by Edie Claire
The front door opened. Ilma stepped in just far enough to reach a pile of bedding and equipment that was lined up along the wall. She offered both of them a smile, then grabbed a handful of stuff and dodged out again.
“Where’s she going?” Maddie asked.
“She’s starting her pollen collection in the Northwest Islands tomorrow, remember?”
“Oh, right,” Maddie replied thoughtfully. Her eyes took on a distant look, and Wolf took advantage. Ilma’s entry couldn’t have been timed more perfectly if he’d planned it himself. He didn’t want to offend Maddie, but like many women of his acquaintance, her company wore thin when she tried to get inside his head.
“If you’ll open the door,” he said, rising, “I’ll grab the last load for her.” He made a move toward Ilma’s belongings, the remainder of which he could easily sweep into his arms.
“No, don’t!” Maddie said, jumping up from the loveseat and inserting herself between him and the pile.
Wolf blinked back at her in surprise. “What?”
Maddie’s beautiful lips puckered and her face reddened. “No offense, really, but Wolf — you reek of dog crap.”
Now his face reddened. “Oh,” he said, stepping quickly backwards. “Right.”
“As much as Ilma would appreciate fewer trips to her car,” Maddie said, laughing out loud now, “I don’t think the stench is worth it to her.”
Wolf imagined the fastidious Ilma wrinkling her nose all the way to the airport. He laughed along with Maddie and found himself looking straight into her eyes. Her irises were gray, with just a hint of blue. But it wasn’t the color of her eyes that got to him, that reached out across the space between them and clamped around his heart like a vise. It was the look. That damnable, liquid look of caring and compassion that said See me. I’m right here. Do you feel the connection? You can trust me.
Wolf stopped laughing. He turned away from her and headed for the door. “Well, I’d better hose off that truck,” he announced. “And hit the shower.”
He was halfway out the door — no, at least three-quarters out — when Maddie tried to stop him. She said his name, and then something like “wait a minute” or some other thing that women say in that tone they use when they want to talk talk. He knew that tone like he knew the back of his own hand; he knew it so well he could feel it coming. Which was a good thing, because in most cases, like now, he could avoid it without upsetting the speaker by pretending not to hear her. He didn’t want to upset women when they were genuinely trying to be nice to him — particularly Maddie, whom he admired for any number of reasons besides her incredible body. But he couldn’t talk to her. She was getting too close.
The smartest, most interesting women always did.
It was beyond annoying.
Wolf closed the door behind him and headed for his truck.
Chapter 9
Cape Elizabeth, Maine 1992
“I can’t believe your little girl is walking already! How old is she?”
Julie smiled at the young mother standing beside her in the toddler area of the pool complex. She was terribly proud, even if not for the reason the other woman assumed. “Oh, she’s sixteen months,” she explained, understanding the confusion. Ri was still so little that she appeared to be under a year old, and the fact that she was walking and even running a bit often startled people. But considering how far behind the child had been in development just eight months ago, Julie considered it a testament to Ri’s spunky nature that she was walking at all. “She’s small for her age. But very agile.”
“I can see that,” the other woman said with a laugh. “My Truman hasn’t a prayer of keeping up with her.”
The women watched indulgently as their offspring, clad in swim diapers and bright new suits, padded around on the soft rubbery surface of the play area, which featured an assortment of differently sized pipes that spit out water at unpredictable intervals. Truman, a bruiser of a boy who was more than twice Ri’s size but to Julie’s eyes looked no more than two and a half, was intent on stopping the flow by capping the appropriate pipe with his pudgy hands. Ri, however, had other plans. She wanted to stand in the water. Their parallel games ran without conflict for quite some time, partly because Truman moved slowly, partly because he couldn’t cover all of the pipe anyway, and partly because every time the water stopped, he was convinced that he was responsible and therefore stood in place gloating well into the next spray. But eventually, when two sprays erupted close together and the second was from a conveniently small pipe, little Ri found herself with no water to stand in.
