Читать книгу Mr. Family - Margot Early, Margot Early - Страница 11

Iune: June

HIIALO KICKED HER SEAT in the Datsun. Thud, thud, thud, in a mindless rhythm. Her lips were tightly sealed, her eyes nervous. In her lap was a plastic bag containing a braided lei hala lei, made of flowers of the pandanus tree, and a second lei made of braided red ti leaves.

“Stop kicking the seat, Hiialo.” He ate a Turns. “You okay?”

She nodded.

She’d been up half the night, coming out of her room every five minutes for another drink of water. Must have picked up on his mood. All he’d told Hiialo was that he’d placed a want ad to meet a woman; he was lonely without her mom. His daughter had reacted as though what he’d done was sensible. But did she suspect the truth about Erika? That if all went well she would stay for good, as Hiialo’s stepmother?

Kal saw the sign for the airport and manually worked the Datsun’s broken turn indicator, flipping it back and forth as an Aloha Airlines plane flew in over the sea, descending to the terminal.

“Is your pen pal on that plane?” asked Hiialo.

“I think so.”

Her lips clamped shut again.

Kal parked in the visitors’ lot and came around to Hiialo’s side of the car to lift her into his arms. “I love you, Ti-leaf.” It was his special name for her. Ti leaves were a symbol of luck; she was all of his. Everything he had.

Hiialo kissed his face and rested her head against his shoulder. “I love you, Daddy.”

Kal carried her toward the terminal, thinking, Hiialo B. Goode…

LOW GREEN SHRUBS—Hooker’s Green Dark, thought Erika—lined the shore, and white caps dotted the ocean beyond. Her carryall was tucked under the seat in front of her, and she resisted reaching for it to open her compact. She looked fine—especially for a woman who hadn’t slept in a week. She’d been too excited to sleep.

Absently Erika touched her hair. Days earlier she’d gone to the beauty college in Santa Barbara for a free haircut. The result was that her hair hung at one length, just brushing her shoulders. Nothing dramatic, but she was glad she’d done something. She wore a silk sheath of aquamarine—shin-length, with slits partway up both sides. Sandals, no stockings.

She hoped Hiialo would think she was pretty, would like her. That was everything. Meeting Kal was just…

Well, okay, it was natural to want him to like her, too. In fact, it was necessary. She couldn’t afford to go back to the mainland. Adele hadn’t wanted to publish prints from any of her recent watercolors. Erika didn’t know what she was doing wrong, but it was months since she’d sold anything. Until she received royalties from Sand Castles, she had four hundred and fifty dollars to her name, not even enough for a ticket home. She was going to have to get a job.

But if she had a job, she couldn’t watch Hiialo during the day.

I have to sell some art.

As the plane touched down, the captain welcomed everyone to Kauai. “The temperature in Lihue is eighty-five degrees…”

The plane taxied interminably before it stopped and the seat-belt signs went off with a quiet ding. Erika remained in her seat, letting the other passengers go first. She’d be slow on the stairs. Beside her was a diminutive local beauty in a beach cover-up and flip-flops. She jostled Erika with her bag, then turned and said in charming apology, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Her voice was musical, her manner sweet. Had Maka been like that?

A graceful human being in every way…

Suddenly Erika felt about a hundred years old.

When the other passengers had passed, she stood up, ducked under the overhead and limped to the door. Slowly, holding the railings, she descended the stairs to the humid airfield and made her way to the small utilitarian terminal. As soon as she stepped inside, she smelled flowers.

He was there, conspicuous for his height and his looks and the little girl beside him, who wore turquoise shorts and a tank top silk-screened with the image of a surfer and the slogan “Breaks to da max!” She was peering intently into a nearby planter bigger than herself.

Kal spotted her and waved, and Erika walked toward him, conscious of her limp, of him watching her. Three yards away, she thought, Your eyes are blue.

Teal, so fine a shade that Erika was surprised she hadn’t always known the color. A teal she could mix from Turquoise and Hooker’s Green Dark. He wore off-white, slightly wrinkled cotton pants and an aloha shirt in navy blue, black and yellow, covered with trumpet vines and ukuleles. Despite the flip-flops on his feet, Erika knew he had dressed up for her coming, but in contrast to the men she knew in Santa Barbara, he seemed casual. Unpretentious. No designer labels, no cologne. Yes, red meat, yes, domestic beer. Shaka. Hang loose.

