Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) (27 page)

Then the clouds broke and rain fell, hissing as it met the flames and hot metal. Pattering gently on the fallen ho’omalu warrior.

Daniel Ho’omalu stepped ashore at the secluded bay before his home, relaxed and sated as only a man who has just made passionate love to his bride in the sea can be. They’d driven home from the hospital buoyed with relief that Melia and the baby were okay, and headed straight for his favorite place to give thanks, the sea.

Now he stopped on the rocks, rigid as a huge, naked statue. Listening.

“Hey, move it, big guy,” his bride said cheerfully, bumping into him as she waded out of the water, also nude.

He moved aside, putting out a hand to steady her as she sauntered by him, but his thoughts were up the mountain. Claire looked over her shoulder, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“I heard an explosion.”

“Uh-oh. You have to go, huh?”

“Yeah.”

In the quiet hospital room in Kona, David Ho’omalu woke with a start, sitting up in the narrow hospital bed. He looked over at his wife, but she slept peacefully in the bed next to him, the monitors beeping softly.

Sweet relief flooded him. His ku’u ipo was fine, and so was their baby. Swinging his feet to the floor, he reached over and adjusted the light blanket over her, making sure it covered her just so.

Then he walked out into the quiet hallway, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He punched his father’s number, knowing Homu would be awake as well. If Melia had not awakened him, something else had.

“Pop?” he said quietly. “Something’s happened. At Nawea, I think.”

His father’s voice was deep and clear. “I felt it too,” he murmured to his son. “I’ll head out there right away. You stay with Melia.”

David turned back toward his wife’s doorway, torn between love and frustration. “I know. But call me, yeah?”

“We’ll call you.”

In another big bed, high on the mountain, Bella Ho’omalu froze, causing her fiancé to lift his head and grin wickedly. Joel stroked her with the single blossom he held, enjoying the contrast between the delicate blossoms and her golden skin. “Ticklish?”

She put her hand on his cheek, shaking her head, her attention clearly elsewhere. He lifted himself up on one elbow, wincing a little as the motion pulled at healing muscle and tissue, and looked at the part of her he’d been kissing.

“Then what is it?” he asked a little testily. He could have sworn he had her full attention from the sounds she was making, and he really wanted to continue. Damn, he loved making love their special way with his wild Hawaiian wahine.

“Something’s going on,” she said. A frown replaced the glaze of pleasure in her dark eyes. “I have to call the family.”

“What, you think something’s wrong with Melia and the baby? Honey, we just left the hospital a couple of hours ago.”

“No. This is…something else.”

He nodded, but he sighed as she scooted away, leaning over to pick up her phone. Damn, he’d been so close to heaven.

Lenny Liho’o crouched behind the screen of banana trees that separated his property from the meadow, one arm up before his face to protect it from the intense heat of the flames burning on the hillside above.

“Holy Lord Jesus,” he muttered, struggling to process what he’d just seen.

He hadn’t been able to sleep after watching the invaders all afternoon, as they prepared to lay waste to the pristine mountainside he’d always taken for granted. They’d finally packed up and driven away before dusk.

Restless with bitter disbelief and a raging urge to do what he hadn’t done in years—go buy a bottle and drown his sorrows, Lenny had walked up through his quiet acre one last time, thinking that perhaps if he could pray, God would send some kind of acceptance to him, some peace.

When the storm began to gather, he’d stayed, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck standing up. He felt viscerally that this was no ordinary storm. And then he heard the wild cry on the wind and knew that he was right.

“Pele,” he breathed, his eyes wide as lightning flickered eerily in the clouds, and he saw her. A slender wahine standing on the brink above, arms outstretched as if she called the storm to her. He clapped his hands over his ears to shield them from the deafening thunder.

Then the lightning struck, and he fell back against a banana tree, only the sturdy trunk holding him up as electricity cracked and arced and the night exploded in fire and sound. But etched on his vision, even behind tightly closed eyes, was the sight of the wahine with lightning flaring from her outstretched hands.

When the explosions were over and the fire burned in a steady whoosh, he turned his back on the heat and glare and fumbled his phone out of his pocket with shaking hands. Thank Pele he still had coverage.

“Send da fire engines up Mamaloa Highway,” he yelled into the phone. “Got one big fire up here at mile marker ten. Lightning, yeah. Lightning caused.”

Then he stuffed the phone in his pocket and began to make his way around the fire. He found the new four-wheeler parked behind the bushes and paused.
Huh. Pele rode around on an RV these days?

He found her lying in the dirt, an ordinary Hawaiian wahine. In the red light of the fire, she was pale and still. Her dress was smeared with dark streaks, wet when he touched them—blood. He stared at her for a moment. Modern medicine said to leave her here, watch over her until the EMT’s arrived. His Hawaiian heart said to hide her.

Grunting and wheezing with effort, he squatted, gathered her up and staggered with her down the hill.

There were three fire engines parked on the side of the highway ahead. In the headlights, Jack could see suited-up firefighters working and huge streamers of water playing on a fire below the verge. A police car blocked the highway, lights flashing.

A Hawaiian policeman stood beside another rig, talking to the driver. They backed around in a short arc and headed back down the highway toward Kona. The cop walked to the SUV, and Jack rolled the window down.

“What’s your business here, sir?” the young officer asked.

“I’m staying just down the hill,” Jack said. “What the hell happened?”

“May I see your driver’s license, sir?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jack fumbled in his pocket, drew out his wallet and handed it over.

The cop shone his flashlight on Jack’s license and then returned it. “You’ll have to go back. Highway’s gonna be closed for a while.”

“What happened?” Jack repeated desperately.

“Looks like a big lightning strike hit some equipment parked here.”

