Freefall (36 page)
Gentry read his face. “Someone you know?”
“Someone I never knew.”
Her hands rested on his chest. “You want to talk about it?”
“Not tonight.” He ran his fingers down her cheek. He had heard reality sinking in for her and dragging fear behind. Angry that someone had shaken her resilience, he took her hand and led her to the couch.
Rain splashed against the windows with renewed vigor. The under-cabinet lights in the kitchen shed the only glow. He stretched onto his side on the couch, motioned for her to join him, and considered it a measure of trust that she did.
“Tell me more about you and Nica.”
He talked about them, about TJ, about Okelani, and about the island. He felt her breath deepen and slow, let his own match her rhythm and woke, hours later, with her back against him on the couch, her neck cradled on his arm. The dress she’d worn to the luau hadn’t weathered the night as well as his T-shirt and shorts. Her hair smelled faintly of kukui nut oil. He rubbed his face in it.
She stirred, opened her eyes, and rolled over in the crook of his arm. “Did I fall asleep?”
He twisted his wrist to show her the time.
“It’s morning?”
“Almost.”
She caught her fingers in her hair. “I can’t believe I slept with you. Again.”
His other arm encircled her waist. “That’s all it was, Gentry. Sleep.”
“I was scared to be alone.”
“I know.”
“But it doesn’t look good.”
“I promise nothing happened.” His thumb ran the line of her rib. “Except I’m falling in love with you.”
Her lips parted. Her eyes were the green room inside the tunnel of a wave, and this time the sea was going to win.
“There are a thousand reasons that shouldn’t happen.”
“I know them all.” He splayed his hand over her flat belly and kissed her lips, a warm kiss that held no hint of jasmine.
“Cameron.”
“I like it better when you call me Kai.”
“I can’t make a mistake, Kai.”
Five years of his life had been a mistake. The next four a train crash.
“Not with everyone watching.” She searched his face. “You saw how it is.”
“That’s not real.” He didn’t intend to perform in that circus. She shouldn’t have to either.
“Tell that to Darla and Dave and Alec Warner.” Her eyes misted. “Tell it to the person who wants me dead.”
He rose up to his elbow. “Then don’t do it anymore. Don’t take the new part.”
She closed her eyes. “That sounds so easy.” Her lashes swept up like a curtain on her stage. “But I want to. Something in me comes alive on stage, behind a camera, with lights and scripts and cast.”
He’d seen it. He knew. He’d watched
Steel
seven times after going home. She was amazing, but not because of lights and cameras. “It’s alive in you right now. It was alive on the mountain before you remembered. You made
Steel
real, not the other way around.”
She drew breath to answer, but his phone vibrated. She rolled and picked it up from the floor. He didn’t want to let go, but she got up and headed for the bathroom.
He answered with a gruff, “Pierce.”
“You’re there, aren’t you. You’re with her.”
Four years she hadn’t cared. An argument could be made for nine. He almost said yes and had it out right there, but that would affect Gentry’s reputation, or at least attract the gossip hounds again. He rubbed his face. “What do you want, Myra? What can you possibly want?”
“A chance.” It came through more desperate than he’d ever heard her. Bad connection. Had to be.
“Five years wasn’t chance enough?”
“I didn’t know what I wanted, Cameron.”
Wrong. She’d gotten exactly what she wanted, from everyone. And he was the last to know. He’d denied it until she gave him names and dates, shoving his stupid face in it so he would let her go. She knew exactly what she wanted. Always.
“Are you making love to her?”
He sank back. “You were the one playing the sex-outside-marriage card.”
“It wasn’t a real marriage.”
Now he understood the psychiatrist’s point. She’d been able to cheat with impunity because she’d never entered the covenant. It took two people to make a contract. Each had to bring something to the table. He couldn’t make it by himself. “I guess you’re right.” It felt strangely free, like a crack in the door of his crypt.
Eager now that he’d come to her side, she said, “Do you remember the first day we met?”
He hunched forward and rested his head on his splayed hand. As though he’d ever forget seeing her on the beach the year he’d won the competition. “Myra—”
Gentry went from the bathroom to the laundry closet. He heard her in there dealing with her clothes. There was no dryer, only the clotheslines in the carport. He’d have to move Nica’s Saab out.
