The last act of the evening was one of Kai’s cousins performing an elaborate fire dance, much to the oohs and aahs of the audience. On the moonlit beach, the show was an amazing whirl of floating fire. When he finished, the audience burst into extended applause.
Then the mayor took the stage. A middle-aged Japanese woman, she held the microphone and thanked everyone for coming.
“Maybe we should go,” Dallas suggested, not wanting to hear what came next. He’d been planning all along to make an early exit, but Allie had gotten talking to one person and then another. She was too damn nice, saying hello to everyone and chatting up a storm at their table. On a different day, it would have been nice to see her fitting in so well with the locals, but right now all he wanted to do was get her out of there. But she was too intent on hearing the mayor’s speech, a snag he hadn’t counted on.
“One minute,” Allie said, leaning forward and listening, eager to hear what the district’s mayor had to say.
“I hope to see everyone at the Kona Coffee Festival, starting tomorrow, and I’d like to introduce our celebrity judge this evening—” The mayor took a deep breath. Dallas grabbed Allie’s hand. “Jennifer Thomas.”
Allie froze beside him, watching Jennifer stand up and wave to the crowd. The camera crew danced around her, jiggling to get her from the best possible angle.
“Oh, no,” Allie breathed. “Dallas...” She glanced at him, face pale with worry as she tightened her grip on his hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said. “She’s just one of three judges. We’ll still have a shot. We could still win.” He thought if he said it often enough, maybe he’d even start to believe it.
“You aren’t surprised. You knew.” Allie paused and glared at him, a riot of emotion playing out on her face. “You knew.” She sounded hurt, accusing even. Why was she angry at him? “How did you know?” she spat. “Did Jennifer tell you?”
Dallas frowned, confused. “Why would Jennifer tell me?”
“She texts you, doesn’t she?”
Dallas’s mind whirled. Jennifer hadn’t texted him...except that last one. The one where she’d asked to have him back. Oh, Lord. Allie had seen it. She’d seen it, and she hadn’t said anything. All this time, she’d been stewing about it and he hadn’t known.
“Allie,” Dallas said, but Allie had already moved away from him, gotten up and started walking across the beach. “Allie, wait.”
She kept on walking. He had to jog to keep up with her and managed to catch her on the grass near the parking lot. “Allie! Hang on.” He took her by the arm, and she whirled on him.
“Why don’t you go back to Jennifer? Isn’t that what you want?”
“There is no me and Jennifer. I thought there was a you and me...”
“Dallas. I saw how you were looking at her all night.”
“Sure I was. She’s a snake, and I don’t trust her. I thought she might try to make a scene. I was just trying to be ready for it.” Dallas frowned. “Allie, we have to talk.” Allie stalked to the pickup truck, and he let her in. He went around to the driver’s-side door, thinking that at least in the truck she couldn’t go anywhere until they’d finished this conversation. If she could, she would’ve bolted right there, run away from him, but he was her ride home.
He slid into the truck and fired up the engine. Allie sat next to him with her arms tightly crossed across her chest, her face stubbornly looking away from his out the passenger window. He made his way back to the Kona Coffee Estate, trying to think of how to go about convincing Allie he was telling the truth.
They rode home in silence. He turned into the Kona Coffee Estate, the headlights illuminating the porch of Misu’s old house.
Right at that moment, his phone, sitting in the cup holder of his truck pinged an incoming message. The high-pitched sound irked Allie, obviously, and she glared at his phone.
“Who’s texting you?” Allie demanded. “Is it Jennifer?”
Dallas put the truck in Park and turned off the engine. He’d never seen Allie like this before: insane with jealousy, completely irrational, hurt and upset. He knew she’d lost control, and all he wanted was to calm her down so he could reason with her, help her see it was all in her head.
“It’s no one,” Dallas said.
