Betty Kouba

 

 

Caterina was going through the morning mail and tried to plot the things she needed to do.  She was about to celebrate her twelfth wedding anniversary and Dannya’s completion of his first year as the Chief of Five-O.  Caterina was thinking about what she wanted to get Dannya this year for their anniversary.  She had already marked the main duty roaster that he would be on vacation that week for their anniversary.  Hopefully they would actually get to go.  She wanted to go over to the Big Island and vacation where they had their honeymoon.  That beach.  Those big waves.  That BODY on that surfboard.  Caterina remember the great time they had on their honeymoon.  No problems.  No interruptions.

 

Caterina continued to think about these things when the bone colored invitation size envelope caught her eye.  The letter that she had been waiting a lifetime for had finally arrived.  The envelope was addressed to ‘Dan Williams Chief of Hawaii Five-O’ from the ‘Chief Convention Committee.’  Caterina smiled to herself and rubbed her finger over his embossed name on the envelope.  She wanted to open it because she wanted to see where Dannya’s first Police Chief’s Convention would be held.  But she would wait for her husband to open this one first.

 

Caterina remembered the first time she had seen one of these envelopes.  It had been addressed to her Cousin Steve.  When she was a little girl, she had wanted to go with her Cousin to one of these conventions but he wouldn’t allow it.

 

Now she had the promotion she needed to get to the convention this time.  She was promoted from Cousin to the Wife of Chief of Hawaii Five-O.  This year she was determined to attend the convention and nothing her husband could say would change her mind.  Sure, she had her duties as the Deputy Chief of the Police Academy, but this was one vacation she was taking.  Nothing short of a tsunami could keep her from going.

 

Of course, Caterina knew there was another way to get to the convention.  A way she had turned down year after year.  It was a more underhanded way, but it was a way that she could get paid for her time and the trip, plus, with the proper negotiations, get Dannya’s part of trip paid for as well.  If she had too, that would be the way to go, but it was all up to her husband and boss.

 

Caterina was at her desk fingering the name on the envelope when she heard her boss come into his adjoining office.

 

“I told you to get me the information on Colmes by noon today,” Chief Williams said.  “It’s one o’clock now and you still don’t have anything for me to review.  What is going …. “ the connecting door slammed closed and the shade was pulled down.

 

Someone was in for it,’ Caterina thought.  I’m glad it is not me with that mood his in.’  Dannya was in another foul mood again, she put the invitation aside for the moment and continued to open the rest of the mail on her desk.  In addition, she got ready for her various afternoon duties.

 

 

 

After cooling off from his encounter with Deputy Chief Paul Murphyk, of his detectives which always seemed to leave him drained of energy.

 

He could never remember being that rotten to Steve when he was the Second-in-Command of the Detectives.  Then again, he didn’t have Caterina as a senior ranking officer over him the way Murphy does.

 

When Steve was in control, politics was not a game that was played in the office.  Everyone worked together and not against each other.  Murphy has always been poisonous to the morale of the other detectives.  Dan was glad that other detectives followed Caterina’s example of full collaboration then Murphy’s uncooperativeness.  Dan could not wait for the next eighteen months to be over with.  In eighteen months, with luck, the State of Hawaii would have a new Governor and he could get a new Deputy Chief for the detective side of Five-O.  Dan didn’t like the politically placed officers, they were dangerous to the safe of the rest of the team.

 

He opened the door to Caterina’s office and saw the office was empty while music played softly in the background.  He looked at the clock over Caterina’s desk and realized she must be in on of her classes or at a meeting.  He went over to her desk to pick up the daily mail and files that Caterina went through for him to look over and approve for his signature.

 

When he sat down on the corner of the desk and started to look through the pile he noticed an envelope off to the side next to the computer screen base.  He reached over and saw it was addressed to him but was unopened.  “That’s not like Catie not go through all the mail for me.”

 

He was about to open it when he noticed the return address on the back of the envelope.  “So it is finally here.”  Dan smiled to himself and remembered how Caterina has been looking forward to their first convention together a little more then he was.  It was something she has always wanted to see what goes on.  I hope she will not be disappointed in it.