Julie tensed. This would not go well. Ri’s rages were diminishing, but they were still a frightening thing to behold. Although it seemed unlikely that she had any conscious memory of the orphanage, the feelings of helplessness and frustration that she had endured for all those months still seemed to bear heavily on her subconscious. Although she could be charming with strangers and had warmed to Tom, she was still distant with Julie. She mistrusted anyone and everyone and was lightning quick to anger.
“Truman, honey,” the other mother called out. “Don’t do that. Let the little girl play!”
“Ri!” Julie cried at the same time, knowing it was hopeless and that she was too late, even as she stepped forward. She could tell by the way her daughter’s skinny little shoulders were hunching, by the way she bawled up her tiny fists…
And there it is.
Never mind that the bigger boy could squash Ri like a bug. Ri never bothered about such trifles as “consequences” when she wanted something. She wanted water, she wanted it now, and the best way to get it — clearly — was to aim a vicious jab at the face of the kid who was standing in her way.
Truman screamed. His mother screamed. Julie swooped in. But she wasn’t quick enough to prevent the boy’s reaction, which was to shove Ri away from him as hard as he could, laying her flat on the ground.
Both mothers reached their toddlers. A quick glance told Julie that the boy wasn’t hurt. Ri had missed his eye (which Julie was sure she’d been aiming for, but couldn’t quite reach) and delivered only a glancing blow to his cheek. Nor had Ri been hurt by her tumble onto the rubbery mat. But she had struck her head on one of the pipes as she fell. Julie’s first instinct, as always, was to gather her baby in her arms and hold her tight. But of course her little girl never wanted that. Her child didn’t want to be held, or even touched. At least not by Julie.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Julie crooned, holding out her hands and crouching close, touching the child just enough to help her right herself. “Did you hit your head? I’m so sorry.”
Ri hadn’t uttered a sound yet. She lay on the ground looking dazed until Julie helped her to sit. Then she placed a hand tentatively on the side of her head where the pipe had made contact. Her big brown eyes looked directly into Julie’s.
“Mommy,” she said clearly. “Boo-boo.”
Julie’s heart skipped a beat. Ri had never called her Mommy before. “I know, love,” she whispered, choking back a sob.
Ri’s eyes moved over Julie’s shoulder. She stared at the other mother and son as one bawled and the other fussed and cooed. Ri stared and stared as she pressed her hand against her skull, smashing her palm into her hair. Then her beautiful brown eyes flooded with tears. “Mommy!” she said in a frantic tone, her voice cracking.
Julie could say nothing. Her own eyes were overflowing.
Ri began to bawl outright. Her eyes turned back to Julie’s. Then she scrambled the rest of the way to her feet.
“It’s okay, Truman,” the other mother said with a hint of challenge in her voice. “The little girl is going to apologize for hitting for you. Isn’t she?”
Julie paid no attention. Ri was wrong to hit the boy, but that wasn’t important now. The other mother didn’t understand.
Ri stumbled forward into Julie’s embrace, wrapped her skinny arms around her mother’s neck, and held her tight. Ri’s little body shook with sobs.
&nbs
p; Julie clutched her daughter back, sobbing harder. Ri had never walked into her arms before. Never held her back before. Never sought any kind of comfort before. But now Ri was hurting, and she wanted her mommy.
Her mommy!
“Good Lord, the girl is fine!” the other mother said irritably as Truman continued to scream. “It’s my boy who got hit in the face!”
“Sorry about that,” Julie said to the other mother between hiccups, her face radiant with a smile. She kept Ri wrapped tightly in her arms, rubbed her back, kissed her cheek, cooed to her.
The other woman gaped in outrage, then stomped off with her son in her arms. She muttered something about assault and medical bills.
Julie didn’t listen. Julie didn’t care.
