Chapter 3
Silence filled the library. Crysta was sure that everyone could hear her heartbeat as it pounded in her chest. Her uncle had picked up her life and shook it like a snow globe. She glanced at her mother’s family. Hot waves of anger emanated from her Uncle Sam, his son, and the rest of their group. Sam Sr. was a big man, in height and girth. He had done nothing more than stare at her as if she were the antichrist. She swallowed, trying to contain the panic that had her pulse escalating. She’d never felt such hatred before in her life, and that was saying a lot since she’d taught high school.
She turned back to Mr. O’Keefe, who smiled at her encouragingly.
“I don’t understand,” Crysta said, her brain still trying to work out the situation. “I…”
She let her voice trail off. She had no idea what the hell to say.
“It’s very easy, Ms. Miller,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “Your uncle left you half of the ranch. You must stay here for six months, then you have the option to sell to Mr. St. John or to someone else. If you don’t, it will be handed over to charity, who will sell it to the highest bidder.”
She glanced at Eli, who wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his gaze rested on O’Keefe. From the stony expression on his face, she knew he wasn’t happy with the situation. Hell, that was an understatement. He was furious. But he said nothing.
She nodded to O’Keefe as he seemed to need her to say something.
After another beat of silence, the rest of the family only waited a few more seconds before they erupted with anger.
“What the hell was Joe thinking? She’s not one of us, not a real Kaheaku,” her uncle bellowed.
“I think you misunderstand,” Mr. O’Keefe said. “This has nothing to do with family and everything to do with Joe’s wishes.”
“She has no right,” her uncle bellowed. “This is my land.”
“Sir, I would like you to sit down,” Mr. O’Keefe said, but her uncle paid no heed. He stood and took a step toward her.
“Do you think some haole should have a right to this land? She isn’t a real Kaheaku.”
“I think you might want to settle down, Sam,” Eli said. There was no change in the expression on his face, and his voice was so soft she could barely hear it. There was no doubt in Crysta’s mind that he had just issued a threat. She glanced around the room. Apparently, everyone else picked up on it too.
“I will take care of all of this if you want to skip on out of here,” the lawyer said. It wasn’t until then that she realized he had walked over to her and her father. O’Keefe nodded and looked at her father, who gestured with his head.
She stood and walked to the door. She wanted to glance and look at the family, but she was afraid it might cause another outburst from her uncle. She worried that Eli would lose patience and start hurting people. She didn’t know him well, but Eli St. John struck her as someone who only gave his opponent no more than one warning.
Once they were out in the hall, she couldn’t get away from that room fast enough. She sped up her steps in a near run. By the time she burst outside, she wanted nothing more than to run away. She didn’t, but the urge to just run was there.
“You can’t keep running, Crysta.”
She turned and gave her father a look that told him she wasn’t happy with his common sense again.
“I know I can’t.” She studied her father. “Did you know about this?”
He shook his head. “No.”
His answer wasn’t that convincing. “Dad.”
“No, I promise. I didn’t know about it. I had a feeling he was up to something because of some of the things he said the last few months when we talked.”
She sighed and collapsed into the wicker chair. Her father leaned against the railing on the lanai.
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “Things like his time was getting short. That the one regret he had was that he didn’t show you your homeland. Things like that. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. He’d mentioned it in the past. He also thought of you as his one link to his sister—which was true. But, it was more that he wanted to leave you a legacy.”
“And St. John.”
Her father nodded. “I think he sees… damn.”
She watched as the grief hit her father again, feeling that same pain herself. Every now and then, she would remember that she would not hear John’s booming voice over the computer when they video chat.
She reached out and grabbed her father’s hand, squeezing it before letting it go.
“He saw St. John as a surrogate son.”
“And you decided not to tell me all of this why?”
“Truth is, I thought maybe his illness made him think about the past. I knew the feeling. You have a lot of time to think when you’re lying on a hospital bed.”
She sighed. Her father’s cancer had turned her life upside down. He had always been her rock and when he had been diagnosed, she had barely been able to keep it together. The woman who never let life intrude on work, walked away from it. She had realized that her father was the most important person in her world and she had to take care of him.
“So, I guess I have to stay here.”
“I’m sure you’re not trapped on the ranch and you will have time to go back to the mainland and get your things. Joe wouldn’t have left you without some time off. He knew what the last year had been like.”
“I don’t like leaving you.”
Her father laughed. “Now you’re making me feel old. Really old. I can take care of myself.”
“But what if the cancer comes back?”
He shook his head. “First, I refuse to have my daughter put her own life off because I might have a relapse. Secondly, you know Joe. There will be a provision in there. You have to stay.”
She sighed again. “Yes. If anything, Joe knew doing what he did…I wouldn’t allow it. I know how he felt about Eli. He did this for a reason and it wasn’t to screw him over. It was to get me back here.”
“Back to what you love.”
