A Matter of Heart (55 page)

“He wants to marry you
because you’re his Connection and he loves you more than anything else in the
worlds,” Kellan says calmly. “But he also wanted to put me in my place.”

I just can’t accept this.
“But—”

“I’ve always known you two
are going to get married.” He looks away. “I knew this in Costa Rica, even when
I tried to delude myself differently, but I suppose I always believed I’d have
time to work myself up to the reality. I’ll never be okay with it, but at least
it wouldn’t be like a suicide bombing that appears out of nowhere. That’s what
Jonah was banking on. Hit me out of the blue so the damage was a thousand times
worse.”

I feel like throwing up.
“You must hate me.”

“No.” He lowers his head
towards me. “And I don’t hate him, either. I could strangle him right now, but
I certainly don’t hate him. I don’t think it’s possible to hate someone you’re
Connected to.”

“Why did you go to Cora?”

He laughs mirthlessly.
“Jonah knows when I’m within fifty feet. The moment he would’ve felt me in the
Transit Station, he would’ve doubled his efforts to get you out of there. Cora
was a much easier alternative.” His smile is rueful. “Let’s just say he likes
Cora just as much as me nowadays.”

I figured as much.

The cramping, spasming, and
all of the other awful things that my stomach has been doing over the last
couple of months hit me like a tidal wave. I’m nauseated and upset and angry
all at the same time.

This is what they’re doing
to each other, and it’s all because of
me.

All of this coming from me
startles him. “Chloe, you need to sit down.”

“No.” I hold out a hand.
“No. Just . . . just give me a minute.”

It’s hard to process that
Jonah had gone so far in some kind of angry fit towards his brother. To
purposely hurt Kellan like that . . . well, it meant there had to be an
unimaginable amount of anger.

Why was he so angry? Was it
because I’d asked Kellan to come and get me in Hawaii, and not him? I just
can’t wrap my mind around Jonah doing this to his twin brother. Who he just so
happens to be
Connected
to.

Self-hatred is a piss poor
emotion to have. It doesn’t do anything toward the betterment of a situation.
But man, do I have a lot of self-hatred right now. “How are you doing?” I ask,
rubbing my forehead.

He doesn’t have to verbalize
it for me to know: he’s hurt, angry, and relieved all at the same time. And
yet, he says softly, “How do you think I’m doing?”

Nothing I’m doing is
helping. These two are devolving into bitter, vindictive fighting and I’m left
carrying bags and bags of guilt and self-hatred.

I can only work on one
person at a time. I grab his arm. “Let’s go.”

“Go?” he asks, but he
follows me without resistance.

“Go. As in leave. Exit. Find
another location to occupy.”

“If I’m not mistaken, aren’t
you supposed to be meeting my brother shortly?”

I stop suddenly. “How do you
know that, if you two aren’t talking?”

“I may be out of the loop,
but I’m not stupid, C.”

I take out my cell phone
when I resume walking and text Jonah, knowing he’s in class still.
Something’s
come up, can’t make lunch. See you tonight!

I hold it out so Kellan can
see the message and say, “I’m hungry.”

I’m not; I’ll most likely
puke anything that goes past my lips, but it’s a good enough excuse to keep
moving.

An eyebrow quirks up past
the dark glasses, because he knows I’m lying through my teeth. But, being the
gentleman he is, he asks, “Where would you like to go?”

“I want shaved ice.”

“Shave ice.”

“Whatever! Like it matters
if there’s a
d
or not!”

“It
matters to the Hawaiians,” he insists, but I shoot him an evil enough look that
he quickly adds, “Shave ice it is.”

I let the call that comes
half an hour later go to voicemail because I simply cannot deal with Jonah
blowing up at his brother for humoring me and my need to escape to Hawaii.
Again. But I do text him, outright lying as I claim I’m hanging with Callie. He
avoids her like the plague, unless it’s family dinner night, and then he always
positions himself as far away from her at the table as possible. I think he’s
afraid that I still worry about the two of them; but while I know Callie is
still desperately in love with him, I also realize she understands they’re over
and never happening again.

Speaking of . . . “How’s
Callie? I haven’t seen her in awhile.”

We’re on his front porch,
eating flavored ice. “Believe it or not, she’s jumped back into the dating
pool.”

Whoa. I did not see that one
coming.

“Some non we knew back in
Maine. I guess they hooked up when she went home for a weekend.”

Huh. “Does she like him?”

“It’s still new.” He sets
his empty cup down. “She hasn’t really thought that far ahead. Cal is all about
living in the moment. She says if you look too far down the road, things get
blurry.” He smirks, but it’s sad. “Says she learned that from my brother.”

Live in the moment. I like
that. Too much of being a Magical means always looking down the road ahead. I
tell this to Kellan and he nods.

“I’ve tried to adopt her
philosophy lately,” he admits, toying with his spoon. “One day at a time.
Sometimes it makes life more bearable.” He doesn’t let me respond to that,
because he and I both know I’d just apologize
like I always do, and
everyone involved knows it never make anything better anyway. “You ought to
check your voicemail.”

It’s short and sweet:
Hey
honey, just got your text. Um, I was really looking forward to lunch, but I
understand. Thought I’d let you know I’m going surfing with Karl and Raul.
Should be home late.

“Interesting,” I murmur,
slipping the phone back in my bag.

“What? He mad?”

I jab at him with my spoon.
“You don’t know?”

“As he and I aren’t speaking
. . .”

That sobers me. “He’s gone
surfing with friends.”

This prompt my very favorite
half-grin to surface. “You mean I have all day with you, if I’m so inclined?”

Resistance
is pointless, but at least I’m aware of it.

