been just the two of them against the world. Of course, with her mom working two jobs, it had pretty much been Allie all on her own. Allie preferred it that way, actually. Anytime she depended on anyone—like Jason—they failed her.
“So if you want to talk about the estate, I’d be happy to...” Dallas stood by her, lingering near the door. Allie did not turn to look at him. If she did, she’d stare at his muscled chest, and she didn’t want to do that. She didn’t have time for guys who looked as if they belonged in a sexy-cowboy calendar. She had sworn off men this time, possibly for good. The fact that she was very aware of his every movement made her feel jumpy and anxious. Her mind might want to be done with men, but clearly her body wasn’t. It had other ideas about what she ought to do with Dallas McCormick.
“I just want to shower.”
“Oh...sure.” Dallas paused, as if waiting for her to invite him in. She nearly barked a laugh out loud. With abs like that, and those crystal-blue eyes, he was probably used to women throwing themselves at him all the time. Well, not this one, buddy.
“I’d like some privacy.” Allie was proud that she made it sound official.
“Sure thing, ma’am.” Dallas grinned, unoffended, and then tipped his hat at her as he backed out of the cabana. The door slapped shut behind him, and Allie moved to secure the bolt. With Dallas and his broad, chiseled chest out of the room, Allie felt as though she could breathe for the first time. She stared up to where the ceiling should be but saw only blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.
“How are you supposed to take a shower when it’s raining?” she muttered to herself.
Allie whipped up her thick jet-black hair off her neck, panting in the Hawaiian humidity as sticky sweat trickled down the nape of her neck.
All she remembered from her childhood at Grandma Misu’s were endless afternoons building sand castles on the pristine white beach about a mile away, and of Misu’s sticky sweet homemade mochi rice cakes and mouthwatering teriyaki chicken. She had fond memories of Misu, but hadn’t seen her grandmother in years. Money had always been tight growing up. She and her mom had barely made rent, much less managed to scrape together enough for two plane tickets to Hawaii. But if Allie was honest, since her father died, she’d been in no hurry to come back. For everyone else, Hawaii might be paradise, but for her, it represented just bad memories.
Still, Allie felt a pang of guilt; she should’ve come for her grandmother’s funeral. But it had all been too overwhelming—dealing with Jason and the called-off wedding. She’d been in no shape to travel anyway. She hadn’t been able to get out of bed, much less book a flight.
Jason was just one more person she couldn’t depend on, Allie thought. She tried her best not to slide into a pity party: girl loses her dad in a car accident at age eight, is left with a hardly there, working-two-jobs single mom and then a string of unreliable boyfriends...and now Jason. She hated feeling sorry for herself, but sometimes it beckoned like a warm, cuddly robe. Sometimes she just wanted to slip into it for a little while.
She kept coming back to the single fact that she should’ve known Jason would do this. He’d been her first really serious relationship, but she’d had plenty of short-term boyfriends who’d disappointed in various ways. How could she have been so blind?
Denial. It was probably how she’d spent two years with Jason and never even had an inkling about his penchant for S and M. Granted, he’d been bossy and controlling most of their relationship: always wanting to be the one to decide where they ate, what they did on weekends and even weighing in on what she wore. Sometimes it had grated, but most of the time she’d been fine with just going along. Happy to do what made him happy. He’d always been decidedly in control in the bedroom, but he’d never hit her, not once.
She’d thought she knew him better than anyone, but it turned out she didn’t know him at all.
Just because she didn’t like being beaten like a piñata during sex, she thought bitterly. She was sorry, but she liked pleasure with her sex, not pain. Why did that make her boring?
She blinked fast. No more pity party. That’s quite enough of that, Allie. She should look at the bright side—now she was back on her own. I’ll never have my heart broken again, because there’s no way I’m letting anyone within a five-block radius of it. Allie was officially done with men.
STANDING IN THE HOT, open-aired shower, Allie fanned herself. Jet-lagged and sweaty, all she wanted to do was get clean, change into some shorts and track down the nearest real estate agent. She’d use the money to travel the world by herself. She didn’t know where she’d go, but she’d figure it out.
She glanced up at the blue sky and blinked.
No roof? Who did that? She wondered if anyone would buy a place with an outdoor bathroom. Allie sighed and turned the knobs of the shower, half expecting them not to work. Water sputtered out, and surprisingly, it felt warm, but then again, the air was a balmy eighty-two degrees. Everything would feel warm, even at room temperature. Allie shrugged out of her too-hot jeans, T-shirt and wool sweater and stepped into the warm shower, letting the water rinse over her. She exhaled. Remember the positives, she thought. You’re not stuck in subzero weather in that blizzard you left back home, and once the property is sold, you can travel for a year. That was all she had to do: keep moving. People couldn’t disappoint you if you didn’t let them.
Allie rinsed her hair in the warm water and sighed, almost forgetting about the lack of roof when a bright red blur zoomed past her, practically thumping her head.
She jumped, startled, until she saw the intruder: a small, brilliant red bird with black-trimmed feathers, its beak thin and scooped downward. It looked as if a cardinal had mated with a hummingbird, a species she’d never seen before. Definitely not in Chicago anymore, she thought. The bird cocked its head to one side and eyed her.
Allie felt like jumping out of the shower and running back to the house, but instead, she shook the shower curtain and the bird flew away.
Wonder what he was doing in here anyway, she thought, rinsing off. She shut down the water and stepped out, reaching for a fluffy white towel. She grabbed one from a hook and wrapped it around her chest, tucking it under her armpits, and then she wrapped her head up in a towel, turban-style, and looked at herself in the foggy mirror. She swiped at it with one hand, wondering what that brown stripe was along the top of her head towel, and that was when she realized the brown stripe was moving.
It was a centipede—a huge, disgusting, hundred-leg brown centipede, nearly a foot long and thicker than her thumb.
Allie did what any reasonable city girl would do: she screamed.
She flicked her head downward, and in the same instant, bounced against the thin door and tumbled outside, barely keeping the small lightweight towel wrapped around her as the turban fell to the ground. In her panic, Allie couldn’t see where the centipede went. Was it tangled in her hair? Running down her back?
It was a friggin’ monster, that was all she knew. She’d never seen a bug that big in Chicago. Ever.
Then she saw the horrible insect crawling in the black lava dirt. She felt relief: it wasn’t on her! And yet she felt complete terror as she realized the huge bug was headed straight for her bare toes, its huge menacing back pincher stinger wagging as
