Welcome to Book Quote Wednesday and an excerpt with the featured word, LONG. When things go wrong with a couple in love, can time and experiences fix their resentment? Jolene and Danker are working a new case together. They're mature enough to form a professional alliance, but will it be bittersweet? Excerpt from Bittersweet Alliance below:
Seven long years since
their breakup, Jolene Kualoha spotted Danker Donahue, ambling from the parking
lot toward the store. She recognized him by his height and long gait. Wind from
the north ruffled his hair and brought a bone-biting chill to her heart. Nuts, here
he was, ducking his head to miss the bell overhead. It tinkled, and a strange
twisting sensation hit her in the stomach.
This happened at
the Kalua-Kona Food Emporium on a Sunday morning in July. She stared from where
she stood near the avocados. His dangerous edge drew her in, but she turned her
back to him. Her body reverberated like when her cellphone was on vibrate in
her pocket. Stunned with minor electric shock, she froze. Maybe he wouldn’t see her. Wouldn’t recognize the back of her head or the
once familiar shape of her ass.
Was someone
waiting for him in the parking lot? Someone like Louella, the baby’s momma
who’d summoned him for an immediate DNA test? For a split second,
she craned her head around but didn’t see her with him.
She and Danker
were a couple when the test confirmed his fatherhood. Her
heart ached at the memory. Love hurt, but that wasn’t all. Loneliness hurt.
Losing someone hurt. Decision-making hurt when you force yourself to do the
right thing.
She’d pulled away,
giving him space to work on his previous relationship for the sake of their
child. The most shameful thing a woman can do is take parents away from a baby,
and this began her year of stubborn steadfastness.
I
did the breakup rituals. Got the dramatic haircut. Engraved a piece of jewelry
he got me with a new message. Deleted the photos that made me cry.
To have been his
woman was like living where the air flowered with jasmine, and the weather day
after day was flawless, but the forecast was a hurricane.
Older didn’t mean
wiser. All this time she’d dreaded running into him, sometimes dressing in
expectation of it. If she did see him again, she wanted to look good. Today she
looked like crap, but what did it matter? His reason for being on the Big
Island had nothing to do with her, not in a personal way. Tomorrow they’d meet
at the FBI field office to collaborate on a serial kidnapping case. She’d wear
a sleeveless linen dress, open-toed pumps, and bring the accordion file full of
notes and newspaper clippings she’d gathered.
The perpetrator targeted wealthy Hawaiians with social capital, the
kind of people seen on television or featured in newspapers when they donated
money to charities. The latest missing person, Pua Iona, owned Iona Hawaiian
Rugs and was an acquaintance of hers. Not that they shared the same social
strata, but they’d volunteered together at an artisans’ market to boost
Hawaiian crafts. After Pua went missing and fit the criminal’s
modus operandi, Mayor Billy Kim, frustrated with police progress, contacted Jolene’s former boss from California, FBI
Agent Gary Guhleman, cowboyish in dress but wise in judgement.
Guhleman didn’t
need to tell her Hawaiians resisted outside intrusions. “You know everyone,”
he’d said. “Witnesses will share what they know.” The agent and his wife had
retired, rather semi-retired, here in Kona. Soon after she and Guhleman had
spoken, he called in Danker Donahue to consult. “You remember him, right?”
“Gosh, let me
think.” She and Danker went hot and heavy after the Long Beach case that ended
with the arrest of mobster Seamus McGinn.
Just then Danker
spoke to someone with his rich Midwestern drawl, typical of California
transplants. It was the first time she’d heard his voice in seven years after
hearing it every day for ten months. She hardened like a turtle on a rock
except for a slight turn of her head. He removed an earbud from his right ear
and placed it in a protective case.
His longer dark
hair, broad shoulders, and square jaw evoked an intense mix of emotions. A car
crash of desire. There was nothing more frightening than desiring a freefall.
It wasn’t just the sex. Her heart had burst with happiness making a
her believe love conquers all. It hadn’t.
In profile, the
skin of his face was not as smooth. His craggier appearance reflected who he
was, a loner with little concern about his well-being. The work he’d chosen
reinforced his inclination toward secretive and wary, trusting few people.
