“How nice. Will you be seeing the Missouri?”
“No, ma’am. We’ll be touring the boathouse museum, then watching a movie on the attack of Pearl Harbor, before visiting Ford Island and the USS Arizona Memorial.”
“Well,” the mother said wistfully, “maybe we’ll run into you again anyhow.”
Dan nodded, comfortable with his hands behind his back. “Perhaps we’ll cross paths at the Arizona.”
“No,” the daughter supplied. “They were sold out by the time we got here.”
He wasn’t surprised. Not everyone was a planner like him. Some people enjoyed living life by the seat of their pants. But twenty years of naval discipline didn’t leave much room for spontaneity. At the hotel he’d run into Admiral Wingate and his wife, and she’d carried on about how fortunate he and the other guests were to be able to participate in the special afternoon tour. Dan wished there was some way he could invite these folks to join him, but his chance to include guests had come and gone since he had first received the invitation.
“There you are.” Admiral Wingate and his wife approached with two other officers.
“Admiral.” He came to attention, noticing the brunette’s eyes widen.
“As you were. I see your family decided to join you after all.”
“No, sir. I didn’t sign up for guests.”
“Well, I’m sure we can accommodate them anyway. There wasn’t a full barge to begin with, and Captain Alger’s flight’s been delayed, so he won’t be joining us.”
“Absolutely.” The admiral’s rotund wife reached out to the brunette’s mother. “Too many men on this trip.”
“Oh,” the woman started, “I don’t think—”
“If you don’t mind giving up the Missouri to see the Arizona, it would be my pleasure to have you join us.” Dan was addressing the parents, but it was purely selfish of him to want to get to visit more with the young lady. And if nothing else learn her name.
The mother glanced at the father, the man blinked, the wife smiled broadly, then facing her daughter, she asked, “Is that okay with you?”
“Of course.” Maddie’s response, though exuberant on the outside, felt less than sincere. He suspected that had more to do with his participation than a lack of eagerness to make her mother happy.
“Excellent.” Admiral Wingate bobbed his head and turning on his heel; he and his wife led the way.
Dan extended his elbow for the brunette to take and leaned over slightly. “Since we are apparently now related, I should probably know your name.”
“Madeleine.” Slowly her fingers looped inside his elbow. “These are my parents, Randy and Yvette Harper.”
“A pleasure,” the two chorused.
“The pleasure is all mine.” And he meant it. Winging it wasn’t part of his nature, but this time he was pleased with the outcome. Very pleased.
Walking a few feet ahead of her parents, Madeleine lowered her voice. “Thank you very much for doing this. My mother doesn’t fuss much, but I knew she was badly disappointed she wouldn’t get to see the memorial close up.”
“The Arizona?”
She nodded. “My brother served in the navy for over ten years, so Mom is extremely aware of how many mothers never got their sons back. Especially in the days when so many brothers served on the same ships.”
“Yes. Twenty-three sets of brothers died that day on the Arizona.” He didn’t have to mention the date; it was understood.
“How awful.”
All he could do was nod. There wasn’t much else to say. War was hell. No one would argue that point. And especially not him.
Chapter Four
Maddie had no idea how she’d wound up on a private navy barge with more officers than she’d ever seen in one place before, but she couldn’t imagine a better way to view the memorial. Facts and figures were flying. Many of the men had been served at Pearl at some point in their navy careers. A few were currently stationed on base. But all had paid their respects at one time or another.
Between the short film and the ongoing conversations among the passengers, she was overrun with details. Many things she’d already learned: it’s a living memorial, the final resting place of the souls lost onboard that day. What she hadn’t known previously was that the ship had been leaking oil on a daily basis since December 7, 1941. She’d felt the sting of tears herself when Admiral Wingate had explained that every bead of oil that seeped from the wreckage—known as the black tears—is considered the USS Arizona weeping for her dead.
Buoys floating near the memorial marked the forward and aft ends of the ship. Maddie thought of her brother when she heard that every year a memorial service is held for the Arizona survivors who had chosen, upon their deaths years later, to be buried with their shipmates. She made a mental note to ask Nick if he’d ever been one of the navy divers to deposit the urn of those sailors’ cremated remains beneath one of the Arizona’s gun turrets. As an EOD tech she didn’t think he would have done that duty, but he was a navy diver.
Apparently active-duty servicemen are expected to visit the memorial in uniform. Which explained why Dan had changed after his flight. Summer whites for the navy. No BDUs. Respect was key. And fortunately most of the tourists felt the same way. A regular tourist ferry docked at the opposite edge of the memorial at the same time as their barge. Cameras and phones clicked away as folks debarked. The moment they rose to the entrance to the memorial, cameras stilled; voices quieted. The pain and shock of the events and losses all those decades ago weighed heavily on every visitor. Maddie wasn’t normally a fan of modern architecture, but the bright white structure straddling the sunken vessel seemed the perfect fit for combining sorrow and hope.
The most unexpected happening for Maddie came from a Japanese couple who didn’t appear to speak much English. As they read the names on the memorial wall of the lives lost and then looked about, Maddie noticed a tear slip from the corner of the woman’s eye. Turning as Maddie and Dan crossed the couple’s path, both bowed and whispered, “So very sorry.”
