by Toby Neal
Tiare snuffed the candles, opened the curtains, and helped Lei sit up. “Don’t want you walking around for a while, so let’s just sponge you off a bit and get you into something clean. Company is coming.” She helped Lei clean up with a washcloth and then handed Lei her favorite terry cloth robe. Lei eased into it, feeling exhausted, sore, but also pampered as Tiare propped her up with a couple of extra pillows.
Done with settling Lei, Tiare pulled out a measuring tape and measured Rosie as Stevens held her in the bath. “She’s good size for an early baby. Stevens, get on this bathroom scale.” She’d brought the device in. “Then we’ll weigh you with her in your arms.”
They did so. Rosie came in at close to six pounds. “She’s well developed. Guess she was just ready to join us,” Tiare said. Relief flooded Lei—she hadn’t done anything wrong to bring on the birth, and Rosie appeared totally healthy. Lei’s old hurts and fears felt washed away, purged by the storm they’d just been through.
“I hear chainsaws.” Stevens turned his head toward the front of the property, still fully occupied with the baby.
“Yeah. They’ve been working out there for a while. I got through to Pono and Jared. They’re cutting through it with a few other guys from the fire department,” Tiare said.
“What’s going on out there?” Lei asked. “Did something happen?”
“Big tree fell and blocked the gate. We couldn’t get to the hospital. But you were too busy having a baby to care,” Stevens teased.
“Whoa! I can’t believe I missed all the drama!” Lei exclaimed.
“Just rest. You had a baby less than an hour ago. Stay in bed. There should still be some contractions as your uterus goes down, and this is where everyone’s going to want to come, anyway, to meet Rosie. By the way, the phones are back up and I took a call on the house phone from Esther Ka`awai on Kauai. She called with the baby’s Hawaiian name,” Tiare said.
Lei and Stevens gave Tiare their full attention. “Esther is Rosie’s godmother. What did she say?” Lei asked.
“She told me to tell you that the baby’s Hawaiian name is Maluhia,” Tiare said. “It means peace.”
Stevens lifted his tiny, fragrant, clean daughter out of the tub and wrapped her in the soft towel Tiare handed him, smiling down at the baby. “Perfect,” he said. “Just perfect.”
“I love it. I can’t wait to tell Esther how exactly right her name is. Now give her back to me. I need another Maluhia fix over here.” Snuggling the baby close, Lei’s eyes fell peacefully shut.
Stevens
Stevens put a microscopic diaper on Rosie and then a snap-up pajama while Lei rested a little later. The baby gazed intently at his face, calm as her name implied. He finally sat down with her in the rocking chair they still owned from the early days with Kiet. Rosie’s tender head lay in the palm of his hand, her body on his forearm as he rested it on his bent knee.
They took each other’s measure for long moments, and then she yawned, her tiny body drawing up as she stretched. She shut her eyes and went to sleep, going limp as a kitten.
No fuss. No drama. Maluhia, indeed. He cuddled the infant close on his chest and tucked his chin over her, breathing in her sweet new baby smell.
It was hard to believe so much had happened in such a short time. Rosie’s birth couldn’t have been more different than the extreme trauma of Kiet’s. His son had been cut from his mother’s dying body, flown to Oahu, put in foster care . . . Stevens shook his head to clear it of sad memories and old regrets. Kiet was a sensitive kid, but he was fine, especially now that Stevens was sober and he and Lei were getting along.
In the distance, through the fading sounds of the storm, he could still hear the chainsaws. He should probably go out and help, open the gate . . . do something. But nothing seemed more important than this moment with his baby girl.
So soft. So helpless and trusting. Thank God the dark days of the Chang family and the shroud killer were behind them . . .
He started awake to see Tiare smiling down at him. “The guys are almost through the log.”
“Oh, great.” Stevens tipped forward and stood up, turning to Lei—but she’d fallen asleep, too, clean in her yellow robe, her hair a fuzzy nimbus around her pale face. She looked wiped out, but even sleeping, there was a shadow of a smile on her face.
