Paradise Wild (2 page)

Halfway around the world, in the Pacific Ocean, lay the group of islands recently named Hawaii. The awesome loveliness of these islands—considered by some historians to be the site of the Garden of Eden—put visitors in mind of calm, peace, and delightfully easy living. Since the islands’ discovery by Captain Cook, many visitors had become permanent residents, unwilling to give up the brilliant colors, the exotic plants and birds, and the delightful ocean in order to return to their less hospitable homes.

Because of the great number of foreign settlers, all was not peaceful in Hawaii in 1891. The Hawaiian natives had just lost their beloved king, often called the Merry Monarch, and his sister reigned in uneasy office in the newly built Iolana Palace in Honolulu. The palace, the first royal residence in the world to be furnished with flush toilets and lit entirely by electricity, was soon to be the scene of a confrontation between loyal monarchists and foreign settlers. In April of 1891, it was the felicitous nature of the Hawaiian natives that kept the peace on Oahu.

Twenty-seven-year-old Jared Burkett had been born on Oahu. He carried the mixed blood of Europe and Hawaii. And though his Hawaiian friends trusted and loved him and his European friends respected his pride
in Hawaii, it could not be said of Jared that he possessed the gentle nature of his Hawaiian ancestors. Jared was not an easygoing man. His one weakness was his younger sister, Malia.

Thirty-one years before, Jared’s father, Rodney, and Rodney’s brother, Edmond, had spent three years building their city home here on Oahu, the island with the greatest number of foreign settlers and boasting the most commerce. Having built the house, Rodney decided to marry. The marriage caused a permanent rupture in his relationship with his brother. Edmond violently objected to Ranelle. Though she was an American and had grown up with American ways, she had Hawaiian ancestors. Edmond felt that his brother was marrying a woman of color. Even the daily sight of Hawaiians could not make him change his harsh attitude.

Edmond Burkett relinquished all rights to the new house he had helped build, and moved into the city, closer to the office of the loan company the brothers had started. Because of their disagreements, Rodney left the running of the company to Edmond and concentrated on other interests, mainly land.

For the most part, foreigners were not allowed to buy land anywhere on Hawaii. But because of Ranelle and her distant Hawaiian relations, Rodney was able to buy tracts of land on the north shore of Oahu. Here he started a small sugar plantation, not to compare with the larger plantations, but big enough to join the island’s major industry.

With the profits from his sugar and the loan company, Rodney started a carpentry business. He dealt first in ships’ repairs and later included the construction of houses. He made a small fortune. This fortune was lost, however, in 1872, when business and agricultural interests were at a low ebb. The sugar plantation lost money
and was eventually abandoned. Only the loan company prospered during those bleak years.

During this time Rodney’s marriage deteriorated. His wife’s hopeless melancholia affected his business. After Ranelle died, it took a long time for Rodney to pull himself together and put the business back on its feet.

By the time Rodney Burkett died in a sailing accident, leaving all his possessions to his two children, his estate had improved.

His only son, Jared, now occupied the house on Beretania Street. The area was now part of Honolulu, the city having caught up to it years ago. Jared’s sister, Malia, younger by ten years, lived most of each year at their beach house on the north shore of the island, on the land that had once been a sugar plantation.

Jared Burkett had proved to one and all that he was capable of taking his father’s place. Rodney Burkett had raised a son he could be proud of. Jared was a man who would never succumb to a problem, no matter how difficult it was. The community respected Jared, and feared him a little. He never backed down from a fight.

In the American community, Jared defended his Hawaiian heritage because of his pride in it. Among the Hawaiians, he was worthy to be called a friend.

After his mother’s death, he had become withdrawn and moody. That was to be expected, but it never went away. Bitterness grew in Jared, becoming a festering hate. This hate had eaten away at young Jared for sixteen years, since the day of his mother’s death.

Today, so many years after that death, the solution for purging himself of that hate once and for all had come to Jared by way of a letter.