Ri wanted her mommy.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter 10
Maui, Hawaii, 2016
Ri looked carefully through the seemingly endless list of images in the “To Be Screened” folder to which she had been assigned. The Foundation sponsored a massive data collection project that tracked the movements and behaviors of whales and dolphins throughout the Pacific, and amateur photographers and first-time tourists alike were encouraged to assist by sending in good-quality pictures of whale flukes and dolphin dorsal fins. Identifying features on the photos could help the researchers not only pinpoint the species sighted, but in many cases, particularly with the humpbacks, they could identify individual animals. The “good quality” part was the catch.
Ri was lucky to score two usable photographs for every five pics submitted. In most, the flukes were either partially obscured or too poorly lit. And it wasn’t surprising that so many shots of the fast-moving dolphin fins — snapped with a cell phone on a rocking boat — were out of focus altogether. But it was inspiring how many concerned people took the time to try and help. And every time she did find a winner, she considered it a triumph.
She was the only intern remaining in the basement office now, as it was past quitting time. The team had spent all day yesterday being trained on the Foundation’s marine mammal tracking projects; they had spent all day today buried in the most tedious and least desirable chores those projects entailed. Ri was slightly stir crazy at having been chained to a computer for so many hours, but she was content. While she would prefer to be out on the ocean every minute, she understood the realities of research.
“Shut that thing down,” Lachland said, smiling at her cheerfully from his desk across the room. “Don’t feel obligated to keep going just because I’m sitting here. I’ve been playing minesweeper for the last twenty minutes.”
Ri laughed and followed instructions. “I do think my eyes are starting to cross,” she admitted. “I’ll be seeing flukes in my sleep.”
“You get used to it,” he commiserated. Then his smile faded, and his expression turned serious.
The look on his face hit Ri like a blow. She knew what had been going on behind the scenes. It was Friday, three days since the fire, and HR was still scrambling to find her someplace to live by Monday morning. They’d already been successful with the guys. One of the pursers in the tour division had been wanting to sublet his room and move in with his girlfriend, so Will and Bryant would be borrowing Mrs. Araki’s bunk beds and splitting his rent between them. So long as the purser and his girlfriend didn’t break up, the male interns were good until the lease ran out at the end of August. But for Ri, there had been no such happy news. All she had received was a copy of the company’s standard new employee handout, entitled “Affordable Local Housing,” which was delivered by a sheepish looking Kaley from HR, the same Kaley who had previously admitted that she couldn’t afford to live on the island herself if she weren’t renting from an aunt and uncle. Ri had already looked through it. Nothing it suggested even came close to falling within her budget.
Lachland’s look of regretful sympathy did not bode well.
“We haven’t found anything yet,” he announced gently. “A place for you to stay, I mean. But we’re going to keep looking.”
Ri swallowed. Her throat felt dry and lumpy. She cast a glance down at the floor, which was covered with thin industrial carpeting. Since the office was at basement level, there was probably nothing under that but concrete. “I could get a sleeping bag,” she teased. But not really.
“I wish,” Lachland replied, taking her seriously. He ran a sun-tanned hand through his longish blond hair. “But we don’t have a kitchen here. Or a shower. And of course the board would never approve it because of the insurance. Believe me. We’ve had employees ask before.”
Ri believed him.
The moment turned awkward, and Ri found herself feeling almost as sorry for her new boss as he seemed to feel for her. The fire wasn’t his fault, nor was it his fault that the guys had gotten first dibs on a sublet she’d never really had a shot at. But she could tell that he felt like she’d gotten a raw deal.
“Do you have a ride back to the hotel?” he asked, rising.
Ri had already answered that question once in his hearing, when she declined the ride HR had offered to all three interns earlier, but she gave the man a pass. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere. “A friend is picking me up,” she answered, looking at the clock. “She should be here any minute. I suppose I should go wait out—”
“Hey, Lach!” a cheerful voice called out, startling Ri into silence.
“Maddie!” Lachland replied, looking surprised himself. “What are you doing here?”
Maddie smiled at Ri. “I’ve come to pick up my future cousin-in-law. Didn’t you hear?”
