Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) (25 page)

As Jack hurried through the kitchen, Lalei appeared in the doorway, her face pale. “What’s wrong?”

Jack didn’t stop to answer, dodging out back and up the wide steps to the driveway, where Malu had Melia in the front seat of the truck, lying back with her eyes closed while Leilani watched, her face worried.

“Mahalo,” Malu said, grabbing his wallet and the shoes. He leapt into the driver’s seat of the big truck and revved the engine.

“What can I do?” Jack asked, feeling helpless. “You want me to call ahead?”

“Leilani can do that,” Malu answered, his deep voice louder than usual. He stabbed his finger at Jack, his dark gaze fierce. “Jack, you go up the mountain. And take Lalei with you. I can’t explain, just go!”

Jack nodded, but he scratched his head as Malu’s truck roared away up the mountain into the sun. Take Lalei—what the hell?

“Melia be okay,” Leilani said as she poked buttons on her cell phone. “Da hospital in Kona is ono.” But she sounded as if she was trying to convince herself more than him.

“What’s going on?” Lalei ran out of the house. “Is it the baby?”

“We don’t know,” Jack said. “Melia’s sick.”

“Oh no.” Lalei hugged her arms around her middle. “Should we follow them in?”

“No,” Jack said, scowling. “You and I have something else to do.” He looked down at himself. “After I change.” He wasn’t wearing his dress clothes to chase ornery contractors.

“You and me? Where are we going?”

“Up the mountain.” He filled her in as they walked back into the kitchen. “I’m not sure why Malu wanted you to go. You don’t have to.”

She scowled up at him. “Yes, I do.”

He shrugged. “All right, then. I’ll meet you back out here. We’ll take Melia’s SUV.”

She hurried away, and Jack turned. This day was going from bad to worse in one hell of a hurry.

The liquor cabinet called to him. Opening it, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey. Then he stopped. He’d already had a few drinks. He could have another later.

In the garage, better than the gleaming SUV in the garage was the shiny yellow four-wheeler parked in the corner. Jack grinned to himself. Hell, yeah, this baby would take them up the road, and if they wanted to dive off into the meadows, they could do that too. His sunglasses on, his last clean T-shirt over his shorts, Jack revved up the powerful vehicle and wheeled it out onto the driveway.

Lalei was clearly not impressed. She set her hands on her hips, shaking her head.

“I’m going,” Jack told her. “If you’re coming, get on.”

She muttered something about big toys for big boys, but she swung on behind him, scooting close and hanging on to his waist. Jack revved the engine, navigated the turn and revved the motor to take the long hill up to the highway.

“Why are we going back here?” she called in his ear. Jack winced. He could hear her plenty well over the engine roaring between his legs.

“Work crews are back,” he yelled over his shoulder as he negotiated a hairpin turn in the drive. “They’ve got more equipment, like they’re ready to work.”

The wind gusted suddenly, hard enough that Jack half felt as if it was carrying them up the mountain. Dark clouds scudded along the meadows just overhead, and the sunlight was gone, hidden in clouds gathering from the ocean side. Jack squinted as the wind whipped up loose bits of soil, grass and leaves.

“Whoa, you okay?” he hollered over his shoulder, slowing as they neared the highway. If they were going to have another one of those freaky storms, he wasn’t risking her.

“I’m fine,” she yelled into his ear. “Go!”

Chapter Fourteen

Lalei not only didn’t want to be clinging to Jack’s broad back after hours of being ignored, she had no desire to return to the scene of her destructive activities. She didn’t view it as a crime, exactly, since the damn developers weren’t supposed to be on her family’s mountain anyway. But still, she’d done something horrific here, beyond her imaginings. She needed time to process. Instead, she was being thrust back into the storm center. And Jack’s news brought back all her turbulent emotions. The fact that he smelled like a brewery didn’t help. She wondered if he should be driving even the four-wheeler.

