Walking in Fire: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 1 (27 page)

He was so sweet she’d be ungracious to refuse. She’d better watch it, though, or she’d be doing everything he wanted. Then she shook her head. Nope, even with that melting look of his, not gonna happen. She was still her own woman, and he’d probably always piss her off royally once in a while.

Melia found a few dresses she liked, but Malu shook his head at her choices.

“This one has to be red,” he said. “Please?”

“Okay,” she agreed, eyeing his smile curiously.

She tried on a dress of soft, sueded red silk that hung from two narrow straps, clinging to her upper body and then flaring at the hips into a swingy little skirt. Modeling it on for Malu, she pressed her hand to her flat belly and frowned into the mirror.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. “You look sexy and gorgeous in that.”

“It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever had on,” she admitted. “But…it may only fit for another few months.” She looked around to make sure the clerk was out of earshot. “It’s too expensive for that.”

“Nah.” He winked at her. “When you’re as round as a melon, I’ll buy you another that does fit. And take it off of you, the way I’m gonna do with this one later. Now go change, because I wanna buy you some little fuck-me shoes to go with it.”

“Malu!” Meeting the wide eyes of the clerk just behind him, Melia whirled, retreating into the dressing room. Her face was deep pink in the changing-room mirror.

She let him go alone to the counter to pay for the dress. She couldn’t face that clerk. But when she peeked back into the shop, the clerk was smiling up at him in a familiar way, as if he’d bewitched her. Melia indulged in a moment of self-doubt. How could she hope to hold him, when he could have any woman he wanted? Then he emerged from the shop, his head swiveling until he found her. He smiled at her, relaxing visibly, and held out his hand.

“You certainly charmed that clerk,” she grumbled.

“Only because I want you to be able to shop there without being embarrassed,” he said, and she melted, smiling ruefully.

The dress swathed in a garment bag and swinging over his shoulder, they walked across the courtyard to a shoe store.

“Do not,” she said sternly, poking him in his hard midriff, “say anything dirty.”

He shook his head meekly. He watched her try on a few pairs of shoes, but frowned in disapproval until she slipped on a pair of strappy platform sandals in red.

“Those,” he pronounced.

Melia turned her foot, looking down at them critically. They did look nice on her and had a wedge heel that wouldn’t be too difficult to walk in.

“Okay. I’ll take these,” she said. “But I really need a pedicure.” A manicure too. Her nails looked awful. She remembered how they’d gotten that way, scrambling across the lava flow to get to him, and took a deep breath. Apparently, Pele saved bodies but didn’t do nails.

“All right. Call me when you’re done, and I’ll pick you up.” Malu gave her a kiss that quickly turned hot and lengthy, and then strolled away, the feminine shopping bags hanging from his big hands. She watched female heads turn as he walked by, witnessed his lack of interest in them, and smiled, scrunching her shoulders with pleasure. Day-uhm, he was hot, and he was hers.

The nail shop on the walking mall had an opening, and Melia settled into a comfortable chair and let herself be pampered for a while.

Malu met her in front of the resort shops and admired her nails, now a soft shade of pearl, her skin silky from buffing and lotioning.

“Now can we go walk along the waterfront?” she asked. She wanted to do normal things with him, like the other people strolling and chatting around them. Activities to chase away the grim memories that threatened at odd moments.

“Mm-hmm,” he said, clearly not listening. “Let’s go in here first.”

“Here” was a jewelry shop. Her hand in his, Melia followed Malu inside, where a beaming clerk greeted them. In a moment, she found herself standing before a mind-boggling display of necklaces.

“We want something to go with her dress,” Malu said. He picked up a fine platinum chain hung with a single creamy pearl the size of her fingernail. “How about this? You like pearls, yeah?”

Her eyes widened. “Huh…” she uttered intelligently.

“We’ll take it,” he said.

“Very good, sir,” said the clerk. “Shall I box it for you? It comes in a velvet case.”

“No, she’ll wear it. Any bracelets that would go with it?”

