Aloha With Love Read online

  Jenna’s lips thinned. Probably never.

  The sisters collided and embraced each other in the way people did when they shared hard news—long and tight, and as if they hadn’t seen each other in a long time, which they hadn’t.

  “Thanks for getting here so quickly,” Sarah said by way of greeting, rushing past pleasantries.

  “I got here as soon as I could. How’s Dad doing?” Aunt May, her father’s sister, had been her dad’s constant companion for the past several years, especially as her health had deteriorated. If anyone would feel her passing as acutely as Jenna, who’d grown up with the woman as a second mother, it would be her father.

  Sarah exhaled, releasing Jenna from her grip as she did. “Stoic as ever, and slipping in jokes to cover up his emotions. He was having lunch with Aunt May when it happened.”

  “Really?” Jenna took in her sister’s puffy eyes and knew she’d been crying. Sarah’s dark hair was pulled back and she’d wrapped herself in a thick cardigan, unconcerned about the heat of the warm summer afternoon. Grief had a way of turning people cold, and a shiver ran through Jenna. “I’m so grateful she had him with her when...”

  Emotions rolled through Jenna and her sister pulled her in for another hug. “Me too.”

  “I wish I’d been here to say goodbye,” Jenna mumbled, mostly to herself, then sniffed back a fresh crop of tears. “I wasn’t here for her birthday—”

  “She knew you would have been if you could. Aunt May loved seeing you happy, and she knew how much your work meant to you.”

  Yeah, but it doesn’t matter half as much, Jenna thought. “Work was the last thing May and I talked about. It all feels so trivial now.”

  “She was proud of you.” Sarah attempted a smile, but it wilted at the edges. “Trust me, she was, and she never let anyone forget it, either. I think all of Maui knows about the mainland architectural adventures of Jenna Burke.”

  Hopefully May’s version of the story was more impressive than Jenna’s. “Where’s Mike?” she asked.

  “Picking up the kids.”

  “How are they handling this?”

  Her sister pulled a face. “Ethan is addicted to video games and Emma’s a teenager. They didn’t really know Aunt May as well as ... well ... you know.”

  “Right.” Jenna remembered her recent conversation with Patti about teenage years. It wasn’t easy on anybody, especially parents. While one was trying to find their footing in a new world of young adulthood, the other was holding on to the past and worrying about them growing up too quickly.

  As if his fatherly instincts had alerted him his daughters were talking about him, Jenna’s father emerged from the house. His arms were spread wide in welcome to his younger daughter, though the smile on his face was pained, almost forced. Like Aunt May, he too looked older than when Jenna had him seen at the online birthday party. Maybe the camera added ten pounds, but took away a few years?

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  Jim pulled her into a tight embrace. “Aloha, Peanut. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked through the bulk of his arms. Jim Burke had always been a man of the island, tall and broad with long black hair and warm, kind eyes, but time and age had softened him. The firm muscles he’d had as a younger man had become spongier, though he was still as strong as ever and his dark hair still just as black, only now edged in silver. Hugging her dad was like squeezing a big teddy bear. The thought made her cling just a little longer to him than she otherwise might have, lingering in the cozy heat of his embrace, the smell of the ocean fresh on his skin.

  “No. But you’re not either, right?”

  Jenna shook her head as her father turned to her sister. “Are you?”

  The tears streaming down Sarah’s face were so heavy they weighed down their father’s voice. “Well, then ... bring it in here.”

  Sarah joined the hug, and for a moment the three stood there, arms around each other, each finding comfort in the other.

  “I think us being together is a wonderful blessing,” Jim said. “Don’t you?”

  Both girls nodded.

  “Let’s go inside.”

  Jim picked up Jenna’s bag, and his eyes widened in surprise. There was a catch in his voice. “This bag isn’t heavy enough, Peanut. I hope you’re staying longer than last time.”

  “Just through the service, Dad.”

  The sadness in his expression stung. “I’m very busy at work,” she added by way of apology.

