“I think that you must have had an extremely interesting childhood.”
Thomas threw back his head and laughed heartily. “What a wonderfully circumspect answer,” he said, throwing a friendly arm around Donovan’s shoulder. “
Interesting
,” he chortled. “That’s one word for it.”
They entered the cottage and were sipping white rum on ice when Lani’s father turned the conversation away from a rundown of the island sights Donovan had been shown that day.
“I’m a bastard.”
Donovan wasn’t fooled for a moment by Thomas’s casual tone. The gleam in those intelligent eyes revealed that it was a test, and both men knew it.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Donovan drawled. “From what I’ve witnessed so far, you’re an amiable enough man.”
Thomas nodded, accepting the ball as it returned to his court. “That’s what all my patients say,” he acknowledged. “However, I was speaking in the biblical sense. My mother was never married to my father.”
Donovan shrugged, unconcerned. “So?”
“It ruffled more than a few feathers back in those days. It doesn’t bother you?”
“Not a bit,” Donovan answered honestly. “Does it bother you?”
“Of course not,” Thomas answered impatiently. “But as you’ve already pointed out, my childhood was not exactly the norm. My mother’s circle of friends could be described as bohemian at best and more than one of my surrogate relatives was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Including my birth father.”
Donovan thought he knew where this was going. He put the glass down on a rattan table beside the chair. Leaning back, he rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and linked his fingers together.
“We’re not really discussing your parentage here, are we?”
Appearing uncharacteristically uncomfortable, Thomas Breslin tossed back the rum. When he returned his gaze to Donovan, he was no longer smiling.
Donovan had seen that same expression on Lani’s face from time to time. Secrets, he mused. The Breslin family definitely had its share.
“She’s my daughter, Donovan. And I love her.”
“Of course you do.”
Thomas stared down at his empty glass, as if wishing it could magically be refilled. Then he lifted his head to give Donovan a warning look. “I don’t want her hurt,” he said with a low forcefulness that was at direct odds with the cheery, carefree character he’d seemed last night.
“What makes you think I’d do anything to hurt her?”
“You wouldn’t mean to,” Thomas allowed. “I can tell you’re a decent man, and Nate’s always spoken highly of you. But you’re going to. I can see it coming, and damned if I know how to stop it.”
“I have no intention of hurting her. Yet, as I’ve already told Nate, she’s a grown woman. She’s also smart, self-aware, and capable of making her own decisions.”
“That’s true. But there’s no future for you and my daughter. How likely do you think the FBI would be to hire a special agent whose wife’s father testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee?”
“Are you asking me my intentions?”
“No. I’m asking you not to use my daughter as a diversion,” Thomas responded with a burst of heat. “Something to while away a tropical holiday before you return to Oregon and move on with your life.”
“I don’t want to argue with you, Thomas, but our relationship really isn’t any of your concern.”
The older man dragged his hand wearily over his face. “I didn’t think it would work,” he muttered as he rose and made his way to the door.
“Then why did you bother to make the attempt?”
He turned in the doorway, looking as if he had suddenly aged a lifetime. “She’s my child,” he said simply. “I love her.”
With that he was gone, taking his portfolio but leaving the wrapped painting. Donovan stood in the doorway, watching until Lani’s father was out of sight. Then, pulling out his phone, he called the mainland.
Nate plowed his hand through his hair as the phone across the room rang. Having been working on the same chapter for the past two days, the last thing he needed was a damn interruption. Leaving the caller to get sent to messaging, Nate continued to stare doggedly out over the windswept cliffs of Sunset Point, demanding his muse to come through and help him out of the corner he had managed to write himself into.
The phone chimed again. And again. Finally, going over to scoop it up, he recognized the number and swiped it open.
“I hope you realize that you’re interrupting a literary genius at work.”
“That’s nothing compared to what you’ve done to me,” Donovan complained on a gritty tone. “I thought you sent me down here to relax.”
“That was the idea,” Nate agreed.
“So how the hell am I supposed to relax when I’m surrounded by your crazy family?”
