Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) (9 page)

“Oh no!” Charlotte sat down on her other side. “You need massage for that, right away. I’m a massage therapist. Here, let me.” She took Zoe’s hand, began a deep pressure rub with her thumbs. “Adam, check in my purse. I think I have some baby oil in there. Her muscles are all locked up.”

She had set Kaden down for this, and the toddler ran with his diaper-bound sailor’s waddle after Sylvester, giggling. The young
man, who must be his father, chased him as Adam went to where his sister had been sitting and fetched an enormous purse, began digging.

“Here, let me,” Mele said as Adam’s face assumed the universally befuddled expression of
men dealing with the contents of big purses.

That was how Zoe came to be sitting between Adam’s…wife? girlfriend?…and sister, one of either side of her, both of them massaging her arms and hands. Adam watched, a smile tugging up one side of his mouth. Zoe closed her eyes and savored the relief of her muscles unclenching.

“Adam Rodrigues?” A doctor had come to the swinging doors that led to the back. Both women let go of Zoe’s hands and stood, hurrying after Adam to hear the news. Charlotte’s husband and another young man joined them. That young man, blond and tall, pressed in beside Mele and put his arm around her shoulder.

What was going on
there?

And shame on her for caring about that when they were gathered to hear news about
their mother. Zoe gazed down at her hands. They really did feel much better.

“Zoe Maxwell?” The nurse had appeared. “Doctor will see you now.”

She glanced back at the Rodrigues family, their arms tight around each other, heads together as they listened to the doctor speaking. She wished she could thank Charlotte and Mele, but there was nothing to do but pick Sylvester up and follow the nurse into the maze of curtained rooms in back.

Kalia Rodrigues seemed tiny in the intensive care unit bed, her face pale and hair mussed in a way she would have hated. Monitors beeped, and tubes and wires seemed to wrap around her in a foreign and intrusive web. Only one family member at a time was allowed to visit, and his sisters pushed Adam forward.

“You first.
You’re her favorite,” Charlotte said. Adam argued that Mele should go first, but in the end he was the one to tiptoe into the high-tech room and sit on the chair next to his mother.

“Mama.” He picked up her hand, careful of the IV, and rubbed the skin of her arm. It felt papery and cool.

Her eyes fluttered open. “My boy,” she whispered. “Where are the girls?”

“Only one of us allowed at a time to visit.
They’re waiting their turn.”

“Mele. She should go home and rest. Stress is bad for the baby.” His mother’s lips barely moved. The cardiologist said she had a blockage to the main artery into her heart, so she wasn’t getting enough oxygen into her blood. It appeared to have been impacted for a while, and they were lucky to have caught it before she had an attack that killed her without having known
there was a problem. She was scheduled for a double bypass the next morning.

“I told her she should come first.”

“Of course you did.” Mrs. Rodrigues reached up a hand to touch his face. “I’m so glad you came home to be with me.”

“I am too, Mama.” He grasped her hand, feeling his chest squeeze with the possibility of losing her. He coughed to clear it. “You weren’t home alone when this happened.
They’re going to clean out your heart, fix you right up, and you’ll feel a lot better than you have been. Have to change your diet, though. No more fatty foods for us.”

She smiled. Shut her eyes. “Send Mele in, please.”

“Sure, Mama.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Her skin was grayish and cold. But she wasn’t going to die, was she? He wished he felt more confident. He got up and went to the door, gestured for Mele, who with her usual emotionality, burst into tears and ran across the room, laying her head on her mother’s lap. Adam watched his mom stroke her hair, soothe her as he’d seen her do since she was a kid.

“I’m next. Why don’t you go get something to eat? Check up on
your ‘friend.’” Charlotte made air quotes.

“Zoe? I hardly know her,” Adam said, but he was already heading down the hall toward the waiting room, worrying she’d be gone.

And she was.

He went to the admission desk, described Zoe.

“She saw the doctor and left,” the receptionist said once he was able to convince her he was a concerned friend.