Lachland looked from one woman to the other with confusion. “Wait,” he asked Ri. “You’re related to Kai?”
“Distantly,” she answered. She had learned over dinner Wednesday night that Maddie actually knew Lachland, as well as several others on staff at the Foundation. Ri wasn’t surprised, since Maui was a small island and the scientific research community even smaller. But she had felt odd telling Lachland about her local connections when she’d said nothing about them right after the fire — explaining that she hadn’t known Kai and Maddie then would be impossibly complicated.
Lachland’s face brightened. He looked back at Maddie and cut right to the chase. “Well, can’t you guys find someplace for her to stay this summer, then? Kai knows a lot of people!”
“We’re working on it,” Maddie said with a mysterious tone. A hopeful mysterious tone.
Ri’s heart leapt. “Did you find something?”
Maddie smirked. “Get your stuff and come on,” she said, tossing her head toward the exit. “We’re going for a drive.”
Ri managed not to bug her chauffeur with questions all the way to Kahului. But when they made a turn that was clearly taking them away from any possible path to Ri’s hotel, she could stand the suspense no longer. “Okay, I give up. Where are we going?” Maddie had called Ri’s cell phone in the middle of the afternoon and said that she happened to be collecting samples nearby, would finish up around five-thirty, and would be happy to give Ri a ride home.
Maddie laughed. “I thought I’d swing you by my place first. Show you around. It’s a little out of the way… but I hear there might be an opening.”
“Your place?” Ri asked, disbelieving. “You mean, at the field station? All the way up on Haleakala?”
“Hey, don’t knock it,” Maddie said with mock defensiveness. “I make this drive almost every day. Twice. You get used to it.”
As curious as Ri was, Maddie seemed to have said all she wanted to say for now. And since Ri was not one who felt a compulsion to fill silence with empty chatter, she sat back in her seat and enjoyed the view.
The truck began its journey up the mountain by winding through a picturesque small town, where houses and a few tourist-type businesses showed off lush green courtyards and colorful flowers. As the road grew steeper the town thinned, revealing a mishmash of expensive vacation homes mixed in with more modest dwellings, tiny ramshackle cottages, and the occasional
goat pen.
As they rose in altitude and the temperature cooled, Maddie turned off the air and cracked the windows of the truck, and Ri could hear a million birds singing in the bushes and trees that bordered the snaking two-lane road. Shortly after they passed a sign declaring an elevation of 4000 feet, the landscape opened up, and they drove over a grated cattle guard and onto grassy fields. To Ri’s left, several cows grazed near a cluster of evergreens, and ahead of her up the mountain, she could see that the truck would soon enter a series of sharp switchbacks cut deeply into beds of black rock. But the view to her right was by far the most amazing.
When she looked down toward the valley from which she had come, Ri was high enough up to view the entire crescent-shaped outline of Ma'alaea Bay. She could see the marina where the Foundation was. She could see the whole land bridge all the way to Kahului. She could even see the Pacific on the other side of the island at her hotel!
“Oh, wow,” she breathed.
“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” Maddie said proudly. “Now you see why I don’t complain about the commute. As far as I live from Kai, I can always tease him about keeping an eye on him at night.”
“Can you?”
Maddie chuckled. “Well, not really. Technically, I could see where he used to live, if I borrowed some good binoculars. But I could only make it out on clear nights, which are pretty rare. And I can’t see his new apartment at all. But it makes a good line, anyway.”
Ri stared. She could hardly believe that the vista she was seeing now was visible with her naked eyes — and from a car window. It looked like something one could only see from a plane. Or on a travel poster.
Her vision was suddenly obscured by a thick patch of white mist. “Oh, dear.”
“Yeah, that happens,” Maddie explained. “It gets cloudier the higher you climb. At the very top it usually gets clear again, but that doesn’t help the field station. We’re at 6800 feet, right in the ring zone. Kind of frustrating, unless you like pretending you’re in London. Or if you’re into vampires and werewolves.”
