Aloha With Love

by Terence Brody

  “How do you know about that?” Jenna cut in.

  Darren laughed. “I know your family, Jenna. I was part of your life for four years.”

  The use of past tense stung, even though it shouldn’t. Maybe it was because he was twisting timelines, mixing past with future when she wasn’t even totally sure of the present. She twisted out of Darren’s grasp and stepped away, out of his reach. Darren’s idea, although compelling, was impossible. Did he truly expect her to turn her aunt’s home into a condominium complex? After all the blood, sweat, and actual bruises she’d put into the renovations so far?

  Then again, if she’d been fine with fixing the house up to sell Aunt May’s legacy, wouldn’t it be better to put her stamp on it, too?

  “Take the number you have in your head from the sale and multiply it by a hundred. Your dad could do a world tour of all the best surfing spots, and Emma could get a real start in life and not have to go through years of trying to figure things out like you did,” Darren added, helpfully.

  “True,” Jenna admitted, “but strangely unnerving coming from you.”

  Darren spread his hands out in front of him. “Think about the opportunity. You get to design a destination community exactly the way you would love to. Everything you saw for Terrace Pines and more. All here.”

  Jenna shook her head, trying to break loose the dozens of thoughts all vying for her attention. The vision Darren had painted before her was almost too good to be true. Sure, he was a little overzealous and there was no denying his selfish motives, but he also wasn’t wrong. Aunt May’s beachfront property was valuable—very valuable—and nothing she could do to renovate the home would ever bring the sale value to anything close to what the land itself was worth. If she accepted Darren’s offer, not only would she be able to finally pursue her dreams and prove she had what it took to be the architect she always wanted to be, but her family would all reap the benefits. Sarah would get her bakery, the kids a start in life, and her dad could take Betty Lou on the road—all due to a little bit of real estate savvy and Aunt May’s gift.

  Aunt May. She had entrusted her last worldly possessions to Jenna, but was this what she would have wanted? How much of her will was about the house, and how much was about helping her family see their true potential—to follow their dreams?

  “It’s not about what I get,” Jenna decided finally. “It’s about my family, and Aunt May.”

  The left corner of Darren’s lip pulled. “You mean her legacy, right?”

  Legacy. Jenna looked over her shoulder at the house. She could see Ben’s outline as he worked, coating the last unfinished wall in a layer of fresh paint.

  “Well, it’s pretty hard to imagine Aunt May not wanting the best for all of you,” Darren said. “Don’t you think your family never having to worry about money again is a legacy she’d be proud of?”

  “I never thought of this property as condos before, but you’re right. It would be a game-changer for my family. It’s still Aunt May’s property, and with a structure like that so many people could love the land as much as she did.” Jenna let the thought settle. Something was out of place, and it wasn’t what to do with the structure on her aunt’s land. “And you? What do you get out of it?”

  The obvious answer flared in her thoughts. Money, of course. And a lot of it. “I thought you were offering to forego your commission?”

  Darren had the decency to look embarrassed. “On the sale of the house, yes, but Jenna ... this is a whole different deal. It’s not about commission, it’s about potential.”

  Jenna took a step backward, but Darren reached out and took her hand. “I won’t deny it. We spent four years trying to build a nest egg together, and an opportunity like this would be a financial game-changer for me, too. For both of us.”

  Jenna scoffed. Right. Relationship equity. She’d nearly forgotten. “You’ve always been about the deal.”

  Her words were cold, but Darren was quick to warm them up. “Not since you left. I’ve been trying to see things the way you do.”

  “What—sunny?”

  Darren flinched. Recovered. “That was a stupid thing to say. I’m really sorry about that.”

  It was the sincerest apology Jenna thought she’d ever heard Darren give. It didn’t change anything, but at least it made her feel a tiny bit better. “I have to get back ... but I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Absolutely,” Darren promised. His face lit up again with his trademark smile and he adjusted his suit jacket over his Hawaiian shirt. “I’ll be on the island a few more days. I have the paperwork drawn up if you want to move forward. This could all happen fast. You could start revising your Terrace Pines blueprint, and Barrington has his private jet on standby the moment you say yes.”