“I have to go.”
“No, wait.” A long breath seeped like a vapor into his ear. “I’m sorry.”
He sat back like a punch-stunned contender. Sorry? Myra?
“I never say I’m sorry.”
Her brash smile had intoxicated him.
“Never?”
“I’d die first.”
“What if you were sorry?”
“I’m not. Ever. I am completely without regret.”
Her brazen comment had intrigued, ensnared him. He hadn’t thought how it would be to live with someone incapable of remorse. A stone grew in his throat. The other night she’d admitted a mistake but offered no apology. Never once had she offered an apology, in all the years he’d known her. And what was he supposed to say? It’s all right; don’t worry about it?
Gentry came out of the laundry closet with the basket full of clothes. He wanted to get off the phone, but a tentacle had snaked out and coiled his neck.
“Regret is death. If I’m ever sorry, I’ll die.”
And her laugh had faded, replaced by the stormy turbulence of someone who couldn’t look back.
His voice rusted. “Okay.”
“Can we talk?”
“Um, yeah.”
Her relief was audible. “When?”
He glanced up at Gentry, feeling gutshot. “When I’m back.” He hung up and stood. “Let me move Nica’s car. We’ll hang those in the carport.”
The silks had lost sheen and shape,
the cottons color; everything grayed like the dawn, hung over from the night’s rain; the dragon man’s taint washed away, but damage done. How did one rewind past the part where someone tried to kill you? Grover Malakua had reprogrammed her brain to fear.
Holding her against him, Cameron had leeched it from her until she slept. Now, once again, threads of relationship entangled them. She wanted to thank him, but the phone call had put him in a funk, and he needed to work his way out of it. She hadn’t asked who called, but the impact was palpable; his efforts to brush it off ineffective. Maybe it was related to her situation, but his bleak expression had suggested a more personal hit.
As they neared the bottom of the laundry basket, he found her bronze Esteban Cortezar bikini and straightened. “This isn’t too damp.”
“For what?”
“Hitting the surf.”
He’d taken her seriously? “You mean now?”
“Definitely.”
“Shouldn’t we—”
“No. There’s nothing we should do instead.” He wore an expression that brooked no dissention. “Would you rather borrow Nica’s?”
“Why would Nica have a swimsuit if she won’t go in the water?”
“She sits on the shore and watches. If the surf ’s off the Richter, she prays.”
“Oh.” Gentry looked down at her rumpled dress. “I can pray in this.”
He held out her bikini.
She planted her hands on her hips. “How do you know
I’m
not afraid of water?”
“I’ve seen you, remember?”
“Okay, but …”
“Come on. Trust me.”
She couldn’t fight rivers and cling to cliffs with a man and not trust him—as she’d learned last night, settling into the curve of his body and not admitting even to herself that she didn’t want to leave it. Fear was a terrible decision maker.
“I’m not sure I want another encounter with powerful water.”
“When fear is strongest, you strike back.”
“You sound like Uncle Rob.”
“You’ve got balance and strength. You’ll do fine.” He stuck two boards in the bed of his truck. “This shorter one got me the junior championship. Should fit you close enough.” He’d said last night he had to keep beating the sea. Now he was doing his best to ask, but she had the feeling argument was futile. He needed to take control of something.
Deciding she wouldn’t mind a measure of it herself, she put on the damp swimsuit, T-shirt, and shorts.
“When fear is strongest, you strike back.”
She could be hiding, dreading what might happen next, fixating on the fact that someone had tried to kill her. Instead they were heading to the shore.
Cameron focused when the surf report came on the radio. It meant nothing to her, but he must not like what he heard.
“Why the frown?”
He glanced over. “We’re not going to get much. Acid Drops at Lawai can be a good, strong right with steep, hollow barrels. But today’s conditions … Maybe we’ll try Pakalas.” He nodded. “Yeah, that should work. It’s a mellow left that peels forever.”
“Is that English?”
“Some da kine surfin’ slang.” He touched his temple. “Got one choke vocabulary.”
She shook her head.
