Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) Page 4

  Zoe went back onto the dating site, opened her profile—and saw that thirty-seven men had looked at it.

  Only one had messaged her. “Hi. You’re beautiful and seem like someone who wants to live life to the fullest. Have you tried the polyamorous lifestyle? Message me if you are feeling adventurous!”

  “I’m apparently not willing to live life that fully,” Zoe muttered, hitting Delete on the message. She didn’t like how the message made her feel like a prude.

  Dear God, she felt naked.

  Even though she was hiding behind fake answers, men were checking her out and finding her uninteresting. Except the weirdos. They were judging her by her food-critic, instrumental-music-loving Gemini profile.

  Well, she could give them each a dose of how that felt. Maybe that was part of the weird dating and mating ritual of the site. She clicked on each of the men who had viewed her profile, leaving evidence that she’d visited and looked at them, but not messaging or communicating. Ha. Let ’em see how it felt. Or maybe it meant something. Maybe it was part of the process, and now they’d message her… Oh God, this whole thing was way more of a mind game than she was ready for.

  She was surprised by the number of men who never showed their faces—hiding behind sunglasses or ball caps. They began to seem alike to her. She made a note for her article—could men be hiding their eyes behind sunglasses because they felt “naked” too?

  One of her profile’s visitors really caught her eye. She hit View and blew up the profile photo.

  This one had a great smile with a dimple creasing one square cheek and perfect teeth. Wavy black hair and the golden-brown skin of mixed heritage. He wore a white linen shirt in the profile picture and dressed nice, downplaying a stellar body that did show up in one of three pictures: the one of him surfing. The others showed him with children hanging from his burly shoulders and on a construction job in a tool belt and a hard hat.

  Dear God. She’d always had a thing for tool belts.

  He was probably not that bright, between the surfing, tool belt, and handsome looks. She clicked on About.

  He’d been to college. Her eyebrows rose.

  He had a degree in architecture and currently ran “a family-owned construction business.” Liked blues guitar, classic rock, and discussions about “the things that really matter in life, like building dreams, being true, family, and friendship.” Wanted to meet someone who doesn’t need me, but wants me anyway. A woman who is her own person, does her own thing, and knows her own mind. Message me if you are that person.

  She wasn’t messaging anybody. No matter how gorgeous. Or family oriented. Who liked classic rock and discussing dreams and being true. Who wore a tool belt and had been to college.

  No.

  She was going on another blind date and letting the farce continue, because much as she liked the look of this guy, he wanted someone who wanted to “be true,” and she sure as hell wasn’t.

  She signed up for another Crazy Blind Date tomorrow night. The computer sent her a match, extending the misery by providing only a question mark instead of a profile photo, and three choices of when and where to meet. She picked the easiest one and shut down the computer, heading to the shower to have a good wallow in self-pity.

  Chapter 5

  Adam sat in his jeans and checked his online dating profile before work the next morning. He had six new messages in his in-box. He decided not to answer any of them, to just wait and see what the Crazy Blind Date was like—and he noticed the visitors box was up to fifty-four women.

  Several of them were ones whose profiles he’d visited the night before. He checked his message in-box again. He wondered if this was some sort of weird Internet dating protocol—I look at you; you look at me; one of us makes a move—but he didn’t feel ready to do anything, even for the cute brunette holding a little silver dog. He stared at the screen, pondering and reading over his three Crazy Blind Date place and time choices.

  “Adam, can you pick up some rice at the store on the way home?” his mother called.

  He shut down the computer quickly. He’d said yes to the Crazy Blind choice of a drink at a restaurant/bar in Paia. Couldn’t be that bad. He could always leave right after.

  “Sure, Mama, but don’t bother making dinner. I’m going out after work.” He pulled on another black work tank over his head and grabbed a clean button-down off a hanger for the date.

  “Oh, really?” She didn’t approach his room, but there was no mistaking the hopeful note in her voice. “Got a date? With who?”

