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“So more than just Lisa, then.” Her suspicions were confirmed. Did it matter how many others? A steel wall came down then; she could almost hear the clang of metal encasing her heart. I never should’ve unlocked that gate to begin with. I should’ve known this would happen. My fault. It won’t happen again.
Jason grabbed her shoulders. She shrugged him off.
“Don’t touch me,” she warned him.
“You never wanted to...experiment with me.” Now he was going to make it her fault. Allie felt like laughing and crying all at the same time. “You know, I tried asking.” Jason frowned.
“I told you I didn’t want to play Fifty Shades of Grey,” she snapped, and she meant it. Nothing about pain and sex went together, in her opinion. “I told you that wasn’t my thing. If that’s what you want, you need to be with someone else.”
“Allie...”
“If I was too...too...bland for you, why did you propose?”
“Because I love you, Allie. Because...because my family loves you. Because...you had smarts, looks and everything I needed in a wife...”
“Except a twisted streak.”
Bland. Bland. Bland. She couldn’t get the word out of her head.
“Come on, Allie. This doesn’t have to be a thing. It’s not like I love Lisa Holly, or...any of the others. It’s just something I like to do. A hobby.” Jason rubbed his brown shaggy hair with a frustrated swipe of his hand.
“Are you serious?” Allie couldn’t believe her ears. Was he telling her that him sleeping...spanking...and God knows what else with other women was a hobby?
“Golf is a hobby, Jason. This—” she held up the photo with shaking hands “—is not a hobby. This is—”
“You don’t have to make this into anything.” Jason took another step toward her. She took one more back. He wasn’t getting near her. Not now, maybe not ever. “Actually, it’s good you know. We should start off the marriage being honest with one another. I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time about an open marriage. I was going to wait at least until after the honeymoon to bring it up, but now this is much better. Now we can talk about it.”
Open marriage? Allie felt the room spin. She’d thought all the grenades had exploded, but here Jason had somehow detonated another one. She wanted to laugh. He thought she’d agree to that. He clearly didn’t know her at all.
“God...” Allie thought about calling off all the wedding plans, about losing the deposits they’d put down, about going public with the fact the wedding was off. “This is so complicated.” Allie felt her whole world caving in, everything she thought she knew turned upside down.
“When you think about it, it’s actually very simple.” Jason had the nerve to smile. She wanted to slap it off his face. Nothing about this seemed wrong to him at all. He actually looked philosophical. Not the least bit contrite. The man felt zero guilt about anything he’d done. That realization sliced through Allie like a cold wind. “We’re on much better footing now that you understand my needs. We’ll have an even stronger marriage because of it. This will be better than before. You’ll see.”
“No.” Allie had been a fool to trust him once. She wasn’t about to trust him again. Allie stalked over to his front door, grabbed her coat and stomped her feet into her Sorel snow boots.
“Allie, don’t make this such a big deal. We can talk about it. Think about how great this is for you. You can sleep with any man you want. I can do what you don’t like with someone else. We’ll both be happy. You’ll see. We can talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she said as she felt the tears burn behind her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her cry. He’d played her for a fool, but she’d manage to hold on to her last shred of dignity.
“Allie...”
“Go to hell, Jason,” she muttered as she spared one last glance at the stacks of beautiful wedding gifts. She’d never get to use them. She’d never have the life she thought of with Jason, or the big, warm, loving family she’d always wanted. Allie rushed outside, half expecting Jason to follow, but he didn’t. She flew into the first open elevator, jamming the main-floor button. By the time she ran across the lobby, her vision was blurry with tears as she burst through the revolving doors into the frigid Chicago air. She exhaled sharp breaths in cold, white clouds as she half ran, half stumbled down the sidewalk, nearly careening into people as she went. She felt as if she was breaking apart, her heart splintering like broken ice.
Her phone blared an incoming call in her pocket. She fumbled for it, hoping that, somehow, Jason would make this all right. He’d beg to have her back, see the error in his ways, tell her he’d been a fool. Maybe she could learn to forgive him if he really was sorry. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it, but at that moment, the pain hurt too much. She just wanted it to go away.
“Allie?” her mother’s voice came through the line, sounding thick with tears. “I have some bad news.”
Allie felt numb. What now? What could possibly make this day any worse?
“Allie, honey, Grandma Osaka died.”
CHAPTER ONE (#u925eb449-2a6a-524e-bff6-9ecf9752a649)
A month later
DALLAS MCCORMICK CROUCHED near the rainwater tank on the Kona Coffee Estate, where one of the pipes had sprung a leak. The warm Hawaiian sun beamed down on him as he whipped off his T-shirt to help himself cool off. From his vantage point, the property sloped on a rising hillside, where he could just see the sparkling blue of the Pacific Ocean framed by green palm trees.