“Your phone. I heard it!” Dallas saw how jealousy grabbed hold of her, illogical and insistent. He knew she couldn’t help herself now as the accusations flew out. “Is it Jennifer? I know it is. I know what she’s been texting you. I saw the texts.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Dallas spread his hands, glaring at her, feeling helpless and frustrated. He wondered why she hadn’t just asked him about them. He would’ve told her then what he planned to tell her now: Jennifer meant nothing to him.
“Why didn’t you?” Allie countered. “It made me think you were hiding something.”
“I was hiding something. That I have a crazy ex who is out of her mind.” Dallas sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Allie, I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want to upset you. You should know better than anyone that I don’t want to be with her. She’s the one who’s hounding me, not the other way around.”
“But why would she? Why would she think she even has a chance?”
Dallas shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You’re encouraging her. Somehow, some way.” Dallas could almost see the suspicion thrumming in Allie’s brain. He hated it. He could see her reacting to him as if he was Jason, and he was nothing like that asshole. He didn’t like sharing the same space in her head with him. “You’re hiding something from me.”
“Allie, I’m not.”
He saw all the insecurities of her old relationship plain on her face. He knew it was hard for her to deprogram the assumption a man was lying to her. This was a knee-jerk reaction to Jason, Dallas knew, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from getting angry. He didn’t like being accused of things he didn’t do. The entire island had done that for the past year with impunity, but he didn’t want Allie to fall into the camp. If she couldn’t trust him, if she couldn’t have faith in him, then he was wasting his time.
He fished his phone out of the cup holder and showed her the face of it. The text had been from Kai. She looked as if she felt silly then, the flare of jealousy fading a bit, the stranglehold of emotion letting go a little.
“You don’t love Jennifer?” she asked.
“No, I don’t.” Dallas ground his teeth. “It’s over. I’m never going back to her.” He sighed and again ran his hand through his thick blond hair. “But if you can’t trust me, then we won’t work.”
Allie stared at him a long time, the shine of the porch light casting a long shadow across her face.
“You’re asking a lot of me,” she said. “More than a lot.”
“I know what I’m asking. It’s hard for me to do, too, Allie.” Dallas stared at her, his blue eyes never leaving hers. She hesitated, unsure.
“I don’t know. I just...”
“It’s not something you think about. You just know or you don’t.” Dallas waited, but Allie just couldn’t seem to give him what he needed.
“What about tomorrow? What about the competition? We can’t win now.” Allie deftly changed the subject, clearly not wanting to answer him. Her voice sounded high-pitched and scratchy; he could hear the panic in it.
“I know it means a lot to you. With Jennifer on the panel, I don’t know if we can.” Dallas already knew what he could do about it. “I could talk to her, I guess.”
“No,” Allie snapped.
“Maybe I could help her see reason.” It had never happened before, but there was always a first time, he thought. He hated the idea of ever asking Jennifer for anything, but for Allie, he would.
“So you can get back with her. Is that why you want to talk?” The anger and jealousy bubbled over in Allie’s voice.
Dallas glared at Allie. The woman was making no sense whatsoever. He’d only
just told her he wasn’t going back to Jennifer. And he was a man of his word. If she didn’t know that about him by now, maybe she’d never know it.
Dallas gripped the steering wheel of the parked truck, trying to keep his temper in check. “I know the contest meant a lot to you, and I just want to make sure we had a fair shake, that’s all.”
A bitter laugh escaped her lips. “That’s right. It means a lot to me. You know why?” Her voice vibrated with anger. “We have to win, because that’s the only way Kaimana will sign the papers, Dallas. She told me.”
Allie might as well have punched Dallas straight in the face. The blow would’ve been less sudden and painful than her words tumbling into his ears.
“You still want to sell?” He couldn’t believe after everything they’d been through, everything they shared, she still had it in her mind to run. He wanted to marry her, but if she was thinking about running, then clearly she didn’t feel the same way about him. She was prepared to just throw away the connection they had as if it didn’t matter, as if it was something that happened every day.
