Learning to Hula

I don’t need chocolate. But right now I’m weak.

Leaving the box sealed, I reach through the broken window and pull out an individually wrapped cupcake. I shouldn’t be tempted. My stomach is full of good food—a delicately seasoned chicken breast, strawberries, walnuts and greens drizzled with light poppy-seed dressing. None of that is junk.

This is.

My hand closes around the wrapper. I should crush it…the way I crushed that whole display in Smiley’s. Instead I pop it open.

I have to know. I have to know why Rob couldn’t stop eating these things.

My hand is shaking as I lift the cupcake toward my mouth. The frosting oozes across my tongue now, melting. The cake is sweet and moist. The frosting is dark and bitter. The filling is creamy and sweet. The combination is euphoric.

And now I understand Rob.

Lisa Childs

Award-winning author Lisa Childs wrote her first book, a biography…of the family dog, when she was six. Now she writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction. The youngest of seven siblings, she holds family very dear, in real life and in her fiction, often infusing her books with compelling family dynamics. She lives in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters and a twenty-pound Siamese cat. For the latest on Lisa’s spine-tingling suspense and heartwarming women’s fiction, check out her Web site at www.lisachilds.com. She loves hearing from readers, who can also reach her at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

Learning to Hula

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

One of my best friends is a widow, twice. I have always marveled at how strong this little, four-foot-nine, ninety-pound woman is to have survived losing not only one love of her life, but two. And she hasn’t just survived—she’s happy again.

I’ve wondered how I would handle such an unspeakable tragedy, to lose the man I love. My husband is one of those fun-loving, never-met-a-stranger types who makes me laugh every day. How would I laugh without him? Like the main character in Learning To Hula, I’m sure I’d focus on my children and lean on my family while I passed through all the stages of grief and, like Holly, I’d learn to hula and find happiness again. Being strong is more a state of mind than body.

Wishing you every happiness!

Lisa Childs

To: Tara Gavin, with deep appreciation, for your vision

and dedication to Harlequin NEXT. Thank you for

including my stories in this empowering, relevant series.

Jennifer Green, with special thanks, for your insight

and guidance. I love working with you!

Jenny Bent, my amazing agent, thank you for your

constant encouragement and unwavering support!

Mary Gardner, for always being a true friend.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

STAGE 4

STAGE 5

STAGE 6

STAGE 7

STAGE 8

STAGE 9

STAGE 10

STAGE 11

STAGE 12

STAGE 13

STAGE 14

STAGE 15

STAGE 16

STAGE 17

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

The experts say that when you suffer a loss, you pass through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Well, I’m certainly no expert despite all the experience I’ve been getting lately. But I think there are more than five. Or maybe I only think that because I’ve been through each stage so many times that I’ve stopped labeling them.

At any rate I know which stage the experts have omitted. Happiness. And I know you can find that stage again no matter what kind of loss you’ve suffered….

STAGE 1

Holly DeJong. That’s the name on the check. Not the signature, but on the payable-to line, which is good since that’s my name, and there are a lot of zeroes in the box after it.

A lot of zeroes but still not the most I’ve seen. I got a bigger check six months ago…when I buried my husband.

“Do you have any questions?” the bank manager asks.

I shake my head. My hand is shaking, too, as I pick up the pen I just used to sign all the documents; I endorse the back of the check and hand it to him. “Here, you take it.”

“Holly…”

“Do your magic with it, Keith,” I tell him. I’d given him the other check, too, and already the account he put it in has added zeroes to the original total.

Rob would like that, that the value of his life has kept increasing even after his death. That’s what that first check represented—his life. The second, for the sale of his business, represents his life’s work.

I know he would make some joke about all the zeroes; he was always making jokes. Sometimes I think he’s not really dead, just pulling one of his pranks that usually amused only him, and taking it too far.

“Holly, are you sure?” Keith asks.

I glance up from the check and focus on him, staring at his dark suit and the matching circles beneath his eyes. His hair, once dark, too, has gone mostly gray. He hasn’t looked this old in all the years I’ve known him.

And I’ve known him a long time, ever since he started dating my oldest sister, Pam. He’s been married to her for twenty-five years.

But if she has her way, they won’t make twenty-six. She’s left him. I’m not sure which has made him look old so suddenly, twenty-five years of marriage to her finally catching up with him, or her leaving.

The latter is why he’s hesitating to take the check, why he hesitated to participate in the closing to begin with. But the twenty-five year relationship is why I would trust no one else.

For the past six months he’s held my hand and guided me through the maze of paperwork involved with settling an estate and transferring ownership of a business.

“Keith, you’re always going to be my brother.”

I have none, just two sisters. Emma, the second oldest one, has been married twice, but I never felt as close to either of her husbands as I have to Keith. I can’t understand why Pam is leaving him.

She blames Rob.

She blamed him for a lot of things when he was alive; I shouldn’t have expected his death to change that. Pam never understood his sense of humor, so the only thing she “got” about the practical jokes he played on her was angry. After he let the air out of her tires once, she blamed him every time she got a flat, and whenever something sticky was on her door handle, she thought Rob was fooling around with the peanut butter again.

