Chapter 1
Eli jolted awake, choking on a scream. His heart smacked hard against his chest as he drew in huge gulps of air. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying his best to scrape away the cobwebs of the nightmare. It didn’t diminish the taste of bile in his mouth, or his need for a cigarette, although, he’d quit smoking five years earlier.
He opened his eyes and stared at his ceiling. The fucking nightmares were back and they were worse than before. It was always that same scene. Worse, each night it grew more vivid. He could blame it on all kinds of things, but he knew without a doubt why they’d returned.
Damn Joe for dying on him, the old bastard.
With a sigh, Eli slipped out of bed and headed to his bathroom. It was a long walk, he thought. His room was big enough for a family of five. Joe had insisted on it. Eli had said all he needed was a bed and a bathroom to use, but Joe wouldn’t hear of it. The California king bed looked small in the middle of the room. The sitting room Eli had scoffed at now had a comfortable loveseat and a table covered with books he’d been reading.
For a guy who grew up in Australia’s foster system, and who barely made it out of SARS, this was one damned wonderful way to end up. He turned on the cold water and splashed his face. The last bits of the nightmare dissolved, almost forgotten.
As he dried his face off, his mind returned to the nightmares. They’d resumed when Joe had been transferred to Queen’s Medical on Oahu a few months earlier. When Joe’s health had deteriorated, the dreams had intensified. Eli knew a psychologist would have a field day with it, but he didn’t have time for that. The Millers were arriving today, and there was a memorial service to conduct.
He turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat. He told Joe when they built the house they should have put in those heated pipes, but the man had said Eli needed time to contemplate his problems. Waiting for the shower to heat was a good way of doing that according to Joe.
The thought had Eli’s lips curving—although it hurt. It was hard to think Eli would never have another conversation with Joe...that he would never get to argue about unimportant things or sit and watch the sun set over the land.
He shook himself out of his funk and decided to get on with it. He needed to keep his wits about him when dealing with Joe’s relatives. He knew they weren’t going to be happy—especially his brother Sam. Man wasn’t going to be happy when he realized that not one inch of the Big Island ranch was going to be his.
The other part of the family was a mystery. Joe had spent time with his niece and brother-in-law, but they had never come to the Big Island. Joe had always gone to the mainland to see them. The daughter was part Hawaiian and, as far as Eli knew, had never set foot on Hawaiian soil.
For haoles it was no big deal. For kama”aina, it was. Joe’s niece was Hawaiian, but not in the truest sense. The local ranching community was even more exclusive. Hell, he’d been there for years and some residents still didn’t accept him. Eli didn’t have any idea how they would take an outsider owning the ranch.
Again, he shook his thoughts away and started to get ready for the day. Joe had entrusted his ranch to him, and Eli wouldn’t let anything happen to it.
* * *
She was in Hawaii.Finally.
From the moment Crysta Miller had smelled the clean fresh Hawaiian air, she felt as if she were walking in a dream. It took them less than half an hour before they were speeding up the two-lane highway. She stared out the window of the rented car and sighed. Huge mountains shot up into the sky as green as a field of clover. The little bit of rain they had hit on the way to the ranch was now just a drizzle with the sun peeking through the clouds. Crysta thought it was perfect when she saw the rainbow. Well, perfect if Joe had been there with them.
She rubbed her hand over her chest and tried to ignore the pain. It was na?ve but Crysta had always thought Joe would live forever.
“You know the Kaheaku don’t live long, honey,” her father said. “Actually, Joe lived a pretty long life considering he was a SEAL and then worked on a ranch.”
She glanced at him. For so many years it had always been just the two of them. They both knew each other well enough to guess their train of thought. When she had been a teenager, it had been disturbing but now, in times like this, it was comforting.
“Stop being reasonable. I want to be sad,” she said, returning her gaze to the scenery outside the car.
He chuckled, then sobered. “I wish we would have made it over last year. It would have been better to see the ranch with Joe to give us a tour.”
“Yeah.” She looked at her father. “But, you know we couldn’t come. Joe understood that you were getting treatment.”
The last year and a half had been hard. Her mother had died when Crysta was only five years old. There had always been a void in her life, but there in the void had been her father. He had become her entire world. When he had been diagnosed with cancer, it had shaken her world to its very core. Logically, she knew her father wouldn’t live forever, but she hadn’t been ready to face it last year.
Now, Joe was gone. Her heart ached a little more. She hadn’t been ready to lose the larger than life uncle. When she felt her eyes start to burn again, she forced herself to think about the ranch.
“Do you know anything about this St. John?” she asked.
“Not much, just that Joe had known him for a while.”
“Someone from the military he knew?”
Her father shrugged. “Joe talked of him for years, so I’m assuming. I know he mentioned that St. John was in the military.”
