by C. L. Quinn
“That is entirely up to you. Well, I have said what I came to say. Chione, you are a goddess to take care of this one. Don’t let him spoil you.”
“My mood remains intact, master.”
“All right. Enjoy your meal. And Chione, I wish you would call me by my name.”
She lowered her head and smiled.
As he walked away, Ahmose drew forth Mal’s image. Her face remained etched in his mind, her generous heart close to his. He hadn’t forgotten one moment of his time with her, so much so, he had not wanted any other woman since he returned. Sex was as vital for a vampire as blood, but he was functionally celibate. He’d be okay, eventually he would take another lover, but right now, when he thought of another woman, he found that he was just uninterested.
IN HAWAII
Kai Kalani stopped at the bottom of the stairs, his feet frozen in place, hands locked on the handrails.
His daughter waited inside the house he’d left so long ago, and while he wanted to see her badly, he was also afraid of the ghost at the top of the stairs.
It had been over fifteen years since he’d been here, yet it didn’t matter. Brigitte was still here. This house, this life, their love, was all still here.
Man up, you old fart, he told the broken down old bastard who couldn’t be brave enough to face his own past.
One foot, then the other. All right, he could pull this off. In fact, he forced himself to go up the stone steps two at a time, and the door that he had closed with such finality all those years ago looked him in the eye.
He stared it down, but it didn’t move.
She was already there, he knew that, and they’d never locked the door in the old days, so he knew she wouldn’t now.
He watched his hand come up, stop suspended in mid-air for several long moments, then pushed it in.
And there it was. The Hawaiian love nest. The only place he had ever really called home. His eyes lifted towards the balcony and saw two of the lounge chairs they’d had in abundance, set back up. Two?
Kai walked through the room without looking around and onto the deck.
Two heads bobbed up from the chairs. One he did not recognize, but the other was his little girl…who was no longer a girl at all.
She stood, the bikini she wore similar in color to the last one he remembered her in before they left all those years past, the flowered aloha pattern so common here in the islands.
“Pop,” Mal said.
“Hi, babygirl,” he responded, and met her halfway.
Bev watched as father and daughter hugged tentatively, and then tighter. She knew it had been nearly ten years since they’d seen each other. It surprised her how young he looked, and very handsome, for a man she knew had been a hard drinker, had been shot several times on the job, and had to be in his mid-fifties. The full head of hair only lightly shot through with silver, and a full, but close-trimmed beard made him look closer to his daughter’s age.
It was apparent how much he loved his daughter. Bev wiped moisture from her eyes and stood as well.
Mal stepped back and looked at Bev. “Pop, this is Beverly. She’s a good friend from the station, and she’s a shrink, so be careful what you say around her if you don’t want an impromptu session.”
“Beverly, hi. I’m Kai,” he responded.
Bev stepped up to him, her hand out.
“Pleased. Mal’s told me all about you.”
His eyebrows lifted as he looked towards his daughter.
Mal smiled and tilted her head.
“Okay, but she knows you exist, anyway. Would you like some dinner?”
“No, but I’ll take one of those,” he answered, and reached down for one of the beers floating in melting ice.
Mal accepted that. He wouldn’t change now, he had no reason to.
“Pull up a chair, Pop. We’re watching for shooting stars.”
Once he had, all three sat quietly on a stunning night in Hawaii, watching the sky for a bit of magic that none of them would admit they believed in.
Jinx kept pounding on the door. Where was the bitch? He had the stuff, the information, and he had to give it to her!
He fucking had to!
After taking a moment to lay the folders on the ground, he used both fists to pound on the cop’s apartment door. He knew it was her place, he got it from the intel Canzone had put together on her.
“Bitch, answer the door!” he yelled while he pounded.
A big-bellied guy opened a door nearby and came out.
“What the hell are you doing this time of night? People are sleeping! Get out of here before I call the police!”
Jinx turned to the man who was questioning his actions. No one was stopping him from giving her this shit so that he could get out of town.
“Look, buddy. I just need to speak to the lady of the house here, then I’m gone.”
“You can’t keep pounding on her door! I’ll bet the cops are already on their way, and they don’t take it well when someone is harassing one of their own.”
Jinx stared at the bathrobe-garbed man. “Listen, Mister-I-never-met-a-cheeseburger-I-didn’t-like, I have to give her this stuff, all right? Then I can go!”
“She’s out of town, and she’s not coming back too soon, so you’re out of luck.”
Jinx couldn’t believe this. What the fuck! “How can I reach her?”
“You can’t. So get out of here.”
Jinx just stared at Tommy. “But I can’t! I have to give this to her!”
Tommy saw that the weird man seemed to be coming apart, and he didn’t care much except for the fact that he seemed to need to get the folders to Mal.
“How ‘bout I get ‘em to her. Will that make you happy?”
“You’ll do that? You’ll make sure she gets this stuff?”
“Sure. Just, get the hell out of here.”
“I will. I will.” Jinx handed him the folders and ran down the stairs faster than Tommy thought he could have when he was 10 years old, and a lot thinner.
Whatever it was, he tucked it under an arm and went back inside his apartment after double bolting the door.
