Sun Kissed (17 page)

“What did you find out at the FBI?” she asked.

“Nothing officially. But whatever your friend’s fiancé is involved in, they know about it.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Believe me, I never kid about the FBI.”

“They told you that?”

“No. Because I was acting as a civilian on non-official business. But the agent I spoke with would neither confirm nor deny.”

“And that told you they know?”

“It’s cop speak. Like ‘a person of interest.’”

She shook her head. “It has to be a mistake.”

“It’s not.”

He sounded so sure of himself Lani had no other choice but to believe him. She also wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling her, but suspected that if she pushed, he’d probably just give her that same line the FBI agent had given him.

She sipped her coffee, basking in the memory of being so thoroughly, expertly, loved. Donovan’s lovemaking had been every bit as intense as the young man she remembered him to be before he had begun his successful series of career advancements. Which brought up something else she’d been thinking about on her morning walk.

“Why do you want to join the FBI?”

“Because they’re the best.”

His eyes were gleaming with the same light Lani had seen in Nate’s eyes when her brother discussed his latest novel. Or when her father was in the planning stages of a painting. And her mother had taken on that same avid look while chiseling away on a piece of virgin stone. Able to recognize obsession when she saw it, Lani frowned as she spread orange marmalade on a thin slice of the warm, dark bread.

“What, exactly, do they do that you don’t do now?”

“It’s not that different,” he admitted. “But at a national level. While I have to go through hoops to follow a trail outside Portland… Have I told you how beautiful you are this morning?”

“You have. Several times.” She jerked her head back. “And you’re dodging the issue. Damn it, Donovan, I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you.”

He regarded her with that serious look he’d had when he’d first arrived. “I can see you are,” he said calmly. “So, carry on.”

“Thank you,” Lani said. “Why did you want to become a policeman in the first place?”

It had been so long since anyone had asked him that question that Donovan had to stop and remember what had made him turn down an acceptance to medical school to enter the police academy.

He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the chair arms as he considered her words.

“It’s going to sound like bragging,” he warned after a moment.

“Try me.”

“I believed I could make a difference. That I could make the world, or at least my little corner of it, a better place for people to live.”

“And, according to Nate, you’ve certainly succeeded.” She sipped her coffee.

“If I haven’t, it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”

Lani believed him. There was still one little point she didn’t understand. “When was the last time you actually talked one-on-one with one of those people you wanted to help?” she asked quietly. “Unless it involved the crime you were working on?”

A puzzled frown darkened his brow. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“I just was wondering if you’ve ever had time to mingle with the masses once you became a detective.”

He studied her thoughtfully. “Why am I getting the feeling that you disapprove of my wanting to improve myself?”

Lani shrugged. “It’s not for me to disapprove, Donovan. I have nothing to say about what you do with your life.”

Donovan frowned. “That’s what my ex-wife said. Right before she pointed out all the social disadvantages of my being nothing but a street cop.”

Stunned by the intrusion of another woman into the conversation, Lani picked up her mug, staring into the dark brown depths as if the cooling liquid held inordinate interest for her.

“You were married?”

“For six months.”

Lani had to ask. “How long have you been divorced?”

Donovan didn’t want to talk about Kendall. Just thinking about his former wife gave him a sour taste in his mouth. “A long time. Her family and mine were friends and we married while I was still in pre-med. So, understandably, she assumed she was going to be a doctor’s wife. She walked out the day I entered the police academy instead of medical school.”

“So, you weren’t married when we first met?” Donovan and Nate had spent so many off hours together, Lani thought surely a wife would have come up.

“We were separated and she’d already filed for divorce. I didn’t blame her for feeling as if she’d had a bait-and-switch pulled on her.”

“Her loss,” Lani mused. “Why were you in pre-med in the first place?”

“Because that’s what people in my family do.”

“Excuse me? What does that mean?”

“You know how back when Catholics had lots of kids, every family seemed to give at least one to the Church as a priest or nun?”

“That was before my time,” Lani said. “But we Breslins have had our share of priests and nuns in our family tree. But what does that have to do with you and medicine?”