  He slung the lightweight bag over his shoulder with one arm and curved his lips upward into a smile. “There’s always something to get back to, but I’ll take as many moments as I can get. You girls are my aloha.”

  As Jenna followed her father and sister into the house, she thought back to the week before. How different life had been then. She and Darren had still been together, her upcoming pitch on Terrace Pines had still been full of potential, she’d never cried at work, and she’d still had Aunt May. At her birthday party, Jenna had watched on the screen as Aunt May beamed full of life, as if the illness she’d been fighting for so long had finally lost its hold on her. She’d laughed, eaten two slices of her favorite cake, a coconut-and-cream Hawaiian delicacy of Sarah’s, and ... “On her birthday, Aunt May asked if I still had Ruby,” Jenna thought out loud.

  “Your hammer?” Jim and Sarah asked at the same time. One’s voice sounded as if she’d just said the name of a long-lost friend, the other, incredulous.

  Nodding, Jenna thought back to when she’d worked alongside her dad and Aunt May on various construction projects. Her dad was always building something—it was probably how he’d managed to keep so strong in his later years. Nothing built muscle and stamina quite like swinging a hammer all day. Ruby had been a gift, emblazoned with the little red gems that gave the tool its namesake, given to Jenna when she was a girl and had started building with her dad. “I haven’t seen it in years.”

  Sarah, who had never quite shared the family fondness for building things, had more recent relationships on her mind. “Where’s Darren?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

  Jim grunted under his breath. “Oh yeah, I forgot about ol’ what’s-his-name.”

  “Things have changed between me and what’s-his-name.” Jenna sighed and forced a definite yet ambivalent tone into her voice. “Please no follow-up questions.”

  “Hallelujah.”

  Sarah shook a scolding finger at her father, who’d clearly read between the lines. “Daddy, be nice.”

  “What?” Jim harrumphed. “Never much liked the guy. A man’s hands need to have dirt on them. My own daughters can build a house from a hole in the ground and that man couldn’t even hang drywall.”

  “Maybe Jenna can build a house, but I don’t know the difference between a nail and a screw.” Sarah scoffed and turned to her sister. “I’m sorry about you and Darren,” she added, though she only sounded half-sorry.

  Jenna got the impression her dad wasn’t the only one who hadn’t cared much for her ex. “It took me a long time to figure it out, but he turned out to be ... well, not right for me.”

  “Ho ‘alo a ha’alele paha i ka ipu,” Jim said with a smile. He wrapped his free arm around Jenna’s shoulders and squeezed. “No better way to rid the world of louses than a little sunshine.”

  Jenna couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face at the mention of sunshine. Yeah, she was sunny. Even more important, she liked herself that way. Aunt May had, too, and her opinion mattered mountains more than Orville Barrington’s or Darren Taylor’s.

  “Come on, let’s get you settled,” Sarah said, ushering her father and sister inside the house. She dropped her voice and winked at her sister. “Then you and I are gonna have some girl talk.”

  

  Sarah might not have known the finer points of hardware, but she definitely knew how to command an oven.

  “These look absolutely amazing,” Jenna gushed as her sister set down a large tray of pastries on th
e kitchen table while she sat sipping a steaming cup of butterscotch tea. She eyed the tray, amazed at her sister’s creativity. Everything looked delicious and artisanal, almost too good to eat, but Jenna eyed a white-dusted lemon bar and felt her stomach grumble. “I forgot all about your confections. I don’t know where to start.”

  “Just something I threw together,” Sarah shrugged modestly. “So, tell me everything. What happened with Darren?”

  The girls turned to see their father hovering nearby.

  “Dad, what part of girl talk includes you?” Sarah teased.

  He motioned innocently at the spread of desserts on the table. “I gotta get back to working on my project, but I was just hoping to get myself one of those pastries.”

  The sisters watched as their father plucked a plate from the cupboard and stacked an assortment of sweets on the ceramic. He tucked an extra morsel between his teeth, just for good measure.

  “Mahalo,” he managed between bits of brownie as he made his way to the back door.