  Before Jenna could say anything, Darren leaned it and laid a quick kiss on her cheek. It itched like mango sap and she lifted her hand to scratch at the spot as she watched Darren wave goodbye, slip back behind the wheel of his rental car, and drive away.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jenna’s head was still spinning minutes later when she made her way back into the house.

  “Everything okay?” Ben asked.

  Yes? No? Maybe? Jenna wasn’t sure. “Can we call it a day?”

  “Not like you to shut down early.” His eyebrows scrunched together and he pointedly didn’t look to see if Darren’s car was still in the drive. “Schedule and all.”

  A sudden urge to spill the beans about Darren’s offer filled Jenna’s mouth. She swallowed it. “I know, I just ... I need to talk with Sarah and my dad.”

  “What did he say?”

  He. Darren.

  Apparently Ben knew how to read between the lines and not just paint within them. “Darren has an investment group that wants the whole property for a condo development,” she said, deciding to skim on details and just stick with the facts. “Actually, it’s my development. A big pitch in LA I lost. The investor has ... reconsidered.”

  “What about finishing the house?”

  Jenna winced. “There would be no need. If we go with the condo plan, we’ll have to just demo it to the ground.”

  “And you’d be okay with that? After all the work we’ve done?” The note of incredulity in his voice sharpened Ben’s words.

  “Financially, it would mean a whole new life for my family—the whole family. Me too. My feelings don’t really matter. I have to think about everyone else.”

  “And what about May?” he countered. “What about what she hoped for with this renovation?”

  “Ben, Aunt May left it up to me to figure out what to do with the property. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I was always going to sell it.”

  “Let’s keep working.”

  Jenna took a look around the rooms before her. They’d long since finished the demo process and begun the actual renovation, and, though the house was gutted and still unfinished, the potential was obvious. The house was going to be beautiful when they were done—and it wouldn’t take long to get her there now. She peered at Ben, not sure how to respond.

  The crunch of another set of tires on gravel saved her from telling him what was on her mind—that it would all be for nothing if she decided to tear it all down.

  Ben’s voice was hard. Distant. “The floors are here.”

  Outside, a large trailer truck stood with its rear doors open as two men unloaded several boxes of long wooden planks and set them on the soft green grass. By the time Jenna and Ben made it out the front door and down the steps, several boxes were waiting, and one of the men was busy organizing delivery paperwork on his clipboard.

  Ben nodded at the driver and reached for the paperwork while Jenna squatted to inspect the wood. “Is this laminate?”

  “This is the real deal,” Ben said. “This is genuine oak hardwood. Taken care of, it will last forever.”

  Numbers tallied up in Jenna’s head as she did the math on the cost of hardwood versus laminate. It wasn’t pretty. Rega
rdless of what she decided to do about Darren’s offer, unexpected expenses would topple her budget if she didn’t keep them in check. Aunt May had left enough funds to cover the renovation, but not to rebuild the whole home from scratch—and the more the put into a renovation, the more they stood to lose in a demolish. “I said I wanted laminate. It’s half the price.”

  Ben shot her one of those crooked looks that only looked cute when she wasn’t frustrated with him making decisions that were contrary to what she’d asked for. “We said we’d table it for later. Laminate won’t match the wood that’s already down,” he explained. “If you want to do laminate, you’d have to replace the whole floor, which would eat into the savings you’re worried about. Either way, we come up pretty even.”

  “Nobody will know the difference!” Jenna exclaimed. Of course Ben had circumvented her wishes with his almighty commitment to thoroughness. It wasn’t as if this was his bank account.

  “We will.”

