Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance)

by Cara Lockwood

  “I don’t believe it,” Allie breathed, the complete destruction impossible to process. Just that morning, she’d driven down this road, alive with stores and people. Now not even the small palm trees remained; they’d been completely uprooted by the force of the tidal waves, as had any small building in their path. Distantly, she saw that the tall concrete resorts still stood, dark outlines against the night sky. She wondered how flooded they were, and whether tourists were stranded in the top floors, looking down at the ocean below. Nearby, Allie heard a loud snapping sound. A spark lit up the street about fifty yards down. A broken streetlight hung half in the water, and the power line above it, severed, still sparked with live electricity.

  Dallas looked at the mess, trying to get his bearings. “Rainbow Daycare is just a little north of here. Should be about a block that way.” Dallas pointed. He studied the sparking light pole and then got out and turned his back to it, walking round to the bed of the truck and removing his two-seater kayak.

  “You’re going out in that?” Allie looked at the sparking streetlight, thinking that might not be the worst of the danger.

  “I have to. I have to see if the building is still there. If there are any survivors. If Kai is there.”

  “I’m going with you,” Allie said, lifting her chin stubbornly once more.

  “Fine,” he replied, resigned. “I’ll paddle. You take this.” He gave her a handheld spotlight. She flicked it on to test it and then climbed into the front of the kayak. Dallas eased it into the floodwaters, through the debris. Allie shone the spotlight on to the water, amazed at the sheer bottleneck of wood splinters, as if a giant had come and squashed everything and then used a huge hose to wash it away.

  On the edges of the road, she saw parts of buildings, some still half-standing. A three-story condo had half of it washed away; the other half still stood, with a gaping hole down the side.

  “Water did this,” Allie said, almost in disbelief. Allie shone the flashlight to the right and saw what looked like an arm out of the water. “Dallas! There.” Dallas pulled the oars through the water, pushing the boat in that direction. But, when they got there, the body, a man wearing bright blue Bermuda shorts, was floating facedown. He still wore a plastic wristband, a luau ticket from the night before. Dallas got close enough to take a pulse.

  “Long gone,” he said.

  Allie didn’t know him, but finding this man, a tourist by the look of the sunburn on his neck, chilled her. She felt a heavy sadness as they moved away from the body, a stranger they didn’t know, but still. He had a family somewhere. People who cared about him. Maybe even a daughter or a son. Worry built up in her chest for Kai. Now, suddenly, the tragic reality of the situation sank in: people were dead.

  And then she thought of her father, drowned, just like that man floating facedown in the floodwaters. She should’ve felt a rush of gratitude about surviving. But instead, all she felt was how unfair the world was. Why am I the one who always survives? Why am I the one who gets to crawl out of the car window?

  “Are you okay?” Dallas asked her, and she realized she’d zoned out.

  “Seeing that man...it just...brings back bad memories,” she said. The car crash seemed so suddenly real and vivid.

  Dallas let it drop, and Allie felt relief. They moved slowly past the sparking signal light, away from the live wire snapping high above their heads.

  “Hello?” Allie called into the quiet night. “Kai! Anyone out there?”

  She waited, but no response came, just the snapping of the electric line and the sound of water lapping at the boat.

  “Kai! Can you hear me? Kai!”

  Allie saw a shadow moving to her right, and moved the light there, hoping to find a survivor. Instead, her beam landed on a dark, menacing triangle poking out of the water, gleaming and unmistakable: a shark.

  “Dallas,” Allie whispered urgently, her beam of light on the moving target, the dorsal fin at least twenty inches high. The massive shark moved quietly, deadly through the debris. Allie sucked in a breath and held it.

  Dallas stuck his paddle in the water behind them like a rudder, and the kayak shifted away from the dark shadow, moving soundlessly away from them.

  “Tiger shark,” he whispered back. “Scavenging.” He frowned as they watched the huge fin turn and move away from them, back out in the direction of the ocean.

  Allie let out the breath she’d been holding. “How did it get here? The water... It’s not that deep.”

