12.
I woke up in the wee hours of the next morning, sat up in my bed and put on the bedside lamp. On the dresser was a massive colourful arrangement of flowers. Their fragrance kissed my senses pleasingly. Removing the bed covers I went to inspect the flowers, looking for a card that I found stuck between two red roses.
It read: 'Darla, it's all over – 3 yrs without parole. You are an incredible woman and very special to me. Let us allow God to guide our lives in His direction. With lots of love always, Kai xxx.'
I read it over, over and over again, held it against my heart and even kissed it as if I was a young teenager getting her first love letter. I sent him a message thanking him presuming he would be asleep at this early hour but got, 'It's a pleasure' seconds later. He was awake! I phoned him.
'Why you not sleeping?'
'I have no calming meds. You took them all,' he laughed.
'Thank you so, so much for the flowers! They are beautiful. When did you sneak them into the room?'
'No need to sneak you were snoring so loudly a gorilla could have delivered them and you would not have heard it.'
I laughed out loud. He did have a wonderful sense of humour.
After a few days of working through and dealing with the episode and outcome of the day in court, I was finally at peace again with the world and myself. I still had to teach myself to let God be in control, but I was working very hard at it. Even Rylee had quit her wild days and was in a very serious relationship with Nolan, one of the friends from the study. But with the sweet there is always sour; the day was drawing nearer to when Kai had to fly back to Hawaii, still uncertain as to his future.
The sauce I was stirring pulled my thoughts into its swirling motions; there was one thing I irrevocably knew – I was in love with Kai. Just my luck to fall in love with a man who had to leave the country! I was so deep in thought I did not hear the tap on the front door or that it had opened, neither did I hear Kai call out my name and walk along the wooden floors in his flip flops until he was standing behind me.
'Hello,' he whispered in my ear.
A shrill cry left my lips and resounded against the walls. My hands flew up into the air taking the spoon with them which elevated the pot that simultaneously fell over spewing the sauce all over the kitchen floor. What a mess! Kai did not escape either; his shirt got speckled with red sauce that undoubtedly was going to stain.
'Kai, are you crazy? Sneaking up on me like that!' I scolded him above the rapid beating of my heart.
Immediately I grabbed a floor cloth and started mopping up the sauce. An apology came amidst bouts of hysterical laughter.
'I thought you heard me come in. I did knock and call you.'
'Did I answer you? If I'd had a knife in my hand, I would not have been held responsible for my actions.'
I was still shaking, Kai was still laughing.
'I'm sorry I've ruined your shirt.'
'Let that be my punishment,' he grinned still highly amused.
'Well since we're not going to be eating this, let's say we order pizza.'
We snuggled on the couch like a romantic couple – only we weren't – our tummies full of delicious pizza, and became engrossed in a very funny movie that was on TV. The movie finished and I channel-hopped for a while but finding nothing further of interest to either of us, I left it on the channel I had started with and muted the sound. I reached forward, rested the remote on the table and leant back into the couch and nestled in Kai's arms.
'So you're all packed and ready to go?'
I looked at him – he was staring at me intensely, looking into my soul with his eyes. He shook his head slowly, leant forward and kissed me ever so softly. He paused, not moving his mouth more than a few millimetres away from mine, his free hand caressing my cheek, his eyes never leaving mine. There was no point resisting any further, we both knew we wanted each other; the chemistry that was passing between us was far too electrifying to stop. His lips touched mine again, sending excitable signals of delight down my spine. My arms reached around him, folding him closer into my embrace; he held me tighter and our kissing increased in pleasure as did our urgency for each other. Somehow sanity prevailed, and we eased apart gasping for air. Kai place tiny kisses on my forehead, my nose and my cheeks which did not exactly help the cause instead only increased my desire never to release him from my embrace again.
'I'm sorry, I should not have done that,' Kai said leaning his head back into the couch.
'What? Why?' I asked still trying to get my breath back.
It was so unfair; it was like taking a child to a store full of candy and then telling the child it was not allowed to have any candy.
'It's not fair to either of us if I'm leaving and might not be able to come back.'
He lifted his head, and I saw the pain written all over his face, this was hurting him as much as it was hurting me. It was killing me. I nodded and rested back into the couch and his arms, the unbelievable feeling of fitting perfectly together consumed me with sorrow, and as I sighed sadly, the tears rolled down my cheeks. Kai put both his arms around me, and while he held me closely, I was sure I heard a sob escape from him too. We remained there on the couch in each other's arms, mostly silent, for the rest of the evening.