When the black-and-white-clad waiter came over, Dev looked at Kulani and pointed to the menus, which still lay unopened between them. “Why don’t you order for us? I trust your sense of things.”
Smiling a little brazenly, Kulani placed her hands over the large menus. “My, do we lead a risky life?”
Her teasing made him feel hot and hungry for her. Would she smile at him that way when he slid his fingers along the dusky slope of her cheek? Enjoying her teasing, Dev grinned back. “Risk is my middle name. Go ahead, order what you think I’d like.”
Opening the menu, Kulani devoted her attention to the list of specialties printed there. “Humph. You look like a Midwest meat-and-potatoes man to me.”
Chuckling, Dev said, “Not far from right. I was born in Colorado, and yes, I like beef.”
Hence, his love of mountain climbing, a voice whispered to Kulani. Her smile slipped just a little, but she pasted it back on. “Okay, meat it is. I’m going to order you a filet mignon with papaya and brandy sauce drizzled over it, yam mashed potatoes, and a fresh romaine salad mixed with a mouthwatering papaya-and-poppy-seed dressing.” She tilted her head. “How do you like your steak cooked?”
“Medium well, thank you.” He was enjoying her taking over. She was a highly confident woman and he absorbed her presence hungrily. “What will you have?”
“Me? Oh, they have a wonderful tuna salad here that I’m mad about.” She quickly gave the rest of her order, and the waiter left with the menus.
Clasping her hands together, she said, “Now, tell me a little bit about yourself, Jack. Why are you here on the island? Business or pleasure?”
Dev frowned inwardly. Damn, he didn’t want to continue this charade, nor did he want to lie to Kulani. She was so sharp that eventually she’d catch him in his lies if he wasn’t careful. Opening his hands, he said, “Oh, I’m a tumbleweed, you know? I promised to talk to you about Hong Kong. I just got back from there.”
“Doing what?” Kulani asked. She saw the uncomfortable look in his eyes for a brief moment. He shifted in his chair as if to hide his nervous impulse.
“A little of this, a little of that. I do a lot of scouting for my company. It’s a touring and travel business. I get sent all over the world.” At least that wasn’t a lie. “And I’m here to photograph certain places, take tabs on who’s around, and stuff like that.” That wasn’t a lie, either.
“So, this is a business trip?”
“Sitting with you here tonight certainly isn’t business. It’s all pleasure.” That wasn’t a lie, either. Dev saw her blush beautifully. Kulani ran her long fingers through her hair, nestling the dark strands behind her delicate ear. She wore small pearl earrings, in keeping with her Hawaiian goddess image, he decided. Natural objects on a completely natural woman.
“Flattery comes easily to you, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not a sin, is it?”
Kulani studied him. “I feel you’re uncomfortable, Jack.”
“Women’s intuition at work?”
“Maybe…” Kulani paused. She ran her finger in a circular motion on the linen tablecloth. “It’s just that you seem out of place as a tourist here.”
Sighing, Dev was happy to see their salads brought by the waiter, creating a diversion. Eating always slowed down conversation. “What? You don’t like my big red Hawaiian shirt with the white hibiscus on it?” Pointing to it, he gave her a wide, boyish smile. “Well, you’re right as rain about it. I’m usually in polo shirts and jeans and a good set of hiking boots. Coming from Colorado, where I either had my leg thrown across a good quarter horse or was up in the mountains climbing anything I could get to, I guess I do look out of place.” Digging into the salad, he could see her expression ease a bit.
Kulani smiled a little and daintily ate her salad. Looking around, she saw that most of the tables were filled. Gaylord’s, one of the most popular eateries on the island, was always busy. As she watched Jack eat, she felt her heart twinge. This was the first man since…the accident…that she felt actual interest in.
Shortly afterward, their main courses were served. Kulani’s “salad” was actually a tuna steak laid out on dark green spinach leaves. The way the meal was presented reminded her of a rainbow. Red peppers arced like crescent moons on one side of the plate. On the other were delicious mashed yams with sweet honey mixed into them. She saw her pleasure mirrored in Jack’s face as his steak was set before him.