“I lost her phone number. Can I have it?” he asked with his most winning smile. The lady blinked, smiled back, sighed, and shook her head.

“Nice try, buddy, but I can’t give that information out.”

He turned away, disappointed, realizing that the only way he could reach Zoe was
through that stupid Internet dating site. He didn’t even know her last name. Up in the cafeteria, he met his two brothers-in-law and joined them at a table with a plastic tray full of eggs and, mindful of his mother’s recent discovery of atherosclerosis, a side of wheat toast and tomatoes instead of his usual pile of bacon.

“
Who’s the girl with the dog?” Pat asked. “She’s cute.”

“Zoe.” He felt his face redden as he addressed his eggs.

“Zoe who?”

“Don’t know. I met her on an Internet date. It didn’t go well.”

“’Bout time you got back in the game,” said Ben, Charlotte’s husband.

“Yeah, well.” Adam filled his mouth with toast, hoping they’d let the interrogation drop. After seeing the kind way she’d interacted with the children and her dog, he was determined to find her, see how she was doing after her accident. Another look at those green eyes, just to see if they were as remarkable as he remembered, wouldn’t hurt either.

“So what’s the plan about Mom?” Pat asked. Kalia Rodrigues had asked her sons-in-law to call her that, and she’d spread the net of her fierce love over them as soon as they joined the family.

“Like you heard, she’s having the operation tomorrow morning. Double bypass. We’re lucky we caught it in time.” Adam swallowed. Set his fork down. “I just remembered I never called the job
site—even with the rain I need to check in. This whole drama just took over.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin, got up, and took a few steps out into the hall, called his second in command, Teddy, at the build
site to tell him what had happened.

“Good thing you called. Boss Lady came down and she’s been on the warpath. Stomping around under an umbrella with a clipboard, checking for things that are wrong, really had a shit fit when you weren’t here.”

“I better call her.” Adam felt the breakfast he’d just eaten churning uneasily. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle her.” He found Mrs. Lepler’s cell number, a number he’d never called, always careful to phone her house phone and leave messages there—but this was a true emergency.

“I was waiting for you to call,” Alixia Lepler said.

“I apologize, Mrs. Lepler, but my mother’s had a heart attack this morning. We’re all at the hospital. I won’t be able to be in today.”

A long pause. He realized he was waiting for the string of sympathetic exclamations most people would employ at his statement.

“Is that your line?” she finally said, steel in her voice.

“
It’s the truth. Call Maui Memorial and ask if Kalia Rodrigues has been admitted today. She’s scheduled for a double bypass tomorrow morning,” Adam snapped.

Instead of backing off as he’d expected. Mrs. Lepler hung up. Adam knew she was calling the hospital, and he was pretty sure they had put “allow” on Mama’s privacy settings so people could call and check on her.

He went back into the cafeteria, shaking his head.

“Trouble in paradise?” Ben asked.

“Boss Lady. A real piece of work.” He’d barely taken a sip of coffee when his cell rang and he picked up for her.

“All right. You can have today off.”

“Tomorrow too. She’s having the operation tomorrow.”

“I fail to see how you being
there has any bearing on the outcome of her operation. Your workers don’t do well without supervision.” She hung up. He cursed just as Mele waddled up to the table.

“Soap that mouth, brother.”

Pat pulled out a chair for her. “What can I get you from the line, honey?” He kissed the top of her head, a sight that warmed Adam on some deep level and reminded him of his concern for Zoe.

“I have to make some calls. I’ll be around.” He waved as he walked away from the family.

Adam made his way back to his truck, already decorated with an orange flyer warning him he’d be towed in the next hour if he didn’t move the vehicle. He pulled the truck out and drove around until he found a designated parking spot. Using his smart phone, he pulled up the dating site and logged into his account, looking up Zoe’s profile.

He private messaged her:
I’m so sorry you were hurt today. Our mother’s having double bypass tomorrow morning and we’re hopeful. Are you feeling okay?

