by Reina Torres
He loved her.
And even though she’d talked to Hi‘ilani about it, there was no way to doubt how much her friend loved her man. It was painted all over her face, shining from her eyes…
Lucky duck.
Lifting her chin, she put a smile on her own face and walked over to meet the group of guys that she would have steered clear of if she was on her own.
Boy, the things she did for her friends.
“Hey!”
It only took a moment for Hi‘ilani to turn in Jackson’s arms and wave her over. “Hey! Come meet the guys!”
The men turned to look at her and she almost tripped over her feet.
Auwē! If she’d thought that they’d looked good from a distance, she was stunned at how handsome they were.
No, not handsome. That was too mundane.
Handsome was just downright boring compared to the reality staring back at her.
Suddenly she was thinking of ways to clear her calendar so she could give them that tour and take her time with it.
Wishful thinking, but it had been so long since she-
“Guys… this is Ku‘uipo Ornellas, she’s-”
“Sweetheart.”
She couldn’t help the odd thump of her heart in her chest when she heard the endearment.
Hi‘ilani heard it too. The smirk on her face said she was enjoying the moment too much. “That,” she made a point of nodding toward the man closest to them, “is Train.”
“Train?”
The taller man behind him gave him a hard shove. “That’s right. Choo choo!”
She gave ‘Train’ credit for keeping an easy smile on his face. His teammate looked like a jerk.
Taking a step closer, Train held out his hand. “Efrain Figueroa. The guys call me Train.”
Relieved that it wasn’t his real name, she couldn’t help what was probably a goofy grin on her face. “And you know my name.”
Nodding, he shook her hand, and the warmth of his skin gave her a feeling of contentment.
It made no sense to her.
But if felt so good.
“Do you speak Hawaiian?” While she blurted out the question, she felt her cheeks warm all the way to her ears.
He shook his head. “Not really. A few words here and there.”
“But you know ‘sweetheart.’” Ku‘uipo couldn’t help but feel disappointed. There really were only a couple of reasons a handsome guy would know ‘that’ word. And she couldn’t help but wonder how many girls had heard that whispered into their ears by Efrain.
As she looked at him, she saw his smile grow and little lines appear at the corners of his eyes.
“What?”
She looked over at Hi‘ilani and saw her friend pinking up too. What the hell?
“I’m a big movie fan.”
Ku‘uipo turned back to Train and struggled to wait patiently for more information.
“I’m the one who wanted to see the hotel.” His smile was dazzling. “I love everything about that film. The lagoon at the hotel? Incredible! And Angela Landsbury in a film with Elvis? Classic. And yes, I know Ku‘uipo means sweetheart, because it’s in the song. Ku‘uipo. My Hawaiian sweetheart. Although I promised Hi‘ilani that I’d never try to sing The Wedding Song without more practice in the language.”
The bark of laughter from her old friend was both eye-opening and amusing at the same time.
“He’s telling the truth. I almost tackled him to the ground to cover his mouth. He’s so bad.”
Standing behind her, Jackson smoothed his hands on her shoulders. The sight was both sweet and frustrating to Ku‘uipo.
Train sighed and drew her attention back to him. “Yeah, I tried, but it was-”
“Ear meltingly bad.”
The blond man took her hand from Train’s. “I’m Cullen Andrews. The nice one of the group.”
It was impossible to ignore the glare that Train had leveled on his friend.
Wondering how long she could hold back her laughter, she tried to move through the rest of the introductions. “So, what do they call you?”
Cullen’s smile lost a little bit of its intensity as another one of the men clapped a hand down on his shoulder and stepped between him and Train. “Cullen. He hasn’t done anything memorable enough or stupid enough to earn anything else.” He raised a brow as Cullen tried to shrug his hand off. “I’m Mace. Whitford Mason.”
He was taller than Cullen, but where Cullen had that hot quarterback look, Mace was more of the California surfer guy with highlights she recognized instantly. Those didn’t come from a bottle. They came from sun. Lots of it.
More than she ever had a chance to get.
“So, Mace,” she wondered aloud, “that’s for… ancient weapons?”
Mace puffed up a little, but before he could speak, Cullen answered. “His breath. It knocks the ladies back a few feet. It even knocked a few out if I recall correctly.”
Turning toward the younger man, Mace’s glare looked serious enough that Ku‘uipo stepped back just in case, but it wasn’t really necessary because tall, dark, and grumpy from the back of the group stepped right through the other two. He didn’t offer a hand and she didn’t reach for one. “Baron.”
She waited, but he didn’t volunteer more information. “Okay,” she shrugged, “you’re Baron.”
Train was the one who waded in before the silence became more than mildly uncomfortable. “Tell her your name, B.”
“Why?” He jerked a thumb back at Hi‘ilani and Jackson. “Just because he decided to fall in love doesn’t mean that I’m going to.” Baron looked around the group. “Or any of the rest of us.”
“And that’s when I step in.”
