Midnight Sea (Aloha Reef Series)

  Meg played on the floor with her doll. Her wet hair curled around her round cheeks. With difficulty because of his bandaged shoulder, Ben had dressed her in lime-green shorts and a top and left her small feet bare. She talked to her doll and ignored the adults in the room. Ben hadn’t seen her so content since her parents died. Maybe she was beginning to trust his care.

  Tyrone had gone off to work, and Mano prowled the exterior of the house. Ben felt restless. His cell phone rang. “This is Ben.”

  His lawyer’s voice sounded happy. “Hey, guy, things are looking up for your custody fight. I found a more recent charge against Steve. Burglary. Just some petty stuff, but enough I think we can get a judge to listen.”

  “That’s terrific!”

  “Yeah, but listen, Jessica called and they want to see Meg. We can’t deny them access yet. Just go along with them today and we’ll get it behind us soon. Where are you?” Ben told him the address. “I’ll tell them where to come. Expect them in half an hour.”

  Ben closed his phone and looked at Meg. “Grandma and Grandpa are coming to see you.”

  She ignored him and began to build a block tower. Ben glanced around the living room. It was a mess, with blankets and pillows everywhere. He picked them up with one arm and threw them on the sofa. By the time the room looked presentable, sun flashed on metal outside, and he saw a car pull up and Natalie’s parents get out. He went to the door and opened it before they knocked.

  “Good morning.” Steve Walden tried for a smile, but it fell short and made him look like an otter with bared teeth.

  Ben nodded and stepped aside.

  “We’d like to take Meg out for the day,” Jessica said.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Natalie told us that Meg loved to splash in the tidepools out at Honaunau. We thought we might go there.”

  “I guess we could.”

  Jessica’s eyes widened. “We meant just Meg.”

  Her reaction sent warning bells clamoring. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. If we weren’t fighting over custody, I might be able to trust you, but I can’t be sure you wouldn’t try to just take her. She’s been through too much. Besides, I doubt she’d go with you willingly unless I came along.”

  Red stained Jessica’s cheeks. “We wouldn’t do that,” she sputtered.

  “Fine. I’m still going along. Take it or leave it.”

  Jessica glanced at her husband. Steve shrugged. “Guess we don’t have a choice.”

  “Meg is in the living room.” Ben led the way to where the toddler sat playing.

  She looked up. Her face puckered when she saw her grandparents. Clutching her doll to her chest, she scrambled to her feet and ran to Ben. With one hand gripping his leg, she stared up at the Waldens.

  Jessica squatted in front of her. “Can I see your dolly?” she asked, smiling.

  Meg shook her head and reached her arms up to Ben. “Up,” she said.

  Ben lifted her in his arms. “You want to go to the tidepools?” he asked.

  “Pools,” Meg said. She bounced a little in his arms, and her smile finally came.

  “I guess that’s a yes,” Steve said in a hearty voice.

  Ben walked to the front door. “I’ve only got a couple of hours.” He started to lock the house behind him, then saw Yoshi arriving. He told his friend where they were headed. Yoshi planned to join Mano in guarding the place.

  “We can take our car,” Steve said.

  “Fine.” He set Meg down, installed her car seat with his good arm, then buckled her in and got in beside her.

  Steve and Jessica didn’t have anything to say on the drive to Honaunau. Ben shifted his feet away from the briefcase on the floor. He stared down at it. Watching the rearview mirror in case Steve looked back, Ben reached down and unlatched the clasp on the case. It opened without a sound. He nudged it wider and glanced inside. Maybe their plane reservations were in here. His fingers flipped through the pages quickly. There it was—a Hawaiian Airlines e-ticket reservation.

  Ben glanced into the front seat. The Waldens both had their eyes straight ahead. He pretended to be adjusting Meg’s seat belt, then reached down and tugged the paper out a bit farther so he could read it. His suspicions refused to die. He finally got the sheet far enough out of the briefcase to read the passenger names. It was a reservation for Meg, leaving this afternoon for Chicago. Just as he suspected. No wonder Jessica wanted Meg to bring her doll. What should he do?

