Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) Page 3

  Jack walked back toward his own chair. As he glanced up the lawn, he saw a group of people in the driveway at the back of the house. Claire, blonde hair shining in the sun, was beaming as Daniel exchanged handshakes with a tall, weathered man and hugged a woman, both with faded blond hair. Her parents, he guessed. Melia was supervising while David hefted a big box from the trunk of her SUV.

  And near at hand, Lalei Kai strolled down the lawn like a Hawaiian princess. Clad in a gauzy white cover-up, the outline of a swimsuit visible underneath, her hair bundled up on her head with a big clip, she gave him that snooty little smirk through the palms.

  The opposite of his kind of woman. So why did he once again have the beginnings of a major woody? Time for another swim.

  Huh. Jack had seen her coming and turned tail and run. Absurd to feel hurt by that, but Lalei couldn’t help it. Well, fine, she could ignore him too. As the big blond mainlander swam out toward the reef, Lalei dropped her cover-up on one of the loungers.

  She held herself proudly, refusing to cringe as Benton’s gaze crawled over her. Her cocoa-and-white flowered tankini was the most modest swimsuit she owned—she’d chosen it purposely to wear around him. Even so, the legs were cut high on her hips, and only a thin spaghetti strap held up the halter top.

  “The snorkeling is great here,” she said quickly, gesturing toward the gear hung neatly under the thatched roof that shaded most of the dock. “Would you like to try it, Benton?” At least in the water, he wouldn’t be able to talk.

  He smiled indulgently. “No, thank you. I’ll take you on a dive from my boat. So much more to see that way.”

  “Oh, that sounds lovely,” Suzy approved. “Lalei will enjoy that.”

  Lalei preferred to snorkel. Most of the colorful fishes lived right on the reefs in shallow water. One was more likely to see sharks while diving, and it was the way to watch the manta rays feed at night, but the last place Lalei wanted to be was alone with Benton on his yacht.

  He would expect…things. Things that made her skin crawl. She was a normal, healthy female with her share of cravings. But the thought of assuaging them with Benton made her hurry into the water. She’d head out for the reef and sit for a while.

  She swam out under her mother’s and Benton’s watchful gazes, holding her head up to keep her hair dry. She would have liked to don a snorkel mask and fins to view the reef. But that would take too much time away from her mother’s scheme for Lalei to enchant Benton. Besides, she would have to blow her hair dry again.

  She pulled herself up on the smooth rocks that stair-stepped up onto the reef. Jack had splashed away toward the far end of the bay. But another swimmer stroked through the opening in the reef, wet black hair gleaming in the sun, long arms flashing rhythmically. He lifted his head as he neared her perch.

  “Hey, Lalei,” he said, grinning at her. “Howzit?” He tossed his head, flipping his wet hair back out of his eyes.

  “Zane.” Delight replacing her nerves, she smiled back at her younger cousin. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

  He grimaced in mock horror, his dark eyes widening. “No can miss Big D’s wedding.”

  She laughed, lapsing into pidgin with him. “No ways.” Her Ho’omalu cousins loved their family celebrations.

  Zane pulled himself up on the rocks beside her, water streaming off his lean frame. He wore a pair of bright yellow-and-red swim trunks. He swiped a hand over his wet face. “Who’s da moke with Suzy?”

  Lalei’s smile slipped away. “Benton Choy. He’s…a friend.”

  “Yours or Suzy’s?” Zane might be a few years younger than her, but he was no fool.

  She shrugged. “No da kine. How long you can stay?”

  “Tomorrow. Wen got one job.”

  “Oh, bummahs.” She pulled a long face.

  Zane splashed water at her with a flip of his hand. “Yeah, bummahs. Try teach haoles to surf. Howzit at da gallery?”

  Lalei smiled. “Ono, the best. I love working there.”

  “You da manager now, yeah?”

  “I am.” Her cousins had hired her to work in their gallery as a favor after she graduated from U of H, but she’d turned out to have a real knack for working with the wealthy tourists and others who wandered into the art gallery on the waterfront in Honolulu. She was proud of her part in showcasing island art, including her cousins’ work. Their family might own the gallery, but there was no question that David’s and Daniel’s work belonged alongside the islands’ best. Occasionally Tina’s traditional “pineapple” quilts hung there as well.

