HIGH TIDE

by Miller, Maureen A.

  “I know that.” She plunged both hands into her hair to draw it back from her flushed face. “But we’re doing nothing to tamper with the water—oh, never mind he’ll probably drop it anyway. He’s most likely just some professor looking for fodder for his next class, I’m not going to sit here and let it eat at me.”

  That was exactly what she was going to do. Naoki knew it, and Briana knew that he knew it. She managed a weak smile. “Go on home, Takanawa. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

  The digital clock on the wall read half past six.

  “I’ll go, because if I sit here and read all the notable facts on Nicolas J. McCord, you’re going to get sick.” He waited for Briana to rise to the bait, but she remained mute. “Okay, I’ll go, but one last question—”

  Briana’s eyebrow arched. “Yes?”

  “What did the Professor mean when he said, if you hadn’t been distracting me? And how did you know him, because you can’t deny that you didn’t, the two of you looked like you were either ready to kill, or—”

  “I—” She cleared her throat and retreated to the doorway, prepared to make good on an escape. “I ran into him, more or less, about a half hour earlier. He seemed like a decent enough guy, at least when I didn’t know who he was.”

  Naoki shoved his glasses high atop the ridge of his nose. “Mmmm-hmmm.”

  “What, mmm-hmmm?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled. “Look, have a good night. And please, dear God, don’t spend the rest of the evening sitting here going over zoning restrictions.”

  ***

  Alone in her office on the fourteenth floor of the Kapaa Tower, Briana set the stack of zoning blueprints down on her desk and moved to the wall-length window. Her forehead rested against glass made cool by the air conditioning as she gazed out onto the harbor. Beyond Aloha Tower the ocean was turning dusky rose under a violet twilight. The lights of the marketplace flickered on, and further beyond, a freighter moored at Sand Island became an illuminated hulk on the dark horizon.

  From up here, or even on the crystal shore at Manale, the water looked innocent. Briana knew that the placid surface was full of deception, though. Yes, she as much as everyone else loved to look at the ocean, to stroll its opalescent beaches—but she would not go in. No, she would never go in.

  The ocean was a killer.

  It murdered her parents.

  After nearly twenty years, their faces never faded. Her father, Thomas Holt, the strong lieutenant at Kaneohe’s Marine Corps Base, and her Mother, Maria, the teacher at the Haiku Road Middle School. Maria Holt was a woman with exotic eyes that hinted at Polynesian influence. People often told Briana that her high cheekbones and striking features were the mirror image of her mother, and that the sun-streaked hair and rapt azure gaze distinctly intimated her father. At one time, the pain over their absence was devastating, but years had passed and left her with only a hollow sense of loss.

  As the sun dipped into the Pacific, Briana’s reflection was cast back from the fluorescent light in the empty corridor. Her face was in shadows, her meditative expression concealed by the dim glow behind her. She recounted the events of the past month, searching for any mistake, any chance that she had inadvertently damaged the integrity of the nearby beaches. But she kept coming up empty.

  Why had she been so quick to believe Nick McCord? Was she that much of a masochist that she doomed her achievement before it ever came to fruition?

  With her eyes closed, a brief image of the tall geologist formed. A tanned face with a strong jaw, and an intense gaze that could paralyze a person with the briefest perusal. His body was lean and strong, an observation that was confirmed when the wind molded his shirt to his chest. Briana had been left helplessly staring as he unjustly berated her.

  Well, next time they met the roles would be reversed. She would be in control. Nick McCord was no longer attractive to her. Instead, when she conjured up his face, she formed the image of an adversary.

  She peered out over the black ocean, where a sparkling cruise ship lumbered peacefully past the lights of Waikiki. Beyond it, she studied the dark void, unaware that only a mile offshore, the sea floor churned. It erupted in soft recurrent swells. Tiny flares, doggedly assaulting the coast.

  ***

  Seated on the edge of the lanai, Nick’s legs dangled over a drifting mound of sand. The ocean was discerned only by its placid splash against the shore, a shimmering strip beneath the moon.

