Maui Winds

by Edie Claire

  Wolf thought about it. They’d had a small, no-frills, outdoor wedding at Frieda’s sister’s place in Moose Pass, beside Trail Lake. It was less than a year after Frieda had moved into the house with them. So how old was he then? Sixteen? “Coming up on ten years, I guess,” he answered uncertainly. Had it really been that long? It didn’t seem possible.

  There was silence, except for the rain. Ri was looking at him with a puzzled expression. “So how do I sound like her?” she asked finally.

  “Frieda always sees the beauty in things most other people don’t,” Wolf answered. “Like a dead limb lying in the snow. Or fireweed that’s bloomed and wilted already. She’s the kind of person who always appreciates what she has, rather than worrying about what she doesn’t. She’s very down-to-earth that way.” He paused, then chuckled to himself. “And she makes damn good barbecue. I’ve missed getting free food at her restaurant almost as much as I’ve missed my dogs.”

  Ri smiled, but her lovely brow still bore wrinkles of confusion. “So, you and she get along okay, then?”

  He thought that an odd question. “Sure we do. Why?”

  Ri seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Because you don’t seem comfortable calling her your stepmother,” she answered softly. “And I was wondering why.”

  Wolf tensed. “Oh,” he replied, thinking quickly, “well, it’s not like I was a kid when they met. I didn’t need a mother.” You were fifteen, idiot. That’s not a kid? He stumbled mentally, trying to recreate his own reasoning. “I don’t know,” he continued, thinking out loud. “I guess it never actually penetrated my thick head that they were married. In the back of my mind, I always figured her being with my dad was more of a temporary thing.”

  “But why?” Ri pressed immediately. “Why would you think it was temporary?”

  Wolf felt something squeezing in on him. His stomach was acting up again. He was uncomfortable where he was and he wanted to move. He got up from the picnic bench and walked to the edge of the shelter. He thought he could hear a muffled exclamation from Ri, but he didn’t turn around. He wanted to change the subject.

  Nothing new about that. But this time, he did stop to wonder why. Why did he have no answer for that question? Why had he always been so sure that his father’s relationship with Frieda wouldn’t last? Even now, if you forced him to place a bet, he’d wager that Frieda was bound to wake up some random morning and walk out of their lives without looking back. He had no evidence for such a belief, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Yet his father’s ultimate separation from her seemed every bit as inevitable to Wolf as fog rolling back over the field station.

  Perhaps, when it came to women, he had been gifted with unnaturally good instincts.

  “Cheerfully withdrawn,” Ri said behind his back, her tone tongue-in-cheek. “Shall we talk about the weather?”

  Wolf turned around. He did adore her sense of humor. And he loved how well she understood him. “I’m thinking it looks like rain,” he suggested. “And you?”

  “Fifty percent chance,” she said, just as another gust of wind blew a spate of moisture onto his back and dampened his exposed hair. He returned to the center of the shelter and sat down next to her again.

  “Do you really, seriously, want to pitch a tent out here tonight?” he asked.

  She gave him the smile again. The one that made him feel like he’d known her his whole life instead of only a few days. The one that made him feel a bizarre, bone-deep sense of excitement and anticipation as well as a boundless, weightless joy that made no sense to him whatsoever. And the one which, at the same time, left him horribly, achingly depressed.

  “I really, seriously do,” she answered.

  “Then so do I,” he agreed, the words sliding straight from his soul to his lips without so much as a backhanded wave at his brain. “It sounds like fun.”

  Chapter 29

  Wolf circled his arms around his middle with a groan. His ribs ached. As much as his stomach had been bothering him lately, the shooting pains in his sides now were ten times worse. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so much.

  “So then,” Ri continued mercilessly, “just when I find the gloves, Mei Lin comes back and reports to me that the snake is no longer behind Mom’s toilet. She says she doesn’t know where it is. She also says that Dad just came home and wants to know why his wicker clothes hamper is sitting outside my bedroom door with leaves and dirt in the bottom of it. And by the way, Mei Lin says, Mom just went in to take a shower.”

