Her heart squeezed at the words he told her all the time now, and she’d never ever get tired of hearing him say them.
Her gut clenched with happiness and nerves. She’d barely seen him since he’d headed back to the base in late January. He was on leave for a few days so they could celebrate their do-over wedding and reception in Winter Lake, then she and the girls would be moving back to Spokane with him. He’d secured them a little house on base. He’d sent her pictures—it was a cute two-story house with a fenced yard.
But she honestly didn’t care if they lived in a dumpy single wide, as long as they were finally together. As a family.
A group of passengers appeared at the top of the escalators. Oh! There he was. Her heart fluttered and her breathing sped up when she spotted him, head and shoulders above his fellow passengers. He wore the same Seahawks hoodie he’d worn the last time she’d picked him up at the airport.
She couldn’t wait to get him out of that.
He grinned when he noticed her. She met him at the bottom of the escalator by jumping into his arms and wrapping her legs around his hips. Dylan’s large hands cupped her bottom to hold her in place and she rained happy little kisses all over his face, finally meeting his lips for a deep and welcoming kiss.
“God, I missed you,” he said, finally setting her down. He glanced at her red stiletto heels and his eyebrow rose. “Nice shoes.”
“Wore them just for you.” She grinned up at him, knowing he’d understand.
His answering grin was wicked and wonderful. Then his eyes narrowed. “Wait. Where are the girls?”
“My friend Darlene is watching them,” she said. “I thought we might want some time alone to celebrate.”
“Not that I need an excuse to make love to my wife, but what are we celebrating?”
She pulled something out of her purse and handed it to him.
He stared down at it, then looked up and met her eyes. “This is a pregnancy test,” he said slowly, and a huge smile spread across his face.
“Welcome home, daddy,” she said, then shrieked with delight as he whooped and swung her around in his arms.
~ The End ~
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BOOK 7
Maui Kalikimaka
By
Kim Hornsby
Lena Patterson doesn’t have her small children for Christmas for the first time since her divorce from a cheating husband. Her Kona Christmas looks lonely until a friend invites Lena to an ex-boyfriend’s beachfront Maui house for the holidays.
Kalani Shipton must evacuate his house on the south shore of The Big Island as Kiluaea’s lava flow changes direction. When the attractive coffee farmer joins his business partner on Maui for Christmas, he finds himself in the company of a woman he once propositioned in a drunken stupor.
Lena isn’t about to let tongues wag over a love affair with the owner of Kona Java, a playboy with a reputation, even though Kalani is trying his damnedest to shed his bad rap. When Lena discovers that Kalani has a dark secret, the magic of Christmas takes over. But will their love affair last beyond Maui?
Maui Kalikimaka, Copyright 2017, Top Ten Press
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design by Top Ten Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Dedication
This book goes out to all the divorced women who have to bite the bullet when their ex’s new love interest comes into their children’s lives.
The honorary duty of a human being, is to love.
~Maya Angelou
Chapter 1
The small town of Kona was festive and bustling days before Christmas, even though the look of snowy evergreens and winter clothes was a five-hour plane ride to the mainland. Lena Patterson maneuvered her Honda Civic through the crowd of tourists who were headed for the Coconut Marketplace and continued to Kilauea Realty where her ex-husband was waiting.
At five and seven-years-old, her daughters, Audrey and Charlotte, were brimming and bubbling in the backseat with the excitement of Christmas. As well as Santa Claus and toys, they were looking forward to having time with Daddy, someone they hadn’t seen in twenty-two days. He’d been off island on a pre-Christmas vacation with his girlfriend, Tammy Palau, a woman he’d pursued even before he left the marriage.
“Daddy will be so surprised to see your short hair, Audrey.” Lena said this like it would be a fun surprise although she’d already warned Billy that their youngest had taken the scissors to her own hair and after an attempt to fix the botched haircut, Audrey now had very short hair.
“Daddy won’t have to get her to brush it,” Charlotte, the practical older sister, offered.
“Or Tammy,” Audrey chirped.
The mention of Billy’s girlfriend sent a shiver of dread through Lena’s body. This was the woman who not only felt it was perfectly fine to take a husband from a young family but a woman who had a competitive streak, constantly taunting Lena about how happy she and Billy were. Regardless of the hell Tammy tried to invoke, Lena was determined to not let her dislike of Tammy leak into her children’s little lives.
“You girls be very good and eat all your vegetables along with the Christmas cookies Tammy baked for you.” An earlier text about baking cookies for her sweet little girls should have made Lena thrilled that Tammy embraced the girls. Instead, Lena understood the meaning behind the words better than anyone. Tammy was playing a nasty game and using a five and a seven-year old as the prize.
The parking lot by Billy’s Real Estate office was packed this time of the morning, but Lena pulled up in the loading zone and shut off the car. She turned to her daughters and forced what she hoped was a genuine-looking smile. “I love you to the stars and back, a zillion times.”
The two girls repeated the phrase, word for word.
