Burning up the Rain (Hawaiian Heroes) (6 page)

“You want me to punch that guy for you?” It was Zane, moving to stand in front of her, glaring over her shoulder at Benton. “I saw him manhandling you.”

Lalei caught his arm. He was tense, ready to move. “No,” she said quickly. “Really, Zane, it’s okay. I can handle him.”

He shook his head, for a moment as dangerous as his older cousins. “You sure?”

Lalei held on to him. She couldn’t let Zane get involved in an altercation at Daniel’s wedding, especially not with Benton. Benton was the kind who would come after Zane with lawyers—not that anyone else here would corroborate any story he came up with. Except possibly her mother.

“I’m sure,” she said. “Now come on, let’s go watch Daniel get married, yeah?”

As she’d been taught, Lalei smoothed her expression, curving her lips up and holding her shoulders back as if everything was fine and dandy in her world. With Zane at her side, she sauntered right past her mother to the other end of the group of chairs and slipped into an empty chair beside her cousin.

“Big D’s actually gonna do it.” Zane flashed a trademark Ho’omalu smile.

She smiled back, denying the chaos tumbling inside her. She was among her ohana, and she’d figure something out. She must.

Chapter Four

The dining table gone, a double row of chairs had been assembled on the beach lanai, facing the beach and the sunset, which was now glorious, the sun sinking into a puffy mass of clouds on the western sea. Shot through with every hue deepest pink to pale orange, the colors reflected in the calm sea. As Lalei sat down, the clouds overhead seemed to lighten and disperse.

In the row ahead, Tina Ho’omalu and Claire’s mother both breathed audible sighs of relief. Daniel walked onto the beach to join the pastor, a massive figure framed by his native sea. His tattooed face was solemn, but he glanced at his mother and winked.

To one side, Frank perched on a stool, his ukulele in hand. He began to play a simple tune, the mellow notes drifting on the evening air.

Claire walked onto the beach from the other direction to join him. The pastor held up his hands. “Please rise.”

He led them in a simple prayer and then nodded at the bride and groom. “Daniel and Claire, you have written your own vows, so please say them now.”

Lalei listened to the simple words the two had written, expressing how much they loved one another and how they were completed by their union. A dull ache pressed against the backs of her eyes, and she blinked hard. Stupid to be so affected by the way the two gazed at each other. But would she ever feel such raw emotion again?

She’d been in love just out of college, for a few glorious months. Until she discovered her fiancé wanted her for her connections. When she confronted him at their country club engagement party with evidence that he was having a torrid affair with the wife of one of her father’s former partners, he’d laughed. Laughed and assured her he’d keep his affairs discreet when they were married. She thrown his ring in his face and told her mother she couldn’t marry a man who expected her to keep quiet while he slept with every woman in Honolulu.

Suzy had been as heartbroken as Lalei herself. “Oh, it would have been such a good marriage for you,” Suzy had wailed. “He will make partner in his firm soon.”

“I don’t care if he makes CEO,” Lalei had choked. “I hope he gets demoted to janitor. I hope he gets a venereal disease from that slut. I hope I never see him again.”

“Well,” Suzy had sighed, ever the pragmatist. “We’ll have to act fast. Otherwise, he may try to make it appear that he left you. That will never do—we certainly don’t want anyone wondering what’s wrong with you.”

The next day Suzy proceeded to her scheduled luncheon date, where she “confided” regretfully that the wedding was off, as she simply couldn’t allow her daughter to marry a man who frequented the Black Scorpion. The downtown Honolulu club was known to be an exclusive members-only venue, where women would whip a man or perform any other perversion he needed to become aroused. That might be fine in many circles but
not
the Oahu country club set.

Lalei smiled to herself wryly. She still couldn’t believe Suzy had done that. It had worked too—Lalei’s ex-fiancé left the islands within a few months, bound for somewhere no one had heard the rumors. Sometimes Suzy was the best of mothers.

But then she spoiled it with weekends like this.

