could talk her into riding him, if he promised to lie real still.
“Here, let’s put these in some water.” The nurse picked up the sheaf of flowers and carried them off.
“You could come out to Nawea,” his wahine suggested, turning back to him when the nurse was gone. “And lie around in the shade. Frank would love to see you, and all the Ho’omalus want to meet you.”
“Ah, all of them?” He envisioned a phalanx of tree-size Hawaiian males scowling at him for daring to touch their precious wahine.
“Well, not all,” she said, frowning uncertainly. “My dad and Jason. Jason Mamaloa, his partner.”
“Jason Mamaloa?” Joel whistled. “Wow. I just heard him on the radio. He’s good.”
She smiled as proudly as if he’d praised her. “Isn’t he wonderful? And he’s so nice. I have two dads instead of one.”
He smiled at her. “That’s great. You deserve two.”
“What happened to your father?” she asked, coming back to perch on the side of his bed. He captured her hand again and felt better.
“He died several years ago. He was an alcoholic, finally drank himself to death.”
Her hand gripped his, pressing reassurance in right through his skin. “Oh, I’m sorry, Joel.”
He shrugged. “He was an unhappy, bitter guy. Watched his hardware store go down with the little timber town we lived in. Pine Shadow, Idaho. After the timber industry started to go downhill twenty years ago, with regulation after regulation and cheap foreign lumber, the mill closed. People started to move away for a new start. Not my dad. He was determined to stay and go down with his boots under his favorite barstool, down at the Pine Away. Yes,” he agreed wryly when she blinked. “The real name. Can’t make that shit up.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, he died about the time I graduated high school. I got a scholarship to the U of I, and Mom moved to Spokane to live with her sister. She’s happier than she’s been since I was a little kid.”
Bella nodded. “How about you? Are you happy?”
He shrugged, wincing again. “I will be, when I get out of here and get back on my feet. As it is, I’m gonna miss that trip to the Arctic. I was really looking forward to that.”
He looked at her. She was still solemn, her mouth curved down in a sexy pout. He tugged at her hand, and she bent over and kissed him. It was a great kiss, until the curtain jerked open again, and his doctor walked in.
Bella flew off the bed again, and Joel sighed. “Yes, please take me home with you,” he said. “Please.”
Then he let her go and turned to the doctor, who waited at the foot of his bed, clipboard in hand.
Bella rode back to Nawea in Claire’s new little SUV with a smile on her face. Claire gave up trying to converse with her after the third try and turned her stereo up.
Bella texted Joel that his rope was safe with her, and he texted back that he was going to tie her up and look at all her tattoos at his leisure. She texted back, wishing him good luck with that. He replied that his luck was getting better all the time.
Homu and Tina were at supper that evening, along with their sons, Claire and Bella, and Hilo. As they sat back in their chairs, finishing their drinks, Homu looked at David and Daniel and received a nod from each of them. Then he turned to Bella.
“Nani,” he said, using her father’s pet name for her. “I have an offer to make you. You don’t need to answer now, just think about it.”
Bella nodded, mystified. She’d told the family that she wouldn’t be going back to her job at DelRay and confided to Tina that she might look for a job at one of the garden nurseries on the island, if she could find a place to live inexpensively. Tina had listened carefully and agreed that it was obvious now that Bella belonged on Hawaii.
“As you know,” Homu said now, “Tina and I own a farm up on Mamaloa Highway. We wish to retire from the life—getting too old for all the hard work. It’s a simple place, some coffee plants, some nursery plants, truck garden. There’s room for animals, but we haven’t kept them for years.”
He smiled at Bella. “We all want to offer the farm to you, Nani. You could live there, rent-free for say, five years. Then, when you begin to earn