To her initial relief, the damaged Caterpillar was gone. But as they reached their destination, she sat up straight, her unease blown away by fury, for it had been replaced. This time with even bigger equipment. Three huge pieces of earthmoving equipment sat parked on the hillside, crouched in the grass like monolithic predators, just waiting for their chance to gouge bites from the peaceful mountainside.

Two pickup trucks were parked on the turnout as well. Two men stood before them, holding a large rolled-out document between them and gesturing at the hillside below. Another pair, wearing hard hats, stood waiting. Below, four, no five more hard-hatted men toiled, unfastening bundles of flagged stakes to replace the charred heap nearby.

Jack stopped at the edge of the turnout, watching the activity.

“What’s that they’re studying?” she demanded.

“A plat map,” he said absently. “Plan for the property. Listen, let me do the talking, okay? You just listen.”

She wanted to smack him. “Who do you think you’re talking to, moke? I’m not some empty-headed bimbo.”

He grimaced at her in disbelief over his broad shoulder. “A bimbo? Where the hell you come up with this shit? Baby, what you are is a class-five storm, ready to blow. I don’t want you getting all pissed off, Hawaiian-warrior-queen style, and telling these guys which cliff to leap off of. They’re just…minions.” He gestured vaguely.

“Warrior queen?” she repeated, staring at him. That was how he saw her? Warmth blossomed inside her, calming the howling winds of anger.

And besides—she stared down the slope at the men and the equipment, and her heart thumped with terror and exhilaration. Jack had no idea how true his words were. She
was
a Hawaiian storm, ready to blow, the likes of which these men had never seen. Had Pele revealed her powers just in time to protect her mountain from their depredations?

She couldn’t let Jack suspect anything. “Sure. You do the talking,” she agreed sweetly.

His look changed to suspicion, but he shook his head and revved the engine.

Lalei expected Jack to stop some distance away, but he drove the four-wheeler onto the edge of the turnout toward the four men. Lalei grabbed his shirt, afraid he was going to run them over, but he stopped a foot away.

Jack cut the motor, and one of the hard hats turned, surveying them through amber safety glasses. He was big and beefy, with curly black hair under his hat. Part Hawaiian, Lalei guessed. “Listen, folks, this is a worksite. You gotta leave. Whole mountainside to play on.”

“We’re not tourists,” Jack shot back.

The two men with the map paused and then turned to Lalei and Jack. The smaller of them, a haole with glossy brown hair who reminded Lalei of Benton with his aura of self-satisfaction, spoke. “Then who are you?”

“Jus’ gonna ask you the same question,” Jack said pleasantly.

The larger man, who still held the map, shook his head, the late sun shining off his bald skull. “No, you’re on our property here, bud. That means we ask the questions.”

“I’m Jack Nord, WorldWide Realty. And according to my company’s records, you’re on someone else’s property.”

“WorldWide?” the bald man asked, clearly taken aback.

“Yup,” Jack said genially. “And I’m guessing you’re from TropicSun.”

“Oh Christ.” Glossy Hair beckoned one of the hard hats with a jerk of his head. “They’re just indignant locals. Get rid of them.”

Lalei had already figured out the two large, hard-hatted men were “muscle”, as Daniel would say. As they started forward, she watched, aghast. Jack was big and strong, but there was only one of him.

Oh God, if only Daniel was here or David. Daniel was scary, but David could truly do some damage here on the mountain, even summon Pele to awaken her mountain. He’d shake these fools right off into a crevasse of molten lava.

But he wasn’t here. She reacted almost without thinking. Standing up behind Jack, she tossed her head, letting the wind catch her hair so it lifted in a flirtatious banner. She gave the four men her best Ms. Hawaii pageant smile. The short man started to grin, his eyes all over her. Lalei lifted her phone and snapped two quick photos of them and poked a few buttons on the phone.

“Mahalo,” she said sweetly. “Just sent that my cousin Sam. He’s the assistant police chief of Hawaii county.” He was also her third cousin twice removed and hadn’t seen her since she was in college, but they didn’t need to know that.

Glossy Hair’s smile disappeared, but he held up his hand, and his two enforcers stopped, eyeing Lalei and Jack. “Thanks for the photo,” he said with mock graciousness. “Now, you have exactly two minutes to get your wheels and your asses off our property, or we will put you off.”