As Daniel and Claire finished their vows, the pastor beamed. “I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The sun shot through the last gap in the clouds, illumining the sea in a sheet of molten silver. And just off the reef, a sleek silver shape shot out of the water, then another, and another in graceful arcs and spins, until the sea off Nawea was a ballet of rocketing silver shapes as the
nai’a,
the spinner dolphins, danced.

Gasps filled the air. Claire’s mother pointed, her lips parted in awe. Lalei’s uncle Hilo laughed, a joyous rollicking sound, and everyone rose, applauding spontaneously. The bride and groom watched the show, arms around each other. Zane gave Lalei a hug, and she hugged him back, her heart warmed.

This truly was a magical place, and she was a Ho’omalu. She’d figure something out. She had to.

Jack watched Daniel kiss his bride, a hot clinch that lasted until Claire was flushed and breathless, her eyes shining as she gazed up into her groom’s face. He was happy for his friend and for the great girl he’d found to share his life.

But as the group dispersed, trailing from their seats to congratulate the happy couple and then pose for pictures, he shifted away to the outskirts of the group. He wasn’t part of this family, just a friend. And unlike Gabe, he didn’t have a woman on his arm to smile mistily up at him and remember their own wedding.

He backed away from the periphery of a shot of the bride and groom and their parents. He wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or the woman he bumped shoulders with.

Lalei Kai merely flicked him a glance, but this close, her lovely face was stormy.

“You okay?” he asked.

She shrugged. They stood for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, watching as the bridal party smiled for the camera.

“You were upset earlier,” he murmured.

She snorted delicately, crossing her arms, but for some reason she didn’t move away from him. Her skin might be cool, but he could feel every brush of her arm, sending heat streaking through him like lightning. Her skin was as soft as a plumeria petal. “You could say that.”

“Yeah. I figured me punching Choy wasn’t the best move, considering we’re at your cousin’s wedding.”

She was silent for a moment. “So that’s why you—I thought you were being sarcastic.”

He snorted. “Yeah, thanks. I could see you didn’t like what he was doing, but like I said, I didn’t want to cause a scene. Who is he to you, anyway?”

“Benton? He’s no one. No one important.” Her face closed up like a bloom in the dusk.

And with that, she walked away. Leaving Jack baffled, aroused and irritated. And wondering why he wished she’d stayed beside him.

“It’s okay, you can thank me later,” he said to her back. Shaking his head, he went to find another drink.

Lalei glared after him. Big, arrogant haole. Who did he think he was, expecting her to thank him, like he’d ridden up on his horse and rescued her?

She stopped in her tracks.
Rescued her.

She watched him head straight to the tiki bar set up on the edge of the beach lanai and accept a mai tai from the bartender. As he lifted the glass and tipped back his head to drink, his throat worked, the last rays of sun gleaming on his smooth, tanned skin. Damn, he was six-feet plus of man candy, even if he wasn’t Hawaiian. In fact, she bit back a nervous giggle—he really did resemble the stalwart knight in the princess video she’d loved when she was a little girl.

Rescue her. The idea that sprang into her mind was so daring, so horrible, so freaking brilliant she knew she had to follow through with it.

Jack was going to rescue her, all right. And he wouldn’t even know he was doing it. No one would, until it was too late. The knight in her picture book had slain a dragon. Surely Jack could handle one shark in businessman’s clothing.

Besides, he wouldn’t really have to handle Benton at all. Just her.

Focused on Jack, she didn’t see her mother until it was too late. Suzy’s thin hand closed on Lalei’s arm in a grip that dug her nails into Lalei’s arm. “Come along, young lady. You and I are going to have a talk.”

Oh boy, she was in for it now. Suzy must have seen her fending off Benton’s big romantic move. Lalei walked with her mother up the lawn, away from the Ho’omalus clustered on the lanai, laughing and chatting.