  “Mama.” He walked down the hall, kissed her on the cheek as he took down a mug and filled it with coffee. “It’s not Tami, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I wasn’t asking if it was Tami.” His mother scrubbed at a spill on the white enamel stove unnecessarily hard.

  “Mama, Tami and I talked last night. We’re friends, cousins. We just don’t like each other like that.”

  His mother’s shoulders drooped as she held on to the stove with both hands. Was she going to cry? He was horrified.

  “I just want you to be happy. To have someone love you. Like Earl and I had. We had so much love for so long.” She grabbed for the dish towel hanging off a magnetic hook on the side of the stove, covered her face with it.

  “Mama.” He hugged her against his chest. “Ma, it’s okay. I’m okay. Really.” He hated it when she cried, and these emotional spells kept happening since her hip injury. He thumbed his phone out of his pocket, hit a speed-dial button. “Charl, it’s Mama. Come over right away. She’s upset and I have to go to work.”

  He hit Off on his sister’s squawks of alarm. She’d be there soon, but for now he scooped his mother into his arms over protests muffled by the dish towel and carried her back to the master bedroom. He settled her in the antique koa bed she’d had for forty years, plumping the pillow behind her head. She emerged from behind the towel.

  “You’ll hurt yourself carrying me.”

  “I didn’t, and I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about. Charl’s on her way. I have to go to work. You just rest.”

  She put a hand against his cheek. “I’m in the way now. I’m past my expiration date. That’s what Earl used to say.”

  “Stop it. You’re fine and not going anywhere, and I’m fine and not going anywhere.” He heard the crunch of the tires on the lifted truck his sister Charlotte drove pull up next to the house, the slam of the truck’s door, the creak as she opened the back door to get the baby out. Thank God. His sister would know what to do.

  “Charl’s here, Mama. I have to go to work.” One more kiss on her brow, and he hurried back into the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” Charl, his pretty younger sister, had applesauce on her shirt and his nephew, Kaden, on her hip. Adam took the baby automatically as Kaden reached for him, wiping applesauce off the baby’s chin.

  “I don’t really know. She got all emotional when I said I was going out after work. I think she wanted me and Tami to be going out, and that’s not happening.”

  Charl snorted. “You got that right. Tami’s too smart for that. Well, so Mama’s not sick or anything?”

  “I don’t think so, but I have to go, and I took her back to bed.”

  “Okay. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Thanks, Charl.” He handed the baby back to her. Kaden wailed, reaching for his uncle as she carried him down the hall. Charlotte had always had a way of bringing peace and order wherever she went—until she had Kaden.

  Adam turned back and felt a stab of something between embarrassment and grief as he picked up his lunch box and thermos like a kid leaving for school. He kept asking Mama not to bother fixing it for him, but she always did anyway. He guessed it was her way of saying thank you or something, so he didn’t leave it behind. He jogged out to the Tacoma, hoping like hell Mrs. Lepler wasn’t on her usual morning torture trawl through the job site—to which he was late, for the first time ever.

  He wasn’t that lu
cky. Alixia Lepler was sitting on the aluminum steps that led into trailer HQ, wearing denim tube sock pants with a top like a folded handkerchief.

  “You’re late.” Her plumped-up collagen lips barely moved when she spoke—probably the Botox. He wondered how anyone could find her attractive as he fumbled through a fistful of keys for the one that would open the door.

  “Apologies. Family emergency.”

  “Something with the Mrs.?”

  He didn’t reply. Her fishing for his marital status had begun a while back, little jabs that he’d refused to answer or respond to. Adam found the key and opened the door, a maneuver that required Mrs. Lepler to get up off the top step and come in behind him.

  “Someone packs that little lunch box of yours,” she teased.

  Adam could feel the back of his neck getting hot. Anger swept over him, the desire to blast her back with a few choice words, starting with “mind your own business.”