Jack froze, the hair standing up on the nape of his neck. Again? So soon, and in the same freaking place? What were the odds of that?
Lalei.
She’d be alone at Nawea, no doubt afraid.

“The road I need is right there.” Jack pointed at the entrance to the Nawea road. “I left my, ah, girlfriend alone down there.”

“Are you renting, or staying with friends?”

“Friends. The Ho’omalus.”

That did the trick. With a nod, the young Hawaiian stepped back, and Jack nosed the SUV down the Nawea road, eyeing the flames as he passed the meadow. Holy shit. All three of the pieces of heavy machinery had been blasted.

He turned his gaze back to the road, and slammed on the brakes, his heart nearly in his throat. Lenny Liho’o stood in the headlights, hands up in a clear command to stop.

He walked around to Jack’s window. “You come to my place.”

Jack didn’t know what he expected but sure as hell not what he saw when he followed Lenny into his small house. On a shabby sofa a woman lay on her side, clearly unconscious and injured. One slender arm trailed limply over the edge of the sofa.

Jack stared down at her, wincing. Dark rusty blood and dirt stained her light dress, and her hair was matted around her face, wet with rain and mud.

Then his heart stood still as he recognized her. “
Lalei
.” He was across the room, on his knees beside her in one stride. “Jesus. Jesus, Lalei.”

He put his dirty hand on her cheek, so pale. He jerked it back. He’d expected her to be chilled, but she was burning up.

“I found her up on da road,” Lenny said over his shoulder.

“Like this?” Jack demanded, scanning her still form frantically. She was covered in drying mud, and the blood on her dress, oh dear God. He lifted the soiled fabric away from her thighs, fearing some unspeakable crime. But there was no blood there. He then lifted her arms, turning them in his hands, searching for the source of the blood. “Where…? How…?”

He swallowed a surge of sickness and self-disgust. He should have been here. What the hell had she been doing wandering around in the dark by herself, and in the middle of another freak storm? If he’d been here, he would have barricaded her in the bedroom if necessary, to keep her safe. But he hadn’t been here—he’d been pouting by himself.

Lenny stared at him. “How well you know dis wahine?”

Jack turned on him, one hand on Lalei’s middle. She was hurt, and the fool wanted to know about their relationship? “What the hell does that matter?” he demanded. “She’s hurt. Go call the EMTs, get them down here, now.”

Lenny gave him an enigmatic look. “I don’t think so, moke. I don’t think she’d want that. Dose mokes can’t help her.”

Jack exploded to his feet, ready to throw the banty fool through the door, but a heavy knock on the door interrupted him. Homu appeared, a bulky figure against the dark night.

“Ah,” he breathed, his dark gaze on Lalei. “There she is.” He nodded at Lenny. “Mahalo for taking care of our girl.”

“‘Ae.”

Jack strode toward the door. “What the hell is wrong with you people? She’s hurt. I’m going to go get help, if you won’t.”

“Jack.” Homu blocked his way, putting his hands on Jack’s shoulders. His grip was warm and reassuring. “She’ll be okay, son. We will take good care of her.”

Somehow, as he gazed into the older man’s ebony eyes, Jack’s rage and fear slipped away. Bewildered, he found himself nodding. Homu patted his shoulder and moved around him to crouch beside Lalei, palm covering her forehead.

“Come on,” Lenny said, his hand on Jack’s back. “Come outside.”

Jack shook his head stubbornly. “No, I’m not leaving her.”

“Then you sit here,” Lenny said, pointing at a chair. “And you pray.”

Jack subsided on the edge of the chair, watching Homu. The door opened again.

Daniel appeared, filling the doorway. “Hey.” He paused to squeeze Jack’s shoulder as he passed. Then he joined his father beside Lalei. Jack watched closely as they spoke quietly together, and then Homu put his hands under her.

She moaned then, and before Jack knew what he was doing, he was on his feet and across the room. “Don’t move her. How do you know what’s wrong?”

Homu looked back at him. “We gotta move her, Jack. It’s okay.”

“Then let me hold her. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but don’t you hurt her anymore.”

“Okay,” Homu agreed softly. “You hold her, Jack. That’s good.”

Jack eased himself onto the sagging old sofa, with Lalei half sitting, half lying across his lap. He sighed with the strange relief of holding her in his arms and stroked her matted hair, holding her face against his neck as Homu carefully peeled her ruined dress away from her back. Jack peered over her shoulder and had to swallow hard to force the sickness back down his throat as he saw the bloody mess of torn flesh that was her back. “Oh God,” he groaned. “What happened to her?”

Daniel put a hand on his cheek, pushing. “Don’t look, brah. It’s bad, but we’re gonna heal her. You just hold her.”

He frowned at his father. “You sure this is okay? Da residual on him, I mean.”

“Don’t think we have a choice, son.”

Daniel gave Jack a searching look. “Good point. Welcome to our ohana, brah.”

When he tried to think back on what happened next, Jack could never quite get a clear picture, merely a jumble of impressions—the three Hawaiians chanting together, like the chorus he’d heard at the family luaus, their hands on Lalei’s back, the tiny room full of heat and a strange electric power surging through Lalei and into him. And then back again, maybe. Was he wasted, or was this really happening? He wasn’t sure of anything.

All he knew was that she jerked in his arms at one point, moaning, and burrowed into him as if she could hide from the pain inside him. He turned his face against her hair, soothing her instinctively with his voice, holding her tight with one arm over her ass, the other hand on the back of her neck.

“Ah, good.” Homu sank back with a heavy sigh. “It is finished.”

Daniel nodded, looking tired as well. “She’ll be okay.”

Lenny nodded from the background like a scruffy Hawaiian Buddha.

Jack closed his eyes. He was reeling, his head buzzing, his body flushed with heat as if he’d just downed a shot of the strongest booze ever.