Freefall (41 page)
She crushed his ribs, laughing against his chest. Sheer relief made her giddy. “You did it!”
“I think I had some help.”
“And we’re down, safe and alive!” That much was sinking in.
He rubbed her shoulders. “You were more afraid of my part than Malakua’s.”
“Duh.”
“You didn’t think I could do it?”
“You didn’t think you could.”
He cocked his head. “That obvious?” At her look, he shrugged. “Has been a while.”
“
Now
you tell me.”
“Want to do it again?”
She slapped her palms to his chest. “No!”
He laughed. “So now we’re in for a different ride.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you notice the police cars and press vans?”
“No. Where… ?” She looked out the window. “I didn’t see anything but the rainbow.” She drew a shaky breath as reality settled hard. “I wish we were back in the air.”
He squeezed her hand. “You’ll be fine.”
She glanced at Malakua. “Are we in trouble?”
“I don’t know.”
She caught both his hands. “If we are, don’t worry. I’ve got a rich uncle.”
“Yeah. One who’ll rather skin my hide than save it.”
“I’ll tell him it was my idea.”
“Valiant, but worthless gesture.” He glanced at Malakua, moaning softly on the floor, then reached for the door. “Ready?”
“I guess.”
“Aw, come on. At’s one bombora wave.” He leaned back. “Unless you’re bailing.”
“What?” She narrowed her eyes. “Bring it on.”
She descended the stairs he’d lowered to the tarmac. No one seeing these pictures would miss their rapport, and she wasn’t sure she cared.
As she and Cameron desended the stairs into the crowd, the police cut through and boarded the plane to arrest Malakua. She looked for contempt in the faces around her but saw only excitement. Darla was right that her stock had jumped. What surprised her was how well Cameron played it. Complex and moody, transparent and opaque, he made a compelling leading man.
The police had already questioned TJ and Nica, the heliport tour director, and Denny Bridges. She settled into a chair in the small waiting area and crossed her legs, drawing every eye. If she could use her influence to get them all through this, she would.
“By the way.” She held up her phone. “I recovered this. Officers Bender and Severt might like to know.” She reminded them of the burglary they’d failed to take seriously and Malakua’s involvement in the “accident” that injured her uncle and her. Suddenly they wanted to listen.
Aware of the fact that they’d attempted to transport a fugitive and probably broken other regulations and laws, she asked, “Should we secure lawyers?”
The pink and paunchy chief of police cleared his throat. “Ms. Fox, we understand the difficulties you’ve faced in your short time on Kauai. I need your statements, but I don’t believe charges will be filed at this time.” He sent a stern look to TJ. “Beyond a departmental inquiry.”
“Officer Kanakanui has worked hard to resolve my situation from the start. His decisions today saved lives. I’ll be happy to testify on his behalf before any board of inquiry.” And she’d play it for all she was worth.
The chief ’s face softened. If he was wise, he’d avoid the publicrelations headaches she could cause him. She didn’t want to subvert the law, but they had all acted with good conscience.
He pushed up to his feet. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. The press seems to think it’s a holiday and you’re all heroes. Ms. Fox, do you suppose you might stay out of the news for the rest of your stay?”
She refused to consider any other scenario. “I’m leaving in the morning with my uncle.”
He half smiled. “Hate to see you go.”
“I might be back.”
He gave a short laugh. “Fair warning.”
Cameron stood up. “Are we finished?”
“I think we can call it a day.”
As the chief and his officers left, Nica hugged Cameron. They stood a long time before he said, “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“You’re sure nothing happened.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”
They shared a look Gentry couldn’t interpret.
Nica said, “It’s all right now.”
Gentry hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”
“For standing in my place?”
“For getting you into it all.”
Nica tipped her head. “Never hesitate to entertain strangers—who might be angels in disguise.”
“If there’s an angel here, it’s Okelani.” Gentry could hardly keep from laughing when she pictured Malakua weaving on his feet.
“It was your idea to call her,” Cameron said.
“Well.” She shrugged one shoulder. “I listen.”
That had been divine inspiration. She had no idea Okelani would use herbal skills, only that she might comfort Nica and make Malakua watch his step. But God was infinitely creative.
TJ came back in. “Da chief relieve me of duty for da week.”
“Sorry, brah.”
He shrugged and hung his arm around Nica. “Maybe fish some.”
Nica rested her hand on his chest. “TJ’ll take me home, Kai.”
“I figured.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ll be over later.”
Watching them walk out, Gentry frowned. “What did Nica mean when she said she wasn’t there?”
“When she’s upset, she … goes away in her head. She says Jesus is there. He walks and talks with her.” His jaw tensed. “That’s where she went the day our parents died.”
“Oh.” She’d never heard anything like that, but Nica was different from anyone else she’d known.
“Ready to face your uncle?”
Dread settled. “He’ll have heard.”
“No doubt.”
The crowd in the small front lot barraged them with questions, but she didn’t sense meanspiritedness. Maybe some of their previous attitude had been hers. If she looked for enemies, she’d find them. If she looked for friends …
“Gentry, will you and Cameron Pierce be seeing more of each other?”
“We both have busy schedules.” Separate lives. “Besides I’m leaving with my uncle in the morning.” She didn’t know Cameron’s plans. Thrown together under intense circumstances, bonds were inevitable, but whether they had staying power, she couldn’t say. Certainly not to the world.