“I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

“Donovan,” Lani said, still uncomprehending, “of course you had a choice.”

“Not really. Since I was an only child, it was up to me to carry on the Quinn tradition. My father’s a neurosurgeon who invented some special brain stent that made him wealthier than he already was from family money. My mother’s a psychiatrist, who, when I decided to attend the police academy instead of medical school, tried to put me on anti-depressants because she couldn’t believe I was thinking clearly.”

He’d also turned down the meds after Matt’s suicide. While Donovan wasn’t against better living through pharmaceuticals, he just hadn’t believed either situation called for them.

He hadn’t not gone to med school because he’d been depressed, but because he’d started meeting a lot of cops while volunteering his senior year at PSU in the ER. And although he’d admittedly been hit hard by burnout and his partner’s death, just being here with Lani proved that he’d only needed a break. By the time the new year arrived, he’d be back to fighting shape.

Bored with talking about himself, which had never been one of his favorite things to do, he lifted her wrist to his lips and pressed a light kiss against her skin scented with the lotion she’d obviously put on this morning.

“You taste so good. I don’t think I’m ever going to get enough of you. Come back to bed with me, Lani.”

“As tempting as that is, I need to finish the tile in the bathroom. And, if I have time, patch your roof.”

“Those things can wait. I seem to have been struck with the aloha spirit and want to spend the day with my wahine.”

Lani couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do. “What if it rains and your roof leaks?”

He shrugged uncaringly. “I’ve got that little problem all solved.”

She lifted a russet brow. “Don’t tell me that you’re going to fix the roof?”

“Of course not. If there’s one thing my work has taught me to be, it’s a good administrator. And a good administrator always delegates.”

“Delegates?”

“If it rains while we’re making love, I’m delegating you to the top position.”

“Gee, thanks,” she drawled.

He pressed his hand against the back of her head, pulling her forward for an intense, explosive kiss. Stars glittered and spun on a backdrop of black velvet behind Lani’s eyes, and she could have sworn she felt the distant rumbling of Mt. Waipanukai. But that was impossible, she told herself as her hands clutched Donovan’s shoulders tightly. The volcano that had once served as Kealehai’s home was now extinct.

“Wow,” Lani murmured, tilting her head back to stare into his storm-filled blue eyes. “I think I feel an earthquake coming on.”

“I feel it, too,” Donovan agreed with a slow, inviting smile. “And as much as I’d love for us to make Richter scales go crazy all over the South Pacific, I need to go check out some stuff.”

“Now?”

“You’re the one who asked me to help find Britton,” he reminded her. “I’d much rather stay here and rock the island with you.”

“Later,” she said on a long sigh. “I am worried about Ford. Even more so now that you believe the FBI’s involved in whatever has happened to him.”

“Later,” he agreed reluctantly. “What’s the name of the police chief on the island?”

“Manny Kanualu.”

“I think I’ll pay Chief Kanualu a little visit.” Donovan rubbed his jaw. “Professional courtesy, and all that. And afterward, I’ll check out The Blue Parrot, since that’s where Ford supposedly hung out.”

“Taylor’s telling the truth about that,” Lani said. “Call me when you’ve left the police station, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but this is something I need to do alone. Not that you’re not an intelligent woman, but I’ve spent more time questioning people than you have. You wouldn’t want to tip any bad guys off, would you?”

“Of course not. But what am I supposed to do while you play cops and robbers?”

“You can always finish up my tile,” he suggested.

Lani’s answer was a brief, pungent curse.

“Well? Where’s your young man?” Margaret’s bright eyes observed Lani with interest.

“He’s on his way to the police station. Then some sleazy waterfront bar for thrills and adventure,” she muttered grumpily. “And he’s most definitely not my young man.”

The elderly woman chuckled. “Try telling that to him,” she advised. “And while you’re at it, would you care to explain why even the mention of Donovan Quinn makes you blush?”

“This isn’t a blush,” Lani insisted. “I never blush.”

“Of course you don’t,” Margaret agreed knowingly.

“It’s this room; it’s like a rain forest in here.”

