I'm Kona Love You Forever (Islands of Aloha Mystery Series Book 6) (30 page)

“Let me see the ring
,” she said.

I did the “
fiancée salute,” the palm-up, fingers extended, display of the solitaire diamond on my left hand. It fiercely sparkled under the fluorescent lights in Farrah’s produce section. She’d been carefully stacking papayas in a display, moving the riper yellow-skinned ones to the front.

“When’s the date?” she said.

I caught myself smiling as I considered the number of times I’d asked that question in the past five years. The next question was supposed to be,
And where will you be holding the ceremony?
But Farrah threw me a curve ball.

“Are you going to do it yourself?”

Good question. Does a stylist cut her own hair? Does a chef cater her own rehearsal dinner? Does a surgeon take out his own appendix?

“
I don’t think so,” I said.

“Well, then, who’ll you hire
to do it?” she said.

Another good question.
Maui wedding planners are competitive. It isn’t as if we’re bitter enemies or cut-throat rivals, but how could I hand over the reins when I think I’m the only one who can properly ride the horse?

“I don’t know.
Maybe you.”

Another squeal.
“Seriously? You’ll let me plan your wedding? Far out. I mean, that’s so bitchin’ cool, I want to die.”

I hoped she’d forgo the death wish until Hatch and I had signed the marriage certificate. I left the store and went next door to my shop. After
nine days away, the place smelled musty. I opened the windows and doors and allowed the breeze to sweep through. My glass-topped display of headpieces was dusty and I grabbed a rag from the back and started to clean.

As I carefully wiped off each headpiece and returned it to the display
, I recalled Lili trying them all on, twirling around the room in a flurry of girlish delight over her up-coming wedding ceremony.

Hatch was right. Life doesn’t come with rehearsals. You’ve got to
just roll with whatever comes your way. I dropped my head and sent a healing prayer to the fraternal twins recovering in a Kona hospital. They’d vowed to love each other forever, and I was sure they would.

Just not in the way they expected.

EPILOGUE

No one from Kona kept me in the loop regarding what happened to Pono
after the cops showed up, but they didn’t need to. It was too juicy a story to not make state-wide headlines. Pono Onakea was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Malia Byers. His court-appointed lawyer argued he shouldn’t be charged with murder in the first degree, since his role in Malia’s death was not premeditated. But, unfortunately for Pono, the story about him giving up his daughter, Lili, leaked out. It was going to be pretty tough to empanel a jury that hadn’t heard about it. How much of a chance did he have of beating the charge when he’d already admitted to betraying the mother of his children, weasling out of supporting a daughter he’d created, and then greedily pocketing five thousand bucks in the process? Not a very good going-in position for a guy charged with murder.

Meanwhile,
Hatch and I are deep in the throes of wedding planning. We’re looking at a date sometime in May. But who knows? It may be sooner. Already I’m hearing grumblings from the locals about how Farrah’s so busy fussing over my wedding she’s getting lax in her civic duty—keeping the fine folks of Pa’ia nourished, entertained, and clean via her work at the Gadda da Vida Grocery.

So for now it’s May, but
if anything changes I’ll be sure to let you know.

FROM THE AUTHOR

Okay, this is the place where I say
mahalo
to all the people who helped. Except, of course, that’s impossible. So I’ll do my best and hope that those who get slighted will feel free to let me know on my FaceBook page (JoAnn Bassett’s Author Page) and demand retribution. After all, it all counts as a ‘page visit.’ Zuckerberg and his colleagues insist ‘page visits’ and ‘likes’ are enormously significant. So, who am I to argue?

First off, thanks to Ray Vick and Nancy Clevinger for allowing me to use their real names in the story. They entered a contest from my website (www.joannbassett.com) and became two ‘good guy’ characters.

Mahalo
to my beta readers, Tom Haberer, Diana Paul (bless her, she’s read every single one) and Francesca Moses (who will be soon traveling down the same aisle as Pali, so best wishes to her and her soon-to-be husband, Ted Schelenski ).

And
, a big thanks to Janell Parque and Deborah Lewis who did the ‘heavy lifting’ in getting the book ready to go. And to my daughter, Kirsten Haberer,
mahalo
for your help with ‘daubing’ the cover.

And, finally, a
mahalo nui
loa
to all the readers who keep this trip around the islands going. Without you, I’d be traveling alone. And as you all know, Hawaii on your own is like peanut butter without jelly, or plate lunch without mac salad. So, in a
pupule
(crazy) effort to show my thanks I’ve randomly selected a few names from my FaceBook page ‘likers’. See if your name is here. Thanks to: Sue Cook-Goodwin, Murphy Leider, Dena Holmes, Wendy Lester, Linda Mitchell, Connie Bruyere, Cindy Gee, Sherry Fundin ,Carolyn Ronald, Cindy Veneris, Robin Kelly, Becky McFadden, Janet Tatevosian, Heather Irwin, Deborah Brown, Erin Finigan, Mary Symonds, Kathy Wiser, Lois Connell, Linda Lang, Lois Wade, Amy Howard, Amy Roth, Gail Mason, Kathy Miller, Jackie Edwards, Marijo Clemons, Christine Deal, Ro Hart, Diane Kong, Bonnie Faherty and Yvette D’Souza.

If you didn’t find your name and you’d like to be listed at the back of the next book, (which will be titled, “Moloka’i Lullaby’)
, send me a message via my website. I promise I’ll keep track.

And speaking of Moloka’i
—yep, that’s the next island. Can’t wait to go there. Hope you’ll come along.

Titles in the “Islands of Aloha Mystery Series”—in series order

Maui Widow Waltz

Livin’ Lahaina Loca

Lana’i of the Tiger

Kaua'i Me a River

O’ahu Lonesome Tonight?

I’m Kona Love You Forever

and
coming soon…

Moloka’i Lullaby

Hilo, Good-bye

Other Books by JoAnn Bassett
:

Mai Tai Butterfly

and coming soon…

Lucky Beach