  Nick lifted a bottle of beer to his lips, but forgot to sip. His thoughts were monopolized by the initial results of the tests he ran today. It made no sense. There were traces of sediment from a coral reef far off shore that couldn’t have been disturbed without human interference. The only likely candidate for that interference had to be the new housing development going up in Kaneohe.

  Unwillingly, this thought triggered images of the stunning contractor. First on his agenda for the morning was to pay a visit to Moku Land Inc. and apply more pressure on Briana Holt, and anyone else within that firm that could shed light on the erosion of the northern tip of Manale Beach. He had already appealed to the Marine Corps Base, and was satisfied that none of their research ventures produced the damage he had witnessed.

  That left only Briana Holt’s project as the primary suspect.

  Nick rested his head back against one of the wooden columns that suspended the roof over his porch. Finally, he took a swig of beer.

  Glossy blond hair, endless legs, striking azure eyes and soft lips that looked entirely too kissable were not going to thwart his efforts. It was his responsibility to ensure the quality of Hawaii’s water and to preserve the natural beauty of its coastline. The fact that he had not been with a woman in well over a year wasn’t going to make him any less sharp.

  It was a damn shame, though. A damn shame that the woman he had met on the beach today, the woman who entranced him with her wary reaction, the woman whose golden hair was whisked into silky waves by the coastal breeze—it was a damn shame that she had to be chin-deep in the very project he was about to take down.

  But power-play women weren’t his thing. Been there, done that. Yeah, he had thought about marriage with Meleana Kane. She was beautiful and headstrong, and in the end, her career came before her relationship.

  Still, an image of the beguiling creature on the beach today with sandals in hand fascinated him. She didn’t look like she was hungry for power. She looked like a woman who wanted to indulge her bare feet in the pleasures of the sand, and was startled when she was caught doing it.

  Nick touched the cool glass to his lips. That woman on the beach was just a fantasy brought on by the sun. Reality was the contractor that pointed her finger at him in open challenge.

  Over whispering palms, he listened to the ocean. There was a soft effervescence nearby, unseen but comforting. This was the sound he had fallen asleep to nearly every night for the past thirty-five years.

  Tonight he strained to perceive more from the sea, listening blindly to the patterns of the waves, seeking explanation from its murky depths.

  What was she hiding?

  ***

  “I’m heading down to the Palms, are you ready to go?”

  Briana sifted through precarious piles to locate her green Warriors mug. “No, I want to make a few phone calls first. I’m waiting for the offices to open at the DNLR.”

  “The Department of Land and Natural Resources? That geologist really did get to you.”

  Briana’s hair was pulled back in a casual ponytail, revealing her frown. “No, I’m just checking the numbers. All of the waterfront properties are over forty feet away from the shoreline. That meets the law. The seawall we built wasn’t a large one. We didn’t use boulders for hardening the coastline as they refer to it. I’m just checking if we missed something.”

  “He got to you.”

  “No, but I’m going to get to you if you don’t get out of my office in the next ten seconds.”

  Hands aloft in defense, Naoki grinned. �
��I’m outta here. Anything for me to pass along to the troops?”

  “Yeah, be careful.” She looked up. “No mistakes, I don’t want a drop of trash on that site.”

  With a brief salute, Naoki muttered “Aye, aye.”

  Briana shook her head and reached for the receiver. A glimpse at her watch calculated that the government facility was open by now. Nimbly punching numbers on the dial, frustrated by the series of messages that never led to a live operator, Briana growled into the mouthpiece before she slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  “It’s only eight-thirty. Bad day already?”

  Her head snapped up. Resting against her doorjamb was a man that made her hasty breakfast donut repeat on her.

  “It just got worse,” she replied coolly.

  Amusement glinted in the eyes that measured her, and then Nick McCord seemed to remember the paperwork tucked under his arm. He approached her desk and slapped the stack down atop an already unstable pile. “Now it’s worse.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Conclusive results.” Nick reached for one of the redwood chairs in front of her desk. “May I sit down?”

