Page 118 of The Shark House
Minnow couldn’t help but smile. “Generally, the juveniles are nonaggressive, but we still wouldn’t jump in. Mainly because we don’t want to bother them.”
“But you’ve swum with them, haven’t you?”
“I have but under different circumstances.”
“Tell us what it’s like.”
And so she did. By the end of their conversation, she guessed that out of the three of them, Beverly might be the only one who actually would go on to become a shark scientist. Shelly and Beck were intrigued by the idea of big sharks, but neither actually knew anything about them. Beverly, on the other hand, had done her research and reminded Minnow a little bit of herself.
Their last stop was near a popular point break. A small swell brought in knee-high and peeling waves, and a few surfers were out, so they pulled farther into the cove and dropped anchor. Minnow knew they had a better chance at seeing leopard sharks than white sharks, but she figured the girls would be thrilled to see any kind of shark.
“You guys want to swim toward shore and snorkel for a bit?” Minnow asked.
Their faces all lit up. “Yes!”
They suited up and jumped in, all staying close to Minnow, and soon were in the shallows floating over a scattering of leopard sharks. Small, spotted and stunning, the sharks had a completely different vibe than white sharks. Kittens versus lions. It was still hard to get used to the bite of the cold water after spending so much time in the warm waters of Hawai?i, but Minnow acclimated. The sharks darted this way and that on the bottom, shy creatures that they were.
Minnow hung suspended, watching the girls study the sharks, when she felt a presence behind her. She spun around and saw a large shape in the turbulence of a small breaking wave. After that first jolt of adrenaline that she usually got when encountering a large creature in the ocean, she relaxed. It was just some crazy guy out for a swim wearing only surf trunks in fifty-three-degree water. He kept coming, and Minnow kicked to get out of his way, but he followed. Did he not see her? She popped her head up. The man did the same. They were face-to-face, and when she realized who it was she tore off her mask.
“Oh my gosh, you scared me! What are you doing here?” she said, unable to keep a smile from spreading throughout her whole body.
Luke seemed almost nervous. “You told me you’d be here, and I wanted to see you. I hope you don’t mind.”
She let herself float into him and he wrapped his arms around her, giving her a long saltwater kiss.
“I missed you,” he whispered. “Badly.”
“I missed you too. We’re going to need to figure something out,” she said, staring deep into his kelp-flecked eyes.
One side of his mouth lifted. “I have a proposition for you.”
Chapter 36
The Gathering
Hui: to join, unite, combine, mix
Big Island, Hawai‘i
Seven months later
Coconut fronds rustled and crab feet scurried. Minnow sat at the head of the big table on the lanai at Hale Niuhi as orange faded to blue above the horizon. She wore several lei around her neck that smelled like forest and honey and vanilla, and she wished she could bottle the scent. It was her favorite time of day, and she glanced around at all the faces in the candlelight. Good faces. Courageous faces. Faces of substance. Luke Greenwood, Woody and his wife, Anna—a strong woman with a radiant smile—Cliff and his lanky new dog, Boo, Nalu and Dixie. The two had become as inseparable as Luke and Minnow. As soon as Nalu finished his thesis, he’d be moving here.
They were gathered to celebrate Minnow’s birthday. Having a party had been all Luke’s idea. Minnow had never been big on birthdays, never really had had a tribe of her own to celebrate with.
Woody held up a beer can. “Cheers, to one of the most fearlesswahineI know.”
Everyone else raised their glasses and bottles, clinking with each and every person at the table.
“To someone who walks the walk. Or should I say, swims the swim?” Nalu said with a sly grin.
Luke didn’t say anything, but his eyes bored into her, turning up the heat. She still found it incredible how he loved her so unflinchingly and how she felt the same way about him.
“Aw, thanks, guys. You have no idea how much it means to be back here with you all. It feels like home, really and truly.”
When Luke had come to California in April, he’d come with news of two things—ideas that had been brewing but he’d wanted to be certain of before he shared anything with Minnow. The first was that Sawyer had hired him to manage the resort’s beach and ocean activities, as well as to run educational whale-watching tours on the boat. While the job didn’t involve orcas, he was where he wanted to be, and humpback whales were quickly becoming an obsession for him.
As for a place to live, Woody asked if Luke wanted to caretake Hale Niuhi in exchange for living in the small guest cabin in the back. Woody and Cliff needed the help and it would be good to have someone there to keep an eye on things. The only stipulation was that Luke would get to travel to Santa Barbara several months out of the year to help Minnow with her research. That was nonnegotiable. And Minnow would spend her off months with Luke on the Big Island, tracking white sharks in the months they migrated to the Hawaiian Islands.
So what if there might be an ocean between them? They were both committed to making it work, and that was all that mattered. Both hearts were in it two hundred percent. And it made Minnow strangely happy to know that if they were to swim far enough, they would meet in the middle of the deep blue abyss.
The sharks had given all this to her, and she would be forever grateful.
