Aloha With Love Read online

  Jenna found it hard to disagree. Having Ruby in her hand again felt amazing.

  “So, are you going to get some use out of her? It would be nice to have you around for a while, Peanut. I know May would be happy to see you back out working on her house. Well, guess it’s your house now.”

  “Only for a little while,” Jenna clarified, not wanting her dad to get too attached to the idea of her visit to the island becoming permanent. “But Ben did agree to come back to work on the house, and my boss did tell me to take all the time I need. I might as well get in on the action while I’m here.”

  “Patti Murray is a smart lady,” Jim agreed. “Almost as smart as your dear old dad.”

  She spun the hammer in her hands and holstered it in her toolbelt just like she’d done as a girl. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get back to Aunt May’s and get her hands dirty.

  

  Jenna was already at Aunt May’s the next morning when Ben pulled up in his pickup. She watched over the curled edges of her faded blueprint as he slid from his truck and came toward her, a sledgehammer clutched in each hand.

  He grinned at her as he made his way up the front steps. “You beat me to work. And you have a blueprint?”

  “Just wanted to show you that mainlanders can also be punctual.” She pointed at the paper. “And my dad never throws anything away.”

  “Huh.” Ben’s eyes swept over her from ponytail to blue jeans, lingering a moment too long on the toolbelt around her waist. “There’s nothing quite like a woman with a toolbelt,” he noted with a sheepish smile. He peered down at Ruby, glinting red in the fresh morning sunlight, and his smile grew into a smirk, causing his dimples to deepen and Jenna’s heart to flutter. “That’s a pretty hammer you’ve got, but you’re going to need something a little more powerful today—it’s demo day.”

  He handed her one of the sledgehammers and the weight of it took Jenna by surprise. The hammer slipped in her grasp. Its head nearly crashed through one of the rotten planks of the porch, but she managed to keep the thing from slamming headfirst into more damage they’d have to fix. Barely.

  She steadied the top-heavy instrument against her shoulder and tried to look confident. Talking about opening up the house’s floor plan had felt a lot more reasonable before she was the one wielding a blunt object. “Tell me again why we’re demolishing walls?”

  “Because old homes like this were built with lots of small rooms separated by walls that prevent natural light from entering,” Ben replied, repeating words Jenna herself had said only a few days earlier. “We have to open up space to create views in the rear of the house and increase the amount of sunlight running through.”

  Again, it sounded reasonable, but the weight currently bruising Jenna’s shoulder insisted otherwise. She groaned. “I can barely hold this thing up.”

  “That’s because you haven’t found your motivation yet.”

  “What does that mean?” Jenna rolled her eyes. Had she really already forgotten just how smug Ben Fletcher could be?

  “Demo day is the perfect time to blow off some steam, but you obviously lead a perfect life,” Ben goaded. “The perfect job in the city, the successful boyfriend who wears a suit to work every day. An aunt who leaves you a big house with the costs covered ...” He let his words linger, dimples deepening as he grinned at her, seeming to enjoy ruffling her feathers. “Demolition day is not for someone with a charmed life. Maybe I pegged you all wrong, Peanut.”

  He turned to walk through the front door just as the heat brewing inside Jenna’s chest bubbled over and came spilling out of her mouth. “Stop right there!” she demanded. “Just who do you—”

  But Ben had already slipped through the door, sending Jenna’s temper flaring in his wake. Left gasping at the audacity, Jenna staggered through the threshold after him, lugging the stupidly heavy sledgehammer with her. Funny, it didn’t seem so heavy now—a realization which only infuriated her more.

  “You don’t know the first thing about me!” Jenna was ready to unleash fire when she caught up with Ben in the living room. “I loved my aunt, but I didn’t ask for this house. And I would give it up in a second to have her back. On top of that, my boyfriend—whom I dated for four years—broke up with me literally the day Aunt May died, so he’s not so perfect after all. And my career is not nearly as fulfilling as I thought it would be. I lost my biggest deal ever over five percent!”

