by Edie Claire
“We’d gone up maybe three floors out of twenty-something when I realized he was looking at me,” Maddie continued. “He gave no more warning than that. He didn’t say a word. The next thing I knew, he had launched himself across the elevator and was crushing me against the wall, groping me and pulling at my dress.”
Kai felt fine drops of sweat break out on his forehead. He must also have made some sort of noise, because Maddie glanced over her shoulder at him. He wiped his face of emotion as quickly as possible and blinked back at her.
“So,” Gloria prompted, her own voice furious with contempt. “What did you do? Me, I’d bus’ hees ala-alas!”
Maddie smirked. Kai wasn’t sure how much Pidgin she could remember, but the meaning of that particular phrase wasn’t hard to guess. “It really wasn’t necessary,” she said calmly. “My response is always the same: do whatever I have to do to get the guy off me, then exit the situation. In this case, though, there was a complication.”
Maddie paused a moment to stop and look at the view. Kai knew how much she loved this place. Here, the red dirt and scrubby tufts of grass that were usually under their feet met the swirling volcanic rock that separated the earth from the ocean. From this height they could see all the way across Hulopo'e Bay, past the sprawling resort on its opposite shore and up the far hill to the new and mysterious private construction beyond. At the mouth of the bay, a reef break created striking lines of pure white spray that fell upon the dark blue water. Straight ahead was the open Pacific.
As fabulous as the view was, Kai couldn’t stir himself to look at it. He was focused entirely on Maddie, and on maintaining the necessary facade of calm when he so desperately wanted to break something.
“What complication?” Gloria prompted.
Kai noted with chagrin that the natural beauty surrounding them seemed to have no effect on his little sister, either now or at any other point during the morning. It was a blindness that could happen when you knew nothing else, and he wished he could afford to take her to the mainland in February.
“I gave him one good shove,” Maddie said flatly. “That’s all it took to get away from him, since he was so drunk he could barely stand. But because he was so drunk, the shove made him fall backward, and when he fell, he hit his head on the handrail on the far side of the elevator.”
Kai stifled a low noise in his throat. He did not like where her story was going and he hated that she was reliving it through the telling. But doing so was her choice, and he supposed she was making a point for Gloria’s sake.
“My plan was to hit the emergency stop and get out, then report him to the hotel desk,” Maddie explained. “I was going to do that regardless, but when he slumped to the floor unconscious, I added a request for medical assistance. I explained everything to the hotel staff, their security guy took a statement, and I went to bed.”
She stopped suddenly, bent down to examine some sort of nest in a clump of grass, and then moved on. “Five o’clock the next morning, somebody’s banging on my door, yelling ‘police.’ I barely have time to throw on a shirt before they break the thing down. So I answer it, wearing sleep shorts and a tee and my hair all over the place, and these two men look at me like I’ve got a lot of nerve, showing up to a police interview dressed so inappropriately.”
“Oh, that is so wrong!” Gloria sympathized.
“So they start right in, asking me all kinds of questions about what happened last night, and I tell them the exact same story, except it’s clear they don’t believe a word of it. And of course I have no clue why, until finally they decide to tell me. Turns out Mr. Romeo is a high-level exec of some company in Phoenix, and he can’t remember a damned thing that happened to him after he and his buds headed to the bar. He regained consciousness at the hospital, was diagnosed with a mild concussion, demanded to see his personal effects, and discovered a couple hundred dollars in cash missing from his wallet. He called the police, the police called hotel security, and their collective genius derived the only possible conclusion — he’d been lured by a prostitute who’d then assaulted him and taken off with his money.”
Kai’s steps stopped. So did Gloria’s.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me?” his sister protested. “That’s nuts! You were staying in the hotel! You called security yourself! What would make them think you were a prostitute?”
Maddie stopped and turned around. Her perfectly shaped lips drew up into a rueful smile. She looked first at Gloria, then at Kai. For a moment it seemed as if she would say something. Then she seemed to think better of it. She turned around and started walking again.
