by Jillian Neal
“You’re just amazing.” Fionna looked overwhelmed.
“That’s you, baby doll, and how about a bath?”
Dan started to lower the curtains on the screened in porch, but she shook her head.
“Breathing in the island air will help heal us. No one will come over here. They all know I’m in Tutu’s infirmary.”
Immediately, Dan recalled one of their many conversations when they were in Sydney. She’d been frightened to tell him that she slept naked, afraid he would judge her. He began to understand that she was meant to exist in a natural world, not in a concrete jungle of smog and belligerence. She sought to hold onto her authenticity in any small way she could.
“You got it.” He began studying the porch instead. There was a large double swing on one corner and a flat mattress suspended on a wooden frame that hung as a swinging bed on the other.
“Tutu believes sleeping outside is good for you, too. More breathing in the island air,” Fionna explained about the bed as she filled up the massive bathtub with hot water.
Dan went back into the bedroom and returned with the bottles Tutu had shown him. Fionna grinned and began adding the prescribed formula to the water. He noted that she didn’t have to read the instructions. She knew the remedy.
“Come here to me, baby.” Dan guided her into the sanctuary of his arms. Her breath panted as he brushed a tender kiss across her lips.
“I love you, and I want to take care of you always,” he whispered as he began unbuttoning the sundress she was wearing.
“I love you, too.” Her chest rose and fell rhythmically. Her eyes closed. She reveled in the sensation of him undressing her. She trembled in his arms as he eased the straps off of her shoulders tenderly.
He popped the clasp of her bra, devouring her mouth. He let her breasts fall in swollen mounds into his hand, still so fevered and tender. He knew they ached. He massaged them gently, adding to the pressure slowly, until she was moaning, arching her back, and pushing them into his hands.
Dan lowered her panties and then guided her into the tub. He pulled off everything he was wearing and stepped in behind her. He cradled her body between his outstretched legs.
Fionna drew a deep breath, and Dan felt her entire body relax against his. He laid back against the tub, amazed as he felt the tedious ache of his own muscles begin to ease. His shoulders lowered as he held her to him.
They laid there in the peaceful serenity for several long minutes. Dan concentrated. He was astonished by how much of Fionna’s energy was evident in the very air around him.
Her rhythms were of the island. He could hardly believe what he was feeling and seeing once he began to relax. She is a child of the land, and the land will heal her. Dan heard her grandmother’s adamant vow in his mind as he began massaging her body slowly with his hands.
He considered Fionna’s stepmother’s somewhat insistent suggestion that he bring Fionna to Kauai to see her grandparents. She could feel it as well. She’d brought Fionna back numerous times growing up, even though she was bringing her stepchild to see her maternal grandparents, because she loved Fionna and knew that her energy needed to feel the rhythms of the island often.
The air around them was permeated not only with spectacular floral perfume, but that heady coconut scent of her.
“What is the stuff in the glass jar that you didn’t want Tutu to tell me about?” He slicked his hands with the oil Tutu had prescribed for massage and rubbed his hands over Fionna’s neck and shoulders. He felt the muscles that had been knotted for weeks unfurl almost instantly.
Drawing a deep breath Fionna sighed. “Dan, here, please,” she finally begged and drew his hands to her breasts. She gave into the ache and knew he held the cure.
Trying to order away the fierce erection he knew she felt press tightly against her backside, he gently rubbed the oil into her breasts. The fever began to abate at once.
“There’s an old Hawaiian legend about the Ohia tree and the lehua flower,” she whispered.
Dan listened intently, almost having forgotten his own question in light of being asked to give her an in-depth breast massage. He tried to refocus. He wanted to hear the legends and understand her heritage. He wanted all of her, each and every piece.
