“You be careful out here,” the officer said. “I got a report of looters.”
“The waves just hit!” Allie exclaimed, talking for the first time.
“I know. But that’s the perfect time for some people.” Lyle shook his head with resignation like a man who’d come to expect the worst from people. “Been up all night trying to sort out this mess. They just sounded the all clear. You could go check on the Kona Coffee Estate. No need for the two of you to be stuck out here in the rain.” He winked at Dallas, and Dallas really wished he hadn’t. Allie crossed her arms over her chest.
“Uh, yeah, I guess we’ll be on our way,” Dallas said, hoping Lyle would take the hint and get. He was a solid stand-up guy underneath, but he had no idea how to talk to women, or around them. Right now he was making Allie feel one inch tall. She stuffed her arms back into Dallas’s sweatshirt, not looking at him.
“Oh, yeah, man, didn’t mean to interrupt the party.” Lyle glanced at Allie’s bare legs appreciatively, which made Dallas want to punch the man in the face. Only the idea of getting hauled in on charges of assaulting an officer kept his hands on the steering wheel.
He thought about calling Lyle out, denying his island reputation, but figured he’d only give the officer an excuse to dig himself in deeper. Lyle had seen Dallas take home one too many drunk girls to believe he’d just dropped them off at their hotel. Which he had done, every single time. He didn’t sleep with girls who were too tipsy to say yes. The tourist he had slept with had had one mai tai.
“See you at Lu’s!”
Dallas cringed. Lu’s was where tourists and hard-partying locals hung out. You only went there if you wanted to get drunk fast, which was exactly what Dallas had wanted to do the year after he broke up with Jennifer. Drunken bar fights were a regular weekend occurrence there, but he didn’t want Allie to think that was how he liked to spend his time.
Dallas held up a two fingers. “Bye, Lyle.” He watched the officer retreat to his police car, pulled up behind them. He turned to Allie. “Sorry about that... Lyle...”
“Is an old friend. I get it.” Allie hugged herself a little and then yawned. “I guess we should go to the estate, right?”
“Are you sure?” he asked, hopeful that maybe she had something else in mind. All he wanted to do was get back to that minute before when she’d been kissing the life out of him. “The tree house isn’t far. You could rest there. We’ve been up all night.”
“Why not just stay up? Sun’s out.” The rain was letting up, and the storm seemed to be passing. The sky cleared again, and the sun shone through the clouds above them. She glanced through the window and then added, “We can go back to the plantation. Don’t you want to see if everything’s okay?”
Dallas did want to, but he wanted to resume kissing Allie more. But Lyle had ruined that for him.
“Sure, let’s go.” He turned the ignition in the truck and turned back onto the road. They fell into a silence as disappointment settled in. He’d never thought he’d ever be able to want someone after Jennifer. Allie was so unlike his ex-girlfriend, it was almost comical.
Still, he wondered if he was ready to get involved with someone else. He still remembered that day he’d found Jennifer in bed with the producer. She’d left the door open, almost as if she’d wanted him to find her there, as if she dared him to do something about it. Well, he had. He’d packed a bag and he’d left.
Nothing she’d said then would convince him to stay. She’d threatened to do all kinds of terrible things to him, to spread lies about him, to turn Kayla against him, too, and vowed he’d never see her again. But he’d been done with the emotional blackmail, done with her, done with a relationship he saw could never be fixed, because she didn’t want to fix it or herself. She liked how she was, the destruction she caused for other people, and she had no intention of ever changing. He’d spent too long trying to fix her wounds. Part of him knew it wasn’t entirely her fault. She’d had a crappy childhood, and most people she’d known in her life had failed her. But at some point, he thought adults needed to stop blaming other people for their troubles and decide whether they were going to set their own selves on their feet or spend their lives playing the victim. Dallas hated leaving Kayla, but in the end, he felt he couldn’t help her by staying. They’d both be pawns in her mother’s narcissistic game.