  “Don’t tell me, Toolbelt,” Ben yawned. “Take it out on the wall.”

  Jenna’s jaw dropped. Toolbelt? Ben Fletcher was the last person on earth who was going to give her a nickname. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? A building contractor moonlighting as a psychotherapist? She’d put the sledgehammer straight through his face!

  Frustrated and fueled by adrenaline, Jenna hoisted the heavy hammer and slammed it through the wall.

  A large piece of sheetrock crashed to the floor and with it a sense of calm flooded out Jenna’s ire.

  “That felt good,” she breathed. “If I’d known breaking things could be so liberating, I’d have started slamming holes in walls a long time ago.”

  “It was a good swing, too,” Ben noted appreciatively. “Except that’s the wrong wall. That one’s staying.”

  Jenna gawked in newfound horror at the very expensive therapy session she’d just enjoyed. The hole in the wall was bigger than a basketball. “What?!”

  “Just kidding.”

  She picked up the hammer and swung again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The afternoon passed in a blur of drywall dust and broken plaster.

  Ben and Jenna took up a tempo as they slammed sledgehammers into plaster. With one hammering first and then the other, the sound of their twin beats made a quick two-step as they worked side by side, opening up the floor plan and inviting more natural light to spread throughout the newly expanded rooms. The house had been dark and boxy before, but Aunt May had employed lamps to give the house its cozy glow. Now, real sunlight filtered through, bringing warmth with it.

  At first, Jenna found the sledgehammer heavy and awkward, but she focused every bit of energy she had on each swing. By the time they’d gotten halfway through the first wall, the tool felt like a natural extension of her arm—long, muscular, and powerful, as if she’d used it a hundred times before. With every lift and fall, she felt more invigorated and more resolute, as if she were breaking up more than pieces of old drywall. Like she was breaking something open within herself.

  Jenna swung and crack went her frustrations about Terrace Pines. Another whack and smash, the part of her still holding onto the uncomfortable shame she’d clung to over her doomed relationship with Darren fell away. When a particular piece of the wall stubbornly stuck in a stud, she dropped the sledgehammer and used her body as a mallet, pummeling the piece with her foot until it crumbled, taking every bit of insecurity Jenna had with it until she felt like she’d been stuck in a plaster shell of herself and only now had broken free. Even Ben seemed to appreciate her determination ... and pity the wall.

  When they’d finished hammering down one wall, Ben and Jenna hauled chunks of broken drywall to a dumpster out front. They took down another wall after lunch. The second was easier than the first, and Jenna found herself having fun. It became a game: Ben hit first and then she swung, the two counting points between them to see who dislodged the most pieces.

  Afterward, Jenna sat in one of the rockers on the back porch, rehydrating with a large glass of water from the jugs they’d brought in until the plumbing could be fixed. Ben walked out and sat in the chair next to her, stretching out his long legs in front of him like a cat basking in the summer sun.

  He rolled his head to the side to look at her. “I wouldn’t want to be a sheetrock wall with you staring down at me, sledgehammer in hand.”

  “Neither would I,” Jenna agreed. “That felt good. Better than good, actually.”

  Ben laughed, stretching again, and took a swig from the thermos he’d carrie
d out onto the porch with him. “Demo day is my favorite day of a reno. I may not be a rich man, so days on the yacht are out of the picture, but most people don’t get to bust down walls every day. Simple pleasures are more fun. Don’t you think?”

  Jenna, who had been on a yacht, thought beating down a wall was infinitely more entertaining than sitting on a stuffy boat. She’d never liked the water anyway—a dark secret she’d harbored during a childhood spent growing up on an island. “It was fun.”

  “I’m glad you agree, because there’s a lot more fun to be had.” Ben looked over his shoulder at the house, squinting as he peered in through the dusty windows at the rooms beyond. “A lot more.”

  It might have sounded ominous coming from anybody else, but from Ben it sounded anticipatory, almost eager. Jenna pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them against her, resting her head on her forearm to gaze at the man beside her. “You really love what you do, don’t you?”