“The legend says that one day Pele met Ohia, he was a handsome warrior. She fell in love with him, but he was pledged to another beautiful woman named Lehua. When Ohia turned down Pele’s marriage proposal, she was furious and turned him into a twisted tree. Lehua was devastated and begged the gods to return Ohia to her. Instead of turning him back into a man, they turned Lehua into a beautiful flower that grows on the Ohia tree, so they’re always together. The legend says that if you pick the Lehua flowers that it will rain because the lovers weap when they’re parted.”
The tale poured from her in the hallowed voices of her past. Generations of love and care, of her heritage, echoed in the tale. It was a vital part of her, one Dan hadn’t fully understood until that moment. Like a beautiful wildflower that somehow grew in the choking cracks of concrete, she’d managed to survive. Maylea, indeed.
Curiosity coursed through Dan as he listened. “Does Tutu grow those trees or use the flowers or something? Is that what is in that jar?”
“Tutu uses the sap from the tree and the flowers so that the lovers are always together. She mixes them with coconut oil and grapeseed oil. They must never be parted. She alters them, and enhances them, then spins them into a kind of ointment. And she thinks that the ointment will, uh…” Fionna seemed to choke in her explanation.
“I’m sorry, baby. I would try to help you out, but I’m not sure where this is going.” He felt badly that he’d asked.
Fionna laughed and turned suddenly so that the side of her face was against his collarbone. She instinctively kept her body submerged in the deep water.
“It can be used as a lubricant. It’s very healing.” Her body trembled as he kept up the massage. “Tutu thinks that if you were to rub it inside of me before we had sex that it would ease any pain or discomfort I might have. It would also heal there as well.”
The answer to his gut wrenching fear was in a jar in the bedroom. “Fi, why didn’t you want to tell me that?” Dan gasped.
“I don’t know. It does actually work.” Her body gave a slight shiver against him. “I’ve used it before. That summer I stayed here when I was nineteen.”
He kissed the top of her head, but had no interest in thinking about her with anyone else.
“Malani and Kai always use it. They say it makes everything feel more incredible, but I don’t know. I only ever used it afterwards, when I hurt. I had to sneak it out of Tutu’s workshop that summer because I didn’t want to tell her what we’d done, but she knew anyway. She left another jar on my bedside table.” Fionna blushed violently as Dan chuckled and kissed her again.
“But, I understand that it sounds totally nuts,” she bristled.
“Fi, you just said it worked, and that your best friend since you were born uses it with her husband.”
“I know.” She still wasn’t certain what to make of Dan’s willingness to use products her grandmother cooked up in her tiny workshop. But he knew it was her. She’d chipped through the callused, caustic, cynical shell that he’d worn just like his shield since the day Amelia had been killed.
When Dan had reheated the water with his hands a second time, he kissed her cheek tenderly. She was almost asleep. “Ready to get out, baby doll?”
With a heavy nod, she let him help her out of the tub. He pulled the drain plug and took the large towel she handed him. He haphazardly ran it over his body, heated it, and then moved to dry her off thoroughly.
“I’m kind of tired.” Her admission was cut off by a deep yawn. That was the first time since she’d been shot, hospitalized, undergone intense emergency surgery, and had summarily miscarried their baby that she’d admitted to being tired.
Wondering if she was beginning to listen to her own rhythms, like her gra
ndmother had urged her to do, Dan smiled at her sweetly. “Well, I believe that another of Tutu’s requirements for healing was a long nap.”
“You really don’t think this is all crazy?”
Dan chuckled as he followed her back into the cottage. He pulled the quilts and blankets back on the bed and held his hand out to her. She glided to him as he laid down and cradled her tenderly on his chest.
The bed was heavenly. He’d never laid down and instantly felt like he could sleep for hours. It had simple white cotton sheets, but they were soft and smooth. They smelled of lavender and jasmine. His eyes longed to close. A thin down comforter was covered with a handmade Hawaiian quilt. It enveloped them in a soothing cocoon.
