Rolling in the Deep: Hawaiian Heroes, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. “About that… Ma wants us to have dinner first, with Melia’s guests.”
    Daniel groaned. “Fuck, you’re kidding.”
    “Afraid not, brah.” David sounded as if he were trying not to laugh.
    Daniel scowled at the road before him. “What time?”
    “Six o’clock at the Royal K. Listen, we can head up to Kona Brew afterward. I’ll let Gabe and Jack know we’ll be there at seven thirty or so.”
    “Pop coming to dinner?”
    “Yeah.”
    Daniel sighed.
    “C’mon, why so gloomy?” David asked, obviously surprised. “They’re pretty wahines and nice too.”
    “I’ll be there—that’s all you need to know.”
    Daniel clicked off his phone to the sound of his little brother’s laughter.
    Traffic was heavy. On a beautiful afternoon like this, the tourists were out in throngs, zipping around in their little rental cars and strolling the avenue, looking for trinkets and photo ops to take back home. With the patience of long practice, Daniel waited for a chubby, sunburned man to cross the road in defiance of the blinking yellow caution light before easing his big truck through the intersection.
    Honok ō hau Marina lay a few miles west of Kona on the stark lava plain that held the airport. The small harbor had been enlarged by dredging. As the only launch for bigger boats on the Kona coast, moorage was at a premium. A three-story boat loft dominated the skyline to the right, and the large lot behind it was full of boats on trailers, part of the thriving Kona Marina.
    Daniel took the road to the left, past the Department of Land and Natural Resources offices. This whole area was an historic park, having once been an ancient dwelling place.
    He pulled into the small parking lot of Honok ō hau Marina. Owned by his uncle Hector, known as Hilo to his friends and family, the boat shop maintained a rivalry, sometimes friendly, sometimes not, with the shop at the other marina. Today there were only two pickups parked in front of the open doors of Hilo’s place.
    Daniel chose his usual parking spot in the back corner of the lot. As he stepped out of his truck, the afternoon sun slapped like a hot blanket over his head and shoulders. Through the smells of boat fuel and hot pavement and the sounds of boat motors, the sea beckoned him to the cool depths below. Away from pesky haole wahines and the needs they aroused in him, away from the troubles brought by other haoles onto his island.
    But of course those troubles would follow him even into the sea—had already. Apana had died on the sea, and more would follow, until he or someone else stopped the scum trying to move their drugs onto his island. No, he could swim as deeply as he wished and not outrun trouble.
    Anyway, he would check in with Hilo, his favorite uncle, with whom he shared his connection to the sea. Like Daniel, Hilo bore tattoo remnants of battles fought in the sea. Tattoos awarded by the island gods for wounds received protecting these islands. Hilo bore even more ink than Daniel, although his were mostly hidden by the voluminous, flowered shirts he wore.
    His uncle looked up from the front desk as Daniel came in. “Daniel, my boy. Taking your boat out?”
    “Nah. Been shuttling wedding guests.” Daniel stretched, rotating his upper body. “Thought I’d go for a swim.”
    Hilo smiled, his brown face creasing under his silver hair. “Stay out of the boat channels, yeah? Get those braids of yours caught in a propeller, make a real mess.”
    “‘Ae.” His uncles had been giving him crap about his long hair from the time he was a teenager, thinking he grew it to rebel. The truth lay somewhere between there and tradition. Yes, Daniel lacked interest in some modern standards of decorum, but more than that, he was a warrior, and his long hair tied him to the history of the chieftains in his ohana. Given his solitary habits, he sometimes felt closer to their ghosts than to his fellow modern man. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
    He