The knot that had lived in Maddie’s stomach all the years her brother had served his country took up momentary residence once again. She’d never understand war.
Returning to the barge ahead of the other guests and finding herself alone with Dan, Maddie let curiosity get the best of her. “So what’s your story?”
“Not much to tell. Small-town boy with dreams of escaping the restraints of country living and seeing the world.”
“I can understand that.” She leaned against a row of seats. “The town in West Texas where I grew up was split into two categories. Kin and folks who were almost kin.”
Dan laughed. “Sounds like the same town I grew up in. Except I was raised in rural Kentucky. Do you still live in Texas?”
“No. Didn’t have any interest in seeing the world but the ocean always appealed to me. Florida seemed to be better suited to retirees, so I wound up at UCLA.”
Standing beside her, arms crossed, he looked incredibly handsome in his uniform. “Lots of beautiful country on the West Coast.”
“I love just sitting on the beach and doing nothing but listening to the waves roll in. When I visit my parents, I could spend all day and night by the ocean.”
He nodded. “Water can be very healing.”
“Is that why you picked the navy?” She noticed the chunky admiral and his gray-haired wife boarding the barge, and wished for a few more minutes alone with Dan. The tour was coming to an end. The Arizona was the last portion, and soon she and her folks would return to the airport, and she’d know little more about this man than she had when she had first plowed into him at LAX.
Almost as if reading her mind, Dan’s gaze flickered from hers to the approaching couple, and he took hold of her elbow. “Let’s step outside.” Ducking left behind a support pillar, he led the way around to the sliver of a rear deck and, facing away from the admiral, leaned forward, his forearms resting on the rail. “You were saying?”
“I was asking if the healing power of water is why you joined the navy.”
He shook his head. “I got a full-ride football scholarship to Tennessee State. Near the end of the first season I went left, and my knee went right.”
Maddie blinked, grimacing slightly at the sympathy pain that shot up her leg.
“It wasn’t that bad.” He smiled at her. “Doctors said I’d be good to go for next season, but I knew too many guys on the other team would be aiming to take me and my knee out. And even though the NFL wasn’t going to happen for me no matter what, if I didn’t want my knee to creak every time it rained for the rest of my life, I needed a new plan.”
“Ah. A pragmatist.”
“I like to think so. I scrambled to find ways to make enough money to stay in college without the football.”
“Junior College?”
“No, I didn’t want to go back home. I liked Nashville. It may not be big city to most people, but it was enough for me to know I never wanted to go back to living in the backwoods of anywhere again. I tried a few things but figured out quickly that I needed something more substantial. ROTC fit the bill.”
“Sir, ma’am.” One of the boat operators leaned through the opening. “If you’d please step inside. We’re ready to pull out.”
“Of course,” she and Dan replied in unison. For some reason that made her smile. He made her smile.
Back inside with the other passengers, they took a seat beside her parents. “I cannot thank you enough,” her mom said placing her hand on Dan’s.
For just a moment Maddie saw a flicker of surprise in his eyes before he bobbed his head, and everyone’s attention shifted to the monument shrinking in their wake.
Her dad looked at his wrist. “We probably still have an hour or so to take in a few sights.”
“Yes.” Yvette nodded. “I was chatting earlier with one of the officers stationed here, and he said finding a cab to get back to town wouldn’t be any problem.”
“What did you have in mind?” Dan asked.
Yvette pointed a thumb at her husband. “Mr. Retro TV here wants to do a Hawaii Five-O tour.”
Dan turned to look at Maddie, and she could see the question in his eyes. “The opening shots from the TV show. Dad wants to see the punchbowl, Iolani Palace, Diamond Head—”
“And the girl stepping out of the ocean. Don’t forget that one,” Randy said with a face-splitting grin.
Dan burst out laughing. “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. I have a rental car. With GPS. If you wouldn’t mind my company a little longer, I’d be glad to play chauffeur.”
Was it wrong for Maddie’s heart to do a little jig? All she’d get was an extra hour with soon-to-be former US Navy Captain Daniel O’Neil. But at the moment she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.
* * *
“School pictures were the next day.” Yvette wiped the tears still slipping down her cheek and then let out another chuckle. “And my sweet little four-year-old girl”—she swiped at her eyes again and sputtered a muffled laugh—“had a reverse mohawk.”
Dan found himself swallowing a chuckle. From the moment they’d left the harbor, Randy and Yvette had been sharing stories of their little girl’s childhood, and Madeleine—or Maddie as her family called her—rolled her eyes and laughed with them. Ignoring his schedule for the remainder of the afternoon and winging it with the Harpers was proving to be an outstanding decision.
“For the rest of the school year she wore a comb-over like a balding banker.” Yvette laughed out loud again.
“Don’t let her laughter fool you. She was spitting mad when she found Madeleine sitting in front of the mirror cutting away at her hair,” Randy added.
“I merely wanted to trim my bangs.”
“Trim?” Yvette repeated.