  “Do you have any applications out for a job in your degree?” she asked Zane, switching back to proper English.

  “Waiting to hear from the sea lab on Kauai. Love to work there.”

  She opened her mouth but closed it as her mother waved from the beach. “I want to hear about it later.”

  Zane slid into the water with her. “Daro coming to the wedding?”

  Lalei shook her head. “No. He and Jason have a concert in Honolulu. Although I think he might have cancelled it if Suzy weren’t here.”

  Daro Kai was her uncle, her mother’s brother. He had been part of Lalei’s life as a girl, but only when she was here, visiting her Ho’omalu cousins.

  “Tense, huh?”

  Lalei snorted. “Yeah. You could say that. They don’t really speak.”

  Suzy Kai had adopted her parents’ attitude of shame about Daro’s homosexuality and discouraged Lalei from even considering him her uncle.

  Although he and Jason had made her visits fun, even taking her backstage at more than one of their concerts, sometimes she’d noticed a sadness in Daro’s gaze. Growing up, she assumed he missed his family. But now she realized he’d surely been wishing he could spend time with his own daughter.

  Zane slanted her a look. “Why is your mom here?”

  “Good question.” Lalei eyed her mother sourly. Suzy sat chattering to Benton like a bird ready to take wing. Really, she knew exactly why Suzy was here—to keep an eye on Lalei and make sure she didn’t meet any other guys at Daniel’s wedding. But Zane didn’t deserve to get pulled into Lalei’s troubles.

  They swam back across the bay. Lalei introduced her cousin to Benton. Zane greeted him and Suzy politely, and then jogged up the lawn to the house, leaving Lalei to deal with her unwanted guests.

  She’d been anticipating Daniel’s wedding with mixed emotions. She loved her big, brawny cousin, but she wasn’t too sure about his bride. Would Lalei be shut out of his life once he was married to Claire? Even with this worry, she’d still been eager to get to Nawea Bay, the Ho’omalus private beach enclave.

  Then she’d learned that Daniel’s parents had invited Suzy as well. And that Suzy had taken it upon herself to invite Benton to accompany her and Lalei. This meant Suzy meant to step up her campaign to throw Lalei and Benton together. This was such horrific news, it buried Lalei’s concerns about getting to know Daniel’s bride.

  “Well, time to get ready for the wedding,” she said, wrapping her towel around her like a sarong. “See you two later.” She followed Zane up the lawn.

  Lalei showered, and dressed for the wedding, wishing once again she was just here to enjoy time with her cousins.

  But no sooner had she emerged from the bathroom, hair and makeup done, than her mother came into her room, closing the door behind her.

  Suzy looked Lalei over with a critical eye, smoothed a lock of hair back and nodded. “Very pretty. Now, listen to me.” She took Lalei’s hands in hers. In the soft light of a cloudy evening, she should have appeared much younger, but her face was taut, her cheeks hollow. “Lalei, you know Benton can help us get out of our little money problems.” She squeezed Lalei’s hands and smiled, her eyes bright with hope. “All you have to do is be nice to him. That’s not so hard, is it?”

  “Mama, I don’t—”

  “Oh, I don’t want to hear about how you don’t love him,” Suzy interrupted her impatiently. “You can learn to love him.
”

  Maybe it was being here at her cousin’s enclave. For whatever reason, Lalei’s pent-up rebellion surfaced.

  “You could always sell some of the furniture and paintings,” she said, pulling her hands free of her mother’s. “That would bring you enough money to live for quite a while.”

  Suzy drew in a sharp breath, her eyes widening in horror. “Your father bought those things for me. I could never sell them. And we must keep up appearances so you can make a good marriage. Besides, we’ll have to furnish a new house.”

  Lalei had heard this piteous plea before. Suzy would do anything, including marrying off her daughter, before she’d give up the antiques and artwork with which she and Lalei’s father had filled their big house on the country club golf course. “Well, I’d be living with Benton,” she retorted. “So you wouldn’t need them all, would you?”