Perspiration dripped down his back as he grabbed a wrench from his trusty red metal toolbox. He tipped up his straw cowboy hat to get a better look at the problem: a leaky pipe leading to the holding tank. Misuko—Misu to those who knew her—might be dead, God rest her soul, but he still had a job to do on the plantation.
“You gonna stare at that pipe all day or fix it?” The voice belonged to Kai Brady, the dark-haired thirtyish pro surfer and Big Island living legend. He’d walked over from the house next door, which belonged to his aunt Kaimana, and where he’d grown up. Now he lived in a luxury condo near the beach, where the biggest breaks of the island rolled in daily. He still competed, carried a few endorsement deals and managed to find some other businesses to keep himself busy.
Dallas stood, and the two old friends clasped hands, a big grin spreading on Dallas’s face.
“Why aren’t you out surfing?”
“Already been,” Kai admitted, and smiled. “Started at five, done by ten. If you don’t watch the sun rise over the ocean, what’s the point?”
“Indeed.” Dallas laughed. “And who’s running the coffee shop?”
“Jesse, naturally.” Hula Coffee was one of his side businesses, a coffee shop in nearby Kailua-Kona he ran with his half sister, Jesse. “It’s slow. You know the tourists don’t get up till eleven.” Kai shrugged. His eyes were covered by mirrored sunglasses, and he wore his thick black hair short and spiky. Kai, a quarter Hawaiian, a quarter Japanese and half Irish, was slimmer than Dallas, but nearly as tall. He was all wiry, tanned muscle.
“Aunt Kaimana told me to come check on you. She’s worried, now that you own this place.”
“Half this place,” Dallas corrected. He still couldn’t quite believe Misu had put him in her will. She’d been like family to him, but still. He wasn’t, technically, related. Where he came from in West Texas, only blood mattered. “The other half goes to her granddaughter.”
“Kaimana says she should’ve left it all to you. She’s worried about the festival.”
“It’s still seven months away!” Dallas exclaimed. Granted, the Kona Coffee Festival and Competition every fall was a district-wide event. Anyone who grew coffee on the Big Island participated, and winners got bragging rights all year round. The Kona Coffee Estate had lost out the past three years to Hawaiian Queen Coffee, but Dallas was hoping to change that this year with a new roaster and renewed determination. It had been Misu’s greatest wish to win.
Linus the goat, Misu’s old “organic lawnmower,” as she used to call her, ambled up then. She brayed and looked at the two men, but neither had snacks for her.
“Never too early to start strategizing. That’s what Kaimana says.” Kai shrugged. “And forget the competition. The shop needs your coffee. It’s the favorite house brew.” Hula Roast bought half the coffee produced on the estate. Without Hula Coffee, the Kona Coffee Estate would’ve gone bankrupt years ago. But people here on the Big Island looked out for one another. Tourists came and went, but locals were forever.
“I’m worried the granddaughter may want to sell. I can’t break up the estate. Not if I want it to work.” The roasting barn was on her side of the middle-line marker, which ran east to west across the property. He’d have to cough up tens of thousands to replace those buildings, and he’d have to give up prime coffee-growing land to build the barn, which he didn’t want to do but would if he had to. Coffee growing had seeped into his blood. Learning how to grow something as special as Kona coffee—a kind grown nowhere else on earth—had been a revelation. He’d finally found work he was proud of doing. The Kona Coffee Estate became the home he’d always wished he’d had growing up, and nothing scared him more than losing it.
The tall coffee trees stood, some branches heavy with sweet-smelling white flowers and others teaming with green coffee berries. When they turned red, it would be time to harvest. Kai kicked a toe in the dirt. He shifted uncomfortably. Clearly, he had something on his mind other than coffee.
“I saw Jennifer yesterday,” he said at last. “She came into the shop.”
Dallas’s spine stiffened. He didn’t want to hear about Jennifer.
“Yeah?” Dallas tried to keep his voice neutral, but failed. Even at the very mention of her, his blood pressure shot up, and he had to fight the urge to ball his hands into fists. His ex’s name had become a fighting word.
“Kayla was with her. She’s growing big. Like waist high now. She’s going to start kindergarten in the fall. She asked about you.”
