Page 37 of Between Hello and Goodbye

“Do you always drive this fast or are you just trying to impress me?” Faith said as I careened my Jeep around a rental sedan on the northbound highway.

“Depends. Is it working?”

“No,” she said, then flashed me that flirty smile that made my blood heat. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“Most locals drive fast,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road and not on the fact that her dress had ridden up, showing me more of her thigh than it should’ve. “That’s how you know they’re local. It’s the slow-ass tourists you gotta look out for.”

“Not the cops?”

“I know all the cops.”

“A job perk, clearly.” She gripped the handle above her window as I tore around a curve. “But I should remind you, there is no actual fire.”

I chuckled and slowed down. A little.

The road took us along the northern curve of Kauai, past Princeville, to the small town of Hanalei.

“This place is so cute,” Faith said, watching it go by in a blink outside her window. “Aaaand…there it goes.”

“Each island has a Hanalei,” I said. “Old settlements that have been filled with boutiques to attract tourists. Oahu has North Shore, Maui has Paia…”

“You’ve been all over Hawaii, then?”

“Sure. The flight to Honolulu is only half an hour. I need a dose of action from time to time.”

“There’s hope for you, yet,” Faith said. “But what about your brother? How’d you convince him to join you in your hermitage?”

“Morgan came here first, actually, about ten years ago. He was barely eighteen and working on becoming a photographer.”

“And he just decided to stay?”

“Meeting Nalani was strong motivation. They got married three months after they met, and my nephew was born nine months to the day after that.”

“You have a nephew?” She waved a hand. “No, you mentioned him yesterday. What’s his name?”

“Kaleo.”

“Oh my God, your face just now.”

I frowned. “What about my face?”

“I can tell he’s special to you.”

“Well…he’s my nephew.”

“Mmh hmm.” Faith smiled. “So you followed your brother out here to be close to him?”

“Something like that.”

I felt Faith’s eyes on me and waited for her to probe further into territory I didn’t want to revisit. But she nodded to herself.

“That’s sweet,” she said finally. “I don’t have any siblings. Must be nice to have a partner in crime.”

“Yes and no,” I said. We’d pulled into the drive of my brother’s bungalow. “Sometimes I want to kill him. Like now.”

Faith looked to the front porch of the maroon house with white trim, and her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a laugh.

Morgan, Nalani, and Kaleo were standing on the steps as if posing for a family portrait, all wearing bright smiles and waving.