  Jenna’s irritation morphed into anger. “It’s not your house. You’re the contractor. You work for me, remember?” A sour taste welled on Jenna’s tongue. Now she was quibbling over five percent instead of ten in her budget. She swallowed down the taste of irony.

  Ben’s posture went rigid, his pen frozen on the signature line. His voice had gone from edgy to sharp to razor fine. “I see. I’m sorry, Jenna. I thought you would be happy.”

  “Send it back.”

  A second truck pulled into the drive and Jenna moved away without bothering to wait for Ben’s response. Her dad cut the engine and climbed out of his truck, noticing the wood. He gave Jenna a one-armed hug and spoke over her shoulder. “That’s nice wood flooring.”

  Jenna sighed. The last thing she needed right now was to find herself outnumbered about flooring. “We’re pretty busy, Dad.”

  Jim’s gaze shifted from the wood to Ben, who was still holding the clipboard with a look of fierce determination on his face. Jenna shot him one back.

  “I brought us some lemonade,” her dad said, nudging her back toward the house—toward a neutral zone. “Come on.”

  Instead of going in through the front doors and trampling over their construction mess, Jenna led her dad around the large property and into the backyard. The buzzing sound of Ben’s power tools was barely audible somewhere in the distance, and Jenna sincerely hoped he’d sent the hardwood back and hadn’t hurried up and started installing it while she was distracted.

  “What’s on your mind, Peanut?” Jim asked, settling at the small sitting table Aunt May had kept in the now-overgrown garden. He pulled out the thermos of lemonade he’d brought with him, then unscrewed the cap and pulled out the collapsible cups to pour a glass for him and Jenna.

  Jenna accepted her cup and took a sip. “How do you know something’s on my mind?”

  “Thirty years of being your father,” he quipped. “Not to mention the look on your face. You’re rattled, and I think it’s over more than those floors, which I also know you’re not happy about.”

  Jenna leaned back in her chair with a sigh. The truth was, the floors themselves were the least of her worries right now. Honestly, she was more agitated with Ben disregarding her request than the hardwood itself. It wasn’t as if they’d made a firm decision not to use it, and hardwood would look better, even if it was more expensive. Even if they tore the whole place down. The other things that had gone wrong in Jenna’s life, though, weren’t so easily fixed—there were no line items for broken promises and failed dreams, not even if Darren was dangling a very attractive carrot in front of her with the Terrace Pines deal.

  “What’s not on my mind?” Jenna said, when she realized she’d gotten caught up in her thoughts and forgotten to answer the question. “I thought I would be married by now, with a couple of kids and a successful career. Not single and rebuilding”—she motioned toward the house and all it represented—“my childhood one brick at a time.”

  Her dad harrumphed beside her. “A house on a lake, a condo on the beach. Maybe a helicopter to shoot you back and forth,” he teased, filling in Jenna’s perfectly work-life-balanced daydream.

  “Exactly.”

  Jim chuckled and Jenna couldn’t help but laugh with him. Put that way, it was a pretty funny juxtaposition—especially when she was currently covered in spackle and paint and sipping lemonade with her dad in the suburbs.

  “Seriously, though,” Jenna went on, “my condo is small, my career is full of disappointments, and instead of planning my wedding, I was just dumped by the guy I’ve been with for four years. Things aren’t exactly going according to plan. Not even a little. And don’t even get me started on this.” She waved her hands about to include the house, Ben. All of it.

  “Maybe someone’s trying to tell you something.” Jim drained his cup and set the empty container on the table. He levelled a meaningful look at his daughter. “Are you listening?”

  Jenna felt her lips pull back in a grimace. “The message I’m getting is ‘life is all about making the choices that have the least amount of destructive side effects.’”

  Her dad sighed and looked back toward the house. “Nothing is perfect, Jenna. Not even love. But when you find the right person, it’s pretty darn close. It’s all about figuring out what you want as opposed to what you think you want.”

  “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are, you know.”

  Jim laughed and the sunlight reflected in his eyes. “Not trying to be.”

