over the crest.
“That’s not to say you shouldn’t visit there.”
“But you know a better place,” she guessed. “Will you show me someday?”
“Sure.”
Excited at the prospect of spending more time with him away from the hospital, Glory dived under to calm her pulse. Because of the rough tide, the misty water offered little visibility, but Glory poked at the coral bits anyway, crowed triumphantly when she surfaced with a small chunk.
“You’re not going to keep that, are you?”
“Why not?”
He assumed his studious-professor look.
“Hawaii has a lot of coral. That’s probably the worst specimen I’ve ever seen. Anyway, you’re not supposed to take coral from the ocean. There are laws here, you know.”
“Oh.” Glory dropped it, watched it sink.
“The authorities would probably pay you to remove that one. But mostly we like our tourists to visit our stores and pay for their Hawaiian coral.” He smirked when she used her toes to recover the prickly white hunk.
They splashed around in the waves until Jared called a halt, insisting they’d been in the water more than two hours. Glory disagreed until she got on shore and her wobbling knees testified to it. She was happy to relax with a shared plate of fresh pineapple spears after they changed. The shimmering water, the lush green of palms and spruce, the tanned bodies lying prone on the white sand and Jared’s relaxed face all merged into a postcard she tucked away in her mind.
After the pineapple was gone, Glory strolled beside him on the beachside avenue, pausing every so often to read the signs as the sweet scent of coconut oil jumbled with seawater brine and white ginger. People rode brightly colored plastic trikes through the shallows, outrigger canoeists paddled parallel to the beach and white yachts cruised the aqua crystal water just far enough out to add to her shimmery daydream.
“This is lovely.” Glory studied a stone waterfall with taps. Children and adults splashed under the spout, washing away the seawater and cooling down from the sun. Next to that a pergola-like structure perched just above the beach, one of several they’d passed. Beneath the open beams, tables with seats protected people from the heat. More benches faced seaward.
“Can we watch the sunset?” she begged.
“It’s not the best—”
“Come on, Jared,” she begged. “You can’t be hungry again.”
Annoyance crouched in his pupils, but he simply stepped back, waited for her to choose one of the benches. Two hundred feet out, the waves clashed with a concrete wall, spewing up white foam as it ran along the length like a giant tidal-wave fringe, a perfect frame for the end of the day and a fabulous show of nature. Glory sank onto the seat, her gaze riveted on the sky before her.
“It really is magnificent,” she murmured as the last flamingo-pink rays flared once more across the azure sky before descending beneath the horizon. “We have lovely sunsets at home, but never at this time of year. That was fantastic.”
“I guess it’s a trade-off. You get the northern lights and they’re pretty spectacular.” Jared rose. “Shall we go?”
“I guess.” Gas torches lining the street had been lit. Their dim glow enhanced the people now occupying the benches and picnic area around them.
“Let’s get out of here.” Jared took her arm, led her back onto the sidewalk by the street.
“Who are they?”
“Homeless.” Jared studied them, a lingering sadness on his face. “They often use these shelters to sleep in.”
“But the roof—there’s no protection. What if it rains?”
“Then they’ll find somewhere else.”
At the other end of the area a man stretched out on a bench, swathed in a sleeping bag. Behind them a woman searched her shopping cart. Glory shivered.
Jared touched her chin with his fingertip, drew it up so he could look into her eyes.
“Don’t be afraid. Mostly they’re harmless, just looking for a place to sleep.” He held out his hand and she took it, content to trust him as the night awakened.
In stark contrast to the dim pergola, people mingled happily in Waikiki’s streets. Traditional Hawaiian music, jazz, even rock, floated from hidden speakers and fused in the gentle breeze. Fairy lights wound around palm trunks winked festively, while plumeria trees filled the evening with the sweet scent of their clustered flowers. Diners on patios above them tinkled glasses and china, their laughter floating down from balconies and terraces above the street, or sidewalk cafés.
A vendor handed Jared a pamphlet. While they chatted, Glory reveled in the aromas; coffee, barbecued pork, melting chocolate. Then Glory turned her focus to the faces; a man who disembarked from a tour bus, two teens, sunburned but laughing as they returned snorkel gear to a nearby shop, an older couple who held hands while they checked the menu board outside a restaurant fronted by huge bird of paradise flowers.
But she kept glancing back at the structure by the beach.
Why had it made Jared so sad?
“Two streets over they’re serving fresh mahimahi. Hawaii’s famous for it. Want to try?”
“Of course.”
When they were seated at a table for two with frosty glasses of fruit punch, Glory asked Jared if he knew any of the people in the pergola.
“I used to.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table as he rested his chin in his hands. “Nights are the worst time for them. I guess it’s the same for a lot of us.”
“What bothers you about the night?” A flash of surprise whisked across his face. Glory wondered if he’d tell her.
“I suppose it’s the loneliness,” he mused so softly she barely heard. “The feeling that you’re all alone.”
“You’re not.” She reached out, covered his hand with hers and held it for a moment. “You’re never alone.”
