Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) (12 page)

She glared at the new bikini and was tempted to throw it into the trash. But something stopped her. Now she remembered why she’d kept it. It had been a one-hundred-and-eighty-dollar bikini. Some fancy designer that she’d never in a million years seriously consider buying. Most things in her closet came from the sales rack at a discount store. In a pinch, she could sell it on eBay. That was why she’d kept it.

Now, as she stared at the overpriced bikini, she decided she’d try it on, at least. After wiggling into the barely-there fabric, she stood in front of the full-length mirror, assessing. Her sunburn still beamed brightly up at her like a traffic light, but she could see the beginnings of a new tan. The good news was she’d been hitting the gym like a maniac over the six weeks before her aborted wedding because she’d thought she needed to squeeze into a strapless wedding gown. Now, she could see, all that work had paid off. She wouldn’t have even considered wearing a bikini two years ago, but today...well, maybe she would.

Next, she tried to tackle the yellow flowered sarong that came with the suit. As far as she could tell, it was like one huge scarf. The more she tried to tie it around herself, the more she started to look like a maypole.
How do these things even work?

Outside, she heard tires on the gravel driveway and wondered if Dallas was back already. She worked the cotton fabric of her cover-up into some kind of makeshift wrap skirt and thought,
This’ll have to do.

As she finished the knot in the sarong, she heard a car horn honk.

If that’s Dallas, I’m going to tell him where he can put that horn.

Angrily, she slipped into flip-flops and trudged out the door, only to see that it wasn’t Dallas’s black pickup sitting in the drive. It was a big white delivery truck. A man hopped out, no older than twenty-five, his dark hair covered with a baseball cap. He held a clipboard.

His eyes went straight to her bare middle, and his eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. “I’m looking for Dallas McCormick?”

“Sorry, he’s gone.”

The man didn’t even register her answer; he was too busy staring at her chest.

“Uh, hello?” Allie waved her hand to draw his attention away from her swimsuit.

“Oh, uh...sorry.” He flushed a little when he realized he’d been caught ogling and raised his eyes to meet hers. “He’s gone? You’re sure? I know he called for a delivery...” He glanced at his clipboard. “Oh, no,” he said, realization dawning as he read the invoice. “It’s my fault. I’m supposed to be here later this afternoon! The shipment came on an earlier ferry, but I didn’t realize. My boss is going to kill me.”

Allie took pity on the young driver.

“I can help. What is it?”

“It’s a new coffee roaster,” he said as he rolled up the back of the truck to show her a massive stainless steel contraption, designed to heat coffee beans. Allie focused on the giant piece of equipment and felt like kicking it. Dallas had ordered something for
her
side of the property without even telling her.

“Can I see the invoice?” Allie asked sweetly.

The deliveryman scurried to her, eagerly handing her the clipboard. She glanced at the invoice, stopping cold when she saw the amount for the order.

“Twenty-five
thousand
dollars?” Allie’s throat closed up suddenly.
Twenty-five thousand dollars?
Dallas had spent this much on some farm equipment?

The driver looked uncertain. “Mr. McCormick ordered the top of the line, and this is it. You won’t be disappointed, it’s...”

Allie couldn’t believe it. Dallas had made a purchase this large for the entire farm without even talking to her first. She wondered how he’d paid for it. She ripped through the back page of the invoice and saw a credit card number. She nearly lost it when she saw the name on the account. It was Misu Osaka.

He’d used her dead grandmother’s credit card? What the hell?

Allie felt a cold shiver run down her spine. Dallas had inherited half her grandmother’s estate, but was he trying to get even more? Why would he charge twenty-five thousand dollars to her grandmother? How did he even do it?

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to take this roaster back,” Allie said, feeling her old anger return. Dallas couldn’t be trusted. Hell,
no man
could be trusted.

The driver shifted uncertainly from one foot to the other. “It’s more than a hundred dollars if I have to come back. Are you sure...”

“I’m sure.”

“Maybe I should call this contact number here.” The deliveryman pulled out his phone from his back pocket.

Allie bit down her anger and changed tactics. She needed to stop biting people’s heads off. “What’s your name again...?” She smiled sweetly.

