Her Hawaiian Homecoming (Mills & Boon Superromance) Read Online Free

make the puzzle pieces fit.
    Dallas let out a long sigh. “Jennifer is pretty damaged,” he admitted. “I guess I’m a sucker for damsels in distress.”
    Allie barked out a laugh as she thought about just how much of a damsel she’d been lately. “No kidding.”
    Dallas sent her a rueful smile. “Jennifer’s damage is all on the inside. Her father left when she was little. She got pregnant with Kayla right out of high school. She was one of these girls who wanted attention from everyone—it didn’t matter who. She’d go with any guy in front of her. I thought I could change her, could get her to understand that all she needed was me, but it took me a long time to realize you can’t fix someone else, no matter how much you love them.”
    Allie agreed this was true. It was one of the reasons why she knew it wouldn’t work with Jason.
    “We were together two years before I caught her cheating the first time, with one of her rich real estate clients. Against my better judgment, I took her back. For Kayla’s sake. We were a family, and I felt I owed it to her to work it out. We went to counseling. We really tried. But then I found out she hadn’t quit stepping out on me. In fact, she’d made it her regular hobby. The last time, I found her in our bed with the reality TV producer she still works with.”
    “Oh, Dallas.” Allie felt instant empathy, putting herself back in the afternoon she’d opened that package meant for Jason.
    Dallas’s eyes narrowed as he watched the road. “I wish pride was the only thing she took from me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Dallas swallowed. “She...” Dallas paused, holding back. Allie could tell this was something he didn’t want to share, that this was the hardest part of the betrayal.
    “You don’t have to tell me.”
    “It’s... Well, it doesn’t matter. After that, I couldn’t stay anymore, and I had to say goodbye to Kayla. I asked Jennifer if I could still adopt her, but Jennifer was livid, angry at me for walking out.”
    “How could she expect you to stay?” Allie couldn’t believe the woman’s gall.
    Dallas’s shoulders sank in weary indifference. “She gives everyone in her life an excellent reason to leave, and yet she’s always surprised when they do.”
    “It’s terribly sad, but you can’t blame yourself,” Allie said, realizing how empty the words might sound to him, knowing how they’d sounded when her friends told her the same thing. When someone cheated, there was always an undercurrent of “Why didn’t you make him happy enough to stay?” No one said it out loud, but Allie felt it dozens of times, in the questions people asked. Did he ever tell you he was unhappy? Did you know he was pulling away?
    “I know the feeling. I do. But those were choices Jennifer made, and what happened now—if something happened to Kayla that we don’t know yet—you can’t take responsibility for it.” Allie felt more certain of this than she had of anything in the past year. She only hoped Dallas believed it.
    She reached over and put her hand over his on the gearshift of his truck. He glanced down at their hands. When he looked back to the road, he hit his brakes. Water completely covered the road up ahead. Allie craned her neck, peering into the darkness. A poolside lounge chair floated by them, and she realized debris littered the water: splinters of wood, pieces of glass and a random single flip-flop crowded together. Watching the neon purple flip-flop bobbing in the water, her stomach shrank. She wondered what had happened to the person wearing it.
    “Are all the roads like this?” she asked.
    “I hope not.” Dallas put the truck in Reverse and then whipped it around, backtracking to a small residential road that he took south. “I’m going to try to get us closer.” All the homes were dark and quiet as they glided past. These houses, just beyond the reach of the tidal wave, had been spared. Dallas slowed the truck as they reached the