“Look good?” Kulani teased.
“Brother, does it,” Dev said with passion as he picked up his fork and knife. “I’m starving.”
“A big man like you,” she said, cutting into her tuna steak, “needs a big meal.” Kulani looked at his left hand then. There was no ring on it.
“You strike me as the homey type, Jack. Are you married?”
Dev snapped his head up, the first bite of steak halfway to his mouth. “What? Me? No. Why? Do I look married?”
“Ouch.” Kulani laughed, spearing the flaky tuna. “Looks like I pushed a hot button. You must be divorced?” She saw a number of fleeting expressions move across his broad, square face—naked grief at first, then heartrending sadness, and then confusion. Clearly he didn’t want to discuss this aspect of his life, either.
Dev wanted to steer away from any conversation about himself. He was familiar with a woman’s penchant for deep, personal exploration. Men never did that. They would never ask the kind of questions Kulani was asking him—but she was a woman, and women always communicated about highly personal topics.
“Mmm, this steak is delicious. Good choice,” he told her, his voice vibrating with satisfaction. He saw that she continued to wait for an answer to her previous question. After a few more bites and a forkful of the mashed yams, which were surprisingly sweet, he said, “Okay, I’m divorced.”
“Any children?”
His heart clenched and Dev felt real pain across his chest. “Let’s just say that yes, I was married. Actually,” he joked, “I married not only her, but her family of seven brothers and sisters. Sometimes I felt like I was living in a commune and not with just my wife.”
“So she came from a large family?”
He scowled a little and cut off another portion of the steak. “Yeah. I did, too. I’ve got three brothers, but this was…” he searched for the right word “…different.”
“Oh? In what way?”
Dev would rather tell her the truth, even if it was painful for him, than to start down a trail of more lies. “Susan Gallardia was an incredibly beautiful woman and I fell in love with her many years ago. I got married shortly after coming out of the U.S. Naval Academy. I then joined the SEALs for the duration of my enlistment.”
“The academy?” Kulani smiled. “And a SEAL. That’s a very elite team. I’m impressed. That’s why I’m picking up on a military background, then. When I first saw you today, and you used the word bird, I figured you might be ex-military. Or are you still in the service?”
“Uh, no, I got out after the mandatory six-year stint we promise the government.” Feeling uncomfortable, Dev hesitantly returned to the subject of marriage. “I got orders for Imperial Beach, California, a real peach of a duty station. I met Susan at a party. She worked at a child care center in I.B.”
“Oh, so she really loved children.”
Smarting, Dev nodded. “Yeah, she was a mother just waiting to happen.”
Kulani felt his pain. She saw it as his eyes darkened and he refused to hold her gaze. Instead, he looked morosely down at his plate, pushing the last of his steak around on it.
“You…didn’t want children?”
He shrugged. “Me? No. I love the little rug rats.” He looked up and tried to smile, but his grin was lopsided and filled with old pain and memories. “Susan got pregnant a year after we married. Her whole family, who also lived in Imperial Beach, were pretty happy about it. She just kind of got absorbed by them during the pregnancy. I had to work weeks of nonstop duties training recruits, so it wa
s a good thing she had them as support and company. Otherwise, she’d have been pretty lonely most of the time.”
“Marrying someone in the military is always a hardship,” Kulani acknowledged seriously. “I was in the navy myself for a while. So you and I share a common base of operation. How about that?”
Dev feigned surprise. “Really? We share something in common, after all.”
Kulani watched him struggle with his past. She sensed something terrible had happened. “Look, if this is too painful for you to talk about, we can go to something else,” she suggested softly. Without thinking, she reached out and laid her fingers across his darkly haired lower arm.
Her touch was galvanizing. Dev drew in a deep, shaking breath as her warm fingers touched his arm. He saw the tenderness burning like a dark fire deep in her eyes. She had such incredible eyes; they were fathomless and he yearned to lose himself in them. The fact that she’d reached out to the no-good likes of him touched him as little else could. Kulani was spontaneous. He was jaded and careful. Guilt ate at him more deeply.