Now, on the way to his uncle’s office at the Savings and Loan Company, Jared read the letter for what was surely the tenth time.

Jared put the letter in the pocket of his white tropical suit as the carriage halted on Fort Street. He looked up at the old two-storied pink building, badly in need of paint. But it looked no worse than the other buildings lining the street in this old section of the city.

Edmond Burkett’s office was on the second floor, and Jared climbed the stairs slowly, dreading the encounter before him. There was no love lost between uncle and nephew. For as long as Jared could remember, his uncle had been a stranger to his family. Jared had been seven years old before he met Edmond Burkett, though they lived less than a mile apart. But he knew the reason why Edmond would not associate with his relatives on the island. It was Jared’s mother.

Edmond had not been able to adjust to the mixed nationalities of the islands. A man of bitter prejudices, he never forgave Rodney for marrying a woman with Hawaiian blood, even though very little of it still remained in her. His dislike for Ranelle extended to her children, and to Jared in particular because of the boy’s pride in his heritage. Though Rodney and Edmond were reconciled after Ranelle’s death, Edmond would still have nothing to do with her children. Jared and Malia returned Edmond’s animosity.

Now, however, Jared was an equal partner with Edmond in the loan company, and was forced to associate with him. Each of them made an effort to put up a good front. In fact, Jared took particular pleasure in sometimes being overly friendly, knowing how this rankled his churlish uncle.

The secretary in Edmond’s outer office smiled brightly when Jared came in. Jane Dearing was an unmarried young woman, recently arrived from New York. She had a special interest in Jared Burkett. Jared’s rugged, dark handsomeness made heads turn. His gray-blue eyes contrasted startlingly with his black hair. Jared was very tall, six feet two inches, with a firm, athletic body. Jane was envious of Dayna Callan, the woman he most frequently escorted about the city. So were a great many women. Dayna and Jared had been friends since childhood, and it was assumed that they would marry eventually. But the women of the city were not ready to give up on Jared. Jane Dearing wasn’t either.

“Mr. Burkett,” Jane’s blue eyes sparkled. “It’s such a pleasure to see you.”

Her interest was obvious and Jared smiled uncomfortably. “Is my uncle in, Miss Dearing?”

“Yes, but he is with Mr. Carlstead right now. The
poor man came to see him about an extension on his loan. His tobacco crop wasn’t very good this year, I’m afraid.”

Jared frowned. Lloyd Carlstead was a good sort, a Swede with a large family of youngsters and a plump, kind-hearted wife. Their small farm barely supported them, but it was on prime land near the city, land Jared knew his uncle would be interested in. Edmond probably would foreclose.

It was well-known that the Burketts did not see eye to eye on running the company. But Jared had relinquished the responsibility of management to Edmond, since his interests were elsewhere. And it did no good to argue for the individual Edmond caused to go bankrupt, for he would always end the argument with, “Either devote your time fully to this company, sell out to me, or abide by my decisions!”

Soon, Lloyd Carlstead rushed out of Edmond’s office, his hands clenched, his face beet-red. He passed Jared without even seeing him and ran down the outer stairs to the street. Jared gritted his teeth. The poor man was probably ruined, and all because he had had the poor judgement to come to Edmond Burkett for a loan.

But Jared could not fight someone else’s battles today. He needed his uncle’s cooperation now, and perhaps some of his money—though he would not ask for it. He hoped Lloyd Carlstead would find help elsewhere.

“I’ll just go on in, Miss Dearing,” Jared said lightly. “No need to announce me.”

“Certainly, Mr. Burkett. I’m sure your uncle will be delighted to see you.”

Jared smiled at that. Miss Dearing really did try too hard. He really should take her out to dinner some night, let her find out just how hopeless it was to please
him. Then she would turn tail and run. It would be the best thing for her.

