Shards by Allison Moore Page A

least one of us. It had to be a friendship hug, in case someone saw. The hug was just long enough for me to feel the heat of his skin. I looked up at his face—his smooth brown skin, his close-cut black hair, his warm brown eyes. He was the gorgeous one.
    â€œSo where do you want to go?” he asked. He patted Mo on the head. “The beach? Should we dump the mutt and get some lunch?”
    â€œSure,” I said. It didn’t matter what I said at this point because we both knew where we were going.
    My shakiness disappeared once I was with Keawe. Within moments,I felt strong again, no longer vulnerable to the tragic mistakes of teenage girls. He felt like my savior.
    Unfortunately, my good sense was gone too.
    In less than half an hour, we were in my apartment in Kihei, pulling each other’s clothes off.
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    We spent a day and a half holed up in my apartment. Keawe went out to L&L for chicken katsu once or twice, but mostly we stayed in bed.
    And we talked. I told him about Pete Cordiello and how frustrating it was to not be able to bring him down. We talked about Lea. I cried a little over that, and at one point I told him, “I don’t think I’m tough enough to be a cop.”
    â€œI don’t believe that for a second, Alli,” he said. “You’ve held your own. Look at you, coming into the department a haole girl and turning out to be president of your recruit class. You know what kind of bets we placed on you?”
    â€œYeah, I heard.” MPD cops were huge sexists, but they did respect female cops once they proved themselves. I knew I had earned respect within the department, but the outside community was a different story. Every time I arrested someone, it was “You haole bitch!” Trying to gain the trust of someone who hated me the second they saw me had given me some verbal judo skills, but it sure as hell wasn’t easy.
    We didn’t talk about his wife. He never brought her up and neither did I. When she called, he politely took the phone onto the lanai. They were short conversations, exchanges of information. Married conversations. Keawe and Colleen had been married for seven years. He told me there wasn’t a whole lot left between them except their three beautiful little children.
    This weekend with Keawe was just what I needed. He was attentive and sweet, and he had the most incredible way of making me feel loved with just a look. The sex was phenomenal. But I knew it had to stay a onetime thing; there was no way in hell I was getting deeply involved with a married man. The next day, I would go back to Lanai, he would pick his wife up from the airport, and that would be that.
    â€œI’ll call you tonight,” he said when he dropped Mo and me off at the ferry. I tried not to roll my eyes.
    â€œI’ll be waiting,” I said, laughing. I was sure he had gotten what he wanted, and maybe I had too. I didn’t want to dwell on any feelings I might be having about him.
    But he did call that night. He called just after eleven, and we talked until three in the morning. Talked about anything. Every little stupid thing that popped into our heads. His pajamas had a hole in them. I needed to get a new toaster. He loved jelly doughnuts. Mo had bad breath. He hoped his softball team would win the next day. All these things were so inconsequential, but I hadn’t had anyone to talk to like that since Dalton and I had broken up. I had never been very good at having lots of girlfriends to giggle and share things with, but I had almost always had a boyfriend. I missed having one now.
    We laughed a lot, quietly—his wife, still on California time, was sleeping, and he was speaking to me from the bathroom at the other end of the house.
    The next day I felt energized, more like myself again, and I threw myself straight back into work.

6
    â€œYou seem better, Alli,” Walker said when I walked into the