by Lakes, Lynde
She stared at his bandaged hand, the hand she’d grazed with a bullet. She touched it lightly. “I’m so sorry, Damon… about everything,” she whispered. She watched for a reaction. He didn’t twitch or move a muscle.
The pulse in her temple throbbed, and her body quivered as though reaching out to his stillness. She had an urge to climb into the bed with him and just hold him. But the idea was totally impractical with his injuries and her broken rib. She eased into the chair beside the bed and alternated between watching him breathe and praying for a miracle, for him, for them, for their future.
She stayed until the nurse kicked her out. The whole time Damon’s eyelashes hadn’t so much as flickered. Before she left, she bent and kissed his temple lightly. Bending sent a sharp pain to her rib cage. She groaned. He didn’t even stir.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The next day, when Malia and Ku questioned Al, he denied ever confessing to the murder of her sister. She dug out the old files and looked for anything that might back up his original claim. The cold file was filled with supposition. The investigating officers felt they had enough evidence to assume that her sister was grabbed from the bed where she slept.
Malia sent an inquiry to California to find out about the disappearance of Al’s mother. If she could establish that he killed her, then maybe the rest of his retracted confession was true. Could she have caught her sister’s killer after all these years? Or was Al just torturing her? She sent out feelers to every place that Al had lived. Now all she could do was wait and see what developed. Even if she uncovered proof he’d murdered his mother, would she ever be sure that he killed her sister, too?
Ku brought her some coffee and pulled up a chair next to her. “You’ve been on the computer for hours and look like a tangled piece of seaweed. Lunch? Yah? My treat.”
Her stomach was in knots. “I’m not hungry.”
He tilted back on the chair, balancing on the two back legs, which drove her nuts, and put his feet up on her desk. “Then go wander around the mall for twenty minutes. Buy a tube of lipstick, or whatever women do for a pick-me up. The last thing I want is a frazzled partner.”
It was clear he wasn’t going to leave until she took a break, and maybe she needed it. Speculating about the past had drained her. A walk around the mall in the fresh air might energize her and clear the cobwebs from her mind.
She hadn’t planned to buy anything, but the display window of Bonnie’s Boutique caught her eye. The mid-calf knit V-neck sweater dress with interwoven sparkling glided threads seemed to call her name. She fell for the long, puffy sleeves and the simplicity of the design. With her ribs still sore, she didn’t bother to try it on. Passing the shoe section, she saw some strappy shoes that matched it perfectly. What the heck, she thought. Why not go all out? By the time she got back to her computer, buyer’s remorse had set in. Where would she wear those things?
She sat back down at the computer and pushed her momentary madness from her mind. She had to learn more about Al. She worked diligently the rest of the afternoon, glancing occasionally at the computer clock. She didn’t want to miss the hospital’s visiting hours. After a shower at Auntie’s, she endured the pain required to slip on the new knit dress. It fit. Guess she’d have to keep it. She headed for the hospital. She needed to see Damon, needed to know that he was getting better.
At the tap of her strappy heels across the floor, Damon opened his eyes drowsily and looked at her, staring with eyes that seemed disapproving, making her feel flushed and naked to the skin. Then he uttered a strained, “Hi.”
Her face warmed. To hide her discomfort, she placed the oversized bouquet of mixed flowers that she’d brought where he could easily see them. He was staring at the bruises Al had left on her neck. Could Damon look past the bruises that sometimes went with her job?
She cleared her throat, and fighting a sense of teetering on the edge of disaster she asked, “How are you feeling?”
He didn’t answer; he just took her fingers in his and locked them tightly, almost angrily. The intensity of his grip sent unexplainable fear spiraling through her. “If you don’t feel like talking, I can just sit here with you … or read to you. I brought a book.” She gestured with Grisham’s latest bestseller and forced a smile. “And when you get out of here you can finish that bestseller of your own.”
He stared at her a moment, then released her hand and turned to face the wall. That wasn’t the response she’d hoped for. First he touched her with great intensity, and then he closed her out. She tried to blame the pain killers the doctor had pumped into his body, but she knew it was about them, about their relationship. What if they were unable to bridge the past and the widening chasm between them?
****
At the sound of Malia’s retreating high heels, spiky towers that made her legs look a mile long, Damon turned toward the doorway and watched her leave the hospital room. She had great legs, even from behind. After she disappeared into the hallway, her light fragrance swirled in the air. Amazing, he marveled. Under all that cop toughness was a very feminine woman. The bruises on her face and neck made it equally plain that she was also extremely vulnerable. And, as long as she worked for the HPD, injuries like those would probably happen again. It was the nature of her work. She’d ended up in the ER several times in this case alone.
Although he hurt all over, he wanted to pound something, preferably Al’s sorry face. He scoffed at the urge. He was in no condition to pound anyone, and anyway Al was locked away out of his reach.
He closed his eyes. At the moment, all he could do was inhale Malia’s lingering scent and think about her – the way her burgundy hair floated around her face, long, lustrous and full of golden highlights – how lovely her figure was in that curve-clinging, sparkly brown knit.