  “But don’t you see?” Suzy reproved her playfully. “I will need to furnish a place for you to bring my grandchildren.”

  “You’re not going to get any grandchildren if I have to marry Benton,” Lalei retorted. “Mother, don’t you understand? I can’t stand him to touch me. He makes my skin crawl.”

  “Lalei!” Suzy gasped. “How can you say such things? Benton is a fine man. He could have any woman he wants.”

  “Well, let him, then,” Lalei said. “I don’t want him.”

  Her mother glared at her. “It doesn’t always matter what we want, Lalei. Sometimes we have to do what we must.”

  “If you didn’t insist on living as if Daddy was still alive, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Lalei said. “Mama, no one would think less of us if we sell off some things and move into a—a condo. I could even get my own apartment.” Not that she made enough managing the gallery, but she could get a roommate her own age.

  “How dare you speak to me like this?” Suzy’s face crumpled like a bewildered child. “My own daughter. Everything I’ve done is for you, Lalei. Everything.”

  Lalei’s shoulders slumped, exhausted as if she was fighting her way through deep water. The weight of her mother’s expectations hung from her neck like a stone, and if she wasn’t careful, they would drown her. What would it take to make her mother see she didn’t want the lifestyle her mother did—constant shopping and lunch at the club, dinner parties with the “right” people.

  Suzy took her silence as surrender and tipped her head, smiling again. “Now, let’s just forget this little spat,” she said, patting Lalei’s arm. “It is an evening for celebration. Your cousin is getting married, and heaven knows I never thought that hulking boy would find a woman who would want him.” She tittered, leaning toward her daughter as if they shared a private joke. “Now hurry along, and I will save a seat for you.”

  Lalei stood still, watching Suzy glide from the room. Her mother would never listen to her. She was going to have to do something drastic. Something to prove to Benton and her mother both that she was not the wife for him. But what in Pele’s name could she do?

  The evening was warm and humid, a gentle breeze tugging at Lalei’s hair. In her strapless dress of cocoa silk, she was perfectly comfortable…on the surface. Inside, turbulence swirled like the heavy clouds riding the flanks of Mauna Loa above Nawea, trailing showers on the forest and meadows behind the small bay. Standing on the lanai with her glass of sparkling juice, she eyed the clouds with a native’s expertise.

  “What do you think, kaikamāhine, niece?” asked a deep voice at her shoulder. “Will it rain on our Daniele’s wedding?”

  Lalei looked up at her uncle Homu. He was really her father’s cousin, but since her father had died in a boat race off Diamond Head when she was small, Homu and his brother Hilo had always been there for her. They’d taught her surfing with the boys, and, to her mother’s dismay, even taught her to fish. Tina had also convinced Suzy to sign her daughter up for hula lessons, pointing out that all well-bred Hawaiian ladies should know their graceful native dance.

  Lalei had eagerly anticipated her frequent visits to the Big Island, where she could be just one of the cousins, not her mother’s princess, bound by strictures.

  Homu waited patiently, his heavy silver brows raised.

  “No rain, not this evening.” Lalei shook her head without thinking. Then she shrugged, uncertainty skittering over her skin like a gecko. “But why are you asking me, ‘anakala, uncle?” He was a farmer, and had been watching the weather on his island for decades.

  He considered her for a moment, his dark eyes serious in his dark face, creased from smiling. “Because I think you know these things, little Lalei. Never forget, you are ho’omalu.”

  With a wink, he walked on, leaving her staring after him.

  Ho’omalu, one of Pele’s guardians—her? Not likely. Lalei sipped her cold, sweet guava juice. Certainly she understood that the Ho’omalu were special, tasked by Pele with guarding her island while she slumbered, deep beneath her towering volcanoes. She was Ho’omalu on both sides, because Daro and Suzy were cousins of the family too. Her mother and father would have been fourth cousins or something—too far removed to worry about, until now.

  But Lalei had none of their eerie powers to call the island and sea to awaken. Anyway, she was from Oahu, and neither of her parents had inherited the ho’omalu gifts, so on earth why would she have? She was more rattled than she wanted to admit by her uncle’s simple remark.