“No, you deserve the truth,” Dev said. When she removed her fingers, he continued, “Susan was nine months pregnant. I got sent on a mission, and hours after that, she went into labor. She was a worrier, you know? From the time I married her, she worried about me dying, because SEALs have a very short life span, usually.”
“A lot of women have to wrestle with those fears,” Kulani agreed quietly. “And it’s not that their worries don’t hold some truth, either.”
“I agree,” Dev said. He put the plate aside and wiped his mouth with the pink linen napkin. “In Susan’s defense, I have to admit her worry wasn’t blown out of proportion. I had a dangerous job. Granted, I was stationed stateside and I was training recruits, but sometimes I’d get called for duty overseas, too. I had to go and she knew it. I didn’t feel good leaving her alone like that. What bothered me the most was her crying. That and her family making me feel like I was being cruel to her by leaving.” Shrugging, he muttered, “I had no choice. I had to obey orders. Her family thought I was an unfeeling monster….”
“But she had a lot of family support in order to help allay her fears?”
Dev was amazed at Kulani’s insight. “Well…yes, she did. Matter of fact, I felt like an outsider most of the time. She had this huge, protective guard-dog family that was always over there at our apartment when I had to be gone. She was never left alone. This is going to sound bad, but I felt like I was never needed by her, and that feeling was one of the reasons why the marriage fell apart—after…” He hesitated. Just one look into Kulani’s dark, understanding eyes and he was able to go on. “I was on an assignment. I couldn’t tell her where I was going, what it was about or what I was being ordered to do. She knew everything I did was top secret and I couldn’t discuss it with her.”
Kulani saw his face tighten, his mouth compress and the corners draw in. “You didn’t make it home for her delivery?”
Looking up at the night sky, now quilted with huge, twinkling white stars, Dev released a pain-filled sigh. He glanced over at Kulani. In the soft golden lamplight, she really did look like an ancient Hawaiian goddess come to life. There was such energy and passion about life that seemed to radiate from her. Yet her voice was low and soft with compassion and he found himself, for the first time since the tragedy had occurred, spilling out the sordid truth.
“I made it home…pulled a lot of strings to make it happen. She was in labor for thirty-six hours. Things went from bad to worse,” he muttered defensively. “Our baby daughter, Jessica, died four hours after she was born. By the time I got to the hospital, Susan was in hysterics. Her whole family was there. I walked in not knowing our baby had died…. Her family rallied around her. They told me that it was my fault our daughter died. If I’d only been there—” he waved his hand weakly “—then Susan wouldn’t have worried like she did about me during the labor. The physicians had induced labor because they detected fetal distress. Susan was afraid I was going to die out there and leave her and the baby alone. It was stupid…human, though…and I felt so damned helpless. The whole family turned against me.” His voice grew sad and deep. “I didn’t even get to see my baby girl…and I had to fight in a court of law to get some photos of Jessica, taken shortly after she was born. Thank God I have them, or I don’t think I’d have made it through that time in my life.”
Kulani’s heart squeezed with pain. His pain. “How awful,” she whispered.
He shrugged. “When Susan was ready to leave the hospital, she didn’t want me to take her home. She asked her family to do so. She didn’t trust me any longer, I guess.”
Sliding her fingers into his hand as it lay on the table, Kulani saw Jack lift his head. Tears swam in his eyes and she saw him visibly force them back deep inside himself. “It’s one thing to lose a child, but to have your wife’s family shut you out like that and accuse you of such a thing is ridiculous,” she murmured.
“That’s how tight they were. I told you, I felt like an outsider,” Dev said. He liked Kulani’s easy way of touching him, of assuaging some of his grief. Her ease with him, her gentle comfort, made her just much more special to him. Squeezing her fingers gently, Dev whispered apologetically, “Talking to you about it, I guess the bottom line I never realized until just now was that I wanted to feel needed by Susan. But I never was…. She had her family, who doted on her, took care of her, and in the end, she really didn’t need me.” He hesitated. “I didn’t mean to make this night a downer. To wrap up this conversation, Susan divorced me six months later. She went back to her family and I went on my way without her—or my baby. I carried a lot of pain around with me for a lot of years after that. In a way, I still grieve over my baby daughter. Sometimes I wonder what she would look like now, what she would be doing, what kind of personality she would have developed—stuff like that….”
