JoAnn Bassett - Islands of Aloha 07 - Moloka'i Lullaby Read Online Free

have you change the oil in Pali’s car and make sure it’s running right? It’s way over the recommended mileage. I already bought the fancy filter, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out that engine. At work, no guy would be caught dead driving a foreign car like that. Isn’t it British or something?”
    “The Mini body was made in England, but engine in Pali’s car was made by Peugeot-Citroen,” Ono said. “I had a Beemer when I lived in Seattle—loved that car—and I did all my own work on it. I’d be happy to change the oil and make sure everything’s shipshape.”
    “ Mahalo ,” I said. “I’d appreciate it, Ono. Having my car taken care of is one less thing for me to worry about. I’m sure glad you guys are staying here.” 
    I looked over at Hatch and mahalo’d him, too, with a wink for stepping in and defusing the situation. The wink held an unspoken promise of more mahalo later that night. That is, if the sofa bed could handle it.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 4
     
    I woke up before dawn Thursday morning. I hadn’t slept well. And it wasn’t because I’d been up late making good on the mahalo time I’d promised Hatch. In fact, he’d taken one look at the fold-out sofa bed and vanished like a rainbow when the sun ducks behind a cloud.
    “No way,” he said. “My feet would hang over the end of that thing. From now on, any premarital high-jinks will be down at my place. Agreed?”
    I couldn’t argue with that. Not only was the sofa bed undersized, it had a weird horizontal bar about halfway down that dug into my back at about the eighth vertebra. No doubt the thing had been designed by a furniture engineer with a hovering mother-in-law he’d ingeniously managed to insure wouldn’t overstay her welcome.
    I got up and trudged into the spotless bathroom. Truth was: Steve kept his rooms hospital-clean, while my personal areas of the house were more like movie theater-clean. When I scowled in the mirror above the bathroom sink, I couldn’t miss the bruised-colored smudges below each eye.
    I performed what my auntie Mana called a “spit shower” at the sink; then went back to my room and got dressed. As I made my way downstairs, I prayed Steve was already up and he’d made a pot of coffee.
    He was, and he had.
    “You look positively awful,” he said.
    “And aloha to you, too,” I said.
    He grabbed a small red duffel and headed for the back door.
    “Great surf this morning at Ho’okipa,” he said. “Then, this afternoon I’m shooting a family in Wailuku.”
    No matter how many times I’ve heard it, I still wince when Steve refers to “shooting” people.
    “I should be back by five,” he went on. “Any ideas for dinner?”
    “Since there are so many of us, why don’t you let me pick up some take-out in town? How about pizza? I’ll get a big one with just veggies, and then a meaty one for Hatch and Ono. If Farrah won’t eat the pizza, we can always throw a salad together for her.”
    “So, answer me this,” he said. “Why is it that at six in the morning we’re already worrying about what to make for dinner, and we’re the only ones who aren’t picky eaters?”
    “Good point. Since we’re running a refugee camp here, we should probably make the exiles pitch in.”
    “Do you mean have them cook?” he said. His face had the horrified look of a mother who looks down and sees her precious toddler gnawing on a cigarette butt he’s picked up off the beach.
    “Yeah, cook. Or, at least do what I do and get some take-out,” I said.
    “I don’t know, Pali. Are you willing to eat what they come up with? I mean, we all know what Farrah will foist on us: tofu soup, fake tofu meat, tofu salad—”
    “I get the picture,” I said.
    “—and, no doubt, some kind of tofu ice cream.”
    “You’re right. We’ve got six more weeks ‘til her due date, which could mean eating a heckuva lot of tofu.”
    “I gotta get going,” Steve said.