Lani believed him. There was still one little point she didn’t understand. “When was the last time you actually talked one-on-one with one of those people you wanted to help?” she asked quietly. “Unless it involved the crime you were working on?”
A puzzled frown darkened his brow. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“I just was wondering if you’ve ever had time to mingle with the masses once you became a detective.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “Why am I getting the feeling that you disapprove of my wanting to improve myself?”
Lani shrugged. “It’s not for me to disapprove, Donovan. I have nothing to say about what you do with your life.”
Donovan frowned. “That’s what my ex-wife said. Right before she pointed out all the social disadvantages of my being nothing but a street cop.”
Stunned by the intrusion of another woman into the conversation, Lani picked up her mug, staring into the dark brown depths as if the cooling liquid held inordinate interest for her.
“You were married?”
“For six months.”
Lani had to ask. “How long have you been divorced?”
Donovan didn’t want to talk about Kendall. Just thinking about his former wife gave him a sour taste in his mouth. “A long time. Her family and mine were friends and we married while I was still in pre-med. So, understandably, she assumed she was going to be a doctor’s wife. She walked out the day I entered the police academy instead of medical school.”
“So, you weren’t married when we first met?” Donovan and Nate had spent so many off hours together, Lani thought surely a wife would have come up.
“We were separated and she’d already filed for divorce. I didn’t blame her for feeling as if she’d had a bait-and-switch pulled on her.”
“Her loss,” Lani mused. “Why were you in pre-med in the first place?”
“Because that’s what people in my family do.”
“Excuse me? What does that mean?”
“You know how back when Catholics had lots of kids, every family seemed to give at least one to the Church as a priest or nun?”
“That was before my time,” Lani said. “But we Breslins have had our share of priests and nuns in our family tree. But what does that have to do with you and medicine?”
“I didn’t feel I had a choice.”
“Donovan,” Lani said, still uncomprehending, “of course you had a choice.”
“Not really. Since I was an only child, it was up to me to carry on the Quinn tradition. My father’s a neurosurgeon who invented some special brain stent that made him wealthier than he already was from family money. My mother’s a psychiatrist, who, when I decided to attend the police academy instead of medical school, tried to put me on anti-depressants because she couldn’t believe I was thinking clearly.”
He’d also turned down the meds after Matt’s suicide. While Donovan wasn’t against better living through pharmaceuticals, he just hadn’t believed either situation called for them.
He hadn’t not gone to med school because he’d been depressed, but because he’d started meeting a lot of cops while volunteering his senior year at PSU in the ER. And although he’d admittedly been hit hard by burnout and his partner’s death, just being here with Lani proved that he’d only needed a break. By the time the new year arrived, he’d be back to fighting shape.
Bored with talking about himself, which had never been one of his favorite things to do, he lifted her wrist to his lips and pressed a light kiss against her skin scented with the lotion she’d obviously put on this morning.
“You taste so good. I don’t think I’m ever going to get enough of you. Come back to bed with me, Lani.”
“As tempting as that is, I need to finish the tile in the bathroom. And, if I have time, patch your roof.”
“Those things can wait. I seem to have been struck with the aloha spirit and want to spend the day with my wahine.”
Lani couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do. “What if it rains and your roof leaks?”
He shrugged uncaringly. “I’ve got that little problem all solved.”
She lifted a russet brow. “Don’t tell me that you’re going to fix the roof?”
“Of course not. If there’s one thing my work has taught me to be, it’s a good administrator. And a good administrator always delegates.”
“Delegates?”
“If it rains while we’re making love, I’m delegating you to the top position.”
“Gee, thanks,” she drawled.
He pressed his hand against the back of her head, pulling her forward for an intense, explosive kiss. Stars glittered and spun on a backdrop of black velvet behind Lani’s eyes, and she could have sworn she felt the distant rumbling of Mt. Waipanukai. But that was impossible, she told herself as her hands clutched Donovan’s shoulders tightly. The volcano that had once served as Kealehai’s home was now extinct.