“I’ll talk to you on the phone tonight.” Although they’d set up times for Skype calls, Lena had also given Charlotte a burner phone for this occasion. Her oldest daughter did not want to rely on either her father’s phone that accompanied him to work, or Tammy’s phone. Not if she needed to speak with her mother. Lena had explained this to Billy last night. He’d protested that the girls didn’t need their own phone, but Lena held firm that it helped Charlotte feel connected and she needed it if she was going to spend two weeks away from her home and her mother.
Coming around the back of her small car, Lena almost crashed into a tall man running at top speed. She jumped back, plastering against her trunk as the man yelled, “Sorry,” and jumped into a nearby jeep. He backed up quickly and tore out of the parking lot like he’d just robbed Billy’s office. The side of his vehicle advertised the Kona Java Company and Lena made a note to call their office to complain that someone was driving recklessly fast in a company car.
Then she remembered.
The man who’d almost knocked her over was Kalani Shipton and it wouldn’t help to call Kona Java because he owned the company. As a handsome, local man, Kalani was known to be a partier and a heartbreaker and driving reckles
sly matched that character profile. She’d heard a story about him hitting a car filled with children and was glad that hers were only feet away.
The jeep turned left out of the lot without stopping at the corner, and took off south of town just as Tammy pulled up in her Lexus SUV behind Lena’s old car.
Lena braced herself for Tammy.
Their exchanges were never friendly. Tammy had come into her relationship with Billy as a rich widow, having been married to a sick man who died shortly after their marriage. She’d arrived in Hawaii to sow wild oats last year, and had found Lena’s husband after only three or four quick boyfriends. Billy had a beach boy look about him with blonde hair, tan skin, blue eyes and if you threw in the fact he surfed, and had a successful real estate company, he was perfect for Tammy in her quest to find a young, gorgeous man to marry the second time around.
Lena glanced at the door of Kilauea Realty, wondering where her husband was. He was to meet her at ten o’clock, in front of the building. It was now five minutes after the hour.
Tammy exited her vehicle with a plastered, fake smile, the smile that Lena secretly called the T-snarl. Wearing heels and a low-cut hibiscus-printed sundress that showed off fake breasts, Tammy looked overdone. Lena compared her own attire of white shorts and a T-shirt that read, “No Bad Days,” a creed she was trying hard to live by. Tammy, always looked like she’d spent at least an hour in front of a mirror, and although Billy hadn’t left his marriage because of a dress code, Lena had the fleeting thought that it wouldn’t kill her to make more of an effort on her appearance these days. She was young enough to get back on the dating market and maybe it was time to brush her hair, wear some makeup. Try.
Lena opened the back door of her car and reached in to unbuckle the girls from their booster seats then helped them out on the safe side of the car facing the real estate office. “Where’s Billy?” she asked Tammy.
“He’s tied up,” Tammy said, going straight for the girls. Looking at Charlotte, Tammy made an exaggerated face. “Not really tied up, with ropes and chains, but tied up busy!”
Charlotte laughed.
“We leave the ropes and chains in the bedroom,” Tammy whispered to Lena as she passed by.
Lena pulled their Frozen movie-themed suitcases out of the trunk while Tammy remarked on Audrey’s new “boyish” haircut.
“It’s called the no-fuss, girly cut,” Lena countered to cut off any further comments about the hair. “We think it shows off her gorgeous blue eyes.” She shot Tammy a look to suggest calling Audrey boyish might not sit well with the little girl.
“Regardless,” Tammy said, taking the girls’ hands and walking them to her SUV, “We’re going home to make Christmas cookies! I got sprinkles and all kinds of yummy candies to put on top.” She ushered the girls into the backseat of her shiny SUV while Lena set the suitcases in the back. She then returned to her car and pulled out a bag from the trunk. Inside, were Christmas stockings for her daughters. When Tammy rounded the vehicle, Lena nodded to the bag, held discreetly low, away from little eyes.
“Here are their Santa stockings,” she whispered. “Shall I sneak them in the back?”
Tammy frowned. “We don’t need stockings. Billy and I have that all taken care of with presents of our own for the girls.” She turned as if to get in the drivers’ side, and Lena knew Tammy would drive off before goodbyes were said. It had been done before.
“I told Billy, I’d do the stockings.” She touched Tammy’s arm. “He agreed.”
Tammy stopped and turned at her driver door. “I didn’t agree and I’m the Mother for the next two weeks.” She got in her car.
“Let me kiss them goodbye.” Lena’s words came out frantically. “Wait!” She dropped the bag and ran to give Charlotte a big kiss. “See you soon, Charley-Bear.” She Eskimo kissed her nose, then ran around the back to swiftly open Audrey’s door while Tammy turned on the car.
“Have fun and don’t eat too many cookies, Ms. Audrey Boo,” Lena smiled and nuzzled her baby’s neck, now easier to get to with the short hair. “Big love and a zillion kisses.”
“I love you to Mars and back a trillion times,” Audrey said as Tammy talked over top of them.
“Close the door, Lena. The cookie bus is taking off,” Tammy sang.