“I want to keep my options open.” Allie glared out the front of the parked truck’s windshield, not meeting his eyes.
“Open? So one of your options is to leave the Big Island. To leave me?” Dallas was almost afraid to hear the answer.
Allie hesitated, her gaze flicking back to his. “I don’t know.” The truth of her confusion came through in her voice. But Dallas only felt the pain of it. He’d been left by Jennifer. He’d been hurt, too, and for once he wanted a woman who would just stand by him. He wanted the security of knowing that when he needed someone to lean on, she’d be there to offer her shoulder. It was a basic want, yet nobody had been able to give it to him in his whole life. He was used to being on his own, ever since his parents died, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
“I can’t believe this. Is that why you worked so hard all this time? It wasn’t that you even liked the coffee, was it? It was all about making sure you could get the cash at the end. Is that it?” Dallas glanced up at Misu’s house, where they’d lived together like a real couple for months. He turned away from the sight, his insides a tumble of emotions: anger, frustration, resentment. If she’d planned to sell, why string him along all this time? Why make him believe they had something special?
“Dallas, that’s not what I mean.”
“Sounds like it.”
“I want you to have the plantation. If I do sell, I want to sell to you.” She put her hand on his arm, her dark eyes earnest, looking as if this news should somehow make him happy. As if it was a peace offering.
Dallas shook his head, a hoarse laugh escaping his lips. “I can’t buy it, Allie,” he said.
“Don’t you want it?” Allie sounded surprised. The wind off the ocean picked up, whipping her dark hair into her face. She pushed it out.
“Of course I do.”
“Then, what’s the problem?”
Now was the moment of truth. Dallas couldn’t wiggle out of it, and he knew it. He sighed.
“I can’t buy it because Jennifer stole most of my savings,” he said grimly. “She wiped out my bank account when she left.”
Allie blinked fast, trying to process this new bit of information. “She...what?”
“The woman you thought I still cared for. She guessed my passwords. She transferred the money into a joint account and then she just drained it. I never went to the police because I didn’t want Kayla’s mother going to jail. And I didn’t say anything to anyone else because I didn’t want Kayla being hurt by the rumors.”
“Dallas...” Allie’s voice trailed off as the enormity of the news sank in. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you?” Dallas asked her, feeling anger well up in his chest. “Are you really? Because it seems to me that your plan all along was just to leave.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. A storm was blowing in off the ocean. “That had always been my plan,” she said. “You knew that.”
“Yeah, but...I thought... I guess I thought you’d changed your mind.”
“Dallas...” Pain ripped through Allie’s face. Dallas chose not to see it.
He sighed, frustrated that after all this time, she still wanted to walk away from him, from everything they could be together. “Never mind. If after all this...you still want to go... Then nothing I can say even matters.”
“But, Dallas...” Her voice sounded bitter and angry. “This is Jason’s fault. If he hadn’t cheated, I wouldn’t be crazed with jealousy. I’m not normally like this. It’s just...”
Dallas felt frustration well in him. He didn’t know why she was so stubbornly clinging to the past. Why was she looking backward when there was so much potentially ahead of them?
“I’m not Jason.” Dallas glanced at her from the driver’s side of the truck.
“I know.”
Dallas shook his head.
“No, I don’t think you’re hearing me. I’m not Jason. And I’m not going to have you treat me like Jason.”
Allie’s eyes brimmed with tears. He was making her cry, but he couldn’t help it. He needed to reach her somehow.
“Let that go.”
Tears rolled down Allie’s face. “What if I can’t?”
“Then you’ll always be running away from your feelings, and you’ll never be happy.” Dallas shook his head, refusing to look at her. “I thought I could help you, Allie. I really thought I could, but it’s like Jennifer all over again.”
He could see the effect of his words on her, like a slap. He knew he should stop, but he couldn’t help it.