Despite their mutual antagonism, she claims that his death somehow brought her clarity. She can’t put off doing what she really wants because she sees now that life is too short.

They hadn’t agreed on much when he was alive, but Rob wouldn’t be able to argue that one with her. He’d been forty-one when he died.

Death by cupcake is what I call it. He lied and cheated on me with those things, breaking every promise he made to cut them out of his life and stick to the diet I put him on. I should have known he was lying. A man’s waistband doesn’t keep expanding like that. He’d called it a beer belly, but he’d never been able to swallow a sip of beer; he’d hated the taste of it. He actually hadn’t liked anything that wasn’t sweet.

Well, at least Pam got something out of his death. I got nothing but zeroes. Lots of them, thanks to all the life insurance Rob had bought from one of his clients, an insurance agent. When he’d made the purchases, I’d thought it sweet of him to support the man’s business. I hadn’t realized it would one day be supporting us.

Before Keith can overcome the emotion I see in his watery eyes, and say anything about my loyalty to him, the buyers come back into his office. They just rushed out a little while ago, buoyant with the pride and excitement of ownership.

These are the kids who worked for Rob, who helped him build his computer business. I’m glad they bought it. They’re Rob’s second choice to take over, but I can’t hang on to the store until our son grows up. Robbie’s only fifteen, and I can’t presume that his father’s dream will be his, even though my son says it is. I want him and his eleven-year-old sister, Claire, to first get through this nightmare of losing their father, then come up with and realize their own dreams.

Just as Brad, Jake and Steven realized theirs, of owning their own business. The three of them are in their early twenties and they look more like surfers, with their long, shaggy hair and baggy clothes, than computer geeks. But they have enough computer savvy and experience for Keith to give them a business loan.

Jake and Steven walk toward me, holding a big cardboard box. The money is enough; I hope they haven’t brought me anything else.

“You missed this stuff when you cleaned out Rob’s office,” Brad says. He’ll be the manager, as he’s the one who usually talks for the three of them. He’s the one who asked if I’d sell to them. Although they would never admit it, their decision to buy was probably as much to get me out of the office as to own the business themselves. I worked there before Rob died, for him, with them; it was different after.

Everything is.

“So what’s in the box?” Not that I can’t guess.

More cupcakes. I found them stashed everywhere after his death—in the desk in his den, his sock drawer, car console and tackle box. I really should have had a clue, other than his growing belly, of what Rob had been doing. The man had never gone fishing a day in his life.

Predictably Brad lifts out a box of the decadent cupcakes. The guys are laughing. Rob had probably thought it was freaking funny, too.

A big joke on me.

Who’s having the last laugh now? I’d like to know. I haven’t laughed much since he died. I force a smile and knot my hands in my lap to still their trembling. It’s not nerves.

Nothing that simple.

I’m boomeranging back to stage two again. Anger. I can feel it building, but I fight it. I’m past it. I’ve done all the five stages of grief. I’ve even managed stage five, acceptance, or I wouldn’t have sold the business.

I’m doing great. Just like my mom did when my dad died six years ago. She’s my little five-foot, hundred-pound how-to guide on being a widow. She handled it. So can I.

Brad pulls something else out of the box, slowly so that at first all I see is the grass-covered shade, then the rest of the lamp follows. Silken black hair spills over his fingers and coconut-covered breasts peek out from between them. The grass skirt rustles against the box as he lifts the object free and settles it on Keith’s desk.

The shade swings around as the hula girl base wobbles back and forth. Dangerous. That’s what it is. A fire hazard. I’d told Rob that he needed to get rid of it, and he’d promised he had—apparently another lie.

The guys are laughing, and even Keith has a smile on his face, something I haven’t seen since Pam moved out of their house. “That’s so Rob,” he sputters, and there’s more emotion in his eyes than humor. The two men were close.

“It’s tacky,” I manage to say around the emotion clogging my throat.

Through the windows of Keith’s office, I spy other customers stopping to stare at the hideous thing. I should be embarrassed. Stanville, Michigan, is a small town; probably most of those people know me. But after being married to Rob for seventeen years, I’m beyond embarrassment.

He once dressed up like a hula girl for Halloween, using the same excuse for his costume as he had for his purchase of the lamp—it reminded him of our Hawaiian honeymoon.

Now, staring at the lamp, I’m reminded of Rob in that coconut bra with his stomach spilling over the top of his grass skirt, his black wig flowing around his broad shoulders as he swayed back and forth like the bobbing lamp.

Now I’m laughing with Keith and the guys.

Staring at the wine bottles in Smiley’s store, I consider giving Pam the lamp as a housewarming gift instead. I’ve already been to all the other sections of Smiley’s General Store, and general covers a lot: groceries, clothing, housewares, hardware and party supplies. Yet I haven’t found a single appropriate thing for tonight.

I might as well go with inappropriate.

The truth is that I don’t really feel like giving her a gift at all, but she’s throwing herself a party.