Mr. Family?

Like a daddy wolf. His wolf’s expression was on her, assessing her, sniffing the air. Alert.

Mutely Erika submitted to the examination.

It was brief, though Kal found her face hard to absorb in one take. Brown eyes. Olive complexion. Smooth skin. She was tall and slender, with the honed limbs of an athlete.

And a slight limp.

He draped the lei hala lei around her neck, and her thick hair reached out and wisped against his fingers, clinging to them with static electricity. “Aloha,” he said and touched his lips to her cool cheek. Strands of hair seemed to leap against his face, and he drew back.

Still feeling the kiss and his hands brushing her as he’d put the lei around her neck, Erika recalled the word for thank you. “Mahalo. What a beautiful lei.”

Well, she’d figured out that mahalo wasn’t Hawaiian for airport trash can, reflected Kal. When she clued into the fact that the word was used mostly by poolside entertainers and interisland flight attendants, she’d be all right.

She was fingering the lei, examining it as though she found it wondrous, which he had to admit it was.

In truth, the lei gave Erika an excuse not to look at Kal. A slanted half-inch white scar crossed the indentation above his upper lip. Its effect was to make her want to stare at his mouth, at his straight white teeth and the faintest gap between the front two.

Instinct distracted her from the flowers, made her glance down, and there was Hiialo, her arms reaching up with another lei. Erika crouched in front of her, and the little girl put the braid of reddish leaves around her neck.

“Aloha, Erika. I’m Hiialo.”

“Aloha to you, Hiialo.”

“My uncle Danny’s hula group made these for you.”

Had that been Maka’s hula group, too? No wonder the leis seemed so intricate, so special. An unexpected welcome from people she had never met. People who loved Kal and Hiialo enough to reach out to her, too. The depth of generosity, the level of hospitality and courtesy, seemed foreign—and beautiful.

No wonder Adele’s so crazy about Hawaii, thought Erika, looking forward to sharing stories about her trip. Then she remembered it wasn’t just a vacation. She might stay here.

Kal said, “Let’s go get your bags.”

AS THEY DROVE NORTH, Erika tried to adjust to riding in a car with two strangers who might become the most important part of her life. Luckily there was a lot on the road to occupy her. Sugarcane grew in fields between the road and the sea. Outside a shopping mall, men harvested coconuts from royal palms that reached skyward like Jack’s beanstalk.

When the businesses and houses of Wailua were behind them, Kal nodded toward the inland hills. “That’s Nounou Ridge. We call it the Sleeping Giant. Can you see him lying on his back?”

“Yes.” Erika knew from studying a map that they were on Kauai’s main highway. It almost circled the island, stopping only for the impassable mountains of the Na Pali Coast. Was Maka killed on this road? How did it happen? Who was at fault?

Kal was thinking of Maka, too. The road was narrowing. They drove past the place where her heart had stopped beating. If Hiialo hadn’t been in the back seat, he would have shown Erika where the cars collided.

He ran out of words until they neared the next town. “This is Kapaa. My folks have a gallery here. It’s right there.” He pointed out the Kapaa Okika Gallery.

Beyond the reflections in the windows, Erika caught a glimpse of paintings hanging against a light background. Then the gallery was out of sight, and the car trawled past shops full of tropical-print silks, colorful beach totes, surfboards and various trinkets. In a blink they left Kapaa, and the highway opened out with a view of the sea.

Miles farther on, as the road curved around the north shore, Kal indicated a lighthouse on a promontory. “Kilauea Lighthouse. You surf?”

“Not anymore.” Not well enough for Hawaii’s waves. Erika stole a glance at Kal. She’d seen in his photographs that he was attractive. But a photo couldn’t carry a man’s smell or his voice. She’d thought she was used to the low warm gravelly quality of the latter from talking to him on the phone. But hearing him speak and seeing his face, his body, all at once was a different matter.

The Pacific shifted colors under her eyes, like a quilt being shaken out.

We’ll be fine, she told herself. I’ll get used to him, and he won’t seem so sexy.

The countryside became lush, and Erika could feel the dampness in the air as the Datsun passed valleys planted in taro. Blossoms spilled from tree branches, and the roadside flowers held as many shades as her paint box. In a tree whose limbs stretched out on sweeping horizontal planes, like a bonsai, sat dozens of white birds with exotic plumage on their heads. They reminded Erika of tropical ports of her childhood, and she thought of her parents, especially her mother, who had loved flowers.

