Blooming in the Wild Page 0,26

was not her milieu as it was Daniel and Zane’s, and even their uncle Hilo’s. She respected the sea and feared it enough that she liked to stay where she could see the bottom underneath her.

But snorkeling at Nawea she’d learned that the Hawaiian reefs held an astonishing array of lovely fish and other creatures. As she swam over a dark ribbon of lava, she took a deep breath and dove, her eyes open. Without a snorkel mask, she couldn’t see perfectly but well enough. Below her, the ancient lava flow had been built on by a colony of coral and was now a reef teeming with life.

A school of brilliant yellow tangs eddied beneath her, followed by another of black-and-white-striped convict tangs. A pair of striped Moorish idols chased each other in circles, their delicate tassels fluttering. Black spiny and red pencil sea urchins punctuated the pale pink, gray and cream of the coral. A small honu, sea turtle, swam past on the far side of the reef, and she watched it paddle seaward, her hair swirling around her face as she turned her head.

The Na’alele sea caves lay out there in deeper water. Two were still open, but the biggest had been plugged forever by a recent lava flow. Pele’s a’a had been called forth by one of the Ho’omalu cousins to stop a terrible crime.

Now the treacherous cave was only another underwater hump of charcoalhued lava, the far end fading into deeper blue. Shuddering at the memory of Claire, Zane and Daniel’s horrific experience there, Bella rose to the surface and turned back toward the bay. She squinted into the bright light dancing off the waves.

With a swoosh, a glistening shape rose out of the water before her. Her gasp of fright earned her a huge mouthful of salt water.

She coughed, choking as she splashed backward, away from the intruder. A familiar chuckle grated on her ears at the same instant she realized it was a man. Joel Girand, his hair sleeked back on his head, his white teeth flashing in his wet face. The sun glinted off his broad shoulders as he treaded water in front of her, and this close she could see tiny crinkles around his eyes, as if he smiled often.

“Sorry,” he said. He didn’t sound it. “Saw you down there and wondered what you were looking at.”

Bella glared at him, swiping water from her eyes. The big bully—he’d done it deliberately.

“Pretty flower.” He was looking at the side of her face.

She reached up, surprised the flower still clung to her hair. “Mahalo.”

Then she stared at him, moving her arms to stay afloat as she suddenly remembered seeing that same taunting grin in last night’s dream.

“What?” he asked, one heavy brow arching upward in that quizzical way, as if he were wondering about her intelligence.

“Ugh.” She shuddered, remembering, and kicked past him. “I dreamed about you.”

He swam alongside her, easily keeping up with his long, muscular arms. “Yeah? Why do I get the feeling it wasn’t a hot, sexy dream? Did I fall off that cliff instead of landing safely?”

Bella tried to ignore the leap of her pulse at his mention of sex. “Unfortunately, no. You ate a huge bug.”

“Huh.”

They swam back toward the bay in silence, the only sounds the slap of the waves. Bella had to work to keep her breathing easy—swimming was a lot harder work than it appeared. She jogged and rode her bike, but this was definitely an all-body exercise.

With his build, Joel could easily outdistance her, and she wished he would and let her finish her swim in peace. But instead, he swam with her and waited for her when she stopped to rest on a shelf of submerged lava just outside the bay. He even paused beside her, holding out a hand to help her up to the next of the natural steps in the rock.

“’Ae, kaikuahine,” whispered the voices in her ear.”E lawi mai kâ ‘olua kane koa. Yes, little sister. Bring your warrior to us.”

Now the flower was whispering to her. With a sense of desperation, Bella shook her head, ignoring the voices and his gesture, clinging to the wet rock. Oh, Pele, did she really hear the voice, or was her subconscious trying to get her mixed up with him?

No, her visceral attraction to him was too powerful, and she was too unsettled here. She daren’t touch him, not even for this smallest of courtesies. Especially after he’d teased her last night, pretending