The hardest part of that day had been saying goodbye to Kayla. He’d come back to the house to get more of his clothes. Of course, she couldn’t understand why he was leaving. She was a bright girl, with her mom’s piercing green eyes and blond hair. Her dad lived somewhere in California, but that was all Dallas knew about him. He’d been out of the picture since she was born.
He’d had her promise to call him if she ever needed anything, even though he knew her mother would never let her.
“You’re a fine, smart, wonderful kid,” he’d told her, before he’d choked up. “I wish I could stay, but I can’t.”
Kayla had just blinked at him, confused. “Why not?”
“Because...sometimes adults don’t always get along.”
“Say you’re sorry,” she’d advised him, holding Mr. Cuddles close. “And Mommy, too. Mommy can say she’s sorry.”
His heart had broken then. She was too little to understand that there were some things you simply couldn’t apologize for. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, walking out on that little girl with the big green eyes bright with tears.
He’d thrown his suitcases in his truck. He’d driven away from the house they shared, and was grateful to Misu, who’d let him move back into his old place, the guesthouse on her property.
Dallas had thought that was the worst of it. But Jennifer wasn’t done with him. That very same day, she’d gone online, used passwords she’d guessed right and transferred all but one dollar out of his accounts. It was close to fifty thousand dollars, more or less, and everything he had that wasn’t tied up in investments or CDs, which he couldn’t touch for at least two more years. She’d stolen from him, not just Kayla and his trust, but everything in his bank account, too.
He could have gone after her for it, could’ve called the police, but then what? Kayla’s mom would go to jail. That was, if he could have proved he hadn’t given her the passwords and told her to take the money. She’d argue he did.
And if he had pressed charges, everyone on the island would have heard about it. The gossip would have flown fierce and decisive, and Kayla would hade been hurt by it. She’d grow up being the daughter of the thief, or she’d grow up in a foster home if her mom went to jail. Either way, Kayla got hurt. Dallas had refused to go after Jennifer for the money, and he’d chosen not to battle the gossip, either. Anything he said to defend himself would just prove Jennifer’s guilt. Dallas knew the power of gossip in a small town. He’d come from one. He wasn’t going to do that to Kayla. He hurt Kayla enough by leaving, and he damn sure wasn’t going to hurt that precious girl any more. If he had to be the bad guy, it was a price he was willing to pay.
He glanced over at Allie in his passenger seat, as she stared away from him out her window. He knew all about guilt, about how it could eat you up inside. He hoped she believed him that it wasn’t her fault about her dad. He could see plainly that she was a woman who struggled with trusting people, too, and he could see why. The most important people in her life had failed her. He wanted to help her get past this, but wondered if he even could. He thought of Kayla, knowing he had his own burden to carry. He tried to imagine a time when he didn’t feel bad about leaving, and couldn’t. It might well haunt him for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AS DALLAS AND Allie drove back down to the Kona Coffee Estate, they saw most of the higher elevations untouched by the tsunami. Carloads of fleeing Hawaiians steadily made their way back to their homes, and Allie worried for them: Would they find their houses intact? Or return to splintered rubble? She remembered the tourist they had seen floating in the floodwaters. How many p
eople had died? How many families would be torn apart? How many daughters would lose their fathers? With so many people likely to be suffering, Allie felt selfish holding on to her little traumas of her past.
For the first time, she thought, maybe she needed to let them go.
Somehow she’d been afraid to take a closer look at her past, afraid that if she did, she’d find only more blame. But Dallas had helped her see how wrong she’d been to keep it all bottled up for so long. She was afraid to look too hard, afraid of the anger she’d feel toward her dad.
It’s not your fault. She tried that on for size, and actually for the first time, she actually started to believe it. It’s not my fault. She wanted to say it out loud, to make the words official somehow. Dallas was onto something. All those years her father had missed with her, all those birthdays, and holidays, and first days of school. Her heart ached when she thought of all those times she’d wished her father had been there. And he wasn’t. And she’d blamed herself.
