Chapter Twenty-Four
Rows of pineapple fields unfurled on either side of the road as they pulled into the Dole Plantation parking lot.
Families spilled out of minivans. A bus full of tourists unloaded in a bright stream of cameras and plastic leis.
The air smelled faintly of sugar and grilled teriyaki from a far-off food stand.
Everett stepped out of the SUV, looked around, and made a sound that hovered between skepticism and resignation. “Good God,” he muttered. “I’ve walked directly into a brochure.”
Kelsey beamed. “It’s amazing! Look at the tiny pineapple plants! They look like baby pines.”
“They are baby pines,” Rowan said, linking her arm with Kelsey’s as they headed toward the entrance. “It’s called the Pineapple Garden Maze, and if you don’t find a hidden station, your dad has to buy us Dole Whip.”
“That’s not a rule!” Everett said. “You made that up.”
“Too late,” Rowan said sweetly. “It’s official now.”
He looked up as a train whistle blew from across the plantation. “Is that . . . the Dole Express? Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Rowan confirmed. “And we are definitely riding it.”
Everett had agreed to take a Sunday and give in to Kelsey’s request to visit the most famous pineapple plantation, even though he’d tried to suggest better uses of their time.
Kelsey practically sprinted toward the store, drawn in by bright displays and the oversize pineapple statue everyone used for photos. “Dad, come on!”
Everett followed with the posture of a man being marched toward his fate. “This is a tourist trap,” he grumbled under his breath.
“It is,” Rowan said cheerfully. “And today you’re going to enjoy it.”
He threw her a dry look. “I’m enjoying being with you two. The rest is questionable.”
Her stomach did an embarrassing flip at the you. She hid it by nudging him with her shoulder. “Try not to look like you’re heading into a deposition.”
Inside, the plantation store was a riot of pineapple-shaped everything—candles, magnets, plush toys, even pineapple-print socks. The air-conditioning blasted them with cold air and the faint scent of vanilla sugar.
Kelsey grabbed a stuffed pineapple with a face on it and hugged it like a soulmate. “Dad, look! Isn’t she adorable?”
Everett stared at it. “It has . . . eyelashes.”
“Exactly,” she said, clutching it tighter.
Rowan drifted toward a rack of T-shirts printed with pineapples in sunglasses, surfing pineapples, pineapples in Santa hats. Then she saw it.
A bright yellow shirt featuring a plump cartoon chicken wearing a grass skirt and doing a hula, beak in the air in a ridiculous grin.
Rowan held it up and bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Hey, Suit. I found your shirt.”
He stared at it, horrified. “Absolutely not.”
“You’d look amazing in this.”
“You want me to go out in public wearing a dancing chicken?”
“It’s a hula chicken,” she corrected. “Respect the culture.”
Kelsey dashed over and gasped. “Oh my God, Buy It. Dad, Please. You have to.”
“No.”
Rowan draped it against his chest anyway. The yellow made his skin look warm and tan, and the absurdity of the dancing chicken almost made her crack up. “You look very . . . approachable.”
“I don’t want to be approachable. I run a luxury hotel.”
“Exactly,” Rowan said. “You need balance.”
He gave her a narrow, suspicious look that said he knew she was winning. Kelsey grabbed his arm. “Dad, come on. For me. Please?”
Everett sighed—the long, suffering sigh of a man who knew resistance was futile. “Fine. But I’m wearing it once.”
Rowan grinned. “Deal.”
She marched to the register before he could back out. When she paid, he frowned. “I was going to get it.”
“Nope,” she said. “It’s more fun this way.”
They stepped back out into the sunshine, and Everett shook his head at her. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“You haven’t even heard the train jingle yet.”
He blinked. “There’s a jingle?”
The Dole Express chugged around the plantation with a cheerfulness that bordered on alarming. The conductor gave a booming speech about pineapple history while speakers overhead piped in a bouncy, relentlessly upbeat song about Dole and pineapples and sunshine.
Kelsey was in heaven. She leaned over the rail, pointing out fields and plants and waving at workers driving tractors.