  No. The thought erupted before she admonished her immaturity. She could handle this obnoxious arbitrator. “Of course. Coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  She nodded to the cart just outside her doorway. “Help yourself.”

  Nick settled in the chair, casually hooking an ankle over his knee, ignoring the offer. For a moment, penetrating eyes grabbed hers in a silent face-off. She was the first to retreat, succumbing to curiosity about the manila folder wrapped with rubber bands. She wrenched them off and flipped through the handwritten notes.

  “This doesn’t exactly look official.” Briana scoured through his precise annotations, the series of calculations and condensed hypothesis handwritten on the last page. She also noted with a concealed smile the doodling in the margins. Slapping the folder shut, she crossed her hands over it and gazed with composure at the relaxed creature across from her.

  The intrusion of her phone made her jump.

  “Excuse me a second.”

  ***

  Nick nodded, fascinated with the woman who tried so hard to put on a business air, but seemed to jolt at every little sound. Watching Briana conduct an apparently bureaucratic call, seeing the flush rise to her cheeks because she was aware that he studied her, Nick chuckled before he stood up and prowled her office.

  From what he could determine, her conversation was geared around coastal building restrictions, and when he turned to smile victoriously that he had her on the run, he was met with a glare. Briana’s voice turned icy to the unseen party on the phone.

  Nick grinned and shook his head, continuing his survey of Briana’s workplace. Drawn to the view behind her, he watched a Hawaiian Airlines jet soar over the bay, and estimated the cost of rental for these suites to be astronomical. In the distance beyond Waikiki, Diamond Head jutted out into the ocean silhouetted by a crystalline sky. His bleak glance scoured the series of skyscrapers stacked along the coast, like dominoes ready to tumble into the sea.

  There was good money to be had in real estate development. Sickened, he turned away.

  Positioned behind Briana, he studied the back of her head, the soft ponytail of sun-kissed hair sliding back and forth in animation as her conversation became heated. His amusement waned, though, replaced with conviction and a need to put a stop to her destruction of the Manale coast.

  “I am not being confrontational. I am simply asking you to provide me with a written copy of the law so that I may present it to anyone who disputes our current development.” A split-second pause.“Who?” She angled her head in his direction. “Some nosy government official who has no business, or credence bothering me.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow.

  “Fine, are you going to e-mail it? Fine, I’ll expect it shortly. Thank you.”

  Briana dropped the receiver back down and glared at him.

  “Calling the DNLR?” he mused. “Worried, are you?”

  Her poise waned, but after a deep breath that drew his eyes to her chest, Briana reclined in her swivel chair and smiled.

  “Not anymore, Mr. McCord. In fact, now I have to ask you to leave.” She glanced at her phone. “I have three calls holding and I must get out to the site by noon.”

  Nick cleared his throat, trying to conceal the reaction that soft curve of lips elicited. Dressed for business in a sleek white blouse that drew his vision to the open collar, and a tapered navy skirt he had caught a fleeting glimpse of beneath the desk, Briana was a woman that he contemplated naked. It was a response he chalked up to his year of abstinence.

  “You can’t ignore me, Briana. I’m giving you the opportunity to come clean before I file a formal suit against you. And believe me, when it comes to the USGS battling against some money-hungry, haole land development project—we will put a stop to that construction.”

  Briana rose, the chair sliding backwards. Her hands splayed atop his surveys as she leaned forward with a glow in her face and a threat in her eyes.

  Her voice was eerily restrained. “First, I never invited you to address me so informally. Second,” she took a sustaining breath, “I take great offense to the accusation of this being a foreigner’s project. In case you weren’t aware, Mr. McCord, the land has been acquired through auction with the intention that it only be sold to native Hawaiians at a rate that was agreed upon during the transaction, and more than fair to locals.”

  Slim fingers with clear-polished nails wrapped about the manila folder. She extended the item across the desk and slid her eyes over his face. “And if you don’t mind me asking, why the pious attitude when you’re a haole yourself?”