  Wolf laughed harder. Ri was lying on her back on top of the insulated sleeping bag she’d borrowed, her legs drawn up and crossed at the knee with one foot swinging. She was dressed for the cold night in a long-sleeved shirt and sleep pants, but her lack of exposed skin didn’t dim her appeal in Wolf’s excruciatingly tired eyes. Her look might be more cuddly than erotic. But it was a deliciously soft, incredibly sexy kind of cuddly.

  Which is why he was staying on his side of the tent. And why any minute now, he was going to get up and head back to the Hilton.

  Really. He was. In five more minutes.

  “What happened?” he managed to ask.

  “Never found it,” Ri said shortly.

  “Never?”

  “Nope. I confessed to my dad, and he got my mom out of the shower — now that was funny — and then we searched the whole house from top to bottom, but Festus was never seen again.”

  “Did you get in trouble?”

  Ri’s lips twisted. “The official story ends there,” she replied. “It plays better to audiences that way.”

  The pain in Wolf’s sides was unbearable.

  Ri continued playing with her flashlight, moving it around on the tent ceiling in funky patterns. It was a small, dim light, glowing just enough for him to see her face. They’d used a brighter one to make the shadow animals. He’d thought Ri was kidding about that, but he’d discovered she was amazingly good at it. He had to wonder what other hidden talents she possessed.

  They’d had so much fun tonight… and he had needed a laugh. Although it had rained on and off all day, dragging out their work, they had finished in time for Ri to complete her ferry run. What Wolf hadn’t thought about until he watched his friend Maddie come outside to climb into the truck was that he would most likely never see her or Kai again. And when the thought struck him, he was surprised at how deeply it saddened him. Maddie had given him a hug, told him how much she’d enjoyed working with him, and mentioned again how much she wished he could make it to her and Kai’s wedding. Unfortunately, the cost of airfare made that out of the question. Wolf hated the thought of losing their friendship, and he wanted to believe that their paths would cross again. He told himself that maybe someday he could do more work on Haleakala, or that maybe Kai would draw some temporary assignment at the law firm’s Anchorage office and that Maddie could come along. But Wolf knew that was only wishful thinking.

  Only after Ri returned from the ferry port did his spirits begin to rally. He’d borrowed a roomy tent and an extra sleeping bag from Kenneth, and she had been delighted. Between periodic downpours, they had managed to pitch the tent, grill hot dogs, and explore the nearby nature trail through the eucalyptus trees, complete with multiple sightings of the colorful Hawaiian 'I'iwi, a striking red honeycreeper with a curved yellow bill. As always, Wolf enjoyed simply being in Ri’s company, and she was quiet much of the evening, as was he. But as the darkness deepened and more sleepless hours ticked by, they’d both grown increasingly punch drunk.

  “So what kind of trouble did you and Bear get into?” Ri asked, rolling over onto her side and smiling at him mischievously. “Did you lead him into sin, or vice versa?”

  Wolf scoffed. “I was always saving that boy’s bacon. His name is a total joke, you know. There’s nothing badass about Bear — he’s magazine-cover handsome and wicked smart. Blond hair, blue eyes. Girls have been following him around with their tongues hanging out since kindergarten. Little bastard knows i
t too, but he looks so friggin’ innocent… he could always get away with anything.”

  Ri chortled. “No jealousy, there.”

  Wolf rolled his eyes.

  “Tell me a story,” Ri begged. “Tell me about some time when Bear did something stupid and you felt like you had to cover for him. Did that ever happen?”

  Wolf scoffed louder. “Are you kidding me? Like, all the time!”

  “Tell me!” Ri pleaded with a giggle. “I’ve told you all sorts of embarrassing things.”

  Wolf let out a tired, yet somehow contented, sigh. He really should get up and head back to the field station. It had to be well past midnight already.

  “Come on!” she taunted, drumming her heels on the ground like a four year old. “I can picture it all so clearly. The totally innocent-looking chick magnet finally hits puberty and decides that girls aren’t so icky after all, so he gets his loyal big brother to play the wingman—”

  “Wingman!” Wolf protested hotly. “I am nobody’s wingman!”

