Chapter Seven
Normally, Sara loved to sleep in on a day off. Not till an insane time of day, but at least not rising with the sun like she did on a work day. No matter how many times she tossed, turned, or fluffed her pillow, sleeping in was not going to happen.
After staring at the contents of her closet for close to half an hour, she finally gave up on deciding what would be appropriate and texted Kenny. What should I wear?
Sitting on the edge of her bed, she stared at the screen.
This shouldn’t be such a big deal. A sundress would be good for anything on the island.
Or maybe a pair of shorts and a comfortable top?
Then if he had some warped SEAL sense of humor and wanted to take her on mountain hike or some other endurance trek, she wouldn’t be worried about flashing the world in a skirt.
Her phone dinged and she almost jumped up from the bed. Anything you like. And comfortable shoes.
Comfortable shoes? So maybe the big bad SEAL really was going to take her to an obstacle course suitable for Coronado?
Swinging the closet doors open again, she opted for practical.
No one wears a sundress with comfortable shoes.
She pulled out her favorite green capris and paired it with a three quarter sleeve, boat neck cream colored cotton top.
Her slip on canvas loafers with rubber soles definitely qualified as comfortable—and practical if she actually did wind up doing an obstacle course.
Glancing in the mirror, she looked pretty darn good if she did say so herself.
What she didn’t understand was why was she so nervous over fake date number two?
Maybe it was muscle memory. A man asks you out—a handsome one at that—and it’s a knee jerk reaction to fret.
She was not going to do that anymore. No matter what they were making her parents and Maile Everrett think, she and Kenny were just friends.
New found friends, but definitely only friends.
The doorbell rang and her heart lurched to her throat.
“Just friends,” she gently reminded herself before stopping herself from galloping down the stairs.
Taking a deep breath, reminding herself one more time that this wasn’t a real date, she swung the door open.
Kenny was hidden behind a massive bouquet of multicolored blooms. One of the largest she’d ever seen not in a vase, and certainly the biggest she’d ever been given.
Not that she’d been given flowers all that often.
“Too much?” He held them out and smiled.
Was it her imagination or was Mr. Confident SEAL nervous. “They’re perfect.” She took a deep whiff. The scent was heavenly. “Thank you.”
“Who is it, dear?”
As if her mother didn’t know. The woman had probably been peering out the window the moment she heard the car pull up to the curb.
“Why, Kenny. What a surprise.”
It took everything in Sara not to roll her eyes. This was, after all, what they’d wanted, her mother to believe her daughter had finally hooked a man. Now all she had to do was reel him in.
“It’s nice to see you Mrs. Alani.”
“Please, call me Missy.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Kenny’s gaze darted from her mother to Sara, his smile instantly spreading so wide and sincere that her knees actually wobbled.
Lord, could this man act. Probably something he’d had to do more than once as a SEAL when the stakes were much higher than what two mothers believed. “You look lovely.”
From the heat in her cheeks she knew she had to be blushing a hundred shades of red. “Thank you. I’ll put these in water and then we can go.”
“No need.” Her mom took the flowers from her hands. “I’ll take care of it. You two run along and have a nice afternoon.” Only a few steps away, her mom paused. “Should I pack you something to eat?”
“No, ma’am. We’re all set.”
Her mother shook her head. “I guess Missy will take some practice.” Without waiting for his response, she turned on her heel and scurried into the kitchen.
“You really do look beautiful,” his voice was low, and deep, and soothing as honey to a sore throat.
“Thank you.”
Extending his elbow to her, he gestured toward his car. At the curb, he opened the passenger door, waited for her to be seated, and then circled the hood, taking his place behind the wheel. “I hope you like picnics.”
“Love them. Ants not so much, but picnics can be lots of fun.”
“Good.”
“What would you have done if I’d said no?”
“Plan B.”
Her head tipped and she studied him for a second wondering if he really would have changed his plans, and then she remembered. “Plan for the best, prepare for the worst, and expect to be surprised.”
“That’s my girl.”
My girl? He did know he didn’t have to play the part with her, didn’t he?
“We’re not going far. Another fifteen or twenty minutes tops.”
She shrugged. “This is Kona, nothing is very far.”
“Good point.”
He hit the blinker arm and turned left up a street that Sara had never been on. Her mind quickly running through all the parks and picnic spots she knew of that weren’t on a beach. She was drawing a blank. “How’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. That hotel has some seriously comfortable beds. The first night was a bit jarring. Every time I rolled over, expecting the firmness of a cot mattress beneath me, I was jolted awake at the softness of a cloud.”
“But not last night?”
He shook his head. “With each night, I was less surprised, and by last night, a bomb couldn’t have woken me.”
Too bad she couldn’t say the same.
For the next few minutes they discussed everything from the food at the hotel to her mother’s reaction to the flowers.
When he turned off the street onto a nearly dirt road, she forgot to carry her end of the conversation, focusing on all the shrubs and trees, and overgrown land around them. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. We’re almost there.” Once they came around a wide curve, he pulled down another dirt road that bounced them all the way to a clearing at the edge of the hill.