  Of course she’d always loved the variety and beauty of Hawaiian weather. She never minded rain and stayed outside in all kinds of weather. Her favorite paintings in the gallery were David’s representations of the skies of Hawaii, sunshine and clouds, rain streaming down over lush green mountainsides and seas.

  Standing on the balcony of her family home on Oahu in the evenings, she often wished that she could just curl up outside on the velvety lawn under the moon and stars instead of returning to her bedroom to sleep. Of course, soon they were going to lose the house Lalei had grown up in, so perhaps she’d have her chance. Or she could marry Benton.

  She glanced furtively over her shoulder. Benton Choy stood at the edge of the lawn, watching her. Her mother hovered at his elbow like a hummingbird moth.

  Lalei walked the other direction, to greet the kūpunas, grandparents. It was also here on the Big Island that she’d spent time with the eldest Ho’omalus. Both in their nineties, the couple loved nothing better than to have children around them, to talk story and teach them how weave in the traditional way, and make fishing lures from shells and to watch the latest hula lessons.

  She hugged both of them carefully and then knelt beside the old lady for a moment, submitting to being clucked over, her hair stroked. “You are too thin, keiki ohana, my child. You need to eat more pork, more good poi.”

  Lalei grimaced inwardly—she’d rather go hungry than eat poi, the thick, sticky taro root paste that was a traditional island food.

  Her husband chuckled, winking at Lalei. “The young wahines don’t want to be nani, pretty in the old way, my dear. They think the boys like to hug bones.”

  His wife shook her head, patting Lalei’s cheek. “Well, this one so pretty, the boys will fight over her anyway, yeah?”

  He nodded.

  “The wedding dinner is served,” Homu called, gesturing to the lovely table on the lanai. “Friends, ohana, e hele mai’ai me Daniele a me Kalala. Come and eat with Daniel and Claire.”

  He and Hilo helped their parents to seats where they were out of the breeze and the sun. Daniel and Claire sat together at the center of the table, facing the sea, holding hands.

  The waiters brought platters of fresh seafood, huge scampi arrayed artistically alongside local fish, and mounds of ahi sushi, tender marinated tuna. Salads, rice dish and warm, crusty rolls were offered along with local wines and sparkling juice drinks. Fresh fruit cut to resemble flowers filled a stemmed glass dish at every place.

  Lalei would have enjoyed the dinner had she not been seated beside Benton and across from her mother. Suzy rarely ate more than a few mo
uthfuls, so she had plenty of time to give Lalei speaking looks. Lalei knew exactly what they meant: Talk to Benton. Entice him.

  Lalei avoided her mother’s gaze, taking a serving of plump ahi sushi, a few scampi, a roll and some fresh coleslaw full of intriguing greenery.

  She liked her Ho’omalu cousins, especially this branch. Although Homu and Tina chose not to move in Honolulu society as her mother did, they numbered many of Hawaii’s elite in their circle of friends, including the current governor and his wife, who had been at David’s wedding and luau the month before.

  This gathering was much smaller. She wasn’t sure why Daniel had invited her mother, who alternated between peering about her as if not quite sure how she’d landed in such rustic surroundings, and gushing to Tina about Benton’s place on the Kailua shore of Oahu.

  Lalei knew why she had been invited—she and her cousins got along well. She loved selling Daniel’s magnificent sculptures and David’s paintings in the gallery. Unfortunately, she hadn’t exactly bonded with Claire or her two best friends. She often had that problem with women her age. She froze and retreated behind the barrier of pretending she didn’t care. Her mother said other girls were simply envious of her, but Lalei knew deep down that wasn’t it.

  They thought she was a snob. Little did they know that she was running as fast as she could from the society lifestyle her mother had chosen and expected her daughter to continue. But Lalei wasn’t willing to do it at the expense of her freedom. She was more than an attractive ornament—or at least, she hoped so.

  She wished her uncle Daro and Jason had been able to come, but they were booked for four nights at the Waikiki Hilton. And if there was anyone who didn’t belong here, it was the man next to her.