He rubbed his bandaged jaw. Had she seen him before the facial surgery? He thought he remembered her sitting with him, holding his hand. Bandages mostly covered his face now, hiding the raw meat, misshapen look. What if he looked hideous when the bandages came off? Malia might pity him, and he didn’t want her pity. He felt guilty for his silence during her visit, but his mind was too jumbled with painkillers to think things through. He lay very still, remembering Malia’s firm fingers with the strength of steel. Clinging to those strong fingers felt like clinging to a lifeline. But he’d had to break the connection or he would’ve pulled her right down beside him. Both of them needed time to heal before… He didn’t dare finish the thought. It built his hopes too high. What was he thinking? Malia was a woman who faced danger every day, a woman who spent hours with hunky cops in the close confines of their cars.
He locked onto the memory of her, but it quickly slipped through his consciousness like dissipating fog. There was no holding something that had its own form, its own agenda. And Malia … or Detective Reed … knew what she wanted, and she made it quite clear that it wasn’t her best friend’s discarded husband.
Damon didn’t doubt her concern, only her motives. She was here out of guilt, but it was the unanswered questions that bothered him. He couldn’t ask them now. He wasn’t physically or mentally able – or brave enough.
****
Each day after her visit with Damon, Malia left the hospital with her stomach in knots. He always seemed so distant, so unreachable. He was merely a set of green eyes looking out at her through a swath of bandages … eyes shadowed with unreadable emotions. He’d say a few muffled words in answer to direct questions, and then he’d turn to face to the wall and pretend to drop off to sleep. He didn’t even talk much to his other visitors. When her parents and Kiki’s parents visited they’d ended up talking to each other.
When she discussed his behavior with the doctor, he told her to be patient, that Damon had been through a lot, both physically and mentally. And not only at Al’s hands, but while serving in Kuwait. He’d had to endure abuse no one should have to endure.
If he’d just talk to me, she thought. I know I could help.
****
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Guilt twisted in Damon’s gut. Being in the same room with Malia and treating her so coldly made him feel like a bastard. His memory was totally back now, and that was a blessing and a curse. The memory of their lovemaking repeatedly broke over him like cresting waves. They lay on the beach, the moonlight shimmering on her firm body with its silken curves and shadowed valleys. Her eyes had been dark and vibrant, full of fire and promise. She’d given off a succulent scent of seawater and her own musky fragrance.
Her skin was so warm. One touch of her sent his temperature soaring to the moon and back, a sexual flame so hot his blood actually sizzled thinking about it. He recalled the alluring huskiness in her voice when she softly said, “I’ll always treasure tonight.” Then she broadsided him with, “And because I have real feelings for you, I refuse to call it a mistake – but it can never happen again.”
It can never happen again hammered in his brain.
What griped the hell out of him was he knew she loved him. It was her damn misplaced loyalty to Kiki that got in the way. Plus his own niggling doubts about his ability to trust. And, how would his in-laws take his moving on with their daughter’s best friend so soon after Kiki’s murder? He felt like a rat just considering it.
****
The doctor told Malia that Damon was recovering better than expected, and as soon as his bandages came off, he could go home. Why didn’t Damon want her there for the unwrapping? Was his demand for privacy another distancing tactic? Perhaps after seeing the danger of her job firsthand, it killed any interest in getting more involved.
It was all her fault. She’d been the first to pull back. Now what? She not only loved him, she loved herself more when she was with him. If he rejected her love after letting her have a glimpse of how they could be together, how could she go back to the old loneliness?
Everyone else accepted, even encouraged, her love for him. She’d made this big leap and accepted that she could be with the ex-husband of her best friend. Love came too seldom to throw it away on morals that, for her, no longer made sense.
Dammit, the killer left his mark, but they’d survived. She was alive; he was alive, and she’d changed enough to allow herself to love Damon, enough to put the past behind them. Had he changed enough to believe she loved him enough to be faithful … and enough to ignore that she made her living chasing murderers?
****
Where the hell was the doctor? Damon wondered, looking at his watch for the third time in less than five minutes. The next hour could make or break his future. He was only now sorting out his feelings about Malia. All night he had tossed and turned, searching for arguments in favor of them trying for a future. He’d learned from his past he couldn’t make someone love him. Still, he was ready to sacrifice his hurt pride and fear of making another mistake to have her. It would be hard for them both to lay Kiki’s ghost to rest. How could he prove to Malia that in this short time he was ready to love again? He needed an argument that would convince her to take the biggest risk of her life. But one challenge at a time. First he had to make sure the facial surgery had corrected the damage. He wasn’t terribly vain, but he couldn’t stand to see revulsion in her eyes if he ended up looking like Frankenstein’s monster.
He flinched when Kopa’a bustled through the doorway. She carried a garment bag. “Doctor said you could go home after the bandages came off,” she said briskly. “So, my darling son-in-law, I brought you some clothes. Malia wants to pick you up. Don’t forget to call her.”
I’ll decide that later. “Why are you here? I told the doctor I didn’t want any visitors until after my bandages come off.”
“I needed to talk to you alone,” Kopa’a said brusquely. “It couldn’t wait. You’ve been putting Malia through purgatory. She deserves better than your macho silent treatment. In case you’re blind, too – she’s crazy about you.”
