“No accounting for taste.” He picked up both her bags in one fist. “Come on, then. We’re late for the luau.”
“Oh, Oliver, thanks. But no partying for me. I need some sleep before we talk to Kye about hiring me.”
Oliver slung an arm around her shoulders. “If I was to tell you there’s something waiting for you that you’d kiss me full on the mouth not to miss, what would you do?”
Yardley gave him the stink-eye. “I’d think you were trying to sell me a very cheap bit of merchandise.”
He threw back his head in laughter, gathering the eyeballs that weren’t already glued to the gorgeous man.
Two hours later, Oleg had been walked, engaged in a hard-and-fast game of Frisbee, and fed; he now slept gratefully in a kennel that didn’t fly, soar, or bob like a cork in the bathtub.
Yardley, showered and changed, came into the open-air lobby to find Oliver waiting for her. He wore board shorts, a hideously loud flowered shirt, and flip-flops.
She looked down at herself. She wore sandals and a simple white dress with scooped neck and spaghetti straps with a single large hibiscus flower printed at the hem. She hadn’t known what to do with her hair so she’d just parted it and let it fall over her shoulders and down her back.
When she looked up to see why he hadn’t spoken, his drop-jawed surprise confirmed her suspicion. His gaze lingered over every swell and curve of her body, making her worry that the thin material might burst into flame.
“Too much?” She held a hand up to the scoop neck. Maybe too little. The dress didn’t allow for the kind of bras she’d brought. “I bought it in the gift shop when you dropped me off. I wasn’t expecting to attend a celebration.”
He murmured something that sounded like, “The whole package,” and then turned and walked out of the hotel.
Yardley’s mouth dropped open and then she went after him, getting hotter by the second. He could just suggest she change. But to walk out?
She found him outside the hotel doorway, paying for a flower. He grinned at her, accepted his change, and then came right up to her and pushed the hibiscus into her hair behind her right ear. “That ought to do it. Come on, we’re late.”
Yardley heard the party before they swung around a curve and the stretch of beach came into view. Under a large pavilion several dozen people were serving plates of food. Out under the stars, dozens of burning torches were staked in the sand. Several flanked a wicker chair with a high circular back in which sat a woman in a bright-purple floral muumuu with a garland of flowers in her hair and another around her neck.
“That’s Tutu. I’ll introduce you later.” Oliver waved at a few people and then said, “Come this way.”
He steered her toward the large group of partygoers who stood listening to musicians playing traditional Hawaiian music up on a makeshift stage.
With a hand at her back, he propelled her past a blur of smiling faces toward the front of the crowd. Growing a little nervous even in a smiling crowd of strangers, Yardley turned to Oliver. ‘“Look, if you’re escorting me because Kye doesn’t want me here, I can just go back to the hotel.”
Oliver swung his head toward her, an incredulous look on his face. “Do you ever look in your mirror?”
“You heard of the Maori haka? It’s a war dance. This is Kane Hula kahiko. Hawaiian male hula, ancient-style. Some call it the muscle dance.” He winked at her. “Fair warning. You’ll want to kiss me.”
Yardley swung her attention back to the stage. The music had ended and the musicians quickly cleared the stage. A man appeared on stage carrying what looked like a large two-lobed gourd. She’d read about the instrument in the inflight magazine. It was an ipu heke gourd drum.
The musician began to chant, pounding the drum against the boards and using his hand and fingers to tap out a rhythm. It began slow. The chanted rhymes were in Hawaiian but they reminded her of powwows on the reservation where she grew up. Familiar and yet new. Her feet began to move in tiny stomp steps of sympathy.
Yardley had seen women in traditional grass skirts and leis and flower garlands in their hair standing next to the stage. She expected they’d be the dancers. But as she watched the stage wing in anticipation, the women parted, revealing a line of bare-chested men and boys wearing nothing but simple loincloths with a tantalizing strip of cloth hiding their modesty front and rear.
Oliver leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Kye’s tutu requested that all eligible male descendants dance a traditional hula for her birthday.”