Stranded in Paradise Read online

  “Of course, you’re welcome to stay, Ben.” Stella led the couple into the kitchen, motioning for them to sit at the table. “Carter got all the windows covered, so we’re nice and cozy in our little cocoon. When the fury worsens we’ll have to move to an inside wall of the bathroom.”

  Tess’s stomach hit the floor. Worsens? Crashing noises—like a garbage truck dumping a load of glass— thudded outside the windows. Then the noise switched to one of a freight train running through the beach house.

  “Thank you, Stella.” The old gentleman reached out and ruffled Henry’s belly, then seated his wife in a chair adjacent to Stella’s. Worry hovered on Esther’s matronly face.

  “Goodness—it is getting bad.” Esther’s eyes darted to the window when the sound of a limb snapping and hitting the side of the house crashed.

  Tess watched with something like envy as Ben patted his wife’s shoulder.

  The small group sat in the candlelit room, waiting. Inside Tess, an emotional storm built—a hurricane of circumstances. Nine days ago her biggest worry had been Len Connor; now she was afraid for her life. When asked a week ago what she valued most she would have answered justice. Right now, what she wanted most was another few years—another sunrise. An opportunity to make something of her life, something lasting and worthwhile. She could find another job; she could blot Len and Connor.com out of her mind and put them where they belonged in her priorities. What mattered were the people in her life, her family. And as much as she had tried to deny it, had let the bitterness of her childhood blot it out, the truth was she loved her family. She had chosen to remember only the bad times, but there had been good times too. Sunday afternoons reading the paper together, laughing at the funnies. She had been so preoccupied with finding someone to blame for the downward spiral in her life, she’d forgotten to look for the good. Sure, the bad times had been just as real, but it hadn’t all been bad. As she sat here with the wind threatening to blow their house in, it became crystal clear to her. It was Mona she had to contend with— Mona she had to tackle head-on before she could ever resolve the real tempest in her life.

  16

  Around midnight Ben and Esther started to nod off. Stella and Henry dozed in a nearby chair.

  Carter nudged Tess’s leg with his foot. “Hanging in there?”

  The wind shrieked loudly in the eaves. She looked nervously toward the roof and placed a hand on her stomach.

  Carter rested his head against the rim of the sofa and listened as flying objects struck the shuttered windows. Something hard thumped the side of the house, and in the distance storm sirens wailed. He envisioned himself in a war zone, his face white as he ducked reflexively every time a foreign object slammed into the house. Trash receptacles weren’t SCUD missiles, but at the moment Carter couldn’t distinguish the difference.

  He smiled, studying Tess’s worried features. She was a pretty woman, who had a lot to offer a man if she would only release the bitterness in her heart. Carter wasn’t usually impulsive; it took him six months to get to know the average woman and even then he moved with caution, but there was something different about this woman.

  A nonbeliever.

  Was God testing his resolve to follow Him all the way?

  Tess shifted and moved closer to the sofa. She seemed almost like a fragile kitten who would look up at him with those doleful eyes, something he could drape around his neck for the rest of his life. Carter shook his head at the thought.

  He’d known this woman nine days … nine mind-boggling, problematic days, and something was happening inside of him, something bothersome. She was intelligent and goal oriented; and she couldn’t trust anyone if her life depended on it. God, man—the recipient didn’t seem to matter. She was incapable of placing her trust in anyone.

  Therein lay a major problem; Carter believed that eternal life, and his personal security, hinged on nothing less than the ability to trust.

  Trust wasn’t concrete—an object that he could hold in his hand and claim ownership of. He had to work at trust as hard as manning his command station, but willingness— the desire to believe—made faith possible.

  Oh, Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in You.

  He absently stroked his hand across the top of Tess’s hair. The fragrant mass felt soft and smelled of wind and rain.

  Her sleepy voice drifted up. “When this is over … will you call me?”

  Carter smiled, burying his face into the floral silk. “Sure. What shall I call you?”