Barefoot, Mal stepped out onto the deck with a fresh cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie. All she heard were some sea birds and waves gently caressing the coast. Leaning against the railing, she drew a deep cleansing breath. She’d been right when she told Bev this place was paradise, she couldn’t imagine anywhere on earth more perfect on an early summer morning.
This was where she belonged. On the streets of L.A., working with Luka, fighting for peace and order, she’d thought she was okay, but the truth was, she really wasn’t.
Bev came up behind her, and Mal glanced back.
“Morning, doctor.”
“Umm, I don’t think I need to be a doctor, not here anyway. I don’t see how anyone who wakes up with this view could ever need therapy. I’d be out of a job here.”
Mal laughed quietly. “I don’t know. The grocery store is fifty percent alcohol.”
“Hmmm. Well, that’s therapy enough for some people. I need some of that coffee, though.”
“It’s in the kitchen.” Mal rubbed a hand over her stomach. “Although, this morning, I feel a little nauseous. Here, take mine. I don’t think I’d better drink anymore.”
“Oh, Lord, you and coffee are soul sisters. Now I know something’s off.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t imagine it’s the cookie. Cookies can go into any stomach anytime. I could be standing here with a gunshot to my forehead and I’d ask for a cookie.”
Bev sipped the coffee. “Mmm, vivid.”
Mal turned to face her with a questioning look. “I don’t know why I just thought of that. But, suddenly, I have a clear image of a man with a bullet wound to the center of his forehead. Bev, it’s clear as day. He’s gorgeous, lying flat on a beach, naked.” She closed her eyes and continued. “Spectacularly built, in fact, and I’m reaching out to touch him. He’s beautiful and I’m sorry that such an
incredibly gorgeous man is dead. I want to see his eyes.”
She opened her own eyes and looked at Bev, a little startled. “Bev, I think it’s a memory. I think that happened and whatever my kidnappers drugged me with made me forget him.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been really confused since then, and you’ve had those dreams. Didn’t you dream of a gorgeous man making love to you on a beach?”
Mal closed her eyes and just stood there silently.
When she opened her eyes again, she stared towards the house. “I can see him. He’s real, Bev. God, I know he is.” For some reason, Mal’s hand dropped back to her belly, cradling her lower abdomen.
Bev watched her, concerned. Hallucinations?
“How about I get you some breakfast? Something other than a cookie?”
“I don’t…” Mal trailed off, her hand pressing a little tighter against her stomach. “I…excuse me.”
She turned and threw up over the side of the deck.
Bev kept a hand on her back.
“Mal, sweetie, are you all right?”
After purging, Mal moved back from the railing. “I feel better. I don’t know what I’ve eaten that’s upsetting my stomach.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d ask if you were pregnant,” Bev joked. “I’m going to get you something to calm your stomach.”
As Bev walked back into the house, Mal looked out at the vast body of water that surrounded her. If Bev didn’t know better…
But did Mal? Those memories that she had been having of the gunshot victim, there was more. The dreams in which they made love, the details, the feelings, the actions, were all as real to Mal as standing here in her childhood home. If she closed her eyes, she was certain that what she thought she remembered, had actually happened.
Once again, she dropped a hand to her belly. So, was it possible? Could she be pregnant? It was crazy, wasn’t it? She wasn’t on any birth control, there hadn’t been a reason, she hadn’t had a lover in over a year. So if the dream lover had been real, there was a chance.
She shook her head. What odd ramblings! Just an overactive imagination, like Bev said. Of course it was a dream, and of course she wasn’t pregnant.
Bev brought her a glass with a dissolved alka-seltzer.
“My go-to for stomach trouble. Down it, honey.”
Mal followed doctor’s orders, then handed Bev the glass.
“I think I’m going to lie back down for a little while until this subsides.”
“Good idea. I guess I’ll just stand here and absorb all of this. I’ll be back in L.A. in two weeks, so I don’t want to miss any moment while I’m still here.”
Mal left and Bev sat down on one of the deck chairs they’d uncovered and set the empty glass and her cup of coffee on a small table.
It really was beyond lovely here. If she wasn’t careful, she’d fall in love with this place and have a hard time readjusting to the frantic noise and pace of the city.
“Pure magic, isn’t it?”
Bev turned to see Kai standing there wearing a white muscle shirt and aloha-print shorts. He carried a cup of coffee as well, and walked over to the railing, then looked at her as he took a sip.
Damn. He was ridiculously handsome here in the soft morning light. His body toned, tanned, heavily-muscled, he kind of made her breath catch. She knew he’d been a cop, but had retired several years ago when he came back to Hawaii, to the Big Island, not here in Molokai.
When he lowered the cup and smiled at her, she felt a kick in her gut. Oh, hell, he was turning her on. Wouldn’t Mal just shit a brick if she knew that Bev had the hots for her father?
“So, tell me how my little girl is doing in L.A.”
A good distraction, Bev thought, and began to tell Mal’s father what a good cop his daughter had become.
She finally fell back to sleep, and went into a soft cloud, a dream of calmness and gentle light. All the hardness and problems of real life fell away. She floated, as if the air itself could support her body, and the breeze that came buoyed her, moved her easily in the warm air, closer to a verdant piece of land in the distance. She floated in sunshine and heat until she hovered above the land and looked down.
