The Maui Effect (Man-Made Trilogy #1)

The Message

Dane

Santa Cruz, California

All signs pointed to a massive swell. Dane had arrived home fourteen days ago, finished the Manning job, and since then he’d been spending his evenings tracking a huge storm brewing off Japan. By all accounts, it would be the biggest swell of the winter so far, and coupled with light winds, a west-northwesterly direction, everything was lining up for epic conditions. A Code Red in big wave surfing jargon.

But there was a problem. Since the day at Waikula with ‘Iwa, he’d developed a peculiar kind of delirium. Every night, she prowled his dreams in Technicolor, and during the day, he kept wandering off into daydreams of her on that rock, only to snap out of it and remember where he was. It was messing with his head. She was messing with his head.

Everything had been going so well until those two assholes showed up. On the hike out and the ride back to the Mizunos’, ‘Iwa had given him one-word answers, withdrawn back into that turtle shell he’d been trying to coax her out of. Then, gutting him with the final blow. All he could think was that someone had done a real number on her heart, and he wanted to know everything about the man or men who had left her so jaded. Unfortunately, his own track record with women was not something to be proud of. He always started off with good intentions, but he usually grew bored before too long. Except for with Sunny—but that hadn’t ended well either.

Now he met Kama, Hope and Yeti at their usual spot, Firefly, for coffee. Yeti had shown up on the scene eight years ago, looking like he had just emerged from a five-year stint in the redwoods. Paul Bunyan beard, thin as a potato chip, clothes worn thin. But he was a nimble surfer with natural grace, and a closet genius who could fix anything—especially jet skis. Dane liked him because they spoke the same language: ocean. Within months, they’d absorbed him into their crew. The older, wise one.

Yeti had his laptop open and they all crowded around, drenched in the smell of coffee and fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. Outside, a cold light rain sifted down.

“Look at all this red and purple,” Yeti said, pointing to the NPAC eighteen-hour forecast.

“I’m more interested in that gray and black,” Dane said.

The forecast was a color-coded rainbow of surf heights in the North Pacific, much like a topographic map. Gray and black corresponded with forty-six and forty-eight feet—giant towers of water brought to life by a winter polar jet stream creating low pressure that whipped up wind speeds, which then transferred the kinetic energy to the ocean below.

“Do you think it’s going to swing too far north?” Hope asked.

Yeti shook his bushy head, hair now long enough that in the water he pulled it back with a rubber band. “I think we need to tune up the skis and head north on Wednesday.”

Today was Sunday.

“Why so early?” Kama wanted to know.

“Because we don’t want to be late to the party. Remember last time?” Yeti said.

Last time they’d gone to Mavericks, the swell had hit before they arrived, and they missed the biggest and the best waves in years. The whole world had been talking about the six-story, silky faces. And all they’d ridden were black, choppy waves, twelve to fifteen feet, max. Dane had been kicking himself ever since.

“I’m in,” Hope said.

Kama grinned ear to ear. “We go!”

Dane only half heard them as the door opened and a cold burst of air rushed in, along with a brown-haired girl. She was looking down, fumbling around in her purse. That hair looked so familiar, the lanky limbs. He froze.

Could it be?

Hope snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Earth to Dane.”

“Right, yeah, I’m good to go,” he said, sipping his coffee and stealing another look at the girl who was definitely not ‘Iwa.

Tomorrow would be two weeks. Fourteen nights, so maybe technically fifteen days? All he knew was that he’d been obsessing over what he was going to say in his one and only text message.

“‘An infatuated man is not only foolish, but wild.’ You ever heard that?” Kama said.

Kama knew him well enough to know that this was unusual behavior on his part.

Dane sat up straight and gave him a nod. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m all in.”

“All in California or Hawai’i?” Hope asked.

Dane leaned back and stretched. “This one is different, I swear it.”

“You said that about Melinda. And Sunny. And—”

Hope pushed his buttons like a kid in an elevator. For about one second, after her divorce, he considered hooking up with her, but she was too much like a sister.

“You want to drive the ski at Mavericks?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then not another word out of that pretty little trap.”

Yeti was all business. “My house, tonight. Six on the nose of the board.”

Despite his scraggly appearance, Yeti had no shortage of funds and lived in a modern farmhouse surrounded by Monterey pines and oak trees. On the property was a barn full of toys—jet skis, surfboards, many of them collectables, snowboards, climbing gear, a vintage Land Cruiser and a Harley worth more than Dane made in a year. Yeti never said where his money came from, and Dane never asked.

“I’ll bring the tequila,” Hope said.

They all looked to Dane. “You bring the bread.”

Dane was famous among his friends for his habanero and cheese sourdough, baked in his toaster oven. Go figure.

The early morning rain came down quietly, reminding him of Hawai’i. Only this wasn’t jellyfish rain, it felt more like snow rain. So faint and light, the tiny droplets evaporated before hitting the ground. Maybe he should text ‘Iwa something smart about the rain. Or tell her he’d gotten her name tattooed across his wrist, so there was no chance of forgetting. Or maybe asking a question was a better way to go—that way she’d have to answer.

All lame ideas.

Annoyed at his inability to think of something brilliant, he got up and made coffee. He had Mavericks to prepare for, and he needed to be in the right headspace. Mavericks commanded full respect. Cold water, and a reef with grooves that funneled open ocean energy into mammoth waves. If you weren’t careful—and even if you were—Mavericks could swallow you whole. Last year one of Hawai’i’s best watermen and all-around solid humans, Sion Milosky, had taken a bad wipeout on a big outside set, been held down, and never surfaced. Dane knew Sion, and if Sion had died out there, anyone could.

After coffee, he went for a run on the beach, dodging kelp, mollusks and dirty seagulls. Running was part of his training, which was probably why he’d been able to keep up with ‘Iwa in the forest. At the base of a cliff, beneath a leaning cypress tree, he did push-ups and crunches, followed by pull-ups on a branch. In the zone, arms burning and abs on fire, he finally forgot about ‘Iwa for a moment. But when he finished his mini workout, he heard the sea whisper.

Send her a ticket.

She would never come.

You won’t know unless you try.

It would be pointless.

Giving your best is never pointless.

He ran the beach back in record time, went online before he could chicken out, and used his Hawaiian miles to buy a round trip flight from Maui to San Francisco. Then he sat down to compose his text, going through twenty-nine variations before he settled on one.

You showed me yours, let me show you mine. I’ll pick you up at the airport. Dane

He pasted in the Hawaiian link, took a deep breath then hit Send.