Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) Read online

  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.

  Chapter 11

  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. Then 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.

  Adam stopped at the gift shop in the hospital for a bouquet of flowers and made the rounds of hugging friends and relatives gathered in the waiting room, even snacking from a tray of brownies brought by his Aunty Noweo while waiting for his mother to get out of the recovery room. The cardiologist came to tell them she was settled in her room and “resting comfortably after a successful procedure” and that they could visit one at a time.

  He beat his siblings to Kalia Rodrigues’s bedside, the pressure of his time constraints giving him priority. He set the spray of mums on her bedside table as he went in.

  Mama was propped up. Her face had a swollen, crumpled appearance—probably from the respiratory support. She smiled when she saw him and turned her cheek for a kiss.

  “How’re you feeling, Mama?”

  “Pretty good, considering my heart was just Roto-Rootered,” she said with a flash of humor. “They told me I can go home in two days.”

  “That’s so great.” He injected his voice with cheer even as he wondered how the heck he could take care of her with Boss Lady breathing down his neck. They’d have to set up shifts with his sisters or something. “Just rest. I wanted to see you first thing; the doctors say you came through it great.”

  “Yes, I hope this gives me a lot more energy. It’s actually good to find out there was a reason I was so tired all the time.”

  Guilt stabbed Adam. He hadn’t realized this; and it hurt to know that, even with the best intentions, he hadn’t seen what was right in front of him.

  Mele had come to the door, an enormous orchid plant balanced on top of her stomach.

  “Baby brought you something, Mama.”

  Adam took that moment to slip out the door and back through the gauntlet of family and friends to his vehicle.

  On the way back to the job site, he thought of something that would cheer him up—checking the dating site to see if Zoe had sent him a message. Back in the trailer, he logged into the dating site and saw that he had several messages in his in-box, and she had replied to him.

  How dare you ask for my phone number, you cheating jerk! You said you want someone to be true? Why don’t you start
by being true to your lovely pregnant girlfriend, Mele? She deserves so much more than a pompous, stuck-up hypocrite like you. Men like you, who seem to love their families and then betray them are the worst kind of scum. Yeah, you can have my phone number so I can tell you in person what an asshole you are. Please call me. I’d love to tell you what I think of you.

  Adam recoiled in surprise from Zoe’s vitriolic message, leaning back in the chair. Wow, she sure had a hot button about cheaters! She was mad on Mele’s behalf. He liked that. He wished he’d taken that extra thirty seconds to make sure she knew Mele was his sister. She must have had such a stressful day with her accident, then to get his message—it had definitely fried her bacon to have him asking for her number. She’d given it to him, but only in order to tell him off.

  If he could get through the initial yelling, it would be worth it to clear things up. He wrote her back, a brief message. If she replied, he’d go from there. If not, he was just going to have to move on, and frankly, he didn’t need any more drama in his life. Still, it felt a little scary how much he wanted her to say yes to seeing him again.

  He wondered if it was because life was so uncertain, so difficult, that he needed some sort of escape, something that made him feel good.

  Zoe’s eyes made him feel good.

  Chapter 12

  Zoe had slept poorly the night before, and she’d woken with the cottony mouth of a Vicodin hangover. Her neck was still too stiff to do without the foam collar. Sylvester scratching at the door finally got her out of bed, and she let him out into the little driveway and strip of weedy lawn under the mango tree to do his business. She was still grumpy and on her first cup of coffee when her phone rang with a call from Michelle, whom she’d messaged yesterday after the accident.