Love by Design

by Chris Keniston

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The whole family pulled together. Billy had phoned Kara, his best friend’s wife, and Ava had phoned her sister Emily. First thing after the morning dive, the entire Everrett family and their closest friends had descended on the potential future home for Everrett Architectural Designs.

  “I’d say the lanai was added on.” John circled the outside of the building.

  Doug, Ava’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, walked beside him. “Considering this sucker is over one hundred years old, it’s still pretty solid. I’ve seen some of these old beauties leaning farther than the Tower of Pisa.”

  “If we were in cold-weather country, I’d suggest new windows, but, in Hawaii, all Ava would need are a few screens and good fans.”

  “It has central air.” Doug kicked the outside condenser. “Looks recent too.”

  John stopped and looked up at the front eaves. He recognized the typical Dickey roofline. “I still don’t get why the old man is practically giving it away. Especially when he was offered over a million dollars for it.”

  “There are no luggage racks on a hearse. Maybe he gets it.”

  “Or really can’t stand his relatives.” John wondered how much did a man have to dislike his great nieces and nephews to give a stranger such a valuable piece of property. Maybe his own father wasn’t nearly as much of a coldhearted bastard as John had thought. At least he’d left the girls well taken care of. “I’ve seen enough.”

  Doug nodded and followed John into the house. While Maile used some old rags she’d found bagged in the pantry to wipe down the counters, the rest of the family sat at the kitchen table.

  “Well?” Billy looked up from his seat beside his business partner.

  “Structurally it looks pretty sound,” John answered.

  “The AC works just fine,” Nick added, gesturing toward one of the vents blowing cool air.

  John nodded. “The system could use a good cleaning. I’m amazed it’s been empty for years, and yet the owner still has the utilities on.”

  Ava came in from the other room, carrying a box. “Angela mentioned that he has a property management company that checks up on it.”

  “What have you got there?” John gently took the box from her and sat it on the clean counter.

  “While these guys were arguing back and forth about whether or not I was out of my mind for even considering this”—she opened the lid and pulled out a stack of photos—”I did a quick look around and found this in an upstairs closet. It’s filled with old photos.”

  “Ooh. How old?” Maile dropped her rag and hurried next to her daughter. “The historical society is always interested in fresh views of the past.”

  “From what I can tell, there seems to be a wide range.” Ava placed a few framed photos of posed family portraits beside the first stack of pictures. “The most recent photos in this box look like the seventies. Maybe the eighties.”

  Maile picked up the picture of a woman with shoulder length hair in a Patty Duke flip beside a man in a bold brown plaid jacket with sideburns halfway down his cheeks, and a curly haired teen seated in the front. “Definitely the seventies. This would be Edna, her husband and Walter, the jerk.”

  Kara pointed to a large faded envelope wrapped in a lace handkerchief. “Oh, what’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ava carefully unfolded the lace scrap of cloth and slid a handful of photographs onto the table. “Definitely not the seventies.”

  “Looks like early fifties. Check out the Studebaker.” Billy handed the photograph to Nick.

  “I wonder if this was his wife.” Ava examined a photograph of a young woman in a short-sleeve blouse with a flared skirt and bobby socks. “God, she looks so young and innocent. All she’s missing is the poodle on the skirt.”

  Maile accepted the monochromatic photo. Squinting at the faded picture, her eyes suddenly burst open wide. “Good grief. This is my mother.”

  * * *

  “What?” Ava took the picture back, while her mother rummaged quickly through the remaining photographs.

  “Here she is again with Edna and her brother.”

  Ava passed around the first photo and took a long look at the next. Her mom had said that her grandmother and Harry’s sister Edna were best friends. But why a picture of the two friends and the brother?

  “And here.” This time Maile handed her daughter a framed photo of her very young grandmother and Harry Malakii seated in a garden, holding hands.

  “Okay, this looks rather official.” Ava studied the faces. Burning with curiosity, she opened the frame and slid out the original photograph. “‘Engagement photo, June 1, 1949.’ Gran was engaged to Harry Malakii?”

  Maile took the photo back and stared a long while. “Dad used to joke there was no one wealthier than him, because he’d stolen Mom from the richest man in town. I guess he wasn’t kidding.”

  “I remember you telling me how Gran eloped.”

  “Yep.” Maile nodded. “In 1951. Wow.”

  “How about that?” Emily took the photo now. “So Gran got around.”

  “Emily,” Maile snapped.

  “Just saying, Gran was a catch.” Emily passed the photo to Doug, who’d taken a seat beside her.

  “I wonder if Harry knows she’s my grandmother,” Ava asked, sorting the remaining photos.

  “One way to find out.” Phone in hand, Billy called his wife, still at the hospital. “Hi, beautiful. How are my two best girls?… Good.… I’m just about to head back, but we’ve got a question for you.”

  Everyone leaned closer as he spoke. Billy scanned the craned necks around the table and, shaking his head, set down his phone and pressed Speaker.

  “Shoot,” Angela said.

