Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) (6 page)

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.

Dammit.

But this was better, actually. She just had to spot some random dude coming in, acting like he was looking for someone—and if he was interesting, she could say hi. If he wasn’t, she could pretend a no-show and slink out the back.

No rose was genius, actually.

The bartender was a grizzled escapee from the sixties
whose red-rimmed pot smoker’s eyes brightened at the sight of her. “What can I get you, pretty lady?”

“A mai tai, thanks.” She still loved the pineapple wedge and little umbrella that said “
Hawaii” like nothing else. Fiddling with her napkin, she turned partway so she could see the two entrances. One was almost directly behind her. Its flapping Western half doors evoked the sound of jingling spurs. The other was a broader opening into the main area of the restaurant.

She turned back as the bartender slid the mai tai in front of her.

“Thanks.”

“You from around here?” the bartender asked.

Zoe stirred the drink so that the drizzle of rum on top melted into the bright yellow pineapple juice. “I live here in Paia.”

“Nice to know.” A
man slipped onto the stool beside her without her seeing him come in. “My name is Philip.”

Zoe turned. “Hi, Philip. I’m Zoe.”

Philip was short. Even on the stool beside her, he was short, shorter than her five foot six, and balding. His beard was trimmed into a fleur-de-lis on his cheek.

She had to
peek at it twice as he ordered a beer.

“So, do you come here often?”

“No.” Her stomach curdled with disappointment. She used the stir stick straw to inhale a good portion of the drink. Now was not the time for restraint. A fleur-de-lis in his beard? Really? Another ridiculous date for her research, and in that moment, she realized she really had been hoping to meet someone she liked.

“Well, I come here often. And if you did, I would have noticed you, Zoe.” Philip grinned. Yikes. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone. A man with his hands on his hips, glancing around the bar. He was backlit, but she could already tell he was an improvement over Philip, and it suddenly occurred to her that Philip might not be her date.

“Are you on a Crazy Blind Date?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at her companion.

Philip grinned again. There was indeed a gap in his yellowing bicuspids. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

The
man in the doorway had advanced to the bar, sat three stools down. “Hey, Manny. Heineken,” he said to the bartender. He seemed a tiny bit familiar—something about the dark hair waving back from his forehead, the way the silky aloha shirt he wore hung from tanned, muscled arms.

Philip leaned forward to block her view. “I’d like to think fate’s a little crazy, and if you want this to be our first date, I’m game.”

Zoe went panicky—this definitely wasn’t the right guy. Where was the damn rose when you needed one! “I’m meeting someone. I don’t think it’s you.”

“Wow.” He clutched his chest as if struck by a blow. “Ouch.”

“No, really. I’m on a blind date, and I’m meeting someone. It’s not you.” She felt her voice rise. She had to get rid of this jerk so she could meet the man three stools down.

He must have heard her, because he turned his head—and she recognized Mr. Tool Belt. His light brown eyes widened with recognition. She felt an electric something zing her like nothing she’d felt since that terrible crush on Mike Pennington back in high school.

Philip leaned in again and broke the connection between them. His face was congested with anger, and she realized how hurtful her words must have sounded.

“Bitch, really?” He pulled his wallet out, slapped down a bill. “Good luck with that.” Philip left, stomping
through the restaurant and pushing the exit doors wide. They flapped dramatically in his wake.

Zoe gazed miserably into her drink. What a fiasco. She was terrified to look up.

The man from three stools down slid in beside her. “I’m sorry about that guy. I was a little late, or that never would have happened.” He smelled ever so faintly of surf wax, a subtle vanilla that her oversensitive nose picked up and immediately wanted more of.

She couldn’t look at him. She was afraid of what she’d see. What she wouldn’t see. Being wrong again. Being right. Her nipples tightened, and she thanked God she’d worn the bikini top.

“I forgot my rose,” she muttered into her drink.

“You can have mine.” He slid his rose over, and she glimpsed his hand, large and capable, a few dark hairs sprinkled across the wrist. The rose was multipetaled and old-fashioned; the variety she’d heard called “Hawaiian roses.” More magenta
than red, it was round and the size of a small tangerine, with hundreds of tiny petals. It was so fresh that there was a pearly drop of moisture in the center. She picked it up, held it to her nose, and smelled cinnamon.

