Doris Rangel - Moonlight Magic

Uh-oh.

When Ellie shook her head decisively, Gram smiled, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

“Just teasing, darling. But here’s something I know you’ll want,” and she gave Ellie the box containing the earrings. “I searched the shops for days before I discovered them in a little out-of-the-way place outside of Honolulu.”

At Ellie’s narrow-eyed look, the older woman lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t be so suspicious, Ellie. It’s a bad habit of yours.” Tilting the box so the light gleamed off the silver flowers, Gram smiled. “Aren’t they pretty? They’ll look perfect with your sarong.”

“I don’t have a sarong,” Ellie replied.

But she accepted the earrings. They were pretty. So…islandish.

Now, rehooking the earring to the plastic backing, she returned the set to the box and dropped it into her purse, dismissing her suspicions.

Not until she’d maneuvered her way to the exit with the rest of the disembarking passengers did Ellie remember another Simms family saying….

The Great Ones have a weird sense of humor.

From his place among the hibiscus, Daniel watched the party eddy around him. The old woman, bless her, never forgot him on occasions such as this. Several leis, many of them made with plumeria blossoms, hung about his neck.

He loved family get-togethers and already felt a little drunk on the heady scent of flowers mixed with the equally heady odor of barbecue.

Being physically sober as a post, it was an inebriation of the senses only, of course. What he wouldn’t give for a plate heaped high with food and a frosty cup of beer to wash it down.

Unfortunately, he was only a bystander at this luau. Literally. In the midst of jubilation, Daniel stood apart, watching it all.

Though an adult party—Tom had turned forty—children were everywhere, chasing each other, dodging groups of adults, giggling, shouting. At home, children wouldn’t be allowed at a function such as this, Daniel mused, but in Hawaii ohana prevailed. He loved it.

The adults, too, milled about, teasing, laughing, talking, sidestepping children sometimes or absently scooping up a young one to cuddle a moment before sending the child off to play again.

And music flowed through it all, everything from Elvis at his most powerful to Iz at his most fragile.

He’d love to dance again, Daniel thought—jiggle his bones to a jazzy beat, shake his booty and get down to rock ’n’roll, press his undulating body against a woman’s to the breathy croon of a saxophone….

Maybe all of the above, as various couples were doing on the patio.

Two little girls flung each other about madly while four teenagers, three girls and a boy, hip-hopped to the same music. An elderly man and woman showed they still had it, and a younger woman with long silvery-blond hair swayed in ministeps with a seriously intent boy of about five.

Make that six. When the woman said something, the boy looked up at her with a gap-toothed grin, causing her to laugh.

Over the music and the chattering crowd, Daniel couldn’t hear the laugh, but the woman had a killer smile.

Earlier, he’d seen her among the guests and admired her silvery hair that she wore long and loose down her back. Though dressed in a gauzy dress that set off her slim figure, she hadn’t impressed him as being particularly pretty; she was even, perhaps, a little austere.

But that smile! It transformed a plain-vanilla exterior into something fascinating and mysterious, as if he’d opened a shoe box and found a piece of exotically carved antique ivory. When she smiled, the woman became breathtakingly beautiful!

And she was coming his way.

The thing winked at her!

Nah, it couldn’t have.

Ellie eyed the small statue tucked among the flowers. A tiki god, probably, and obviously old, its wood weathered and cracked in places.

She’d seen similar carvings at the Polynesian Cultural Center when the convention arranged a trip there. But they’d been huge. This one stood only about three feet high.

Around its neck hung several leis, she assumed in honor of the party. Yet something else about it seemed different from the others she’d seen.

The eyes, Ellie realized. The carvings at the Cultural Center didn’t have such wide awake eyes…eyes with a glint of mischief in them staring right back at her.

Ellie shook her head. Get real, woman!

She was just overtired. Overstimulated.

After working with no letup for the past couple of years, being around so many laughing partying people was tiring—even these gregarious Hawaiians, whose pleasure in the moment seemed to waft as naturally as the light tropical breeze.

Perhaps sensing this, Georgie, her young dancing partner, had brought her to this relatively secluded spot before leaving to fetch her a soft drink.

Dismissing the carving from her thoughts, Ellie found herself a seat on a low wall bordering the garden to await the child’s return.

Lush tropical blossoms perfumed the night, and she closed her eyes the better to enjoy their scent and the music and laughter from the party just beyond. She smiled to herself when she heard her brother’s full-bodied laugh.

And just like that, a dark smothering wave of loneliness washed over her.

On a sharp breath Ellie fought it back. This had happened a lot lately, and she was having none of it. She loved her life. She loved her job.

Okay, she needed this vacation. She was tired. Being alone, however, was a choice, not a tragedy.

Prickles shimmied up the back of her neck…. With a small gasp, Ellie’s eyes flew open.

Someone stared at her! She could feel their intense gaze. She also felt conspicuous and embarrassed at being observed in what she thought was a private moment.

Scanning the crowd, ready to coolly outstare whoever found her introspection so interesting, she could find no one looking her way, however.

Yet someone’s knowing observation kept her awareness on full alert.

Slowly, cautiously, Ellie turned her head…and came nose to nose with the crimson orifice of a hibiscus blossom, its golden pistil thrust forward in the flower version of a raspberry.

Startled, she drew back, only to laugh softly at her own paranoia. The rude hibiscus would pay for its impudence, though. Snapping it from its stem, Ellie hooked it over one ear, her fingers brushing one of her flower-shaped earrings in the process.

No sarong, Grammie, she thought, but I feel a hula coming on.

Still smiling, and about to turn away, she again started violently, this time with a small muffled shriek. Nestled among the blossoms and thick foliage, the tiki stared back at her, its carved face a study of violence, its eyes infinitely sad and lonely.

She leaped to her feet.

“Here’s your soda, Miss Ellie.”

Georgie stood beside her, offering an aluminum can, his face one big beam of gap-toothed smile.

“What? Oh. Uh, thanks, sweetie.”

Ellie took the soda gratefully and downed a healthy swig. From the corner of her eye, she checked out the carving.

The thing hadn’t moved a muscle, its wooden head still angled toward the spot where she’d been sitting. Only, she wasn’t sitting there anymore. The statue’s gaze wasn’t following her at all.

Time to leave. She’d be a certified basket case if she didn’t get back to Chad’s apartment and get some rest. Three days of back-to-back workshops at the convention in Honolulu and a busy day since her arrival at her brother’s apartment this morning made for one pooped, overimaginative tourist.

After dumping her luggage in his spare bedroom, Chad immediately whisked her off for a long drive to loop the island. When they returned, she’d played baseball with the kids next door and been invited by them and their grandmother to this party.