“They’re getting to you, huh?” Nate asked with a low chuckle. “Which ones?”
“Which ones?” Donovan repeated. “Name one who isn’t. I take that back,” he said after a fleeting moment’s consideration. “Your mother, so far, has been grace personified. However, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she dropped in at any minute with some lightly veiled warning to keep my roaming hands off your sister.”
“She’d call first. She may be an artist, but my mother could give Miss Manners a lesson when it comes to social protocol.” He paused to fill in some features on Tess, who he was absently sketching.
“Regarding my sister, have your hands been roaming since we talked this morning?”
“Like I told your father, who warned me away from her in no uncertain terms, that’s none of your business.”
“I thought it was strange when he called me a while ago,” Nate said. “Dad usually stays out of our personal lives. So what did you do to get my usually easygoing father so uptight?”
“Nothing yet.” Donovan’s voice was sharp with obvious frustration.
“Aha. The plot thickens. I assume Lani’s receptive to whatever you’ve been up to?” Nate added some fullness to Tess’s upper lip. Although his writing paid for his Victorian cliff-side home, Nate enjoyed sketching. His father had always claimed credit for that particular talent, and Nate had never thought it necessary to correct him.
“Are you asking as a friend? Or Lani’s brother?”
“That’s a rough one. A friend,” he decided. “I’ve already given you my big-brother spiel.”
“I think she does. Correction, I know she does. But every time I think I have her figured out, she throws me a curve.”
“We all have issues. She might come off like some fairy sprite at times, but that doesn’t mean she’s any different. Give her time,” Nate advised as he added an arch to Tess’s brows before using the side of the pencil to draw in long dark waves that kissed his fiancée’s cheekbones. “Get to know her. After all, you’ve only been on the island a couple days. Things move slower down there.”
“So I’ve been told,” Donovan muttered. As a detective, he was used to sifting through mountains of evidence for the single missing piece that would nail a bad guy. Since arriving on Orchid Island, he’d discovered an impatience he hadn’t known he possessed.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Hell. To tell you the truth, I’ve no damn idea why I called.”
Impulse, Donovan decided. He’d done the first thing that came to mind after Thomas had left. But that was totally out of character. Not only had he developed a respected reputation for thinking before he acted, he’d never been one to discuss his personal life with anyone, even his best friend.
He and Nate regularly discussed careers, politics, the state of the world, and sports. But they had never, in his memory, had a conversation concerning either of their dealings with a woman. Not a specific one, at any rate. Not even about Tess, whom he’d casually dated before she’d fallen in love with his best friend.
He’d assumed that she’d told Nate that nothing had ever happened between them. He’d certainly never brought the topic up, and neither had Nate. So, what the hell was Lani doing to his mind?
“Sorry about interrupting your work,” he said, feeling like some love-struck teenager crushing on a cheerleader.
“Hey, no problem,” Nate answered absently.
“Get back to work.” Donovan recognized that tone. He’d just lost Lani’s brother to whatever muse was whispering in his ear.
Nate’s only response was a vague murmured agreement as he added a small, still unnoticeable baby bump. Although he’d wanted to shout the news of his impending fatherhood from the rooftop to the world, or at least to their friends and families, he’d agreed to respect Tess’s desire to wait a few weeks before revealing her pregnancy.
He wondered what Donovan would say if he’d told him that he understood his problem, all too well. His writing had suffered while he’d been trying to not only convince Tess they were meant to be together but worrying about keeping her alive long enough for her to agree to marry him.
After yesterday’s test strip had come up with a pink plus, he was finding it more and more difficult to live with a mind swirling with horror.
“You have a contract,” he reminded himself as he returned his attention to the computer screen. “A deadline. Baby stuff to buy.” Which, having married friends, he knew was a lot of stuff. The crazy thing was that he was actually looking forward to it, but he’d rather surrender his left nut than attend a baby shower. Which he wouldn’t have to do, being a guy. Would he?
Putting that worry aside, he stuck on the noise-blocking earphones and was rewarded by the imagined sound of dogs baying eerily through a swirl of thick, icy Puget Sound fog.
