Rolling in the Deep: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 2 (32 page)

Daniel stood on the edge of the beach, huge and strong and solid—alive. He had a new tattoo across his upper chest. He looked…wonderful, except for his eyes. They were haunted.

After that one, encompassing look to make sure she was well, all in one piece, her eyes bright and free of fear, Daniel couldn’t let himself gaze too long at his tita. Otherwise, the mingled desire and longing clawing inside him was more than he could bear. He had failed her, let her get involved in the worst of his kind of battle, nearly gotten her and Zane killed, and this was his punishment, to give her up.

He walked with her into the shade and privacy of the trees, but he stepped back when she moved toward him, her eyes warm. He stared at the water behind her, concentrating on the light dancing off the waves.

“Mahalo,” he said, forcing his voice through his throat, thick with unaccountable constriction. “Thanks to you, wahine, Zane and I are both…well.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say he was fine, because he felt as if he were holding himself together by sheer will. He didn’t know which was worse, the ache in the depths of his chest or the fierce itch of his new tattoos.

“The, ah, the smugglers’ drugs are destroyed, encased in a thick, solid hunk of cooled lava, all that remains of the Na’alele sea caves. Now it’s the Na’alele Hump. One day it will be a reef, full of life, instead of death.” He was rambling—anything to keep from talking about what mattered.

“Maybe you can show it to me,” she suggested, smiling hesitantly at him.

He stared at the sea until it was a glaze of light that blinded him.

“Daniel.” Her voice was edged now with the sharp blade of emotion. “Why won’t you look at me? Am I still some kind of outsider to you? I know I’m not your perfect Hawaiian wahine, but after what we went through, I—”

He couldn’t let her finish. If she said the words, he’d never be able to let her go. And he couldn’t let her stay. Because of him, she’d almost died, along with Zane. She deserved better, a man who lived in peace and would keep her safe.

“It won’t work, tita.” He fought to keep his voice emotionless. Even to his own ears, it sounded as rough as the grating of rock. “I appreciate what you did, but this is my world, my life; you have yours. Go back to it, and forget me.”

Claire flinched as if he’d struck her. “What? Go away and forget you? That’s all you have to say, after…” She glared at him. “We both know I won’t. And you won’t forget me, either. You…you big, stubborn Hawaiian.”

She gazed at him with anger and grief, her eyes as blue as the sea. “Fine, then. Good-bye, Daniel. I hope…you’re happy, all alone in your sea cave.”

She waved her hands at the beach scene around them. “Me? I’ll be traveling the world, a different beach every year. I’ll be so busy—probably have a new guy to go with every b-beach.”

Her voice broke on the last words, and in spite of his resolve he reached for her, but she was already walking away, her steps hastening until she was running out of the trees back into the sunlight, her hair flying out behind her like a bright banner.

He stood there, watching her go. Told himself that the deep, cold ache in his chest, the ice in his gut was only withdrawal from her kind of addiction. That he’d be fine once she was gone. That his life would settle back to normal. That it was only the junkie in him that howled for her kind of kula, that soon she’d be sealed up in an airliner carrying her up into the skies, soaring back to her mainland shore.

Taking her warmth, her silken embrace and musky, woman’s scent laced with that perfume that drove him crazy until he found just where she’d dabbed it. Taking her husky chuckle and her flashing smile, the way she scowled at him and stood toe to toe when she let him have it verbally, then let him kiss her, even while she was swearing to finish their argument later.

He watched until she’d disappeared into the house. He knew a different kind of terror now, not for her safety, but that she was right. She’d have a string of other men, and he’d be nothing but a memory.

Turning, he stalked back to his own house, ignoring his brother and the two women who stood watching sadly from the beach lanai. Stripping off his clothes in the afternoon sun, he walked out into the sea. He didn’t come back to land until the morning sun began to lighten the depths. Until he knew her plane was gone and his island was free of temptation.

Chapter Eighteen

July 28
^th

Tina Ho’omalu was not happy. For weeks she had watched her older son, her firstborn, suffer. He’d lost weight. He never smiled, barely spoke, and today there was a new tattoo across his chest that spoke of some battle recklessly fought and won at a painful cost.

