Page 108 of Try Easy

“I’m not leaving you,” Penny said. “I’m leaving Seattle.” Penny took Lou by the shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “You should think about leaving, too. There’s nothing here for you.”

“Where would I go?”

Penny gave Lou a pointed stare. “You know where.”

“I can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

“What am I supposed to do, show up at Keoni’s door and beg him to change his mind?”

“Sure, why not?” Penny asked. “He came here for you, Lou. He wants you.”

“But he left me.”

“And you let him.”

“Maybe you should take your own advice and go after Bones.”

Penny shook her head. “No. Samuel told me he didn’t want me, Lou. He didn’t even call me after he went missing and we thought he was dead. He doesn’t love me. But Keoni loves you. He loved you from the moment he saw you get off that plane. You’d be crazy to give that up.”

“I have to think about all this,” Lou said, pulling away and pacing to the window that looked out at the brick of another building. She sniffed back tears, thinking of the view from Keoni’s bedroom of the soft sands of Hale’iwa Beach.

“Don’t take too long,” Penny said, letting herself out. “Men like Keoni don’t sit around waiting.”

The thought had already struck Lou. Maybe Keoni had already gone back to the woman he’d tried to replace her with once before. Lou had nightmares about Keoni in the arms of another woman.

After Penny left, Lou went to her closet and opened the door. Keoni’s jacket, which he’d forgotten when he’d so hastily left her apartment, hung next to her favorite dress. Lou touched the sleeve of the jacket, running her fingers along the coarse duck cloth as if she was touching the man and not just the fabric. Although the scent was fading, the jacket still smelled of Keoni. Lou slipped her hand into the pocket and pulled out the photograph she kept there. It showed Keoni on the top of the Nu’uanu Pali Lookout.

He was facing the camera, leaning against the railing in a relaxed pose. The beauty was behind him in the green cliffs that overlooked Kaneohe Bay and the distant peak of Chinaman’s Hat, but Keoni’s eyes were soft as if he was looking at something even prettier. The wind blew his hair away from his face, revealing the cut on his forehead.

Keoni had said he didn’t want Lou worrying about him, that’s why he was ending things. He didn’t want her ever to experience the pain he carried over Eddie’s death.

But Keoni’s argument made no sense.

Thoughts of Keoni filled Lou’s every waking moment. She dreamed of him at night and woke missing him. Being apart would not make her worry less about him. At any given moment, he could be launching himself off a huge wave, or risking his life to save a stranger.

Lou would never stop worrying about Keoni, wondering if he was safe, or missing him. And no matter what, she’d never stop loving him.

She pulled the jacket over her shoulders, threaded her arms through the sleeves, and zipped it up tightly. Then she lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning when she woke up, Lou had a plan. She had always been excellent at planning, and she formulated precisely how she was going to convince Keoni to let her love him.

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