  Nick was momentarily speechless. He regrouped quickly, accepted the files, and avoided her touch. “Looks can be deceiving, Briana. Just because both my parents weren’t full-blooded Hawaiians doesn’t make me any less protective of my home. And quite honestly, my heritage is none of your concern.”

  “We’re agreed there, Mr. McCord. Now if you don’t mind, I’m extremely busy.”

  Nick didn’t know what he wanted to do more—storm out and never speak to this woman again, or swipe the papers from her desk and pin her to it with the length of his body.

  Yeah, one long, wet kiss would wipe that sanctimonious look from her exotic eyes. Hell, it would feel damn good to him, too.

  “Twelve o’clock, you say? Fine, I’ll meet you there.”

  “You most certainly will not.”

  Briana tilted her head to look up at him. “Our business is over. If you insist on pursuing this pointless matter, I will talk only to your lawyer.”

  Nick hefted an eyebrow. “You two would get along quite well.”

  ***

  In just a day, Briana could see the signs of advancement at Manale Palms. Tar filled the excavated road, its pungent scent the first to assault her as smoke swirled over the onyx surface. Builders industriously erected the wooden frame of another house. Fresh sod flanked the model at the entrance, with landscapers busily sculpting bushes. Even the colossal fountain at the front entryway plumed with water, an enticing image to passersby.

  Yesterday Briana had felt a burgeoning pride when standing at this juncture and taking it all in. Today she felt trepidation and cursed the geologist under her breath.

  “What took you so long?” Naoki jogged over, perspiration causing his glasses to slide up and down his nose.

  Briana waited until he caught up alongside her. “Useless meetings.”

  “Did you get through to the State Department?”

  “Yes, and we were right. We’re not breaking any of the coastal building laws.”

  Naoki jabbed at the air with his fist. “Hah! That guy’s a flake. One of those nature cooks.”

  An image of the victim of Naoki’s air punches flashed in Briana’s mind. She couldn’t detect anything flaky about the intense man that invaded her thoughts.

&
nbsp; “Never mind. Let’s put it behind us.” She retrieved a notebook from her purse and held her pen in the ready. “Okay, give me the low down—”

  Naoki recited the progress of the morning. Walking as she wrote, Briana ignored the brazen stare of a sweaty man in a hard-hat. Nimbly, her accelerated steps skirted around the fresh tar.

  “I want to take a spin through the model. It should be ready for visitors in a few days, no?”

  The model was actually a moot point as all lots had already been sold. But it was serving as a prototype for the sister development slated to break ground in Kona in six months.

  “Yeah,” Naoki tried to keep up with Briana’s intent stride and nearly collided with one of the engineers. He muttered a brief apology before sprinting to catch up.

  “They dropped off the floral displays and ceramics today. An old lady who owns a shop in Pearl City loaned the décor, as long as we display her card on several of the tables.”

  “Good.” Wrangling in her purse for the keys, Briana extracted a Moku Land Inc. key chain, its blue and white rendering of Diamond Head immortalized in plastic. Absently, she glanced through the frosted glass into the foyer.

  “How about the alarm system?”

  “Yeah, they’ve been here. The panel is just inside the doorway. I’ve got the combination.”

  Low heels clicked against gleaming white tiles, while Briana waited as Naoki hunched over the panel. He squinted through his lenses at the display and tapped a few keys before stepping back, satisfied.

  “Four-four-oh-seven.”

  With a brief nod, Briana committed the number to memory. She paused to remove her pumps and then proceeded onto the milky white living room carpet. Most of the furniture was white. The plush leather couch was accentuated by mauve and teal oversized throw pillows that matched the floral pattern of the parted drapes. Standing before the spacious window, able to see a portion of the bay in the distance, Briana nodded her approval.

  In the kitchen, she dropped her possessions on top of the white Formica counter. She took in the pale wood cabinets and glossy white tiles accentuated beautifully by the decorative prowess of the Pearl City shop owner.