The words felt like poison darts aimed at his back. “I don’t want to talk about them.” Dallas set his mouth in a thin line, feeling every bit of raging emotion running through his chest. Kai meant well, he knew it, but he couldn’t talk about Jennifer and Kayla. Not now. Maybe not ever. It was bad enough he saw Jennifer’s beaming face on all those real estate billboards from here to Hilo, now featuring Jennifer Thomas, Hawaii reality show star. He didn’t need any more bitter reminders.
“I’ve got to get this pipe fixed.” Dallas turned away from Kai, angrily clamping the wrench onto the pipe and giving it a twist.
“Hey, man. I know it’s not my business. You guys were so happy... I just... I mean, I’ve heard the rumors...”
“And you believe them?” Dallas wouldn’t be surprised. The Big Island might be the largest in the Hawaii chain, but it was still just like one big floating small town. No local got to keep secrets.
“Of course not.” Kai sounded offended. “After all you’ve done for me—for Jesse? Are you seriously asking me that question?”
Dallas felt rightfully put in his place.
“The rumors do make you sound like a real asshole,” Kai continued. “You should just tell me the real story, so I can set the record straight. You know I’ve had my share of women troubles.” Being one of the wealthiest and most famous surfers in the world came with a price: an endless parade of hot, gold-digging model girlfriends who made his life miserable.
Even though he knew Kai would understand the deal with Jennifer, would more than understand, he’d relate, he still couldn’t tell. Wouldn’t.
Kai looked at Dallas for a long time, waiting for an answer. Dallas focused on the pipe, twisting it hard.
“Not going to happen.” Dallas met Kai’s gaze, a stubborn set to his chin, the brim of his cowboy hat throwing a shadow across his face. He looked away first, assessing his plumbing handiwork. “There, all done.” He dropped the tool back into his box and snapped the metal lid shut.
“Fine,” Kai said. “Aunt Kaimana says you shouldn’t leave crap like that bottled up inside. It’ll cause cancer.”
“Oh? Is that an old Hawaiian proverb?”
“With her, everything is a Hawaiian proverb,” Kai said and grinned. “She’s sticking up for you, by the way. She says there are at least two sides to every story.”
“Aunt Kaimana is a wise woman.” That was all Dallas planned to say about what happened with Jennifer.
“Uh-huh. By the way, Jesse said she doesn’t care if you get back with Jennifer or not, but that you shouldn’t be single.”
“Why not?”
“She says it’s tacky to be a tourist attraction. If you keep sleeping with all the girls on spring break, then she’s going to start printing up brochures.”
Dallas felt a reluctant chuckle pop up in his throat. Jesse would do it, too. She was not the kind of woman to make an idle threat.
“I don’t sleep with college kids,” Dallas corrected. “I like women with more experience. Besides, I hardly ever take them home.” He had drinks with tourists, and once, only once, he’d hooked up with one, but by and large, he usually just drove them home and tucked their drunk, slurring selves safely into their hotel beds—fully clothed. He thought about the marketing executive last weekend who’d been so intent on learning all about the aloha spirit until she’d had her fourth mai tai.
“You don’t take them to your house because you probably hang out at their resort. Easier to sneak out in the morning.”
Dallas said nothing. If Kai wanted to believe he was getting laid every weekend, then he’d just leave it at that.
Kai shook his head, his mirrored sunglasses catching the light of the sun. “Aren’t you too old to be chasing tourists? I am, and I’m a year younger than you.”
“Tourists are safer than locals.” Dallas swiped at the sweat on his neck.
“Why? Because they don’t stick around?” Kai cocked an eyebrow, but Dallas just half shrugged one shoulder. The truth was, the locals had heard all the rumors, and he knew for sure that plenty of them believed the lies Jennifer spread.
Kai laughed and gave his friend a hard shove. “You’re not in your twenties anymore. You need to evolve, man.”
“I tried evolving. It didn’t work for me.” Dallas thought about Jennifer again, and he felt a cold, hard pit in his stomach. “Anyway, I’ve got to clean up before Misu’s granddaughter gets here. What’s her name? Alani, I think.”
“You mean Allie.” Kai whistled and shook his head. “I haven’t seen that girl in years.”
“You know her?”
“Yeah, we grew up as neighbors, went to kindergarten together. She moved to the mainland for third grade. She liked mangos. That’s what I remember. And she was a super tomboy, climbed every tree we had.”
“Misu has a picture of her as a girl on her refrigerator.” In that grainy old photo, Allie was a slim, lanky thing, her dark, nearly black hair in a high ponytail, standing next to Misu, who had on a big straw-brimmed hat. Misu kept the picture on a magnetic frame on her refrigerator. “Still doesn’t explain why she missed Misu’s funeral.”