  “A shark that size only needs about four feet, maybe five.” Dallas resumed his paddling down the flooded street. “It came in with the wave, and it stayed for a late-night snack.”

  Allie shuddered as she grasped the floodlight in her hands tightly. She slowly swept the water in front of them, fearing each new shadow that appeared might be a new dorsal fin. Now that she knew what was in the water below them, the murky waves seemed even more menacing.

  “Whatever you do, don’t fall in,” Dallas warned from behind her.

  “I don’t plan on it.” She eyed the water that swept past the bow of the kayak before turning her attention once again to the dry shore. “Kai!” Allie called out over the floating minefield of debris in front of them. “Anyone! Can anyone hear me?”

  Allie’s stomach sank as they moved through the water, with no sign of human life. Buildings lay completely destroyed in oversize heaps of broken matchsticks rising up from the flood.

  “There. The sign.” Dallas pulled the paddle out of the water and pointed with it. Allie shone the light in that direction, and miraculously, the tall metal sign for Rainbow Daycare stood, mostly intact, its huge steel pole securely in the waves. Beyond that, the building lay half-standing, its front door and half of the first floor washed away, gaping and skeletal, the water flowing inside. The second floor still had its windows and roof attached, and sat above the water.

  Allie aimed the flashlight at the door and windows, fearing what she’d find.

  “Kai!” Allie shouted as her light brought up no sign of anyone, dead or otherwise. The child-care center lay dark and empty, water sitting in most of the first floor.

  Dallas rowed the kayak straight up to the day-care center, carefully avoiding the fence top, just bobbing up in the water. Dallas’s oar hit something hard, and as they rowed past, Allie realized it had been the top of a large slide, the upper part of the ladder just visible below the surface of the water. Allie shone her light down and saw the rest of the playground there: a jungle gym and swing set, all bolted down to the ground, the chained swings floating in the waves upside down, the seats floating along the surface of the water.

  Dallas kept rowing, and when he got to the building, he pulled up alongside a broken-out window. He grabbed the empty sill with his oar, pushing the boat to the building. He peered in.

  “The second floor is dry,” he said. “I’m going to go look for Kai.”

  “Dallas—wait! It’s not safe.” She looked at the day-care center and thought of all the ways it could be dangerous: leaky gas lines, weak floors or collapsing roofs.

  “I’ll be quick,” he said as he climbed out of the kayak and into the window. He gave her the oar, and she held it, keeping the boat in place near the window. “Stay here,” he warned, and flipped a small LED flashlight out of his back pocket.

  “Dallas...”

  “Stay with the kayak. Make sure it doesn’t float away.”

  She gripped the oar more tightly. “Okay.” Allie’s voice sounded small as she followed Dallas with the beam of light, watching as he disappeared into the darkened building.

  * * *

  DALLAS CAREFULLY MADE his way through the Rainbow Daycare center, his heart in his throat as he dreaded what he would find inside. The small playrooms upstairs had been touched by the water: chairs and tables were overturned, soaked crayons leaked color onto the wet carpets. No children here, or their caregivers, either.

  The water had blown through and then receded, though it still covered
much of the first floor. He made it to the main stairwell, and shone his flashlight into the salt water that covered most of the first flight of stairs.

  “Kai!” he shouted down, and then waited, but heard only the sound of water gurgling across the handrails. There was no way to explore that first floor, and even if he could, he thought, anyone down there would be dead. There was just too much water.

  Dallas thought about Kayla, the sweet girl who’d always begged him for shoulder rides with her dimpled smile, and felt a dull pain through the center of his chest. He missed her. She’s with her mother, where she belongs, he told himself, but somehow it didn’t make him feel any better. He turned the corner and saw a single white stuffed animal floating in the stairwell, and had a moment of panic, thinking it was Kayla’s bear, Mr. Cuddles. But soon he realized his mistake. The bobbing stuffed white kitten with a bright pink collar belonged to someone else. Dallas turned back to the second floor, opening the closed janitor’s closets and bathroom doors, knowing in his bones the building was empty, the search futile, but unable to stop until he’d checked every room.