Everett, seated beside Rowan, stared straight ahead as the jingle repeated for the third time. “I can’t get it out of my head,” he said in a low voice. “It burrowed into my brain. It’s lodged in there.”
“It’s catchy,” Rowan whispered. “They sell the CD in the store.”
“It’s torture. This is how psychological warfare starts.”
She pressed her knee lightly against his. “Welcome to family outings.”
He glanced down at where their legs touched. Heat sizzled up her thigh. “I’m not sure I signed up for this part.”
“You did when you agreed to the shirt.”
His mouth twitched. “I should’ve known.”
He shifted closer, arm brushing her shoulder like an afterthought. Except Rowan knew nothing Everett did was an afterthought. Not when he looked at her like that. Not when his hand slipped to rest on the bench, almost touching her hip.
Everett’s fingers brushed hers for a second—a light touch, a question. She let her hand stay there, answering.
His shoulders relaxed. “Okay,” he murmured. “Maybe this train isn’t so bad.”
The jingle played again.
He groaned. “Never mind. I was wrong.”
After the train, they stood in line for Dole Whip.
Rowan ordered three, and they sat at a picnic table under the shade of a massive banyan, each armed with a towering swirl bursting out of the cup.
Kelsey took the first dramatic bite, closed her eyes like she was about to deliver an Oscar speech, and declared, “It tastes like . . . sunshine melted into ice cream.”
Rowan jumped in with delight. “It’s pineapple cotton candy that grew a backbone.”
Everett tasted his, brows lifting. “It’s frozen tropical air with a superiority complex.”
Kelsey choked on a laugh. “Dad, that’s terrible.”
Rowan leaned in, challenging. “Try again, Suit.”
He considered, licking another curl from the spoon—slow enough that Rowan’s pulse skyrocketed. “Fine. It tastes like . . . vacation flirting with dessert.”
Kelsey groaned and dropped her head to the table. “Just awful.”
Rowan only smiled into her cup, because his description had been absurdly accurate—and way too close to the way he’d been looking at her all afternoon.
When they finished and Kelsey went to throw out their cups, he took her hand and pressed her palm to his lips.
“Did you always try to come up with creative expressions for your food?” he asked curiously.
The memory caught and held. “It was a game my dad and I played. We’d go on these food adventures and try to come up with the most outrageous descriptions.”
His face softened. “I like that game. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
She blinked, absurdly moved. Words failed so she simply nodded.
A wicked grin curved those lush lips. “But there was a different description I had in mind for a Dole Whip. The taste reminds me of you.” Heat burned through her. “Sweet. Creamy.” Her throat dried up as his finger pressed into her palm. “A bit of a bite. And completely addicting.”
Rowan stared back, helpless underneath the intensity of his gaze. A low laugh escaped and he squeezed her hand. “I’ll look forward to later, when I can indulge in my own slow time.”
Damned if the man didn’t easily look up as Kelsey raced back, pretending he hadn’t just used his sexy words as a grenade.
That definitely paid her back for the bloated turtle trick.
They walked the gardens, stopping at koi ponds and pineapple facts, Kelsey running ahead to explore while Everett drifted beside Rowan, brushing against her every so often, his presence warm and steady.
“You’re smiling,” she teased.
“I’m tolerating,” he corrected.
“That’s high praise coming from you.”
He slid his hand to the small of her back, the heat a quiet hum under her skin. “You make everything tolerable.”
Rowan’s breath caught. “Everett . . .”
He leaned in slightly, voice low, intimate. “And infuriating. And distracting.”
She swallowed. “Good.”
His mouth curved. “Very.”
Kelsey called them over to pose by the giant pineapple. Everett stepped into the frame after tugging on his hula-chicken shirt. Rowan laughed so hard she nearly snorted.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“Too late,” she said, snapping the picture.
She felt his hand slip into hers again.
And for a moment, between the ridiculous shirt, the train jingle stuck in Everett’s head, Kelsey’s delighted squeals, and the warm Hawaiian sun—
Rowan felt like the three of them had been doing this forever.