“Littering our beaches. Touching our wild honu—turtles, I mean—or getting too close to them to take a photo. Those kinds of things. Some tourists are hell-bent to go against the Hawaiian value of living pono.”

“Living pono?” she asked. He said the most interesting things. Tidbits she couldn’t find in a travel book. Quinn could listen to him talk for hours and never get bored.

“That means making a constant conscious decision to do the right thing. In terms of self, others, and, for Hawaiians, most importantly the environment. The land and the sea are everything. Without them, we are nothing. We must all strive to live pono, or soon there will be nothing left.”

He sounded somber.

“That’s a beautiful way to think about living your life,” Quinn said, matching his reverent tone. On the mainland it didn’t seem important to many people to be reverent about the land. She’d always tried to do the right thing herself but didn’t know there was an official name for it. That it was considered a way of life. And one from her mother’s heritage at that.

Finally, they pulled into the national park, and Liam paid, then parked. It wasn’t too crowded, and they made quick time on the trail to the pools.

“What the—” He stopped at a metal gate blocking off access to the trail that led down to the pools.

A sign posted said they were closed because of recent landslides.

“It’s okay,” Quinn said, seeing the disappointment on Liam’s face as his shoulders slumped in defeat.

He looked around. “No, it’s not. I grew up swimming in those pools and jumping off those exact rocks. They aren’t locking me out.”

“But those boys you lectured . . . ,” Quinn said, trailing off.

“Those boys were young and stupid. They haven’t lived long enough to respect the cliffs and water. I know what I’m doing.”

Before Quinn could argue, he jumped the fence, then turned around and held his arms out. “Come on.”

She shook her head. “Isn’t this federal land? I don’t want to go to jail for trespassing.”

He beckoned her closer. “Quinn. Just climb, and I’ll catch you on this side. No one’s going to jail. Anyway, I know all the workers here if we did get caught.”

She hesitated. She was a rule follower. Always had been. But his face. He looked so hopeful. All day he’d wanted to show her this one special place more than any other.

First a deep breath, then she climbed the fence and threw a leg over.

He caught her around her waist and set her gently down on the other side, as though she weighed less than a feather—a real boost for her bruised ego of always feeling like she needed to lose a good fifteen.