“Ow,” she protested as Suzy dragged her toward the open door of the sitting room. “I’m coming, Mama. You don’t have to—”

“Be quiet,” Suzy snapped. Inside the quiet room lit by a single lamp, she released Lalei’s arm and turned on her. Lalei rubbed her arm resentfully. She could feel the marks where Suzy’s nails had dug into her skin.

“You are ruining everything,” Suzy hissed, leaning toward her daughter, shaking with intensity. Her eyes were feverishly bright. “Everything I have worked so hard for—it will all be gone unless you stop this foolishness.”

Lalei stared at her. That hurt more than the marks of her mother’s nails in her skin. “
I’m
ruining everything? Mama, I told you I would try…but I just don’t like Benton. I can’t stand him touching me.” She shuddered, remembering Benton’s tongue in her mouth.

“I don’t care,” Suzy snapped. “Don’t you understand? You have to marry him, Lalei. You have to.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Lalei shot back, giving her mother look for look. “I’m a grown woman. I’m sorry things aren’t going your way, but I have a job, and I can make my own way. Maybe you should try getting a job yourself. Then you wouldn’t have to suck up to people like Benton.” Suzy had never worked a day in her life, other than volunteering with the ladies at the country club.

Suzy’s hand cracked against Lalei’s cheek, spinning her head to one side. Lalei slowly turned back to her mother, her mind blank with shock. Suzy faced her, and Lalei saw the same shocked confusion that must be on her own face. But hers was underlain with a deep, hot ball of hurt that matched the sting in her cheek.

“Oh, Lalei, I—” Suzy reached for her, and Lalei stumbled back, one hand to her cheek. That was it—the last straw. Her mother cared more about herself and her status than about Lalei.

“You want Benton?” Lalei choked. “Then you take him. Because I never will.”

She turned and ran from the room, ignoring the plea in her mother’s voice as Suzy called her name.

After that, it was really only a matter of making sure all the pieces of her plan were in place.

One, ignore Suzy tapping on her door with whispered pleas to let her in.

Two, refuse to cry like a keiki because her mother had finally tipped the balance in their relationship to the point that Lalei was willing to take any action necessary to put a stop to Suzy’s manipulations.

Three, take a quick shower and slip into her most beguiling sleepwear.

Four, wait for her knight to return to his room.

And five, convince him to rescue her.

Before she could lose her nerve, Lalei rapped on the door of her quarry’s guest room. For a moment, she heard nothing, and she bit her lip uncertainly. She knew he was in there; she’d watched him from her own room as he sauntered across the lanai, then heard his footsteps in the hall and the sound of his door thudding closed.

Finally the door opened to reveal Jack. He wore a pair of turquoise gym shorts and a sleepy expression. His smooth skin gleamed in the lamplight; his blond hair was tousled and damp with perspiration.

Hawaiian music drifted in the open windows from the beach lanai. The light curtains blew in the night breeze, shadows patterning the sisal floor mats and the pineapple quilt on the bed.

Jack’s blue eyes narrowed, the sleepiness gone. “What do you want?”

Lalei stepped forward. He fell back a few steps like the gentleman he was, letting her shut the door behind her and enclose them in his room.

“I want to use you for a little mindless sex,” she said, giving him look for look. “Any objections?”

He arched one heavy brow. In the muted light, his eyes were shadowed, mysterious. Lalei held her breath. Would he refuse her? Humiliate her by turning her away?

But one side of his beautiful, sculpted mouth kicked up, his cheek creasing with a dimple. “Objections? Oh, hell no. I could use a good post-celebration fuck myself, Ms.
Lah
-lei.” He drawled out her name, exaggerating the Hawaiian pronunciation.

She nodded, pretending that her heart was not thundering in her chest, her hands sweating and her knees wobbling like guava jelly. “Good.”

“I didn’t know you liked me,” he said, the mocking note stronger. He lifted the small towel he held and swiped off his face and neck, giving her a glinting look over the blue fabric. So that wasn’t sweat—he’d been washing. His short, sun-streaked blond hair clung to his well-shaped head, except for one lock that curved up like a question mark over his forehead.