The group parted down the middle and a gentleman walked through the gap. There really wasn’t another word to describe the man other than gentleman. He was maybe a hair taller than Jackson and Train, but he held himself with a rugged elegance that kind of took her breath away. There were hints of brown below the silvery white of the hair at his temples and when he held out his hand, she kind of wondered if she should bow or make an attempt at a curtsy like they did in those historical romance films.
A side glance at Hi‘ilani said that her reaction to the man hadn’t been much different from Ku‘uipo’s.
“Commander Chastain, Miss. I feel like I need to apologize for some of the men. Five days of training hasn’t done much to keep them in touch with their manners.”
He released her hand and she waved off his concern. “I’ve been dealing with drunken groomsmen this morning. That’s why I’m here. The groom and his best man went hiking last night. Volunteer searchers found one of the men and they’re bringing him down.”
Cheers from the trailhead turned all of their heads in that direction. Two paramedics rushed through the group to meet them and Ku‘uipo rose up on the balls of her feet to see over the throng. She shook her head and fought off a rush of frustration.
“Hey,” she heard the concern in Train’s voice, “they found one.”
Swallowing at the lump that had risen into her throat she let out a breath. “I’m happy for that, really. I wouldn’t want anyone lost out there, but that’s the best man. I have an anxious bride and both of their families hoping that we find the groom. He’s kind of important in the whole wedding scheme, you know?”
She could hear the tightness in her voice, but she couldn’t quite help the tears that gathered on her lashes.
“Don’t mind me. I’m feeling a little-”
“Upset? Who wouldn’t be?”
She looked over her shoulder and saw Train’s hopeful expression looking back. “His bride’s going to kill me if we don’t find him soon.”
He gestured at the group around them. “She wouldn’t get through us. We’d keep you safe.”
His words washed over her in a rush.
That sounded really nice.
Living on Kaua‘i for the last year and a half she’d been away from her family on Oʻahu. S
he’d felt excited, stressed, rushed, and worried about failure almost every day, but safe?
It had been a long, long time.
Officer Kim jogged over to her from the pop-up tent that had become the command center for the search.
She felt Train move beside her and Ku‘uipo reached out a hand, touching his for a moment before dropping it back down to her side.
The officer got close enough that he could lower his voice and speak to her. “They’re ready for you to talk to him.”
“Thanks.” She looked over at Hi‘ilani. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
“We’ll be here for a while,” her friend reassured her. “Go talk to the man.”
Ku‘uipo started to walk across the parking lot, feeling the baking heat off of the asphalt more as she moved through the sun. It took her a few moments to realize that she wasn’t alone. A quick turn of her head found Train almost shoulder to shoulder with her.
“Where,” she started and felt a cough of nervous laughter shake her shoulders, “where are you going?”
He was beside her now, his shoulder higher than hers by a few inches, but still beside her. “I’m going with you.”
Three
Ku‘uipo tried to ignore the way it felt to have Train walking beside her.
Train.
What was that about anyway? She much preferred the name Efrain. It sounded like his nickname, but it seemed to match him more.
Shaking the thoughts free of her mind she made her way through the growing crowds and looked at her watch. Lunch wasn’t happening, and even though people had brought food to the command post she just couldn’t eat anything until they’d found the groom.
Water, of course. She was worried, not stupid. Hydrating in the humidity was necessary and she needed to keep sharp.
One of the paramedics was a hānai cousin of hers, David Lim.
“Hui!”
He turned from their patient and waved her over.
She came to the back of the ambulance and sidled up to the paramedic. “What’s going on?”
David shook his head. “Alcohol and late-night hiking don’t mix.”
Ku‘uipo bit down on her back teeth and leaned in to whisper. “Night hiking is no good for anyone.”
Shrugging, he still managed a smile. “Certainly keeps me from being bored at work.”
“It’s not about you, cuz.” She elbowed him. “Is he okay to talk?”
“Go ahead and try. He seems to be a little more alert than when he first came off the trail.”
The man sitting on the back bumper of the ambulance was Robert Thomson, the best man. Robert had been a bit of a trouble maker since the arrival of the wedding party, making James late for a few early events, but she believed that he really did care for his friend.
Moving closer, she sat beside him and looked at the I.V. that was in his arm. The bag of fluid hanging from a hook above his head was halfway gone. “Wow, looks like you’re pretty dehydrated.”
He groaned. “Don’t remind me. After we get James back, I’m not going to be drinking ever again.”
His proclamation would have sounded more impressive if he didn’t lift his free hand to press the heel into his forehead.
“I feel like my head’s about to explode.”
There was that too. He was obviously more than a little off his game. Still, there wasn’t really time to sit back and wait for him to feel better. They could get more information out of him later, but at that moment, they had to try to narrow down the search. When the helicopter came back, she wanted to at least be able to narrow the search of the trail.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling like that, Robert, but we’ve got a problem and you’re my only hope right now.”
He lowered his hand and looked into her eyes. “Then we’re fucked.”
Okay then. That went well.