What a place to paint.

She subdued the now familiar doubts…that she’d never sell another watercolor.

“Daddy, Eduardo’s hungry.”

Erika glanced into the back seat. Hiialo had one toy with her in the car, the thing Erika had thought was called Pincushion. A watercolor subject. But she must have been mistaken about its name. “Is that Eduardo?”

“No,” said Hiialo. “This is Pincushion.” She frowned, as though puzzled that Erika had asked. “Eduardo is a mo’o.”

“What’s that?”

Hiialo seemed at a loss. “Daddy…”

“Mo’os,” said Kal, “are giant magical black lizards of Hawaiian legend.”

“Giant?”

“Thirty feet long.” The topic was a good icebreaker. “The ancient Hawaiians worshiped their ancestors, who they believed could be powerful allies after death. Actually some people still depend on their aumakua, deified ancestral spirits, to help them out of trouble. In the old days, a kahuna, an expert in magic, would help people transform their deceased relatives into sharks or mo’os or whatever. Mo’os lived in ponds and were supposed to be fierce fighters, protective of their families.”

“Except Eduardo lives in our house,” said Hiialo.

Erika briefly entertained the notion that Maka had become a mo’o after death. It was a silly idea, but it seemed less cruel than death’s stealing her, leaving her husband and baby alone.

There was only a shade of humor in her next thought: I should make friends with Eduardo.

With Maka’s memory.

“We’re coming up on Princeville,” Kal said. “In a minute you can see Hanalei Bay.”

The terrain was changing again. The green hillocks inland had become mountains, rich forested green and draped in billowing shifting mist. Banyan trees grew alongside the road, their roots stretching twenty feet down the earthen embankment to the asphalt. Erika understood why Kauai was called the Garden Island. Everywhere, everything was verdant; plants with sprawling leaves caught the mist and the first raindrops.

A moment later a shower came in a clattering torrent. Through the rain streaming down the windshield, Erika caught her first glimpse of Hanalei Bay. A Zodiac motored across the water, and then the bay was obscured again by a tangle of foliage, trumpet vines, bottlebrush trees, amaryllis blossoms.

In another few minutes they reached Hanalei.

“That’s the gallery,” said Kal, identifying a white building with a wraparound porch.

Hanalei was not the tourist trap Erika had half expected. Despite its galleries and T-shirt shops, surf shops and boutiques, the community had an unpolished small-town atmosphere. Leaving the shopping area, they passed a soccer field set against the backdrop of mist-cloaked mountains. Beside the field was a green clapboard church with dramatic Gothic stained glass, a bell on the roof peak and a side tower with a pointed pagoda roof. In the doorway two women in identical holoku gowns and leis corralled some small children. Other people emerged, and Erika realized it was a wedding.

Somberly she looked away.

Kal was silent.

As they left Hanalei and continued driving west, the road narrowed. Vines and blooms overhung the road, which was broken by one-lane stone bridges. To Erika, it seemed a fairy-tale place—enchanted. They passed the sign for Haena, and soon Kal turned right, toward the ocean, on a gravel road. At its end, amid a jungle of flora—plants with pointed Cadmium Red leaves resembling lobster claws, trees with frilled and lacy hanging blossoms—stood a Private Property sign. Kal turned down the dirt drive.

A stand of mixed tropical trees to the left hid a tiny one-story green house. The dwelling would have blended in with its background if not for its white porch pillars and railing, a faded wind sock hanging from the roof of the lanai and a child’s bright plastic tricycle in the road. Erika recognized the bungalow from the photos Kal had sent.

But he didn’t stop there.

“Where are you going, Daddy?” asked Hiialo.

The Datsun continued down the gravel drive. “I thought Erika would like to see the beach.”

Separated from the bungalow by a forest of trees and shrubs was a vast lawn and a low slate blue house with an oriental roof. Palm trees shaded the beach. The calm summer sea was every shade of blue and green. It took Erika’s breath. When Kal parked beside the beachfront house and she got out, she could only stand and hold her arms about herself as the trade winds cooled her body.