He waited a long minute, realizing she wouldn’t see the message until she went back to the
site, and who knew when that would be? Staring at the little blinking cursor in the message box, he realized how much he wanted to see her again. “Hung up on the ex” be damned.

Can you give me your phone number? I
’d like to get to know you better. No hurry; no pressure. I’m sorry I was a jerk at the restaurant
, he typed.
My nephew really liked your dog
.

There
was nothing more he could do at the moment, and as if confirming that, the phone buzzed with a text message from Charl:
Where are u? Let’s figure out who’s staying with Mama.

He pressed Enter on his message to Zoe, sighed, and got out of the truck, heading back into the hospital.

Zoe walked into her little cottage and set Sylvester down. She couldn’t bend her head forward due to the neck brace she wore, and she was already not sure it was helping—it was itchy, and with her heavy hair, she felt overheated.

Sylvester ran to his water bowl, lapping frantically. She knew how he felt, she thought, filling a glass of water and taking two Vicodin. She drank the whole glass down, feeling grateful she had an appointment with Dr. Suzuki tomorrow and could talk
through the whole upsetting incident, not the least running into that cheater Adam Rodrigues, smiling down at her like nothing was wrong while his pregnant girlfriend massaged her arm…The worst of it was that she’d liked what she’d seen of the whole family.

Poor Mele. What would she do if she knew her partner was meeting other
women on the Internet?

In her little bathroom, she stripped down and got into a cold shower, letting the water cool her overheated body and abraded nerves. Twenty minutes later, shaved, conditioned, and squeaky-clean, she began to feel sleepy from the pain pills. She towel dried and braided her long hair into a damp rope. She felt like having ripples in her hair. Maybe feeling pretty would help with the sting of seeing handsome Adam Rodrigues with his arm around pregnant Mele.

Sylvester was already asleep on the little rag rug beside the Murphy bed, and Zoe caught the strap on the bottom of the bed and gave a tug, pulling it down. Just a little nap was all the time she could take. She’d started a new story that was on a short deadline and needed to finish it before the end of the day.

Zoe didn’t even remember lying down on the little double bed, but when she woke it was late afternoon. She could tell by the slant of light across the white walls, falling on the couch and lighting the sea-colored pillows, the thin muslin curtains fluttering in the usual afternoon breeze.

Zoe swung her legs to the side of the bed and sat up. She stopped, frozen by a bolt of agonizing pain that lanced from her neck down her spine. She reached a fumbling hand for the neck brace, wrapped the foam around her neck, and sealed the Velcro. She tugged her braid, still a little damp, out of the brace and stood up slowly.

“Holy crap that hurts,” she muttered, tottering to the little bathroom,
then over to the kitchen. She fixed a snack and sat down at her computer. Deadlines didn’t care about car accidents, and she had a feeling this whiplash wasn’t going to be over in a day. She nibbled on hummus and celery as she opened up the story and got to work.

It didn’t take too long for the neck to begin complaining, but she made herself complete a first draft before she staggered over to the bed and
lay back down. This time she called her mother, feeling the familiar mix of emotions at doing so. Her mother had opposed the move to Maui and would probably take this as more evidence she’d made the wrong decision.

“Zoe!” Her mother was given to a dramatic flair and used her name as a greeting, as she always had.

“Hi, Mom.”

“How’s paradise?”

“Beautiful. How’s the Bay Area?” Her mom lived in Redwood City, a busy suburb in the peninsula of San Francisco.

“Oh, you know. Too much traffic. Got a new gallery, though.” Her mom was a multimedia artist
whose work was beginning to get a broader audience. Zoe’s parents had divorced when she was little due to their basic incompatibility. Her mother was still happily single while her father had remarried a woman who suited his corporate lifestyle in the Midwest a good deal more. Zoe had seldom seen him since.

“So, you never call, honey. What’s up?”

“Not true, Mom! The phone works both ways, you know.” Zoe always felt on the defensive with her mom, who also hadn’t supported Zoe’s decision to try in vitro. She thought Zoe should “accept what the universe had dealt her” and “learn to relax” to get pregnant. But when Zoe’s divorce happened, her mother’s immediate support, help, and enveloping care had been exactly what she needed.

