Back at the house, she tucked the girls in, said good-night to Benji and collapsed onto her mattress. Now that Mochi was gone, she supposed she could move his bed in here, but then there would be no room for Sailor, and Sailor had become a fine sleeping partner.
The room was lighter than usual, with tree branch shadows moving like unknown guests across the walls. Lana thought of Grant. As soon as she’d seen him, the rest of the night had fallen away. The look on his face had been hard to read. Had he been concerned about them, or just annoyed? Either way, nothing had changed. He was there, and she was here with a heavy heart.
Drifting off, she heard Jack tapping nails in the floor somewhere nearby. He was working on the secret room again. It was so nice to have him back, but why did he have to build while she was trying to sleep?
“Quiet,” she said, jolting herself awake.
Sailor lay next to her, a growl forming in her chest. “What is it, girl?”
A sharp tap. Something hit the window. What on earth? Again. She jumped up and ran over, nearly tripping over her blanket. A tall figure stood in the grass, illuminated by just enough moon to make out the face. Lana opened the glass.
“Is that you?”
“It’s me.”
“What are you doing?” she said in a loud whisper.
His voice stirred up the night air. “I came to see you.”
“Hang on. Meet me out front.”
Lana half ran, half slid down the hallway in her socks, wearing her blanket over her nightgown and pulling on the yellow wool hat hanging by the door. Stay cool, she commanded herself.
Grant was waiting at the bottom of the steps.
He sounded out of breath. “I need to talk to you.”
“Am I in trouble again?”
“Thanks to me, you’re not. Will you come down here? I don’t want to wake the kids.”
Lana took each step slowly, sure that she was heading into danger. Once she reached the ground, she remained at arm’s length.
“How about that eruption,” Grant said.
“It took us by surprise.”
“I’ll say, and it’s a perfect bull’s-eye for the Japanese.”
A mountain that tall lit up with fire would stand out like a beacon. “Do they know exactly where the flow is located?” Lana asked.
“The crater at the top. It has a name that I will never be able to pronounce. Not if I lived here a hundred years.”
“Moku‘āweoweo,” Lana said.
“Yeah, that.”
Lana felt deflated. She couldn’t care less about the eruption right now. “Is this why you came, Major Bailey? To talk about the volcano eruption?”
She was acutely aware of his nearness and his warmth. Of his particular cinnamon scent filling the darkness around them. He stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the light.
“Look—”
“Just—” she said.
They both talked over each other in that way that they did, but in the end, Grant won out. “No. It’s not.”
“So what can I do for you?” she said, standing her ground.
He shivered. “I was a real jackass the other day, and I pray to God I didn’t screw things up beyond repair. Seeing you there caught me off guard, and I just reacted. I was blindsided. And all you were doing was trying to protect the girls. I know that. I wanted to come earlier, but it’s been mayhem all afternoon and the last two days they had us out patrolling on the cliff all day.”
She wanted to be tough and show him she had been perfectly fine without him. “Maybe now is not a good time for us. You have your hands full with the war, and I have mine full with the girls and Benji. I know you promised my father, but he would understand,” she said.
Her feelings were still bruised. The humiliation of staying in the room all night, alone. Days of waiting and wondering and dying inside.
“Not a good time, huh?”
She was glad it was dark. “Yes. You and I starting something now would be inconvenient.”
He let out a dull laugh. “I’ll take fate over convenience any day. That first day at Kano Store when I saw you standing there, I didn’t know what hit me. I tried to keep my cool, but I was already a goner. I swear I could feel you before I even saw you.”
She thought back to how he helped her out of the bushes after the bicycle crash. The way their hands stuck together, and how his had turned red afterward. Alchemy and chemistry and desire were making him hard to resist.
Grant continued. “I once swore I would never tolerate even one lie. But I can see that lying is not part of your nature. You did it because you had to.”
“I hated lying to you.”
He grabbed her hands. “You have every right to tell me to drive away and never come back, but please, Lana, give me another chance.”
He spoke the words with such tenderness that she felt a catch in her throat. Her resolve melted. “Seeing that it’s Christmas, do I have any choice?”
His smile shone in the moonlight. “Are you toying with me?”
She tried to suppress a laugh. Not forgiving him would be impossible.
“Is that a yes?” he said.
“I think it is.”
“You think? Well, let me persuade you.”
He swept her into his arms, pressed his face into her hair. His heartbeat was louder than crickets and more wonderful than the glow on the mountain. Lana closed her eyes and let herself soak in all his beautiful warmth and soapy scent. She held his hand, lacing her fingers in his, and pulled him up the stairs and down the hallway.
In the room she kissed him. There was no hurry this time, and his tongue moved softly and surely. He held her tight, as though afraid to let go. Weeks of near misses had her wanting him more than she thought possible.
“I brought you a Christmas present,” he whispered.
“Can I open it tomorrow? I won’t be able to see it in the dark,” she said, though she could see him just fine. He made his own light.
“I couldn’t find any wrapping paper, so I’ll just give it to you. I hope you don’t mind.”
Was he serious? “Of course I don’t mind, silly.”
He pulled something from his back pocket and hung it over her neck. It was heavy. Lana reached up and fingered the cool glass at the end of two cylinders. “Is this what I think it is?”
“It’s not a clunky necklace, I can assure you that.”
She laughed. “What a perfect gift. Now I can take you and the girls out and show you the birds close up. Thank you.”
Handsome and thoughtful and painfully sexy. She moved the binoculars so they hung against her back and reached for him again. His hands found her waist, stayed there for a moment, then moved down over the curve of her rear, leaving a line of heat in their wake. Lana was conscious of the mattress just behind her feet.
He spoke softly in her ear. “Nothing would have kept me away tonight. Not the Japanese, not Santa Claus and, hell, not even a volcano.”
How had she ever doubted this? A tear ran down her cheek and she wondered what it was that drew two people together from far ends of the world. An unexplained phenomena if there ever were one. And in that moment her world locked into place.