“You know,” he forced himself to say all of this before they drifted off into a deep sleep, “six months ago, I would have said it was crazy. But I’ve already told you how much you changed me, all for the better. And, baby doll, you’ve been here for a few hours, had 2 cups of tea, taken one bath, and you’re moving so much better. You’re less swollen. You don’t seem to be hurting.” He rubbed his right hand tenderly up over her abdomen and then back to her breasts, astonished at how the fever had all but disappeared.
“Sweetheart, your energy feels so much healthier.” He willed her to feel it as well.
Fionna brushed her lips over his bare chest. “So does yours.” A minute later, she was sound asleep. Dan cosseted her closer to him, and he let his heavy eyes close as he drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Certain
~Jean Paul Fitzroy~
“You’re certain he’s dead, right? I mean, you were standing there?” Fitz demanded of Garrett.
“I was there. He’s dead. Dan fucking drained him in a matter of seconds. I felt his energy in the air. I’ve never felt sicker! So who the hell is doing this?”
They stared down at a grainy street cam shot of two men discreetly being handed Haliburton cases in the streets of Brussels. The same cases had been found at a home in Roubaix, France. The home of Niles Marcheau, one of the undercover agents that Fitz had placed in the Interfeci. One that had taken a month off after Wretchkinsides had fallen. He’d gone to visit family in Roubaix. They were now planning his funeral. The cases were left. The guns they’d contained were gone.
“Is Pendergrath getting orders out from Coriolis?” Fitz asked again.
“He’s buried in the last chamber. He’s probably barely breathing at this point,” Portwood huffed. “And who would he be giving orders to? We’ve arrested half the planet!”
Fitz’s head fell into his hands. “Who the hell is doing this?”
“We could…” Portwood started again.
“No.” Fitz and Garrett were adamant. Dan was not to know any of this.
~Dan Vindico~
It was late afternoon when Dan felt Fionna stir. She moved into the water closet off of the bedroom and then crawled back in the bed. Dan was mesmerized. She was really truly relaxed.
Her eyes were calm. Her shoulders lower, and her gait was smooth and languid like nothing had ever hurt her.
“You hungry, baby doll? We never had lunch.” Dan ran his hands up and down her back.
Fionna gave him one of his smiles, and the effect of her cheeks glowing a healthy pink, and her eyes no longer red and swollen from crying with regularity over the past several days, and of his smile lighting her beautiful face had him short of breath.
“You want to go into town, go to my favorite taco place of all time, and then go watch the sunset on Salt Pond? Salt Pond is actually the beach. We can take Papa’s truck,” she assured him.
“Anything you want, I’m there.”
Fionna phoned her grandfather after they were dressed. The truck pulled up a few minutes later.
“Your Tutu said to give you this and to tell you to use it,” Fionna’s grandfather handed Fionna more brown bottles and another small screw top jar.
Fionna studied them. Another round of relief soothed her face before she laughed. “Tell her I will, but that she’s getting awfully bossy.”
Her grandfather scrubbed her hair, laughing heartily. He kissed her cheek and promised to give her grandmother the message.
“What’s that?” Dan asked after he thanked Fionna’s grandfather for the keys to the truck. He wanted to know. If there was something either of them needed to use to heal, he wanted to do it.
“Just about the best stuff to clean and moisturize your face with ever. She noticed that I broke out after the miscarriage.” Fionna pointed to her chin and forehead.
Dan hadn’t really noticed until that moment, but there were several small red bumps on her face.
“And this is for your lips. It’s amazing. It makes them so soft. Mine have been chapped for a while.” She immediately unscrewed the lid and applied the shea butter balm to her lips with her finger.
Dan kissed her lips quickly careful not to remove the balm. “And it tastes good,” he teased.
A half hour later they were devouring fish tacos from a hot pink and neon green, concrete shack with a tie-dyed sign that declared them to be the best ahi tacos on Kauai.
“These are incredible.” Dan couldn’t recall a better meal. He was genuinely surprised that something that delectable had come out of a shack.
“I know.” Fionna seemed thrilled that he was so pleased. They ordered another round and consumed them as they drove out to the beach Fionna wanted to show him.