“This house is a rental property owned by my parents,” said Kal, as Hiialo climbed between the seats and out his door. “It’s occupied off and on. When my aunt and uncle from the mainland visit, they stay here. I take care of the place.”

Erika stared at the sea. “I didn’t imagine you were this close to the ocean.”

No longer having to concentrate on driving, Kal studied her face. Prominent bones, smooth planes, a straight nose. He’d already noticed that with different expressions the whole arrangement of her features seemed to change—and that she had a way of looking at things with deep concentration, as though planning to paint them someday. Erika’s was not a boring face.

“Daddy, I want to go home.”

“Burnbye, Hiialo.” In a while.

“We can go,” said Erika. “I can walk back here anytime. This is just beautiful.” I want to stay…She spotted a boat covered by a canvas tarp, lying on some vines under what seemed to be a pine tree. “Is that yours?”

“That’s the outrigger,” said Hiialo. “It was my dad’s wedding present from my mom. She and Uncle Danny made it.”

Maka. “It must be a very special boat,” Erika said. Hiialo was sweet. This would be easy.

Kal moved toward the car. Erika would have preferred to walk to the bungalow, but they all climbed into the Datsun, instead, and he backed up the driveway, spun the wheel and reversed into a gravel space beside a wobbly green gardening shed.

He parked, switched off the ignition and stared straight ahead, out the windshield. Then he looked at Erika. “We’re here.” He lifted his eyebrows slightly, then turned away, reached for the door handle and got out.

He and Erika carried her belongings up to the lanai. Seeing Kal and Hiialo kick off their flip-flops beside the door, Erika bent down to remove her sandals. When she straightened, she saw a gentle smiling expression in Kal’s eyes. He held open the screen door. “E komo mai. Welcome.”

Stepping into the shadows, onto a warped hardwood floor covered with irregular remnants of gold-and-green carpet, Erika surveyed the small front room. The walls were cheap paneling. On the right side was the kitchen, on the left a couch, an old end table and a throw rug. Over the couch hung a framed print of a schooner, a Hawaiian chief in the bow. A hanging lamp with a plastic tiffany shade advertising Coca-Cola dangled above the coffee table, and two pieces of batiked cloth blocked a doorway opposite the porch.

Erika peered down a hall and spotted a threshold obscured by bamboo beads. At the hallway’s end was a real door, a solid door.

She glanced at the kitchen, the sink, the gas stove. Crayon drawings on the refrigerator. The baseboards looked streaky—perhaps hurriedly swept after a long dust buildup. For some reason, the sight touched her.

This place might become her home. Kal might become her husband—though not her lover—and Hiialo her child. It seemed hard to imagine, but she said sincerely, “I like this.”

Kal swallowed, relieved. Surprised. “Thanks.” He set down her duffel, garment bag and a blue suitcase she’d said contained art supplies and ankle weights. “Let me give you a tour.”

“I want to show you my room,” said Hiialo.

“Okay.”

Hiialo went to the batiked curtains and pushed them apart. Ducking between them, Erika found herself in a tiny chamber with a single koa captain’s bed. The wood was familiar; there had been a lot of koa on the Skye. Hiialo’s closet was built into one wall, and a window looked out on a yellow-blossomed tree beside the driveway.

The watercolor of Pincushion hung over the nightstand, in a plastic frame, no mat. The cheap frame affected Erika much as the hastily dusted baseboards had. “This is a wonderful room, Hiialo.”

Hiialo pointed to a turquoise-and-green ginger pattern quilt on her bed. “This is the quilt Tutu made for me. She gave it to me when I was born.” Her gaze drifted up to Kal, behind Erika in the doorway.

Turning, Erika caught him with a finger to his lips. He and Hiialo must have a secret.

Tutu. “Is that your grandmother?” Maka’s mother?

Hiialo nodded. “My tutu on Molokai. Not Grandma.” She sat on her bed and turned on a lamp with a friendlylooking dragon at its base. “Would you like to see my Barbie dolls? I have Cinderella, too.”

Kal tried to remember the last time Hiialo had shown an interest in dolls. The change seemed to confirm everything he’d suspected: a woman in the house could make all the difference.

But he said, “Let’s let Erika settle in first, Hiialo.” He stepped around the bed and opened the door to the remodeled porch. “This is your room.”