  He stepped into the stuffy trailer, walked over to the biggest fan, and turned it on, opening the sliding windows with a slam. He remembered the breathing Dr. Suzuki had recommended. Opening the window behind his desk, he gazed out at the square of blue sky and inhaled through his nose to the count of three, exhaled through his mouth, pretending to have trouble with the clip on the window. He managed three breaths that way and felt back in control when he turned to face her.

  “We got those lumber changes ordered yesterday.” He turned back to his battered desk to find her seated on it, looking at him over her shoulder.

  “Is that right?”

  He pulled his rolling chair out, sat on it far enough away to get a little distance. “Yes. It’s going to delay this stage at least three days, but they put a rush on the order.”

  Mrs. Lepler pushed out her bottom lip in a pout. “I’m beginning to think you want to hurry up and finish this job. I wonder why. It’s a two-million-dollar build, and I’m paying you plenty.”

  “Of course I’m not rushing, Mrs. Lepler. I’m not padding either. I always give one hundred percent to my work.” He leaned back, deliberately casual, and set one ankle on the other knee.

  “You have a funny way of showing it.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “A whole half hour late. Also I’m finding your lack of enthusiasm troubling.”

  She stood, walked around the desk to stand directly in front of him, leaning against it with legs spread, her arms crossed. “I asked around. You’re single.”

  “It’s none of your business, Mrs. Lepler.” He emphasized the “Mrs.”

  “Alixia. And just so you know, Mr. Lepler and I have what’s known as an open marriage. We like to share, even. I’ve told him about you.”

  Adam felt the flush of anger again, a heat blowing across his body that drew him up to stand his full height in front of her, hands fisted on his hips.

  “I’m a contractor. I work for you. You don’t own me.”

  “Oh, but I do. You see, I know what you need.” Alixia Lepler wasn’t intimidated a bit by his stance; she was enjoying this, a sparkle in her bright blue eyes. “You need to be the good guy. Hiring friends and family, taking care of your mother. Yes, I know who packs that lunch every morning. I can fire you and your whole crew and have another one out here tomorrow. What would that do to your good-guy reputation? Because I’ve been documenting all of this. Everything. Every change I’ve had to make to the project, your tardiness, the missing lumber someone stole last week. I can ruin you, like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “What do you want?” he growled.

  “You. On your knees. Right here.” Her eyes were bright, her face flushed with arousal. She pointed to the ground between her spread legs. “I’ll make it good for you, too.”

  Adam was speechless for a moment at her bold words. He sucked a breath, restraining himself from striking her. “Burn in hell.”

  He brushed by Alixia Lepler and slammed out the door. The guys had begun arriving and called greetings to him, but Adam made a beeline for his truck, stomping across the churned-up red dirt of the site so hard that puffs of it burst up from beneath his work boots. He fired up the truck, threw it in reverse, and roared off the lot.

  Once out on the road, he realized he was speeding. He did the breathing, rolling down the window so the wind blew in his face, literally cooling it.

  He’d been so close to hitting her, but a part of him knew she’d have enjoyed it. Hitting her, succumbing to her commands—either action would have sealed her victory. She was trying to provoke him, thriving on his helpless rage. The whole thing turned her on.

  Now he’d called her bluff. He might have just thrown himself and his whole crew under the proverbial bus. He wound down the scenic two-lane ribbon of road that led into Paia and turned right, ending up at Hookipa, his favorite surf break.

  “When in doubt, go surfing,” he muttered, and found a grin pulling up one side of his mouth, an unexpected sense of pride and freedom replacing the anger.

  What the hell. She could try to ruin him, but the Rodrigues name was solid on this island, and it would take more than one rich haole to ruin a reputation three generations of Rodrigueses had built.

  He unlaced his boots, peeled his work shirt off over his head, wrapped a beach towel around his waist, stripped out of his work pants, and hoisted up his board shorts.

  Let her take her best shot. He was nobody’s bitch.

