Her Hawaiian Homecoming. Cara Lockwood
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cold like steel. “Not going to happen,” he told her, shaking his head. She watched as he picked up the toolbox and began walking toward the big metal barn on the property. Her side of the property, she realized.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded, hands on her hips.
Dallas stopped and calmly turned. “To see if I can fix the roaster. It has to be working by harvest time. Or we need a new one.”
“The barn is on my side of the property line. I didn’t say you had permission to fix it.”
Dallas froze, annoyance flashing across his face. Allie thought, Good. See what it feels like, buddy, when you don’t have the upper hand.
“Allie...” Dallas’s voice held a warning.
“You may not want to sell, but as long as this is my property, I can do what I want with it. I can knock down that barn and sell that roaster for parts, if I want to. I don’t need Kaimana’s permission for that. I could even knock down all the coffee trees on my side.”
Dallas looked stricken. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Dallas hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to call her bluff. Allie dug her tennis shoe in the ground and dragged it across the dark lava dirt, making a line.
“That’s your side, and this is mine,” she declared, glaring at him. “You cross this line without my permission and...” Allie walked over to the nearest row of coffee trees on her side. She snapped one of the branches with bright orange coffee cherries on them.
“No...don’t!” Dallas protested, but he was too late. She dropped the branch in the dirt and stomped on the coffee berries.
Dallas flinched as if seeing the damaged limb brought him physical pain. He frowned, his blue eyes hard and glinting. “That was one of our oldest trees,” he growled.
“Good. I’ll start with cutting down that one first.”
Allie left him standing there, toolbox in hand, as she stalked off to the house, strode up the steps and slammed the door.
BY THE NEXT MORNING, Allie was beginning to regret her show of temper. Not that she wasn’t still furious with Dallas and didn’t love seeing that smug smile wiped clean off his rugged face, but Allie usually didn’t get so mad, so irrational. She’d known the minute the door slammed behind her she’d been in the wrong. It was childish, and she knew it. She usually was the calm, sensible one in the salon where she’d worked in Chicago, the one who never got ruffled about anything. But ever since Jason, she felt as if she was sitting on a powder keg, and any little thing could set her off.
Boom.
She didn’t like this new Allie who flew off the handle at any small provocation. Sure, this was her grandmother’s land, and she’d had plans for the sale, but did that really merit stomping on coffee cherries like a three-year-old? She should’ve handled it better. Maybe she ought to apologize, she thought as she gathered up a change of clothes and headed out to the outdoor bathhouse on her grandmother’s property. She’d take a shower, get dressed and maybe go over and offer to talk things through. They had to come to some agreement, and Allie suspected that Dallas could probably convince Kaimana to sign those papers. She’d mentioned him by name after all. They had to work together...or neither one would get what they wanted. She felt better, more in control, calmer.
Allie had considered the whole problem as she’d tossed and turned the night before. Misu’s house had no working air-conditioning, and the night had been particularly sticky. Allie had been waiting for the sun to come up, waiting for her chance to sit in a cool shower, wash off the salty layer of sweat.
Allie thought she was being quite grown-up about it as she walked into the outdoor shower. She double-checked for prehistoric-size bugs and, finding none, plopped her clothes down and went to turn on the hot water.
Nothing came out.
This can’t be. She’d been looking forward to a shower for the past three hours of tossing around in the damp sheets of her bed, and now...no water?
She stared at the dry showerhead. “Don’t do this to me,” she whined.
She turned the knobs again, opening them all the way, and found...nothing. Not a single drop of water. “No!” This was seriously not happening. All she wanted was a cool shower. Her white tank top stuck to the small of her back; tendrils of hair stuck to her sweaty temple. Even her short plaid pajama bottoms felt too hot.
Allie wasn’t going to take this lying down. She was going to get a shower, one way or another. She marched outside and saw the big rain-fed water tank sitting a few yards away. She decided to investigate, and as she walked, noticed a deeper line in the black lava dirt. Her toe print had been widened and deepened, probably by Dallas.
She made it to the huge water tower, and that was when she noticed the line ran straight to the middle of the base of the tank. She walked around the tank on her side of the dividing line and looked up. Half the water was on her side. As far as she could tell, it should be equally split. She crossed over the line to Dallas’s side of the property, and that was when she noticed the kicker: the on-off spigots for the tank were on his side of the dividing line.
Well, crap.
God, she hated instant karma.
“I think you’re on my property, ma’am,” Dallas drawled, strolling up with one thumb hooked casually into the belt loop of his worn jeans. He wore a tight-fitting T-shirt across his muscled chest, and somehow it seemed even more sensual than if he’d been naked. Allie had to force herself to meet the man’s eyes and not just gape at the ridges of his muscled pecs, plainly visible through the thin cotton fabric.
“Why did you turn my water off?” Allie demanded, hand on her hip, as she stubbornly stood her ground.
“It’s our water, but the spigots are on my side, so...I can do with them what I want. Isn’t that what you said?”
She really hated having that thrown back in her face. She really, really hated it.
“I...” The apology Allie had so carefully thought out that morning evaporated off her tongue. She had no desire to apologize to this man. “Turn my water back on.”
A sly smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he walked straight up to her, his tight T-shirt filling up most of her view. He only stopped when they were nearly toe-to-toe. She had to arch her neck to meet his steely blue eyes. She saw amusement there, but something else: strong-headed determination.
“Make me,” he murmured, grinning again. She took in his broad shoulders, his football player–like frame. There was no way all five foot two of her was going to make that wall of a man do anything.
She wanted to stomp on the toe of his worn cowboy boot, or call him names, or thump on his chest with her fists, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She felt that out-of-control temper flare again. The match was near the powder keg.
“Half of the tank is on my side. Half the water is mine,” Allie argued, trying to keep her voice level and calm. I will not lose it. I won’t!
“The spigots are on my side.” Dallas grinned more widely, showing off the dimple in his cheek and his even, white smile. The fact that he looked as if he ought to be on some tourist ad for a remote stable in Colorado made her just want to punch him straight in the nose.
“Turn my water back on or I’ll...”
“You’ll what? Destroy some coffee?” Dallas rocked back on his heels. “If you do that, it’s just money you’ll lose. I don’t plan on selling, and you need cash. I heard you quit your job to come here. You’re living off savings.”