  “Did Mr. Malakii ask any questions about the family?”

  “A few. Why?”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Obvious ones. What did Ava do for a living? He liked that she was an architect—like him. Then he wanted to know where she’d gone to school. Who did she work for in Honolulu? How long had she been on her own? Oh, and then he asked Maile’s maiden name. Is that important?”

  “Maybe.” He nodded. “Looks like we might have found a reason for his unexplained generosity.”

  “He’s a nice old man.”

  “Besides that, he was also my grandmother’s former fiancé.”

  “You’re kidding?” Angela’s surprise was masked by the sounds of baby Isabella fussing. “Someone’s hungry again. I’d better go.”

  “On my way.” Grinning like a madman, Billy slid the phone into his pocket and pushed to his feet. “You guys are going to have to figure the rest of this out on your own. My wife and baby girl are waiting for Papa.”

  Nick slapped him on the arm and pushed to his feet. “We need to get going too. We told the sitter we’d be less than an hour.”

  “Yep,” Kara agreed. Standing as well, she turned to Ava. “Looks like we’ve got our answers though. If you decide to take it on, just send me the docs for review before you sign anything.”

  “I will.” Ava nodded.

  Maile set all the pictures back in the box. “Amazing what a small world we live in.”

  Ava and Emily surrounded their mother in a tight embrace. “I think it’s time to feed the adults too.”

  As her mother turned to follow Emily and Doug out the door, Ava stepped back and grabbed hold of Forrest’s hand. “Join us for a late lunch?”

  He shook his head. “Have to get back to the house. Before all this came up, I’d promised my sisters we would spend the afternoon together.”

  At least his pained expression made her feel a little better about the rejection.

  His grip on her fingers tightened. A flash of amusement suddenly lit his eyes. “I might, however, be able to convince them to visit with Miss Isabella. Any chance we might run into you later at the hospital?”

  The way his gaze locked on hers had her heart doing a little jig. “Absolutely.”


  * * *

  Parked in front of the exclusive Kamehameha nursing home, Ava stared at the one photo she’d dared to remove from the house that wasn’t hers. Yet. Some things in life were too good to be true, and she couldn’t see why this deal would be an exception, but there was only one way to find out. According to the person who answered the phone, as long as the resident was awake and up for company, there were no restrictions on visiting hours. Now she found herself staring at the glass entryway separating her from Harry Malakii and a house she’d already mentally taken a pencil and pad to.

  Punching in the code the woman had given her, she yanked open the door and slowly made her way down the hall. Not sure what she expected, the place had more of a hotel than hospital ambiance. Somehow that made her feel better about Harry’s situation. She didn’t like the idea of him sharing a room with another senior, neither coherent enough to carry on any semblance of living. This seemed more hopeful. Counting the room numbers, she stopped at the second-to-last door, knocked and waited for permission to enter. A gruff voice called out, “Come in.”

  A thin man with white hair and huge black eyes sat in a wheelchair, grinning up at her. “You must be Ava?”

  “I am.”

  “Come in. Take a seat. Unless you’d rather go outside? The courtyard is lovely this time of day.”

  “Whatever you prefer.”

  “The courtyard then.” Harry pointed to the back of his chair. “Do you mind?”

  “Oh.” Ava hurried around to push the wheelchair. “Not at all.”

  Harry pointed the way, and they proceeded down the hall in silence. At the opposite end of the building, sliding patio doors led to a large courtyard with scattered gazebos, benches and even a few rocking chairs. “Over there.”

  Ava followed his finger to a glider under a large shade tree. “This is nice.”

  “Not bad. Certainly better than my nephew Walter’s house.”

  “My mother remembers Walter.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Harry smiled. “Your mother was a very pretty little girl.”

  “You knew her?” Ava tried to hide her surprise.

  “Your grandmother and my sister Edna were good friends. I saw a good deal of your mother when she was a child. Once Edna moved away, well, the families drifted apart.”

  “I see.”

  For a moment she wasn’t sure if Harry was looking at her or through her. “Your grandmother was the sweetest, most caring and kindest woman I’d ever met. Until my Sally.”

  Ava nodded and waited.

  “Your grandfather”—Harry chuckled—”made a damn fool of himself, falling all over your grandmother. Right until she caught him.”

  “Oh.” Ava wasn’t sure how she managed even that one syllable.

  “Don’t look so startled. Your grandmother and I were very good friends. She’d complain to me about the boys who would come courting. Too boring. Too silly. Too tall. Too short. They were always too something. One day Edna teased we should just marry each other. We got a big laugh out of it. Soon it was a standard joke. Until the day it didn’t seem so funny anymore. It made sense. The next thing we knew it was official. Portraits were taken, and announcements were printed in the paper.”

  “I saw the photo at the house.”

  “Your grandmother was beautiful.” His cheeks lifted in a smile. “You remind me of her.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyway, somehow we never did get around to setting a date. Your grandmother had a hard time with my family.”

  Ava wondered if jerk Walter had inherited family traits.

