Paradise Books (The Aloha Sisters #2)

Chapter 1

Laurie

Laurie opened her eyes to a golden sunbeam streaming through the window, just as she had every morning of her childhood.

Dust motes drifted lazily in the morning light. Her eight-year-old daughter slept pressed against her, curled between her back and the wall.

For a moment, in that familiar room with her daughter breathing peacefully beside her, Laurie felt perfectly content.

Then she remembered.

The events of the previous day came rushing back – and with them, the terrible fear that squeezed her lungs and made it difficult to breathe.

Chris had finally snapped. The circle of coercive control that Laurie had been trapped in for years had drawn tight as a noose. And finally, after years of waiting and wavering, she’d left.

Her mind spun with all of the worries that she would have to confront in the coming days, all the endless tasks required to restart a life.

Finances and a change of school and a home of their own…

but they were all small worries compared to the pervasive fear of how her husband might retaliate when she filed for divorce.

Laurie rolled out of bed, desperate to regain that feeling of tranquility that had been a holdover from her peaceful dreams. She wanted to hold onto it just a bit longer. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so safe and content.

But the feeling was gone. It had evaporated like a light morning fog.

She walked to the window, still working to keep the worst of her thoughts and anxieties at bay. Just breathing normally felt like a herculean task; her lungs refused to expand far enough to accommodate a deep breath in.

The Pacific Ocean sprawled out before her, vast and sparkling. It was early morning, and the sun hung low over the horizon, but already the Hawaiian summer day was shining bright. A fresh breeze drifted in through the windowscreen, carrying the scent of salt and sun-warmed stone.

It was a truly astonishing view, but Laurie felt numb to it all.

They were only halfway through the year, and already it was the worst year of her life. They’d lost their dad just a few months before. He had been the rock of their family, and they were all lost without him.

Being in her childhood room, knowing that he wasn’t there, that she would never see him again, was excruciating. Even months later.

With Kimo gone, the huge house felt cavernous and empty.

Laurie shivered in the cool morning air; the sun streaming in through the window wasn’t enough to warm her. She left the room carefully, closing the door with extreme caution so that she wouldn’t wake her daughter, and then she tiptoed down the stairs in her bare feet.

A stranger stood in the kitchen, and Laurie startled so badly that her feet left the floor.

It took her stressed, sleep-slow brain a moment to remember that Anne had filled the spare rooms with tourists. Now there was a strange man standing in the kitchen, and Laurie’s throat burned with the sudden urge to cry.

The man’s expression turned apologetic, and he said something that Laurie didn’t catch. She hadn’t grabbed her hearing aids, and she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try to read a stranger’s lips in silence.

She gave him a wide berth on her way to the back door.

The air inside the house was cool, but out in the sunshine, the day was already warm.

There wasn’t another person in sight, not another living thing save the dark green plants that bobbed slightly in the breeze.

Laurie took comfort in the fact that the house behind her was full of family.

She sat on the back steps and lifted her face to the sun, letting it warm her, and tried not to think about anything at all. That didn’t come easily to a brain like hers, which was always full of words and worries, but sometimes out in nature she could quiet her mind for a while.

There was something uniquely soothing in the salt air, and the morning sunshine on her skin was life-giving.

The boards beneath her vibrated; Laurie jumped and looked over her shoulder.

Her adoptive mother walked toward her with two steaming mugs. The kitchen door swung shut behind her.

Dawn’s hair had been cropped into a silver pixie cut, and summer days outside had restored a healthy color to her face. Her blue eyes were bright and perceptive. After months of overwhelming grief, she finally looked more like herself.

Laurie accepted one of the drinks and breathed in the warm smell of chai.

Dawn sat on the steps beside her, leaving enough room between them that she could turn towards her to talk.

How are you? she signed one-handed.

Laurie shrugged and looked out at the ocean. OK.

Dawn didn’t push. She turned her body forward and sat shoulder to shoulder with Laurie, sipping her tea. The simple fact of her presence was comforting, and Laurie was grateful for the lack of conversation.

She wasn’t ready to face the practicalities of her situation. Not yet.

Something moved in Laurie’s peripheral vision, and she turned to look.

It took her a moment to recognize her niece; Zoe had dyed her hair again.

The green was gone, along with her natural auburn roots.

In the shade, her hair looked almost black.

When she stepped into the sunshine, it shone a deep shade of plum that made her silver eyes seem extra bright.

Hey Auntie, Zoe signed as she walked across the yard.

“Of all of the colors you’ve dyed your hair, this is the least offputting.” Dawn signed as she spoke – not fluent ASL, but the signs that she knew: color, hair, less bad.

Thanks, Grandma, Zoe signed sarcastically.

“Of course, your natural hair color–”

Zoe rolled her eyes and walked up the steps, cutting between them to get into the house. Laurie drank the last gulp of her chai and stood to follow her.