  Ri cracked up hysterically.

  Wolf threw his pillow at her head.

  Ri caught it and kept laughing.

  “I’ll have you know,” he said with mock indignation, “that neither of the Markov boys needed any help in the attracting-females department. Bear’s only problem was that he couldn’t so much as hold a girl’s hand without falling madly in love with her. And Bear really, really, likes holding girls’ hands.”

  “So why was that was a problem?”

  “Are you kidding?” Wolf exclaimed. “Have you ever heard a teenage guy cry? He’s always been a sensitive little twerp, and every time the girl moved on, he fell apart. But he just kept going back for more, beating his head into the proverbial brick wall.” He shook himself at the memory. “Geez, those years were a nightmare. It started late in middle school and it didn’t end till…” Wolf thought a minute. “Well, hell, I don’t know that it has ended. The periods of agony just get spread further apart the longer his girlfriends last.”

  Ri sat up. “Wolf Markov!” she chastised, “that is such a negative way of—”

  He lost the rest of her sentence as his pillow sailed back over and smacked him in the face.

  “Did it ever occur to you that your brother may think the occasional pain is worth it?” Ri continued with annoyance. “That he might have weighed the pros and cons and come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that, on balance, falling for every girl he holds hands with is a fun thing to do?”

  Wolf pulled the pillow off his face and stared at her. “No,” he answered honestly. “I think it’s just his nature that he falls into the same trap every time.”

  Ri groaned out loud and collapsed flat on her sleeping bag again. “If I didn’t like you so much, I would sentence you to quality face time with my mother.”

  “What?” Wolf asked, confused.

  Ri flipped back on her side. “Never mind. Rewind. You were about to tell me a funny story about you and Bear. But let’s go back before puberty this time. Before you became such an insufferable romantic. Tell me about Halloween. What were your favorite costumes?”

  Wolf stuffed his pillow back underneath his head. He was lost again. The output of Ri’s creative brain was hard enough to follow when he wasn’t exhausted. But a flash of memory did stir at her question, and the long-buried thought made him laugh out loud. “The moose! The moose and the pile of moose poop!”

  Ri’s angel face smiled at him again. “Tell me,” she urged.

  Wolf relaxed on top of his sleeping bag. He could tell her one more childhood tale. Then he would hike back to his own bed. The story would only take five minutes, max. She would like it. It would make her laugh.

  “Well,” he began, watching with happy anticipation as her dark eyes twinkled in the glow of the flashlight. “At first, I wanted to be Spiderman. But Bear really wanted the two of us to do something together…”

  ***

  Ri opened her eyes to the dim light of first dawn, and the air that touched her face was damp and cold. But when she realized she had been awakened by a chorus of birdsong near the top of an ancient volcano, her lips softened into a smile. She flipped over in her sleeping bag, and her smile broadened till it warmed her to the tips of her toes.

  Wolf was still there. He lay nestled in his own bag just two feet away, his hair wild and tousled over his pillow, his muscles relaxed, his face serene. Ri squirmed closer to get a better look at him, being careful not to jar him awake. No unshaven mountain man could ever have looked more beautiful.

  She had a feeling he wouldn’t make it back to the Hilton last night. For a practiced hiker like himself, the distance was nothing, but that didn’t make the cold, dark, potentially wet walk any more enticing to a tired man in the wee hours of the morning. Particularly not when some heartless villainess kept tempting him to stay “just a little longer.”

  Ri grinned to herself. She knew that he hadn’t wanted to go. He’d had every bit as much fun as she had, even if he did suck at making shadow animals. And even if they had — by unspoken agreement — made a point of staying on their own sides of the tent. Their mutual attraction was as explosive as ever, but the campout wasn’t about that. They’d spent the night hours together for one simple reason: because at no given moment had either of them preferred to be alone.

  One day left. Ri felt the weight of that reality hovering, threatening to crush her dreams with a sickening thud. But she forced such menacing thoughts away. Wolf did have feelings for her, she was certain of that now. Somehow, some way, things would turn out right.