“Why don’t we let Lei sleep? She certainly deserves a nap. You can take Rosie out and introduce her when the guys get through,” Tiare said.
Stevens felt a grin split his face. “I gotta tell Wayne and Mom. They’re going to be surprised it’s over so soon.”
“You got that right. Let’s keep her inside. We should have everyone wash. No exposure to anyone that’s sick. Keep her head warm.” Tiare sounded very “professional nurse” as she handed him a tiny cotton cap. “Do you have somewhere to put her?”
“Kiet’s cradle.” Stevens had spotted it in the corner of the living room. Lei must have gotten it ready—the mattress pad in the bottom was clean and fresh. He set Rosie down on her back, working the cap gently onto her head, and Tiare covered the infant with a flannel blanket, tucking it in.
Rosie looked petite and cherubic in the cradle. Stevens could stare at her all day. He stretched up, arms overhead, and his spine crackled. The short nap seemed to have restored him.
“Tiare, we can’t thank you enough. We couldn’t have done it without you.” He reached out and pulled the tall, statuesque woman in for a hug. “Not too many people I can think of trusting with something so personal. Pono’s a lucky man.”
Tiare’s soft brown eyes gleamed with pleasure at his words. “I think you two might have surprised yourselves if you’d had to do it on your own, but it was my honor to help.”
“On our own!” Stevens shuddered dramatically. “No way—that was scary enough for me, thank you very much. Take a break, woman. You deserve it! I’m going over to Wayne’s to let him and Kiet know Rosie’s here. Then I’ll take a look at how the log demolition is coming along.” Tiare nodded, and Stevens went out onto the porch.
Colors seemed too bright and the sounds of the chainsaws and occasional shouts too loud, so Stevens just stood there for a moment, feeling the mist of lightly blowing rain as the storm passed. They’d gone deep into their intimate cocoon in the house—but now he felt ready to rejoin the outside world.
Wayne had come out onto his little porch. Stevens was surprised to see that he had his arm around Ellen, who must have been over visiting Kiet when the storm hit. Stevens grinned big and gestured for them to come over. “Come meet your grandbaby! Rosie is here!”
Kiet came running out of the house, pitching himself off the steps, the dogs right behind him. He ran the short distance and flung his arms around Stevens’s legs. Stevens hugged him and patted the dogs.
“You have a baby sister named Rosie, little man! But you have to be really gentle meeting her, okay?”
“Is Mama okay?” Kiet’s dark green eyes squinted with worry.
“Your mama’s just fine. She’s taking a nap, though. Everyone has to be quiet,” Stevens warned as Wayne and Ellen came across the grass, still holding hands. They must have really bonded during the storm or something. The two of them headed up the steps with Kiet to where Tiare was guarding the doorway.
“Oh, my goodness, that was fast!” Ellen hugged him. “So everything was fine?”
“Intense, but Tiare tells me it was textbook. Lei’s crashed out but doing great. You all can go meet Rosie. I’m gonna check out the log demolition,” Stevens said. After hugs all around, Stevens walked down to the gate, the dogs at his side. Water still spattered him, but it was mostly side-blowing moisture off the trees. He hit the button to retract the gate and it rumbled open.
The tree had been dismembered into giant disks. Some of these had been hauled out of the road, but others still remained upright, huge ringed brown pancakes.
Jared walked toward him. His brother was soaked with rain and sweat, eyes alight, and he held an ax in his hand. “Bro! We f
inally got the road open so you can get to the hospital, but Pono tells me everything’s over with already.”
“You have a niece named Rosie,” Stevens said. Just saying her name brought a shit-eating grin to his face. “Mama and baby are fine.”
“Tiare called me. She says you guys did awesome.” Pono clapped Stevens on the shoulder in a man hug. “Gave my wife a workout, but she’s as proud as if she had the baby herself.”
“She should be. We’d have been lost without her.” Stevens’s brows lifted in surprise to see Kathy Fraser, with Ikaika and Maile, walk out from behind one of the huge sections of log. All three carried axes and appeared to have been helping clear the road. Kathy wore a too-big Maui Fire Department T-shirt under a clear poncho.