“Dave.”

“Dave.” Allie took a step closer to him, and her sarong, which wasn’t all that tightly secured in the first place, threatened to fall down one hip. She caught it, but not before the bright yellow string of her bottoms became visible. She hadn’t planned it, but it worked anyway as a proper distraction.

Dave the driver perked up instantly, his eyes dropping to her exposed skin.

“I’m really sorry to do this to you. I don’t want to get you in trouble, but Dallas didn’t run this by me and he really should have. It’s a big purchase. And we’re co-owners now.”

“Oh, I see,” Dave agreed, trying to pull his attention back to her face.

“So I’m afraid I can’t accept the delivery. You’ll have to send it back. I don’t want to get you into trouble, but it’s really Dallas’s fault.” Allie smiled at the driver to show there were no hard feelings.

“No problem,” he said cheerily, tucking his phone away. “I’ll take this back and have the manager call and get this all sorted out.” He closed the back door of the truck with a decisive snap. “By the way,” he said, as he cleared his throat nervously. “Would you...would you want to get dinner sometime?”

“Oh, I wish I could but I’m—” Allie stopped midsentence. She’d been about to say
engaged.
But she wasn’t. Not anymore. She looked down at her bare ring finger, which still bore the slightest hint of a tan line where Jason’s two-carat diamond ring once sat. “I...can’t. Sorry.”

Dave’s face fell, but then he rallied. “Hey, can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Allie sent him a weak smile, feeling a twinge of guilt as he hopped back into the truck and turned the ignition. He wasn’t her type, so she probably wouldn’t have said yes anyway. But she knew she needed to get out of the habit of thinking she was taken.

No sooner than the white delivery truck drove out of sight, Dallas’s black pickup turned in, kicking up dark dust behind its oversize wheels. He headed straight to her front porch, so she didn’t have time to duck inside her house for a cover-up.

“Was that the roaster?” he asked gruffly as he took in her outfit. He frowned as he looked at the curve of her bare hip and the plunging neckline of the bikini top. He wore wet board shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, his bulging tanned biceps on display.

“Yes,” she said, tapping one flip-flop on the gravel driveway.

“Where is it?” He glanced around as if expecting it to appear out of thin air.

“I sent it back.” Allie lifted her chin in defiance. Dallas’s face registered shock and then anger. He pushed up his mirror sunglasses into his tousled blond hair.

“You
what
?”

“I sent it back.” She crossed her arms and frowned.

“Oh, no. No more crap about your side of the line! I thought we discussed this!”

“I own
half
this farm, Dallas. You can’t make large purchases without talking to me first. The lawyer said...”

“We
need
that roaster for the harvest.”

“You should’ve told me about the purchase, Dallas.”

Dallas let out a frustrated breath of air. “I
tried
. You didn’t want to talk about the harvest!”

She ignored the little flick of guilt she felt. He had tried to talk about the harvest, she knew, and she’d shut him down.

“Well, now I do, but first you’re going to tell me why you used Grandma Misu’s credit card.” Allie was beginning to think the worst: that Dallas might have just been playing Grandma Misu. She’d been an old woman, and Dallas was a charming guy. He wasn’t a relation, and yet he ended up with half her estate? Maybe the reasons weren’t good.

“I didn’t use her card!” Dallas threw his arms wide in exasperation.

“Her name and number were on the invoice.” Allie crossed her arms again and glared. Jason had always given the orders in their relationship. She wasn’t about to get pushed around by Dallas.

Dallas heaved a sigh. “It might have been her name, but it was
my
credit card number,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “It was my account, I just let her use it. She made purchases for the farm, and when I called, that must’ve been the number that they had on file.”

“What do you mean it was your credit card?” Allie didn’t understand.

“Three years ago, your grandmother was nearly broke,” he said. “I stepped in. I helped her out with a loan, paid for the new roasting barn and put her on one of my credit cards so she could still get things for the estate.”

“You...did?” Allie had never heard of this. Not that she was close with her grandmother, but her mother and Grandma Misu talked all the time. Her mother would have mentioned financial troubles. Allie felt guilt like a sharp piece of shrapnel in her chest. It had never occurred to her Grandma Misu was having problems. Could it be that all these years Allie had thought her grandmother was choosing not to help them, but the truth was she couldn’t?