  But not one second of the precious twenty-four hours they had left together on Maui could be wasted. Today, at last, she would drive the road to Hana, and Wolf would go with her. He absolutely had to. She pulled one arm up out of the cozy sleeping bag, then reached over to twirl a lock of his shaggy hair around her finger. Slowly she withdrew her hand again, not wanting to wake him. He looked so precious, so vulnerable. His lashes were long and feathery, and in the dim light, they seemed a lighter blond than his hair—

  “Bwwaaaa!!!” Wolf shouted as his eyes flew open and his arms popped out of his bag and grabbed her.

  Ri shrieked and pulled away, folding up in her tapered, mummy-style sleeping bag like a caterpillar and accidentally rolling over backward. By the time she caught her breath and righted herself, Wolf was bent over into a ball, laughing hysterically.

  Ri was glad she didn’t have a heart condition. She swung her bagged legs over and began to kick him. “You are terrible!” she complained.

  He could barely speak. “Oh, no…” he gasped, edging away from her blows. “You did… You started…” He was half out of his much looser bag, but Ri was a good kicker and he was laughing too hard to move fast. “You so deserved that!” he coughed out finally.

  “I thought you were asleep!” Ri said indignantly.

  “Well, duh!” he replied, still laughing.

  Ri’s legs were getting tired. She still hadn’t wriggled out of her bag; the darn thing held her legs fast. She had only her arms out, and her last kick had tilted one of the tent poles. A few more direct hits and she would suffocate before she could free herself. She reached down to try and unzip the bag, but the top of it was caught in folds and the zipper side was underneath her butt somewhere.

  “You need help with that?” Wolf chuckled. He was completely out of his bag now and attempting to fix the slanted pole.

  Ri responded with another kick and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her feet hit the bottom of the pole and knocked it out of his hands. “Hey!” Wolf complained as half the ceiling came down on top of him.

  Ri wasn’t listening. She was too concerned with getting the heavy, wet canvas off her face. She squirmed across the floor until her head was out in the relatively open space beside him. “Are you trying to suffocate me?” she griped.

  “Me?” Wolf retorted with amusement. He popped the tent pole back into place, looked down at her tangled predicament, and laugh
ed. “You’re just lucky we didn’t have a fire in the middle of the night.”

  Ri’s face flamed. She reached down and peeled the still-zipped mummy bag off her legs like a sock, then tossed it to the side. Immediately, she was cold. Sitting on the tent’s ground cloth was like chilling on a refrigerator shelf. It had to be in the lower forties outside this morning. She shivered.

  Wolf threw her a knowing smile. “I’m, um… going to get some fresh air,” he said cheerfully, opening a tent flap. “You might want to put some warmer clothes on before you head out.” He reached for his boots and began to lace them up.

  “Wolf, wait,” Ri called, not sure when he would be returning. He’d slept in sweats and a hoodie — he could go back to the Hilton now if he wanted and strike the tent later. “You’re coming on the road to Hana with me, aren’t you?”

  His expression looked blank for a moment, and Ri felt a flutter of panic. She hadn’t phrased that right. “I mean,” she revised, “I’ve been hoping you would come, even though I haven’t specifically invited you yet. I’d love your company, even if you were horribly mean to me just now. It will show how forgiving I am.”

  “Ha!” Wolf scoffed. His eyes twinkled at her briefly, but then his smile faded. “I don’t know, Ri. I have a lot of work to do today. I have to organize all my stuff and get my gear packed up and ready to ship before my flight.”

  Ri felt cold all over. How stupid of her. She hadn’t considered that. “We can head back whenever you want,” she proposed. “I doubt it will be my last chance to see Hana. But it will be my last chance to drive the road with you.”

  Dawn was breaking now, and light poured through the tent flap. The pain in Wolf’s face was both deep and obvious, and Ri’s heart suffered a mixed reaction at the sight of it. He would miss her. He was sad to be leaving. She was as sure of that fact as she was of her own name, and that knowledge should make her glad.

  But she couldn’t rejoice at the hurt she was causing him. Not when she felt it so keenly herself.

  Chapter 30