“Glad to hear everyone’s okay,” Kathy said. “We were really worried.”
“It was freakin’ intense, not gonna lie.” Stevens pushed a hand through his hair. “But we made it. How’d you get roped in on this project?”
“She was with me when the storm hit.” Jared pulled Kathy close possessively. She melted into him, smiling.
Stevens knew all he needed to know about what they’d been up to—and how they felt about each other. “Excellent,” he pronounced. “Where are we at with this tree project?”
Wayne
Wayne stood on the porch of Lei and Stevens’s new house—it would always be the “new” house to him, even though it had been completed five years ago. He felt a tremble in Ellen’s fingers. Her hand was cold. He tucked it in against his side.
Tiare met the three of them at the door as Stevens left to check out the action in front of the gate. Kiet bounced with excitement and tried to dart around Tiare, and the Hawaiian woman knelt to his level.
“Honey, I know you’re excited. I’m only letting you in because I know you can be a great big brother and let your little sister sleep. She is extra tiny because she got born early, and she needs her rest. Okay?”
“Okay.” Kiet nodded vigorously.
“And your mama is resting, too.”
“I’ll be quiet.”
Wayne smiled at Tiare. “Thanks. For everything. We didn’t expect this.”
“It was all kind of a surprise, but everything went fine.” Tiare’s glance flicked between them. “You two get through the storm okay?”
“We played a lot of Go Fish with Kiet,” Ellen said. They stepped over the threshold into the living room.
Kiet walked straight over to the wooden cradle that had been his and knelt beside it, peering in. Wayne’s heart swelled at the expression of wonder on his little face. He and Ellen came to stand above the little boy.
Rosie had sweet round cheeks. A pink bud of a mouth. Curly brown hair escaped from under her cotton cap. “She looks just like Lei did as a baby.” Wayne’s voice was thick. He blinked moisture out of his eyes as Ellen put both her arms around his waist and hugged him.
“Our grandbabies are so beautiful.” Ellen’s voice choked.
“When can she play with me?” Kiet whispered loudly.
Wayne chuckled. “Give her a few years, buddy.”
Kiet lost interest then, going over to the coffee table and pulling out his bin of Legos from underneath. “I’ll make you something, Grandma Ellen. Want a boat?”
“Sure.” Ellen followed him and sat down on the couch beside the little boy. Wayne took one more look at Rosie’s precious sleeping face and went into the kitchen. Tiare was frowning into the refrigerator.
“Those firefighters are going to be hungry,” she said. “Not much in here.”
“I’ve got some food in my big freezer at my cottage. Why don’t you go join your family?”
“Yeah, why don’t you?” Pono entered, coming forward on stockinged feet after toeing off his boots at the door. “I want my wife back.”
Wayne grinned as Tiare turned to her husband, opening her arms. Pono pulled her close in a huge bear hug and kissed her enthusiastically. “So proud of you, honey,” he said.
Ikaika and Maile tiptoed in and joined Kiet by the coffee table, peeking over at the baby.
“I better get that food.” Wayne lifted a hand to Ellen, the only person who noticed as he left.
At his cottage, Wayne took a huge batch of frozen laulau out of his freezer and put it in a glass pan, microwaving the steam-cooked Hawaiian meat dish with its covering of kalo leaves. Ellen appeared at the door as he was serving the laulau up onto a large china platter.
“It’s turning into a party over there,” she said.
“Sure it’s not too much for the baby? Or Lei?”
“Both are still sleeping, if you can believe it.” Ellen took the glass pan, piled high, from his hands. “I’m so grateful we’re sharing these grandbabies. That we’re family.”
Wayne gazed at her, trying not to be too intense. “Is that all we are?”
He’d been afraid to say anything as his affection for Ellen deepened. Putting a name to it might scare her away, but he’d lived for those little moments of holding her hand or giving her a hug.
“Is that all you want us to be?” Ellen whispered. Her blue eyes watched him steadily—eyes he saw every day in his son-in-law’s face, bluer than the skies over Maui’s ocean. Five years of family and sober living had restored much of the beauty she’d once been.