Gloria swore.
Kai opened his mouth to chastise his sister’s word choice, purely out of habit. But no words came out. She was only saying what was on his own mind.
Gloria caught up to Maddie. “What happened?”
“They asked me a bunch more insulting questions, and then they searched my room,” Maddie answered. “They seemed pretty surprised to turn up exactly twenty-seven dollars and some change — and nothing stronger than a Tylenol. Still, they were acting like I must be guilty of something. Turns out the businessman in question was not only used to throwing his weight around in Phoenix, but he was pretty well-connected in Atlanta, too. He was respectable, you know. I was just some chick with big boobs.”
The slow burn in Kai’s gut ratcheted up another notch, and he realized that his sisters were not, in fact, the only women who could stir his ordinarily peaceable soul to thoughts of violence. He stepped up beside Maddie. “They didn’t actually charge you with anything, did they?” he demanded.
Her lovely gray eyes looked up at his, not seeming offended so much as curious. Then the corners of her mouth turned up, ever so slightly, into a smile.
A flush of warmth crept over him. He liked all of Maddie’s smiles, even the gigantic cheesy ones she used to make when she was teasing him. But this subtle, sly one was his favorite. At least it was now. There was something excitingly intimate about it.
I know what you’re thinking, it proclaimed. You’re getting all protective again. You lawyer, you.
“No,” she answered. “But I believe they would have, if it weren’t for the camera in the elevator.”
Gloria moved in closer, and the three of them stood together for a moment, sheltering their eyes from the red dust as a large gust of wind kicked up from the ocean. They were near enough to the crest of the ridge now that they could see over its other side. Far below them to the east, waves rolled onto the salt and pepper beach of Shark’s Cove, and across that body of water another ridge jutted out toward Pu'u Pehe, the Sweetheart Rock.
Kai could not take his eyes off Maddie as the wind lifted her still-wet hair and tousled it about her shoulders. Her locks were tangled with seawater, her shirt was modest and now dry, and she wore absolutely no makeup.
She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
“There was a camera?” Gloria repeated when the wind died down. “Well, thank God. So, it cleared you?”
Maddie nodded. “They just had to get the head of security in to access the tapes. Once he showed up and took a look, it was obvious what had happened. I’m pretty sure the police got a call to that effect while they were still in my room. They just up and left. With no explanation.”
Gloria swore again. This time she did not use the exact words Kai was thinking, but silently, he conceded that hers were better.
“Did they ever apologize to you?” Gloria asked. “Or anything?”
A dark look passed over Maddie’s face, and with it, the air surrounding Kai turned colder. “One of them called me, actually,” she said. “The younger of the two. He said he wanted to apologize to me.” Her voice had changed. Her steady, slightly defiant tone now smacked of despair. “He invited me over to his place for a beer.”
Her shoulders shivered. The movement was slight, so slight that only a person watching her closely was likely to notice.
Kai was such a person.
Even as his eyes registered the gesture, his memory reminded him of one of the few times he’d seen it before. A group of them had gone on a day hike up into the mountains, and his middle sister had gone with them. Chika had been only seven or so at the time, and she had gotten suddenly and violently sick to her stomach. The episode left Chika so miserable and weak she had dropped down in the woods, seemingly unable to walk. Maddie felt awful because she had been the one to convince Chika to come, and Maddie stayed beside her and held her hand, yelling at Kai to run back for help. He did not, of course, having witnessed such melodrama on countless occasions before and knowing that Chika would be perfectly fine in ten minutes. But Maddie had been truly worried that something horrible had happened. She was miserable because she thought it was her fault. And her shoulders had been shaking. Just like now.
Kai didn’t think. He just reacted. His arm reached out and circled grown-up Maddie’s shoulders, pulling her to his side and giving her a squeeze. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “No one should have to go through that.”