He was back on track. Immensely gratified, after making a mental note to go online and order some of those books about what to do when you’re expecting, he began tapping away at the keys, leaving his best friend to handle his own romantic dilemma.
* * *
As the deserted beach caught the last moment of evening sun, Donovan Quinn opened one of the downloaded test books and went to work, determined to put Lani and her colorful but highly distracting family out of his mind.
He spent most of the night and the early part of the next morning poring over the sample interview questions. Unfortunately, his thoughts kept drifting around the corner to her beach house, and by the time Kenny Palomalo had delivered a decent, low-mileage Taurus with a full tank of gas and only minimal rusting and he left to meet with Lani’s friend, Donovan couldn’t remember a single thing he’d read.
The meeting, which took place over a diner breakfast of fried Spam, hash browns, and eggs, was uninformative and explained why the police chief hadn’t been interested in her story. All the signs pointed to the conclusion that this Ford guy was nothing more than a douche with itchy feet.
Having spent eight years drifting around the South Pacific, the nine months Taylor Young’s fiancé had spent on the island was the longest he’d settled anywhere. With marriage looming in the new year, he’d undoubtedly felt the noose of unwanted responsibility tightening around his neck and had taken off before he suddenly found himself buying furniture, making mortgage payments, and losing diving and surfing time to attending parent-teacher meetings and kids’ soccer games.
On the surface, that’s all the case amounted to: another woman growing a little wiser the hard way. But something had been nagging at the back of Donovan’s mind since Taylor had first arrived at the restaurant thirty minutes late, with that vague, obviously concocted reason for having been on Oahu he hadn’t bought when Lani had told him about it. She did not, he noted, name the so-called chocolate supplier she’d supposedly been meeting with.
After insisting that her fiancé wouldn’t have jilted her, she gave him a recent photograph of the guy and promised to let him know if she remembered anything he might have said that would shed some light on his disappearance. Outwardly, she was cooperative. She was also lying, Donovan concluded as he drove toward the library on the windward side of the island.
Over the years working for the Portland Police Bureau, he’d dealt with a great many liars, and he’d bet a month’s salary that the lissome Taylor Young was another. That she was hiding something was obvious. But what? And why? He might have only agreed to talk to her for Lani, but damn if this case didn’t have him unwillingly intrigued.
He found Lani seated in a green meadow, surrounded by a group of wide-eyed children. Her cotton sundress, emblazoned with brilliant orange and gold poppies, billowed about her, making the flowers appear to have sprung from the fragrant volcanic earth. A creamy hibiscus was tucked behind her ear. Donovan couldn’t remember ever seeing anything so lovely.
“He was a very nasty giant,’” she read aloud to the avid young listeners, “forever sticking his tongue out at people and calling them names.”
“Just like Johnny does,” a young girl piped up.
“I do not,” an obviously rankled boy, whom Donovan took to be the accused, shot back.
“Do, too.”
“Do not!”
“You do,” the girl repeated insistently.
“Hey,” Lani broke in mildly, “I thought you wanted to hear the story.” Her tone, though soft, carried the unmistakable ring of authority. The two combatants fell silent.
Lani nodded. “That’s better,” she said with a smile.
“There! He did it again,” the girl called out, pointing a finger at Johnny as he stuck his tongue out at her.
“Johnny,” Lani admonished sternly, “that’s enough. If you and Debbie don’t stop squabbling, you’ll both have to go home without hearing the end of the story. Is that understood?”
Eyes downcast, two dark heads nodded obediently.
“Now, where were we?” Lani murmured.
“The giant was calling people bad names,” a helpful listener offered.
Lani flashed the boy an appreciative grin. “Thank you, Paulo.”
The color deepening the boy’s already dark skin told Donovan that the dazzling smile was no less effective on six-year-old boys than it was on grown men.
“Anyway,” Lani continued, “people were getting very tired of this nasty, ill-tempered old giant. Finally, another giant tossed the obnoxious fellow into the ocean where sharks ate every bit of him. Except his tongue. It was too bitter even for a shark to eat. They spit it back out and—”