She hadn’t been riding in months and she did miss it. But…
“Stop worrying. You stay for six months. Spend the time learning about Hawai’i.”
“I already know about Hawai’i, Dad.” Why was she arguing with her father? Her father was right. Joe would have made sure that she would not be trapped here if he got sick. So, what was it? She was feeling antsy, as if she were trying to avoid something that excited and scared her at the same time.
Not something. Someone.
“No, you don’t,” her father said breaking into her thoughts. “What you know you’ve learned from Joe, books and movies. You need to be here, learn about it firsthand.”
“Meaning?”
He turned and looked out over the land. “Your mother said that no matter where she was in the world, she could always feel Hawai’i in her soul. You need that.”
“I don’t know if it will happen.”
He turned around. “Keeping you away at the time was the only option, but I regret I didn’t plan a trip for both of us once you were older. Now you have this chance. Take it, Crysta. Your mother would be happy with it.”
She slanted him a look. “You are such a butthead. Using Mom to convince me to stay.”
He laughed. “She would have used it too, and it wasn’t like you weren’t going to stay. And it is true. She would have been thrilled that you were back on Hawai’i for six months.”
It was hard to remember her mother, remember the way she was. The memories she had of her were warm and happy, but it was mostly embellished by a man who had never remarried. What she did remember told Crysta all she needed to know. She would never walk away from a situation like this.
“I can’t let those bastards have the land.”
The stipulation if she left was that Eli lost everything and the Kaheakus took over the ranch. They would run it into the ground, and she knew Joe had done that on purpose. He had told her enough about his brother so that Crysta knew they did not respect the land. She would not allow that to happen and he used it against her, the old fart.
“That’s always good to hear,” Eli said.
She jumped at the sound of his voice. How did a man that tall walk so quietly in boots across a wooden lanai?
“I guess there are some rules about it?” her father asked.
Eli nodded, though he kept looking at her. She couldn’t tell if he were mad at her, at the situation, or just not letting her read his thoughts. Probably all of the above.
“You have time to go back to the mainland to get your stuff. After that, you can’t spend any more than seven days away from the ranch, unless there is a medical emergency.”
At that point, he glanced at her father, and she knew Eli understood the situation. Then he looked back at her. For a second, all the worries and most of her thoughts, slipped away. Those green eyes had her head spinning. She forced herself to look at her father.
“I guess that settles it. I have some arrangements to make.”
Her father nodded.
“I’m sorry about this, Eli.”
He gave her a small smile. “I knew Joe was up to something, but when was he not up to something?”
She nodded and walked into the house then up the stairs, avoiding the family. She wasn’t in the mood. Crysta knew now that she would never be in the mood for them. As she walked to her room, she looked at the pictures on the wall again. Downstairs there were lots of pictures of the ranch. Here, it was family. Old pictures of her mother when she was a girl, of her on her mother’s lap, then of Joe’s time in the service. At the end of the hall there was Eli. Joe had as many pictures of Eli as he did of everyone else in the family.
She smiled as she straightened one.
“I’ll do right by him, Joe. Don’t you worry.”
Then, she decided to get things in order. She had a lot to figure out before she could come back to the island.
* * *
The next morning,Eli knew who was behind him without turning. It was an ability that had served him well in the military.
“You want to make sure nothing happens to her,” he said to Ham.
“Yes. You know that family.”
He turned to face Ham as he sipped his first coffee of the day. He should have known Ham would be up. The time difference aside, he was a Navy man. Some habits were hard to break.
“I’ll do everything in my power to keep her safe.”
Ham glanced behind him. “She’s getting ready because we have something to do before we head back. She’d have my head if she knew I said something to you. I’m assuming that Joe wouldn’t have set this up if he thought you couldn’t do it, but I wanted to make sure. She’s all I have in this life, all I have of her mother.”
Eli nodded as he heard footsteps approaching. He was surprised to see Crysta wearing a red Hawaiian print dress and apparently ready to tackle the day. She was wearing her hair down, the way he liked it. The soft curls draped over her shoulders and half way down her back. She wore very little makeup, but she had the most amazing skin, so she really didn’t need makeup to begin with. Her blue eyes sparkled with determination. He had no idea what she was about, but Eli definitely liked the benefit of seeing her happy.
“Did you want to eat here or on the way?” she asked her father.
“Let’s eat something here. My stomach is still on DC time.”
She nodded. “Have you eaten, Eli?”
He hadn’t, but he couldn’t answer her right away. He took a swallow of coffee and shook his head.
“I’m going to scramble up some eggs if you’re interested.”
He nodded. Her father grabbed a cup and poured his coffee. “I’m going to go out for my walk.”
She gave him an absent-minded kiss on the cheek, then grabbed one of the skillets from the rack and started to gather ingredients. When they were alone she said, “So, I hear my father thinks I can’t take care of myself.”
He chuckled. “He thinks you have no idea.”