Only then did he remember his promise to himself not to touch her. For a second he was paralyzed, afraid he had offended her. But his fears quickly proved unfounded. Not only did Maddie relax into his embrace, but for one long and glorious second, she leaned her head lazily onto his shoulder.
Then she was up again.
Maddie took a couple steps away from them both and faced the ocean for a moment. Then she summoned up a smile and turned back to them. “So anyway, Gloria,” she said with her usual strong, confident tone of voice. “That’s why when I go to the beach I wear some crap outfit like this instead of a swimsuit. There are jerks everywhere, and I’m perfectly capable of dealing with them. But I don’t invite trouble. Wearing a bikini would never be worth it to me.”
Kai’s teeth clenched. So this was the moral of the story? It was her fault after all?
“I see your point,” Gloria said begrudgingly. “But it’s not right.”
“Nope,” Maddie agreed. Then she turned and started walking up the trail again.
Kai said nothing. It wasn’t like he had any business giving the woman advice. She had lived with the problem since puberty; she had found a way to deal with it. As long as roaches survived to crawl the earth, so too would men looking for sex. Those men were going to notice Maddie, and she was correct that every subconscious message she sent — the way she dressed, how much makeup she wore, even the way she moved — would affect their decision on whether to approach her.
He could see her as a child in his mind’s eye, splashing about in the one navy-colored tank suit she had worn for two years straight when she first came to island. The suit had started out so big it hung in wrinkles around her middle and it had wound up so tight it dug red marks into her shoulders. At neither end of the spectrum was it entirely decent, but Maddie could not have cared less, and Kai was certain that if schoolyard law and common decency had permitted, she would have happily chucked the thing and cavorted in the buff. Feeling free and unencumbered — enjoying the world and being real — was a part of Maddie’s indomitable spirit.
How indomitable was it now?
Kai’s jaws clenched tighter. It wasn’t right that Maddie had to hide herself away, that she was forced to feel so self-conscious. It just wasn’t right.
“Oh, look!” Maddie called out gleefully. “There they are!”
Kai looked out over the rippling blue waters of Shark’s Cove to see tiny white blows of spray and glints of sleek dark backs breaking above the surface. The spinner dolphin pod was passing through, and it looked like they were sleeping. The dolphins had the bizarre ability to turn off half their brain and rest, even as the other half allowed them to cruise along at the water’s surface, blowing gently and making smooth arcs with their unconscious bodies.
Maddie stopped to watch. To his surprise, Gloria joined her. Gloria, who to his knowledge had not expressed enthusiasm over anything so ordinary as a dolphin since the age of five. Kai stopped a pace behind them, but his interest was reserved for Maddie. He could not seem to take his eyes off her.
And that really wasn’t good.
He was already having one of the most emotionally insane days of his life. He hadn’t gotten to sleep on his parents’ too-short couch until the wee hours of the morning, and then he was awakened almost immediately by Gloria trying to sneak the truck keys off the peg by the door. He got the keys and told her they would discuss it with their parents in the morning, but Aki was up in a flash, and then Malaya went wild. Sleeping in had not been possible either, as the early call he’d gotten from Riku had brought such bad news it made his heart sick. Riku’s wife had gotten their kids all the way to Idaho, and she was suing for divorce and sole custody. Whatever Kai could do to help his cousin, he was afraid it would not be enough.
And then, there was Maddie. Good God, what was he going to do about her? He had brought her to the island this weekend assuming that she and the family could work everything out, that surely his mother had misunderstood somehow and that Maddie wasn’t really that clueless.
Evidently, he had been wrong. What Maddie’s father was thinking, Kai couldn’t imagine. The man had to know that if Maddie was living on Maui, she would surely come back to visit Lana'i. Did he think that the entire population of the island had somehow suffered collective amnesia? Did he think she wouldn’t talk to people? Did he think they wouldn’t talk to her?
