Free Eden Burning by Elizabeth Lowell Page B

your tequila? You know Jan. All she wants when she’s working is peace and quiet. Hell, I’m the same way when I’m programming. The last thing she needs is me leaning over her shoulder every five minutes and asking if I can help. She’s had enough trouble with this proposal as it is. Now that school is out, the kids are always underfoot. They’re making us both crazy.”
    Silently Chase wondered if the proposal was taking so long because Jan was spending more time worrying about her husband and a certain redheaded hula dancer than she was about grant language and sponsors.
    Rather bleakly, Chase congratulated himself on arriving in Hawaii just in time to keep his brother from fucking up big-time.
    “Hey, my little jalapeño, that was one hot dance!”
    The voice came from halfway across the room. The distance closed quickly as Fred towed a well-built blonde through the crowd toward Dane’s table. Though small, the woman wasn’t quite petite—certainly not from the waist up.
    “Hello, Fred.” Smiling wryly, Dane took in the blonde before he glanced back at the scientist. “Is this your latest entry into the haole summer sweepstakes?”
    Fred grinned. “This is Dr. Marsha Sumner. Seismologist. You can see why—she walks through a room and everything quivers.” He winked broadly at the blonde, who winked back. “Marcie, meet Dr. Dane Wilcox, computer wizard, Nicole Ballard, sex wizard, and Dr. Chase Wilcox, who claims to know volcanoes.”
    “Call me Chase,” he said, holding out his hand. “It’s a pleasure, Dr. Sumner. I saw the article you did for Nature comparing the summit tilt deformation of Kilauea preceding eruption to the movement before a Strombolian eruption. Very impressive.”
    She smiled. “From you that’s praise indeed. Please, call me Marcie.”
    “Marcie,” he agreed, releasing her hand slowly.
    Nicole watched the two scientists and wondered how the brilliant blonde would look in a luau pit with an apple in her mouth. Then Nicole reined in her irritation and smiled at the other woman. As she did, she reminded herself that it wasn’t Marcie’s fault that she was blond, eight inches shorter than Nicole, and therefore much more feminine in the eyes of men.
    Oh, let’s be a teensy bit honest, she told herself bitingly. You wouldn’t care if Marcie sent every man in the room into a slavering frenzy—as long as Chase wasn’t one of them.
    “Hi, Marcie,” Nicole said, shaking hands and mentally cringing at the image of a redheaded giraffe looming over a Dresden china doll. “Did Fred initiate you into the hotshot pool?”
    Marcie gave Fred a sideways glance out of very green eyes. “Did he ever,” she murmured. Then she looked back to Nicole again. “You know, when I met you last week at the lab, I couldn’t believe you were Pele. No offense,” she added with a smile. “You just didn’t come on like a professional hula dancer. But tonight—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Bet they registered that performance on every seismograph from here to Afghanistan.”
    “It was Chase,” Nicole said, glancing at the tall man who stood beside her. Close beside. “He added something extra.”
    Marcie looked Chase over with frank female appreciation. “I’ll just bet you did. You’re enough to start harmonic tremors in granite. Speaking of which,” she said, turning back to Fred, “have you seen the paper from four to six P.M. ? Swarms of the sweetest little shakers you’d ever want to see. The mountain’s warming up right on the schedule I predicted. No doubt about it.”
    Fred shrugged. “Maybe, darlin’. Maybe. Remind me to show you some of the paper from last September. She shimmied and she shook and she looked like she was going to come in six kinds of harmony. No juice, though. Not even any decent moans. Same thing happened later. The old fissure zone is still plugged solid. If she’s going to come, Pele’s going to have to find some new tricks.”
    A man at the next table