Freefall (35 page)

Geckos
kekek
ed in the bushes, and one clung to the screen, watching the act of benevolence toward the feral cats. Okelani straightened and pressed her palms to her lower back. “Too old fo dance.”

“Never.” Nica scooped up a striped kitty that stepped away from the bowl and shook its head.

Okelani grunted. “Tell my bones dat.”

The cat pressed its nose up under her chin. “You were beautiful, Tū tū . You honored Janie.” She studied the woman she loved as fiercely as Kai. “And pleased everyone.”

Okelani smiled. “Cute, da baby, ay?”

“TJ says he looks like him.”

“What uncle nevah tink dat?”

They laughed, but the shadow stayed over Nica’s heart. Cameron’s call had shaken her. Okelani had sensed a storm with malice in its heart, and now it seemed that storm was brewing.

“Mea aloha.”
Okelani grasped her forearm. “Gentry
ma ka malu o kona ēheu
.”

In the shelter of his wings. Like the bony cats that leaped onto Okelani’s porch, wayward creatures finding blessing. On the island, they had no enemy but the carelessness and cruelty of humankind.

“I’m worried about her. And Kai.”

Okelani pulled open the screen door. “Strong, da attraction.”

She hadn’t meant that. Only that Gentry’s trouble put Cameron in danger too. But maybe the other was worse. Kai’s heart was shattered glass—and it could cut.

Curt held the disposable cell phone to his ear with utter disdain. What did he care about someone else’s problems? Especially when the fault landed smack in the middle of the idiot’s own chest. “No, I don’t think so. See, ‘upon completion’ were the key words. You don’t complete the project, you don’t get the money.”

“I gotta have it now. Gotta get outta here.”

“Uh-huh.”

The guy’s voice notched up a level, desperation creeping in. “You nevah help, someone might hear tings. Someone you don’t want hear tings.”

“That’s how you do business?” But he’d known that. Scum. “You know what? Go ahead and spew. You can’t touch me.”

“I’m talking cops.”

“Oh, that’s what you meant?”

The thug growled.

“See, here’s the thing. You’re working with some wrong information. First, you think I care. Second, you don’t even know my name.” He hung up and turned off the phone, then turned it back on, just in case.

He couldn’t believe there’d been no word. No note, no call. He could not believe she’d left. Left!

He rolled one shoulder, then the other.
Loosen up. Don’t get edgy
. Things hadn’t gone so good for her. He shouldn’t have kept Rob and Gentry’s situation from her. Made him seem untrustworthy. No wonder she didn’t turn to him when she got confused.

He went and stood in front of the mirror. Okay, so forty wasn’t twenty. But his thirty-nine was plenty good for Allegra’s forty-nine—a forty-nine she clung to by her fingernails, the big 5-O coming up. She’d cosmetically regressed at least ten years. Still fine, but not sure of it. That’s what made things work.

He shrugged his shoulders and let them drop, turned sideways and cocked his chin, eyes narrow and sexy. Staring at himself, he wrung the anger out, drop by drop. She’d been confused, upset. Who wouldn’t be? It did signal a stronger tie than he’d expected with two and a half years of separation. But, okay. Just another hurdle. Things hadn’t gone right, but he could fix that. There were new possibilities. And he wouldn’t rely on anyone else. Only himself. That was the best way. Always the best way.

Gentry hadn’t opened her suitcases. The thought of sleeping in something that the dragon man had handled sickened her. The phone had been lying in clear sight. Malakua could have simply taken it. Instead he’d fouled her nest.

It wasn’t that the phone was that valuable—it was that personal. Uncle Rob had fitted it with a GPS chip that would communicate with his new satellite system, but she didn’t know how close to completion that project was, and he had none of his equipment available. So all her messages, her rings, the phone numbers of her friends and colleagues, and as Cameron said, her photos were in his hands, and she couldn’t retrieve it.

She sat down on the bed under a painting of a Hawaiian woman who could have been Okelani many years younger. She wished Cameron had brought
her
to Okelani’s instead of Nica—or with her. She needed wise counsel, and though she’d only encountered the old woman a handful of times, she sensed a spirit steeped in grace. She understood why Cameron had sent his sister out, but it made her feel like a toxic element.

Nica’s cat jumped onto the bed and made its strange and tortured meow. She cupped its bony head and rubbed its neck as it rose up on its haunches with another ratchety meow. Had it sensed her need for a friend? A knock came at the door.

It didn’t surprise her, but it took all her energy to respond. He’d want reassurance that she was all right. She wasn’t, but hey, she was an actor.
I’m fine, thanks. No, I don’t need anything
. She opened the door.

He held out a toothbrush, paste and comb, a roll-on deodorant and shampoo. He hadn’t asked, just gathered up the things Nica had given her before. She took them. “Thanks.”

“Can we talk?” His face held more than the surface inquiry she’d expected. But then, he always forced the issue, had from the very start.

“I’m tired, Cameron.” Tired of being pursued, imagined, threatened…. She was without boundaries. A cell with no wall, no protective membrane. That, she realized, was what allowed her to connect on such an immediate level with viewers, with the kids in the troupe, cast members, friends, strangers. It was that accessibility Cameron had kissed. But right now she wished …

“Okay.” He turned to go. “Get some sleep.”

Those simple words sank her heart. Sleep? How? Her mind would turn everything over and over. She sighed. “Want a cup of tea?”