“Hey, don’t be so hard on her. I’m sure she had her reasons. She had it really rough when she was little. There was a bad car accident. Her dad died. It was a miracle she survived. Anyway, she and her mom moved to the mainland after that.”
“He died?” Dallas knew how that felt. His father had passed on when he was just nineteen. But as a kid of...what, eight? That must’ve been rough.
The sound of tires on the gravel driveway interrupted the conversation, and both men turned, staring at the path, half hidden by the tall, treelike coffee plants growing in thick rows together. A small, compact white rental car gently nosed its way up the drive. Allie, Dallas assumed.
Linus the goat ambled around the corner, and the driver, skittish, veered hard right—too sharply. The tiny compact tire went off the driveway into the ruts on the side of the road with a hard thump, and splattered the trunks of the coffee trees with mud. Dallas straightened his hat as he walked out to save the damsel in distress.
That was when she opened the door and got out to inspect the stuck wheel.
This was no gangly preadolescent girl, like the one in the dated photo on Misu’s fridge. This was a full-blown woman, late twenties, with long, lean legs in formfitting jeans, and thick raven-black hair that fell long and straight past her shoulders. She did look like Misu’s kin, had the same chin and pronounced cheekbones. But she was clearly an ethnic mix: not wholly Japanese, but not wholly something else, either. She had flawless olive skin and dark eyes, her thick lashes magnified by mascara. Her thin, just-defined arms that jutted from her short-sleeved T-shirt showed just how fit she was. She had a sweater wrapped around her tiny waist, a wool remnant from Chicago, no doubt, as were her high-heeled leather ankle boots. She flicked a long, shiny strand of hair from her eyes, and as she inspected the damage, the muddied wheel sank three inches into the dark muck. If she were out on the main road, at least three cars would’ve stopped, men stumbling over themselves trying to help her.
“Wow, that is not the Allie I remember,” Kai said, voice low.
Dallas didn’t like the way Kai said that, and suddenly he felt like calling dibs, as if they were at a bar.
She hadn’t seen them yet. Dallas wondered what she would do now. A gorgeous girl like that probably wasn’t used to fending for herself. No doubt, she’d be on the phone instantly, asking for help.
Instead, she looked at the wheel, and then, without missing a beat, ducked inside the car to put the gearshift in Neutral. She walked around the car in her sexy but decidedly impractical heels, the black leather boot soles sinking into the mud as she went. She put two perfectly manicured hands on the back bumper and gave it her best push. He had to admire her spirit, even if the effort was futile. She probably couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds. One of her boots slipped, but she caught herself on the bumper.
“That’s the Allie I remember,” Kai said. “Never afraid of a little dirt.” Kai stepped forward. “Allie!” he called, drawing her attention. The woman’s head whipped up, and she squinted. “It’s Kai! Remember me? Kai Brady?”
“Kai,” Allie repeated, slowly at first and then once more, recognition dawning. “The boy who’d always steal my mango candy.”
Kai laughed. “Guilty,” he said, and wrapped his old friend in a hug.
“You’ve grown up!”
“So have you.” Kai backed away. Dallas found he couldn’t take his eyes off Allie. He’d seen his share of pretty girls, but something about her was just...striking. Flawless skin, a heart-shaped mouth and perfect cheekbones. Her big dark eyes turned to study him, and he felt rooted to the spot. “Uh...” She paused, her eyes flicking down to his bare chest, and it was then he remembered he’d forgotten to put his shirt back on. Where were his manners?
“This is Dallas,” Kai said. “He’s a good guy, once you get past the cowboy act.”
“It’s no act,” Dallas drawled, glad he could interrupt the little reunion. He wanted more of Allie’s attention. “I was raised on a ranch in Texas. I’d offer to shake your hand, but mine are...” He opened his palms to show the dirt from the water tank pipes.
“So you’re Dallas.” She said his name in a guarded way, which made him think they might have gotten off on the wrong foot, probably because he was nonfamily included in the will. His own father didn’t believe in giving out land to anyone but family and he had a very narrow definition of what that meant. He couldn’t blame her for thinking the same.
“Can we give you a hand?” Dallas asked.
“That would be great,” Allie said, but she looked at Kai. Dallas tried not to take offense as he rounded the back of the car. Still, he had to wonder, was there something between them? He watched the two carefully, but saw nothing hinting at sexual tension. She looked at him like a long-lost brother. Good.
“We’ve got this,” Kai assured her.
“Go on and get in and ease on to the gas when I tell you,” Dallas said.