Lena barely had time to swing the door closed before the Lexus ran over the bag of stockings, easing out of the loading zone, Tammy never looking back to see Lena’s horrified face.
She’d intentionally run over the stockings.
Lena knew this, where some people might have had doubts. It wasn’t an accident. Tammy aimed for the stockings and had taken great delight in the malicious act. Lena knew because of a sixth sense she’d inherited from her paternal grandmother. All her life, she’d been able to extract information from people’s thoughts. The fact that Tammy had been satisfied to hear the crunch under the tires was as clear as if the woman had shouted her happiness out the window.
Lena tamped down the desire to get even and collected the crushed bag from the pavement. She marched in to the real estate office to speak to Billy, only to find he was at a house inspection and wouldn’t be back until two p.m.
Lena walked calmly out of Kilauea Realty, a business she’d started with her young husband, seven years ago. She wouldn’t let Tammy dampen her Christmas spirit.
* * * * *
Entering her Kona cottage, Lena glanced at her little Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. She and the girls had been proud of their efforts in decorating the tree now covered in artwork and knickknacks made in preschool and first grade. Charlotte had insisted on colored lights this year, instead of their usual white, and the decision had been to clump them mostly at the front, low enough for children to enjoy. The tree reflected the fact that two young children had been in charge, with all the red balls at the four-foot mark on the right, all the metal reindeer decorations in the reindeer pen, (the girls had said,) and various other decorations in concentrated groupings low on the tree. The top half of the tree was bare except for one gold ball at the top that Audrey said was for “Mommy to look at.”
Lena glanced at the bag of crushed candy, toys and games inside giant Christmas stockings labeled C and A. Very little was salvageable besides the felt stockings themselves which were now covered in a sticky syrup from a candy that once had a liquid center. She now planned to refill the stockings for New Year’s Eve, a night that she already looked forward to with motherly devotion. The night her girls came home. Tammy and Billy had “a very important party to attend at a billionaire’s house in Waikoloa and would be bringing the girls back a day early,” Tammy said earlier.
Struggling to keep in the emotion that had been stabbing at her chest for the last hour, burning tears threatened the back of Lena’s eyes. It was difficult to avoid feeling sorry for herself, especially at Christmas, but Lena wouldn’t let pity have her.
Not today.
Not ever.
She’d agreed to give Billy the girls for Christmas if she could have them for their two-week March break when her parents arrived from Los Angeles. Giving up Christmas in the first year of a what promised to be a custody-filled decade, had been Lena’s choice. She had to accept this. And accept the fact that sharing kid time with another parent who no longer lived in the family house kind of sucked. A parent who no longer loved her.
Lena had taken a photo of the crushed stockings in the parking lot and now sent it to Billy with the message:
“Tammy ran over the stockings, so don’t look for the Santa stockings we talked about. FYI.”
Lena documented every time Tammy did something mean and spiteful, ending her texts to Billy the same way—FYI. She wanted Billy to know what kind of a person he was sharing his life with. Tammy might say it was an accident and Billy would probably believe her, but maybe one day, he’d see Tammy’s true colors. The most important reason for Lena sending these texts was that she wanted him to be wary of Tammy around the girls.
Len
a’s friends in Kona all agreed that Tammy was competitive enough that she probably wouldn’t do anything to fall out of favor with Billy or his daughters and Lena hoped that was true. Tammy was trying to win a game and humiliate Lena, the girlfriends said. They also agreed that Tammy cared too much about keeping her handsome new boyfriend happy.
Hoping to distract herself from the emptiness of her little house, Lena moved to the bedroom her daughters shared and gathered clothes from the laundry hamper. She’d start this week of solitude by getting the last of the laundry done. Go from the small chores to the big ones. Painting the kitchen was at the top of her list, something she hadn’t wanted to do with children living and breathing in the house.
When she and Billy had bought this place, eight years ago, shortly after their Kona honeymoon, they’d vowed to paint over the ugly green color in the kitchen. But, the news of Lena’s pregnancy had put that plan on hold when they moved in. Until now. The taupe color had been chosen, the paint was in the carport and Lena was looking forward to the work. Maybe not the physical act of painting, but the finished product. The girls might not notice, but to Lena, the new color would be like starting fresh after months of confusion and adjustment.
Loading the washing machine, she smiled to think her daughters might be too distracted to notice the paint when they came home from Billy’s. Distracted by a new puppy for Christmas. Not one of those chubby Labrador retrievers that grace calendars because of their cuteness, but a rescue dog she’d found wandering the streets of Kona. Because Lena had been toying with the idea of adding a dog to their recently diminished family, she’d considered taking in this friendly little fellow. Rather than taking him home and having the girls see the puppy, then be told to leave their new favorite toy while they went to Daddy’s for Christmas, Tia had offered to keep the dog at her house. This week would give anyone time to claim him and see if the little white dog was good with children, something that Tia had plenty of at her house. With four kids ranging in ages three to twelve, Tia’s home was the perfect stopping over point for the puppy.
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