Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) Read online

  It had never been as hard as this moment. He began filling out the particulars on his mom—her birthdate, social security, insurance, current symptoms, past surgeries. He didn’t know everything, but maybe one of his sisters would.

  Mele was the one to waddle up to him first, her husband, Pat, trailing.

  “Adam!” Mele’s face, a softer, prettier version of his own, was distorted with crying. She was wearing a bright green sleep T-shirt with a smiley face that bulged over her pregnant belly. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. They arrived before me and took her straight into the back. They’re working on her. The waiting room is a little full. I needed some air.”

  “Oh God.” Mele covered her face, hunching her shoulders on fresh tears, and Adam reached out an arm. “C’mere, sis. It’s okay. Don’t get stressed. It’s bad for the baby.”

  Pat nodded vigorously. “I’ll take the papers in if you’re done with them, Adam, see what I can find out.” Clearly relieved to hand off his emotional wife to her brother, he took the clipboard and hurried inside.

  Mele sobbed on his shoulder as Adam rubbed her back, patted the tumble of her long black hair. Mele had been the apple of their father’s eye and had taken his death harder than any of them. The thought of losing their mother too, along with pregnancy hormones, was clearly more than she could handle. He felt bad for his impatience earlier.

  “It’s okay. She’s going to be okay,” he soothed, rubbing her shoulder, kissing her forehead.

  That’s when he glanced up and saw Zoe with the green eyes walking toward him.

  He froze, staring at her. He could tell she’d seen him kiss his sister, and he could tell she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion by her narrowed eyes, by the way she clutched her little silvery dog tighter and literally lifted her nose in the air as if she smelled something bad. She passed him, walking stiffly into the emergency room.

  What was she doing here? And what the hell could he do about it now? Did he even want to?

  His gut told him he did want to do something about it. In fact, in spite of everything, his heart rate had jumped to double speed at the sight of her.

  Mele had stopped sniffling and sat back upright. “Thanks, Adam. I don’t know how you do all you do. I’m such a wreck right now.”

  “It’s being pregnant. You get a pass.” Adam smiled at her, tweaked her nose as he’d done since she was a kid. “Get yourself together. Mama wouldn’t like you being upset. You know she’d tell you it’s bad for the baby.”

  “I know.” Mele rubbed her belly in an unconscious gesture as old as time, smoothing the ridiculous smiley face design over the mound. “Just another month. I can’t wait for this part to be over.”

  Adam’s mind was still on Zoe, wondering what had brought her to the emergency room and wondering what the hell to do next.

  Zoe went through the lobby of the emergency room, feeling like she was underwater. The sight of Adam, Mr. “Be True,” with his arm around a pregnant woman, was the next scene of a nightmare that had begun after her beatific beach walk in the rain. Even on the day she lost the babies, on the day Rex left her, she’d had her mom and girlfriends to cry with—but here she was on Maui after a car accident, and the only one there for her was Sylvester.

  She still couldn’t even see a pregnant woman without a stab of pain to her womb reminding her of all she’d lost. Seeing Adam kissing that woman’s forehead, rubbing her back—she couldn’t put words to the grief it brought roaring up. Sylvester licked her chin and pulled her back into her aching, stiff, shocked body as she stopped at the admission desk. “I need to see a doctor.”

  The nurse glanced up, frowned. “No dogs allowed in here.”

  “I got in an accident.” The accident hadn’t been bad. Her hood was dented, but her air bag hadn’t deployed, and she’d been able to talk to the other driver and hand over her insurance card—but then the stiffness in her neck had set in and she’d driven to the hospital. Her mind seemed unable to think of what to do with Sylvester but hold him. “He was in the accident too.”

  The admissions nurse pushed a clipboard at her. “What are your symptoms?”

  “I think I have whiplash. I felt okay when it happened. I talked with the other driver and he drove off, and so did I—but I started feeling funny.” Her beloved Beetle’s hood bore a big crease, but the truck she’d hit had been unmarked.

  “Okay. Fill this out. Have a seat and someone will see you—but we are on a triage system here, so we are going in order of severity of need.”

  In other words, Zoe didn’t rate a doctor anytime soon. Zoe took one of the molded plastic chairs, gradually realizing the room was packed with people, all in varying levels of distress, pain, and anxiety. The collective misery was overwhelming.

