Talking their way through the airport, the two friends continued across the isthmus that linked the volcanic mountains that made up Maui. Turning north at Malaea towards West Maui, they headed to the part of the island where Pepper lived and where Jake’s house was situated. Conversation came whooshing out with topics ranging from Lena’s children, to Pepper’s work, and mutual friends in California.
The sun pierced the sky roof as they sped along the picturesque coastline. On the left was the blue ocean for miles and miles, and on the right, was scrub brush, rocky hills, the grass now turning green from recent rain. In the distance, the West Maui Mountains loomed, dotted with a few puffy clouds unable to pass by the towering mountains. The drive was stunningly beautiful, like a movie scene where the hero puts the top down in her convertible and heads up a sandy-beached coastline.
“It feels good to be out of Dodge.” Lena looked over. “I might cry.”
Pepper smiled and took Lena’s hand to give it a little squeeze.
For the last year, Lena had been under so much stress to keep everything together for the children, that the relief of being in the company of her friend, on another island, as herself and not a mother, felt like the iron coat she’d been wearing for the last few months had been taken off. And left behind on the Big Island.
Pepper slowed as they approached the town of Lahaina. Reaching the first stop light, she looked over to Lena. “Let’s get a tree and decorations. It’s Christmas.”
“And tinsel. Billy always nixed the tinsel idea when I suggested it, but nothing says Christmas tree like silver tinsel getting in everything.”
An hour later, with bags of groceries and Christmas decorations in the SUV and a skinny tree loaded on top, they pulled out of the Lahaina Cannery Mall. “How important was it that the guy did a fresh cut on the tree trunk?” Lena laughed.
“I’d say as important as giving anything Tammy says a modicum of importance.” Christmas trees were shipped from the mainland to Hawaii and were sold half dead and everyone in Hawaii knew this.
Just as Pepper turned north on the Honoapiilani Highway, a photo text came in from Tammy. Lena had to look. Her children might be in danger, or Tammy might be asking about Audrey’s nut allergy. The photo showed her daughters wearing aprons, standing at a kitchen counter, stirring what looked like a bowl of batter. It would have been a lovely gesture for her to send the image except for the text that came with it.
“Apparently Mommy doesn’t know how to bake cookies. She just buys them at the store.”
That was not true, but insultingly close to the truth on days when motherhood and all the duties that came with it precluded Lena from baking cookies from scratch. After reading the text to Pepper, her friend pretended to throw Lena’s phone in the backseat.
“What a cow!”
“I always send these texts to Billy. I’m not sure if he tells her.” Lena forwarded the text. “I wonder if he even cares that she does this.”
“Not with those triple D’s and her bank account,” Pepper added. “Personally, I think Billy has lost his mind and has no reasoning where she’s concerned.”
It was true. Still, Lena had to believe her children were safe with Tammy as long as that woman strived to win the Mommy Game.
They passed the world-famous Kaanapali and continued to Kapalua where Pepper turned left onto a narrow, paved road that twisted to reveal a black iron gate. Pepper punched in numbers at the keypad and they pulled up to a large house with a blue tile roof and darker blue trim on a white stucco exterior.
“And you broke up with Jake because…?” Lena joked.
“He was never here. Always flying back and forth, mostly back to L.A.” Pepper looked at her. “It wasn’t for lack of attraction, believe me. Even hearing his voice on the phone yesterday made me all hot and bothered.”
“You’re certain he won’t mind a dog in this fancy joint?” Lena wasn’t so sure.
“He loves dogs. My friend Tina has a pit mix and when we’d visit, Jake always got down on the floor to play with him.” Pepper slid from the driver’s side. “He might be rich, but Jake’s very down to earth. There’s a house cleaner that comes after we leave, apparently.”
The house was an architectural dream, like something from a magazine with thick glossy paper. Olaf had been leashed until Lena figured out the lay of the land, not sure if he was one of those boy dogs that peed on things to mark his territory. If so, her puppy might be seeing a lot of the inside of his dog crate this week. She hoped not.
