Chapter 9 The Kiawe #2
across the surface of the water, each tiny splash catching the last remnants of light. In the semidarkness she hadn’t even
known he was there. Then he turned and hopscotched toward her on the small tufts of grass between the lava. The tiki torches
lit up his face, and she saw it was ‘opihi man. He froze when he saw her.
“Hey,” she said.
“If it isn’t the author.”
He wore jeans and an aloha shirt, and she realized this was who Sawyer was talking to at the table before he came over.
“I didn’t see you there. You blended in with the tree,” she said.
He stopped a few feet away, hands in his pockets. “Yeah? I was starting to think you might be following me.”
He had recognized her then, earlier in the boat.
“Definitely not,” she said.
After a moment of silence he said, “Pretty evening, but then every evening is pretty here.”
“It takes the breath away. You said you aren’t from here. So where are you from?”
“Far away.”
He was standing just a little too close, and part of her hoped he would sit in the chair next to her, while the other hoped
he’d leave her alone with the stars and the lapping waves.
“A man of vagueness, I see.”
“Pacific Northwest. Washington. What about you?”
“California.”
“So how’s that bestseller coming?”
Her cheeks heated up. “Great. How about those ?opihi? You cooking them up for dinner in your hotel room?”
“Nah, they didn’t last long enough to make it back here. I like ’em raw and slippery.”
The way his eyes bore into her as he said it caused a hitch in her breath. “I will never understand how anyone could actually
enjoy eating limpets and oysters and urchins.”
“Variation of species. It’s how we survive, isn’t it?”
Again, pinning her to the chair with his eyes.
“I guess so, but still. Yuck.”
To her surprise he actually smiled. Just a hint. “So are you really writing a book, or was that just your pickup line?”
Her ears caught fire at that last comment. “Full of yourself, aren’t you? As for the book, it’s still in the idea stage. I
have notes and journal entries, and I do have quite a story to tell, but . . . I haven’t gotten very far.”
“What kind of scientist are you, exactly?” he asked.
“I did my doctorate on migration patterns of white sharks.”
A faraway look came over his face. “So let’s be honest. You’re here for the shark incidents, not to write a memoir.”
She felt like she had to defend herself. “Yeah. I was called here on account of my knowledge of white sharks, but sharks have
been my whole world for a long time, and I was hoping to have some distance and time here to gather my thoughts.”
That last part was looking less likely, though, with everything going on.
“That’s an unusual statement, especially coming from a woman,” he said.
“Which part?”
“That sharks have been your whole world.”
The sky darkened behind him, which only made the tiki torches brighter, casting dancing shadows across his face. From the
deck of the Reef House, a slow, sultry steel guitar started up.
“It’s true,” she said.
“You seem kind of young to have a PhD,” he said.
People always thought she was younger than she was.
Probably because she was thin with owl eyes and a dark fluff of wavy hair.
Here her curls were more like ringlets of seaweed.
“Yeah, I get that all the time. I started early. What about you? What brings you to these waters and this hotel”—she realized they didn’t know each other’s names—“Mr. . . . ?”
“I’m Luke. And you are?”
“Minnow.”
Again, one side of his mouth flickered. “Minnows are freshwater fish,” he said, as though she might not know.
“To be fair, they also live in brackish water, but yes.”
“And you’re a saltwater fish,” he said, in all seriousness.
She laughed. “You’re perceptive.”
“So I’ve been told.”
It was hard to tell what was going on here, and she realized he’d dodged her question.
She came at it from a different angle. “That sure is a nice boat you have. Do you do fishing charters?”
The muscles in his jaw flexed. “I’m working on it.”
“How come you’re staying here at the Kiawe?”
A line of tension rose between them, palpable as the salt air on her skin.
“Are you staying here?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then what makes you think I’m staying here?”
“My bad. I guess I’ve seen you both times I’ve come here, so I just assumed.”
He glanced over at the Reef House and the trees out front, all strung through with lights. It felt to her like he wanted to
walk away but couldn’t quite get himself to. As though there were some invisible fishing line holding him in place. A lead
weight.
“Those lights are going to disorient the turtles. They were all over the beach this morning,” he said. “Have you seen them
yet?”
Something wasn’t quite adding up. Why would he care about the turtles? To his credit, though, he was right. But why the evasiveness about where he was staying?
“No, and maybe you should tell Mr. Sawyer to shut down the light show. Looks like you know him.”
“I do. And he’s not the kind of man who likes being told what to do.”
Minnow was growing more curious about Luke by the minute. “How did you know about light and turtles?”
“I read about it somewhere.”
Minnow knew that turtles were a regular part of a tiger shark’s diet but less so a white shark’s. It was all in the teeth.
While a tiger had curved and highly serrated teeth, good for sawing through shell, a white shark’s teeth were designed to
grab on and slice into dense marine mammal skin.
“Is it nesting season?” she asked, surprised she hadn’t thought of this before.
If there were plenty of turtles on the beach here, it would certainly be a draw for large sharks.
“Beats me,” he said.
Behind her, Minnow heard voices approaching. Women laughing. One of them called out. “Hey, Captain Greenwood, how about a
midnight boat ride?”
Minnow turned. There were three of them, arm in arm. White teeth, bare shoulders. Young.
“It’s not even eight o’clock yet, stupid,” another said.
Minnow looked up at Luke, who seemed to be assessing his options. “Damn,” he said, and she couldn’t be sure if he meant damn because the women were gorgeous or because they were obviously drunk and beelining toward him. Or maybe both. He was still
standing in place when they swarmed him, oblivious to Minnow.
One held up bottles of champagne in each hand. “Look what we got! Bubbles for days.”
Luke stepped back a couple feet. “Not tonight, ladies, sorry. And I’m pretty sure we said sunset cruise, not midnight cruise.”
The one with the champagne had thick hair down to her waist and wore a low-cut gauzy dress that showcased her small, firm
breasts. Together the women smelled like a flower garden.
Minnow stood up. “I’d better get back, but my advice to you all is that if you go out there at night, stay in the boat.”
They seemed to just notice her.
“Oh no! We interrupted something,” one said.
“It’s fine. I was just leaving,” Minnow assured them. “Enjoy.”
She looked at Luke before she turned away, and for the first time caught a better glimpse of the tattoo on his forearm. Was
that a shark? Her eyes moved up and met his, and he folded his arms on his chest.
“We aren’t going out on the boat tonight,” he said to Minnow, as though he had to explain himself.
“Makes no difference to me. But I have to walk back on the lava in the dark, so, bye,” she said.
As she moved off, she heard one of the girls saying, “What about skinny-dipping? I heard there’s that glowy stuff in the water
here.”
“Bioluminescence,” Luke said.
Minnow couldn’t wait to see him again and get a better look at his tattoo. He seemed different than your average fisherman.
And there was still that itch in the back of her mind that told her he was hiding something.