Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance)

by Cara Lockwood

  “Wait—Kai’s aunt? What does Kai’s aunt have to do with my grandma’s estate?” Confusion flickered across Allie’s face.

  Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t tell me this was a clause in the will.” She turned to Allie, her brow wrinkled in frustration.

  “I didn’t know,” Allie confessed, having clearly missed that part. She took the will from Dallas’s hands and scoured the wording.

  Jennifer sighed, annoyed. “Well, this is a waste of my time, then.” Her cheery manner disappeared, and she turned away from Allie.

  “Wait—where are you going?”

  “Call me after you talk to Kaimana,” Jennifer said, slipping on her designer sunglasses as she walked back to her BMW. “That is, if she’ll talk to you.”

  “Wait!” Allie called.

  “Don’t bother.” Dallas narrowed his eyes as they both watched Jennifer roar back out of the driveway.

  “The lawyer didn’t read that clause over the phone,” Allie said.

  “Nope, he didn’t.” Dallas grinned.

  “But you knew it was there all along.” Allie turned on Dallas, her eyes flashing. He didn’t know how she did it, but she managed to look diabolically sexy when she was mad. Dallas had to admit, maybe he didn’t mind pushing her buttons. “You couldn’t have mentioned it to me before?”

  “Me?” A harsh laugh escaped Dallas. “If you were the one who wanted to strip the land and sell it to no-good resort developers for a quick buck, then you should’ve read the fine print. You had a copy of the will.”

  “Yeah, but...that’s not fair.” Allie balled up the photocopy of the will in her hands.

  “Oh, really? What else do you call looting your grandmother’s property?”

  “I’m not looting!” Allie looked mad enough to spit.

  “That’s right. Not on my watch you’re not,” Dallas warned, taking another step closer. “You’ll have to go through me first.”

  “You aren’t even family.” Allie’s face turned beet red as anger strangled her words. “What gives you the right...”

  “Misu gave me the right. I’m part of this, too, whether you like it or not. She split the land between us for a reason. You haven’t been acting like family! You don’t know the first thing about your grandmother. You haven’t even visited, not once in the five years I’ve been here. Maybe if you’d come, even once, you’d see the land is worth keeping. But you didn’t bother!”

  His words found their mark, better even than he thought they would. Allie suddenly looked as if she might slap him straight across the face.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she ground out, eyes blazing, hands balled into fists at her sides.

  “I know you didn’t come to her funeral. What kind of granddaughter does that?”

  Allie looked stricken, as if he’d slapped her right across the face. The pain was evident, and Dallas was surprised to see it. He hadn’t thought Allie cared, one way or another. Now, seeing her face, he realized he was wrong. But it was too late to take back what he’d said. The words hung between them like a barbed-wire fence.

  Allie said nothing, just turned her back on him and stalked away. He almost called out to her, but something in the way she rigidly moved away from him stopped him cold.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ALLIE FURIOUSLY SWIPED at the tears on her face. She wasn’t the one who’d abandoned her grandmother. When had Grandma Misu visited, even once, in the twenty years Allie and her mother had struggled on the mainland, moving from one job to the next? What had her grandmother ever done for her besides the annual birthday and Christmas cards she got every year, sometimes weeks late because they were sent to an old address?

  Sure, she felt bad about missing the funeral. She should’ve gone, should’ve somehow managed the heroic strength to put aside her heartbreak over Jason and just shown up, but, honestly, she’d never asked her grandmother for this land. She had never asked her grandmother for anything. How could she? She lived an ocean away in a different time zone. She knew her grandmother loved her, knew that she hadn’t been swimming in cash, but still. Part of Allie felt as if it was just one more person who wasn’t there when she needed them most.

  Long ago, before Allie’s father died, Allie had been the apple of Misu’s eye. That was what she remembered—a doting grandmother who sewed her clothes and played endless rounds of doll tea parties on her breezy veranda. But the car crash had changed all that.