  One side of Ben’s mouth lifted upward in a smirk, making the dimple in his profile wink at Jenna as his eyes swept over the backyard. “There’s nothing like the feeling of breathing new life into an old house with a complete gut renovation. It goes from run down and unappreciated, to shiny and new and full of potential. It’s a second act for the structure, gives it a chance to start new. Everyone and everything—even a broken-down old house—deserves a second act.”

  Jenna considered Ben’s words. It was kind of poetic when you thought of it like that, which she hadn’t ... until now. “And your second act? What’s it going to be?”

  “You’re looking at it.” Ben laughed and took another swig from his thermos. “After college, I moved to the city and worked in sales. Man, nothing can break a man’s spirit like working in sales. I needed a full reno myself by the time I got out here.”

  “Sales?” Jenna repeated, surprise creeping into her voice. “What kind of sales?”

  “Advertising.” He spat the word out like it tasted bitter.

  Jenna almost giggled, thinking of the strapping contractor all buttoned up and wearing a Bluetooth in his ear rather than a toolbelt around his waist. “I would never have guessed.”

  “Why not? Don’t think I’m persuasive enough?”

  Jenna had to laugh. “Oh, I know you are. You just don’t seem like the salesman type.”

  Ben lifted his index finger. He pointed it at her as if she’d guessed his secret. “Turns out I’m not. In fact, it nearly drove me crazy. I wasn’t good at sitting behind a desk. It took me three years to figure out why I was so miserable. Eventually, I wised up. Moved back home and started my own business.”

  “Legacy Renovations,” Jenna filled in. “I like it. Now I see what the name means.”

  “So did your Aunt May. I gave her my ‘second chances’ talk, and she hired me on the spot.”

  Jenna smiled, but decided not to share what her father had told her. “I heard you two were close.”

  Closer than you let on, she thought. Ben nodded but averted his gaze. His eyes had gone a little misty.

  “I miss our conversations, your aunt and me. We would talk about all sort of things classic—homes, movies, cars. May was a lot of fun to talk to.”

  Still hugging her knees, Jenna exhaled. She’d give a lot for just one more conversation with her aunt. It was kind of a funny thing, talking to someone you loved. No matter how many conversations you had—how many laughs and cries and inside jokes—there was always room for one more. Conversations were like possibilities: limitless and irreplaceable. Jenna tried not to think about what she might have said to Aunt May if she’d known their last conversation would be their last. Would she have told her she loved her? Thanked her for always being there? The truth was, she probably wouldn’t have been able to say any of those things, but in the end it wouldn’t have mattered. Aunt May had already known.

  “She told me once I reminded her of a young, Hawaiian Anne Baxter.”

  Ben gave her an appraising stare, then nodded. “I can see that.”

  “I still have no idea who she is,” Jenna admitted.

  “All About Eve.”

  Jenna scrunched her nose. “Eve who?”

  “It’s a movie. A classic. About a Broadway star who gets displaced by an ambitious fan.”

  “Anne Baxter is the star?” Jenna guessed.

  Ben stifled a laugh. “No, Bette Davis played the star. Anne was the ambitious fan.”

  “Ambitious sounds like a negative in this context,” Jenna decided, narrowing her eyes.

  “She was the antagonist.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes, not wanting to dissect why this particular role had reminded Ben of her. An antagonistic ambitious fan sounded a little too Annie Wilkes for her taste. “So, you went to college?” she asked in an attempt to redirect the conversation.

  For someone who didn’t like the fast-paced sales game, Ben was awfully quick on the uptake. “Does that surprise you?”

  “No,” Jenna countered, although it had. He didn’t seem uneducated or anything, he just didn’t strike her as a white-collar kind of guy. Like Darren. Jenna shoved that thought back to Broadway too. “Just ... what you do, renovating homes ... you know what I mean.”