“I couldn’t help her, and I can’t help you, either. You’ve got to do it yourself. I can’t fix these problems for you,” he said. “Go, then, if that’s what you want.” He reached across her and opened the passenger-side door.
“It’s not what I want,” she said, voice thick with tears.
“Then why do you want to sell?”
“I...I...”
The hesitation was enough for Dallas to want to give up. This girl wasn’t in it for the long haul, no matter how hard he tried to convince her to stay. He didn’t want to argue anymore, didn’t want to hear her excuses. How could he trust her when in her mind she always had one foot on a plane? Big drops of rain splashed down on his windshield. The storm had come.
Reluctantly, she slipped out of the cab of the truck, tears glistening on her cheeks. Part of him wanted to wrap her up in his arms, kiss away those tears and tell her it was all going to be okay. But he couldn’t do that. She wanted to leave him, and he had to accept that.
“Are you coming in?” Her voice sounded like a small croak.
“No,” he said. He didn’t want to look at her. The anger and frustration built up inside. He didn’t trust himself to be with her. He’d yell at her or say things he’d regret. He needed to be alone. She shut her door with a defeated-sounding thunk.
Dallas turned the ignition and the truck roared to life. He drove blindly in the tropical rainstorm, not even sure where he was going. He found himself on the road by the shoreline, just driving to who knew where. He didn’t care. He still felt blindsided by Allie telling him she planned to sell. He couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to stay put, didn’t want to stay with him, after the connection they had; he just didn’t understand it. Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way was all he could think. Or maybe she’s too scared to realize something like this doesn’t come along every day. She’s too busy hung up on the past; she’s never going to be ready for her future.
Whatever the case, he’d gone and fallen in love with another project, and he was done with fixer-upper women. He should’ve learned his lesson with Jennifer, and yet here he was again, in the exact same spot. No, not quite the same, his memory was quick to remind him. Jennifer was an awful and selfish person who did what she wanted when she wanted. Allie was just misguided, too fearful to trust in the happiness that could be hers.
Not that he blamed her. He’
d come to think happiness was pretty much a mirage, too. Just when he thought he had it in his grasp, it always seemed to fade away. Through the hard-pouring rain, the streetlight ahead of Dallas turned yellow and then red. He hit the brakes and hydroplaned to an uneasy stop. The water pooled on the narrow road; the torrential rain flowed down the gutter and made little rivers in the ditches along the roadside. He drove aimlessly until he realized he was headed straight for the tree house. Maybe he could clear his head there.
The light turned green, and he pulled through the intersection, his back tires losing a little grip on the slick road until they found traction again.
What can I do to convince Allie to stay? Or should I even bother? It was up to her now, he knew as he drove through the rain, realizing as he passed a sign that he’d gone halfway around the island already.
Rain poured down from the dark night sky, and his truck’s windshield wipers had trouble keeping up. He passed by a big tourist resort. A bright new red sedan, clearly a rental car, swerved out into the road without looking, and Dallas only just missed him, hitting the gas and accelerating.
Drunk tourist, he thought, and decided he’d try to get the license plate and call his friend Lyle to see if the car couldn’t be picked up. In his side mirror, he saw the driver throw out an empty beer can. He’d already hit something because the left headlight was cracked and not working. Dallas got a bad feeling then, his heart rate jumping.
The rental sped up, its one headlight bright in Dallas’s rearview mirror. He blinked against the brightness.
What’s that idiot doing? Dallas thought, even as he moved over to the other lane. The car wove dangerously back and forth across the road, even passing the yellow median marker. He’s going to kill someone.
The turnoff to the tree house came, and he took it, anxious to get away from the warbling lights. Amazingly, they followed him.
What the hell?
The headlights came to his side mirror again; this time, they were speeding up. Dallas clutched the steering wheel. The drunk driver gained, and Dallas tried to slow down and get out of the way, but the other car sloppily swerved into his lane. The passenger tire of Dallas’s truck caught the edge of the road.
Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) Page 24