  Allie still remembered the screech of tires, the sudden crack of metal and glass like a clap of thunder ripping apart the sky. The car accident had taken her father’s life and altered hers forever. One of the therapists she’d seen once had called it survivor’s guilt. But Allie thought they should just speak plainly: the accident had been her fault. She knew the truth. Her mother knew it. Grandma Misu knew it. If Allie hadn’t been in the backseat of the car that day, her father would still be alive. She’d been the reason he’d swerved into the other lane. Allie wouldn’t have spent a childhood moving from town to town, her mother chasing whatever low-paying job she could find.

  After the accident, everything had changed. Grandma Misu changed. Her only son, dead. She wouldn’t get out of bed. Couldn’t even hug Allie goodbye that morning she and her mother left.

  Allie blinked fast, pushing away the memory. Dallas had it all wrong. Allie hadn’t abandoned her grandmother; her grandmother had left her first. Not that she blamed her. Allie had paid the price for the car accident: she’d grown up largely alone.

  It was why she’d fallen so hard for Jason. He had a huge family, and they all lived near him in Chicago. When she’d met them, a big Irish clan that got together every Fourth of July and nearly every other holiday, she felt like at last, she was part of a family. A real family. If she was honest with herself, she missed Jason’s sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles even more than she missed him.

  She sat on one of the bamboo chairs on her grandmother’s porch, staring off toward the rooftop of Kaimana’s house, just visible above the coffee trees in the distance. She’d have to go talk to the woman sometime. She hadn’t seen Kai’s aunt in nearly twenty years. She’d been her grandmother’s best friend. She held the paper in her hand, the release paper she’d dug out of her copy of the will, the one Kaimana would have to sign to let Allie sell. She’d love to see Dallas’s face after she managed to get it signed.

  She thought about Dallas and then felt a flash of anger once more. She had no idea how he’d wormed his way into her grandmother’s good graces, but Allie didn’t trust him, and it had nothing to do with Jason or her dislike of men at the moment. Dallas was up to no good.

  Allie pulled herself to her feet. It was time to talk to Kaimana, see if she’d be open to getting this over with quickly.

  She walked down the path of coffee trees and marveled at the bright coffee berries hanging from the branches. Many had turned from green to orange. The breeze brought the smell of the ocean and the raw scent of leaves in the sun. A red bird flew by, landing on a nearby branch. A bright orange, almost red, berry fell to the dirt near Allie’s feet, and she was overcome with a sudden memory of her and Kai playing tag in the thick foliage. She’d nearly collided with her father’s ladder, where he had climbed up high, basket dangling from his forearm as he picked coffee cherries. He’d smiled down at her, a berry dropping from his nearly full container.

  “Careful, I don’t want a broken leg, now,” he’d warned her, half teasing, a twinkle in his eye as he grinned, showing off the big dimple in his left cheek.

  Allie stopped, the memory vivid as it washed over her. She thought she’d long since cataloged every last image she had of her father. But this one was new. She held the hard berry between her fingers and rolled it, just like she’d done when she was five. She stood awhile in the same spot, waiting for something more to come to her, but it didn’t. That was what memories of her father were like: fleeting.

  Like all the men in her life, she mused, thinking abo
ut Jason. No pity party, Allie. No time for that.

  She glanced at the nearly red cherry in her hand and studied it.

  How did it become that brown split bean she’d seen in countless bags of coffee lining store shelves?

  She had no idea. Allie liked coffee, okay, as long as it was loaded up with enough sugar and cream that she could barely even taste the coffee bean. Never even had a cup of Kona that she remembered. Funny, she thought. Her father had loved coffee, claimed no other coffee on earth rivaled the richness of Kona. The dark, fertile soil made by the volcano made it so good, he’d said.

  She’d never learned to drink coffee straight like he did. Hers was always laden with vanilla syrups and milk, mocha or caramel drizzle. She rolled the red berry between her finger and thumb, thinking as she walked.

  The cool breeze coming down from the mountain caressed her bare shoulder. Clouds rolled in off the hillside from seemingly nowhere. A big raindrop splashed in the black dirt in front of her. Odd, she thought, since to the south the sky was a clear blue. Guess it was a tropical shower. She hurried her pace and came to an open clearing, where a bright blue house stood. Where Kai had grown up. It had been painted since she’d been there last, and the porch furniture was different, but she was surprised by how familiar it seemed. She remembered the big mango tree sprouting up in the yard. She and Kai would climb it daily and see who could pick the fruit from the highest branches.