  “What do you want, Dad?”

  He put his finger to his lips, turning his gaze away from the house and up to the sky as he considered his response. Jenna waited a beat, finding herself enjoying the quiet hum of power tools and the aftertaste of the lemonade. She had to admit that her current predicament wasn’t where she’d expected to find herself—not even close—but it had its charms, too.

  After a few long seconds of deep thought, Jim poured them both a second glass of lemonade. Raising his cup in a toast to hers, he said, “I want to finish my darn table.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “It’s kind of amazing,” Sarah said as she refilled her teacup for the third time then took another bite out the half-eaten, orange-glazed scone set on the plate before her. “Grandma’s Coffee House, here I come.”

  Jenna leaned back in her chair and sighed, her own cup of tea untouched. The tray of treats on the table before her looked appetizing as always, but the thought of sugar made her stomach turn. She did a quick survey around the kitchen table, glancing from her sister’s look of unbridled enthusiasm, to her niece’s expression of shock, and her brother-in-law’s blank stare. Aside from the obvious visions of sugarplums and small business ownership dancing through her sister’s head, everyone else at the table seemed stunned into silence. Her father hadn’t said a word. Ethan had been too preoccupied with video games to join the family meeting.

  Daddy hasn’t even blinked, Jenna considered. He hadn’t, had he? The whole time she had presented the details of the offer Darren had emailed over, Jenna had watched her father over the top of her papers. He hadn’t taken tea or pastry. He hadn’t fidgeted or moved in his seat, hadn’t provided any glimpse into what he might be feeling on his otherwise usually expressive face.

  She could relate. When she’d first read the offer Darren had sent from Barrington’s client, Jenna had been just as surprised as everyone else. Luckily she’d had the benefit of delivering the deal to insulate her from getting too wrapped up in the implications of what accepting Barrington’s offer would mean. Nothing muffled feelings like paperwork; it was hard to get too tangled in the weeds of emotions when you were busy fixating on making sure you didn’t miss any of the important details. Now that she was through hiding behind paperwork, though, the magnitude of the decision beared down on her full force again.

  Was tearing down the house she’d nearly brought back to life really what she wanted?

  The truth was, every time Jenna thought she had absorbed the brunt of this tu
rn of events—had really taken everything in, gathered her thoughts, and made her way to a comfortable place—she blinked and the world was upside down again. Inheriting Aunt May’s house had been one thing. Renovating it, another. But demolishing it, even if it was to build her dream project and give her family a better financial future than they could have dreamed of, was something else entirely—even if the price tag on the deal had more zeros than Jenna had ever seen in one string of numbers.

  Emma was the first to break the silence. “So, if I pick up my grades the last two years of high school and wanted to go to the mainland to the private college of my choice, this means I could?”

  Jenna didn’t meet her father’s gaze. “You could.”

  “And after that, I could get an apartment in New York and date a struggling artist with dreams of becoming the next Andy Warhol?” Emma’s voice had risen an octave, the threat of a giggle crescendo hanging in the balance between her words.

  “One fantasy at a time, young lady.” Sarah cut in. “Let’s focus on getting you through high school first.”

  Emma snatched up another scone, bit off one corner. “Okay, Mom.”

  Jenna exchanged a smile with her sister across the table. It’s hard to be so conflicted when everyone else is so excited, she thought. Everyone, of course, except her dad. “So, I guess it’s settled, then?” she started, then paused and sucked in a deep breath. “Dad, you’ve been kind of quiet. Penny for your thoughts?”

  Jim Burke exhaled at the end of the table. He shook his head slowly, opened and closed his mouth. Finally, he cleared his throat. His voice came out thick. “May left the house to you girls. This has to be your decision.” He swallowed and cleared his throat again. “See you guys later. I’m going to get back to work.”

  Without another word, he pushed himself to the table and headed for the back door. He pulled it open and slipped through into the dusky twilight.