She closed her eyes, letting her hot cheeks cool, breathing it in. “
It’s beautiful.”

“Picked in my yard on the way here.”

“I can tell.”

Somehow she didn’t feel awkward; she felt instead as if, side by side, without seeing each other, they were moving into sync. She was still terrified to make eye contact, to feel that zing again, to feel her own falseness and her own longing.

The story. This was about the story. She wasn’t looking for anyone. She wasn’t ready for anything, and she already knew she couldn’t “be true” like he’d said he wanted.

“I’m Zoe,” she said to the rose.

“I’m Adam.” His voice was low, and there was a cadence to it, the rhythm of the islands—a backbeat of what they called “pidgin,” though every word was perfect English.

“How crazy is this blind date thing?”

“Not so crazy. I saw your picture and liked it. I’m glad it’s you.”

She felt rather
than saw him lift his beer glass, sip. She sneaked a glance, and it was, indeed, a wide, strong throat moving and a handsome profile. Almost-black hair, damp with comb marks, swept back from a high forehead. His jaw was shadowed with stubble. He turned his head, and her eyes glanced off his and away. He rubbed his chin; she heard the papery rasp.

“I meant to shave, but ran out of time. Today didn’t exactly go as planned.”

“What do you mean?” Zoe turned the rose in her fingers, and scent lifted from the bowlful of petals to tickle her nose with spicy scent.

“Oh, it just didn’t. Tough day.”

“Well, I’m new here on Maui. I can tell by this rose, you aren’t.” Stick with what she could truthfully say.

“You aren’t that new if you can tell that from this rose.”

“I’ve been here six months. These are antique roses descended from plants the missionaries brought over.”

“I nevah knew dat.” She heard the smile in his voice as he let a little pidgin out. “Pretty soon you going be one local girl.”

“I hope. Someday.” She stayed serious. Realized she liked him too much for the charade. Liked him too much not to tell him the truth. She had to be honest about the article.

“Listen.” She turned to him, leaning on one hand. The shawl slipped off, exposing her shoulder and naked back.

Adam blinked. His eyes wandered, came back to hers. Color rose to stain his high cheekbones.

“Listen,” she said again, but couldn’t get her eyes off his. They were golden, with a deep brown ring around the iris, deep-set under bold black brows.

She thought of the eyes of hawks.

He seemed as stunned as she felt. “I’m listening.” His lips barely moved.

“This is all wrong. I have to tell you something.”

“Tell me.”

“I—” She felt ridiculousness strangling her. A flush rose up from her navel, sweeping up her body and over her face in a flash of heat. She turned away, stabbed the straw into the drink. “I’m not sure I can go out with you.”

“Why?” It was a whisper. She felt his eyes on the curve of her back like a touch—gentle, exploring, delicious. She wanted to tell him about the article, about being a journalist, but now she found she couldn’t make herself say the words.

“I’m still getting over my ex.” An excuse could buy her time. Time to get to know him better. Time to find a way to tell him about the article.

“Oh.” He straightened up, turned away, took a drink. “Isn’t that always the way.” His voice was clipped.

“I’m sorry. I like you. That’s the problem.”

He seemed not to hear that part. “
You’re probably still married or something.” He sounded angry. She didn’t like angry; it scared her.

“Divorced. Recently and badly.” She hurried, spitting the words into her drink like the bitter fruit they were, and only part of the truth.

Adam lifted his beer again for something to do.

Still getting over the ex. Her words rang in his ears, feeling like rejection. His belly clenched reflexively. If only she weren’t so perfect. He sneaked another glance at her just to make sure.

Her face, in profile, was pretty rather than beautiful as she stirred her drink—tidy lips, a round chin, a little bob of nose. But her jade-green eyes reminded him of the deep places in the ocean where whales lived. Her lashes were so long they brushed her cheeks.

The turquoise shawl had drifted toward the floor, emphasizing the long line of her back ending in a sweet, round rear end. The tumble of her hair touched the top of her hips. It was all sorts of colors, like a shiny saddle and also full of gold. His whole body tightened. His hands opened and closed reflexively, longing to tangle in that hair.