Page 29 of Maliea's Hero
Andrea nodded solemnly without saying a word.
Maliea tipped her head toward her father’s office. “May I?”
“You bet.” Andrea stepped aside. “There’s not much to handle. Your father was a very neat man,” her lips quirked upward on the corners, “although at times he was absent-minded. He said that if he didn’t write things down, he’d forget them. He kept a journal of all his research and carried it everywhere.”
Maliea’s pulse quickened. “Did you find the journal among the things in his office?”
Andrea’s shoulders drooped. “No. When he left that morning to catch the plane to Niihua, he had the journal with him. It went down with the plane. All they recovered was the black box and—” She clapped a hand over her mouth, her gaze shooting to the department head’s office where Nani sat at her grandfather’s desk, quietly coloring.
“—the bodies,” Maliea whispered. That hollow feeling in her gut swelled, the incredible weight of her grief pressing down on her. She swallowed hard on the lump rising in her throat.
“Do they know what happened?” Andrea asked.
Maliea drew in a breath and let it out slowly to calm the rise of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. She forced the words from her mouth. “Based on radio communications between the pilot and the ATC, the actuator had disconnected, making it impossible for the pilot to control the aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board ruled the crash as an accident.”
Channeling the anger she felt at losing her father, Maliea said, “Maybe it’s just as well that the journal is at the bottom of the ocean. If my father had not been obsessed with the lost treasure of Red Beard, he might still be alive today.”
“So true,” Andrea said, her brow puckering. “I’m going to miss him around here. It won’t be the same. We’ll probably get some young guy with half the class.” She smiled, her lips trembling. “It might be time for me to retire.”
Maliea’s eyes widened. “What would they do without you? You’ve run this department as long as I can remember.”
“I’m too old to train a new department head half my age. I might as well open a daycare.” Her smile brightened. “Would you consider me as a full-time babysitter for our little Nani?”
Maliea hugged the older woman. “In a heartbeat.”
When Andrea stepped back, her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Now, get busy in your father’s office before I embarrass myself.”
Maliea glanced toward Reid.
“Do you want me to help?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” she said softly.
Having only known this man for a few hours, she found herself leaning on his strength during this most difficult time.
She couldn’t let herself get used to having him there. Eventually, she’d be on her own again.
In the meantime, she had a strong shoulder to lean on. A man who wouldn’t be too busy having an affair with a pretty young Teacher’s Assistant to look out for the wellbeing of a single mother and her child.
Yeah, he had incredibly broad shoulders. He was also ruggedly handsome. A single woman in the prime of her sexuality could fall for a guy like that.
A shiver of awareness rippled across Maliea’s skin as Reid followed her into her father’s office.
CHAPTER 7
Reid followed Maliea into her father’s office and came to stand beside her as she stared around the room. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She gave him a weak smile. “I just came face-to-face with the piece of work that kept my husband ‘working’ a lot of late nights at the office.”
“Mama,” Nani said from the chair behind the desk. “Come see my picture.”
Maliea crossed the room, leaned over the desk, and stared down at the coloring book. Her daughter had been happily coloring in. “That’s beautiful. I like the way you used blue for her hair.”
“She has blue hair because she’s a mermaid, like in Papa’s story.” Nani looked toward Reid. “Do you want to see?”
Reid crossed the room to stand beside Maliea. “That’s very pretty,” he said. “Are those seashells?”
Nani nodded. “Yes, sir.”