But she couldn’t be mad at him, either. It wasn’t her fault or his.
Sometimes, she guessed, it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Not really. Bad things just happened in life, and it was about what you did next. Did you let them keep you down forever? Or did you pick yourself up and try again?
Get knocked down seven times, get up eight. Wasn’t that what Grandma Misu had always said? It had been her favorite Japanese proverb. Maybe it was time she listened.
She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with that information, but she’d figure something out. She was grateful to Dallas for the advice, and yet, she also knew she had to be careful. Dallas wasn’t someone she could get involved with. He may not have cheated on Jennifer, but everywhere she turned, she saw new evidence that he liked to play around. She didn’t want to think about how quickly her body responded to him, how eager she was to throw caution completely to the wind, consequences be damned. What would’ve happened if that officer hadn’t knocked on their window? Allie felt as if she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself. She realized, a beat too late, she didn’t even have a condom. Did he? Would they just jump in blindly and hope everything worked out?
Never before had she even considered doing anything so reckless.
But did she really want to be one in a parade of women through his bedroom door? Allie already knew the answer. She’d shared her fiancé with another woman and she’d hated it. She hated the idea of someone not thinking she was enough. She was done sharing. The next time—if there was a next time—she wanted a man who could be true, who didn’t need his head turned every ten minutes by something or someone new.
Allie glanced at Dallas’s rugged profile as he kept his eyes steady on the road. She couldn’t hope to keep him interested, not in the long term, not when he’d had so many conquests under his belt. She’d be a fool to risk it. Her heart was barely mended, practically still in pieces. She should find that cop who’d interrupted their little make-out session and thank him for preventing her from making a mistake of a lifetime.
They drove to the Kona Coffee Estate, and Allie could feel Dallas tense as they made their way up the seemingly untouched driveway. The fence was intact, as were the first rows of thick coffee trees, their branches heavy with bright red berries ready to be picked. As they ascended the drive to Misu’s house, Allie saw it stood untouched by the disaster, completely and radiantly in one piece. She’d never been so glad to see her grandmother’s porch. She realized, belatedly, that all her grandmother’s things were inside. I’d have lost what was left of her if the tsunami had taken it. Allie felt an immediate rush of gratitude. She’d have more time to sift through her grandmother’s things.
And then she felt an even bigger sense of gladness: the property was still whole. She could still sell it. She had to convince Kaimana, but that came after the coffee festival. She still had a chance. The thought buoyed her, made her feel instantly lighter. My escape plan is still in place.
But was that what she wanted? She didn’t know. She wasn’t sure anymore. Did she want to be alone in a world where disaster could strike at any minute? Wasn’t it better to be with people you loved than alone?
Dallas parked the truck near Misu’s house and Allie ran in, just to be sure. Just to check that somehow the water hadn’t made its way inside with no residue on the outside. Allie found the house just the way she’d left it: her suitcase open on the bed, her rinsed dishes from breakfast in the sink. Nothing was out of place. Nothing touched. Allie went outside to tell Dallas the good news, and found him back by the roasting barn, inspecting all the equipment for making coffee. He wore an expression of intense concentration as he went through each piece of equipment, checking it out from top to bottom.
“Everything okay?” Allie asked.
“All good,” Dallas said, relief on his face. Allie and he shared a grin, and for the briefest of seconds, she wanted to launch herself into his arms, to kiss him to death. We made it! she wanted to shout. We’re going to be fine!
“My house,” Dallas said, as if remembering it for the first time. He rushed out of the barn, and Allie followed him. He strode down the small path between the tall coffee trees, but skidded to an abrupt stop when the trees parted. Allie nearly collided with his back.
