“Come on, Allie. This doesn’t have to be a thing. It’s not like I love Lisa Holly, or...any of the others. It’s just something I like to do. A hobby.” Jason rubbed his brown shaggy hair with a frustrated swipe of his hand.
“Are you serious?” Allie couldn’t believe her ears. Was he telling her that him sleeping...spanking...and God knows what else with other women was a hobby?
“Golf is a hobby, Jason. This—” she held up the photo with shaking hands “—is not a hobby. This is—”
“You don’t have to make this into anything.” Jason took another step toward her. She took one more back. He wasn’t getting near her. Not now, maybe not ever. “Actually, it’s good you know. We should start off the marriage being honest with one another. I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time about an open marriage. I was going to wait at least until after the honeymoon to bring it up, but now this is much better. Now we can talk about it.”
Open marriage? Allie felt the room spin. She’d thought all the grenades had exploded, but here Jason had somehow detonated another one. She wanted to laugh. He thought she’d agree to that. He clearly didn’t know her at all.
“God...” Allie thought about calling off all the wedding plans, about losing the deposits they’d put down, about going public with the fact the wedding was off. “This is so complicated.” Allie felt her whole world caving in, everything she thought she knew turned upside down.
“When you think about it, it’s actually very simple.” Jason had the nerve to smile. She wanted to slap it off his face. Nothing about this seemed wrong to him at all. He actually looked philosophical. Not the least bit contrite. The man felt zero guilt about anything he’d done. That realization sliced through Allie like a cold wind. “We’re on much better footing now that you understand my needs. We’ll have an even stronger marriage because of it. This will be better than before. You’ll see.”
“No.” Allie had been a fool to trust him once. She wasn’t about to trust him again. Allie stalked over to his front door, grabbed her coat and stomped her feet into her Sorel snow boots.
“Allie, don’t make this such a big deal. We can talk about it. Think about how great this is for you. You can sleep with any man you want. I can do what you don’t like with someone else. We’ll both be happy. You’ll see. We can talk about it.”
“Nothing to talk about,” she said as she felt the tears burn behind her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her cry. He’d played her for a fool, but she’d manage to hold on to her last shred of dignity.
“Allie...”
“Go to hell, Jason,” she muttered as she spared one last glance at the stacks of beautiful wedding gifts. She’d never get to use them. She’d never have the life she thought of with Jason, or the big, warm, loving family she’d always wanted. Allie rushed outside, half expecting Jason to follow, but he didn’t. She flew into the first open elevator, jamming the main-floor button. By the time she ran across the lobby, her vision was blurry with tears as she burst through the revolving doors into the frigid Chicago air. She exhaled sharp breaths in cold, white clouds as she half ran, half stumbled down the sidewalk, nearly careening into people as she went. She felt as if she was breaking apart, her heart splintering like broken ice.
Her phone blared an incoming call in her pocket. She fumbled for it, hoping that, somehow, Jason would make this all right. He’d beg to have her back, see the error in his ways, tell her he’d been a fool. Maybe she could learn to forgive him if he really was sorry. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it, but at that moment, the pain hurt too much. She just wanted it to go away.
“Allie?” her mother’s voice came through the line, sounding thick with tears. “I have some bad news.”
Allie felt numb. What now? What could possibly make this day any worse?
“Allie, honey, Grandma Osaka died.”
A month later
DALLAS MCCORMICK CROUCHED near the rainwater tank on the Kona Coffee Estate, where one of the pipes had sprung a leak. The warm Hawaiian sun beamed down on him as he whipped off his T-shirt to help himself cool off. From his vantage point, the property sloped on a rising hillside, where he could just see the sparkling blue of the Pacific Ocean framed by green palm trees.
Perspiration dripped down his back as he grabbed a wrench from his trusty red metal toolbox. He tipped up his straw cowboy hat to get a better look at the problem: a leaky pipe leading to the holding tank. Misuko—Misu to those who knew her—might be dead, God rest her soul, but he still had a job to do on the plantation.
“You gonna stare at that pipe all day or fix it?” The voice belonged to Kai Brady, the dark-haired thirtyish pro surfer and Big Island living legend. He’d walked over from the house next door, which belonged to his aunt Kaimana, and where he’d grown up. Now he lived in a luxury condo near the beach, where the biggest breaks of the island rolled in daily. He still competed, carried a few endorsement deals and managed to find some other businesses to keep himself busy.
Dallas stood, and the two old friends clasped hands, a big grin spreading on Dallas’s face.
“Why aren’t you out surfing?”
“Already been,” Kai admitted, and smiled. “Started at five, done by ten. If you don’t watch the sun rise over the ocean, what’s the point?”
“Indeed.” Dallas laughed. “And who’s running the coffee shop?”
“Jesse, naturally.” Hula Coffee was one of his side businesses, a coffee shop in nearby Kailua-Kona he ran with his half sister, Jesse. “It’s slow. You know the tourists don’t get up till eleven.” Kai shrugged. His eyes were covered by mirrored sunglasses, and he wore his thick black hair short and spiky. Kai, a quarter Hawaiian, a quarter Japanese and half Irish, was slimmer than Dallas, but nearly as tall. He was all wiry, tanned muscle.
“Aunt Kaimana told me to come check on you. She’s worried, now that you own this place.”
“Half this place,” Dallas corrected. He still couldn’t quite believe Misu had put him in her will. She’d been like family to him, but still. He wasn’t, technically, related. Where he came from in West Texas, only blood mattered. “The other half goes to her granddaughter.”
“Kaimana says she should’ve left it all to you. She’s worried about the festival.”
“It’s still seven months away!” Dallas exclaimed. Granted, the Kona Coffee Festival and Competition every fall was a district-wide event. Anyone who grew coffee on the Big Island participated, and winners got bragging rights all year round. The Kona Coffee Estate had lost out the past three years to Hawaiian Queen Coffee, but Dallas was hoping to change that this year with a new roaster and renewed determination. It had been Misu’s greatest wish to win.
Linus the goat, Misu’s old “organic lawnmower,” as she used to call her, ambled up then. She brayed and looked at the two men, but neither had snacks for her.
“Never too early to start strategizing. That’s what Kaimana says.” Kai shrugged. “And forget the competition. The shop needs your coffee. It’s the favorite house brew.” Hula Roast bought half the coffee produced on the estate. Without Hula Coffee, the Kona Coffee Estate would’ve gone bankrupt years ago. But people here on the Big Island looked out for one another. Tourists came and went, but locals were forever.
“I’m worried the granddaughter may want to sell. I can’t break up the estate. Not if I want it to work.” The roasting barn was on her side of the middle-line marker, which ran east to west across the property. He’d have to cough up tens of thousands to replace those buildings, and he’d have to give up prime coffee-growing land to build the barn, which he didn’t want to do but would