Directly ahead was a courtyard and pond under a giant bubble skylight and beyond that the sunken living room. The right side of the house was a dining room and kitchen, all open to the view of the ocean through glass panels. The two-story left side looked to be the bedrooms. The courtyard had a life-size dolphin statue fountain and a koi pond with giant Koi swimming lazily. Lena couldn’t help but think her daughters would have loved to feed the fish. Beyond the living room, was a swimming pool on a deck that stretched the length of the house and overlooked the beach below. Lena glanced to a grinning Pepper.
Pretty swanky, eh?” her friend gestured grandly.
“Beyond swanky. I’m speechless.” Lena’s eyes were wide. “I feel the need to run through all the rooms, twirling and yelling ‘I get to stay here.’” She followed Pepper into the living room with its L- shaped couches, low coffee tables, grand piano, and a humpback whale statue in one corner near the bar. Seeing the white couches and tan chairs, Lena was glad her new dog had white hair and hoped he was trained to stay off the furniture. Pepper pointed to a spot between the couch and the piano and exclaimed that was where the tree would go.
Lena whistled. “This place is amazing.”
Pepper unlocked the glass panel doors and with Lena’s help they folded them accordion-style to the corners of the house to make the place look like it was missing walls on the ocean side. “What a great trick. I love this!” They walked to the edge of the patio, past the pool and stared at the sandy beach seven feet below. “Incredible.”
“I know, right? When I started dating Jake, I worried that I loved his house more than him, but soon realized it’s just a building.”
“A very nice building with a five million-dollar view.” In the distance, beyond a vast stretch of blue ocean, Molokai loomed tall.
Olaf was freed from his leash and he rushed to a grassy spot to fall on his back, his legs kicked up in the air.
Lena laughed. “He’s found his favorite thing about the house.”
“When Jake bought this place, we’d been dating several months, and I always wondered if he wanted to show me he was committed to me and Maui.”
“That’s sweet, Pepper.”
“I thought so. Then, he’d stay away for weeks, then months at a time. He kept saying I could live here but that felt too much like being a kept woman, waiting for my sugar daddy to come visit.”
Lena understood. “Is it wrong that I’m comparing this with my own house and feeling like I live in a cardboard box?”
“You live in a house at least. Think of me. I live in a condo with a kitchen the size of that Escalade.” They chuckled as Pepper led them to the kitchen where Lena had to keep from drooling over the size, the appliances, the chef’s stainless-steel countertop.
“I can’t wait to bring in the groceries,” Lena said, running her hand across the Sub-Zero fridge. “If you don’t want Jake, I do,” she joked.
Moving to the far side of the house, beyond the courtyard, Lena chose a bedroom with a view of the ocean with late-night access to the lawn from a sliding patio door. The room had a Queen bed with a fluffy hibiscus- print duvet, a chest of drawers, an armchair, and a nightstand with a wooden pineapple lamp. It was a perfect guest room with an attached bathroom. Lena tied the string of bells she’d bought at the dog store to the sliding door handle and hoped Olaf remembered to ring the doorbell to go outside. She’d also picked up a spray bottle of carpet cleaner, just to be safe.
The deck was
fenced, something that made Lena feel better about having Olaf off his leash. He had nowhere to escape to if he decided to make a mad dash for the Big Island.
* * * * *
By dinnertime, the two friends had polished off a bottle of French Bordeaux and were laughing their way through making coq au vin, one of Lena’s favorites. Paired with fresh Kula greens and wild rice, the chicken was served, and they took plates to the patio table by the pool.
“I can’t believe we’re going to make a turkey dinner with all the trimmings in four days.” Lena remarked. “Do you have anyone you’d like to invite who might be a big eater?” They had enough food in the fridge for twenty people.
“I’ll think about it, but everyone is already committed, I think. I’m looking forward to learning a few cooking tricks,” Pepper said, knowing her limitations in the kitchen.
“Turkey is easy. It’s everything else that takes time and know how.” Lena said with a forkful of chicken half way to her mouth. “Turkey at Christmas is one of my traditions, but a fifteen pounder is pretty big for two people. We’re going to have to make turkey soup on the twenty-sixth.”
