Eden Burning (19 page)

Chase sat by the open window of his own cottage and listened to the thunder of drums rolling through the darkness. He wished he could see Nicole dance but knew it was better this way. Less painful.

If he saw her, he would be forced to face how much he wanted her. With every drumbeat, every heartbeat, he measured his own emptiness.

“Daddy?”

Turning, Chase saw Lisa standing uncertainly in the doorway of her bedroom. He held out his arms and smiled.

“Having trouble sleeping, punkin?”

“Can’t.”

He smiled at the echo of Benny in her short answer.

As Lisa hurried to him across the wooden floor, the fanciful creatures on her nightgown looked like they were taking flight. Chase had seen the pale silk and golden fairies in a store window and had thought instantly of his elfin daughter. The delighted smile on her face when she opened her present tonight told him he was right.

“Drums keeping you awake?” he asked, lifting and settling Lisa’s slight weight in his lap.

“Kinda.”

“Just kinda? Kinda isn’t enough to keep you awake. What else is kinda nibbling on you?”

Eyes as clear as rainwater looked up at him. Though she tried to sound brave, her lips trembled. “I woke up and thought you were gone. Really gone. Like Mother.”

With aching throat and stinging eyes, Chase stroked Lisa’s black hair, so like his own. And her need to be loved. That, too, was like him. Lynette hadn’t understood love, hadn’t needed it, hadn’t given it, hadn’t even known it existed.

“Never-never,” he said huskily. “I love you, Lisa. When I go back to the mainland on business, I’ll try to take you. If there are times when I can’t, then Jan will kidnap you and hold you hostage until I get back.”

Lisa giggled at the thought of her aunt kidnapping her. She snuggled against her father. “Love you, Daddy.”

“Love you, too, Lisa.” He kissed her hair, felt her cuddle closer, and thanked God that Lynette had decided she didn’t want to play mommy after all.

“Stay up?” Lisa asked.

“Sure, punkin. Anything else keeping you awake?”

She shook her head. Fine, silky hair tickled his throat.

“If you think of anything, I’m here,” he said. “That’s what daddies are for. Listening.”

“And hugs.”

“Hugs,” he agreed. And did.

Lisa’s gentle presence eased some of the pain within Chase. For a time he and his daughter simply sat and listened to the urgent drums throbbing in the darkness. He believed now that Nicole didn’t have anyone to kiss her hair and hug her and reassure her. She was alone in the same way he had been alone in the courtroom, stunned and disbelieving as he lost everything he loved at the stroke of a judge’s gavel.

He wanted to go to Nicole, comfort her as gently as he was comforting Lisa.

He wanted to be comforted in the same way.

“Daddy?”

“Hmmm?”

“Nicole dancing?”

His eyelids closed against a sharp stab of pain. “Probably.”

“But she told the club she didn’t want to dance tonight.” Like Bobby, Nicole had plenty of words for what was important. “Was it a white lie?”

“Maybe she changed her mind about dancing. Probably she just wanted to be alone.”

Lisa was silent, thinking about the unpredictable world of adulthood. “Why?”

“Why not? Don’t you ever start out to do one thing and end up doing something else?”

“Sure, but . . .”

“But?”

“I’m a kid.”

“Adults have kids inside them.”

“Like babies?” Lisa asked, startled.

He laughed softly. “No, punkin. I just meant that all adults were kids once, and part of them always stays a kid.”

“Oh.” She leaned back and looked at as much of him as she could see. “You must have been a really big kid.”

“Guess so.”

Lisa snuggled into her father. “I’m gonna be big like you.”

“You’ll be something better.”

“What?”

“Big like Jan. A heart big enough to hold the world.”

“And Nicole.”

It was a moment before Chase could answer. “Yes, like Nicole.”

Closing her eyes, Lisa relaxed into her father’s strength. “I love Nicole. She always has time for me and never laughs at Benny.”

Chase couldn’t think of anything to say, so he made a noise that said he was listening.

The drumbeats stopped. He let out a long breath, hoping that Nicole had finally danced until she was tired enough to sleep. God knows he hadn’t been able to sleep, even after a savage workout at the local gym.