“God. Right.” He turned his palm up, threaded his fingers through hers and smiled. But his eyes looked haunted.
“How did you get to know street people?”
“I went looking for Viktor after Diana and Nicholas died.”
Jared’s face grew taut, pale. She knew he needed to say more.
“Did you find him?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
“After the funerals—” He stopped, closed his eyes and inhaled several quick breaths. “After that I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I’d see their bloodied faces, their frightened eyes begging me to help them.” He sucked a breath in between his teeth, hanging on to control. “The police knew Viktor had done it but they couldn’t find him.”
“So you decided to help them.”
“Not really.” A sad smile tugged at his mouth. “Sister Phil forced me to take a weekend off. I couldn’t stay at our house, didn’t want to see Kahlia or Pono. So I drove here, visited the zoo. We’d taken Nicholas the day before it happened.”
“Oh, Jared.” Horror filled her. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I never—”
“Don’t be sorry, Glory. He loved it there. I could almost hear his laugh today.” Jared fell silent while the server brought their food.
Torn between needing to know more and not wanting to reopen old wounds, Glory picked at her fish. After a while Jared spoke again, his voice harsh.
“I must have walked for miles. Eventually I ended up sprawled on the beach, in front of that pergola. I was empty, totally empty. Or I thought I was.”
Jared stabbed his fork into his fish and twisted the utensil, his eyes blazing.
“Just tell me,” she begged.
“The tide came in, soaked me. I got up to leave. That’s when I saw him, Viktor, sitting there, watching me.
” He laid down the fork, flattened his palm against the tabletop. “I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. He never moved, not the entire time. He just sat, staring at me.”
His fingers curled, pulling the tablecloth into a knot as his hand fisted.
“I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him feel what I felt. But all I could hear was Nicholas’s voice asking me where Sam had gone.”
“They were friends?”
“They got to know each other when Diana brought our son to the ward one day. She had a meeting and I’d promised to take him swimming.” His lids drooped over his eyes. “I looked at Viktor and I hated him more than I’ve hated anyone ever. I wanted to kill him but I couldn’t move a muscle.”
Glory had wanted to know more, but now she almost wished she’d stayed home today.
“They took Viktor into custody, tried him and found him guilty.”
“But it wasn’t enough for you.” She could see the truth etched in his face, scribed in the lines fanning around his eyes.
“Of course not. How could it be?” He lifted tortured eyes to meet hers. “He stole my life, Glory. Everything I loved.”
“And now he’s paying for it.” She nodded to the server to take their dishes. “Isn’t that enough?”
Jared shook his head.
“Why?”
“No matter what you do, it can never make up for costing another person’s life,” he told her harshly. “I know that better than most.”
Because of Sam.
“The worst of it is that the God I trusted, the One I served, let him do it.” He pushed back from the table, bitterness blazing from his gaze. “Can we leave now?”
“Yes.” Glory followed him from the restaurant, walked beside him back to the car.
Now that she knew the truth she was even more attracted to Jared Steele.
And there was no future in that. There couldn’t be.
In a few months she’d leave paradise, and Jared, behind.
Why didn’t Glory say anything?
As Jared drove the sea road back to Agapé, the scent of rain blew off the water. Palms swayed against the incoming breeze. Oncoming car lights pinpointed them like startled cats.
He felt drained, embarrassed, a fool.
Glory was adept at getting other people to talk. She’d appeared so interested that he’d been hooked, ended up spilling far more than he ever imagined he’d say.
He’d never intended to talk about his doubts in God, or about his torturous self-doubts. Yet Glory inspired confidences.
Quiet peace shone out from her eyes. He longed to experience that peace himself.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, strung out by her silence.
“About what a wonderful day I’ve had. About my new dress. About bouncing around in those waves this afternoon.”
“About Viktor and his son?”
She glanced sideways at him, nodded.
“You’ve all been so terribly hurt. Two homes broken. Two families torn apart.”
Was that longing in her voice? But why? Her childhood had been rich, everyone at Agapé loved her. What did she know of losing your family?
A moment later Jared decided he’d imagined the inflection.
“I bought myself a floating bed while you were checking through the newspapers in that corner store.”
“A floating bed?” That explained the huge bag in the trunk.
“A lounger. I’ll blow it up and then float on the water, thus enhancing my tan and playing the part of mermaid. The Arctic mermaid. I’ll make up a story for my grandchildren about my time in Hawaii.”
“I didn’t know you were considering marriage.” The thought unsettled him.
“I’m not, not right now. But I’d like to be married sometime. Raise a family.”
He could envision her daughter, a serious bit of a girl with big eyes that took in the entire world and left it better. Children made you better, richer, fulfilled. Glory would be a wonderful mother.
Grief at what he could never have clutched his heart. Jared shoved it away.
“How many do you want?”
“As many as my husband will let me have. Eight, ten.”
“Brave man.”
She grinned. “Or dumb. Kids cost money. But wouldn’t it be an experience?”