 

Dan put the envelope back where he found it, unopened.  He picked up the rest of his mail and a few other items marked for his attention.  Then went back into his own office to continue doing his work and wait for Caterina to return so they could open the envelope together.

 

 

Several hours later, Caterina returned to her office after several meetings and teaching a class on surveillance.  She was hungry and was thinking of what she wanted to eat.  And maybe, just maybe, con her husband into taking her out for dinner, just the two of them.

 

She noticed the door was now open and the mail and files that had been marked for the Chief’s attention were now gone with the exception of the invitation.  It was still in the same position she had placed it when Dan gave someone an overhaul of their lack of proper performance.  Caterina had a feeling that person was Murphy or it could have been the newest junior detective in the office.

 

She went to pick up the envelope to take into Dan’s office when she heard “Hello, sweetheart,” he said as he put his arms around her waist and kissed her on the back of her neck.

 

Caterina liked the feeling of her husband’s body next to her.  She always did and always would.  As a result of the kiss on the neck, she turned in his arms and returned his passionate kiss.  They kissed each other passionately for a moment before the kiss fulfilled their need to please each other.

 

“Why didn’t you open the envelope?” Dannya asked as he touched the envelope in his wife’s hands.  He eyes sparkled at her.  They sparkled the way they always did when he was in one of his more seductive moods towards his lady.

 

Caterina started to melt in his arms the way she did the first time he took her into his strong arms and she got lost in those luminescent blue pools of desire.  She loved the feeling it gave her to be this close to Dannya and loved him so much, even despite all the time they spent together on and off the job.

 

He reached over to get the envelope that had fallen out of Caterina’s hands and handed it back to her.  “I thought you would like to open this for me.”

 

Caterina, still in her husband’s embrace, took the envelope from him and opened it.  It was the invitation to the Annual Chief’s Convention, the first of many conventions that he would attend in the years to come.

 

Since she was twelve she had wanted to go to the Chief’s Convention.  Unfortunately, Steve would never take her with him.  She remembered what he told her each time she asked, “the reason I couldn’t take you is because I will be too busy the entire day with various training sessions and would have no time for fun and games with you.”  Yet, year after year she would ask until she became a cop.  And year after year the answer was always the same, “NO.”

 

Now she was the wife of the Chief of Hawaii Five-O and there was no way her husband would be allowed to go to this convention alone.  Of course, she knew there was one thing that would prevent her from going.  Well actually, there were four reasons why, DJ, Guinevere, Daniella and Quinten Williams.  Their four children that could kill any of their travel plans in a split second.

 

She opened the envelope in anticipation of seeing where she would be booking two sets of round trip tickets.

 

Dan watched Caterina’s face to see her reaction.  Caterina went from joy to anger as she read where the convention was to be held.

 

“You BASTARD.  You knew the convention was going to be here in Honolulu!!!”  Caterina broke the embrace and went around her desk to get the phone.

 

Caterina’s reaction was not what he had expected.  Dan didn’t understand why she became so angry.  * If anything, she should have been happy.  They had talked once before about the convention coming to Hawaii and it would be great for both of them. *

 

“Arms, when you have a chance, come into my office.  We need to discuss a few things about the academy schedule.”  Caterina hung the phone up after Arms told her he would be in shortly.

 

Dan heard the controlled angrier in her voice and knew he was in more trouble then he could imagine.  Right then, he would have rather faced a criminal with a knife then the blasting he was about to get from his Deputy Chief and wife for not warning her this year’s convention was going to be here in Honolulu.

 

Caterina went to get the academy schedule out of her desk to start refiguring the timing of some of the projects set for the academy in the next six months.

 

“Caterina, what’s wrong?  I though you would be happy about the convention being here,” Dan said as sweetly as he could.

 

“I would have been, if you had been a Chief for several years.  But I was not the one to attend the convention last year.  Which means I didn’t get to see how they set up the security for it the way other Deputy Chiefs usually do from year to…” Then it hit her that he had known for the past year it was going to be here.  “You KNEW!!!!!”  She said as she walked over to him and slapped him across the face.  “That’s why you went to Arizona last year just before Steve left for his last convention.  You were part of the setup committee because it would be assumed that you be part of the setup this year.  But no one expected Steve to retire when he did from his last injury on the job.”