  When the coast was clear, Sarah leaned in toward her sister. “Okay. Spill it.”

  Jenna shrugged. Really, there wasn’t much to spill. Nothing her sister wouldn’t already expect anyway. She decided to leave romantic financial investments out of it and get straight to the point. “After four years of dating, it seemed like we stopped growing as a couple.”

  “You do know dating for four years isn’t really supposed to be a thing, don’t you?”

  “It’s not?” Of course her married sister knew all about the rules of dating.

  Sarah shot her a motherly look. “No. That’s just sort of being a perpetual renter at love, but never getting your name on the mortgage.”

  Jenna smirked. How would Darren, Mr. Fancy Pants realtor, have liked her sister’s metaphor? “That sounds like something Aunt May would have said. I guess we were kind of in a rut. We didn’t kiss as often, and forgot to say, ‘I love you’ a lot.”

  “That’s old married couple stuff. Trust me, I know.” Sarah held up a ring finger, displaying a gold wedding band topped with a princess-cut diamond. “But I got the ring. And the ‘till death do us part.’ That’s what gets you through the ruts.”

  “I waited for him such a long time.” Jenna sighed. “I just hate starting over.”

  “I know, but sometimes one step back is two steps forward.”

  “Now that’s definitely Aunt May talking right there,” Jenna said. She laughed, and the sound was sharp around the edges.

  A beat of unexpected silence passed. Both women sipped at their tea in quiet thought.

  “I’m going to miss her so much,” Jenna said, finally.

  “Me, too.”

  Jenna had just picked up a second lemon bar when the sound of the front door opening signaled new arrivals. A few footsteps later, Sarah’s husband, Mike, appeared in the kitchen, loaded down with his children’s belongings.

  He deposited the clutter unceremoniously in a heap on the kitchen floor, then stooped to hug Jenna, adjusting his glasses so they didn’t smudge against her cheek. “Hello, Jenna. Good to see you. I’m so sorry about Aunt May.”

  Jenna swallowed the lump of pastry and grief stuck in her throat. “Where are the kids?”

  Mike rolled his eyes. “They went to their rooms to ‘change,’” he explained, using air quotes the way parents sometimes did when they knew their children probably were doing anything other than what they were supposed to be doing. “They’ll either be down in a bit to say hello—or we’ll possibly never see them again. Where’s Darren?”

  Sarah shot her husband a look.

  “What did I say?”

  Sarah picked up a pastry and broke it in half, sending a clear message to her husband.

  Mike caught it. He winced as he turned back to Jenna and looked as if he’d suddenly gotten a very bad toothache. “Got it. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish is what I always say.”

  Sarah banged the baking sheet again and mouthed no while Jenna pretended not to notice.

  “This whole family speaks in riddles!” she said. “You guys really didn’t like him, did you?”

  Mike suppressed a shudder. “Really, really. Jen, you know you can stay as long as you want,” he added, changing the subject.

  “Thank you. I can stay through Aunt May’s service, but then I have to get back. In addition to losing a boyfriend, I lost a big project. I have a lot of work to do to redeem myself.”

  Her sister gave her a rueful smile. “Then we’ll just have to make an island girl out of you while we have you.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah had arranged a memorial gathering for Aunt May the very next evening. Her ample sitting room was filled with framed photographs of May’s life, showcasing precious moments of the family’s timeline interspersed with platters of pastries she’d spent half the day and most of the night before baking. Tropical drinks had turned grief into celebration, and family and friends packed the rooms, some sporting Hawaiian shirts and flower leis as they chattered and mingled. It was a Maui-style wake, full of life and love.

  E hele me ka pu’olo. Jenna remembered the meaning of the proverb. Make every person, place, or condition better than you left it.

  “It’s nice for everyone to be able to be together to celebrate May,” she said, watching as two unfamiliar faces in a corner laughed loudly over a shared joke. Just because she didn’t recognize everyone at the memorial didn’t mean her Aunt May hadn’t left her touch on everyone she met.