She was very much afraid that the next might be his last. Kanaloa protected his ho’omalu, but he was as jealous as his sister Pele, and if Daniel showed he had no care for his own safety, the sea god might choose to keep him in his kingdom.

Hadn’t he once tried to sweet talk Homu into staying with him in his jeweled caves? She could no more bear to lose her son than she could have borne to lose her sweetheart, her strong husband.

“Homu,” she said to her husband. “We must call Pele and ask for her help.”

His silver brows drew together as he looked across their back lawn at their son, who sat alone on a stone bench, staring moodily out at the sea far below. Calling on their island patroness was serious business. She could be extremely irritable if awakened for reasons she did not consider important. 

Finally, however, Homu nodded. “‘Ae. I’m worried about him too. I have never seen him like this, eh?”

“He wants her, but he won’t admit it. Stubborn boy.”

“Wonder where he gets that. But perhaps she wouldn’t stay with him.”

She gave him a look. “Of course she would have stayed. What woman could resist our sons? I saw the way she looked at him.”

Her husband smiled. “So did I. Reminds me of the way you used to look at me, back when we were courting.”

She smiled back at him, but the frown lines remained between her brows. “I’ll call David. He must come and chant with us.”

“And Hilo,” he agreed. “Daniel is very special to him.”

But when Hilo, David and Melia joined them later that evening, David shook his head. “I don’t know. Is she really in love with him? She didn’t even say good-bye when she left.”

Melia put her hand on his arm. “Because he wasn’t here. You know very well he was out somewhere in the sea, brooding. And I put her on the plane. It wasn’t just shock, David. She’s in love with him. It broke her heart to leave.”

“I’ve spoken with Claire’s mother,” Tina told them. “She tells me that her daughter is pining as well. She has lost weight and very nearly did not pass the last few weeks of her college exams.”

She turned to her son. “Tell me how it was when you pulled her from the water.”

David shrugged helplessly. “She just said that Daniel was safe, and that she had to let him go.” He looked at his wife, who patted his hand. “I just assumed she meant that she couldn’t pull him up.”

“Kanaloa,” said Tina, nodding grimly. “I believe he has had a hand in this.”

Melia’s eyes were troubled. “I remember how Pele bargained with me for your life.”

He groaned. “She did the same with me, ku’u ipo. I remember it all too well.”

“I know Claire tried to talk to Daniel,” Melia went on. “I saw them together. She was practically begging him to talk to her. He was the one pushing her away.”

“That does it,” Homu said, slapping his knees. “Kanaloa is slippery as one of his eels, and all Hawaiians know that he has a taste for both kane and wahine.”

He rose, every inch the patriarch. “Well, he will not have my son. Come, we will chant, and summon Pele to her promised aid for her ho’omalu.”

In his magnificent cave lined with pearls and coral and other treasures of the sea, far beneath the waves, Kanaloa lounged on his divan, contemplating the feast he had prepared. Soon, his favorite would be beside him for good. His Daniele would dine on the finest of fish, the most succulent lobster and the finest seaweed. He would eat from mother-of-pearl and sleep rocked in the waves, awakening to swim and play and hunt as he wished. And if he tired of the pleasures here, Kanaloa would summon the nai’a in their human form and let him choose the loveliest maiden among them to join them on their couch.

A hissing sound interrupted his reverie. Kanaloa turned to face the opening of his cave, hung with seaweed and sea stars and strings of shells. A red glow flared, and he stiffened, his eyes narrowing in anger. “Pele.”

“Yes, little brother, it is I.” The beautiful woman strode in through the doorway on a carpet of red lava. It unfurled before her, sending steam and heat hissing into every corner of his sumptuous dwelling. One look in her eyes and Kanaloa stiffened warily.

Pele was angry—very angry. He drew himself up haughtily, tossing his head. “Why do you honor me with this visit, sister?”

She curled her full lip, dismissing his sarcasm. “Because you are trying to seduce one of my ho’omalu. Mine,” she repeated as he bridled. “I made them what they are, to protect my islands while I sleep.”

