Heat Wave (2 page)

CHAPTER ONE

Seven Years Later

“Miss, are you done with that?”

I can feel the man in the seat next to mine subtly elbowing me until I turn my head and glance up at the flight attendant. She’s nodding at the nearly finished glass of Mai Tai on my tray table, the very reason why my response time is epically slow.

“Uh, almost,” I tell her with a smile that I hope looks sober and pick up the thin plastic cup so she won’t snatch it away.

Not that it really matters—I’ve had four syrupy cocktails in the last six hours. From the moment I boarded the Alaska Airlines flight heading out of Seattle for Lihue, I’ve been drinking my nerves away. It doesn’t help that the Mai Tais on this flight have been free the last two hours, even for us poor people in coach. It seems the airline wants everyone to get excited about the impending paradise, and drinks are on the house.

I finish the rest of the cocktail while she patiently waits, the sticky sweetness of rum and fruit-juice puckering my tongue, and hand her the empty glass. I immediately bring my attention back to the window, not wanting to miss a thing.

We’ve already passed over Maui as we started our descent, a brilliant color show of red and green, ochre and sienna, and now we’re over the ocean between the islands, the water a shimmering aqua that seems so alive and hypnotic I can barely tear my eyes away.

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Those words won’t stop ringing in my head. They started when I began packing a week ago and haven’t stopped since. I’ve always been so organized, so planned, so careful with my life, and now I’m heading to Hawaii of all places based on nothing more than a promise and hope for the future.

I never thought my future would have me way out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on one of the most isolated places in the world. Beyond the eight islands lies 1,860 miles of empty ocean before the nearest continent. To know I’ll be staying here is a sobering, terrifying thought.

Yes, I know, it’s not the typical outlook of someone going to Hawaii on a job prospect. I should be as happy and excited as the rest of the passengers on the plane, chatting and laughing merrily through their Mai Tai buzz, flipping through the in-flight magazine and pointing out the different places to go. But while they’re most likely going on vacation, I’m going there to live.

And once again…

I can’t believe I’m doing this
.

In an ideal world, I would have found a job right away after my last one. As the
chef de
partie
at one of Chicago’s biggest Italian chains, Picolo, I thought finding another job would be easy, even in such a highly competitive business. But it didn’t matter that I’d worked at the place steadily since I got out of culinary school, starting as a line cook and working my way up. The pickings were slim, (for a reason I might add) and without a job I couldn’t afford my apartment, which meant moving back home with my parents for one-hellish month. Sure, they live in a multi-million-dollar house in Lincoln Park, but if you knew my parents at all you’d understand why I had to get the hell out of there.

And get out of there I did. I’m pretty sure my parents felt the same way about me because it was them, my mother specifically, who told me about the cook position at Moonwater Inn. Of course, it meant leaving my friends and life behind and moving to the island of Kauai, but even so it was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up.

At least, I keep telling myself that. In reality, I don’t have a choice in the matter.

It’s not long before the plane gets lower and lower and then the wings dip slightly to the left and the blue blue ocean comes crashing against dramatic green cliffs, the island of Kauai, my future home, rising dramatically from the depths.

A thrill runs through me, the kind that tickles your heart, makes your stomach dance. My hands grip the arm rest as the plane goes through some mild bumps.

“Afraid of flying?” the man beside me asks. He’s in his late fifties, a round face, skin that’s so tanned it’s almost red, and wearing a rumpled white shirt. He hasn’t said two words to me the entire flight.

“Afraid of crashing,” I tell him and turn my attention back to the window just in time to see the runway rushing up beneath us, red dirt bordering the asphalt. But instead of feeling relief as the wheels make contact with the ground and the plane does its overdramatic braking, another wave of nerves goes through me.

This is it.

If this doesn’t work out, there’s no way off this island except for a six-hour flight over open water. If this doesn’t work out, I’m back at square one with my tail between my legs. If this doesn’t work out, I’m once again a disappointment in the Locke family.

Kauai’s airport is in Lihue and it’s small. Like, way smaller than I had imagined, and dated. It looks like it was built in the 70’s and hasn’t had a single upgrade. I always assumed that a city’s airport was indicative if the city itself, which makes me think that Kauai is a little more backwoods than I thought.

And it’s muggy too, I realize as I step out into baggage claim to find my two suitcases. It’s open to the outside and a hot blanket of air settles over the carousels, nearly choking me with the humidity. On the screens above the baggage are safety videos droning on and on, warning visitors of the millions of dangers that wait on the island.

There’s also a damn chicken hanging out near the entrance.

I’m definitely not in Chicago anymore.

Eventually I find my two giant suitcases—there was no chance of me packing light for this—and I’m already sweating by the time I haul them out to the road, hoping to spot a taxi.

“Veronica?” a voice asks.

I look over to see a guy with a big smile and a goatee, holding a piece of lined paper that’s obviously been torn out of a notebook with
Veronica
scrawled across it in blue ink.

“Yes?” I say, frowning at him. “Are you from the hotel?”

He nods, offering me his hand. “Yup. Charlie,” he says. “Sorry the boss couldn’t make it, he’s tied up in some emergency with the pool. You know how it is.”

Actually I don’t, but I shake his hand and give him a tight smile. Truth is, part of the reason my nerves are going all crazy was because I thought Logan was picking me up and I’d have to endure an awkward car ride with him. Yes, Logan’s my new boss and I’m sure there will be plenty of awkward times to come, but for the moment I’m relieved I don’t have to face him.

Yet.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. Charlie’s easy on the eyes, I have to admit. The goatee, the spiky light brown hair, the tanned limbs and tattoos. Then I notice he’s not even wearing shoes.