  He could feel her laughing. “Beautiful would be nice.” She twisted to look up at him. “No commitment, you understand. But I’d like it if you could call to say hello once in a while, let me know how you are—if those new runways point toward Denver.”

  “I’d like that. And if you think about it, you can give me a ring every now and then.”

  She didn’t miss a beat. “What sort of ring do you want?”

  A smile caught the corners of his mouth. Flirting. They were flirting, and it felt good. “Is this where I’m supposed to say ‘a wedding ring’?”

  She twisted her body to meet his eyes. “Of course not—”

  His tone sobered. “I won’t forget this vacation.”

  Her gaze softened. “Nor will I.”

  The moment stretched. Finally, she eased free of his embrace, as if she knew that the moment and the relationship was fleeting. “I’m hungry.”

  Was he glad she’d broken the mood? Maybe. Relieved?

  Yes.

  The only thing he knew for certain was that the relationship wasn’t going anywhere—she wasn’t a Christian—and the thought stung.

  “Nelson? When this is over I’ll buy you a sixteen-ounce steak at Moose McGillicuddy’s.”

  “Deal.” They shook hands on it.

  According to Carter, she didn’t have faith because she’d never asked for it.

  Just ask for it. Desire it.

  Right.

  She buttered a piece of bread. Two A.M. approached; the eye of the storm was near.

  She was a businesswoman. If a customer didn’t place an order, then according to Carter’s theory, the customer didn’t know they wanted something.

  Salvation couldn’t be compared to ordering floor wax, but she knew the difference.

  Did faith work that way? It sounded too pat—too easy—and in her world, when something sounded “too good to be true” it generally was.

  She was savvy enough to know that those professing faith did not live trouble-free lives. If that were the case, then Carter would have had a perfect vacation. He wouldn’t be sitting in a stranger’s kitchen, eating cold bread and jelly while Maui was getting blown away—or sounded like it.

  “Suppose,” she mused, setting the bread sack in front of Carter. “Suppose I buy into your theory. My grandmother had faith, but Mona turned out awful. Why would God allow my mother to not inherit her mother’s faith?”

  “God isn’t Santa Claus. Mona had her own choices to make.” He offered the spoon, and she licked the remains of the sticky sweetness.

  She took a bite of her meal. “Is that what you really think?”

  “I think someone you loved very deeply disappointed you,” Carter said, taking a bite of his bread also. “I think they broke a trust, and now you find it hard to believe in anyone or anything.”

  Her jaw dropped. Then she clamped it shut. Tightness formed around her eyes. “You can’t know that.”

  “No, I can’t. But you asked me what I thought. I think that’s why you work so hard—you figure since you can’t trust anyone to help you, you have to do it all on your own—the perfect career, the perfect life… .” He lowered his gaze to the counter. “I’m sorry. I have no right,” he said.

  Tess had always been cognizant of her need for security. She’d accumulated quite a bit for her age. Stella’s earlier words flashed through her mind. Everything you own will be discarded, used up, or belong to someone else.

  Sure she had a nice apartmen
t, nice furnishings, made some good, solid investments, a healthy 401(k). She’d worked hard for what she had. She had never thought she could take it with her. She wasn’t that naïve. Maybe she’d thought that her children would be the benefactors of her hard work, but then, she had no marriage prospects, no plans for children. So, what if the worst happened? What if Alana claimed her life? What would the long hours, pressure, incessant travel have done for her? Wasted her life?

  Fierce winds pounded the sheets of plywood nailed across windows, and rain poured rivers through gutters. The restless hurricane seemed intent on showing its true force of power. The sea responded with a show of uncompromising strength as it hurled brutal waves against the battered shoreline.