  He grabbed his board off the racks and ran down the sand, launching over the shore break and paddling out in a burst of energy. The surf was small and blown-out from the wind, but Adam worked every little mushburger that rolled through, pumping his board through the crumbly whitewater sections and churning back out with all the power in his arms.

  He stayed out until those arms had turned to rubber and his stomach rumbled. Rinsing off under the cold park shower, he felt tired in a good way, the surges of emotion of the morning dissipated by exercise.

  He remembered that tonight he had a Crazy Blind Date.

  That is, if his mother was okay to leave—he’d have to go home and see.

  Imagine his date knowing what was really going on in his life—sexually harassed at work, taking care of an elderly parent, unable to see his stepkids, struggling with an anger problem, and quite possibly fired.

  This was one time he wouldn’t “be true” if he could help it.

  Chapter 6

  After her morning beach walk and trash pickup with Sylvester, Zoe had spent the day working on several pitches for new stories and structuring the article for Ladies’ Home Journal. She had a nice outline going: a little personal intro on how she’d never expected to be Internet dating but that she had trouble meeting people in a new location and wanted to try this “modern connection tool” to help with that. She used the hook of a quote from a success story on one of the sites, crediting online dating with “finding the love of her life” and the question: “Who wouldn’t want that?”

  Zoe followed that introduction with the strange experience of filling out the profile and the dilemmas of how truthful to be. Hoping the reader would be hooked by then, she outlined a paragraph with statistics on Internet dating, how prevalent it was and how many people met success.

  Actual numbers on this proved difficult to find, as each site and service touted their statistics—and who knew how truthful they were? She planned a paragraph or two on the different types of sites, who they catered to, and went on to the details of her experience on the site and her first Crazy Blind Date with a big-wave-surfing Brazilian bodybuilder who ate chocolate chip cookies and drank soy lattes.

  By the time she leaned back, stretched, and glanced up at the clock, it was almost five o’clock. The new date was for a drink at Charley’s in Paia, a well-established local bar and restaurant only a few blocks from her house. She’d planned to walk.

  “Okay, boy. Time to get ready for who-knows-what,” Zoe said to Sylvester, who was napping on her feet. She hurried through a shower but didn’t have time to dry her hair, so she didn
’t wash it, leaving it down and curling from the wind and humidity.

  At her closet, she frowned. She’d had to get a whole new wardrobe upon arriving on Maui, but what said “interesting, intellectual, and not desperate” for something as “desperate” as a computer-generated blind date? Oh God. She wasn’t really looking for someone, was she?

  That’s right; this was research. She was a journalist on a story. She shut her eyes, reached in, and grabbed.

  In her hand was a handful of black jersey, a backless knee-length halter dress she’d worn back home in the Bay Area to business dinners. Very not-Maui, but also sexy if she uncovered her shoulders. The bra situation was challenging; she’d dealt with it in the past by wearing stick-on boob supports, but she didn’t have any and she was just too full up top to go without something. In the end, she put on a black bikini top, tied it on under the dress and turned back and forth in front of the mirror.

  Good. She looked as close to hot as she ever did—and in case the guy was not someone she wanted to encourage, she draped a length of silky turquoise shawl around her shoulders. She touched up her makeup, put on her good sandals, and gave Sylvester final pets as she left, plastic bag for trash stowed in her crocheted black bag.

  Paia was still warm, busy with traffic backed up with commuters from Kahului heading home as she walked along the colorful storefronts. She navigated the buckling sidewalk and other pedestrians moving at rubbernecking speed, picking up bits of trash along the way and trying to keep the wind from blowing dust up her skirt from below. Charley’s was only a few blocks away, but as she stepped into the cool, dim interior of the rustic, Western-themed bar and restaurant, she already needed to freshen up.

  Zoe headed straight to the restroom and finger-combed her hair back into cooperative, redraped the shawl into modest, and patted down her skirt. She enjoyed the swish of it over her freshly shaved legs as she headed to the bar, and as she sat on one of the plastic-topped, padded stools, Zoe remembered she was supposed to bring a rose.