“Oh, Mom. I got in a fender bender, and I have whiplash. No big deal. They checked me out, did X-rays and everything, but my neck hurts.”

“Oh, honey, how awful! Are you lying down?”

“Yeah. I took a huge nap after the hospital,
and then had to do some writing. Sitting up was just killing me. So I’m catching up with phone calls and staring at the ceiling right now.”

“If I were
there, I’d make you a nice rice sock.”

“I’m supposed to ice it, actually. That’s what I should probably do. But the sock idea is good.” Rose Maxwell’s cure for just about everything was to fill a tube sock with rice and microwave it,
then apply the hot rice sock to sore tummies, stubbed toes, and stiff necks. Zoe swung her legs over and went into the kitchen, filling a ziplock bag with ice and putting it into a dish towel. She chatted with her mother about her stories (except the one for
Ladies’ Home Journal
) and Sylvester’s latest antics, including the scene in the emergency room.

“You should get him a therapy dog vest. T
hen you can take him everywhere,” Rose said. Zoe finally hung up, feeling better. Her mother had also advised finding a chiropractor before the injury “settled in,” and Zoe decided to look for one online. After icing her neck, it felt better, so she got back on her computer and searched for chiropractors in her area, found one, and set up an appointment for the next day.

Zoe decided to go back on the dating
site. She should at least go on one more date, though with her neck problem and the debacle with Adam in the emergency room, the prospect did not appeal.

She opened the outline she’d started for the story. What was her conclusion going to be? Abject failure by meeting one guy totally not right for her and one that had felt right and turned out to be a cheater? No. She needed to finish the piece, find some sort of closure for it.

She clicked on her profile and saw that she had several messages. Apparently, adding some more pictures and softening the language in her answers had helped.

The first message she saw was from Adam.

Zoe jerked back in surprise, a lance of pain stabbing her neck as punishment. She decided to read the others first, and they were various opening lines admiring her green eyes, proposing tantric yoga and a threesome. She decided to go with Dr. Suzuki’s advice and answer honestly that she was writing a journal article. Maybe that would cut down on some of the more outrageous propositions.

She drafted a standard reply and cut and pasted it in response to three of the least-ridiculous messages:

Hi! Thanks so much for reaching out me. I’m a journalist, and I’m doing an article on Internet dating. If you’re okay with that and willing to talk about what Internet dating has been like for you, I’d love to meet for coffee or a beach walk. Who knows? We might even like each other and get together again! If this interests you, let me know.”

She copied it into each of the reply boxes, wondering why she hadn’t thought of this in the first place—but on the other hand, it automatically biased the results from her being a guinea pig in the dating game to her keeping a journalistic distance and interviewing.

The truth was, she hadn’t been ready to enter the dating game, and she’d guarded herself with a fake bio. So nothing about the “experiment” was really what it could have been.

On that depressing thought, she clicked on Adam’s message and read:
I’m so sorry you were hurt today. Our mother’s having double bypass tomorrow morning and we’re hopeful. Are you feeling okay? Can you give me your phone number? I’d like to get to know you better. I’m sorry I was such a jerk at the restaurant. My nephew really liked your dog.

What a nerve! She read the message a second,
then a third time. Not a hint about Mele. Hitting on her for her number and ending with that irrelevant comment about his nephew liking Sylvester?

That brought back a vivid memory of Kaden, giggling as he toddled in pursuit of Sylvester. She couldn’t help smiling at the mental picture—it wasn’t Adam’s family’s fault he was an arrogant, cheating bastard.

She typed furiously, then banged out the numbers of her cell phone so hard, the tension in her hands translated into tender stabs to her neck. She realized she’d transposed a number, but decided not to change it. She didn’t really want to talk to him at all.

She hit Send and sat back, moaning with pain and panting with rage. Guaranteed that was the last she’d hear from Adam the Cheater, and good riddance. She clicked back to her profile, and one of the guys who’d messaged her had replied.
Sure, no problem. An interview sounds interesting. Since you like beach walks, how’s day after tomorrow at Paia Bay? Eight a.m. works for me.