  The car stopped in the lot at Pu’uhomua o Honaunau. The picnic area was deserted this early in the day. He released his niece from the car seat, then unbelted the seat itself as well. Swinging open the door, he got out with Meg, put her down, then reached back in and lifted out the car seat. Meg plopped down on the sand and began to scoop it onto her leg.

  Jessica glanced at her granddaughter, then to the car seat. “Why are you taking out her car seat?”

  Ben set down the seat. He reached inside the car and pulled out the reservation. “This is why. We part company here.”

  Her gaze went to the paper, then to her husband. “If you’d be reasonable, we wouldn’t have had to resort to taking her.”

  “You’ve lost your money on this trip.” He stuffed the reservation in his pocket. Didn’t they care about Meg at all? If they did, they wouldn’t have attempted to just uproot her and drag her off to the mainland.

  Steve doubled his fists.“Hey, you can’t take that!”

  Ben stepped away. “You just shot yourself in the foot. No judge in the state will grant you custody when I show him you tried to kidnap her. On top of your record, you’re done.”

  Steve glanced at his wife with a confused expression. Jessica grabbed the doll out of Meg’s arms and whirled to run to the car. Ben leaped after her. He grabbed her arm and whirled her around, then snagged the doll from her hand.

  “I just wanted a memento of my granddaughter,” she panted.

  Ben shot her a disbelieving look, handed the doll to Meg, then scooped her up and headed toward the picnic area. What a bunch of weirdos. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the Waldens conferring by the car. Though he shouldn’t feel sorry for them, he couldn’t help a twinge of pity. They’d lost out. He held all the evidence he needed in his pocket.

  An engine rumbled, and he glanced back again. They were pulling out of the lot. He and Meg were stuck here for now. Yoshi would come get them, but he decided to let Meg splash in the tidepools for a while first.

  She pointed to the water. “Bug.”

  He squatted beside her and peered into the water. “That’s not a bug. It’s a hermit crab.” A stick lay nearby, and he picked it up and poked at the crab.

  Meg giggled when it scuttled away. “Me.”

  Ben handed her the stick, and she poked awkwardly at the crab. It scuttled sideways. Meg giggled again. He settled onto the warm black rock and watched her play. She kicked off her slippers and splashed the water with her bare feet. How was he going to raise her by himself? A child’s ways were a mystery to him.

  He was getting the hang of baths and diapers and food, but her hair looked like a nest of seaweed. Her shorts and top were wrinkled too. He was used to throwing stuff in the dryer and grabbing items from it when he needed them. That look wasn’t too appealing on a kid.

  Lani’s face flashed through his mind—the way she bent her head to listen to Meg, the tender stroke of her fingers across Meg’s cheek. She’d make a great mother. But not for his kids. She was used to flashy men with flowery compliments. He had no skills to woo someone like her. She thought of him as a friend, not a potential husband. And maybe not even that, after last night.

  The sound of a car engine broke his concentration. He turned to see Fawn at the wheel of Annie’s rental car. Annie was in the passenger seat, and Lani rode in the back. He scooped up a protesting Meg and walked to meet them. Meg wiggled and kicked sand on his shorts. Her wet shorts soaked through his shirt. “You can go back in a minute,” he told her.

/>   Fawn parked, and three car doors opened. Fisher jumped out of the back, and Lani followed him. “How did you know I was stranded out here?” Ben asked.

  Fawn looked up with reddened eyes. “We didn’t.” She nodded toward the two women talking in low tones by the car’s trunk. “The doctor told Lani this might be all the vision she gets back—dark and light.”

  Ben winced. His gaze went to Lani’s tearstained face. He still didn’t quite get why they were here. Annie and Lani joined them. “I’m sorry,” he told Lani.

  “I’ll survive it.” She managed a wobbly smile. “At least you can’t take Fisher away from me.”

  He squeezed her fingers. “You can handle this, Lani. You have the skills.”

  “What’d you mean about being stranded?” Fawn asked.