“You sure you’re okay? This is a lot of walking.” Dan helped Fionna out of the truck. It was several yards over grass and volcanic rocks to get to the shoreline.
“I feel really good. I really want to go. I need to, please. It’s my favorite shoreline. It’s so calm and steady,” she begged.
“I wasn’t going to take you back, honey. I was going to carry you.”
She smiled sheepishly as she began leading him down to a rocky shoreline. It certainly wouldn’t have made a postcard or magazine cover, but as Dan studied it, he smiled. Salty tidal pools surrounded them, and harsh, rocky jetties were situated about thirty feet back in the water. They protected the shores making the waters serene. Waves would occasionally crash against the jetties, but the water remained controlled and the shoreline thoroughly protected by the rocky seawall.
She sank down in the sand and stared out at the beautiful waters of her island.
He sat beside her, more entranced watching her than the rhythmic lapping water as it made its slow, steady return to the sands. He noted that her rhythms matched the tides of her island. The rise of the moon seemed to draw her magnetically to the shore, just like the water.
She turned to him as the sun began its decent into the water. She stared up at him intently.
“What is it, baby doll?” He played with her hair as she reclined in his lap.
“What would happen if I quit the Angels?” Her eyes locked back on the water.
“Well,” Dan considered, “I assume that we would get married, and I would eventually get a job. Have no idea what I’m going to do, but something. I’m probably going to sell my shares in the team. You just won them the cup, so the price for the stock skyrocketed. That will greatly improve our savings accounts. But I want you to do whatever you want, whatever makes you smile.”
She drew a deep, steadying breath and sat up again. “When I was pregnant…” The tears began again. They flowed rapidly down her face, cutting Dan to the quick.
He started to embrace her, but she shook her head, “Just let me get this out, please.”
He settled for holding her hands instead as she continued. “I was so scared all the time, but every now and then I guess I let myself pretend that everything was different. And in those moments, there were things that I’d always thought were so important that just weren’t important anymore. It was so confusing, and I wanted to talk to you about it, but I just couldn’t.”
“One afternoon while you were at work, I made myself some of my tea that I used to have with my mom and Tutu. I just let myse
lf imagine that I could tell you, that there wasn’t any Wretchkinsides, that we were already married, and that when I told you that you were really happy.”
Dan felt like he was being stabbed brutally, but he let her talk. She needed to say this, and he needed to hear it. This was part of the process.
“Anyway,” Fionna went on as her tears continued to pour, “when I dreamed that or whatever, I kind of realized that I wanted to be your wife. I wanted to have your babies. I wanted to stay at home and take care of them. It was like, all of a sudden, partying in Vegas with the Angels, or joining the mile high club, or hanging out in Anglington’s and letting some guy I don’t even know drink liquor out of my navel seemed so pointless and stupid. Now, I just kind of wish that I didn’t have to be a part of all of that anymore.” She removed her right hand from his grasp and began moving it through the sand. She let her island slip through her fingers.
“Fionna,” Dan whispered and waited on her to raise her gaze to his. He blinked back tears of his own as he cradled her face in his hands. “If you want to get married soon and start a family, then I’m ready for that, too.” He kept his eyes steady with hers. He wanted her to know he had no hesitation.
“And if you don’t want to play for the Angels anymore, even if we don’t have a family for a while, then I want you to quit, baby.”
“Really?”
“Really, Fionna,” he pledged.
“Dan.” She linked their hands and drew from him heavily as she willed repose. “I want to have a baby,” she choked convulsively and then began to sob.
Feeling the words wash over him like a soothing balm, he wrapped her up tightly in his arms as tears fell from his eyes into her hair.
As she quieted, he leaned back and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Me, too,” he assured her.
A smile spread slowly across her face as his words seeped through her tear-filled plea. She let what Dan assumed was their decision set firmly in her mind.
“Adeline said she thought it would be okay if I get pregnant again. She said everything was healed, just that there would be scar tissue she would have to watch.”