  Sylvester lay unresisting across her lap and let her prop the clipboard on top of him to write, a highly unusual behavior. She found she could hardly tip her head. Her neck had gone so stiff. Gripping the pen was challenging, as the muscles of her hands had spasmed into cramps when she’d squeezed the wheel so hard on the moment of impact.

  The airbag failed to deploy, she thought as she filled in the little boxes. I wonder why the airbag didn’t deploy.

  One of the toddlers who’d been wailing escaped from his mother and ran toward Zoe, sticky little brown hands grabbing Sylvester’s silvery coat. He put his curly head on her dog’s side.

  Zoe set the clipboard aside, knowing Sylvester’s patience was severely strained by the child’s impulsive gesture, but her dog remained passive, even turning to expose his belly. The mother, wearing a bright-patterned homemade skirt and blouse, had chased the child across the lobby, chastising him in a foreign language filled with liquid syllables.

  Zoe smiled, made a gesture to stop the woman. “It’s okay. He can pet him.” Immediately, every child in the emergency room left their parents’ side and clustered around Sylvester, stroking him and exclaiming. The first toddler, clearly sick in some way with flushed cheeks, put his little face on Sylvester’s belly and hugged the dog with both arms. Zoe found her eyes filling as the mood of the room was transformed by Sylvester, who’d closed his eyes in bliss and surrendered to worship by various humans.

  The toddler’s mother smiled, stroking her child’s head. “Thank you. My baby, he sick. He so unhappy.”

  “He obviously likes dogs. Do you have a dog?”

  “We come from Micronesia, the island of Yap. We come, and we leave our dogs at home.” Their eyes met. “We miss home.”

  “Yes,” Zoe said. “Me too.”

  The nurse called the toddler’s name, and his mother scooped him up. He let out a healthy-sounding bellow to be separated from his new friend as the woman carried him off to be seen by the doctor.

  The rest of the kids, an older girl holding her arm against her chest, a young boy and another toddler, a little guy not more than a year old, clustered around Sylvester, petting him and asking questions: “What’s his name?” “How old is he?” “What kind of dog is he?” “Where did you get him?”

  She was fully occupied with the children until a shadow fell over them, and a pair of long, tanned arms reached in to pluck the toddler off of Sylvester, where the child had begun an intimate investigation of the dog’s ear.

  “Hi, Zoe. I see you’ve met my nephew, Kaden.” Adam handed the toddler to a frazzled-looking young woman who shared Adam’s striking golden-brown eyes. “The family’s all here. This is my sister Charlotte.” Charlotte gave Adam a curious glance—Who is this? that glance said more clearly than any words—but she smiled at Zoe.

  “Hi. Your dog is very sweet to put up with all this mauling.”

  “I know. He’s not usually this patient.”

  The pregnant girl had come in, and she sat down beside Zoe. “Any friend of Adam’s is a friend of mine.” Her face was puffy with tears. Zoe shook the hand she extended automatically. “I’m Mele.”

  “Hi.” Zoe felt her throat close up. This was Adam’s w
ife or girlfriend. His very pregnant woman. She couldn’t put words to her feeling. Embarrassment? Surprise? Disgust? It was some paralyzing combination. She glanced up at Adam.

  Adam cleared his throat. “Our mom had a heart attack. We’re waiting to hear the news.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Zoe’s throat unlocked enough to get the words out.

  Sylvester had finally had enough and flipped over, leaping off her lap. The older boy found a ball in his pocket and threw it for the terrier, and general hilarity ensued as Sylvester barreled after the ball, skidding to a stop and running into a man’s legs. The man, grinning with missing teeth, found the ball behind his feet and tossed it, causing the dog to do a mad scramble toward the other end of the room.

  Zoe kept her eyes away from Adam’s, smiling as she watched her dog work his happy magic on the room.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you here?” His voice was pitched so deep and low it might have been for her ears alone. The concern in it brought tears prickling again. He must think her such a basket case, always crying—the cheating bastard.

  “Got in a little fender bender. It was nothing big. I drove here, but my neck is beginning to be really stiff. I can’t turn my head. And look at my hands.” She held them out. They had curved into claws that echoed the shape of the steering wheel.

  “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.

  Chapter 10

  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.