Maddie offered a coy smile, and Dan had to admit the woman had a great disposition. Her parents had told story after story, and Maddie had laughed at herself with ease, only occasionally pretending playfully to pout. “I didn’t like them anymore.”
Yvette shook her head. Randy winked at Maddie, and Dan felt the pang of regret for having missed out all these years on a relationship with his own daughter.
Turning the corner, Dan pulled into the circular drive in front of the famed statue of Lady Columbia on the far wall of the National Cemetery of the Pacific.
“So many years of watching Steve McGarrett and Book-’Em Danno and I never realized this was a cemetery.” Randy’s gaze lingered on the horizon.
Because of the time constraints Dan let Randy and Yvette out at the foot of the wall, and circled the U-shaped drive allowing them to take a few photos and walk around. “You have a great relationship with your parents.”
“I like to think so.” Maddie had taken the front seat, and, undoing her seat belt, she shifted sideways to face him. “Sometimes I’m so glad they live several states away, and then sometimes I so wish they didn’t live several states away. What about you? Have a good relationship with your parents?”
“I like to think so,” he mimicked. “Mom fusses over me, making all my favorite foods when I come home, which isn’t often enough. Dad used to work at the local factory when we were growing up. Now he likes to build things. We spend most of the time holed up in his workshop. Last time I was there, we made a rocking chair for my grandmother.”
“Really?” She leaned forward a bit. “How wonderful to be able to share that. I wish I could do something so lasting.”
“Build a rocker?”
“Create a family heirloom. Mom’s handy with knitting and crocheting. The gene must have skipped a generation because I’ve got two left thumbs. Do you have any siblings?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m number five of eight.” Going to college and having his own bed with only one roommate had seemed like living high on the hog to him. After graduation, when he started through the EOD training pipeline, sharing a bathroom with a bunch of guys felt just like home.
Maddie leaned back as he pulled up to the curb. “I can’t imagine that many brothers and sisters. I could have killed Nick more than once, and he was all I had.”
He parked the car for Randy and Yvette to climb in. “But the important thing is you didn’t.”
“Didn’t what, dear?” Yvette asked as she settled into the backseat.
“Kill Nick.”
“Of course not. You don’t look good in prison stripes.” The two women grinned as if they knew something no one else did and then burst out laughing.
Next was a drive through downtown past Iolani Palace.
“It says here”—Randy lifted his nose from one of the brochures—“that the palace replaced gas lights with electric five years before the White House.”
Stopped at a red light, Dan pointed to the familiar structure known to fans of the long running 1960s TV show as five-O headquarters. “At the time the original show was filmed this was the government building. Not long after the show first aired, the state offices moved out and renovations began. The palace has been a museum since the late seventies.”
“How do you know all that?” Maddie asked.
He shrugged. “You learn all sorts of odd television trivia when stationed in Hawaii. On the way to the airport, I’ll drive by the marina that was used for the opening scene of Gilligan’s Island.”
Maddie and her mom sang in chorus, “A three-hour tour,” and Randy chimed in for the remainder of the iconic television theme song.
From there they drove past the statue of King Kamehameha, the Aloha Tower, the Ilikai Hotel where McGarrett had stood on the rooftop, and Diamond Head, stopping to take the occasional photo. With a little time to spare before they would need to leave for the airport, the group parked at one of the beachfront hotels and strolled out to watch the sunset.
“You were right.” Maddie let her fingertips barely fall against his arm.
Needing more effort than he would have expected, he pried his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “About w
hat?”
Without a word she raised her other arm and pointed to the shore. Sure enough, out of the water, just like the opening credits, a bikini-clad brunette rose from the surf. Shaking off the water, she made her way onto the beach, and Dan thought, as beautiful a vision as the native woman made, she didn’t compare to the lady standing beside him. Fair alabaster-toned skin proclaimed that, despite her love of the ocean, Madeleine didn’t spend much time in the sun. Her warm smile put strangers at ease. Long brown hair covered her shoulders and drew a man’s eye to her feminine frame. But big brown eyes that held laughter and brimmed with love for her family was what had him by the throat and wouldn’t let go. For a short minute he indulged in considering just how inappropriate it would be to start a relationship with a much younger woman.
Only right away he realized more than just an age difference was against them as long-distance dating never worked out. He’d tried a few times when he was younger to do the will-you-wait-for-me relationships. Learning that lesson, he’d instead put his energies into his naval career. Some of the men he’d known in EOD had gotten lucky; they had both their work and had met the kind of woman who could stick through hell or high water. He hadn’t been one of the lucky ones. But then again, in a couple more months, he would neither belong to Uncle Sam nor have to deal with hell or high water.
Chapter Five
“Maybe you should cut back a little more on your workload?” His wife’s feet on his lap, Billy Everrett switched back and forth, rubbing one foot then the other.
Hands resting loosely on her rounded tummy, Angela looked to her husband with only one eye open. “Who do you suggest I throw to the wolves?”
“I don’t understand why you consider your colleagues wolves.”
She blew out a sigh. “I don’t. Most of the agents in my office are more than capable to buy or sell a house. It’s the other stuff that is hard to pass off.”
The Look of Love Page 3