Inside, the house was busy. Four tourists sat at the table, talking in an animated way. Even without her hearing aids, they were loud enough for her to hear a senseless torrent of noise. One man gesticulated with such energy that coffee sloshed over the side of his mug.

The air was crowded with the smells of coffee, chai, orange juice, eggs, bacon, and something sweet baking in the oven. Anne stood cooking at the stove, and a grumpy-looking Zoe swiped a piece of bacon off the counter.

Laurie walked through the chaos and up the stairs to check on Mia, who was still sound asleep.

She opened her laptop and tried to work, but her brain was still such a gray haze of stress that she couldn’t concentrate. So she closed it and went downstairs again. She had no appetite, but she knew that she needed to eat.

Dawn pointed to her and signed, Sit.

She sat at the far end of the table next to Zoe, who was wolfing down a plate of bacon and eggs.

Dawn put a plate down in front of Laurie, and she obediently shoveled scrambled eggs into her mouth without really tasting them.

Anne put a basket of fresh muffins down near her guests and sat across from her.

“Laurie,” she said and signed, “you slept in the blue room last night?”

My room? she signed sharply, eyebrows up.

Anne winced. Right.

The room that I lived in from sixteen to twenty-two? The room that I sleep in every time I come home? That room?

Now Anne looked annoyed. “Yes, Laurie. That room.”

Yes, we slept there.

“Okay. It’s just that I have guests checking in this afternoon. They booked that room for the week.”

A sense of dread crawled through Laurie’s chest, and she swallowed.

You see? Zoe was irate. This is what happens when you turn our home into a hotel!

Sorry, Anne signed. She glanced at the guests at the other end of the table. All four of them were watching the exchange with open curiosity. You can sleep in Akemi’s room.

“What’s she going to do when Akemi gets back?” Zoe demanded, jabbing the air with each word that she signed.

“I’ll block her room off. I might not even be doing this by the time Akemi gets back. But for tonight, I have guests coming in. We’re fully booked for the rest of the summer.”

“It’s okay,” Laurie said. “We’ll be fine.”

Zoe looked like she wanted to keep arguing.

Enough, Laurie signed. She stood up from the table. Her plate was still mostly full, but her stomach churned unpleasantly.

She stepped out onto the back porch and tried to take a deep breath of the fresh ocean air, but her diaphragm felt like it was stuck on her ribs; she couldn’t get a full breath in.

She needed to find a place of her own sooner rather than later… but she knew full well what the rental market was like in Hawaii. Even moldy, barely-livable places cost thousands of dollars each month. That was one reason she’d stayed with Chris as long as she had… one of many.

Old worries spiraled through her with new urgency.

Custody, finances, schooling…

She sank onto the porch steps and put her head between her knees.

The wooden boards vibrated with footsteps, and someone sat beside her. She caught the floral-citrus scent of her mom’s shampoo, and a gentle hand moved up and down her back.

Slowly, Laurie’s racing heart settled back into a normal rhythm. Air seeped reluctantly into her lungs. She still couldn’t quite get a full breath in, but she could breathe again.

She sat up, expecting to see Dawn sitting next to her – but it was Anne, her freckled face filled with a mixture of empathy and guilt. She scooted back a bit to make it easier for Laurie to see her.

“I’m sorry about your room,” she said and signed.

“It’s OK,” Laurie told her. “Really. I’ll move our stuff to Akemi’s room.”

“If you want the money that I’m getting for rent–” Anne started, but Laurie held up a hand.

“No. That’s your gig. You’ve done all the work.”

Anne nodded reluctantly, her forehead still creased with concern.

“I’ve been working online,” Laurie said. “I can pick up more work. I’ll find my own place before Akemi comes home.”

“I can block your room off for the fall. Just in case you decide to stay. This whole bed and breakfast thing… it’s just temporary, while I get back on my feet.”

“Thanks. But I want to find a place… if I can. We need a home of our own.” She frowned, thinking. “You know I’ve never lived alone? I went from this house to roommates to marriage. I think it would be good for me to have a place of my own. Just Mia and me.”

“I get that.” Anne’s lips twisted into a grim smile. “I’m sharing a room with two kids and a mongoose. The house is crowded, I know. It’s a lot. But we’re lucky to have it.”

Laurie nodded, and her gaze drifted out to the ocean. The view eased her anxieties; it reminded her of how small and temporary all her worries were.

“This too shall pass,” she murmured.

“We’ll figure it out,” Anne agreed.

Laurie reached over and took her hand.

They sat there for a long time, watching clouds drift across the vast blue sky.

It was easy to take the long view on other people’s problems. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything would work out for Anne. And sitting there hand in hand with her sister, it felt possible to believe the same for herself.