Moments later, Melia followed him out onto the street. When he stopped, she bumped into him. He jiggled her hand. “Hey, pua, quit staring at the pearls and watch where you’re going, yeah?”

Melia jerked her gaze up from the rope of entwined pearls on her right wrist. She reached up for the tenth time and touched the pearl lying just below her collarbone.

“What?” she asked. Then she blushed as it registered that he was grinning at her. “Sorry. But you can’t shower me with beautiful things and expect me to pay attention to plain, ordinary you.”

“I’ll think of some way to get your attention when the time comes,” he promised. “Ready for lunch? There’s a great little café on the sea wall in Kona town. Then we’re going home for a nap.”

“A nap?” she asked incredulously. “We slept late.”

“After I’m through with you, you’re gonna need another one,” he promised.

She did.

That evening, clad in her new dress, shoes and pearls, Melia sat beside Malu in his favorite vehicle, which she was amused to see was a shiny, black four-wheel drive pickup, as they drove to his parents’ home, farther up the same winding drive. She gazed in awe at the view, which changed as the road wound around the curve of the mountain to the southwest. Now she could see the black scar of the lava flow more clearly and also the full view of the mountainside sweeping away to the southern headland of the island.

“That’s Kau forest out on the point,” Malu told her, braking the big truck to a stop on a curve. The engine rumbled quietly as he leaned over to point through her open window. “Nawea Bay is just below there. We’ll go back there and spend some time, just us.”

“I’d like that,” she said, her heart swelling as she looked up at him. “I want to lie on the beach with you and snorkel in the bay. And I want to find that eel again. And I never got to see any
honu
, sea turtles.”

“We’ll do all that and more,” he promised her, leaning over to kiss her. His mouth was hot and tender. She lifted her hand to his cheek, holding him there as they both deepened the kiss. At last he drew back, his breathing rough.

“We better keep driving,” he told her, his gaze traveling down over her body outlined in the red dress. “Or I'll have to pull over and show you how these seats fold down.”

“Hmm. Maybe another time?” she asked demurely.

“Oh, believe it, wahine.”

The older Ho’omalus’ home was a rambling stone-and-wood house with a huge driveway and blooming trees and shrubs clustered gracefully on the lawns.

Her hand tucked in his, Melia followed David around the house on a wide, stone lanai to a huge backyard full of people. There were tables set up under awnings at one end of the lanai, and a long built-in stone counter loaded with food and drinks.

She knew she looked her best—David Ho’omalu really
was
better than a spa day—but still Melia clung to his hand, feeling like an interloper as he walked her around, introducing her to his cousins and uncles and aunts, most of them attractive, golden-skinned Hawaiians. There were, she was relieved to see, a few other haoles in the group, and one woman who looked Asian. And there were children, from a chubby toddler to coltish teenagers. Everyone was checking her out, obviously curious, but Malu simply waved and continued on across the lawn.

His father, Homu, a huge, silver-haired man, stood by a rock-walled enclosure that emitted wafts of steam and smoke as two younger men bent over it, shoveling out strange, charred bundles. The imu, or underground oven, disgorging the cooked food for the luau. Homu turned to greet them, and his flashing smile was so like Malu’s that Melia relaxed immediately.

“Welcome, Melia,” he said gently. “Aloha.” He and Malu hugged each other, and somehow Melia found herself included.

His mother, of whom she was the most terrified, because what Hawaiian mother would want to share Malu with a freckle-faced blonde from Wenatchee, came out of the house carrying a huge platter of fruit, which she handed off to a younger woman, and then looked Melia over with Malu’s eyes. She was tall and stately, wearing a flowered dress, her black hair streaked with silver, caught up in an elegant chignon with a plumeria blossom.

Tina Ho’omalu smiled and held out her arms to Melia, gathering her into a soft hug.

“So this is the wahine who save my wild boy,” she said. “Welcome, Melia. Mahalo.”

As if the party had been holding its breath, a ukulele began to strum, someone laughed, and two children ran by giggling.