“I don’t think so, Harland,” Jack said. Lalei watched the man’s face change, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Yeah, Mike, we’ve met, when you were up before the California real estate commission a couple of years ago. Falsifying loan applications.”

The smaller man’s face flushed dark red. “That was never proven, and you know it.”

“What can I say? I’m a good Realtor.” Jack smiled. “I never forget a face.”

“Get them the fuck off of this road,” Harland spat. Lalei shuddered with revulsion. His eyes were full of hate as he stared at Jack.

As one of the hard hats moved again, Jack revved the motor of the four-wheeler, and the men hesitated.

“We’re leaving,” Jack said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t start up any of that equipment. This time, they’ll throw away the key, Harland, and you’ll be in a barbed-wire resort at the taxpayers’ expense.”

Harland sneered. “This equipment is starting up tomorrow morning, Nord, and there’s not a damn thing you or your Hawaiian friends can do about it. TropicSun is a powerful force. You don’t wanna mess with us.”

Jack’s body hardened and tensed as if he were about to leap off of the four-wheeler. Terrified he would do something stupid and get himself hurt, Lalei sucked in a deep breath and yanked power from the clouds.

Wind howled down across the turnout, ripping the map from the bald man’s hands. He was pulled forward, eyes wide, as the map caught the wind like a sail. He lost his footing and fell over the side of the turnoff, the map flying up into the air, separating into sheets that Lalei shoved away, down across the mountain.

The smaller Harland reeled against a nearby pickup truck, banging his head. The big Hawaiian grabbed at his hard hat, while his compatriot’s was jerked off and sailed away, rolling down the slope.

“Hang on,” Jack yelled, backing the four-wheeler around in a tight semicircle. “We’re heading for cover.”

That was all right with her. Lalei hung on to Jack, breathing hard, suddenly exhausted as they zoomed back down the mountain road for Nawea.

“Slow down,” she yelled at Jack, realizing the dark mountainside was whipping by at an alarming speed. “You’re going too fast.”

“We’re fine,” he hollered back, but he let off the accelerator.

Lalei slumped against his broad back. She couldn’t believe she’d done that. She had controlled her power this time. No one had gotten hurt, unless you counted those two fools tumbling around like bowling pins. She didn’t.

She peered through her flying hair at the sky, clenching her jaw with resolve. It was already evening. David was at the hospital. If he got back by dark, fine. But if he didn’t, it was up to her.

There was going to be a storm tonight above Nawea, if she had to use every last bit of her strength to create it. She might not understand the details of the legal battle they said would happen, but she could do her part.

Jack stopped the RV in the driveway with a sudden lurch that slammed Lalei’s nose into the hard ridge of his backbone. She recoiled with cry of pain. His shoulders shook, and she realized he was laughing.

“Yee-haw. Nearly bucked you off, didn’t I?”

“
Hūpō
,” she retorted, raw from the whole encounter. “If you had, you’d be wearing your ass pulled over your head, haole boy.” She scrambled off the RV and hurried away.

“Lalei Kai,” he called after her. “Such language. Does your mother know you talk that way?”

By the time Jack had parked the RV, Lalei was already on the phone on the lanai, so Jack lingered a moment. She clicked her phone shut and leaned her head against the high back of her chair, rubbing her forehead as if it ached. “No news yet. The doctors are running some tests.”

“I’m going in to the hospital,” he decided. “You want to come?”

She shook her head, eyes closed, her thick lashes a dark fan on her cheeks. “No thanks. I have…things to do here.”

“O-kay.” He couldn’t imagine what would be more important than standing by her cousin’s wife at a time like this. “I’ll see you later, then.”

She opened her eyes, frowning up at him. “Jack…maybe you shouldn’t be driving anymore. You were reckless with the four-wheeler. How much have you had to drink?”

Heat burned up his throat. He hid it behind a snort of derision. “I got you back here in one piece, didn’t I? Geez, give me a break.”