  “Kai! You in here?” he shouted, his voice suddenly loud in the enclosed space, bouncing off the tiled walls. No one answered him. Maybe he got out. God, he hoped so.

  He heard a muffled call from outside. Allie. He’d left her outside with sharks and who knew what.

  “Allie!” He rushed back to the window, panting, blood pumping and ready for a fight.

  Allie, safe and in one piece, focused on the water beyond them, her eyebrow furrowed.

  “Listen,” she urged him. Dallas did as he was told. First, he heard nothing, and then came a distant plink.

  Could be nearly anything. A chair leg hitting an exposed pipe, maybe. A chain caught in the water, banging against a car bumper. The sound was far away and hard to place.

  “I think we should check it out,” Allie said.

  Dallas figured why not—he’d checked the day-care center already and found nothing. He climbed back into the boat, and they went paddling farther down the debris field. It seemed as if they’d gone a long way before they heard another plink. This one, a little louder.

  “Hello?” Allie’s voice echoed a bit in the dark night.

  No one answered.

  Dallas kept paddling until they heard another plink. They were getting closer. Finally, after a good ten minutes of rowing, the plinks came louder and more often.

  “Hello?” Allie called. “Is that someone?”

  The plinks came furiously, this time in response to Allie’s voice.

  Allie and Dallas exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing: that nothing about the metal-on-metal sound was accidental.

  After a little more distance, Dallas paused in rowing as the kayak glided through wooden debris. “Hello?” he called this time. The metal plinks came once more, louder.

  “There!” Allie directed the light at a car, floating tires up. A man, his back to them, clung to the front fender.

  Dallas sped up the paddling. They turned the corner and saw Kai, clinging desperately to the car, a bleeding cut across his forehead.

  “Kai!” Allie shouted, putting down the light and leaning forward. “Kai! Are you all right?”

  Kai turned, opening a bleary eye. “I’ve been better,” he half croaked, his voice raw and hoarse. “I think my leg’s broken.”

  Dallas glanced down and saw his friend was right: his leg seemed oddly disjointed, and he floated in a pink cloud of blood.

  “We have to get you out of there.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Is Po all right?”

  “Po?”

  Kai pointed to the top of the floating car. There, a little boy lay. He looked no older than three or four. He sat up, holding a small metal pipe, which he’d been clanking against the car’s muffler.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Allie asked the little boy, who nodded, his almond-shaped eyes wide and serious.

  “That’s my buddy,” Kai said. “You did it, pal. Good job with the pipe.” Kai grinned, but he looked pale. Dallas glanced around, looking for something that might act as a floating stretcher. A commercial refrigerator, like the kind filled with soda at the convenience store, bobbed nearby. He saw a few plastic bottles of soda and some broken shelves lined the bottom along with a little water. The tsunami had ripped off the original glass door at the hinges. Amazed at the force of the wave yet again, he grabbed the refrigerator by the closest edge, pulling it toward them.

  “Allie, help me empty this,” he said.

  She turned and got to work, pitching bottles of Coke overboard and pieces of shelves. They were nearly done when the sound of debris smacking together made Allie turn, shining her light in the distance about a hundred feet.

  “The shark’s back!” she cried, voice high, her light on the tip of the tiger shark’s fin. She caught it for a split second before it dipped silently below the surface. “Dallas!”

  “It’s not going to have you as a snack,” Dallas promised Kai, whose grip tightened on the car.

  Po, on top of the car, whined anxiously. “Shark!” he cried, pointing and looking scared.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get you, okay?” Allie said. “Just sit tight.”

  “Give me your hand, Kai.” Dallas was already reaching out, trying to pull Kai into the open case. The first time, the case nearly tipped over, and Kai fell back in the water. They tried twice more, failing each time.

  Furiously, Allie shone her light back and forth, trying to find the shark. “I can’t find it, Dallas. I can’t find the shark.” Panic laced her words.