Her heart full, Melia returned the hug. She returned to Malu’s side and accepted the glass of punch someone handed her. He took it smoothly out of her hand.

“Hey, careful,” he warned her, grinning. “That’s my cousin Lalei’s punch. Knock you on your pretty ass. You better stick to pineapple juice.”

She nodded. She’d forgotten about the no-alcohol rule. Her hand went protectively to her belly, and they looked at each other. He leaned down to kiss her. “Gonna be okay, pua. Now come and meet my grandparents, and then I’ll introduce you to some of the other wives.”

His grandparents, both dark skinned and silver haired, shrunken by the years, held court in rattan chairs in the shade of the lanai. A chubby baby slept on his grandmother’s lap, and his grandfather held a dark-haired little boy, helping him play with a wooden toy.

They smiled at Melia. “You must bring her to visit us soon,” his grandmother said. Malu promised he would and took her away to meet other family members. Soon her head was whirling with names, faces and promises to come to lunch or supper or a luau.

“Hey,” someone called. “Everybody, time for hula!”

The grandparents were given the best seats, front and center. Melia was drawn to a seat near them, between Tina and her sister Noelani, a shorter, plumper version of Tina with twinkling eyes, who turned out to be married to Malu’s uncle Hilo.

“Now you’re in for a treat,” said Noelani. “Nobody hula like the Ho’omalus.”

Melia looked around for Malu, who had disappeared along with several of the younger men and women. He must be getting a drink or helping with something.

Homu, Hilo and two other men whose names Melia had forgotten brought out drums and ukuleles and, after talking quietly for a few moments, began to play a fast-paced melody that had Melia moving in her chair.

She smiled with delight as several of the younger women and two of the girls came dancing out of the shade of the lanai. They wore flaring green-and-yellow flowered skirts over what looked like green leotard tops, with crowns and bracelets of green leaves and flower leis. One of the women, Zoe, married to a cousin, turned, and Melia realized she was pregnant, but she still danced with complete grace.

“This
auana
hula,” Tina explained as the dancers shimmied their way to the center of the back lawn, facing the spectators. They moved gracefully to the music, their hands like birds, hips rolling in a motion that was at once dignified and frankly sensual. “Modern hula, with music. Here the dancers show the trees and flowers of our forest,
he nani
—so beautiful.”

Melia nodded, watching as the hula continued, the dancers spinning and swaying in a pattern that took them back and forth.

Then the music changed, joined by a loud, rhythmic clack of sticks.

“Pele think the islanders too comfortable. She will remind them of her power,” Tina went on with a mysterious little smile. “She send her a’a, hot lava, down through the forest, causing destruction and fear.”

Melia gasped as a male dancer appeared. Wearing only a voluminous breechcloth of red, with yellow feathers crowning his head and wrists, he burst into the “forest”, dancing with fierce stomping movements, the sticks in his hands clacking. It was Malu! He was followed by two of his cousins, teenagers who danced with grace and discipline, but Melia had eyes only for him.

Throwing their hands heavenward, the women twirled, retreating before Pele’s fire, and the men took center stage. With one quick flashing smile at Melia, which thudded solidly in her heart and settled there like a sweet flame, Malu led the dance.

One moment he was squatting, throwing his legs out before him in a show of power and strength; the next, he was on his feet, leading the younger boys through the forest, chasing the graceful trees. At times, the movements of their hips were suggestive of sheer male sexuality. Whew. No wonder Malu was so open, so frank about his desires. He’d been taught to be so by his native culture.

The dance continued, Melia on the edge of her chair. Malu was the personification of Hawaiian male power and grace.

“Ah, but now the people pray to Kanaloa,” Noelani said, poking Melia slyly on her arm. “And he sends the sea rushing in to chase Pele’s fire away.”

A horn sounded, long and loud. One of the cousins, clad in blue breechcloth, with a sand-hued leaf crown and bracelets, blowing a conch shell. The female dancers turned on Malu and his followers, no longer retreating, but taunting with quick, graceful movements of their arms and hands.