The lava under her feet flared up around her skirts, and her long hair smoldered even in these watery depths.

“Daniel Ho’omalu may hunt and play in your seas, brother, but never forget he belongs first to me. He is a creature of the earth. He must marry and reproduce, to carry on his line.”

Kanaloa set his hands on his hips. “You dare to say I am wrong to want him?”

Pele shook her head patiently. “Not wrong to want or to take—but not this one. He is not for you, and well you know it. His heart belongs to the wahine you sent away.”

He sank onto his divan, glaring at the feast he’d prepared. “He’s willing to come to me—would’ve been here soon, if you hadn’t interfered.”

“His heart is broken, and you had a hand in it. You convinced him it was all his fault that others were injured in the battle. Now it is left to me to heal him, as usual.” She smiled at him, amused by his sulk. “Never mind, brother. You’ll find a new pet. One of those young surfers you love to watch, perhaps.”

“There is one who takes foolish risks with the biggest waves,” he mused. “And a storm brews to the south—the waves will be big off Kamawena.”

“And Daniel Ho’omalu will return to you, as your loyal warrior…but no more than that.”

He sighed. “Agreed, sister. Now go, before you boil all my fish with your a’a.”

Daniel Ho’omalu dreamed that he woke, not in his own lonely bed but pillowed on a bed of warm sand, on the little beach at Nawea. He opened his eyes and found a statuesque woman standing before him. Her long black hair smoked around her beautiful Hawaiian face, and her fiery skirts crackled about her in the dusk.

He rose in awe and then fell to his knees before her, bowing his head. “Pele.”

“Yes, my young ho’omalu, it is I.” Her voice was warm and rich but resonated with her power.

She swept her arm out to the side, and he saw that behind her, on the firelit lanai, sat and stood ranks of Hawaiians, strangers and yet somehow familiar. He gazed at them in wonder, his heart thumping as he recognized faces he had seen only in old sepia photographs or paintings. His ohana—his Ho’omalu ancestors.

They smiled at him and nodded, their eyes full of love and something more… Sorrow.

He bent his head before Pele, his eyes squeezed shut, throat clogged with shame and guilt. “I have dishonored you.”

“Have you?” she asked. “In what way?”

“I failed to protect my cousin,” he admitted. “And…a wahine.”
My wahine.

“Did they perish?” she asked.

“No.” He shook his head, his fists clenched on his knees. “But because of me, they were wounded. Because of me, they might have died.”

He felt a hot and infinitely comforting touch pass lightly over his bowed head—her hand.

“
My dear warrior, when have I ever asked you or your ohana to do more than protect my island and its waters? You have never failed me in battle, Daniele.”

As her words penetrated his own shame and regret, he lifted his head, gazing up at her.

“Then why—why are you here, Mother Pele?”

She drew herself up, her face hardening, her beauty terrible in its splendor. “Have I not given you the gifts of health, long life and wealth?” she asked. “Of ohana, family?”

He nodded.

“Then why do you reject my gifts?” Her voice slashed at him like a shark’s tooth.

He opened his mouth, but she pointed one hand at him. “Are you not a man? Do you not have the desires and needs of a man? Or do you believe yourself too good for such things?”

He shook his head. “No, no.” He stared at her dumbly. He didn’t deserve to have them… Did he?

Pele smiled at him, centuries of patient humor and derision at human foibles in her obsidian gaze.

“Reach out your hands, Daniel Ho’omalu, and take my gifts. Hold on to them. Human life is short enough, but it is long, long, if lived alone.”

She disappeared, and he knelt in the sand while his ancestors looked back at him. And now he saw that they were an ohana because they had accepted their humanity and the tenuous nature of their lives and had chosen to embrace life as they were.

His heart full, he bowed his head to them in thanks, and then raised his head proudly.

Smiling their approval, they faded, and he drifted back into sleep.

Claire stood on the small stage in the auditorium, capped and gowned like the others lined up with her. Hands at her sides, she waited stoically for the dean of the tech college to call her name.