“What?” Taken aback, his eyes bugged. “That’s a strange thing to say to your son-in-law.”
“Pshaw. You mean my widowed son-in-law who was in the throes of divorce? Besides, to me you’re just my son. And don’t try to sidetrack me with lingo. We’re discussing something far more important here. Don’t let Kiki’s unfaithfulness make you doubt love. I know you have to work through your hurt pride and feelings of betrayal, but don’t wait too long.”
Damon closed his eyes against the pain of imagining a life without Malia. “I plan to talk to her.”
“You’d better do more than talk. If you let Malia walk out of your life now, it will hurt you both and possibly open a big old gap between you that can’t be bridged. Trust her. She’ll never fail you.”
“I’m not worried about her failing me, but whether I might fail her. It can’t be easy being a cop’s husband and worrying about her twenty-four seven. Police work is dangerous, Kopa’a. I learned that the hard way. And another thing, I’m already jealous of the long hours she has to spend in cars with other cops, good-looking macho guys. What if I can’t handle it? It would drive us both crazy.”
“Will that be Kiki’s legacy, ruining things for two people who plainly love each other?”
“Malia deserves better,” he said. Still he clung to a thread of hope. As a boy he’d always loved the game of what if. Now it was a fervent prayer. What if he could make it work?
****
Malia longed to barge into Damon’s hospital room, but she felt so damn unsure of herself. Each time the hallway door opened she stiffened. Her stomach was a mass of knots, and her palms were sweaty. She paced the length of the waiting room, her arms crossed, gently hugging her tender ribs.
Finally, he came through the door, looking tall, confident and just as handsome as ever. Their gazes met and held. The air between them crackled with electricity. A myriad of emotions rose in Malia. Outside a cloud moved from in front of the sun, and, like a high point in a movie, a burst of golden sunlight shone through the window and encircled them as though they were the only two people in the world.
He opened his arms, and, forgetting for a moment about her cracked ribs, she rushed into them. She stifled a cry when the momentum brought her so close that she painfully connected with his solid chest. She eased back only a fraction, mesmerized and soothed by the rapid beating of his heart.
“We need to talk,” he said.
No words had ever sounded better to her. “And I need to retract something I once said to you,” she said, no longer aware of her tender ribs. “I’ve changed my mind.”
Not just her mind. She’d changed in so many ways, from the inside out, and if he had changed, too, she felt sure they would be stronger, happier, and more focused together. Making the decision to allow herself to love him had brought her full circle, freed her heart and helped her find her place in the world, without guilt, without fear. Dare she hope that he could make a similar decision?
“Falling in love with my best friend’s husband was a lot to get past,” she said softly. “But after almost losing you, I know I can handle it.”
“We both can. Did you know that Kopa’a and Toby are in our corner?”
Malia nodded, unable to speak past her tight throat.
“Life’s never easy,” he said, “and love is a struggle from the get-go, but to have you, I’m willing to work every second of every day to prove to you that our love can last. I’ll admit that getting past Kiki’s string of betrayals made me a little relationship-shy, but no more. I love you, a deep, forever kind of love that can only be satisfied by marriage.”
Her eyes widened. Her heart skipped a beat. “If that is a proposal, I need to explain how I feel about Kiki’s insurance money.”
“I’ve already considered that. I know neither of us want to benefit from Kiki’s death. And we won’t. To honor Kiki, and keep you safer, I was planning to donate the money to a police fund that’ll provide for hiring more officers to catch the bad guys like Al and to see that you have more backup and the best investigative equipment available to make catching criminals easier.”
Her heart swelled with love, but none of it would work unless he could accept her for who she was. “One last thing. Police work is part of my identity, and catching men who prey on women is my lifetime calling.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I kinda gathered that.”
Her gaze held his, fearing his answer. “Can you accept everything that goes with it?” She tried to read his expression.
He laughed again, the tone full of nothing but acceptance and love. “You mean the time you spend in close proximity to other men. I’ve thought about all that at length, and I came to realize that you and Kiki are very different women with different histories operating in your lives.” He traced Malia’s cheekbone with his thumb. “I won’t tarnish Kiki’s memory by letting her weakness be more than it was. I cared for her, but I wasn’t enough for Kiki. I doubt that any one man would ever have been. The question is, am I enough for you?”
She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. “Enough for me? My God, how could you ask that?”
His green eyes twinkled. “Then have we got a deal?”
She placed her hands on his chest over his pounding heart, wishing she could wrap her arms around his neck, but lifting them was still too painful. Ever so gently, and careful not to hurt her, he brought her closer. Finding his tenderness just as erotic as demanding advances, she flushed from her cheeks to the quivering nucleus beneath her belly. “You sound more like a businessman than a writer. I thought writers were supposed to be kings of romance.”
He aligned his mouth with hers. “Romance? I can do that.”
He kissed her then, a kiss sweeter than any she’d ever received, and then, to her delight, his kiss deepened with the kind of desire and love that would take a lifetime and into eternity to quench, assuring her that this was a union that would last forever.