  “Something brushed me,” Kai murmured, trying to keep calm. “Something big.”

  Allie shone her light frantically, but all she illuminated was blue water.

  Dallas knew it was now or never. The shark, drawn by the blood from Kai’s leg, circled beneath the waves, trying to decide if Kai was worth a bite.

  “Come on!” he cried. With one mighty heave, Dallas pulled, and Kai shouted in pain as his broken leg came out of the water. He thumped into the open refrigerator case just as Allie shouted, “There!” Her spotlight caught the fin of the shark, sweeping so close to the kayak its tail nearly slapped the boat. Dallas grabbed some rope from the storage compartment of the kayak and tied the case to the back of the boat.

  “That was close. Too close,” Kai said, leaning his head back on the edge of the refrigerator. “Your turn, Po.”

  Allie shone the light on the shark as it disappeared underwater again.

  The little boy sat on the floating car, shivering, his eyes wide with fear. He’d seen the shark, and the stubborn line of his chin said the last thing he wanted to do was go near the water or in a small kayak.

  “Come in, buddy. Come in here with me. It’ll be okay.” Kai tried to coax the boy off the car and into the refrigerator case, but the boy didn’t want to budge. Suddenly, Allie reached into the pocket of her sundress and pulled out a piece of mango candy from Teri’s shop.

  “Hey, Po. Do you like mango candy?” The boy’s eyes grew bright with excitement. “You can have all these pieces. Just let Kai help you.”

  The boy studied the sweets in Allie’s hand. Then he glanced warily at the water. Eventually, he made his choice and hopped into the case with Kai. Allie handed the boy the small bunch of candy, and he swiped it eagerly, ripping open his first piece.

  “Good thinking,” Dallas told Allie with approval as he started to paddle them away from the car.

  “How’d you find me?” Kai asked.

  “I came as soon as Jesse called, telling us you weren’t answering your phone.”

  “Lost my phone as soon as the first wave hit.” Kai grimaced as he shifted his weight, trying to get comfortable. “I’d left the beach, packed up my board and was on my way when I drove by the day care to check on my cousin’s daughter, Reese, and saw a bus full of kids and a frantic preschool teacher. The bus driver was arguing with her that they had to go and was threatening to leave
her. I stopped, and that’s when she told me Po was missing. Turns out, he’d run off across the street to the gas station. He thought he saw his mom’s car.”

  Kai ruffled Po’s hair.

  “I sent the bus along, promised the teacher I’d look for Po, and she, in a panic, left,” Kai said. “I found him at the gas station, wandering around, not even crying. He’s one tough kid.” He ruffled Po’s hair. “But then I saw the water come. We ran to the day-care center, headed upstairs. The first wave shook the building and knocked the power out and tossed some furniture around, including a pretty heavy snack refrigerator. That’s what broke my leg. The second and third waves were really bad, and the third washed us out of the second floor completely. That’s when we ended up outside.”

  Po blinked at Kai, a big black mud smudge across his nose, dirt and mud the only signs he’d been in a tsunami at all. “Po can swim, let me tell you. He’s a surfer in the making. He rode that third wave as if he was meant to be there.” Kai ruffled the boy’s jet-black hair again. The boy smiled. “I tried to stay close to the day-care center. We spent a lot of time swimming to it, but my leg made for slow going. I knew Jesse would send someone there if she didn’t hear from me, and I figured it was our best shot. Plus, Po here said they keep a big thing of goldfish crackers and apple juice boxes in the top shelf upstairs in the snack room, and we were getting hungry, weren’t we, Po?”

  The boy nodded sharply.

  “Did you see any other survivors?” Kai asked them.

  “No,” Dallas said softly, thinking of the man who didn’t make it.

  Kai whistled. “There were still cars on the street when it hit.” He shook his head, solemn. Everyone in the boat grew silent as Dallas paddled, and the only sound for a while was the plastic oar dipping in and out, dripping salt water. After what seemed like forever, they got back to the sparking signal light not too far from where they’d parked.