His eyes follow mine and he grins broadly. “Welcome to Kauai,” he says. “No shoes, no shirt, no problem.” He tugs at his neon green Billabong tank top. “Though I wore the shirt just for you. Come on, let me help you.”

He takes one of my bags and I follow him along the road and across to the short-term parking lot. A rooster struts past the chain-link fence and I stop, quickly pulling out my phone to take a picture. Paolo and Claire are going to go nuts when I show them there’s a chicken at the airport.

I look up, still smiling at the sight, to see Charlie watching me with amusement. “You’re going to get real bored of the chickens, real fast. The rest of the world has pigeons. We have chickens.” He starts pulling the suitcase along and says over his shoulder, “At least pigeons don’t wake you up at 4 AM.”

“Why are there so many chickens?” I ask as he leads me toward a beat-up green Toyota Tacoma from the 80’s, a surfboard in the back.

“Hurricane Iniki swept through here in ninety-two, let them all loose. Here.” He grabs my other suitcase from me and swings it in the back with a grunt, shoving them under the board. He wipes his hands on his surf shorts and gestures to the passenger seat. “Hop on in.”

“Were you here for the hurricane?” I ask him as I settle in the seat, the raw leather hot against my hands as I adjust myself, stuffing coming out of the torn seams.

He starts the car, a beefy rumble from the engine. “Nah, I’ve only lived here for six years. Before that I was in Boulder, Colorado, dreaming the dream. You know?”

“And now you’re living the dream.”

“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “This island will shake-up your soul, I’ll tell you that much.” He glances at me as he pays the parking fee to the attendant with dimes he scrounges out of a compartment on the dash. “Aren’t you here to live the dream?”

“What did Logan tell you?” I ask him,

“Shephard?” he says and the name jolts through me like a bullet. “Nothing. Our cook Hugo left a few weeks ago and it’s been a scramble to find a new one. Me and Johnny been working overtime. Not that that’s anything new.”

“You’re a cook?” I ask, surprised. I’m not sure what I thought Charlie was, maybe a surf instructor.

“Cook, errand boy, Jack of All Trades,” he says, rolling down the window as we pull onto the highway, my gaze stolen by the contrast of colors around me. The rich rusty earth juxtaposed with the the startlingly bright greens of the lush land, the ocean in the distance. “At the compound, everyone has more than one job. I wonder what yours will be.”

“The compound?”

“That’s what we call it. Once you start working at Moonwater Inn, you don’t leave. We’re like a big family.”

Family. Another word that cuts like a knife.

“Or a cult,” he adds with a chuckle. “Depending how you look at it. I’ll tell you, finding a good permanent job on the island isn’t easy. Shephard treats us well. It’s a small hotel but it’s got a good reputation, and even if we’re all stretched thin sometimes doing side jobs, he makes sure we’re still living life. Ya know? That’s why people live here. To live the life. To take that away…might as well go off-island.” He glances at me over his shades. “So how do you know him, anyway? It’s not every day that someone comes all the way from the mainland. You from Seattle?”

“Chicago,” I tell him. “Changed planes in Seattle.”

“Bears, Cubs, Blackhawks?”

I grin. “Cubs.”

“This is your year.”

“Hope so. 2016 has been a shit-show.”

“Well you came to the right place to escape all that. I know how it is. Why live and work where there’s winter and cold and gloom and shitty people, busy, busy, busy, when you can live and work here?”

The thing is, I liked the winter and the cold and the gloom and the shitty people. Maybe I didn’t like it all the time, but it’s what I knew. Better the devil you know, they say, and I’ve lived in the Chicago area my whole life. I knew many devils and I knew them very well.

I turn my attention to the scenery whizzing past. I shouldn’t say whizzing since we aren’t moving very fast—the highway is two lanes for the most part and traffic has been steady—but it gives me a better chance to soak it all in.

Not that it helps.

To be honest, it feels like
none
of this is real. To the right of me, golf courses and resorts stretch out among palm-strewn grounds, to the left, verdant hills lead sharply to jagged peaks, the razorback cliffs lined with thick vegetation. When we cross a bridge going over a river, I get my first true glance at the ocean, azure waves pounding a golden shore, a few surfers bobbing out on the swells.

“How do you know Shephard anyway?” Charlie asks. “He a friend of yours?”

“Through family,” I tell him, my voice firm.

“Ah,” he says. “Then you know what you’re getting into.”

I give him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

He raises his brows. “Oh, well, you know there are…
were
…two Logan Shephards, right?”

I swallow hard, having a feeling I know where this is going. Sometimes I think there are two Veronica Lockes, even if the differences between them are slight, they’re enough. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there was the Shephard I started working for. The
Shephards,
I should say. It was Logan and his wife that started the hotel. I was one of their first hires. Then she died, drunk driving accident just around the corner from the hotel. Wasn’t her fault but her car went over the edge and…well, he hasn’t been the same since.”

My fingernails are digging deep into my palms and I’m trying to breathe normally. “I haven’t seen him in a long time…not since the funeral.”

He looks at me with a guilty expression. “Ah, shit. I had no idea you were that close. I’m sorry for your loss. I knew they sent her…well, that the funeral was out east, but we had a little vigil for her on the beach anyway. She was a great girl, lady, you know, really nice. Always had the right thing to say. Just…perfect, I guess.”

The thought of a vigil on the beach makes my heart feel like it’s imploding in my chest. “So Logan’s different now,” I say, switching the subject slightly.

“Still has his sense of humor, but yeah. I don’t blame him. Angrier. Moodier. We call him the grump.
Habut
.” He pronounces the last word like ha-boo-t. “That’s local speak for all that stuff. But I mean, he still has his sense of humor, right, so he doesn’t mind the nickname. It’s only fair since he has nicknames for all of us.”