  “I came out with the Waldens. On the way here, I found a plane reservation. They’d planned to take Meg to the mainland. If I’d agreed to let her spend the day with them, she would have been gone.”

  “That’s horrible!” Annie put in.

  Meg lurched in his arms for Lani. “She wants you, Lani,” he said. “How about the two of you dangle your feet in the tidepool?”

  “That’s why I came,” she said. A tear trickled from her left eye, and she tipped her face to the sun before grabbing the dog’s halter and moving toward the water.

  “This way.” He walked in front of her to the tidepool. “Here we are.” He set Meg down at the edge. She squealed and jumped into the water, causing the small fish to dart away in a frantic effort to escape her dancing feet. “I’m going to let Fisher loose. It’d be cruel to take him this close to a pool and not let him play.”

  “That’s fine.”

  Ben removed the harness. “You’re free. Run, Fisher.” The dog gave him a happy smile and leaped into the water. Meg squealed and splashed water at him.

  Lani kicked off her slippers and edged down to the ground. She dropped her tiny feet into the water. “I’d like to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay.” He resisted the impulse to touch her, to comfort her. Some things only God could make better.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sun warmed Lani’s arms but did little to penetrate the chill she felt inside. Meg squealed and splashed by her feet, but the happy sound didn’t warm Lani’s soul any more than the sunshine did. Blind, maybe forever. What good was the warm glow of light when she couldn’t make out Meg’s face, couldn’t see the trees and grass?

  Honaunau usually brought her peace, but today the turmoil still raged in spite of the gentle sound of the surf. She longed to see the cliffs rising to the blue sky, to scan the whitecaps as they rolled toward the land. She wanted to point out the tidepool creatures to Meg—the sea cucumbers and ‘ophihi. When she strolled through the reconstructed buildings, she sometimes thought she saw her mother from the corner of her eye. Now she might never see that again. She’d clung to hope with the tenacity of the pipipi, the little black marine snails that clung to the tidepool rocks. But the doctor’s words had scraped loose the fragment of optimism.

  Her heart slammed into her ribs. The garden design was due tomorrow. She’d go in there with a Seeing Eye dog and they would know. She had to do it, though. Her future depended on it. If this was the way it was going to be, okay. Everyone said God had given her the tools for this moment. She’d prove them right.

  The grass rustled beside her, and she squinted at the shadow that crossed her face. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me.” Ben’s shadow came nearer, then moved down beside her.

  “Go away.”

  “You’ve had a long enough pity party. Snap out of it, Lani. It’s not the end of the world.”

  Her fingers dug into the sand, and she wished she had the courage to throw a handful into his face. If she could see enough to find his face. “You’re not the one who’s blind,” she said. He didn’t need to know she’d already come to grips with it.

  “Hey, it’s better than it was yesterday,” he pointed out. “You can see light and shadow. Count your blessings. Some people are totally blind like you were. Some people deal with cancer or the loss of a loved one. You’re healthy, young, and beautiful. There’s no need to drop out of life.”

  She wiped her eyes and nodded. His hand touched her shoulder, then dropped away. The touch had been so light she wasn’t sure it was real. If only she had the nerve to turn and throw herself in his arms. “You’ve got a lot of room to talk,” she flashed back. “You lied to me. You didn’t come to help me but to use me.” She folded her arms and turned her back to him.

  “I know it seems that way,” Ben said. “I’m sorry. I care about you.”

  “Then act like it,” she snapped. She folded her arms over her chest. “I wish God would tell me why he’s done this. I’m going to handle it, but I just wish I knew why.”

  “I thought I had all the answers, but now I find I don’t even know all the questions. I don’t know why God let Ethan die. I don’t know why he let you go blind, or why Tyrone was injured in the accident instead of me. Maybe I’ll never know. But I have to trust God for the results. I have to keep my hands off the wheel. That’s freeing when you think about it. I’m free to enjoy what God gives me and let him worry about making it all work out.”

  Lani let the words sink in. Maybe she’d been trying to take back the wheel all the time. Maybe she’d never turned it over in the first place. She heard him laugh softly. “What?”