She sighed at his detached
beautiful elegance. So
beautiful in a manly way, and he was once was hers.
She’d let him go.
No, she’d pushed
him away and cut all ties. The right thing to do was the hardest thing. She
expected Danker to be different, not just older but still having an immensely
handsome face. Worst case, with the
risks he took, she expected he’d be dead. What she saw was what she’d hoped
for. Alive. Succeeding as a top
investigator called on by the FBI. She also hoped he’d found happiness with the
child he’d fathered.
He was looking
around for whatever it was he came for.
Her hands
trembled, and she turned back toward the produce rack. She ran her hand over
dark and shiny avocados, distracted with their various shades of green and
texture due to degrees of ripeness. She placed several in her shopping basket
next to a ready-made beet salad with goat cheeses and a shortbread cookie for
being good about getting the salad. When she moved the handles to the crook of
her elbow, the basket wobbled from her nervous freaking.
Earlier she’d exchanged
niceties with a couple of surfer buddies, but they faded into the
background. Her awareness went only to
him, his broad shoulders and chest.
He meandered
toward an end-aisle coffee display.
After speaking to the store manager, they headed off.
She couldn’t see
them but heard him right across the store. If only she hadn’t stopped here on
her way home from the beach. She shifted her weight and gazed down to her
knee-length sarong. Should she flounce over to him in this faded pink and teal
rag with sand in her hair and ask, “Buying coffee today?” That lame question fit if
her heart rejoiced at hearing his voice but didn’t if it sorrowed with anger.
She needed more than a split second to come up with something smooth on the
surface, but then, if he thought about it
later, her cutting words would drip blood.
It didn’t make
sense to bolt, and her wish to be glib faded. She had no food at home except
for wilted spinach and baby carrots. She shopped for food when necessary even
though she liked to cook. Cooking for one reminded her she was just that. One.
Singular, alone, and she wasn’t the type to concoct a delicious meal just for
herself while sipping wine in her kitchen overlooking the surf with candles
burning and then serve her meal on gorgeous stoneware. Why waste energy when
she could pick up a freshly made salad and eat it out of its plastic
container? Then she’d read a book or
maybe phone her parents whom she supported in Honolulu. Eventually,
she’d go to bed. Alone. The good part
was waking up the next morning and flying a helicopter for tourists bent on
viewing the erupting volcano.
An experienced
pilot, thanks to military training, she narrated while flying guests over the
most awesome terrain and geological features in the world. Fire and Ice Tours
did it all with views from rainforest to desert, active volcanoes spilling over
the shore, sea cliffs and valleys, ancient ruins, and historic towns. She
showed off the Big Island with the pride of a local.
Often on her drive
from the company’s helicopter pads near the airport to home, she’d envision
ways to change up her routine. She envisioned more evening walks or going to
those Pilates classes at a studio just down her street, but mostly she liked to
surf.
A few times she’d
set up girls’ nights out with friends and had put on a pretty dress. They’d hit
the swanky bars along Ali’i Drive. Seeing a man look at her made her smile,
talk, and even accept a date if he asked. Going on that date sparked
comparisons. Comparisons with him.
She’d rehearse the
sad things, the reproachful things, the angry things she hadn’t said. The words
of anguish and disappointment. The unspoken words of fury over their situation.
But now in Kona-Kalua Emporium,
she was mute. She wanted to rest her head against a refrigerator door and cry.
Cry forever. She could begin crying
right here by the avocados. Her eyes might wander as they blurred, over the
dried nectarines and chocolate-covered ginger slices. She observed fancy chutneys and honeys in
their square jars. She winced at their
unique design implying privilege. Her acquaintance, Pua Iona, was privileged
but now missing as if a silent spider dropped down from a web for all the
notice he gave.
What kind of problem did
Pua face, hour by hour? Jolene jolted from self-absorption. How frivolous to be
nervous about meeting Danker Donahue while looking ratty. She had a job to do,
serving as a local coordinator while Danker partnered with agent Gary Guhleman.
Jolene squared her
shoulders, strode in the direction of the coffee aisle, and peered around the
corner. He wore the T-shirt when they were sky-high in California. Her stomach
turned over and over like a chopper spinning in a nosedive.
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