Kona Winds (19 page)

Standing, she gathered her beach towel and bag and vacated the natural diving platform. On the beach, she walked to an open area of sand and lay out her towel, then stripping down to her swimsuit, she went for a short dip in the warm waters of the bay. When she emerged from the sea she stretched out on the towel to let the sun dry her.

Someone came trotting across the sand toward her, but she didn't bother to open her eyes. Someone was always running across the sand—swimmers, children, joggers. She felt no curiosity to identify who was who.

"California? Julie! I thought I recognized you, but I wasn't sure." Frank stopped beside her, his hands at his sides. His expression hovered between a gladness to see her and an accusation of betrayal.

"Hello, Frank. What are you doing here?" Sitting up, Julie brushed the sand from her palms in an attempt at nonchalance. She hadn't seen Frank since that night at the restaurant with Ruel.

"I stop at this beach every weekend looking for you," he answered. "You didn't come last Sunday. What happened? Did you and Chandler have such a big night that you slept all the next day? Or didn't you come because he forbade it?" he taunted bitterly.

"Stop it, Frank." Her voice was low and stiff with control.

"Where's the big man today?" he jeered.

"Last week you told Ruel that he didn't own me," Julie reminded him, her brown eyes flashing with amber caution lights. "Well, neither do you, Frank. So maybe you'd just better leave. Take your surfboard and go cool off somewhere."

"Oh, Julie!" His sigh seemed to drain away his bitter anger as he sank to his knees on the sand beside her. "I guess it's pretty obvious I was jealous. When I saw you at the restaurant, I wanted to go berserk."

"I didn't know you worked there," she offered in the way of an apology.

"I guessed that after I saw Chandler. Or at least, I didn't think you would come there with him deliberately, knowing how I felt about you," Frank qualified. "All along I've been thinking you were my girl. I didn't realize he was beating my time. What were you doing going out with him?" Instead of anger, this time there was hurt.

"He asked me to have dinner with him, and I accepted." She locked her hands around her knees and studied the position.

"But why?"

"Because I wanted to accept," she admitted. "I wanted to have dinner with him."

"It must be really convenient, both of you living in the same house and all," Frank breathed in disgust. "Whenever Chandler gets bored, he simply looks to you to be entertained for a while."

"It's not like that at all." Was it? Julie whitened at the thought.

"Why didn't you come last Sunday?" His dark eyes mirrored the rejection he felt.

"Probably because I knew this would happen and I didn't want to discuss Ruel with you. And I don't want to discuss him with you now." Unclasping her hands, Julie lay back on the towel and closed her eyes. She hoped he would take the hint and drop the subject.

"Don't you think I have the right to an explanation?" Frank questioned in a righteous tone.

"No. We're just friends, Frank," she insisted.

"We're a little more than that," he protested. "You're my California girl—everybody knows that."

"I'm not your girl." She kept her voice even.

"Are you his girl?" he accused.

A twisting stab of pain went through her, poignant and sharp. "I'm not anybody's girl. And I told you I didn't want to discuss Ruel," she snapped.

"What happened? Has he dropped you already?" Frank jeered.

"Frank!" Opening her eyes, she shot him a warning look.

"Okay, we won't talk about him," he agreed grudgingly, his dark brows drawing together in a furrow of irritation. "If that's what you want, we'll forget about him."

"That's what I want." But Julie knew it was impossible. She would never forget about Ruel. He was embedded too deeply in her mind—and heart.

Frank scooped up some sand and sifted it through his fingers. "One of my buddies is having a luau tonight." He shifted his position to sit cross-legged on the ground. "It's going to be a big bash, with roast pig and everything. It should be fun."

"It sounds like it. Are you going?" Julie deliberately phrased it to exclude herself.

"I'm supposed to work tonight."

"Too bad," she murmured in indifferent sympathy.

"I hadn't planned to go," Frank paused. "But I could always call in sick at work. What I'm trying to say is . . . I'd like to take you to the luau with me."

"I don't think it would be a good idea," she refused.

"It will be fun, you'll see," he coaxed. "We'll have a good time."

"No, Frank."

"You'll change your mind before the day is over." He wouldn't accept her answer. "Once you get into the spirit of things, we'll have a ball. We can spend the day together swimming and playing in the sand."

He grabbed a handful of sand and held it over her stomach, letting it trickle from his fist into her belly button. Julie wasn't amused. She impatiently brushed the grains off her stomach.

"Will you stop it?" she demanded.

A looming shadow darkened her skin. In the same second, Frank was being hauled to his feet, his tanned face mottled with outrage

"Who do you think you are, pushing people around like that?" Frank was having difficulty getting his balance, like a young, inexperienced bull trying to charge his adversary and unable to get his feet to work.

Ruel's look dismissed the challenge as being of little significance and he turned grim faced to Julie. "You're coming with me," he ordered.

"No, she's not!" Frank shouted, and attempted to throw himself between them.

In a fluid move Ruel pivoted and swung, casually ridding himself of an annoying pest. Frank's forward impetus carried him right into the hooking fist. It all happened before Julie could break the paralysis of surprise and do something to stop it.

"No!" she protested too late. The blow knocked Frank backward onto the beach. Fearing he was hurt, Julie wanted to go to his aid. "Frank—"

Her intention went no farther than calling his name and making a move toward him before Ruel had a steel grip on her arm and was pulling her away. She tried to tug free.

"I said you're coming with me." Ignoring her useless struggles, Ruel reached down and scooped up her beach bag and towel.

"Let me go! He's hurt!" She pried at the steel trap of his fingers. Frank lay gasping on the ground, unable to move.

"He isn't hurt." Ruel flicked a merciless glance at his victim and began pulling Julie away from the scene. "Except for a bruised jaw."