 

“Yes Catie, I’ve known.”  He rubbed his cheek from the sting of being hit.  It was time to put up the working barriers and get down to business.  “You’re not the first Deputy Chief that had no clue to the basics of setting up the convention security.  That’s why several members of the Chief Convention Committee came to help set everything up.”

 

Caterina paced her office like a caged panther.  She breathed hard and as she tried to control her anger.  She realized what she just did.  It was one thing to hit Dan Williams her husband in private but it was not allowed to hit her boss at the office under any circumstances.

 

Caterina remembered, * in their relation, she had hit him that way only twice before.  This time she did in his office area, what if someone else saw her reaction. *  She was angrier at her reaction than the fact that her work load just tripled in size then its normal status.

 

“Caterina,” Dan said quietly to her as he watched her pace just the way her Cousin Steve had done for years.  It must be a McGarrett family trait, pacing and thinking, he thought.  Even DJ and Quinten paced the same way when they were thinking.  It has to be something in the McGarrett gene pool that makes them pace that way.  Of course, his girls snapped their fingers the way Steve always had.

 

“You’ve known this was going to happen all along.  You knew of the plan’s I’ve been laying down for the Academy and you knew that I had just spent a month working on that schedule.  All that planning is now ruined, garbage.  There are contracts that have been put into place, I have to now figure out how to delay without it costing the State any extra money.”

 

“Caterina,” Dan called to her as he tried to get her attention but she was not listening to him.  Not yet anyway.

 

“With the current schedule that I set up the Academy, its going to be under construction at the time of this convention…”

 

“CATERINA,” Dan said louder as he touched her shoulder to get her attention as she started to pass by him again.

 

She turned to her boss with a look of kill in her eyes.

 

“I’m sorry.“  He knew he was in for more then he could imagine but his years with Caterina taught him how to weather the McGarrett storm that was brewing within her.  “I didn’t tell you because I honestly thought you would enjoy the fact the convention would be here.  Plus I wanted to surprise you.”  Dan turned on his charm to get to her to calm down.

 

“I would have if our first convention had been spent somewhere else,” Caterina told Dannya.  Caterina was slowly cooling off from her rage.  All she had to do was look into those blue eyes to see he was being honest with her.  In a more romantic mood she continued, “I wanted our first convention,” she reached up to touch the cheek that she slapped earlier and touched it gently now, “to be someplace else, so we could enjoy it and not be in charge of it.”  She planted a kiss on that red cheek, “Now we have ten times as many concerns for a few hundred chiefs and their families that would come to Honolulu.”

 

Now Dannya fully understood why his wife became so infuriated.  He had gone behind her back in the last couple of weeks to override a few of her decisions to change the deadlines that had to be met in the next six months plus, in addition, to putting all the final plans together for the security of Chief’s Convention.

 

“You, Daniel,” Caterina continued her romantic voice and mood, “are going to pay for this secret.  After this convention is over, it is going to cost you dearly for not giving me more warning on this convention and its timing.  And I do mean it is going to cost you dearly, a vacation somewhere on the mainland.  I’m not sure when and where, but you will take me on that vacation.”  Then she put her arms around his neck and passionately kissed him.

 

Dannya returned the kiss with equal passion and knew that kiss would cost him big bucks down the road.

 

In order to get things started, Chief Williams went into his office to get a wallet folder for his Deputy Chief.  It would give her the opening information about the convention to help with the preparation of the security measures that would be needed.  In that collection of information Caterina would find a list of the hotels and convention center that the events would take place in six months when the convention hit town.

 

Chief Williams and Deputy Chief Caterina sat down at the conference table in her office and went over the notes Dan had taken at the last Chief’s Convention, plus the new information from the convention committee.  They started a discussion on what needed to be done and how to reset the Academy schedule.  Before the Chief and Caterina finished their discussion, Arms had joined them in the discussion and the schedule for the necessary events for the convention were set down and the changes to the Academy schedule were also adjusted accordingly.

 

 

k          For additional details on Murphy read my challenge story “Performance Review Time For Caterina Williams”

 

 

 

 

 

         

   

Original content © 2001
Betty's Book Me Danno
Originally Posted April 20, 2001