  “Everybody on the island loved her,” her sister agreed. “Good thing we didn’t have to put the word out wide about the memorial. We would have had to rent out the Grand Wailea.”

  A cousin whose named escaped Jenna joined the throng. “Do you remember the summer Aunt May bought her old tractor? She was determined to conquer her own lawn care needs, no matter that her property was large enough to hire a four-man crew.” He pointed at Jenna. “You must have been yea high.” He hovered his palm in the air near his hips. “Said you’d help mow if she let you build a treehouse out in the big elm in the back.”

  “I remember,” Jenna said. Aunt May had let her help, and she’d spent the rest of the summer drawing blueprints of her dream treehouse on every scrap of paper she could find. “She even let me ride that old tractor once or twice.”

  “As I remember, nobody could peel you off of it,” Sarah teased. “You were just as determined to build your treehouse as Aunt May was to mow her lawn.”

  “Hey, it was my first official architectural project! Made me the woman I am.” Jenna laughed.

  Sarah gave her an appraising look, but before she could comment, Jim approached, a serious look stamped on his face. He tried to force a smile, but the look of exhaustion Jenna had noticed before seemed heavier now, weighting his body down with grief and sadness. Her dad was putting on a brave face for the good of the family, but the strain was taking a toll.

  “If you’ll excuse us just one minute,” he said, gathering Jenna, Sarah, and Mike from the throng of well-wishers. “Grace wants to speak to May’s immediate family.”

  Jenna arched an eyebrow, surprised to hear the name of the long-time family lawyer. “Grace Miller?”

  “Grace is handling May’s estate and she’s leaving tomorrow. Like I said before, there’s always somewhere to get back to. It’s unfortunate timing, so we have to get things sorted out now.”

  

  A handsome woman made up of pearls and starched collars, Grace was waiting for the family in Sarah’s study. The small, well-furnished room at the back of the house was meant to be used as a place of relaxation but had instead been overrun with the bric-a-brac of parenting two growing children. Sarah kept the room tidy, but evidence of her children was still there—a mismatched pair of Ethan’s shoes, some of Emma’s old surfing gear, half a dozen tattered textbooks, and a plush toy that had seen better days. Besides the kitchen, the study was the only room in the house that looked truly lived in. Of course, with Grace Miller in it, a
ny room would look disheveled. Not only was she one of those women who never seemed to age, but she had the look of someone who could frighten wrinkles right off her face.

  She’s an older version of Patti, Jenna mused. Both women were blonde, and both knew how to command a room, but where Patti’s confidence was borne of wit and cleverness, Grace could charm your socks right off your feet without even trying—and then send you the bill for dry cleaning.

  “I apologize for interrupting the memorial but thank you all so much for taking a moment away to have a short word about May’s estate.” Grace welcomed the family to the room as if it were her own, extending her long, slender arms to shake hands and dole out quick, perfunctory hugs. Someone, presumably Sarah, had cleared a section of clutter from the small coffee table in the center of a ring of sitting furniture, and Grace arranged her papers importantly on the table’s surface as she waited for the family to settle around her. “May expressed her desire on a speedy resolution of her will because she knew how hard it would be to get the whole family together in one place.”

  There was the hint of an insinuation in Grace’s words and Jenna’s cheeks burned as she fought to keep her face neutral. So what if she was the only one who’d left the island to pursue her dreams in California? Was leaving home really such a crime?

  “May had very little in the way of earthly treasures to leave behind,” Grace continued. “Her only real asset was her house and the land it’s on, which, of course, is worth more than the structure. What money she did leave is to be used to renovate the home.”

  The heat in Jenna’s cheeks cooled. Aunt May’s house had been a second home to her when she was growing up, even if it had always been too big for one woman to care for. Her thoughts raced through memories of playing in the flower gardens at the edge of May’s property. She and Sarah stampeding down the house’s large staircase and into the kitchen for breakfast on weekend mornings. Watching sunsets over the ocean horizon from the back porch.

  “May loved that old place. What a wonderful project it’ll be for you to restore, Dad,” she said.