Chapter 20 #2
Halea serves Ruby something blue and electric, Melanie gives Lani coconut and vanilla, and soon we’re all standing around with frozen treats melting faster than we can eat them, laughing about nothing and everything, while the Pacific glitters in the background and the resort hums with that contentment that only comes after surviving something terrible and coming out the other side.
“So,” Koa says quietly, pulling me aside while the others argue about whether chocolate should count as a shave ice flavor. “Any plans for the rest of the day?”
“Depends. Are you offering to kidnap me again?”
“Maybe. Are you offering to almost get murdered again?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Then I think we’ll get along just fine.” He pauses, his molasses-brown eyes locking onto mine in a way that says something serious is coming. “Actually, Jinx, there’s something I’ve been wanting to say.”
My heart stutters. “Okay.”
“I want to be exclusive. No more dancing around it, no more pretending we’re casually whatever we are. You. Me. Officially. The whole island can know.”
The whole world stops spinning. The shave ice forgets how to melt. Somewhere in the distance, Ruby gasps loud enough to startle a passing rooster.
“Yes,” I say before he can finish. “Absolutely yes. I’m all in, Koa Hale.”
A cheer erupts behind us, and I turn to find Ruby, Lani, Halea, Melanie, Shaka, Loco, and apparently three random tourists all watching us like we’re the season finale of a reality show.
“Were you all eavesdropping?” I ask.
“Completely,” Ruby confirms.
“And it was worth every second of it!” Lani adds, wiping a tear from her eye.
Even Melanie cracks a smile. A small one. A reluctant one. But still a smile, which from Melanie is basically an opera.
Koa kisses me like he means it, and the entire resort erupts into applause like we just got engaged on the Jumbotron at Aloha Stadium.
Halea’s phone buzzes from the counter, and she glances down at the screen as her eyes widen. Then they sparkle in that dangerous way that usually signals either brilliance or full-scale resort chaos.
“Oh, this is going to be GOOD,” she announces, waving her phone in the air. “Jinx, the Miss Mango Beauty Pageant just confirmed their final headcount. They’re still on for next weekend, right?”
Next weekend.
The Miss Mango Beauty Pageant.
Taking over my entire resort.
“Oh my goodness,” I say as the color drains from my face. “I totally forgot all about that. This week has been murder. Literally.”
“Well, you’d better start planning, because the pageant is happening with or without your memory.” Halea grins. “Forty beauty queens, their handlers, two camera crews, and the entire pageant board will be checking in Friday morning.”
“Forty?” Lani gasps.
“Plus a few past Miss Mangos. They like to make appearances. Crown handoffs, mentor moments, that sort of thing.” Halea nods. “And mothers. The mothers are worse than the contestants, just so you know.”
“Of course they are,” I mutter.
Ruby’s eyes light up like a slot machine hitting jackpot. “Beauty queens! Tiaras! Drama! Oh, this is going to be the best week of my life.”
“I’ll have you all know,” Halea adds while wiggling her shoulders, “I happen to be a former Miss Mango myself, so I know exactly how this is going to go. Sashes, swimsuits, sabotage, the works.”
“Sabotage?” Lani raises a brow.
“It’s a pageant, sweetie. There’s always sabotage.” Halea waves us off like this is universal knowledge. “Don’t worry, I’ll help coordinate. I know all the politics, all the rivalries, all the dirty little tricks. You all just need to be ready for a resort full of beauty queens.”
My stomach drops so fast I nearly lose my shave ice.
A resort full of beauty queens.
Dozens of them.
Tall, glittering, professionally pretty beauty queens, all arriving roughly six days after I officially became Detective Koa Hale’s girlfriend.
Just great. I land the hottest man on the island, and my first official boyfriend-girlfriend test happens to involve a resort full of gorgeous women in sashes and string bikinis. Cosmic timing is an absolute menace.
Koa squeezes my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just great,” I lie, bright and unconvincing. “Just thinking about how much fun next weekend is going to be.”
He gives me a long look. The look of a detective who knows when his very-official girlfriend is feeding him a line of nonsense.
“Jinx.”
“Koa.”
“I only have eyes for one woman,” he says with his voice low. “And she’s standing right here with shave ice melting down her arm.”
Okay. That helps. A lot.
He kisses me, soft and sweet and tasting like shave ice and second chances, and somewhere in the background Ruby wolf-whistles and Lani tells her to leave us alone and a rooster crows his approval, because even the wildlife has something to say about my love life.
Standing there with shave ice melting down my arm and a detective who saves me from drowning and a resort full of people who’ve become family and a one-eared cat who moonlights as my crime-fighting partner, I realize Kauai hasn’t just given me a job or an adventure or another body to trip over. It’s given me a home.
Complete with chickens, chaos, the occasional corpse, and apparently a beauty pageant on the horizon—all of which seem to come standard with island living.
And I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
The Miss Mango Beauty Pageant is coming to the resort, and something tells me it’s going to be murder.
Thank you for reading! I hope you had a blast at the Coconut Cove Paradise Resort! CONTINUE THE STORY NOW!