Illumine Her (9 page)

“Are you insane? We almost hit you!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Malek, but I had to speak with you,” Alana straightened, trying to catch her breath from her sprint. She really did feel insane and slightly embarrassed now that she was face to face with him.

“Alana?” He shut the door and walked over to where she stood. “What are you doing here?”

Alana glanced at the driver apologetically before lowering her arms, shifting her feet to face him. Here goes.
No turning back now that you’ve made a spectacle of yourself.

“Mr. Malek, I need answers,” she started.

Chase glanced up at the sky and sighed. “Alana, I’m on my way to the airport. I don’t have time to speak with you.”

Alana’s patience waned. “You can’t just avoid me,” she retorted. “You can’t leave without explaining yourself.”

She stared at his face and noticed his eyes were a deep azure from this angle. A light breeze carried his clean soapy scent, a mixture of sweet and spice.

Chase looked away. “Alana, there’s nothing to talk about. I’m leaving and you’re staying, so let’s just move on. I have a flight to catch.”

She lowered her eyes. “Don’t speak to me like I’m an unintelligent being. I know what I saw, and I know what you did. You have time, so tell me.”

“I have time?” He raised one dark eyebrow.

“You do own your own plane, don’t you? I can’t imagine them taking off without their one and only passenger,” she shot back.

Naturally, she expected him to deny her straight answers, but she was going to demand them. Outwardly, she stood defiantly in an attempt to fool him into believing she had a cool and calm demeanor. Inwardly, she was everything but, her heart drumming a furious tempo. Her hands felt clammy and she kept them fisted to prevent the onslaught of moisture.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

“Tell me how you manipulated those lights from your hands.” Now that she had his attention she was not backing down. “How did you do it? How did you bring him back to life? Are you some kind of mad scientist that’s invented some new technology? Have you made some medical breakthrough? Do you have an implanted chip in your arms somewhere? What is it?”

Chase chuckled quietly at her interrogation. “You are something else, Alana. A mad scientist? Implanted chip? That’s a good one.” He had the audacity to look amused.

Alana crossed her arms over her chest and shot him an aggravated look. “You’re not going to tell me?”

Chase held her gaze and stepped closer. There was a masculine beauty about him, a compelling strength that radiated off him. His voice lowered as he looked down seriously into her eyes. “I am none of those things, Alana.”

Alana felt something shift in the atmosphere. She shivered despite the heat and sweat beginning to pool on her upper lip.

“Then who are you?” she asked quietly.

When Chase didn’t shift his eyes from her, she suddenly wished she’d never asked. She didn’t want to be there anymore. She wanted to be a hundred yards away, inside the safety of the hospital walls, checking on patients and cleaning up their vomit. Peering up, she could see the internal battle storming in his eyes as he gazed down at her gently. He had sensed her unease.

“You should never have witnessed what I did, Alana. I got carried away. It was a mistake on my part—”

“A mistake?” she interrupted. “Your saving Mr. Filipo’s life was a mistake? How can you say that?”

He was contradicting everything she learned in her training to be a nurse—to preserve life, to care for and save people. He belittled his actions and she could not accept that.

“I’m not sorry about what you did, Chase,” she said. “If you think I’m upset about what happened, you’re wrong. What you did…it was a miracle.”

“As far as everyone knows, you revived Mr. Filipo,” he declared. “You brought him back, Alana. Not me. That’s the way it will remain.”

Alana looked at him perplexed, her eyebrows creased. This man standing in front of her was a mystery, a contradiction.

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone what you did.…” she trailed off.

Chase stood still, a look of indifference crossing his handsome features. She saw it. The closed off look. The one that told her she wasn’t going to be getting any more answers. She recognized it immediately because it was one she often displayed.

Finally straightening, she nodded her head in resolve. “Mr. Malek, it’s clear to me that you will not divulge your secret, and I will certainly not pursue this any further because you are obviously not comfortable enough to trust me. I’m sorry I’ve wasted your precious time with my petty questions. Thank you for everything you have done for our humble hospital. I hope you enjoyed your visit to Samoa. I’ll leave you now.” With that, Alana backed away and turned to go when Chase suddenly grabbed her arm, halting her movements. Startled, she faced him.

Closing his eyes briefly as if he were in pain, he stepped closer, bridging the gap between them. Alana drew in a sharp breath.
Too close
. He was too close for comfort, and she shifted uncomfortably. Didn’t the man have any sense of personal space? She swallowed the hard knot lodged in her throat, her eyes darting to and fro across his blue shirt, lashes blinking in time to her heartbeat. He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her forehead. Chase slowly reached out with his other hand and gently tipped her chin upwards so she could meet his eyes. Ocean blue to rainforest green. In another time and setting, Alana would have playfully smacked it away, embarrassed by the proximity the situation posed. What she felt instead surprised her. She held his gaze and felt completely safe. Protected. Sheltered. Wrapped up in Chase’s powerful, invisible aura, she couldn’t help the feeling of comfort that slowly overtook her, easing the butterflies that were in turmoil in her stomach just seconds before. She felt calm by this simple touch, and it was unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

“You have never met someone like me before, Alana,” he said quietly without a trace of arrogance. Not a question but a declaration.

“And what are you?” she asked.

