“Keep it.” Hans pulled his hands away to keep from touching the card. “I don’t want to see your face again in my shop. Just leave me alone.”
Bane put his card away and backed out of the shop. That had been a bust. He wasn’t totally convinced of Hans’s innocence. Hans had been at the site when Tony died, and that was suspicious in itself. If Bane could only get hold of the man’s client list. He exited the shop and nearly bowled over Leia. As she teetered on the sidewalk, he grabbed her arms and steadied her. “What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” she said.
She didn’t pull away immediately but stood looking up at him. Her dark blue eyes, so like her mother’s, had always fascinated him. The slant, the length of her lashes, the admiration he always found in her gaze could get addicting. Her arms felt cold, as though she’d had her car’s AC blowing full blast. The chill was in sharp contrast to the warmth he felt in his hands, a heat that seemed to grow from contact with her. The chemistry between them had only increased with the time away.
He dropped his hands and stepped back. “I wanted to ask Hans a few questions.”
“So did I.”
“You told me to leave it to the police,” he pointed out.
A flush ran up her neck and landed on her cheeks. “I stopped by the police station to answer their questions. Since I was here, I thought I might drop in. I tried to talk to Hans yesterday, but he walked away. I hoped he might be more forthcoming on his own turf.”
Bane took her arm again and moved away from the building with her. “He was at the dive site. He just admitted it to me.”
She pulled her arm loose and stood looking back at the dive shop. “You think he had anything to do with Tony’s death?”
“I don’t know. He said he didn’t see Tony down there, but it’s mighty suspicious that he was in the area. I think we should tell the police.”
“I need to call Detective Ono back anyway. I can tell him then.”
“How about some dinner first? I know it’s a little early, but I’m starved.”
“I guess that would be okay. I’m hungry too.”
“Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he said dryly.
She rubbed her arms. “What did you expect, Bane?” She rubbed her forehead, and her voice thickened. “I’m an adult. I can choose the path that’s best for me.” She turned her head away.
She began to walk away, and he caught at her arm. “Let’s not fight,” he said.
“You think you know what’s best for everyone, that if you keep everyone in a neat little box they won’t hurt you. I want more than that from a relationship. We’re not compatible, Bane.”
He shifted and looked away. “If you’re talking about our argument about you going to San Francisco, I was proved right. You hated it, just like I thought you would. But I’ve always felt there was something more to our breakup, Leia. You handed my ring back with some rehearsed line about how we weren’t right for one another. I don’t get it.” Things had been strained when she left for San Francisco. He’d flown out to see her a month later, and she’d given him back his ring. He still didn’t understand why.
“Maybe I was wrong, but I needed you to support me, and instead you sounded just as controlling as my mother. All my life she’s hovered over me like a mother nene. I wanted more than that from you.” She yanked her arm out of his grasp and walked away. “Let me know if you ever decide you’re not God,” she said over her shoulder.
He watched her braid sway against her back and the way the sun caught the blonde highlights like strands of liquid gold. Squashing the poetic imagery, he stared as she got into her Neon and slammed the door without looking back at him. The strains of Amy Hanaiali’i Gilliom’s “Paluahua” floated out the window, and he wished he could leave Leia as easily as she’d left him.
Leia was more sad than angry as she drove to Dr. Kapuy’s office. Bane meant well, she had no doubt of that. But he wasn’t her big brother; he was supposed to have been the man who loved her. She’d had enough of being told what to do growing up. She didn’t want a despot for a husband. Bane didn’t mean to be that way either. He just thought the world sat on his shoulders. His mother’s desertion when he was a child had left a deep need in him to keep his world controlled and unchanged.