“I would ask my friend Tina and her husband, Jamey, for dinner but they have company from the mainland this year. She’s pregnant and is a really good eater right now,” Pepper joked.
As the sun set in front of them and Pepper got ready for her nine to twelve gig at the Ritz Hotel, Lena tried to not think about her daughters. A planned Skype call had been earlier cancelled by Tammy because, according to a new text, the children had gone to sleep early after a big day. Lena had called Billy to ask if they girls couldn’t come to the phone and he’d said sympathetically that Tammy had just shut their door. Hearing her ex-husband’s voice made Lena feel slightly better, knowing that he had arrived home from work at least.
When this visitation had been planned a month ago, Billy had promised to spend lots of time with the girls. It was the slow season for real estate. That fact reassured Lena about the long visit. Billy might have been opposed to having children before they got pregnant, but he loved his daughters, even if he wasn’t exactly sure how to handle little girls. Charlotte and Audrey would be fine.
Lena had to keep telling herself that.
Chapter 3
KALANI
Kalani had a backache the size of his back and then some, as he rolled up his sleeping bag and the thin sleeping pad he’d used on the floor of his farm office. He wouldn’t be able to sleep another night like that. Having broken his back, years earlier, a good night’s sleep and mattress was always a consideration. After a two-week stay in the hospital and a year of physical therapy, he was determined to not let these next nights ruin all the work he’d done to get his back in shape.
As he stretched through exercises suggested by his physical therapist, Kalani thought about where he’d sleep tonight. It was Christmas week and hotels would be booked solid. His friends had their own families and agendas. He needed comfort and wasn’t afraid to admit it. To Latte, anyhow. “We’re going to have to get a hotel room.” he whispered. Noticing his dog by the door, he chuckled. “Did I forget about you, Girl?” He let Latte outside the office, for her morning business, his back still feeling like he’d been trampled by a group of Sumo wrestlers.
Checking in to see what the civil defense director was now saying about the flow this morning, Kalani was disappointed to see the evacuation was still on. A spokesperson for the Volcano Observatory said scientists had been measuring and walking alongside the flow and the speed had increased to twenty yards per hour. Although it wasn’t like in the movies where the townspeople can’t run away fast enough, it was still dangerous and destructive. The most recent report online said the lava had come within two hundred feet of the edge of a road leading to his house. Too close.
Kona was in his future. Or closer, if he could find anything. Last night, lying in his makeshift bed trying to fall asleep to the tune of Latte’s snoring, Kalani had wracked his brain trying to think of anyone nearby with a spare bedroom, but all his friends had family visiting for Christmas or were also in the path of Kilauea’s wrath. Any accommodation between here and Kona was most likely filled for the Christmas week.
When the Kona Java employees arrived for their last day of work before a Christmas break, Kalani asked if anyone had a spare bed and could take him and Latte for a few days. Only one of his four workers had room, but his kids were allergic to dogs. All Kalani’s buddies from his diving club lived in Kona. He’d make some calls when he drove over there today, see if anyone wanted a big guy with a bad back and a Pitbull mix for Christmas.
He drove the few miles up the road to check on his house, Latte riding shotgun and pulled over where the police tape had sectioned off the road. Even though the lava hadn’t reached the road, Kalani could see it was headed that way.
Leaving the dog in the jeep, he approached the cop, not the same guy from yesterday. “I live down the road. Got evacuated. How fast is it traveling? Have you heard?” He put his hands on his hips and squinted in the sunshine.
The uniformed policeman nodded to a group of official-looking people inside the taped off area who conferred with grim looks on their faces. A stake in the ground marked something. “Last I heard it was down to three feet an hour and they expect it to turn before it reaches the road if the flow doesn’t increase to push it over.”