The drumbeats began again, rolling thunder through the night.

“Can’t we watch her dance?” Lisa asked.

Just the thought of it made his heart leap. “Not tonight, punkin.”

“Why?”

“She doesn’t want an audience.”

Lisa’s full little lips pouted. “Sure-sure?”

“Sure-sure.” He kissed her forehead. “If Nicole wanted people to watch, she would be dancing at the club. Right now she’s dancing just for herself.”

“Like Benny.”

“Hmmm?”

“Benny draws and never shows. Except to me. He loves me.”

“Everybody loves you, punkin.”

“Mommy doesn’t.”

Anger flicked like a whip across Chase. There was no point in denying what the child knew for a fact.

“Remember that puzzle you tried to work at Aunt Jan’s?” he asked.

“Dumb thing. Didn’t work. Hate it.”

“Don’t hate it, punkin. It wasn’t the puzzle’s fault. It wasn’t your fault. The blue pieces were missing, that’s all. Your mother is like that. All the love pieces are missing. But you’re not like that. You’re whole. You’ll work out just fine.”

Lisa looked up at him with wide gray eyes. “You, too.”

He smiled and said lightly, “Sure.”

But as Chase sat and listened to the drums, he wondered how he had mislaid enough pieces to hurt a woman whose only sin had been to trust him before he trusted himself.

Monday morning Nicole woke to the sound of someone knocking gently at her door. For a moment she froze, terrified that Chase had finally caught up with her.

“Nicole?” Lisa called softly. “Awake?”

Nicole’s hammering heart settled into more even rhythms.

What on earth makes you think that Chase would come after you?
she asked herself bitterly.

There was no answer but the same inner certainty that had once told her Chase was the man she had been looking for all her life without knowing it.

Well, you finally found him. Lucky you.

“Nicole?”

Hastily she reached out and pulled on the muumuu she had tossed aside last night in the heat of the dance. “Come in, honey.”

The door opened hesitantly. “Sure-sure?”

“Sure-sure.”

Sitting cross-legged on the futon, Nicole stretched and then held out her hand to the little girl. Smiling, Lisa ran to her second-favorite woman in the whole world.

“Where’s Jan?” Nicole asked, yawning. “Or did Dane bring you here?”

“No, Daddy did. We’re together now. Always-always.”

The last bit of Nicole’s sleepiness vanished. She came to her feet in a single lithe surge, as though she expected Chase to be right behind his daughter.

“Where is he?” Nicole asked.

“Asleep. When I woke him up, he said the drums kept him awake until nearly dawn.”

“The drums?”

“Your drums.”

The thought of Chase staying awake listening to the drums while she danced sent unfamiliar sensations sliding through Nicole. Hot, not cold. Unnerving.

“Sorry. Next time I’ll turn down the sound.”

“No-no. Fun-fun-
fun.
”

“Sure-sure-sure?” Nicole asked dryly.

“Yes-yes! I sat in Daddy’s lap, and we watched the moon and listened.” She smiled and looked through her long lashes at Nicole. “I wanted to come and watch, but he wouldn’t let me. He said you were dancing for yourself.”

Chase’s insight was as unexpected as his attack on her yesterday morning had been. Nicole made a small, helpless gesture, then smiled at Lisa with more determination than cheerfulness.

“Are you staying with Ch—with your father all day?”

“I’m staying with him always-always.”

“I see.”

And what she saw was that it would be very hard for her to avoid Chase after working hours if Lisa was living with him. Yet she knew how much it meant to Lisa to be wanted by her father after being rejected by her mother.

“I’m glad for you, honey,” Nicole said in a husky voice. “I know how much you wanted to be with him.”

For a moment Nicole was tempted to send Lisa back home before Chase woke up, missed her, and started searching. The first place he would look for his daughter was the last place he had told her not to go: Nicole’s cottage.

But when Nicole opened her mouth to tell Lisa she should go back to Chase’s cottage before she was missed, she couldn’t do it. Without saying a word, she closed her mouth.