She replied in the affirmative and exited the
site with a sense of accomplishment. She’d told Adam off, and she was moving on. It was getting easier to do that.

Adam walked around the job
site, clipboard in hand—the clipboard Mrs. Lepler had left on his desk with a list of problems she wanted addressed.

He was just glad that, although they now seemed to be in open warfare with each other, so far she hadn’t tried to fire him. With the contracts she’d signed with Rodrigues Builds Best, she’d have to show evidence of fraud or incompetence. Her impromptu visit yesterday was the beginning of that.

His phone was on and clipped into the holster on his belt, and he tried not to check it incessantly. His mother had been in surgery for an hour already, and Charl had said she’d text the minute there was something to tell him.

After conferring with Teddy about Mrs. Lepler’s complaints, he went back inside the trailer and poured himself a second full mug of coffee. He and the family, including Tami and a few more cousins, had taken shifts to make sure someone was at the hospital all
through the night in case Mama took a turn for the worse. He’d gone home at two a.m., and now he felt tiredness and stress draining his energy.

He sat in his rolling chair, made a to-do list for the day, and refilled his coffee mug for the third time.

Charl called an hour later, as he was finalizing some of the “concerns” Mrs. Lepler had raised on her clipboard. “Mama’s out of surgery, and the doctor says she’s doing okay.”

“When will she wake up?”

“She’s in recovery for another hour or so.”

“Okay. I’ll be
there, but then I have to get back to the job. Boss Lady’s on the warpath.”

“
It’s okay. We’re all here.” And Adam knew they were—a whole cross section of the town, Mama’s many cousins, siblings, nieces, and nephews. In fact, he already knew that Tami and her mom, his Aunty June, who was really his mom’s cousin, were at their house right now, cleaning and cooking for the week so all he had to do was pop things in the oven. He smiled at the thought even as he worked the desk phone, checking on an incoming shipment of materials.

He picked up the clipboard and his phone and headed for the door of HQ just as it opened inward. Alixia Lepler came in, dramatic in a swirly multilayered dress like the foam on a wave.

“Glad to see you showed up at work.”

“Of
course. My mother’s out of surgery now, and I’m taking an early lunch break to go check on her.”

“Acceptable.” Her voice softened. She stepped closer. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

He held his ground even though she was standing too close now. “No, I think we understand each other perfectly. Here’s your list of concerns. I have most of them taken care of.” He handed the clipboard over.

She gave it a cursory glance and glanced back up at him. “You seem tired.”

“I was at the hospital until two a.m., so yeah. But I’m here as you asked, and I’m doing my best to address your issues with the job.”

“I see that.” Another tiny step closer. Her blond hair was a tousled mound that probably had taken hours to achieve, her eyes an unnatural but riveting electric blue. “I find I’m not that keen to get another contractor after all.”

Adam thought over several responses and decided none was best. He kept his face blank as she took a final step and plastered her body against him. She gave an experimental wiggle. “I can help you relax.”

“I don’t want to be rude, Mrs. Lepler, but
there’s a name for this. It’s called sexual harassment.” Adam felt his face heat up as he said the words. It felt pansy-ass to frame it this way, but he had to give it a try. “I’ve been advised to tape our conversations from here on out.” He slid his phone out of his pocket, thumbed to the voice memo feature even as she stepped back, sputtering with rage.

“How dare you,” she snarled, but he held the phone up so she could see the little red record light blinking, and she shut her mouth, turned on a turquoise kitten
heel, and stomped out.

“In which I advised Mrs. Lepler I’d be taping our conversations,” Adam said, feeling silly but triumphant. He also spoke the date, time, and location.

He put the phone away. She was gone, and with any luck at all, she’d stay gone. He owed Dr. Suzuki big-time for her suggestion. He locked up the trailer to head to the hospital. Waving to Teddy to take over, he headed to his truck.