His eyes spoke of an emotion Alana could not place, the pad of his thumb caressing her jaw gently.
Talk to me
, she pleaded with her own.
Trust me
.

His mouth curved into a small smile, and he lowered his hands, stepping away from her. She could still feel the imprint of his fingers on her face stamped beneath her skin. She watched in bewilderment as he walked back to the car and got inside, all lithe and smooth moves, before shutting the door firmly—this final act an answer to her question. He was leaving the country and was never going to tell her; he was an enigma and will remain that way. She stood aside and watched helplessly as the car rolled away before turning onto the main road. Once again, he left her all alone with her puzzled thoughts and burning questions.

Chapter 8

P
eering over the ridge that played host to a tangle of bushy weeds and vines—a blessing in the disguise of a safety net should one accidentally fall over—Alana wondered where her sister was. She paused in her climb and looked beyond the drop to the overhanging of trees that stretched like an endless marquee in every direction. She took the opportunity to catch her breath. They had been hiking for twenty-five minutes, choosing to go together in the late Friday afternoon when the day’s heat and stickiness gave way to the evening’s cool breeze and significantly lower temperature. Alana passed several hikers on their descent, and one old man stopped to encourage her, patting her on the head like she was a child. “
Malo le ogosa’i
. You’re almost there.”

She smiled politely and thought Malia probably needed that more than she did at the moment. Deciding to wait for her to catch up, Alana perched on the smooth root of a large tree that jutted and tore up out of the soil. She didn’t have to wait long.

Malia huffed and puffed her way around the bend with her hands on her hips and a heavy gait that looked like pure agony to Alana. The V-neck of her shirt was soaked in sweat, and her face was flushed crimson. Her messy braid was coming undone with tendrils of hair sticking to her neck and forehead. Alana couldn’t help chuckling at the sight before her.

“You know, when you said you wanted to hike up Mt. Vaea, I didn’t realize it was going to be more like a crawl.”

“Shut…up,” came her wheezing response. “Clearly, I forgot…about your jogging… advantage over me….” Malia plopped herself heavily on another root and began to massage her calves. “I am so unfit, it’s not even funny. I blame all those pastries at staff meetings. I need a smoke.” She took out a cigarette and lighter from the pocket of her shorts and lit up.

“I forgot how eerily peaceful it is here,” Alana spoke softly and glanced around them. The sun’s brightest rays were gone, replaced by coolness. The canopy of trees above cast pale shadows around them. The mountain was devoid of the beeping of cars, barking dogs, and the cackles from nearby villagers. The mountain’s music was comprised of the
ma’oma’o
bird, the rustling of ancient trees, and its opulent spray of leaves and wild flowers as it showered down on the pathway. The ground was a little muddy and damp from the shade. She suddenly realized its appeal to the famous Scottish writer who chose to be buried atop the mountain. A peaceful final resting place. She admired the novelist who traversed the Pacific sea in the nineteenth century before finally settling down in Samoa.

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreigner,” he wrote.

While Alana agreed with the statement, it was a testament to the writer’s character and the inner workings of his mind that drew her to his work. To her it revealed a humble spirit born of the early pioneers who took up residence in foreign lands and blended in wholeheartedly as if it were their own. These two simple sentences spoke of a promise to travel with a mind open to myriad possibilities. It was a mantra Alana wanted to adopt in her own way of life wherever that road of life took her. Well-loved and respected by the local people, Robert Louis Stevenson was titled
Tusitala
. Teller of Tales. How very adept and appropriate. She was a lover of tales and a huge fan of his work. Thinking of tales, she wanted to know her sister’s. Alana peered over at Malia, who was puffing out smoke. With all of the preparations underway for the wedding, her mind shifted to something she hadn’t given any attention to in the last couple of years. Men. Love. Relationships.

“Malia? How do you know Kane is the one? As opposed to the last guy you were in a relationship with?”

Malia flicked the cigarette away and looked at her. “Because he lets me eat the food he can’t finish off his plate and doesn’t judge me for it.”

Alana smirked. “You and your island appetite. Somehow I get the feeling you trained him that way. But seriously, I want to know how you came to this decision. Did he surprise you when he popped the question? Or was it something you consulted over and decided together?”

Malia reached for her hair tie and pulled it off, untangling the braid and tying her straight hair up in a high bun. “It was definitely something we talked about.”

“How did you initiate a conversation like that?” Alana asked intrigued. She retrieved a couple water bottles from her back pack and offered one to her sister. “Most of the movies these days portray a hero who can’t even voice his emotions, let alone say ‘I love you,’ which leads to a crisis, the big make-up session, and then—surprise!—the proposal, which she never sees coming. Somehow, the big talk in between gets lost.”

Malia took the bottle Alana offered and drank deeply before placing the lid back on securely. “There are a lot of ways to show someone you love them without having to say the words. For us, it was natural to talk about it. It was something we both wanted to consciously work towards. We didn’t just go for some little fling,” Malia said. “But before we could decide together, we had to make sure of this as individuals. Consent to it as free adults. I had to work on being
the one
instead of focusing solely on searching for the one, you know? It’s hard work, but it’s been worth it.”

Alana sat back and wiped her moistened hands on her shorts. “Like what? What did you work on?” she quizzed.