I’m hiding again. But this time Lisa would be the one hurt.

The little girl was hypersensitive to adult rejection, especially a woman’s.

“Have you eaten?” Nicole asked, taking Lisa’s hand.

The girl shook her head

“Good-good.” Nicole smiled. “We can have breakfast together. Just give me time to shower, okay?”

“I’ll get Daddy up so he can—”

“No,” Nicole interrupted sharply. Then, much more gently, “No, honey. Let him sleep. Why don’t you try drawing the garden path while I shower? Remember what I told you last night about shadows all coming from the same angle and how things get smaller the farther they are away from you?”

Lisa nodded, her gray eyes serious.

With an encouraging smile and a wave in the direction of the drawing supplies, Nicole went to the shower.

And every step of the way she wished she could get her hands on the bitch who had made a seven-year-old child as serious as an adult. Lisa didn’t smile often enough and rarely laughed. She simply vanished at the first sign of disapproval, as though she had no defenses against it, no sense of her own worth.

Nicole knew how painful and damaging it was to feel that kind of personal failure. It infuriated her that a child as gentle, bright, and loving as Lisa had been driven so far into a protective shell by a woman who wasn’t worthy of the name.

The shower cooled Nicole off some, but she still got angry at the thought of Lisa’s mother. When she went back to the living room, Lisa was drawing quietly. Every few seconds she would look unhappily at the lines she had drawn and the pencil in her hand.

Nicole knew that Lisa didn’t have a tenth the natural talent Benny had, but it shouldn’t prevent her from enjoying drawing. It was the pleasure, not the sketch itself, that was important.

“I like that,” Nicole said, stroking Lisa’s black hair. It was shiny and clean, silky and wild because it hadn’t seen a comb for at least twelve hours. “I can feel the coolness of the shadows.”

Lisa looked up at Nicole, smiled shyly, and returned to her drawing. She was less hesitant now, less critical of the result. After a few minutes she began humming quietly, totally unaware of the rest of the world.

Smiling, Nicole started slicing fresh fruit for breakfast. Before she was finished, Benny appeared at the cottage’s garden door.

“Eat?” he asked.

Nicole smiled. “Sure-sure. But if you want eggs, you’ll have to beg them from your mother. I’m out.”

“Fruit.” Benny managed to get a world of approval into the single word, telling Nicole that eggs weren’t necessary.

He stepped into the room, graceful and surefooted despite his limp. When he spotted Lisa, he broke into a beguiling smile.

“Li-sa,” he said, accenting her name oddly, musically.

Her smile came and went so quickly that it was like a shadow of light chasing across her serious face. The two children had met on one of Nicole’s picnics. Benny had been fascinated by the fragile little girl. It was a fascination Lisa returned in full.

“Hi, Benny,” Lisa said. “How did you get here?”

“Home.” He gestured with his hand toward the big house on top of the hill.

Lisa’s smile came again and stayed. “Yours?”

Benny nodded.

“The garden, too?” she asked.

He nodded again.

“And the beach?”

“All.”

Then he smiled and held out his hand to Lisa in a gesture that reminded Nicole of the time his grandmother had extended her hand and drawn Nicole into another world.

“Share all with you, Li-sa,” Benny said. “Come.”

Forgetting about her drawing, Lisa jumped to her feet.

Nicole was too startled at hearing six consecutive words out of Benny to protest when the two children ran through the French doors and into the beckoning Eden.

“No swimming until I get there!” she called after them.

Benny’s answer was a wave that somehow managed to tell Nicole that she was being foolish—he would never do anything that might hurt the delicate, gray-eyed little girl.

Quickly Nicole packed fruit and honey muffins into a wicker basket, changed into her bathing suit, and gathered up her sketchbook. As an afterthought she grabbed a handful of towels. She stepped into the garden and hesitated, wondering if she should get a bathing suit for Lisa.

The thought of waking Chase stopped Nicole cold. She decided that Lisa could swim just fine in the cotton shorts and tank top she was wearing. As for Benny, he usually swam in whatever he happened to be wearing when the mood took him.