The purple head bobbed. “It is nice, isn’t it?” Margaret’s pleased gaze circled the room, enjoying the colorful display of tropical plants.

Recognizing her chance, Lani changed the subject to her grandmother’s ingenious green thumb. For the next five minutes they discussed the spectacular crimson blooms of the royal poinciana, the lacy pink and white shower trees, and a new night-blooming cereus Margaret had acquired and had high hopes for.

Unfortunately, Lani was soon to discover that her reprieve was only temporary. With the tenacity of a bull terrier worrying a particularly succulent bone, Margaret deftly returned the conversation to its initial topic.

“You and Donovan are lovers, aren’t you?”

Knowing her grandmother’s penchant for speaking her mind, Lani tried not to take offense at the forthright question.

“Really, Tutu,” she protested with a weak smile, “that’s a very personal question.”

Margaret tilted the Belleek shamrock teapot, filling their cups. “It doesn’t matter. If you haven’t made love yet, which, I’d bet my Golden Globe that you already have, there was enough electricity between the two of you to set this entire island on fire.”

“There’s no future for me with Donovan Quinn.”

Still-bright eyes, sparkling with intelligence, looked straight into Lani’s. “Are you telling me that you’re not going to take him as a lover because he hasn’t promised you fifty years of married bliss?”

She made it sound so easy, Lani mused. And why not? She had no doubt that if her grandmother had found herself in Lani’s position, she would have reached out for whatever Donovan had to offer with both hands. Margaret Breslin lived for the moment. In that respect, Lani had believed that the two of them had shared a lot in common as she, herself, had breezed through the past few years taking one sun-filled day at a time.

It was coming as a distinct surprise to discover that she was not quite as carefree and impulsive as she had thought. Somehow, when no one was looking, the no-nonsense, practical stock of Thomas Breslin’s New England whaling ancestors had slipped into the family’s gene pool, ultimately ending up in her.

“I’m not like you, Tutu. Yes, you undoubtedly had love affairs over the years. But you had one grand passion in your life, which resulted in my father. And when that relationship was over and Palmer Winfield dutifully returned to his wife, the automobile heiress, you threw yourself into your work and never looked back. No recriminations, no regrets.”

The sudden rattling of the delicate china cup against the saucer captured her attention, and Lani was appalled to realize that her hands were trembling.

Margaret sat up on the peacock throne chair, her elderly spine as erect as if someone had slipped a rod of cold steel down the back of her lace dress.

“I take back what I said about you being bright,” she shot back, her eyes blazing. “You’re a fool if you don’t think I had regrets. Recriminations? My God, I loved Palmer—I adored the ground that man walked on. I thought I was going to wither up and die when he left me.”

For just a fleeting moment, as Lani observed her grandmother with surprise, she was able to see the young woman who’d obviously experienced many of the same unsettling feelings that Lani herself was currently suffering.

“But you didn’t.”

“No. As you already pointed out, I had my work. And of course, I had your father.”

She reached out and covered Lani’s hand with her own beringed one. Blue veins crisscrossed the back of Margaret’s hand, but her still-soft skin was the color of gardenias, free of the age spots so many of her contemporaries suffered. As Lani lifted her gaze to her grandmother’s face, she thought how the former Hollywood sex goddess was still a remarkably beautiful woman.

“Don’t let the mistakes of the past stop you from loving, darling,” she said with a sudden, almost desperate urgency. “I’m old enough to have known a great many men. Donovan is one of the good ones. I know it in my heart. And unlike Palmer, he isn’t married.”

“Donovan
is
different,” Lani agreed quietly. “He’s like no one I’ve ever known, and when I’m with him, I feel like a different person… No,” she said, “that’s not it. I do still feel like myself. Just better. More fulfilled.”

Comprehension dawned in Margaret’s eyes. “You’re in love with him.”

“No. I don’t know. It’s so fast… But maybe I am,” Lani admitted.

Avoiding her grandmother’s sharp gaze, Lani shifted her attention outside the glass walls, toward a scarlet cardinal that was perched on a twisted branch of a pandanus tree, seeking shelter from the slanting silver drops.