“Yeah.” Jared couldn’t shake thoughts of Nicholas tonight.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Her fingers touched his hand, squeezed it. “I didn’t mean to be so thoughtless.”
Would he ever get used to that touch, the whisper-soft brush of a sympathetic hand that expressed so much and asked so little? Did he want to?
“Don’t be silly. Why shouldn’t you talk about your future?” He pulled off into a beach area, rammed the gearshift into Park and opened his door. “Thought you might like to walk on the beach.”
She didn’t need a walk, he did. Away from her, away from the inviting scent of her perfume, away from the danger of thinking about possibilities. Children and family weren’t for him. Not anymore.
“Shall I get the blanket? Do you want to sit on the beach?”
But Glory was already at the water’s edge, dipping in her toes, edging a little deeper until the hems of her knee-length pants barely grazed the black-silk surface.
He watched her stroll back and forth, dousing her fingers in the water and tossing the droplets up to be tossed back on her, wet diamonds carried by the wind, landing on her cheeks.
“You want to go in, don’t you?”
“I’d love to.” Her winsome smile flashed. A huge breaker chased her out of the water. “But swimming at night is probably not the smartest thing to do.”
“It’s one of the best experiences you’ll ever have,” he murmured. “But I don’t know this beach very well. It might be better to go somewhere familiar.”
“It’s probably past time to get back.” GloryAnn strolled beside him, sandals dangling from her fingertips. She bent to examine a bit of driftwood the sea had discarded.
With the twilight around her, Glory reminded him of a traditional Hawaiian story about a water sprite that only emerged from the depths at night. He’d never seen anything more lovely.
When she stopped in front of him, he reached out, touched the moonlit-gilded strands that flowed over her shoulders and down her back. His eyes grazed past her smooth forehead, down her tip-tilted nose to her wide parted lips.
Jared brushed the smooth column of her neck with his fingertips.
And then his phone rang and the trance he’d fallen into shattered.
He flipped it open. “Yes?”
The voice on the other end was a newspaper friend he’d known for three years, and his words killed the moment.
“Are you sure? But why?”
The answer did not appease.
“Okay. Thanks for calling.” Jared snapped the phone closed, squeezed his eyes tight and willed back the red tide of rage that threatened to consume him.
“Jared?” Glory touched his arm.
He opened his eyes, saw concern nestling in the corners of her jade gaze.
“Please tell me what’s wrong. Who was that?”
“A friend.”
“Is something wrong at Agapé?”
A laugh burst out of him, a sharp bark of mirthless rage. “Agapé’s fine.”
He wanted to go back to the sweet intensity of before. But Jared could no more keep silent than fish could stop swimming.
“He called to tell me that the parole board is meeting in a few weeks.”
“P-parole board?” Glory blinked.
“Apparently some bleeding heart has decided that Viktor’s mental condition makes him unsuitable for incarceration.” He kicked his toe into the sand, watched the spray startle some nesting pigeons. “They want to release him to some kind of halfway house where he’ll be under a psychiatrist’s care.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” she whispered.
He shook off her touch, infuriated by the betraya
l.
“No, Dr. Cranbrook, it is not for the best. The man killed two members of my family for revenge. He does not get to walk away without paying for his sins. I won’t allow it.”
“H-how can you stop it?”
The words snagged on his ragged nerves. He stomped around to her side of the car, yanked open the door and pointedly waited for her to get inside. But Glory didn’t meekly obey his unspoken order.
Instead she leaned one hip against the metal and studied him.
“You hate him.”
“Yes.”
“You want him locked up, to suffer, with no help?”
“Yes.” His jaw clenched.
“But hating him won’t help. Hating him won’t bring back Nicholas or Diana.” She cupped her hand to the side of his face. “Forcing him to stay locked up instead of receiving treatment won’t make you hurt any less.” Her voice trembled. She inhaled, let her hand fall away. “Hating isn’t the answer.”
“It’s the only thing I can do to get through the days and weeks without them.”
“No, Jared.” She pushed away from the fender. “It’s the only thing you want to do. Hate is the easiest choice.”
GloryAnn’s soft words whisked past him on the night breeze, carried away by a rush of reality.
Jared recoiled as if Glory had shoved him. But she hadn’t. She’d quietly taken her seat in the car, driftwood clutched in one hand.
He could almost pretend she hadn’t said it—if he hadn’t seen the pity in her eyes.
Chapter Seven
Two-twenty a.m.
The hours GloryAnn had spent in Honolulu with Jared yesterday seemed a distant memory as she sat by Sister Phil’s bedside monitoring the slow rasping respiration. When the gnarled fingers lying in hers suddenly gripped, she began praying.
Sister Phil was not due for medication for another three hours. To increase it this early was not an option.
“Tell me what you and Jared did?”
Glory obliged by painting word pictures of the day, hoping to take the older woman’s attention off her suffering.
“So in the end you never did get to wear your new dress.” Sister Phil’s sweet smile flickered to life. “Oh, well. You can wear it next time Jared takes you out.”