“I hope he takes good care of the ranch.”
“You really think Joe would leave it to him?” her father asked.
“I think he should. From what Joe said, this St. John helped him build the ranch back up. I actually think he saw him as a sort of surrogate son.”
She left it unsaid that neither of them wanted her other uncle to get any part of the one-hundred-acre ranch. They would rather a stranger own and run it than Sam. He was one of the reasons Crysta’s mother had left and never returned to her island home all those years ago. His prejudice against her father for being black and her for being part of him, kept her from knowing her mother’s life before marriage.
“We’ll see,” was all her father would say.
She frowned and looked out the window again. Her father had been vague about his conversations with Joe those last few weeks of his life. She caught him a few times on the phone and her father would abruptly change the subject. She’d tried to get more out of him, but Hammond Miller was a typical SEAL. Damn him. Crysta had been sure the whispered conversations had been about Joe’s illness. Now, her father was still being tight-lipped.
He turned onto a dirt path that lead them to an open gate. He stopped and glanced over at her.
“Ready?”
It seemed that he was asking about more than the emotional drain of the funeral. Even thinking that, she smiled.
“Yep.”
He nodded and drove onto the land.
* * *
Eli stoodon the front lanai of the house and watched Hammond Miller park the rental car. He had offered to pick them up at the airport, but Miller had insisted that Eli had too much on his plate to handle. He watched as Miller unfolded himself from the car. Lanky and tall, Miller scanned the area. Once a SEAL always a SEAL, Eli thought. Joe had genuinely liked Miller. He had said he was a good guy, a good father and even more importantly, he had been a fine Navy officer. But, what was gaining his attention wasn’t the man…but the woman with him.
The pictures Joe had of Crysta Miller hadn’t done the woman justice. She was tall…like her father, her skin a softer shade, almost golden brown—a sure testament to her Hawaiian blood. A wealth of curly hair was tied at the nape of her neck, but a few springy tendrils had escaped. She leaned back into the car to grab her purse, giving Eli an excellent view of a world class ass. It took him a second or two to force himself to look away. It wouldn’t be a good idea to get caught ogling a SEAL’s daughter.
“Eli St. John, I presume,” Miller said as he approached Eli.
Eli pushed himself away from the post and walked down the steps. “Yes, sir.”
“Please, call me Hammond, or better yet, Ham. Neither of us are in the service anymore.”
So, Joe had told him he had been in SARS. Eli should have figured he’d do that.
“I’d like you to meet my daughter, Crysta.”
She stepped up beside her father and Eli was jolted once again when she removed her sunglasses. He had known her eyes were blue, but in person, they were much more vivid. The color stood out even more against her golden-brown skin. Full lips curved slightly in greeting.
“Ms. Miller,” he said and dipped his hat.
She laughed. “Oh, my, what a nice greeting, but just call me Crysta. I haven’t been Ms. Miller since I stopped teaching last spring.”
He nodded. “I’m sure you two would like to get settled.”
Ham smiled. “Yes. It’s a long trip from DC to here.”
“How would you know, Dad? You slept for eight hours,” Crysta said as she turned to get things out of the car and stopped. His men were already pulling things out. She hurried forward and grabbed a box. “I’ll take care of this.”
She made the mistake of smiling at Mike, one of the younger men Eli had hired recently. Mike said nothing and Eli figured it was because the kid couldn’t. There probably wasn’t any blood left in his brain.
Crysta seemed oblivious though. She returned to stand beside her father and smiled. “Ready when you are.”
* * *
Crysta steppedinto the kitchen and sighed. Lord, it was a work of art. Long counters lined each one of the walls; there was a six-burner gas stove, and an island with a separate sink and pot rack hanging over it. Joe had always said Crysta got her love of cooking from him and the kitchen proved that.
“I take it you couldn’t get rest?” Eli said. She turned and looked at him, trying her best to hide her reaction. The man was a tall drink of…well, not water. That was too bland for the delicious package of Eli St. John. He was taller than she was by a good three or four inches, had the sexy weathered look that cowboys had, and she guessed never really smiled. Why that appealed to her, she wasn’t sure. It might be that damned Aussie accent. Every time he spoke, she had to keep from sighing out loud.
“What?” she asked when he kept staring at her.
Now his mouth curved. Good God, the man was a menace. Just seeing that little smile left her dizzy.
“The kitchen, you approve?”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. Jet lag is a bitch.”
She nodded in agreement, even though she knew it had more to do with the man than the trip.
“And yes, I love the kitchen.”
She walked around and looked at the fixtures. It was evident that Joe hadn’t spared any expense. She knew it cost even more to get things over on the Big Island. Not everything was available in the islands, and she understood that most building materials were brought in.
“That’s right. You teach this kind of stuff.”