Studying him in the darkness, the lamplight carving out his strained features like the rugged, unforgiving Na Pali coastline, Kulani whispered, “It was a situation that was out of your control. You couldn’t make Susan stop worrying. She knew what your work was like before she married you.”
Dev wanted to keep holding Kulani’s hand, but if he did, he was going to drag her out of that chair and kiss her breathless. He knew he’d find solace, even healing, with her lips molding hotly against his. “My head realizes that, but my heart still doesn’t. Old wounds take a long time to heal. But you…” he smiled a little “…you are something else, Kulani Dawson. Every time you touch me, I feel happier. I feel better. Are you sure you aren’t a healer instead of a helo pilot?”
She smiled and gently disengaged her hand. Kulani didn’t want to, but she felt the charisma of his smile go straight through her—to her heart—and no man had ever touched her like that. “My mother was a kahuna, a healer, here on Kauai, until she and my father died in a car accident five years ago. She was beloved by everyone on the island. Maybe I have a little of her touch?”
Dev nodded. “I think a lot. I’m sorry you lost your parents like that. It had to be pretty damned devastating to you.”
“Thank you. It was. I wasn’t here when it happened. I was on a military mission when I got the call.” She grimaced. “It changed my life.”
“Yeah,” Dev whispered as he moved his chair away from the table, “life has a way of doing that for us, doesn’t it?” He gazed deeply into her eyes for a moment. Then, with a glance at his watch, he realized he had to call this wonderful evening to an end. “Listen, I’ve got to get going. I don’t want to, but I have to. Let me drive you back to the airport to pick up your car, and then I’ve got to get some shut-eye.”
Kulani rose and placed the linen napkin on the table. “Jet lag getting to you?”
“No.” Dev escorted her to the front, where he paid the bill. Without thinking, he placed his hand in the center of her back as they left the premises and headed for the parking lot.
Kulani slowed her step as they strolled acr
oss the black asphalt. His white Mercedes was nearby and she watched as he fished the key out of his pocket. “So, why do you need a good night’s sleep?” she teased.
Dev’s mouth crooked a little as he opened the door for her. “Because I’m going rock climbing tomorrow.”
Kulani said nothing as they got into the car. Her heart pounded with dread. Her mind shrieked at her that it wasn’t any of her business what this man did. Yet, within heartbeats, Jack had become more than just a face in the crowd to her. She overcame her initial fear and asked quietly, “What kind of climbing? And where?”
Dev saw the strain on her features. The Mercedes roared to life and then began to purr as he backed out of the parking lot. “Tomorrow bright and early, I’m going to explore ways to get into the Kalalau Valley. I have it on good authority that it’s wise to hike in early to miss the rain showers and higher humidity that develop in the afternoon.”
Terror struck Kulani’s heart. “Kalalau?” The word tore in an agonizing breath from her lips.
Dev guided the Mercedes back onto Highway 50 and headed back toward Lihue Airport. “Yeah, why?” He saw her shadowed features turn ashen. “Kulani? What’s wrong?”
“Why do you need to go into any of those valleys? Climbing there is dangerous. It can kill you. I’ve seen people die on those lava walls.”
Her words came out in clipped undertones. He saw her breasts rising and falling rapidly beneath her blouse. Her hands were clenched into fists on her thighs, the knuckles whitening.
“Well, I’m here to scout out a situation,” he told her slowly. “And I’ve got to look at ways to get into that valley. I really need to get into the box canyon area, the place where the valley ends and backs up against that ridge you took us over. That’s why I was so interested when you flew over that real estate today. And that’s why I was bugging you for answers to my questions during the flight.” Dev smiled a little. Without thinking, he reached over and settled his hand over her smaller, clenched one. “Kulani? What’s wrong? You look pretty upset. Is it something I said?”
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