Unlike the rest of the surrounding wild landscape, this patch of land was grassy, freshly mowed, and had a single unpainted picnic table dead center.
Thank heaven. Just as he’d done when she entered the car, he trotted around the hood and opened her door.
“Where the creature comforts are lacking, the view should make up for it.”
By the time they reached the table, the shore below was in plain sight. Her jaw dropped ever so slightly and those beautiful green eyes circled round. “Wow.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“How did you find this place?” She glanced around one hundred and eighty degrees. “Should we even be here?”
“First, I found this place about ten years ago when I was on leave visiting Billy. I got bored and went for a drive. Did a little exploring.”
Her head turning to the hillside across the dirt road that reminded him, and probably everyone else, of a jungle movie. Her gaze leveled with his. “Did you bring your machete?”
Setting down the picnic basket he’d grabbed from the trunk, he burst out laughing. “Almost. But not quite.”
She sniffed at the air, clearly distracted by the aromas of fried chicken and fresh rolls.
“Another perk of a luxury resort. They know how to put a picnic lunch together.” He pulled out several containers, napkins, plastic plates and silverware.
“The Kings Hotel knows how to do a lot.”
“No argument there.”
“So why is this the only mowed lot? And why is there a picnic table here?”
“I called to have it cleared before I left my last post, and ordered the table delivered this morning.”
“What?”
He chuckled softly. “Maybe I should backtrack. When I came wandering up here all those years ago, there was a For Sale sign down the hill. The owner didn’t trust realtors and not a whole lot of people like trekking through a near jungle for fun.”
“I guess not everyone on this island were SEALs.”
“Probably not. Anyhow, this hillside had been in the family for generations. But the owner had one problem.”
“Only one?”
He stifled the urge to roll his eyes at her teasing. “Let’s say only one that I knew of. He was the last in his family. No wife. No kids. No one to inherit.”
“Oh.” She slid onto the bench. “That’s sad. Everyone should have a legacy of some kind.”
“That’s what I thought. Which is why I bought it.”
“You bought the lot?”
He shook his head. “I bought the whole mountainside.”
If it were possible for a woman’s eyes to fall out of her head, Sara’s looked like they just might.
“Lemonade or wine?”
She blinked. “Lemonade. I have a feeling I’m going to need full mastery of my wits today.”
This woman not only had an endearing sense of humor, she rolled with the punches better than any woman he’d ever dated.
Not that they were dating, and not that his career had allowed much time for anything close to a long-term relationship.
What he didn’t understand was why the heck some smart man hadn’t snapped her up a long time ago.
“Lemonade it is.”
Still looking around, she barely shook her head before blowing out a low sigh. “Did you really buy all this?”
“I did.” He nodded.
“I had no clue SEALs made that much money. Or are you independently wealthy and no one ever mentioned it? Because if you are, my mother may never let you get away.”
“Not independently wealthy. We don’t make that much money, though we made a nice living. We did get paid some nice bonuses though, lots of overseas assignments come with hazard pay.”
“Like engineers in the Middle East.”
He nodded. “The military paid a lot of money to train us, and like fighter pilots, they don’t want to lose us. What helped is that my expenses when deployed for months on end were minimal so my savings grew exponentially.” He shrugged. “With a little investment help.”
Again, she looked around shaking her head. “You’re going to have to show me about that investment part.”
“Not being risk averse helps. Took a few chances that tanked, took a few others that soared. It also didn’t hurt that the owner liked me, had no other offers, wanted to leave the island and move stateside with some old Navy buddies.
Some place in Central Florida. Lots of houses, planned activities and once upon a time, an STD ratio that made you think twice about what it meant to grow old gracefully. ”
“You’re kidding?” The wide eyes were gone and now sparkling with humor.
“Nope. Dead serious.”
She reached for a piece of chicken. “You said you didn’t know what you were going to do next. If you were going to stay or move on.”
“That’s right.” He scooped some potato salad on his plate and offered her some.
“Just a little.” She handed him a napkin and plastic silverware. “If you leave, what will you do with all this land?”
And that had been just one of the many questions he’d been asking himself since the day he put in his papers. “What would you do with it? If it were yours?”
Her gaze drifted to the distant ocean views. “Hmm, that’s tough. It’s so open here. I suppose I’d plant a nice big tree in the front yard and another in the back, just to make things seem homey, and shady.”
Intrigued by her perspective, he nodded.
“You’d want all the main rooms to have a view the ocean, so things that don’t matter like garages, laundry rooms, bathrooms and pantries would face the front of the home, and anyplace you’d hang out you would be able to enjoy the views.”
Interesting that she’d called it a home, not a house. Turning to look at the view she was staring at as if she could see the house coming together in front of her, he had to admit she had a good point about focusing on the views.
“I’d keep the interior spacious, not clutter it with too much but still have soft fabrics and colors to bring in the warmth and make it feel like a home not a magazine shoot.”
As she continued to run through her vision for the house, he could almost see it coming together. Too bad, even with a home design in mind, he had no idea what to do with the rest of his life.