His brows rose just enough to show relief and surprise. “If there’s one thing Nica has, it’s tea.” He led the way to the kitchen, filled the kettle with hot water and put it on to boil. “Jasmine?”

“Sure.”

He took two mugs from the cabinet. The tension between them stretched. She didn’t want to be alone with him and didn’t want to be without him. Thin tendrils of fear snaked up like smoke, and being alone would fan it. She tried not to let it show.

He found the jar of jasmine pearls and dropped three into each mug. Her few days as Jade had given her a chance to relate to him on a different level, and she wished they could have kept it that way. It was almost as though Gentry Fox was an alter ego that collected troublemakers and worshipers but very few true friends.

A memory came back to her, not current but applicable. Maybe it would help him understand. “When I was twelve or thirteen, we took a family vacation to London. Dad especially wanted to see the changing of the guard.” She leaned against the counter. “It was pageantry at its best, of course, perfect choreography.”

“So I’ve heard.” He set the mugs next to the stove.

“What really stayed with me happened afterwards, though. Once the guards had taken their places, they stood there, motionless. This woman came up to one while her husband readied the camera. Then she stretched up and kissed the guard’s cheek as though he were a bit of statuary placed there for her Creative Memories book.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Gentry. There’s no excuse for before. But it wasn’t because of who you are, or rather it was.”

“Don’t make me parse your words, Cameron. I don’t have the energy.”

He spread his hands. “Then here it is. I wish you weren’t Gentry Fox.”

Well, that made two of them, but she was.

“You’re tough, loyal, beautiful…. It messes with me so bad I don’t think straight. I want to know you. I want …”

She waited for the other slipper to fall with a rubber slap.

“I said you wouldn’t let it go anywhere.” The kettle started a low hum. The first wisp of steam spiraled up. “But the truth is
I
won’t.”

The hum rose to a scream as he reached for a potholder. He took the kettle from the burner and poured the steaming water over the jasmine, releasing the green, exotic aroma. He placed a mug in her hands. “Want to sit on the lanai?”

She nodded. “Okay.”

They sat down among the damp plants with the half-moon climbing naked out of the ragged cloud. The rain had stopped, but the smell of it remained and a mist tingled her skin. In all the time they’d spent, this was the first glimpse inside he’d given her. She didn’t expect it to last. He’d been shaken by the intrusion, knocked off his guard. But she said, “Are you going to tell me why?”

The mist closed in around them, though the sky still looked clear.

He sat back, cupping his mug. “I don’t handle loss well.”

“Does anyone?”

He sipped. “When Nica and I were five and six, our parents drowned. They’d gone marlin fishing and got caught in a storm. I kept saying they’d be back, but Nica sat in a ball on the floor with a look on her face I can never forget.”

He stared into his mug. “I believe she would have died too. But I wouldn’t let her go. I held on so tight Okelani had to pry my arms off her.”

Gentry lowered her mug and stared. She’d hoped for a glimpse, hadn’t expected a fissure.

He swirled the buds in his tea that would have opened like hers and stretched into leaves and stems in the bottom of the cup. “I don’t remember who was watching us that day; Okelani took us in. She raised us like her own, but there was always the fear I’d lose Nica too. So I learned to hold on tight.” He looked up. “Okelani told me I love too hard.”

Gentry shook her head. “It must have been devastating for you both.”

“In different ways. Nica’s never gone into the water since, but I can’t stay out.”

“Why?”

“I have to keep beating it.”

“How?”

“One wave at a time.”

“Surfing?”

He nodded. “That’s why Okelani called me Kai.”

What kind of man stuck it to the ocean, wave after wave, year after year? The kind who didn’t let go.

“Can I watch you sometime?”

He shrugged. “North shore surf ’s best in the winter, but we can go south and catch what’s over there.”

“Notice I said ‘watch.’ ”

He smiled. “Wear your suit.”

Hurt and anger welled up. “I don’t want to put on anything he’s touched.”

Cameron set down his mug and stood. “Come on.”

In her bedroom, he opened both suitcases and scooped up armfuls of her clothes. She followed with the trailings that fell behind. He stuffed them into the washing machine, poured in the soap, and started it running. Then he turned. She looked into his face and smiled, even though almost everything she owned was dry-clean only.

Cameron went into his room and got a clean T-shirt and a pair of soft drawstring shorts. He carried them into the hall and handed them over. “You can sleep in these.”

She brought them to her chest. “Thanks.”

“I guess I could have gotten you something of Nica’s.” He spoke as the thought occurred.

“This is fine.”

“Are you tired?”

“Beat. But I won’t sleep. I’ll keep thinking.”

That made both of them. He hadn’t planned to reveal his underbelly. But then he hadn’t planned any of it.

She put a hand on his arm. “Can we sit a little longer?”

He drew a slow breath. “Sure. But I can’t be held responsible.”

She searched his face. “Am I a bit of statuary?”

His throat filled with gravel. “Hardly.” The uptilt of her chin sent a subliminal code he instantly deciphered. “You’re making me break my word.”

“I said it depended on why.”

He closed her into his arms. Her lips tasted like jasmine.

She dropped the clothes he’d handed her and circled his waist as sobs threatened. “Someone wants to kill me.”

“They’ll have to get through me.”

Her eyes brimmed.

“Don’t cry. The world’s full of screwed-up people. You can’t let them break you.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He had no intention of answering, but she felt it too.

“Your phone.”

“I don’t care.”

“It might be the police.”

He dug it out and looked, then jammed it back in, stomach clenching in a knot.