  Another raindrop fell, followed by several others, plunking hard in the nearly black lava soil. She barely made it the hundred or so feet to the porch, before the rain came down in sheets, blanketing the rows of Kona coffee trees behind her in warm tropical rain. She shook raindrops from her hair as she eyed the front door. Bright pink-and-white tropical flowers grew near the porch. A huge bird of paradise rose up from the edge of the porch step, a magnificent flower growing like an ordinary marigold.

  She rapped hard on the door. Seconds later, a heavyset woman with warm eyes and thick black hair, a silver streak running through it, opened the screen door. Allie recognized the familiar smile. She wore her same old flowered muumuu with a shiny dark macadamia-nut necklace. Besides the streaks of gray in her hair, she had aged little in twenty years.

  “Aloha,” she said in greeting.

  “Aloha.” Allie smiled. “I’m Allie Osaka. Misu Osaka’s granddaughter? Remember me?”

  “Aah... Uh... Ōlelo Hawai’i ’oe?”

  Allie blinked at the woman. Was she speaking Hawaiian?

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Ōlelo Hawai’i ’oe?” the woman repeated, looking at Allie expectantly. Allie shook her head and spread her hands.

  “Do you speak English?” Allie asked her, wondering if the woman only spoke Hawaiian. Was that even possible? She didn’t remember that before, but then her memory was spotty.

  “A’ole no e law aka makaukau ma ho’okahi wale no olelo.”

  Now Allie was completely lost. Kaimana held up one finger, the international sign for “wait” and then disappeared back inside her house. She came back a few minutes later with a bag of her grandmother’s coffee.

  “Kona coffee?” Allie asked, pointing to the cup and then to the trees behind her.

  Kaimana nodded. “Kona,” she repeated, and pointed to the row of coffee trees behind her as she handed her the open ziplock bag. She smelled it and was immediately reminded of her father. He’d always smelled like fresh roasted coffee.

  “Uh... Mahalo.” Allie knew the Hawaiian word for thank you. That and aloha were the extent of her Hawaiian language skills.

  “A’ole pilikia,” Kaimana said.

  “Mmm,” she murmured, inhaling.

  Kaimana nodded, as if she knew this already. Allie felt hopeful then. Maybe she did understand English.

  Allie held the bag, wondering what it would taste like brewed. She should’ve made more of an effort to know her grandmother, to know her coffee. But it had been so expensive. Kaimana watched her, smiling all the while.

  Then she disappeared back inside her house and soon reappeared, carrying a teak bowl filled with hibiscus flowers and a half-strung lei. She bustled out to the porch and sank down on a wooden rocking chair, motioning for Allie to sit in the other. She began stringing the lei while Allie held the coffee, wondering what to do next.

  Nearby, bright-colored birds chirped, and a warm breeze blew, rattling the delicate glass wind chimes hanging from Kaimana’s porch. They made a high tinkling sound.

  “Ms. Mahi’ai...”

  “Kaimana,” she interrupted, pointing at herself.

  “Yes, uh...Kaimana, I’m not sure if you understand me, but my grandma Misu...”

  “Misu,” Kaimana repeated and nodded.

  “Yes, Misu. She left me the coffee plantation, but I need to sell it. Misu wanted me to get your permission before I did that and...”

  Kaimana’s face looked blank as she strung flowers on the lei.

  Allie realized none of what she was saying was going in. She barreled on anyway.

  “I need you to sign this paper, please.” Allie reached in her back pocket and pulled out the folded slip as well as the ballpoint pen she’d stashed there. She pretended to write with the pen on the paper and pointed to Kaimana afterward. “You. Sign?”

  Kaimana made no move to pick up the paper. Instead, she finished looping the last flower on the string and expertly tied it, her brown fingers working nimbly. She held it up for Allie to inspect and said, “Nani?”