She shot him one of her 1,000-watt smiles. “Of course, he does. I let him think he’s doing all this behind my back. I know how to handle my daddy.”
She started to crack eggs.
“Tell me just how bad that family is.”
“Probably not as bad as your father thinks, but Joe’s brother and his son can be a pain in the ass.”
She nodded as she opened the fridge again and started searching for something. “I just know that Dad always was afraid to have me back here. Something happened all those years ago. Something bad enough to keep me away.
“Away from Joe.”
She shook her head. “You know, when that went on he was still serving. He had little to do with the family at that point, and Dad didn’t meet him until Mom’s funeral. It took him a few years to trust Joe, so I know that it must have been super bad.”
“What is it that you and your dad are doing today?” he asked. He knew it was rude, but he couldn’t help wondering what they had planned.
She hesitated enough to irritate him. “We brought my mother’s ashes. She wanted them returned to Hawai’i.”
She pronounced the name of the island properly, so he knew that she had at least been raised to do that.
“Oh.” He knew from Joe that her mother had died when Crysta was very young. “So, you waited all this time?”
She sighed. “Our trip last year was postponed because of Dad’s illness.”
“Did you have a place in mind?”
She shrugged. “Mom didn’t give a place, just said here. In the ocean.”
He watched her for a second, trying to decide how far to intrude in her privacy. Her mother had been Hawaiian and there were certain things they did for a burial at sea.
“You should change and we need to hit up a lei stand.”
She glanced at him with confusion lighting her eyes. “Lei stand?”
“Your father and you need to get something on that will work in the water. Something you don’t mind getting a little wet. It’s customary to put leis in the water with the ashes.”
Her face softened. “Thank you. I think Mom would have liked that.”
The scent of breakfast cooking and a woman looking at him like he had hung the moon wasn’t making him feel very comfortable. His fingers itched to touch. It was odd and intoxicating at the same time. He was just about to take a step, as the need to be close to her almost overwhelmed his better senses. Thankfully, he was saved from embarrassment when her father slammed back into the kitchen.
“Dad, Eli says we need to have some clothes we can get wet when we take the ashes out on the water. And we need leis.”
Ham studied Eli enough to make him nervous. “Of course. I didn’t think about it. Do you know where we can get a canoe?”
“I’ve got one, and I have a good bay you can paddle out on for this.”
Ham nodded. “Let’s get some food in us and we can head on out.”
* * *
Crysta couldn’t seemto come to terms with spreading her mother’s ashes. For years, they had moved her from house to house, from state to state and country to country. She had been a constant reminder of what was missing in their lives, but it had been a comfort that she was there with them, like she was watching over them.
Eli had taken them to the bay, but allowed them their privacy. She and her father now sat on the canoe and looked out over the water.
“She always loved it here. We’d always talked of returning to the islands,” her father said holding the urn. “She said it was in her blood.”
Crysta nodded, having heard it all before. Her father had never tried to hide his feelings about his wife. Not from Crysta. They had shared their grief. Since she’d become an adult, she realized how rare and beautiful that was.
“I think part of this situation was my fault. When I was in the hospital, the one thing I told Joe I regretted, other than losing your mother when she was so young, was that you never got to know your roots.”
“And so, Joe took action.” She smiled thinking about the big man with the loud voice. He had pushed his way into their world and refused to leave. “I guess I could complain about it, but well, I get to live in Hawai’i for six months and work with horses. That’s worth it.”
Her father smiled. “So much your mother’s daughter. It’s hard to believe there is so much of her in you since you knew her such a short time.”
She smiled. “Joe would have said it was because she was Hawaiian and her blood runs through me.”
He nodded and opened the urn. Gently, he lowered it to the water and let the ashes fall out. When he was done, he set the box between them, then he lifted his lei from around his neck and Crysta followed suit. They laid them in the water and watched them drift away.
For a few moments, they sat in silence, water lapping against the canoe. The scent of the plumeria leis faded as the scent of salt water filled her senses.
“I guess we should get back,” her father said to her.
She blinked away tears and looked up at her father. His attention was fully fixed on the shoreline where she knew Eli waited. Crysta looked behind her and sighed. He was leaning against the hood of his truck. Her heart quickened as her blood heated. It was just a normal reaction, she told herself. He was gorgeous and any woman would get that jolt. He was wearing a pair of blue board shorts with white flowers and a plain white t-shirt. The cowboy hat should have looked out of place, but it didn’t for some reason.
“Crysta?”
She turned back to her father. He looked so healthy, if still a little underweight. The fear that had held her at his side for months was now dissolving…although not completely.
“Yeah, we better get back. We have a plane to catch.”
“And you have a move to prepare.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
As they headed back to shore, she realized she had just closed the door on one part of her life and she was ready for the change. They neared the shore and she concentrated on her companion for the next few months. It was hard not to. Just by existing, he demanded attention.
Crysta needed to remind herself it was temporary and he wasn’t her Dom. But she knew it would be easier said than done.