  Tess awoke around five A.M. from a brief nap and lay listening to the wind. Her stomach churned when she thought of being devoured by the angry sea. But a short distance away, Carter lay sleeping on the floor, strong and solid, a symbol of comfort. How had he managed to penetrate her heart in so short a time? His words of faith echoed like a voice in a canyon, resounding until her soul couldn’t help but feel compelled to reply. It wasn’t a strong answer. No. It was more a faint whisper, but it came nonetheless and reverberated through her soul. She wanted the desire Carter spoke of, the desire to believe. Now the only question was, how did she get this peace?

  With the morning, the storm began to blow itself out. The ruthless winds calmed as the day lifted its head from behind gray clouds.

  “Looks like it’s about over,” Ben said from the front door. His perceptive eyes scanned the aftermath of destruction. “The old houses stood the test yet another time.”

  Carter walked to the doorway and stood for a moment, listening. “Silence,” he said.

  Outside, distant voices sounded up and down the beach. Residents had started to come out of houses.

  Tess stretched lazily then touched the small of her back. The floor was hard as a brick. “Is it really over?” She combed her fingers through her tangled hair.

  “It’s stopped raining and the winds have let up.”

  When they stepped out onto the patio a moment later, they were greeted with the sight of downed trees. Palm fronds carpeted the saturated ground. In the driveway, a power line hung, snakelike, over her rental car.

  “Oh no, look at that,” she said. “Do you suppose it hurt the car mechanically?”

  Carter squinted cautiously at the line. “I don’t know, but we’d better stay clear until we know for sure the power’s off.”

  Turning their backs on the car, she and Carter headed out to inspect the beach. Stella was already out walking, Ben and Esther leading the way.

  Debris covered a large area. A mattress floated lazily in the water. Sheets of plywood and dead sea life littered the shore. Tess spotted a New York Yankees hat, the lid to a blender, and a shower cap. One beach house’s upper triangular walls had blown in. Carter picked his way among felled birds and fish tossed onto the shore while she followed close behind. Numerous buildings were blown down. A pair of men’s pants hung in a palm tree. Briefly she closed her eyes to block out the vision of ruin. Where hours ago shopkeepers and tourists had bought and sold souvenirs and macadamia nuts, now the seaside town of Kihei looked like a war zone.

  “And what, fair lady, shall we do on this tenth day of our lovely vacation?” Carter paused to stare at a beach chair bobbing in the ocean, his tone light but his eyes serious. “Want to try for ten pipers piping?”

  “Naw, the nine drummers drove me nuts.” She regrouped and matched his tone. “But there’s still so much we haven’t done, Carter! Earthquakes, locust plagues, aviation disasters—”

  Mentally, she began to rehearse the catalog of folly that had been her “vacation.” “Let’s see what we did manage to accomplish—my cab had a blowout on the way to Stapleton. I had to run to make the flight and I turned my ankle in the process.”

  “So? I had a miserable cold and my ears killed me on the flight over.” Carter stood poised for the battle of who-had-the-worst-vacation.

  “Oh, how sad!” She grinned as the tension of the past hours gradually released. Alana had left behind destruction, but the storm had spared the island residents— she’d heard no report of death or serious injury. “You didn’t have cold pills in your luggage?”

  “I didn’t have luggage by that time.”

  “But you could have bought some Sudafed when you arrived at your hotel.”

  “Oh, by then I had my luggage back.”

  “You did?”

  “Oh yeah. Only the hotel burned down, and I lost it again.”

  “Oh, that hotel!” She was enjoying their game. “I was staying there. Pioneer Inn? Lovely historical place. When I had to vacate the room, I grabbed my makeup bag instead of my purse.”

  “Go figure.”

  “Then I spent half the day running around dressed in a blanket.”

  He viewed her with mock surprise. “You’re that woman?”

  She sobered as her eyes skimmed the storm damage. It would take Kihei months to recover, but the little seaside town had heart. She remembered Beeg— safely in New York. What would Beeg do if she came home to find her gallery destroyed and her watercolors ruined?

  Every earthly possession will be used up, given away, or belong to someone else.

  She sighed. Carter reached out for her hand and she for his. “Heck of a vacation, Ms. Nelson. Who’s your travel agent?”