Kai drew in a deep, slow breath. Nobody had talked to her. Yet. But that was only because she hadn’t been here long, and because his mother and Nana were being so protective. Their quest was clearly hopeless. The perfectly innocent question Sammy had thrown out earlier had proved that. Maddie’s family history was no secret. It was going to come up, and when it did, it was going to hurt her. Malaya didn’t believe it was Kai’s own family’s place to make that happen. Kai felt it was worse to let her be blindsided.
It would be fair to say that Malaya had gotten in the last word. At least, hers had been the loudest. Malaya and Nana had their reasons for wanting to keep Kai out of the Westover family’s affairs, and he understood why, and how strongly they felt. But he would make his own decision.
They reached a fork in the path, and he watched Maddie deliberate. He knew what she was thinking. She wanted to walk straight ahead down the lava spit they were on, because she liked that view and there was a cool sea arch to their right, and she had always enjoyed walking out where the water wrapped three quarters of the way around the bridge beneath her feet. But he knew she wouldn’t go that way now. She was too impatient to get to Pu'u Pehe itself.
Maddie pivoted and turned to the left.
Kai grinned. He stepped up beside Maddie as they walked on the trail along the top of the sheer cliff bordering Shark’s Cove. She and Kenny might have joked about throwing each other over the edge back then, but the truth was, they had both made him nervous. Neither kid got high marks in the self-preservation department, and it was a very long way down.
“So, how’s your father doing?” he asked, trying his best to make the question sound like idle chitchat. “Is he still working for the state resorts in Kentucky?”
Maddie was watching the dolphins as she walked. The pod was cruising slowly around the far bend toward Manele Harbor and out of view. “He doesn’t work for the resorts anymore, per se,” she answered, not seeming to find anything unusual in the question, “but he does still work for the state and they still live in Paducah.”
“Is he going to be able to come visit you while you’re on Maui?” Kai asked.
Maddie frowned slightly. “I’m not sure.”
“Have you talked to him lately?” Kai pressed.
She looked at him curiously. “Actually, that was him I was talking to on the phone at the beach just now. Why?”
Kai shrugged. “I wondered what he thought about your seeing us all again, that’s all. And if he wanted to do the same sometime.”
Maddie’s eyes held his. What do you know that I don
’t, Kai?
His heart thudded in his chest. If she asked that question out loud, he was sunk. He wasn’t going to lie to her. But damn, this was awkward. It was her father, not him, who should be doing the talking. What was wrong with the man?
“Do you think he’ll come visit?” he asked again, before she could speak. “I’m sure my parents and Nana would love to see him.” And have a few choice words with him.
“I doubt it,” Maddie answered, seeming confused. She turned away and looked off down the trail again. “He seems content to put our years on Lana'i behind him. And if that’s what works for him, I really can’t argue with that, you know? He didn’t have the same experience here that I did.”
“But…” Kai’s mind raced a bit. Was he understanding this right? “You did tell him that you were here, and that you’d seen all of us, didn’t you?”
Maddie’s forehead furrowed. She did a full stop and faced him. “Why would I not tell him that? What’s up with you?”
“Ooh!” Gloria shouted. “Humpback spout!”
Maddie whirled. “Where?”
Gloria pointed far out to the southwest, and Kai took a breath and regrouped. Too much stray emotion… he was going to screw this up entirely unless he started thinking more like an attorney and less like the overly sensitive ten-year-old-boy he had been back then.
He looked where Maddie and Gloria were looking. He saw no whale spout.
“Well, crap,” Gloria lamented. “It figures. It must have dove down or something.”
Maddie started walking again. She took several steps before seeming to remember where the conversation had left off. Then she looked back at Kai. Her gaze was newly anxious, making Kai feel worse than ever. “I didn’t get to talk to my dad very long. They were driving somewhere. He’s supposed to call me back.” Her steps slowed, then stopped altogether. She turned around and looked him directly in the eyes. “Is there something you think he should be telling me?”