Jared strolled casually into his uncle’s cool office and closed the door. With windows open wide on both sides of the large room and fans revolving continuously overhead, it really was a pleasant room. Edmond liked to display his wealth, and he did that in his office. Surprisingly, the plush furniture and thick carpeting did not take away from the cool effect.

“How’s business, Uncle?” Jared began. Edmond’s self-satisfied smirk was his answer.

“Good, good. And I hear you’re not doing too badly yourself,” Edmond said expansively, and motioned Jared to one of the chairs across from his desk. “The contract you won for that new hotel in Waikiki—now, that was a pretty deal. I always encouraged Rodney to build hotels, but he wasn’t up to the challenge, preferring to stick to houses and small stores. You don’t get your name remembered that way.”

“That wasn’t exactly why I went after the hotel job,” Jared replied, his gray-blue eyes unreadable. “It means a lot of work for my men over an extended period of time.”

“Of course. They’ll get lazy if you don’t keep them busy.”

“No,” Jared said coldly. “I don’t happen to have that problem.”

“Then you’re more fortunate than the rest of us,” Edmond laughed derisively.

Jared wasn’t about to argue. His uncle was set in his beliefs that all Hawaiians were lazy good-for-nothings. That was ridiculous, but you couldn’t tell Edmond anything.

“What brings you here, Jared?” Edmond asked. “Anything important?”

The older man leaned back in his chair. The resem
blance between Edmond and his father always amazed Jared. Edmond was forty-seven now, with dark blue eyes and sandy brown hair without a trace of gray. He was six feet tall.

“I’m taking a vacation, Uncle.” Jared came out with it smoothly. “I thought you’d like to know.”

“That’s nothing new,” Edmond said blandly. “You take off every year to the beach during the hottest summer months, just like your father did. Can’t say I blame you, though. If I owned land over there, I’d do the same thing. Damn hot on this side in June and July.”

“You’re welcome to visit Malia in the country, Uncle, if you find it too hot here. But I won’t be there. I’m going to the mainland.”

Edmond’s interest was caught. “The States? Well that’s a different matter. Funny, though, when you froze your knuckles going to college in the mainland, you swore you would never go back there.”

Jared grimaced at the memory of those winters. He never did get used to the cold. “It will be summer there too, so it won’t be bad.”

“I’ve been meaning to get over there myself,” Edmond reflected. “God, it’s been fifteen years since I’ve been off this rock, and that was only a trip to the big island to inspect property offered as collateral. If I could just find an assistant competent enough to take over for me, I might be able to get off for a vacation too, but that seems impossible. Colby, the man I’ve got now, is about to be fired.”

Jared didn’t want to talk about company problems. If his uncle only knew how difficult he was to work for, he’d know why he had fired so many assistants.

“Actually, Uncle, my trip won’t be just for pleasure. I’ve been thinking for quite a while about putting some money in a mainland enterprise. They have much more
to offer over there in the way of sound investment. Iron, timber, and steel, bigger banks and shipyards than we have, among other things.”

“But you can’t keep an eye on your money over there,” Edmond pointed out.

“True,” Jared agreed. “But that wouldn’t be necessary if I invested in an established firm. I could just sit back here and reap the profits.”

Edmond’s blue eyes gleamed at the mention of profits. “Where in the States were you planning on going?”

“The East coast—New York or Boston.”

“Good choice,” Edmond replied thoughtfully, tapping a finger lightly on his desk. “And how much will you want to take with you when you go?”

Jared waited a moment before answering. “Five hundred thousand.”

Edmond sat up and nearly choked. “Good God, man! That’s nearly all the cash you have!”

“I know,” Jared said with a light grin.

“Wouldn’t half of that do?”

“I’m not going to lose money, Uncle,” Jared said confidently. “I’m going to make it.”

“But still—”

Jared held up his hand. “If you don’t think it’s wise for me to tie up all my cash, even though I should have ample return in a year, why don’t you invest a little yourself? Say…a hundred thousand? It would be safe, since I would guarantee it myself.”