Allie’s anger drained away. Dallas had saved the estate. At least, he said he had. She’d check it out, but why would he lie about something like that? The lawyer would know. There’d be financial records. It’d be easy to prove.

“Wow, I didn’t know.” Allie glanced up at Dallas’s face and saw the frustration fade away a little. His blue eyes studied her.

“Misu was a proud woman. It’s not something she’d broadcast,” he said, glancing back over the coffee tree line. “Up until the day she died, she swore she’d pay me back with interest.”

Understanding finally dawned. “So she did. With half the estate,” Allie said, feeling again like a complete moron. Why’d she have to go and assume Dallas was a con man? He’d done Misu a solid favor, and she’d paid him back, plain and simple. Allie sank into a porch chair. “I’m really sorry. I had no idea.”

Dallas watched her for a beat, his blue eyes wary. “It’s okay. I’ll need to call the delivery company. See if they can turn that delivery around. We still have time to work out all the kinks before the competition.”

“The Kona Coffee Festival?”

“You know it?” Dallas asked, looking bright and hopeful.

“Uh...yeah, I’ve heard of it.” She elected not to tell him about Kaimana’s condition to sign the paper she needed.

“Well, if we’re going to have any chance of winning, we need that new roaster,” Dallas said.

Allie groaned and let her head fall into her hands. Could this get any worse? “Okay, okay! I get it.”

He glanced down at her string-bikini top. “I can’t really blame the fella for listening to a pretty woman in a bikini.” She’d forgotten she was on the porch half-naked. She tugged up her sarong, suddenly feeling exposed.

He walked off her porch as he dialed the number, heading down the path to his house as he chatted.

Allie watched him go, feeling glum.
What else am I going to muck up?

Her phone rang then, and she jumped a little, startled to see an unfamiliar local number flash across her screen. She thought about letting it go to voice mail, but picked it up instead, wondering if it might be Kaimana, ready to sign the papers.

“Allie?” came a voice that was definitely not Kaimana’s. “Hi, it’s Teri. At the Tiki Teri salon. We met at Kai’s barbecue?”

“Of course I remember. Hi, Teri.”

“I hope you don’t mind. I got your number from Kai. It’s kind of an emergency. Can you come down to the salon this afternoon?” Teri did sound a little unsettled, and Allie could hear commotion in the background, which sounded like shouting of some sort.

“Oh, sure,” Allie said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat. “When?”

“How about now?”

Allie hung up and felt a weight pressing down on her shoulders. She might as well help out at the salon since she was stuck here for a while. She had no idea how she was going to manage to pay for anything past next week and now it looked as if she’d have to find a way to survive until the coffee competition in November.

CHAPTER EIGHT

F
IFTEEN
M
INUTES
LATER
, Allie was standing outside Tiki Teri’s wearing a sundress she’d hastily thrown on over her swimsuit. She paused at the window. It was nothing like Michel’s, where she’d worked as a makeup artist and brow tech in Chicago. Michel’s was a full-service spa downtown, offering hot rock massages, fluffy white robes and the sound of running water in every room. Tiki Teri’s was brightly lit, with antique aluminum and shiny aquamarine patent leather salon chairs, a black-and-white-tiled floor and multicolored plastic flip-flop-shaped lights strung up by the wall-to-wall mirrors. Bob Marley music played softly in the background, but the atmosphere was anything but calm.

Teri, her platinum-blond, chin-length hair perfectly styled, wore Bermuda shorts and a bright coral top. She was trying to console a client who was red-faced and crying.

“Teri, this is a disaster!” the brunette shouted, as she hid her face in her hands.

Teri saw Allie and nearly melted with relief. “Allie! Oh, thank God.” Teri waved her over. “Ella, this is the girl I was telling you about. If anyone can fix you, she can!” The crying client lifted her head ever so slightly, and that was when Allie saw the problem.

“I
tried
to wax my own eyebrows, but...well...see?” Ella pointed to her forehead. She was missing most of her right eyebrow from the far side in. Allie tried not to gasp. She put on her best poker face.