  Ben grinned at her. “Like I said, I tried the advertising world and it wasn’t for me. But yeah, I went to college. Got a bachelor’s degree. Didn’t help me much in advertising, but I’ll admit it’s come in handy a time or two as a sole proprietor.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I just wanted to see you squirm.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “There’s no home renovation college, is there? There should be. A lot to learn. Carpentry, plumbing, electrical. Even the cosmetic stuff, like spackling and laying grout. It all seems like it doesn’t go together, but it does.”

  Jenna nodded in agreement. She was quickly learning that even studying architecture hadn’t prepared her with all the necessary knowledge she needed. Sure, she could design a building—she knew the angles and construction theory and had a basic grasp on construction methods. But, as she’d discovered in the short amount of time she’d spent with Ben, she barely knew anything about the nitty-gritty details, like polyvinyl chloride flooring and low VOC paint. She hadn’t even been totally confident on the difference between drywall and plaster until this morning, and this was only day one. Like Ben said, there was still a lot of fun to be had. And a lot of learning too, she supposed.

  “So, you studied business in college, then?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  “What then?”

  “Seventeenth-century Eastern European romantic literature.”

  For half a second, Jenna thought he was pulling her leg, then she burst out laughing.

  “What?” he exclaimed, feigning offense. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” she managed to choke out between giggles. “Just explains all the fancy language, that’s all.”

  “Well...” Ben grinned. “I guess I’m a poet and didn’t know it, Toolbelt.”

  This time, Jenna let the nickname slide.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Jenna dragged herself back to her sister’s house at the end of the day, everything on her body hurt. She slumped into a chair at Sarah’s kitchen table and tried to remember what it felt like to have bones.

  Sarah gave her a once over. “So, you look good,” she teased.

  “Oh, I’m sure I look like I just came in off the runway.” Jenna rolled her eyes. Even the small motion hurt. She winced. How sore did one have to be for their facial muscles to hurt? “We got all the main demo done today. Sledgehammers.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but I’m happy for you.”

  Jenna was too exhausted to explain, and the details probably wouldn’t interest her sister anyway. She shifted in her seat and a muscle twanged in her back, the movement sending sparks shooting up her spine to erupt somewhere near the back of her ears. “Oh, my aching...” She sighed. “Everything, honestly. I need
a long, hot soak in the tub. Please tell me you have Epsom salts?”

  “I do.” Sarah smiled. “I also have something else. Something you may like even more than Epsom salt.”

  What would feel better on her sore muscles than a warm hug from soaking salts? “A personal masseuse?”

  “Better.” Sarah pulled a tray of fresh brownies from her oven, then set them on a stone trivet on the table and pulled a pitcher of milk from the fridge. “Bon appetit.”

  Jenna’s mouth watered. “Seriously, you made more brownies?” Spurred forth by a sudden burst of energy, she leaned forward and plucked a pastry from the pan. She blew the brownie a couple times to make sure it was cool enough not to burn her tongue, then took a bite. Gooey, fudgy chocolate coated her tongue. The taste was nearly enough to make her moan—the tension melted from her muscles, all attention now focused on the taste in her mouth. “Maybe I’ll skip the bath and just eat this whole tray.”

  Sarah preened as she wiped her hands on her apron. “Go for it. You’ll work off the calories, and I can always bake more tomorrow.”

  Jenna recognized a familiar note in Sarah’s voice. Disappointment sprinkled with failure and broken dreams. She’d sounded the same when she’d found out Barrington had walked. Another bite of brownie, and an idea sparked in Jenna’s mind. “Dad mentioned your idea of opening a bakery once upon a time. You never told me that.”

  Sarah waved the suggestion away and took a seat at the table. She carved a brownie out for herself. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just, you know ... dreaming about the what ifs a long time ago. I love making people happy with my baking. Once I thought it could be more than just the people who live in my house.” A lonely, bitter laugh escaped through her lips. “Of course, that crowd is getting pretty thin these days. Mike’s so busy with his CPA work, and in not too many years, Emma won’t need me as much anymore—not that she does now. Ethan either. The kids are growing up, and I’m just not as important as I used to be.”