“Not quite. We can find him, Robert. I need your help to give me a direction. Were you guys up here to do something specific? Or was this just a sudden need to commune with nature? Was it something about Sleeping Giant?” She hoped her tone was easy and calm, because she didn’t feel like either.
Squeezing his eyes shut against the sun he let out a breath that smelled more like vodka than anything else. “It’s that flower thing.”
“Flower?” She thought back to everything that had happened that morning and reached into her pocket for the napkin that Hilarie had given her. Opening it up, she turned it around until the words faced Robert. Ku‘uipo pointed to the doodle that looked like a bunch of bumps in a circle. “Is this a flower?”
Robert reached out to grab it and missed it by a mile so she had to hold it up closer to his face. After a moment of thought he nodded. The action turned his skin green.
David reached for a basin in the back of the ambulance. “Try not to move around too much, your balance is off.”
“Everything is off,” Robert grumbled. “We came up here because you’d said this was an easy trail. You said that.”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “I did. As long as you stopped at the marker I told you about.”
Robert leaned his head back and sighed. “Yeah… Now I remember that.”
“Okay,” she let a little smile loose, “so you went past the marker last night. To get the flower.”
“Flower,” he started to nod and then thought better of it, managing to only turn an off shade of pink. “Yeah, the flower… the half one.” He made a cutting motion with his hand. “The legend thing. He thought he would find one on the mountain.”
Ku‘uipo wanted to scream. “Well, at least he was trying to do something romantic at least.”
“Romantic Shhh-mantic,” Robert groused. “And I ended up spending the night drunk, on a mountain.”
“And where was James?”
Another rushing exhale and Ku‘uipo was sure that she was turning green herself. “I don’t know.”
“Okay.” She let out a breath of her own, knowing that it would calm her. “Let’s start from the beginning. I know it was dark and I know you’re not familiar with the trail, but if you try to give me some indication of what you saw. The kinds of trees or rocks that you went by? That would help me.”
Robert looked over her shoulder and she knew that Efrain was there, waiting with her. Why? Goodness, she didn’t have time to figure out that mystery too.
“What’s he here for?”
Great. Random questions. Not helping.
“I’ve got search and rescue experience.”
She heard the words and turned to look up and over her shoulder. The look on Efrain’s face was serious, but not overly so. He wasn’t trying to ‘sell’ his answer. Maybe it was the truth.
“He’s going to hate this, you know. It wasn’t until we got here and into the parking lot, you really ought to have some kind of lock on the gate to keep people out after hours.”
It wouldn’t do any good to point out to Robert that there had been. It was one of the reasons that they’d been called to this particular park. A passing car had called the police to report that the gate had been broken and the damage to the front end of James’ rental car was telling.
And expensive.
“So, you came up here to get a naupaka flower.”
“That’s the name!” Robert cringed at his own volume and pressed the heel of his hand against his temple. “He said he was going to get her the male flower so they can put them together with a beach flower at the ceremony.”
It really was a sweet idea. Misguided and crazy, but sweet. In fact, if James had just told her he wanted to do that she would have taken him up that very morning. Being drunk had obviously compromised their decision making. Thank heavens that there hadn’t been any reports of an accident other than the gate since she was fairly sure that both of them had been drinking before they got behind the wheel.
“And how was he going to find the flower in the dark?”
A random gesture with his hand was Robert’s first answer. “We had our cell phone
s and used that for light when we went on the trail. I couldn’t remember what the thing looked like beyond the fact that it looked like half a flower, so most of the time I used my phone to shine a light for him.
“We moved slowly enough that I wasn’t worried about falling, or anything like that. And we got to the end of the marked trail.”
Robert stopped for a long moment, his head slowly lowering toward his chest. Fearful that he was falling asleep, she wanted to shake him, but she remembered the issue with his stomach and didn’t want him to empty it. No one liked the taste of bile.
“Robert?”
He didn’t lift his head so his voice took on a strange far-away sound. “I’m thinking.”
“Okay.” Ku‘uipo stretched out her legs and flexed each foot in turn. The ache in her calves were starting to move up to her thighs and she still had work to do.
“Hey,” she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to look. Efrain was close, his hand warm against the skin a few inches from her neck.
To say that she was aware of his presence was an understatement. His touch was gentle, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t make an impression.
She felt his warming touch and found herself wondering what was going on behind his eyes.
“Face.” Robert looked up and groaned at the sudden shift in the position of his head. “I stopped when we got to the face.”
“The giant’s face? You were going to climb over the giant’s head in the dark?”
“Not me.” He lifted his hand to wave off her question and ended up startling himself. “I know my limits. I’m not exactly an outdoorsy kind of guy. James is one. Kind of. But me? I like my handmade shoes and tailored clothing. Hiking?”
David leaned closer to her. “They want me to take him to the hospital as soon as you’ve spoken to him.”
“Okay, cuz. I just need a minute more.”
He shrugged and she caught him looking over at Efrain as he walked over to his partner.
“Robert, why-”
“Look, my phone died. I couldn’t use the flashlight anymore and James said he could do it on his own. He’d read a few Yelp reviews and was sure he had it figured out.”