How lovely! Waterfalls, miles of them, spraying rainbow-hued droplets up into the air. Mal’s dream-body reached for the pieces of refracted light and felt a warmth in her body she had never felt before. Warmth? No, a presence. Inside of her? A life grew, clinging to her mother with love and hope. Could she hear her? The new life couldn’t speak, could it? And yet, she heard…no, felt…the child’s voice.
You must seek my father.
Mal woke suddenly, shocked, amazed, frightened, overwhelmed. She shot upright, pushing against the firm surface, against blankets piled on wood floor. Her hands moved beneath her satin pajama pants to curve around her flat belly, where she now believed…No, she knew! She was with child.
As impossible as all of this was, the gorgeous man had been real and she was pregnant with a little girl.
Standing, she looked around the room that had been her parent’s love nest decades earlier when her mother had been carrying her. Now, more than anything, she wished her mother could be here with her while she carried a child.
With moist eyes, she slid back down onto the bundle of cozy blankets, looked upward, and spoke to her mother for the first time since she’d left Hawaii.
“I don’t really know who the father is, and or even exactly how this happened, but I know I’m going to have a little girl. She’s beautiful and can’t wait to be here with me. Mom, I need you. My childhood was perfect, I felt safe and loved every moment. How do I give my daughter that childhood? Please, help me to do right by her.” She stopped, then smiled. “How about this? Your little girl is having a little girl.”
Rising, she walked out to the deck, where she saw Bev and her father lying side by side on two of the loungers.
Bev laughed at something he must have said as Mal joined them.
“Oh, hi, honey. Are you feeling better?” Bev asked, sitting up.
Did she seem startled? Did she look uneasy? Mal looked at her father. He seemed very relaxed all of the sudden. Then it struck her. They had been enjoying each other’s company. Oh, God, were they attracted to each other?
It seemed likely. Bev was flushing now and got up.
“I’m going to go and check on what we have for breakfast. You know, besides the cookies.”
Bev walked away quickly after snatching her coffee cup and the glass she’d brought for Mal earlier.
Mal faced her father.
“How are you doing this morning, Pop?”
“Better. You know how hard it was for me to come back here. But, yeah, I’m better.”
“Have anything to do with Bev’s charming company? It’s okay, I noticed a spark. She’s a kind woman, she’d be good for you.”
“Oh, babygirl, that isn’t even on my radar.”
Mal stepped forward and pushed his legs aside to sit down on the bottom of his lounger. “It should be. You haven’t really hooked up with anyone all of these years, have you?”
“I’ve seen some women.”
“I doubt that. But, just know that I’m okay if you and Bev would like to get to know each other. I want you to be happy.”
He leaned in and put a hand on her cheek. “I’m happy now. I’ve missed you. Mal, I know I’ve been a lousy father.”
“No. You took care of me. Like now. You’re taking care of me again. I know the Captain sent you here. You two were good friends once, I remember.”
“He adored you. He was shocked when you showed up on the force in his division.”
“He takes care of me, too. But I’m a big girl, now, with a big gun, I don’t need an army to protect me.”
“Don’t expect us to stop.”
“I don’t imagine you will. I’m glad you’re here, Pop.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s threatened my babygirl. They won’t get near you.”
�
�You know that he threatened you, too. He threatened everyone I love. And now Luka’s missing. So you need to be on guard for anyone targeting you. So far, he hasn’t been interested in hurting me.”
“It’s what he wants from you that interests me. Mal, if they can’t get to Canzone, legally, I promise you, I’ll get to him in my own way.”
“No! You don’t get to come in at this point and play hero! You’ll only get yourself killed anyway. That man has all angles covered. He’s protected. Besides, there’s something else that I need your help with. Sometime soon. Maybe in about nine months.”
Mal watched her father as the realization hit.
“What? Oh, babygirl, your mother would be…”
His eyes watered, and he held out his arms. Mal went into them without hesitation. Her father was home. Pops. Daddy. All the things they’d been to each other when they were a happy family before life threw them the curve ball that destroyed it all.
“It’s going to be okay, Mal. I’m going to make sure of it.” He paused. “Is the father still in the picture?”
“I…uh, it’s complicated. Let’s just say I’m not quite sure how that’s going to play out.”
“It doesn’t matter. If it is all right with you, I’d like to be a part of its life, of yours, now. It’s past time for me to come home, more than this, more than back here.”
“I’d really love that, Pop. I will need your help with her.”
“I won’t disappoint you.”
“Breakfast!” Bev announced from the doorway, and came onto the deck with a big tray.
Kai hurried over to help her lower it to a table.
“How about French toast and bacon?”
“Perfect. Thank you, Bev,” Mal said, swiping at her eyes. “I’m starving.”
“Your stomach feels better?”
“Much. I think I just needed to rest.”
“Okay, then, dig in. I’ll go get some more coffee.”
“Let me,” Kai offered.
“Well, thank you.” Bev took a seat opposite Mal as she handed her one of the plates. Her eyes followed Kai as he disappeared into the house.