  “She was never comfortable with the money. And unfortunately my parents reminded her of that. Often.”

  “It must have been difficult for you.”

  “At the time, yes.” Harry looked off in the distance. “Friends, good friends, are always a wonderful start to a lasting relationship. We would have been good together, I think. But I don’t believe she would have been as happy as she was with your grandfather.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was doing repairs on your grandmother’s house and fell off the roof.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “It wasn’t too bad. Lila and her brother were coming around the corner. They broke your grandfather’s fall.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Not really. Mostly scrapes and bruises. The next time he fell over her, he was carrying a sack of rice for Lila’s mother, and didn’t notice her and Edna laying out. He and the rice went flying.” Harry chuckled. “The man had a good heart, but he really was a klutz. Lila spent so much time tending to his scrapes and bruises that, by the time he was done working on the house, she’d fallen in love with him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I used to wonder, had I been a house painter, if we’d have had a better chance.” His soft tone drifted off, and a twinkle filled his eyes. “Then I met my Sally, and I understood. By then your mother had been born, and our friendship was easy again.”

  Ava had vague memories of an older woman who smiled a great deal and enjoyed tea parties. She suspected most of her memories were prompted by old photos and family stories. “I don’t remember my grandmother very well.”

  “We lost her too young.” His gaze wondered off again and then focused on her. “But now we have a chance to come around full circle.”

  “Yes, well, about that…”

  “Had Lila and I gotten married, you would be my granddaughter.”

  There was no point in mentioning, had Harry and her grandmother married, neither her mother nor she would be here today. “That’s a pleasant thought. But still—”

  “Besides, Walter and his sister don’t appreciate the old place. I don’t think anyone who knows them would argue the only thing Walter appreciates is Walter.”

  Ava failed to smother a chuckle. “Sorry.”

  “You have a beautiful smile. So when do we sign the papers?”

  “I don’t—”

  Harry leaned over and put his hand on hers. “Make an old man happy. I want Lila’s granddaughter to enjoy the house that brought my Sally and me so much happiness.”

  Tears threatened to spill over, as she batted her eyes in a frantic effort to stay the flow. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “How about yes?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Beethoven sounded off, and John gave serious consideration to tossing the damn thing in the ocean. How had that blaring old tune never bothered him before? “Hello?”

  “Bad time?”

  “No, not at all.” John glanced at the time. “Pretty late in California. What are you doing still working?”

  Evelyn sighed into the phone. “Just tying up a few loose ends. Flying back to L.A. in the morning. Thought I’d check in.”

  “Just checking in? At this hour?”

  “Okay, Smythe is an idiot. Did you know that?”

  “Not really.” He chuckled. “Senior always did the talking. Stodgy. Solid businessman. Lousy taste in wives. Junior mostly just nodded. What’s wrong with him?”

  “He asked me to get him coffee.”

  John barely swallowed a laugh. “And he’s still alive?”

  “By the grace of God and my dislike of confined spaces.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I got him a cup of coffee.” She hesitated a second. “May have accidentally put a few extra sugars in it.”

  This time he did laugh. “He’s lucky you didn’t use arsenic.”

  “I considered a laxative, but there was no time to send anyone to the store.”

  “That would have been rich.” John laid back in the recliner and stretched out his legs. “What else?”

  “Project heads spent most of the afternoon poring over blueprints. Stanowitz came right out and asked Smythe if any of the design team had changed.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t. I’ve never seen anyone so adept at avoiding a direct question.”
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  “His father was the same way. Stanowitz bought it?”

  “No. He canceled the rest of the meeting and told Smythe, if the updated designs didn’t come back next time as expected, that another architect would be brought in who could deliver.”

  “I’m sure that went over well. Also explains why Ava got a call from E&S yesterday.”

  “I still think it would have been easier to just ax the twit and hire Ava.”

  “No. Smythe needs to make this deal right on her terms. Not ours. He will find a way to bring her back on board without our firm having to do anything. We won’t be involved. She’ll get the professional credit she deserves, and I’ll get the time I need.”

  “I don’t know what you’re up to, but something tells me you’d better move a little faster.”

  And wasn’t he thinking the same damn thing.

  * * *

  From Harry’s residence, she went straight to Nick and Kara’s. Angela, the sneak, had neglected to mention that she and Harry had already drawn up a contract and were just waiting for her to sign. As excited as she was at the prospect of buying a house, especially for so little, there was no way she was signing anything without Kara’s okay. Harry Malakii might be a really sweet old man, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

  Nick paced with baby Catherine on his shoulder, as Kara flipped another page. Anticipation and excitement had Ava struggling to keep her mouth shut.

  “Well.” Kara set her glasses on the table beside her. “Angela seems to have made sure all the bases are covered and your ass is protected. I honestly don’t see anything that I would require changing, though, in this case, because of his advanced age, I would strongly encourage an amendment to the sale that addresses Harry’s sound mind, signed and notarized by disinterested witnesses.”