2 Empath (30 page)
Authors: Edie Claire
Tags: #ghost, #family secrets, #surfing, #humor, #romantic suspense, #YA romance, #family reunions, #Hawaii, #romance, #love, #YA paranormal, #teens, #contemporary romance
Zane didn’t look at them. His gaze was fixed on me.
Come on, Kali,
his eyes begged.
My heart pounded in my chest. How hard could it be? Kick and stroke at the same time. Why couldn’t I do that? I’d learned more complicated dance choreography when I was five. I had only been afraid of the water — but I wasn’t anymore. Not really. Zane was standing no deeper than I had stood with him the other day.
“You don’t think they’re dating, do you?”
“No way! He could do better than
her.”
EAT MY BUBBLES, WENCH!!!
I jumped up into the water. I kicked. I windmilled my arms. I didn’t sink. And I still didn’t sink. And then I was
moving!
I was moving, and I kept on moving, and I could see Zane ahead of me in the water. I was almost there, and then he was gone…. I couldn’t believe my eyes… he was moving
away
from me!
Furious, I redoubled my efforts. No way was he getting out of this. No way could he walk backwards in shoulder-high water faster than I could swim!
He kept on moving, blast him, but I plowed through the water like a steam engine until at last my hand connected to his retreating shoulder. I grabbed hold of him and wrapped my arm around his neck. I stopped kicking and let my legs drift to the bottom.
He swept an arm around my waist and pulled me close, laughing. “You did it, Kali!” he shouted, his face glowing. “You did it!”
“I did it,” I gulped, my breath coming in ragged pants, my chest heaving. “Thanks to you.”
The bikinis weren’t taunting anymore. But I wouldn’t have cared if they did. Those girls had nothing on Kali Thompson. Kali Thompson was beautiful like her grandmother. And Kali Thompson could
swim.
He was holding me as close as he ever had. He wasn’t tense, exactly, but I wasn’t the only one breathing heavy, either.
He leaned his head down toward mine, our noses nearly touching. The euphoria I felt was so intense it couldn’t possibly get any better. Or could it?
“I believe…” I breathed, “that we had a deal.”
He smiled lazily, revealing the irresistible dimples.
“Now,”
I ordered. “Kiss me.”
His green eyes twinkled.
And he did.
Epilogue
At exactly 1:34pm on that very afternoon, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center documented an underwater earthquake measuring 4.5 on the Richter Scale centered about thirty miles off the southwestern coast of Oahu. The quake occurred near an underwater volcano and caused a minor tsunami of eight inches at Waianae and two inches at Honolulu. The tidal wave did not cause any damage and no tsunami warning was issued.
It
could
have been a coincidence.
But we didn’t think so.
Author’s Note
Writing the story of Kali and Zane (beginning with
Wraith
), set against the backdrop of one of the most hauntingly beautiful places on earth, has been one of my favorite experiences as a novelist. I hope there will be more stories to come! If you’d like their journey to continue, I’d love to have you visit my
Wraith Facebook page
, where you can check out my pics of Kali’s Oahu and tell me what you’d like to see happen in future books. In the meantime, be sure not to miss the
audiobook
version of
Wraith
, narrated by the award-winning Tavia Gilbert!
If you enjoyed
Hawaiian Shadows
, you might also enjoy my classic romantic suspense novels:
Meant To Be
(about an adoptee rediscovering memories of her lost childhood),
Borrowed Time
(wherein a woman is haunted by memories of what she did one horrific night when she was seventeen), and
Long Time Coming
(also a ghost story, about a girl who dies in a tragic car accident shortly after her senior prom).
The Mud Sisters
, my women’s fiction debut, tells of childhood friendship lost and found — and threatened once more. If you like murder mysteries with a touch of humor, check out the Kindle-bestselling
Leigh Koslow
cozy mystery series!
To find out more about my books, including my comedic stage plays for youth and adults, please visit my
website
or
Facebook page
, or send me an
email
. If you’d like to keep up with what I’m writing now and be the first to know when new books are released, you can sign up for my
New Book Alert
. Thanks so much for reading!
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