evening approached, it all turned into something far more relaxed than a strategy session.
“This is Hawaii,” Lindsay said, smiling, when Koa’s family turned up. “You should have at least one night that’s nothing more than that.”
Koa’s family had come prepared to get their barbecue on. If Caradine pretended not to notice the ex–special forces military men looming around, she might have been tempted to imagine it really was just a family gathering on a lovely Hawaiian evening.
A little slice of heaven in the middle of the thick, green jungle, with the tropical sky above and the sea in the distance. So far away from her memories of Boston—and her life in Alaska, which didn’t involve all the soft, close, perfumed air that she’d gotten used to over the course of the day—it might as well have been a different world.
The different world she knew better than to let herself imagine. Even if that ribbon of hope deep inside her seemed to shimmer every time she breathed.
“Walk with me,” Isaac said, appearing out of nowhere behind her, out in the yard. Caradine had been leaning against the SUV and staring up at the changing colors of the sky and the clouds that looked like sails.
“I’m not sure that I want to walk with you,” Caradine replied.
It was Hawaii. Her sister was here, she had a niece, and tonight, everything felt okay in a way it never had. Tonight she was entertaining what-ifs without beating herself up for it. Maybe that was why she smiled at him. As if they were different people. “We’re on a tropical island, Isaac. Surely you can come up with something more entertaining to do than walk.”
His gray eyes warmed, and she did, too.
One of Koa’s uncles was strumming a ukulele, an instrument Caradine had always thought was a joke until she’d heard him sing and play. People had big plates of food, and they were talking. Laughing.
And even though most of the people here were dressed in summer clothes, or board shorts, or the colorful dresses that made sense here, somehow, it almost felt like one of Grizzly Harbor’s festivals. The festivals were when everyone in town poured out into the streets, and no matter the temperature or the time of year, life felt bright for a while.
She didn’t know what would happen in Boston. But one way or another, it would be over. And if she survived it, there were what-ifs on the other side.
For the first time in a long time, Caradine felt bright all the way through.
Maybe that was why, when Isaac reached out and took his life in his hands by lacing his fingers with hers, she let him. She didn’t jerk away. She didn’t even scowl. She curled her fingers around his and held on.
And for a moment, they were the only two people in the world.
She could feel the heat of him, and the sizzle from that same electric current that always flared between them. She felt as if she were free-falling from a great height, when she knew full well her feet were on the ground.
For once, she didn’t pretend otherwise. She didn’t want to analyze it. She felt it, from the lump in her throat to the tightness in her chest. It all seemed to swirl around inside her, then bloom into the molten heat between her legs.
When he tugged her hand, leading her away from the gathering, she went with him.
She would normally demand to know where they were going. What he wanted, and what he thought he was doing.
But not tonight. Tonight she followed him, as the sky above them began to ready itself for sunset in lush shades of pink and orange.
He led her away from the house and into the waiting jungle. He found a path through the trees and followed it as it cut lazily down the side of a hill. The ground beneath their feet smelled rich and damp. Birds sang to one another. And the sky she could see through the jungle canopy only seemed brighter.
And then he ushered her out of the jungle and into a tiny little slice of paradise.
Caradine heard it before she saw it, but when she could finally see where he was taking her, she actually gasped.
A waterfall tumbled from above, cascading down the green, rocky hillside to collect into a pool at its base. The water splashed over the ledge that marked the boundaries of the pool and continued down the side of the mountain.