Torch Ginger by Toby Neal Page A

away until I call you again?”
    “I admit you’re not a bad kisser.” She put the truck in gear. “But Williamson knows how to show he likes a woman.”
    The truck accelerated and she smiled to see him looking after her, his hands in his pockets, brow knit.
    For the first time in days she looked at her ring finger and it didn’t hurt.

Chapter 12
    Saturday, October 23
    Saturday dawned overcast and rainy. Lei woke up to the distinct smell of pancakes. She put her feet out of bed and found the worn wooden floor unexpectedly damp and cold. She went to the back of the bedroom door and wrapped up in her old kimono, slipped into a pair of socks, and went into the kitchen.
    Her father was at the stove, flipping a large, perfectly browned pancake that gleamed with the yellow of banana slices. He pointed to the pancake.
    “You loved these when you were a kid. Mrs. Abacan, your landlady, gave me the bananas and some local honey.”
    “She’s sweetening you up,” Lei said, pouring herself a mug of coffee. She sat at the little table, and Keiki came over and put a broad head on her knee. She absently played with the dog’s ears as she watched him finish the cake and slide it onto one of her little Corelle plates, drizzling it generously with honey.
    “Thanks, Dad.”
    “I like the sound of that.” He poured a dollop of batter so it spread across the sizzling griddle. “Making myself useful. Have a good time last night?” He’d been asleep on the couch when she got in.
    “Sure did.” Her fingers found their way to the necklace at her throat; somehow she thought she’d dreamed it.
    Her father’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that? I don’t remember you wearing that on the way out.”
    “It was a gift from a man who seemed to . . . take a liking to me.”
    “Can I see it?”
    She unhooked it and handed it to him, coiling the necklace in his hand where it glowed like a handful of crushed rose petals.
    “This is a really quality piece.”
    “I think it’s from Ni`ihau.” Only shells that had actually been picked up and worked by the colony of Hawaiians who still lived on that remote, tiny isle could be called Ni`ihau—the rest were just kehelelani .
    “So who was he?”
    “Guy named Mac Williamson.” She shrugged. “It rattled my date’s cage, and that was kinda fun. But the necklace is way too expensive; I need to find Williamson and return it.”
    Her father handed it back. “Beautiful. You know how to make the guys in this town pay attention.”
    “That was never my style. Have you called Aunty Rosario? Does she know you’re out of prison?”
    He shook his head, turned away to flip the pancake, then slipped it onto his own plate. There had been tension between the siblings ever since Rosario had given Lei the cache of twenty years’ worth of letters.
    “I know I should call her. Okay. Go get me your phone.” Lei went and got it while he sat down and tucked into his massive banana pancake.
    A few minutes later Lei left them talking and went out on the back porch with Keiki. She looked down the strip of lawn past the bedraggled shower tree to the turgid brown river. Rain pattered on the tin roof, on the leaves of the hau bush. Branches, clots, and mounds of submerged debris swirled in the swollen river. As she watched, the patter became a thunderous roar that drowned out everything else. She went back inside with Keiki plastered against her side. The dog’s ears flattened to her skull in apprehension, big body shivering.
    “Settle, girl. It’s just rain.” The dog was not reassured.
    Her father closed the phone just as it rang again. He handed it to Lei.
    “J-Boy, whatcha calling me for on a Saturday morning?”
    “Just thought you should know they’re predicting flooding in Hanalei Valley,” Jenkins said.
    “Crap, really?” Lei walked over to the window and looked out again. The view was completely obliterated by a wall of falling water. Jenkins’s voice was breaking up. “What?” she