She slanted him a look, then turned her attention back to stove. She’d kill to have a professional grade stovetop at home. “I taught. I resigned last spring.”
There was a beat of silence. “Joe didn’t tell me that.”
She laughed. “I doubt all my happenings were so interesting that Joe would report them to you.”
When he said nothing, she turned to face him. Nothing. No expression. Joe had said Eli had been Special Forces and apparently, they were all the same. Her father, Joe and Eli were good at hiding their feelings.
She wanted to ask him how he was doing, but she knew it would not be welcomed. He’d built a wall and she wasn’t in the mood to scale it. “So, when is everything going on today?”
“The memorial service is in a couple of hours. We thought to do it up on the hill.”
She smiled. “Oh, Joe would have liked that.”
His lips curved slightly. “Yeah, he would.”
“More than likely, he would have wanted to sit in the audience and hear all the gossip people were saying about him.”
Eli nodded. “Then, we will be in the library here for the reading of the will.”
Damn, she hated that idea. Hated the word will. She had had enough of those issues after her father got sick. Before she could remark on that, her stomach rumbled. It was rather loud for the mostly silent kitchen. Her face heated as she cleared her throat.
“Do you think I could rummage in your refrigerator? They fed us on the plane, but my metabolism is kind of…well, my father said he could feed an entire battle group on what I eat in a week.”
“Sure.”
“There’s no cook that’ll come in here and yell at me?”
He chuckled. “No. We have a cook for the men, out in their quarters. Joe and I did for ourselves.”
She nodded and opened the fridge. It was stocked full of fruits and vegetables. She decided the best thing to have would be a salad.
“You do know there will be a meal served at the memorial, right?” Eli asked as he filled his coffee cup.
Crysta laughed. “I told you I have a high metabolism. It’s probably the reason I learned to cook at an early age.”
“Along with not having a mother.”
She looked up at him surprised. “I guess Joe told you?”
He nodded. “Most everyone in the community knows his sister is dead.”
She didn’t know what community Eli was talking about, but she figured it really wasn’t any of her business and let it go.
“Dad’s a good cook, but as he moved up through the ranks in the Navy, he had less and less time at home. Being an only child, I learned to fend for myself.”
She thought Eli would leave, but instead, he slipped into one of the chairs at the breakfast bar across the counter from her. Part of her wished he would leave her alone. She was tired and her nerves were frayed. She’d had too much coffee on the plane. Never before had she been this super sensitive to a man’s movements-unless it was her Dom. And she hadn’t had one since she’d broken off her engagement.
Still, she was sick enough that a part of her wanted him to stay. He was mysterious, which she liked. Men with deep dark secrets always intrigued her. It had been her downfall with Ted. He’d had secrets, one of which turned out to be that he was fucking his administrative assistant.
She brushed that thought away. She glanced at Eli and found him watching her. It was so…dominating the way he watched her. If he was into play, he was definitely a Dom.
Do not go there, Crysta. No playing for you.
Another reason she was interested in him was his relationship with Joe. Her uncle had admired Eli and that went a long way with her.
“Must have been a lonely upbringing.”
It took her a second to remember what they had been talking about. She shrugged. “My Grandma Bessie was with us. She’s the one who taught me to cook. Dad was deployed a lot, of course. After Mom died, there was talk of him leaving the Navy, but my grandmother wouldn’t hear of it. She decided to stay on with us.”
“Stay?”
She glanced up. “When mom got sick, she came.”
“Oh.” He said it as if he didn’t understand. He might not. She didn’t know much about Joe’s partner, but Joe had said he didn’t have any extended family. To a woman who grew up with a large family—not to mention the military family for backup—it was a foreign concept.
“Would you like some salad?” she asked.
“No. I need to get out and check on a few things. You be sure to let me know if you need anything.”
The way he said it made her think it was a double entendre. His expression gave nothing away and Crysta figured the jet lag was starting to get to her.
“Thanks,” she said.
He picked up his cowboy hat and left without another word. The long, slow walk was so stereotypical of a cowboy, she wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. He was dressed in jeans, and she couldn’t help but admire the way they cupped his ass so wonderfully. Did he wear leather? God, he would be gorgeous in leather pants. She could just imagine seeing those long strong fingers wrapped around the end of a crop.
The screen door slammed, breaking her daydream. She shivered and tried to get that image out of her mind. It wouldn’t be smart to get all googly-eyed over a man like that. Besides, he had been like a son to her uncle. He’d always said that St John and she would get along well. Crysta didn’t know what her uncle had been talking about, but she doubted St John and she had much in common. He was quiet while Crysta, well…wasn’t.
With a sigh, she decided not to worry about it. She was on the Big Island for a short while to honor her uncle and spread her mother’s ashes. Then, she would return to DC and sort out her life.