My apologies for the long delay between posts. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas, and have an even safer New Year as well. COVID free! Aloha!

Chapter 14

Danny sat in the Camaro at the guard gate of Hickam Air Force base as he waited for Steve.

He flipped through the radio stations, settling on a Bon Jovi tune that he liked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, mouthing the words.

He recognized the tall figure approaching and smiled brightly. He had missed his friend, even though they had only been apart less than a week, he could still feel the emotional turmoil that had plagued him most of that time. He was glad to see him.

Steve raised a hand to him as the gate opened and the guard in the small booth let him out.

"Thanks," Steve said to him as he walked out. "Hey Danny," he focused on his partner. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"No problem."

They clasped hands and hugged each other briefly.

"Thanks for coming to the Cook Islands too. I'm sorry for all the hassle."

"It was fine, I'm just glad you're back safe."

"Yea, me too."

"So, I guess you have another adventure to put in your diary," Danny teased him as they got in the car.

Steve's mood was somber but he managed to pull off a rather 'glad to be home attitude', but in actuality he wished more than anything that he was still on the boat with Mandy. Maybe not stranded with the stress of keeping her safe and fed on his shoulders, but if that was his only option, then he'd gladly take it.

"You want to stop for a beer and a bite to eat before I drop you off?" Danny asked. "You can fill me in on your little adventure."

Steve shook his head as he looked over at him from gazing out the window at the Kualoa Mountain range, recalling a conversation with Mandy as he told her of the infamous "Stairway to Heaven" hike. It was dangerous and illegal but tons of fun if you had the balls to go through with it.

"No, thanks, Danny. I'm pretty beat. I just want to get home and sleep in my own bed. Maybe tomorrow, huh?"

"Sure. I don't blame you." He looked at the recovering bump on his forehead. "Did you have your head looked at by the Navy doctor? Mandy said you hit it pretty hard the night of the storm."

That name got his attention. "You talked to her? Mandy? You talked to her?"

"Well yea. I was there when she landed after they picked her up from the boat."

Steve shifted slightly in his seat, facing him. "How was she? Did she…" he started to ask if she mentioned him but thought it was coming across too desperate in his tone. "Did she look ok?"

"She was fine. She looked tired but even so, she still looked unbelievably gorgeous. I can't believe you were stranded with her. Those are the details I want to hear," Danny joked.

"I'm glad she's safe and with her family," was all he wanted to say in that respect.

"That's it?!" Danny whined. "That's all you're going to give me?"

"Let it go for now, Danny." He felt a stab in his chest, not wanting to talk about it just now. It was still too raw.

Danny glanced over at him as he looked out the passenger window, hearing something unfamiliar in his partner's voice, a tone that he recognized, but never dreamt he would hear from the man who seldom wore his emotions in public, let alone his heart on his sleeve. What the hell had happened on that boat, he wondered, but was picking up subtle clues. The evidence was all over Steve's face.

He let the subject go as requested.

"Cash is a pretty cool guy. He was out of his mind with worry for his sister, and you. Not sure he slept at all, but the old man…geez," Danny groaned. "What an asshole."

"Her father? Peter McKay?"

"Yes, and that little sidekick of his, Bryce. Another asshole."

"Bryce was there?" he asked startled. "Was he at the airport too when she landed?"

And yet another clue was surfacing.

"Yes, he was there. Cash wasn't very happy about it." He glanced over at him as he stared out the windshield as if in deep thought over that. He was going to tell him about the accusations that were flying around about him but decided not to. What was the point now? It was over.

Steve felt a stab of jealously over the idea of Bryce being there, knowing there was only one reason why he would be. He wanted her back, and being there would show her his loyalty during the search, but he didn't even have to ask to know that Bryce didn't have much to do with he and Mandy's rescue.

"She said you saved the boat, that it would have sunk otherwise."

Steve shrugged, "All I did was close the hatch and fix a leak." He smiled as he thought of her syphoning set up. "She's the one that managed to get all that water out from the engine room." He looked over at him, "She's smart and resourceful."

And there it was, a new set of emotions took the place of the sad ones. Danny picked up on it without missing a beat. "Smart and beautiful. A deadly combination."

The smile faded from Steve as the pain of the separation returned. "I guess so."

"So," Danny said, knowing he wasn't going to come right out with it so it was one of these McGarrett moments that he was going to have to drag out of him, "how did you two get along being stranded? I'm sure she's used to having a maid. Did you have to serve her breakfast in bed and then make it every day once she decided to get up? Rub her feet perhaps?"

Steve shot him a cold look, "She's not like that. AT ALL!" he practically yelled. "While I was on my back with a cracked skull, she managed to fix me up, clean up the messes from the storm and empty the water from the engine room, with a broken bilge! She's not helpless by any means!"