“What...the...” But then Allie saw why he’d stopped. Here, on this side of the property, closest to the shore, the water had come, and it had come in force. Several rows of coffee trees had been completely leveled flat, swept off by the floodwaters. But even more shocking, half of Dallas’s house had been washed away; the other half lay in a tangled, slumped mess on muddied ground.
“Oh, Dallas,” Allie moaned, reaching out to touch his elbow, but he was gone, moving away from her, his hands deep in his thick blond hair, as if he hoped to pull it out and make everything in front of him disappear. He walked to what was left of his front door and through it, sinking into thick mud up to his ankles. “Dallas—be careful!” Allie followed him up to his collapsing porch and peered into his house. Half of it: the kitchen and living room looked strangely unscathed. The back bedroom and indoor bathroom, however, had been mostly swept away. Pipes lay twisted and torn, coming up from where his bathroom had been. A toilet with no door or walls sat strangely in the middle of the muck.
He disappeared back to his bedroom and came out with a handful of clothes.
“All I could salvage right now,” he said, his face registering shock. “I don’t know what to even... Where to start...”
Allie gently took some of the clothes from his arms. “It’ll be okay,” she said. “You can stay with me until we get this fixed.” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized what she was promising. Dallas staying under her roof? Was that a good idea? She glanced at his muscled forearms, wondering just how long it would be before he was kissing the life out of her, before she was back in that logic-free zone where she just wanted to take off all her clothes.
She flicked away the temptation. This was about offering Dallas the couch, she told herself. Nothing more.
Dallas blinked at her, as if not understanding a word she said. “You can stay at Misu’s house until we get this fixed,” she said once more, as if that somehow made it right. It wasn’t her house she was inviting him into.
Dallas suddenly put his arm around her, hugging her to him silently. She rested her head against the solid muscle of his chest and wished he’d never let her go. Eventually, he released her and strode toward the house again, grabbing one of his working patio chairs away from the sagging roof. Allie set his clothes on it, and he went about the task of trying to find what he could save from his house. Allie started to help him, and then she remembered: Dallas’s house wasn’t the only one closer to the shore, wasn’t the only home near here on low-lying land.
“Kaimana,” Allie said suddenly. “Kaimana and Jesse’s house!”
Dallas stopped what he was doing, and their eyes met. Instantly, they both walked quickly down the path of coffee trees toward Kaimana�
�s old farmhouse. The water had taken out the big mango tree in her front yard and swept it off to an unknown destination. It had also clearly made it up the porch steps, which carried a mud line from where the waters had receded, but the rest of her house remained in one piece.
As they stood there assessing the damage, Kaimana herself opened the front door and shuffled out carrying a mop and a bucket. She froze when she saw them, her gray-streaked hair, long and loose past her shoulders. A white flower was tucked behind her ear, and she had on a bright blue flowered muumuu along with her signature macadamia-nut necklace.
“Are you all right?” Allie called as she walked up to the porch.
Kaimana dropped her mop and made her way down the steps. She pulled Allie into a big hug, surprising her. “Where have you been? You scared me to death! You weren’t at the shelter.” The sudden warmth surprised Allie.
“This is your fault, huh?” She pointed at Dallas accusingly. Dallas just held up his hands, trying to convey innocence. “You wanted to play hero or something? Going out to the floodwaters for my Kai?”
“I...”
“I’m grateful you did, you big dummy!” Kaimana pulled Dallas into a big hug, too. “You’re a good boy.” The big-boned woman gave Dallas’s blond hair a good tousle, and he turned a little red as he disentangled himself from her.
“Is there anything we can do for you...anything we can get?” Allie asked, as Kaimana finally released her.
“You got any gin over there? I could use a stiff G and T.” This caused everyone to laugh a little. “Nah, I’ll be fine. Little damage, no big deal.” Kaimana shrugged. “It’ll be clean in no time. And Kai is doing much better. I went by the hospital this morning. He was awake and singing your praises. You know it kills him to do that, Dallas.”
“I know.” Dallas grinned.
Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) Page 18