Although it was barely eight o’clock, the black-sand beach was already warm. So was the water. It was a warmth that varied only a few degrees throughout the year.

One of the hardest things for Nicole to get used to in Hawaii had been not only the lack of seasons but the lack of any real change in the weather at all from sunrise to midnight. On the wet side of the island, where most natives had always lived, the sun came up, the clouds came up, and the trade winds pushed them against the mountains for the afternoon rain.

The Hawaiian language didn’t even have a word for weather. The closest it came was a word describing the rare days when the trade winds died and the southern winds blew, bringing a muggy, stifling heat to the islands. Then natives spoke of “volcano weather” and left Pele offerings of food and fiery drink on the dark, steaming floor of Kilauea’s crater.

Nicole glanced up toward the direction where Kilauea rose. Automatically she looked for signs of an eruption with the same casual eye that mainlanders used to measure thunderheads as a potential birthplace of tornadoes.

Today there were no visible signals of the seething magma that always waited beneath the island’s volcanic skin. The surface of the land was quiet instead of restless with the rhythmic quivering of molten stone. That faint shivering was the only outward sign of the magma relentlessly testing the hardened lid of former eruptions, seeking the fractures and fissures that would become channels for the birth of yet more land.

But despite its long period of quiet, Kilauea showed no signs of revving up for a big show. Neither did any of the smaller craters that ran in a chain down the mountain’s flank.

Looks like the hotshot pool is going for a record,
Nicole thought as she settled cross-legged onto a towel.

For several weeks rumors of a coming eruption had been racing like juicy gossip through the observatory. So far they were just rumors. Other than the patterns of tremors that the scientists argued about every night in the Kipuka Club, nothing had happened.

In any case she knew that the volcano wasn’t on the edge of eruption, because all of the active rift zones were still open to tourists. When that changed, the road up to Kilauea would be lined with cars driven by expectant natives and tourists waiting for the big show. On Hawaii, volcanic eruptions were usually predictable and polite, and always awesomely beautiful. As a spectator sport they had no equal.

“Niiicolllle!”

She glanced up from her idle sketch pad in time to see Benny and Lisa burst from a clump of coconut palms and race over the sand toward her. Benny had a huge green nut in his hands. His uneven legs weren’t a problem when it came to climbing. He shinnied up and down coconut palms quicker than a mainland cat.

The first few times Nicole had watched Benny climb a tall palm, she had held her breath with fear that he would hurt himself in a fall. Now she just licked her lips in anticipation of the fruit he would bring down. Raw coconut milk and meat was a taste she had quickly acquired on the Big Island, right along with macadamia nuts and pit-roasted pig. She had even tried poi. Once.

Benny pulled out a pocketknife and went to work on his prize. Nicole had never figured out how he got into the coconut with such a small tool. It took her a hammer and a hard stone to get the job done, or a cleaver as long as her arm.

The three of them ate in a companionable silence punctuated by tiny giggles from Lisa when various kinds of fruit juices trickled between her fingers and down her arms. Watching her, Nicole had the feeling that getting grubby was a relatively new delight to the girl.

“C’mon,” Nicole said after they finished the snack. Standing, she held out her hand. “Time to wash up.”

Disappointment clouded Lisa’s transparent eyes as she looked at the path leading back to the cottages.

“No. This way,” Nicole said. She pointed toward the turquoise sea.

Lisa looked down at her juice-smeared shorts. “Can’t.”

“It won’t hurt your clothes,” Nicole said.

Lisa shook her head.

Benny touched her thin shoulder. “Swim with me.”

“Can’t. Daddy said.” She took a breath so big her shoulders strained, then spit out the awful truth and waited for the worst. “Don’t know how.”

Benny was too surprised to say a word. The idea of someone not knowing how to swim was as astonishing to him as not knowing how to walk.

Nicole knelt next to the tightly waiting Lisa, whose little body was clenched against the disapproval she feared. “Swimming is like drawing, honey. Nobody is born knowing how to do it. But you can learn, if you want to. Do you?”

Lisa looked at the ocean and said slowly, doubtfully, “It looks awful big.”