hurt you?”
Jason let her fingers reach for his cheek which had now turned warm and was probably swollen. She’d packed a good swing and the sting surprised him. He did not back away, allowing the touch. His heart was pounding, beating like the drums of his ancestors as she gracefully twisted her wrist and brushed the backsides of her fingers across the side of his face all the way to his ear.
He could have easily taken her in his arms, and he knew perhaps she’d let him kiss her, but he stood like a statue, feet planted in the sand, like the surfboards standing guard at Hanalei Bay. The wash of waves lapping on the shore stilled his restless and troubled soul, while the distance between their bodies remained. She had the touch of his grandmother and some of the older women of his community—the way she used to bless his cuts and bruises, especially the ones left by the two Samoan sisters.
This stranger was a healer, and yet Jason knew she didn’t understand yet what her true capacity was.
As he drove to his motel room, he knew that, if the Gods of his ancestors wanted him to meet her again, they’d create the opportunity. The empty urn sat next to him on the front seat of his rental Hummer, as if Thomas was witness to this magical connection he felt to her. Maybe Thomas was laughing at him.
He glanced down at the seat.
“We won’t speak of it.”
The urn obeyed.
But all the way back, he couldn’t forget the feel of her shaking body against him, the scent of her hair, the tiny beads of sweat at the sides of her cool forehead, and her probing but gentle fingers.
He thought about her while he showered and then watched moonlight glisten on the water of the Gulf. He thought about her as he lay naked in his bed, his head propped against his forearm.
Jason had left the sliding glass door open a few inches so he could inhale the ocean air all night long, which was always his custom wherever in the world he traveled, if it was safe. He dreamt of the beaches back home, lush and full of the scent of flowers floating all around him. He thought about the tanned Polynesian girls he’d dated and made love to on the beach, their modest nakedness a thing of beauty and grace. He felt their full lips, and the smooth flat of their noses as they cuddled, giggled, and whispered things to him. In those days, drunk on the discovery of sex, he didn’t realize how the ocean, the beach and a woman’s body could heal all those broken parts he could not.
He thought about the girls he met in Coronado who were a bit too fast for his tastes. They wanted everything now, hard and deep, leaving him aching for a simple touch of kindness or a word of wonder.
Like a metronome, the constant rhythm of the ocean sang him to sleep in stanzas stitched together by the calling of sea birds.
The last thought he had before he drifted off was that Thomas had brought him here to Sunset Beach. It was a bigger purpose than the final goodbyes to his friend. Thomas wanted him to see the place where he’d grown up, to see the beauty and treasure buried here. In time, he’d find out just what that treasure was.
As one door closed, another one was waiting to be discovered. Whatever was on the other side of that door was his destiny.
Tomorrow would be a new adventure.
Chapter 4
Kiley’s numbness continued all night long.
She couldn’t get warm, even when she put on flannel pajamas—a rarity in Florida. She believed her heart had slowed down so much, all the blood had rushed into her lower body. She shivered in bed, getting up in the middle of the night to take a hot shower. Her body temperature held long enough so she could fall asleep for a few hours. But then she woke up again in the blue light after midnight.
Her dreams were smoky, bright orange and powerful like the campfires they’d made during college. In Oregon, you could make a beach bonfire if you wanted to. It was considered a form of eco-cleanup, since there were so many pieces of driftwood washing up from the tall trees that had been harvested over centuries all along the coast. She could feel the spirits of the indigenous peoples, the First Nation, dwelling in