“I want to show you
something,” he tells me as we drive the coastline in Joey’s old Jeep. “One of
the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”

We don’t drive too far up
the highway before he turns off the main road, parking in a dirt lot. We hike a
short distance up a hill before he angles us towards a cliff. Below us is a
craggy, gorgeous emerald valley that drops into the ocean. It takes my breath
away, leaving me speechless for nearly three minutes.

“What is this place?” I finally
ask, unable to actually tear my eyes away from it.

“The
Nā
Pali
coast. It’s usually best seen by boat or helicopter, but I didn’t
really have a lot of time beforehand to set one of those up.”

“Have you ever done that?” I
ask, still staring at the beauty before me.

He’s so close to my back I
can feel the heat radiating off his body. “When Cal and I vacationed here last
year, she insisted we go snorkeling so we could hang with sea turtles. She
liked the place so much that she had us see it by helicopter, too.”

Lucky girl. I sigh my out
envy. “I bet it was amazing.”

He touches my shoulder
briefly. “I think I left something in the car. Hold on a moment?”

I nod, but I’m distracted by
the valley below me. I feel very small, so very insignificant in the grand
scheme of things. Which is ironic, because if I wanted to, I could create such
a scene anywhere I wanted. But I hadn’t known about something like this before,
hadn’t ever really thought about these random spots in the worlds, places where
nature itself has created beauty out of nothing, taking something like lava and
letting it twist and change over time into something so incredibly breathtaking
that its mere existence is proof that Magic is overrated.

Kellan nudges my shoulder.
“Time to go,
wahine
.”

I whine when I say I don’t
want to, and have no shame doing so.

He taps an imaginary watch
on his wrist. “Tick-tock, C. We’re on a schedule here.”

“What schedule?” I demand as
he herds me towards the Jeep. But he stays maddeningly silent as we drive away.
None of my efforts to get him to talk about where we’re going work.

We don’t go to the house,
though. He turns off in the town of Hanalei, parking in front of a row of
shops. “I’ll be right back. Stay here,” he orders before jumping out and
heading around the corner of the stores and toward the back.

The shops are all fairly
indistinct: clothes, clothes, souvenirs, small coffee shop, toys. What could he
be looking for here?

He’s gone for nearly ten
minutes before returning. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

He rolls his eyes as we hit
the highway. “Live in the moment, C. Didn’t you say you wanted to try that?”
And yet, he ends up taking me back to his house.

“Well, this is something new
to see,” I mutter as we walk in.

“Just sit down and wait.” I
think he heads to his bedroom. Something heavy hits the ground somewhere in the
house; I stand up immediately, but he yells out, “Just sit down, will you?”

By the time he emerges, I’m
dying of curiosity. I crane my neck toward the hallway. “What were you doing?”

He plops down in a chair
opposite me. “So. Seen any good movies lately?”

I don’t know whether to
laugh or smack him with a pillow, so I say, just as calmly, “Nope.”

“That’s too bad.” His long
legs sprawl out before him. “I saw one a few nights ago with Cal that was pretty
good.” Then he proceeds to tell me, in great detail, all about this movie.

After about twenty minutes
of frustrating small talk, he finally stands up and stretches his arms over his
head. Golden skin peeks out in a small slice of yummy skin between shorts and
shirt. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Go?” I fear I’m drooling.

His half-smile quirks; a
cacophony of butterflies takes off in my stomach. “Yup. Go.”

Kellan takes me back to the
strip mall we’d been at earlier. Once the engine’s off, he turns to me. “I want
you to close your eyes.”

I have a million questions,
but then I think about Callie’s new mantra, and what Kellan was trying to do.
Live in the moment.

And, more importantly, I
trust him with my life. So I nod, closing my eyes.

“No peeking, okay?”

I nod again.

I hear him get out of the
Jeep; gravel crunches before my door opens. His warm hand takes my arm and he
guides me out, not letting me stumble once as my feet hit the ground. We walk
what feels like a good distance, before there’s a slight slope, one I don’t
remember seeing. Had there been a slant in the buildings?

Voices sound nearby, but
they quiet down the closer we get. Suddenly we head up a slope. “Take a really
large step forwards.”

I do as he asks. The ground
under me shifts.

I grip him much more tightly.
“Is it me or did the ground just move?”

He chuckles. “Step down.”
Then he leads me a little further, the ground below me rocking. “Okay, open
your eyes.”

And I gasp, because we’re
standing on the deck of a beautiful white boat. Two men nearby begin untying it
from the dock as another two jump on board and head towards the bow.

I clap my hands like a
little girl and squeal. “Kellan, do you have a boat in addition to a zillion
houses?”

“This is a rental. And it’s
a yacht.”

“I can’t believe we’re on a boat!”
I’m still squealing as he leads me to a cushioned bench curving around the
back.

“Yacht,” he clarifies again.
“And you said you wanted to see the
Nā Pali coast
either by boat or helicopter. I just figured it would be easier to have dinner
at sea. This okay?”

“Is this okay?” I’m bouncing
in my seat. “Of course it’s okay! This is awesome!”

The yacht cruises the entire
length of the
Nā Pali
coastline; from this vantage, it’s even more spectacular. Then we
come back part way, lowering anchor in front of a gorgeous valley. The very
same valley, I believe, that Kellan introduced me to just hours before.

One of the men brings up a
small table and two chairs to set up on the deck. “I had really, really short
notice,” Kellan says, pushing my chair in for me, “so I just ordered chicken. I
hope you don’t mind.”

I can’t even answer that as
I’m still so stunned we’re on a yacht. In the Pacific. In front of one of the
most gorgeous sights ever.

As soon as they determine
we’re okay and don’t need anything at the moment, the two men on board retreat
below the deck, leaving Kellan and I alone.