When they reached the beach, he took out the boards. “I’ll teach you a few points on the sand first.” He stopped near the line where the waves foamed in and set the boards aside. “Lie down on your stomach.”
The brittle, lightweight sand gritted and clung as she and Cameron stretched out like two seals who’d scooched onto the beach to sun.
“This won’t be the first thing we’ll do, but it’s easier to learn how to stand up on solid ground. Watch.”
He did a push-up and, in one swift motion, pulled his knees to his stomach, hopped to his feet—right in front of left—and stood back bent, arms outstretched. The sharp, lean muscles of his calves were eye level as she watched, the tendons of his feet revealing years of clinging.
He dropped down again. “You’ll be holding the rails, the sides of the board.” He positioned his hands as though a board lay beneath him. “About halfway between the nose and your chest.”
“Shouldn’t I practice on the board?”
“It would damage the fins. Just get the feel of it for now.”
Imagining his junior championship board beneath her, she pushed up, dragged her knees up under her, and stood.
“Your position’s good, but do it faster.”
She did.
“Hanah hou.”
“What?”
“Again. Do it over and over until it’s in your subconscious.”
She repeated the process, gaining speed and balance.
“That foot feel good forward?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“I showed you regular, but you can do it goofy if you want.”
“Why would I want goofy?”
He shrugged. “Some dudes like the left foot up. Some, da kine, like me switch it by the wave.”
“I’m thinking basic English, Mr. Choke Vocabulary. And basic surfing, if you don’t mind.”
Climbing another step out of his funk, he took hold of her sandcrusted T-shirt and pulled her closer. “Lose the shorts, but keep this on for now to prevent a rub rash.”
In spite of the fact that her body had been rated and discussed by tabloids during the scandal, she felt self-conscious removing the shorts. But Cameron pulled his shirt over his head and reached for his board, already focused on the water and the waves he would beat.
Though the sun was barely up, a few other surfers were out already. Noting her glance, Cameron said, “We’re not going that deep yet.”
She nodded. “Good.”
He stood his board at the edge of the surf. “The board’s got a center of gravity; you want to distribute your weight so that it floats on the water just as it would without you.”
Floating sounded okay.
“We’ll start in the mushy surf. I’ll show you how to paddle out, but first I want to tell you about duck-diving.”
“Cameron.”
“That’s what it’s called. Now listen up.”
After taking a while to find her balance, paddling, duck-diving under the oncoming waves, trying not to cork or dig the nose or rails, and lifting her chest in the chop, she made it out among the sloping swells that were not yet, as Cameron put it, “standing up straight.”
From his position a short distance away, he said, “Watch me sit.” He straddled his board as easily as though it weren’t bucking and rocking. “Keep just below the center point so you can swing the nose left or right, but not so far back it tips you off.” She planted herself as he directed, wobbling on the board but managing not to topple.
“Kay den. First you need to know when
not
to catch a wave.”
“Great.”
He held up his fingers. “Three mistakes’ll give you a jarring experience called—you’ll appreciate the terminology—going over the falls.”
She groaned.
“Catching a wave too late, when it’s already pitching over, is the first mistake. Do that and it’ll just be you and tons of water arching down to the seabed. While you’re rolling around in fetal position on the bottom, the whole wave dog piles on.”
Her stomach turned with a sensation that struck too close to home.
“Mistake number two, falling in front of an arching wave, will get you a ride up with time to anticipate the over-the-falls crash and roll experience previously described.”
She pushed the wet hair from her face. “And we’re out here, why?”
He smiled. “The third thing to know is that big waves tend to stand up and crash over in about the same spot. Loitering where the curtain drops is one
lolo
idea.”
“This whole thing is
lolo
. Did I tell you I’ve just recovered from a head injury?”
“We won’t have any of that here unless conditions change. Surf ’s so mushy, it’s a baby cradle.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So now you know what not to do. Let’s have some fun.” His smile had a dangerous edge. “When the wave you want comes, lie down. When you feel the lift, paddle hard. Lean forward and raise your chest. On these mushy waves, wait until you’re in the flat water, but as soon as the momentum flows faster than you can paddle, stand up; just like we did onshore.”