  She paused, then admitted, “Actually I was thinking your travel agent looks a little more … trustworthy.”

  The damage to Stella’s house was appreciable. Tiles had blown off the roof, shutters were damaged beyond repair. Downed tree limbs scattered the lawn. Snakes, insects, and rodents driven to higher ground were everywhere— causing more than a little anxiety for cleanup crews. Carter and Tess skirted puddles as they returned to the beach house. Carter coughed hollowly.

  He smiled at her concerned look. “I need hot coffee. Lots of coffee.”

  Ben, Esther, and Stella were still down the beach inspecting damage. They had the house to themselves. Pouring two cups of coffee, Carter sat down at the table.

  Tess remained at the window, arms crossed, staring out.

  “Coffee’s getting cold.”

  “I don’t want coffee.”

  He poured cream into his cup and stirred. “What do you want, Tess? Do you know?”

  “How does anyone really know what they want?” she asked, her gaze still outside the one window Carter had freed from its plywood imprisonment.

  “I suppose they don’t,” Carter said quietly. “Not without serious thought about what’s important to them.”

  “I want to trust in God like you do,” she admitted. “But how do I do that?”

  “A child stands on the edge of a swimming pool and says, ‘Daddy! Catch me!’ and jumps almost before the words are out of his mouth. How does he know his daddy will catch him?”

  “Because he always had caught him?”

  “Childlike faith. The unwavering trust in his father, knowing that he’s never dropped him, never failed to catch him. That’s what faith in God is all about.”

  Her top teeth worried her bottom lip. “I’m going home, Carter.”

  He glanced up. His eyes darkened at the announcement. “There won’t be any flights out for a few hours.”

  “I know—but when there are I’m going back to Denver. I need to know that I’m not just feeling this way because of the strain of the storm… . I don’t want to be a Christian in hard times. If this is real and true, it needs to be for always. I need to go home and think …”

  Shoving back from the table, Carter said quietly, “Then as soon as the airport opens we’ll get you a flight.”

  Around eight o’clock, an employee from Pioneer Inn arrived. Rapping on the door, he stood on the back porch and waited. Tess spotted him through the kitchen window. Lifting the sill, she called, “May I help you?”

  “Tess Nelson?”

  She frowned.
“I’m Tess.”

  The boy waved an envelope. “This came for you day before yesterday. Sorry, because of the storm this was the soonest I could get here.”

  Drying her hand on a towel, she went to open the door. When she looked inside the envelope, she found a voucher for five hundred dollars and a note from Mona.

  Life hasn’t been easy without Roy; money is always tight.I will need the cash back as soon as you can repay it. Mona.

  Tess felt hot tears sting her eyes. She’d sent the money. Mona had not let her down. For the first time in her life, Mom had come through.

  Her throat ached from the lump of emotion suddenly blocking her windpipe.

  17

  A power company crew working the area late Sunday night removed the line from Tess’s rental car. Unfortunately, the jolt of power from the line had zapped the car’s electronic ignition system, leaving the vehicle undriveable. Stella immediately offered her the use of her battered truck.

  After stowing her soot-covered bags in the back of the Chevy pickup Monday morning, Carter climbed into the driver’s seat. Air traffic out of Kahului Airport had resumed operation. Main throughways had been cleared of power lines and debris.

  Stella carried Henry in her arms as she walked Tess out to the truck. “I know you want to go home. You have choices to make about your job, and I trust you will make those decisions wisely. But I have so much enjoyed knowing you, having you here.” She smiled fondly at Carter. “Both of you. You are welcome in my home any time. And I pray the Lord will return you someday to Maui—preferably under more pleasant conditions. The island really is paradise, you know.”

  Tess smiled though tears stung her eyes. The former movie queen turned to address Carter, “Now, young man, you are to spend the remainder of the afternoon with me. I’ll have Fredrick prepare us a nice fruit tray— the pineapple is extra sweet this year—”