Kalani nodded. So much had to do with the amount of lava advancing, the rise and fall of the land and even the temperature outside. “Let’s hope it doesn’t make it here.” He walked the length of the tape, staring at the field of pitch black lava, now hardened except the last ten feet at the edge, and thought about the ancient legends his Hawaiian mother had taught him as a child. Pele, the goddess of fire and volcanoes had made her final home on this island, digging her final fire pit after creating the Hawaiian Islands. The Halemaumau Crater’s newest activity from Kilauea’s peak was evidence of Pele still creating these islands. Remembering the legend, Kalani again missed his sweet, gentle mother, a woman who’d married a man when she’d fallen hopelessly in love. A man who now didn’t speak to him.
Kalani knew there was nothing he could do to help save his house if Pele planned to take the land. He might as well head back to Kona and check in at the Christmas Coffee tasting bar that he and two other friends opened a year earlier. At least over there, he’d have a purpose, even if he didn’t have a bed to sleep on.
LENA
Waking at seven a.m., raring to go, Olaf jumped off the bed and stood at the patio door, ringing the bell. The sky was an indigo sheet that hung over the ocean, not yet light although doves had started coo’ing from the trees and morning was on its way.
When Olaf finished his business, and was back inside the bedroom, Lena dressed in jean shorts and a T-shirt that read, “Not my First Rodeo” and headed for the kitchen to make coffee. Maybe she’d make bracelets before Pepper woke. Last night, while Pepper worked, Lena had almost finished her big order for Beach Girl Jewelry while half listening to a movie about a lost dog at Christmas. She’d been happy with Olaf lying at her feet.
With a giant mug of Kona coffee at her elbow and a tub of jewelry supplies in front of her on the dining room table, Lena set to finishing the bracelets that had one single charm like a sand dollar, dolphin, wishbone, whale and flip flops. Olaf sniffed around the deck, exploring the outside area while the sky lightened, and by the time Lena had the last twenty bracelets finished, her back was sore from sitting still. Standing, she turned towards a noise to see a shirtless man standing at the foot of the staircase leading to the second floor.
She screamed.
The man threw his hands in the air, palms out, as if to surrender. As he did so, Pepper flew down the last few stairs.
“I told you to wait for me, Jake,” she chided, walking past the man. “Sorry Jake scared you, Lena.” She turned to the man at the bottom of the stairs. “Lena is the friend from Kona I told you about last night.”
So, this was
Jake, the owner of this showpiece house.
He moved forward, smiling warmly and bent to pet Olaf who’d gone from barking to cautiously wagging. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out, but I smelled coffee. My name is Jake and I’m a coffee addict,” he joked in a monotone voice.
Lena had only ever seen photos of Jake when he and Pepper dated, and he’d always worn a cap. “Sorry I screamed, especially because this is your house, and no one has the right to come down those stairs and go for coffee more than you.”
Jake was attractive--tanned, with a kind face, grey hair at his temples and distinguished looking. Lena could understand how Pepper would fall for him. He was a nice-looking man in his forties--trim and fit. She remembered hearing that Jake was a tennis player.
“Mind if I pour myself a cup?” he headed for the kitchen. “I’m a little hungover.” He playfully pinched Pepper on the way by. “How much did I have to drink last night? Pretty sure it was your fault.”
“You drank your way through all four sets.” Pepper called after him and threw a look Lena’s way. “He was all ready to check in to the Ritz, and I said he could stay at his own house.”
“I’m leaving today for Aspen,” he called from across the room in the kitchen.
Judging from their playful banter, and exchanged looks, Lena wondered if the two had spent the night together, something that made her feel wistful and almost envious. What would it feel like to be held in a man’s arms again? She didn’t know. Kona was a small town and any of its single men were either too young, drunks, surfers, or tourists. Dating was not something Lena had thought much about, being too occupied caring for her girls. Still, watching Pepper and Jake flirt in the kitchen, Lena longed for something fun in her life.
Once seated by the pool with cups of coffee, the story came out. Jake had showed up at the Ritz, Pepper saw him ready to check in, and paged him over her microphone. He wandered in to the bar, sat down, and on the set break explained he was on Maui for one night. He needed to grab some legal papers from his safe at the house tomorrow and she had insisted he stay with her.
Romancing the Holidays: Twelve Christmas Romances - Benefits Breast Cancer Research Page 45