Erika followed him. The narrow room ran two-thirds the length of the house. Windows stretched along two sides, bamboo blinds rolled near the tops of the frames. The sashes were raised, bringing in heady floral scents, and by the window nearest the driveway, new track lights shone down on an art table.

When Erika saw, her eyes felt hot. He didn’t even know her, and he had done all this. He’d made a place for her to work.

What if I can’t sell another painting?

She had to. She’d lower her prices. She’d paint women by the sea again.

Then she remembered something else—the things she hadn’t told him. About her accident and her paralysis. It wasn’t his business, but the untold facts made her feel sneaky.

Kal flicked the light switch. “It’s hard to get natural light in this house. Too many trees. Tell me if you need more light for your work. The table’s an old one my folks had in their Poipu gallery.”

It was hard to get out the words. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Erika crossed the koa floor to the captain’s bed. It was wider than Hiialo’s—full-size—and covered with a slightly faded yellow-and-red handmade quilt. The pattern was tropical, Hawaiian, with vines and blossoms radiating out from the center. Where had it come from?

“Do you like it?” burst out Hiialo. “My great-grandmother made it for my daddy for when he was born. And my daddy built your bed.”

She had to stop this feeling—like she was going to cry. He’d made everything so homey. He must want her to stay. Of course he did. He’d invested a lot in her coming.

Kal’s bare feet moved over the polished hardwood until he stood beside her. He, too, examined the quilt, which his mother had brought over. It had been packed away in a box during the remodeling of his parents’ home twenty years before, and he’d forgotten it existed. His mother hadn’t. You know, I looked and looked for this when you and Maka were married. You know where I found it? In the shed behind the kennels. Your dad and I were clearing it out the other day to make the new whelping room…

Erika studied the quilt, wanting to soak up its history—and Kal’s. “Which of your grandmothers?”

“My dad’s mom. She grew up here. Hiialo is the sixth generation of my dad’s family to be born and raised in Hawaii.”

“I remember.”

There were four doors in the room, one that opened to the outside, toward the mountains. Kal opened the nearest, the original door to the porch, and went into his room.

Hiialo scooted in front of Erika into her father’s bedroom, then huddled close to Kal. Erika followed more slowly.

Inside, her eyes were drawn toward the light from the open window. The quilt on his bed was purple and lavender and well-worn. It was folded over double, and it took a moment for Erika to realize why.

He slept in a single bed.

Erika looked away from the piece of furniture, as though she’d caught him there naked. He really didn’t want a lover.

On one wall was a stereo and a rack of tapes and CDs that stretched to the ceiling. Bookshelves and two guitars hung nearby. One instrument was chrome, etched with Hawaiian designs, the other an old archtop. On the floor beneath them were an amplifier and two cases Erika suspected held electric guitars.

She was startled. Kal had never mentioned music to her. “You play?”

He nodded, without humble disclaimers.

“You never said anything.”

Kal touched the Gibson, drawing sound from the strings. “No.”

Erika decided he wasn’t as simple an equation as she’d first thought.

The bathroom was across the hall. Thin strips of black mold grew on the tub caulking—difficult to prevent in watery climates. For a single father who worked six days a week and cared for a rental property as well, he kept a clean house. You do good, Kal, she thought.

“There’s a gecko, Daddy,” said Hiialo.

An orange lizard scaled the wall above the towel rack.

“Oh, cool!” Erika peered closer.

The lizard scurried away.

“They eat cockroaches,” Hiialo told her.

Erika glanced at Kal.

He shrugged. “It’s Hawaii. We get some.” He stepped out into the hall, Hiialo one pace behind him. “You probably want to unpack, relax.”

“Actually I brought some gifts for you.”

Hiialo’s eyes grew large.

In her own room, Erika crouched beside the bed, opened her tote and removed a gift bag. “This is for you, Hiialo.”

As Kal entered the room, bearing Erika’s other luggage and a large flat box containing watercolor paper, Hiialo peeked in the bag. “Oh, look! Oh, Daddy, he’s cute! He looks like an Akita puppy.”

Erika’s gift was a small stuffed roly-poly dog. It was cinnamon-colored with a black muzzle and fluffy curled-up tail.

Smiling, Kal squatted beside Hiialo to look at the stuffed animal. “Sure does. Hiialo—”

Erika watched him mouth, What do you say?

“Thank you, Erika.” Her grin was toothy, dimply.

Erika said, “There’s something else in the bag.”

