Chapter 11

"Because I'm not cooking for him to eat here…"

"But you just said…"

"If you hadn't interrupted me, I would've gone on to tell you that I was making a picnic to take to his office because he has to work late."

"Oh," Gerald said in a rather subdued voice, but then brightened as a thought occurred to him, "Why don't you tell him to drop by after he gets off work!?"

"Because he will be tired after a long day and you, my dear father, are hard enough to take when one is bright eyed and bushy tailed!" she replied heading for the stairs.

"I am hurt…wounded…cut to the quick!" he declared dramatically.

"Good! Then my work here is done!" Liiani blew him a kiss and dashed up the stairs.

Decades of a military sense of order kept AJ from starting to strip off his uniform the minute he walked through the front door when he got home that evening. Instead, he forced himself to wait until he got to his bedroom so he could hang the uniform in the closet and put his underclothes into the hamper. Climbing into bed naked, he fell asleep thinking about Akaliiani and their picnic tomorrow night.

Liiani finished preparing the food for her dinner with AJ the next night, took a long hot bubble bath and went to bed with a smile on her face as she thought of him.

Both of them might have been surprised and flattered to find out that the other one had spent their day watching the clock and counting down the hours until they would be together again.

He continued to work even as he heard the office quieting down indicating people were going home. AJ knew it wouldn't be long at all until Akaliiani was there when Coates poked her head in to say good night at 1730.

Rushing home after her shift ended Liiani changed clothes as their dinner heated up. She hoped that AJ would like what she had made as she packed it up and headed to her car.

Gerald called out from his usual place in the back yard, "Tell that young man 'hello' from me, and that I look forward to meeting him this weekend!"

"I will not!" she called back cheerfully and waved good-bye to him.

In his younger days Gerald might have gotten into his car and followed her to learn more about this young fellow she was so interested in. But these days he no longer drove and he really did trust his daughter's judgment. If she was truly serious about her AJ, then he would get to meet him before too long.

All of his children had turned out to be people any parent could be proud of, even if Gerald did question two of their career choices. The three older boys were all Marines like their father before them had been. Then Vince, the youngest, had decided to go into the NAVY! Nothing Gerald could say would talk him out of it. Gerald was secretly proud of how well Vince had done in his career, but he was still teased and tormented at family gatherings.

But it was Liiani's choice of careers that baffled him the most. All through her childhood she had played Marines with her dolls. Then in school all her extra credit reports had been about the Corps, so when she graduated high school Gerald was sure she would enlist. Instead she announced that she was going to enroll in the police academy. Liiani had never told him that she had looked at her brothers, who were being stationed all over the world, and at her father's declining health, and decided someone needed to stay close to home to be there for their dad.

Liiani would have loved being a Marine, but she never regretted or resented her choice. Before she had graduated from the academy she realized that she would love the choice of career she had made, even if it hadn't been her first one.

To be continued…..