Danny laughed out loud as he pulled into Steve's driveway and put the car in park.

"What's so funny?" Steve blasted him.

"You are. I've never heard you defend anyone's honor so adamantly and angrily before."

Steve huffed, "Whatever."

"So, are you going to see her again?"

"What for?"

"Because you spent four days and nights with her and obviously respect the hell out of her. You had to form some kind of bond. You're telling me you just said goodbye when they took her off the boat and that was that?"

Steve reached for the handle of the door. "We come from two different worlds. She'd never be happy here and I could never live in New York with that lifestyle."

Danny raised an eyebrow, "I just asked if you were going to see here again, but obviously living arrangements were talked about, or thought about at least."

"We did talk about it…" he paused with his hand still on the door handle, reliving the painful and regrettable last conversation with her, "but it's just too complicated."

"Complicated is good sometimes," Danny reminded him, "and most times worth it."

"It doesn't matter now, she's back in New York, back to her life. It's where she wants to be."

"And your back in yours. So, it seems like everything worked out for the best."

Steve practically cringed over that statement. Maybe for her, but not for him. "Yes, like I said, we come from two different worlds." He opened the door and got out. "Thanks for the ride, Danny. I'll call ya."

Danny leaned over the passenger seat, looking up at him. "She was worried about you, you know? She was adamant about being at the airport when you arrived."

Steve leaned down so he could see him. "She was?" It was the first bit of positive information he had yet to hear.

"Yep. Just saying. I'll talk to you tomorrow?" Steve went into another blank stare but Danny could see the wheels turning in his brain, trying to decipher that piece of knowledge that put a slight smile on his face.

"Maybe I'll call her and make sure she's ok. I mean we did have a pretty traumatic experience."

"That's a good idea," Danny grinned, feeling he had taken the bait. He was dying to call her, it was obvious, Danny just gave him the excuse he was looking for. "Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Yea, sure. I'll talk to you tomorrow."
As Danny backed up, he rolled down the window of the car and yelled out, "It's still early in New York you know."

Steve raised a hand with a smile

He went around to the back of the house and used the spare key that he kept under a rock by the lanai. The only thing he was allowed to take off the boat from the air lift was his cell phone.

He came in and sat down on the sofa looking at his phone with Mandy's name and number displayed on the screen.

He hesitated before calling, going over the conversation in his head of what he would say to her, and feeling anxious over what she would say to him, or if she would even be happy to hear from him at all. He wasn't sure he could take a disappointed tone in her voice, or if he could even take hearing the sound of it all together, afraid he might crumble at her feet and give in to her every whim. He missed her that much.

She had flown back to New York in a hurry. He wondered if she had made that decision before or after his rescue. She had left the boat almost six hours before him. It gave him a lot of time to think and miss her. He wondered too if she had done the same, or if she had got back to the comforts of a nice warm bed in a five-star resort and decided he had been right all along, their lives were too far apart to come together.

He cringed over that argument that he had instigated, dropping his head as he ran his hand over his hair, cursing himself for even making it a topic.

He pictured her then in a high-rise apartment in New York, standing at a floor to ceiling window overlooking Central Park. Her dark hair swept up on her head, exposing her long, soft, elegant neck that he loved to kiss, just before he kissed her lips. The image took a turn as he pictured Bryce coming up behind her and kissing that same spot.

His left eye twitched as he squeezed the phone in his hand. He hated that guy, and the word hate was not used lightly, hoping she didn't do anything foolish like go back to that asshole.

He looked down at his phone again and decided calling was not the best way to go. So, instead he took the safe route, he pulled up the 'message' icon on his phone.

Hi, he began, It's Steve, he typed, just in case she didn't have his name labeled with his number and mistook it as a junk text.

He shook his head slightly, feeling like a teenage boy reaching out to the girl from school who took his breath away every time he saw her. His palms sweated slightly as he pushed send, anticipating her response, if he got one at all.

Mandy turned away from the stove, hearing her phone buzz on the white marble counter behind her. She saw the screen light on and leaned over to see the name, assuming it was Bryce again. He had called twice and texted her three times trying to get her to go to dinner with him, or allowing him to bring something over, claiming he was worried about her being alone on her first night back after her traumatic experience at sea. She turned him down twice and then ignored him all together, wanting to tell him that the only traumatic thing she felt from the whole ordeal was a broken heart.

She saw Steve's name with a message on the screen and felt her heart soar. She turned off the stove, pushing the pan with the garden burger off the flame and turned back to her phone, scooping it off the counter and quickly went over to her couch and sat down.