A microphone swept up to Cameron’s mouth. “Did you ever think you’d spend this kind of time with Gentry Fox?”
He formed a sideways smile. “I planned it.”
Uh-oh
.
“Of course, I didn’t know who she was.” He moved steadily forward. “My sister asked my help for a stranger with amnesia.”
“Are you planning more time?”
He pressed the remote on the truck, swept his gaze over the reporters, then landed on hers. “I’d be crazy not to.”
The press loved it. He must still be riding the high of not having crashed and burned.
“Are you more than friends? Do you want to be?”
His smile told nothing and everything.
“What’s been the best part?”
“The best part,” he paused, “was seeing Gentry wrestle a giant centipede and win.”
She shook her head as he exaggerated one of her shakier moments. What was he doing? He pulled open the truck door. She slipped inside.
“Are you in love with her?”
“Isn’t everyone?” The door closed.
Her mouth hung slack as he rounded the hood and got in.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Your interview.”
He backed out of the lot and started down the highway. “Thought you’d appreciate having the pressure off you for once.”
“Yes, but …”
“I gave them what they wanted. Besides, there’s nothing like facts to limit speculation.”
“Facts?”
He slid her a glance. “What wasn’t true?”
She stammered, “That whole centipede thing.”
“I said it the way I saw it.” He smiled. “That’s what’s bugging you?”
She shook her head. “I’m not—You took me by surprise. If they think we’re together—We could have played the bodyguard card.”
“Uh-huh.” He slowed for a rusty pickup with surfboards in the bed.
She rested her head back and closed her eyes. “Was it this morning we went surfing?”
“A year or two ago. You pack a lot into your days.”
“Me?” She laughed. “You’re the one with the secret skills package.”
“You mean piloting a jet or carving a wave?”
“Both.” She rolled her head to look at him. He was still riding the high. “You’ve mastered air and water. What about earth?”
“I think you’re the terrain expert.”
“And fire?”
He bent his wrist over the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. “Oh, I still get burned.”
Rob wondered if rage would be what killed him. Living with Allegra he’d learned to bottle tight everything that approximated anger. Now that control was shattered. Pain triggered fury; fear triggered rage. It came up through him with such violence as Cameron and Gentry walked into the room that he wanted to strike. Gentry had lied to his face, not by what she’d said, but by what she hadn’t.
She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Not even close.” His voice scratched through his fury.
She lowered her face. “Uncle Rob, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” he rasped. “Sorry?” His hands shook, hands that had taken hers and led her into places, into experiences she would never have known without him. “I jumped in that water.” He sucked air into his lungs, reliving the treacherous plunge, the pain, the cold, the terror. “I lost my leg trying to keep you from getting hurt.”
She blanched. Beside her Cameron tensed.
Rob didn’t stop. He couldn’t. “I thought you knew what you meant to me. That you’ve been the daughter I never had. That …” His arms trembled, his chest quaked with pent-up fury.
He fired his gaze at Cameron. “And you. You gambled with my niece—”
Gentry shook her head. “That’s not how it was.”
He burned holes through Cameron’s face. “What kind of man pretends to care for a woman he’s willing to lose?”
“Uncle R—”
“Stop, Gentry.” Cameron put a hand to her arm. “Let him have his say.”
Hard breaths hammered Rob’s chest. “Her life wasn’t yours to risk.”
Cameron nodded. “You’re right.”
“It was my decision.” Gentry’s voice pleaded, but there was an edge to it, an edge he knew too well. Her decision to stretch for that pinnacle, to leap that crevice, scale that face. It was in her to do what she’d done, but he’d waited helplessly while she did it.
For the first time he hadn’t been there at the other end of the rope. It wasn’t his encouragement making her strong. She was drawing from her own depths. And God’s.
“I’m sorry I frightened you, Uncle Rob, but I could not let someone else be hurt because of me.” Guilt spoke, but only faintly. When Gentry mapped her course, she held it. She had risked herself in place of a woman she hardly knew, but that was the spirit that would carry her forward while he fell farther and farther behind. That, not anger, was breaking his heart, and he wondered what—if anything—could ever make it whole again.
Allegra shook with disgust. Flimsy, narrow walls closed her in, the filthy curtain over the small aluminum window admitting a dingy moonlight. Packed into the tiny space, the smell of her brothers’ and sisters’ sweaty bodies filled the discarded air she breathed. Not enough to go around. Never enough.
Squalid. She’d learned that word and applied it.
Ignorant. That applied to the rest of them. Not her. No matter how many times they told her she was stupid. She knew things they couldn’t begin to grasp. Daddy said she was trash and she’d always be trash, but she knew better. She was different. She dared to dream.
Allegra shuddered into wakefulness out of the illusions of Allison Carter, with her cracker accent, her filth and rags. With everything she’d learned, studied, and perfected, every step she’d taken, every goal accomplished, she’d buried that girl and created Allegra Delaney.
Perfect, well-bred Allegra. But inside, she was still trash.
In the hall outside Rob’s hospital room,
Cameron breathed in the antiseptic air and expelled his tension. He’d ridden the emotional roller coaster since waking with Gentry in his arms; Myra’s call, surfing, Bette. Then Malakua’s threats, the gut-aching fear for Nica and Gentry.