  “I just realized as I said the words that I really believed them. Two seconds ago I wasn’t so sure. But God is holding us through this. I think you know it too.”

  Yes, she did. At least she wanted to. Maybe that was half the battle.

  By Monday morning, Lani thought they’d overreacted about the danger Meg was in, but no one was willing to take any chances. Maybe Simi had mistaken his master’s intentions. At least they all prayed so.

  Her hands shook as she dressed for the meeting with the garden show board. “Do I look all right?” she asked Fawn and Annie.

  “You’ll knock ’em dead,” Fawn said. “You want me to go with you?”

  “Would you? It might help if they ask what something is. I can’t see it, and you’ll know.”

  “Should I change so I look like a professional designer? You know, wear wild colors that don’t go together?” Fawn giggled, and her shadow moved to the door.

  “You’re terrible,” Annie scolded. “You look lovely, Lani. You’re going to do just great. Call me when you’re finished. I’ll be praying.”

  “I will.” Lani took Fisher’s lead and headed out. She prayed she would be calm and professional. “Should I wear sunglasses?” she asked Fawn when they got in the car. “Do people stare at my eyes when they realize I have a sight problem?”

  “I haven’t noticed it. You look perfectly fine. Just sail in there with your head held high.”

  Lani nodded. She clasped her hands together in her lap as Fawn drove her to the meeting. Her future hinged on how well she did her presentation today. Fisher pressed over the top of the seat and nuzzled her neck. “I’m okay, boy,” she said.

  “Here we are,” Fawn said, putting the car into park with a clunk. “You ready to kick butt and take names?”

  Lani smiled. “I just hope to still be standing when the dust settles.”

  “It’s a great design, Lani. They’re going to love it. Let’s go.”

  Lani opened the door and stepped into the golden wash of sunlight. It was a glorious sensation after the darkness. Fisher jumped out when she opened the back door. She took his lead, and they headed toward the stone building. They stepped into the cool recesses of the lobby. “It’s down the hall to the right,” Lani said. She and Fisher followed Fawn’s shadow. Her hands still shook. God had equipped her, she reminded herself.

  Pasting on a smile, she followed Fisher into the room. “Good morning,” she said brightly. She traced her fingers around the table’s edge and placed her portfolio on the surface. “This is Fis
her, my service dog. I hope you’ll forgive the necessity of bringing him along, but I can’t see, and he’s necessary for me to get around.”

  “Lani, what happened?” Michelle’s shadow moved toward her.

  “I had an accident and lost my sight about a month ago. I’ve got Fisher, though, and I’m coping. In fact, I’m more than coping. He’s a wonder.” She patted the dog’s head, and he gave his happy whine. “Shall we get started?”

  “How can you design if you can’t see?” a man asked.

  Lani smiled. “I can still see the designs in my head. I think I’ve managed to translate them pretty well to the page. Let me show you.”

  For the next hour she went through her ideas for the garden. The exclamations of wonder and admiration from the committee warmed her soul. When the meeting concluded, she still had the job.

  “I did it!” she shouted to Fawn as soon as her feet hit the parking lot. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Congratulations! I knew you could do it.” Fawn hugged her, and Fisher stood on his back paws and gently placed a paw on each of them.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you,” Lani said.

  “It was God,” Fawn said gently. “Now you know that nothing is too hard for you with God’s help. You’re free to follow your dream.”

  Free. What a totally outrageous thought. She was seeing the light like never before.

  Lani rubbed her forehead between her eyes. The constant squinting was going to give her wrinkles if she wasn’t careful. It had almost been better when she couldn’t see anything. The blurring of shadow and light made her head ache. The coming of night relieved the pain radiating around her skull. The quieting of the flickering light had eased her headache.

  She sat on the porch with Fisher at her feet. Through the open window, she could hear Yoshi talking in low tones to Ben. She heard him mention Fawn. A smile lifted Lani’s lips. That romance seemed to be progressing. She’d gladly welcome Fawn as a cousin.