She stared at the message as her heart pounded fiercely in her chest and she bit her bottom lip, picturing him, perhaps outside amongst the palm trees and Hawaiian flowers, shirtless maybe from the warm air, a five o'clock shadow forming on the most handsome face she had ever encountered. She missed him terribly but at that second the word 'miss' took on a whole new meaning. She was being crushed under the weight of her ache for him. The message from him was like a catch-22, she was beyond thrilled to get it, but not sure she wanted to know what he was going to say. It struck her then that it was a text and not a call, making the conversation so much less intimate than she wanted, but at the moment she would have taken a telegram if it came from him.

She typed back, letting him know she was there, but her fingers just flowed with what she wanted to say.

'Hi, how are you? I miss you so much. I love you.

She read it over and backspaced over the last two sentences, feeling that awful pain in her heart flare up again.

He smiled, seeing the dots flashing on his phone as she replied to his message. It made him feel special knowing at that moment, Mandy McKay was focusing her attention on him and no one else.

He waited impatiently, starting at his phone. She was typing something lengthy, perhaps inviting him to New York, or telling him that she missed him, hoping for either, or both.

When the message did appear it wasn't lengthy, nor was it intimate. It was a simple friendly greeting that he would have got from anyone, not someone he had spent four, turbulent, hazardous, miraculous and happy days with.

His angelic picture of her by the window changed to one of her perhaps in a fancy restaurant with Cash and her father and maybe even Bryce. Back to her normal life.

He replied with the same tone, not wanting to set himself up for anther disappointment.

I'm good. I just got back to Hawaii. I heard you were back in NY, it must be nice to be home.

She read the message and slouched back in her couch, not getting the response she was hoping for either. She thought about the extra bonus money then that he had got for 'taking care of her', wanting to ask him if he had that on his mind the whole time? Was she just a fling to him?

She decided to stick with the tone of the conversation and not become vulnerable to him again. She was fragile at the moment and just having this type of communication with him was hard enough.

They towed the boat back to Rarotonga. You should be getting your personal items sent to you shortly.

He too sat back in his couch, letting out a deep sigh. He didn't give a shit about his stuff on the boat. The only thing he wanted to take away from that whole experience, was her.

He stuck with his initial reason for making contact with her.

Ok, thank you. How are you doing? I just wanted to make sure you were ok and weren't experiencing any trauma now that you are safe and sound at home. PSTD can sneak up on you.

So can a broken heart, he thought somberly.

She smiled over the message, hearing his voice as she read it. Always the protector. She decided she wasn't angry over the extra fifty-thousand dollars. He deserved it. She had felt safer and sounder stranded on the boat with him than she did in her four-million-dollar security-controlled apartment.

She wanted to ask him a thousand different questions, the one being if he missed her? Did he? Did he think about her 24-7 the same as she did him? Did he find it hard to eat, to sleep, to move, to breathe, as she did?

She felt tears fill her eyes, not knowing what else to say to him without the risk of getting a painful reply. So, she left the message as is and sent it.

I'm fine, thank you for checking on me.

He read it and felt the conversation was coming to an end, feeling that ache in the pit of his stomach.

He was terrified that this would be the end of it, his last bit of contact with her but didn't want that, leaving it up to her to decide their fate, hoping she took the bait.

I told you on the boat that if you ever need anything that I'm here for you, Mandy. We may be a continent apart but I'll never be too far away if you need me. I'm reachable 24 hours a day.

He gave her his desk number and the dispatch number at work, making sure he was true to his word and sent it.

She sat up on the couch as she began to read it and for just a spilt second, she felt it was going to say what she was hoping for, but in the end, it was just quintessential Steve being Steve, always the protector. Tears filled her eyes as she typed her farewell message to him.

Thank you for all you did. Despite the way it all came about, I walked away from that experience a better person because of you. Please be safe and know you will always have a friend in NY… always.

She wiped away the tears as they streamed down her face, reading it once more before she sent it.

He read it over, and over, and over, before sending his final reply to her.

You be safe as well, Mandy. I love you. I wanted to say it but I didn't. I want to say it now but I can't.

He slowly backspaced until he came to her name. He did want to say it but ended with the safer version, and for the first time in his life he used the word as not a cliché' but the way it was intended to be used.

Aloha

He pushed send and laid his head on the back of the couch, feeling every bit of his energy being sucked from his body. It was an awful, awful feeling of loss, heartbreak, sadness and more than anything else, loneliness. He felt the same as he did that night when they lifted her off the deck of the Fair Maiden, he had let her slip through his fingers, and this time she really was gone.

Mandy laid down on the couch and cried as if her entire life had just come to a dreadful end, wishing now she had drowned in the storm. She couldn't imagine ever being happy again as she was for those four days.