His long strides were eating up the ground, while Julie continued to balk at being dragged along. His arrogant and callous behavior incensed her.

"If you don't let me go, I'll scream," she threatened, her voice trembling in fury.

Ruel stopped and pulled her around to face him. The ruthless set of his features matched the ominous glint of his narrowed blue eyes. He held her fast, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm.

"If you open your mouth one more time, I'll club you over the head and drag you off by your hair," he told her, the words growling out through clenched teeth.

"You wouldn't dare!" Julie breathed, but she almost believed he would.

Turning her around, he gave her a shove forward. "Get in the car."

The black sports car was directly in front of her. His shove had sent her stumbling toward it. She recovered her balance the last couple of steps to walk stiff-necked to the passenger door. Ruel was there to unlock it and toss her things behind the seat. When Julie was inside, he shut the door and walked around to the driver's side.

His anger was almost a tangible thing, but Julie's was a match for his. She remembered the release he had used the last time to vent his wrath.

"Is this going to be another one of your high-speed rides?" she challenged.

He sliced a quelling glance to her and started the car. Like a caged beast, the car prowled onto the highway at a restrained pace. The power of the motor was never called upon to exert its thrust as they traveled sedately over the road. The towering grass of sugar cane closed around them, the red dirt road tunneling a path through the field. At a wide spot, Ruel drove the car to one side and stopped. A touch of a button sent the electric windows rolling down to let the tradewinds blow fresh air through the car.

When he turned off the motor, Julie could hear the wind swishing through the tall leaves of the sugar cane, swaying the mauve tassels on top. Ruel leaned an elbow on the steering wheel and rubbed his mouth, staring resolutely ahead.

"That was completely uncalled for." Julie broke the silence, unable to hold back all the things she wanted to say any longer. "You didn't have to hit Frank."

His hand slammed itself against the steering wheel. "What did you expect me to do?" he exploded, turning the harsh glitter of his gaze on her. "You knew I wanted to see you! I left you a note asking you to come riding with me this morning. And don't tell me you didn't get it, because I slipped it under your door last night. This morning it was on your dressing table. I found it myself when I went looking for you."

"You had no right to be in my room," she snapped since she couldn't say that she hadn't seen the note.

"We'll discuss what my rights are where you're concerned later on," Ruel promised in an ominous tone. "When I didn't find you in your room, I went looking for you. How do you think I felt when I saw you lying half-naked on the beach with that damned love-starved surfer mooning over you!"

"I don't see why that should upset you," Julie retorted with a haughty tilt of her chin.

"You crazy little wahine!" With the swiftness of an uncoiling spring, he seized her shoulders and shook her hard. "It upsets me because I love you!" he declared viciously. At the shocked look that spread over her face, the swayed grimness left his face. The strength in his features was gentled. "I love you," he repeated.

He sought her lips with unerring accuracy, crushing their sweetness against her teeth. All her doubt evaporated under the demanding possession of his mouth. The knowledge seared through her like a golden flame. Somehow her arms found their way around his neck as she arched her body to him. The steering wheel kept interfering with their efforts to be close.

"Damn!" he cursed it as he sought the hollow of her throat.

Frustration welled within Julie, too, at the unsatisfactory embrace. She longed to mould her body to his hard shape, to feel the driving pressure of his thighs grinding against hers. Her breasts swelled under his cupping hand, but she arched from the incompleteness. Finally Ruel lifted his head and tucked her shoulder under his arm, groaning softly as he kissed the corner of her eye.

"I never guessed . . ." Julie twisted sideways, tipping her head back to see his face and sliding her fingers inside the buttoned front of his shirt to feel his hair-roughened skin and the pounding beat of his heart. "I didn't know you loved me," she told him.

The invitation of her parted lips was one he couldn't resist. His kiss was hard and brief, keeping the fires of passion burning, but not letting them blaze out of control.

"I told you I did yesterday." His glowing look seemed to radiate over her. "Don't you remember?"

"No." She wouldn't have forgotten something as important as that, not even in the deafening heat of the moment. "Unless—you said something in Hawaiian."

"Aloha auia oe. I love you," he translated. "Ku'uipo, my sweetheart, my lover."

He brushed his mouth over her lips. His hand fitted itself to the curve of her neck, his thumb rubbing the hollow under her ear in a sensual caress. Julie quivered under the spell of his potent charm.

"I would have made sure you understood me yesterday," Ruel told her. "Unfortunately Em walked in." His jaw tightened in remembrance. "It tore my guts out to see you in that ball of misery and shamed embarrassment. I knew how humiliating it was for you. That's why I was so harsh with Em, and myself. I wanted to comfort you, to convince you that it would be all right. But as long as Em was there I knew you wouldn't listen to anything I said. She wouldn't leave for fear I would revert to my lusting ways. And I had that damned appointment. I was caught between a rock and a hard pole."

"It all worked out, though," she reassured him, reaching out to trace the outline of that formidable mouth with her fingertips. The clean, male smell of him was an aphrodisiac to her senses.

"But it was hell in the meantime." He exhaled a long shuddering breath.

"It's heaven now." It had been a remarkable and swift transition from the depths to the heights.

Her head was tipped far back on his shoulder. With a grown, Ruel covered her lips. His hand slipped across her bare stomach to grasp her rib cage and attempt to turn her into his arms, but the hard curve of the steering wheel blocked them again.

"Dammit, Julie," he muttered against her cheek, "why didn't you wait up for me last night? We could have had this whole thing straightened out by now and in more comfortable quarters. I broke every record getting back, only to find you'd gone to bed I would have awakened you, but Em would have taken the cane to me. But this morning—why didn't you meet me this morning?"