  Allie had no idea what she meant, so she just nodded. “Uh... Nani.” And nodded again.

  “Ko Aloha Makamae E Ipo,” Kaimana said, smiling, as she stood and draped the lei around Allie’s neck. It was beautiful and soft, emanating a sweet, tropical fragrance.

  “Oh, I couldn’t accept this.”

  Kaimana shook her head and put up her hands, showing she wouldn’t take it back. “Nau wale no.”

  At a loss, Allie had no choice but to take it. “Mahalo,” Allie said finally. “But about the paper. If you could just sign...”

  Kaimana waved the paper away. “Dallas,” she said.

  “Dallas?” Allie echoed. “No, Dallas can’t sign this. Dallas...” Wouldn’t, even if he could.

  “Dallas,” Kaimana said, sounding certain he would handle it. “A’ole pilikia. Aloha ’auinala. Kipa hou mai,” Kaimana said, and she patted Allie on the shoulder and then went back inside and closed her door. Allie heard the lock being thrown.

  “Kaimana? Ms. Mahi’ai? Are you in there?” Allie knocked, but Kaimana didn’t come to the door. “Hello? Uh...aloha?” Allie knocked once more.

  Again, she heard nothing.

  That went well, she thought sarcastically, staring at her unsigned piece of paper and Kaimana’s locked door. What now?

  Allie stomped back across the plantation and found Dallas casually unloading a big toolbox from the back of his black pickup. She felt irrationally angry at him as he worked. If he wasn’t so stubborn, so full of himself, maybe the two of them could’ve found some kind of compromise. He glanced up and tipped his straw cowboy hat in her direction, his blue eyes amused.

  “Ma’am,” he drawled. She ignored him. He let out a low chuckle as she walked past. “How did that conversation with Kaimana go?”

  She whirled on him, his smug grin feeling like salt in her paper cut.

  “As if you don’t know,” Allie spat out, annoyed. Dallas had sent her over there knowing full well she’d get nowhere without a translator. “She doesn’t even speak English!”

  Dallas raised his eyebrows in surprise and then inexplicably burst into laughter.

  Allie shifted uneasily, foot to foot. “What’s so funny?” Allie felt exposed, as if she might suddenly be transported back to the cafeteria in middle school. The joke was on her; she just didn’t know how.

  Dallas nearly had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard. He laid a big strong hand across his flat stomach as he howled.

  “She speaks English just fin
e,” he managed to get out.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s one hundred percent fluent, as fluent as you or I. But when she doesn’t like what’s going on, she’ll usually refuse to speak English. Just ask the traffic cop who pulled her over for speeding last month.”

  Understanding dawned on Allie a beat too late. “She tricked me?”

  “Probably just wanted to put you off for a little while,” Dallas said and grinned. His blue eyes sparkled. He clearly was enjoying this. “Whatever you were asking her about, she didn’t like.”

  Allie felt a surge of annoyance and complete embarrassment for making a fool of herself by blubbering on as if Kaimana didn’t understand her, complete with full pantomime. Yet she considered the idea of a near stranger banging down her door and asking to sell the property of her once dearest friend in the world. Okay, maybe she hadn’t been the most tactful there. She still felt like a total idiot. And Dallas got a good laugh out it. At her expense. That was the worst part. She felt her cheeks burn. He’d probably sent her there knowing full well she’d be tricked.

  “You’re still going to have to talk to me about selling,” Allie said. “Even if I can’t get her signature, I’ll find a way.”

  “Maybe you should just get used to growing coffee. At some point, we’ll have to talk about the harvest.”

  Allie felt a flash of anger. The last place on earth she wanted to settle down was Hawaii, the place her father died. And the last man on earth she ever wanted to deal with was Dallas McCormick. He reminded her of Jason, of the kind of man who thought the world owed him everything.

  “I’ll talk about the harvest as soon as you talk about selling.”

  Dallas’s blue eyes grew cold like steel. “Not going to happen,” he told her, shaking his head. She watched as he picked up the toolbox and began walking toward the big metal barn on the property. Her side of the property, she realized.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded, hands on her hips.