Wayne took the glass dish from her hands and set it on the counter. He took her soft face in his hands, worrying that his were too rough and calloused, but she turned her cheek to kiss his palm. Encouraged, he drew close, looking into eyes that gazed into his, unwavering until their lips met. The kiss was sweet, and tender, and a little reckless, too.
The years rolled away. Everything was new, and possible, and filled with deep joy.
The laulau had to be reheated by the time they carried it to the main house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
C.J.
The next day dawned clear and bright, the world washed fresh and soggy. C.J., riding beside Abe Torufu in his truck, arrived at the site of the log’s demise around noon. Pono had called her the previous day to tell her that the baby had been born and that all was well in spite of the storm.
Clearly, the tree had paid for falling in the way of the Texeira-Stevens home. Huge discs of sliced-up trunk had been pushed and pulled to the side of the road. A giant pile of cut branches reached to the top of the fence. Abe navigated past protruding debris and stopped at the keypad facing the gate. He turned to C.J. “You sure you’re ready to do this?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I’m ready to go public.”
“Glad you finally got over yourself.”
C.J. punched his rock-hard shoulder, and Abe winced comically, grinning. He leaned out the window and pressed the intercom button on the gate control.
Stevens’s voice came through tinny and hollow. “Hello?”
“This is Abe Torufu. And Captain Omura. Here to pay our respects to the new arrival.”
“Captain’s with you?” Surprise in Stevens’s voice. “Great. We need to catch up on the case. We’ve got a bunch of company, but the more the merrier at this point.”
The gate retracted with a rumble. Abe braked at the sight of a cluster of vehicles jamming the parking area. “Looks like a party in here.”
“And we’re fashionably late.” C.J. had taken the morning off. She wore a pair of slim black jeans and a tee paired with a jean jacket, since the weather was cool with the earth still soaked from the storm. She touched up her lipstick, fussing a little nervously with her hair, as Abe found a parking spot under a macadamia nut tree’s spreading branches.
“You look amazing. As usual.” Abe gave that gap-toothed grin that she might be coming to love. “And I’m going to mess that lipstick up anyway.” He hooked a big hand around her neck and hauled her over for a kiss. C.J. flapped her hands against his chest eventually, and he let go.
“Someone could see,” she scolded.
“We’re a couple now, remember? No more sneaking around?”
“Oh,
yeah.” C.J. opened her door and stepped out of the truck onto the squishy lawn. “Oh, no. My shoes!” She gazed down as her favorite Jimmy Choo slides disappeared into the muddy grass. “Dang it.”
“Let me help.” Abe came around the front of the truck and scooped her up. C.J. squeaked, but there was nothing to be done but hook her arms around his thick neck and let herself be carried up to the house.
Stevens’s mouth hung open in shock as Abe set C.J. on the bottom step and took her hand. “Her shoes were getting wet,” he said, by way of explanation.
“Ah . . . sorry about that. We had a bit of rain, as you can see. Come on in. Got a lot of company, but I know Lei will be happy to see you both. So you’re . . . ah . . .” Stevens seemed to be groping for words. “A thing?”
“Indeed we are,” C.J. said. “More than a thing. We’re a couple, aren’t we, Abe?” It actually felt good to say it, and she hadn’t stopped smiling since he’d picked her up on the lawn.
“I’d like us to get married, but she’s playing hard to get,” Abe told Stevens. The lieutenant’s eyes bulged.
“One step at a time, babe.” C.J.’s heart stuttered a little—he was always pushing, the brat. “Why don’t you go in for a minute and say hi to everyone, so I can update Stevens on his case.”
“Sure, Cherry.” Abe kissed her and went inside.
“Cherry?” Stevens had begun to grin, and it took up half of his face.
C.J. fluffed her hair self-consciously. “It’s my first name—Cherry Joy—which I don’t go by for obvious reasons. But Abe likes it.” C.J. could feel a blush heating her chest, so she hurried on to safer topics. “We had a lot of action on the case after you left yesterday. Mahoe is solid. Got more under the hood than I initially gave him credit for.”