Hiialo reached down to the bottom and pulled out a tin of felt-tip pens. Her face fell. She met Erika’s eyes. “I already have these.”

A blush burned Kal’s face. “But some of yours are drying out.”

Erika wished she’d chosen something Hiialo didn’t have.

Hiialo put the pens back in the gift bag and hugged her stuffed puppy. “Thank you, anyhow, Erika.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie. I hope you enjoy them.”

“I’m going to go make a little bed for my dog.” A moment later she disappeared into her room.

Kal shrugged, an apology. “She’s only four.”

“She’s darling,” Erika replied politely. She lifted out another gift sack, this one heavier and decorated with suns and moons, and handed it to Kal. When he took it, she saw the veins in his sun-browned forearms and the calluses on his hands. He had nice hands.

Kal opened the. bag and pulled out a thick navy blue T-shirt with a primitive design in black, white and rust on the front. The figure of a whale was circled by a field of white dots.

“It’s a design of the Chumash Indians of Santa Barbara,” said Erika.

“Thanks. I’ll wear it now.”

He set the bag, not yet empty, on the bed and started to unbutton his aloha shirt with the eagerness of a man who hated to dress up.

As he took it off, Erika had an impression of a lean muscular chest and roped abdominal muscles. Trying to ignore him, she memorized the colors in the flowers outside the window. When she sensed that he’d put on the new shirt, she glanced back at him.

He was holding out the hem, checking the fit, which was good. “Thanks,” he said again.

“There’s more.”

Kal picked up the sack and withdrew a quart of beer from a micro-brewery in Santa Barbara. She saw him hesitate before he said, “Thank you. We’ll have to share it tonight.”

“Thank you, Kal. This bed…” It was bigger than his.

Wide enough for two.

“The drawers came off an old dresser. The rest was easy.” He edged toward the window, touching the frame.

His legs, Erika noticed, were long. Even covered by the loose twill of his drawstring-waist pants, they suggested muscle. Though his skin was golden brown from the sun, it was also smooth, the kind of skin that made her want to touch the area around his lips and his mouth, touch that tiny scar. And the bare abdomen, the chest, the shoulders she had glimpsed when he changed his shirt. He was powerfully built. Six years younger than me.

The thought was not unappealing. He was certainly a grown man.

But her observation was distant. Uninvolved. She assessed him as she thought another woman might.

When he turned from the window, Kal found her staring. Shot by a feeling he hadn’t expected—something sexual—he hurried to end the moment. “You probably want to rest. Are you hungry?”

“The food on the plane was good. I’d just as soon spend some time with Hiialo.”

“Look, I don’t expect you to baby-sit. That wasn’t the idea.” Not exactly.

Good. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if she had to get a job. “Well, she’s why I came,” she said, suddenly needing to make that clear. He could have changed his shirt in the other room.

“Mmm,” Kal agreed. Hiialo’s door was opened just a crack, but he could hear her playing in her room, talking make-believe with her stuffed friends. He leaned against the wall he had framed. “So…you probably want to make sure you like us before we go any further with this.”

Erika felt the quilt beneath her—and the bed. Things had gone pretty far. “I don’t see anything likely to make me run away.”

You haven’t seen my daughter throw a tantrum.

But Erika Blade struck him as a woman who wouldn’t flee difficulty.

“We can give ourselves as much time as we need,” he said. “I was thinking of about six weeks.”

Panic stricken, Erika thought she might break into hysterical laughter. Six weeks to decide if she wanted to spend the rest of her life in a celibate marriage to a man with more sex appeal than Brad Pitt?

But even making contributions to household expenses, she should be able to make her money last six weeks. And surely she could produce some marketable art in that length of time. “Six weeks sounds reasonable.”

Kal nodded. The air in the room felt oppressive, stuffy, and he knew it was because of the topic, the future he’d planned, the prison of a marriage without touch, a marriage to a stranger.

He said, “I’ll leave you alone. Maybe we can go swimming later.”

She nodded and so did he. Kal hurried out of the room, then the house. Moments later as he stood on the lanai quaffing the air, he realized he hadn’t been fleeing the awkwardness. He’d been getting away from Erika Blade’s tawny arms and legs, her narrow bare feet, her brown hair and eyes. He was fleeing the woman herself.

Because he found her very beautiful, which was the last thing he’d expected.