Maybe bringing alcohol is a good idea. Even though she’ll use it to toast her new life, I get to drink it, too. I suspect I’m going to need it.

So now I switch from trying to figure out what she’d like. Keith hadn’t managed that in twenty-five years, so I’m not going to figure it out in twenty minutes. I concentrate on finding my favorite labels.

Whenever he worked late, Rob would bring home a bottle of Lambrusco to mellow me. I should have realized, it’s probably the sweetest wine available. Despite claiming it was for me, he’d drink most of it.

I’d always ask him, “Is this for me?”

He’d grin and reply, “Yes, I’m going to get you drunk so I can have my way with you.”

I’d laugh and point out that he’d never had to get me drunk for that.

My hand’s shaking as I reach for a bottle of Lambrusco. All this shaking today. Maybe it has nothing to do with the closing or stages, maybe I just had too much caffeine this morning. But then I remember that I drink decaf. Unlike Rob, I don’t cheat on my health.

My fingers miss the bottle; I’m not tall enough, and that irritates me. Claire is already taller than I am. I take after my petite mother in more than widowhood.

Off balance from the reach, I stumble back a few steps. My hip brushes against the display behind me, tumbling some cardboard boxes onto Smiley’s freshly waxed vinyl floor. I spin around to catch more before I cause an avalanche.

Startled, I see what’s in my hands—familiar boxes that I’ve found stashed all over the house and Rob’s office. The bright yellow packaging has a cellophane window in the middle displaying the heavily frosted, buttercream-filled cupcakes in their individual packages. Above the window, a little black kitten sits in the corner of the box, licking frosting from its whiskers. These are Kitty Cupcakes.

More like killer Kitty Cupcakes.

This time the anger rushes in so fast I can’t stop it. It roars in my ears and burns my face. My hands aren’t shaking anymore as I toss the boxes onto the floor.

Kitty’s staring up at me with her green eyes as I lift my foot and smash my heel right through the cellophane window. Frosting and bits of chocolate cake cling to my shoe as I lift it, then slam it down again into another box. I spread my arms, toppling the entire display and standing in the middle of it, jumping up and down as if I’m having one of the tantrums my daughter, Claire, used to throw when she was two.

Words are tumbling from my lips, but I can’t hear them. But they, and my actions, are drawing other shoppers to the end of the aisle.

Even though I can’t hear myself, I catch a little girl’s horrified whisper to her mother: “Mommy, why is that woman killing Kitty?”

The mother covers the child’s eyes as if they’ve stumbled into a strip joint. I’m not naked, but suddenly I feel that way.

The anger ebbs. I move to step away from the pile of crumpled boxes, but my heel slips, either on the waxed floor or the spilled frosting, and I go down.

The small crowd at the end of the aisle murmurs “Ahh!” I try to scramble up, but go down again to their “Ohhs.”

Frosting coats my fingers, and I glance down at the smart little suit I wore to the closing. Brown frosting clings to the black-and-white-houndstooth print like mud kicked up from the tires of a stuck truck.

I’m sure there’s some in my hair, too, since locks of it are sticking to my face. I push it back, forgetting my hands are coated, and leave more frosting across my cheek.

Even though the crowd is quiet, I can hear laughter. Maybe it’s coming from above; Rob would love this. Or maybe it’s bubbling up inside me. Either way, it feels good and I start smiling, probably looking like even more of a lunatic to the spectators gathered like gawkers at a traffic accident.

Someone gets brave enough to approach me, and extend a hand to help me up. I reach for it with my sticky fingers and glance up with an apologetic grimace.

A face similar to mine stares down at me, blue eyes as wide and horrified as those of the little girl who watched me kill Kitty. Emma’s fair skin tinted with the red blush of embarrassment, not for herself.

Before she can do more than get me to my feet, Smiley rushes up, rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the vinyl tiles. White brows lift high above his sharp eyes as he takes in the cupcake massacre. He asks the question burning in my sister’s blue eyes. “What the hell happened here?”

Emma’s faster on her feet than I am at the moment. Must be from dealing with all the teenagers she has, her own and step. “Smiley, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.” She’s already drawing her wallet from her purse.

As Claire has done to me so many times, I tug on Emma’s sleeve, and point to the alcohol wall. “Get a bottle of Lambrusco, too. I couldn’t reach it.”

Then I walk away, head high, frosting-covered heels slipping. The shocked crowd parts as I near the end of the party aisle and walk out of Smiley’s.

STAGE 2

As I shut off the water and step from the shower, I hear voices through the door. “I don’t understand what happened. She’s been doing great.”

This is Pam, completely puzzled by the fact that I might miss my husband. She’s actually having a party over leaving hers. I wince at my cattiness. I’m not being fair. She’s been there for me, offering her love and support in myriad ways. And her opinion.

Pam has an opinion about everything. If I had let her win the suit argument, Rob would be haunting me more than he already does. I can still see her mouth screwed up tightly with disapproval over my choice of Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts for Rob’s funeral garb. I truly believe I saw him smirking at her from the casket, glib with victory in yet another one of their disagreements.

With a steady hand, I wipe the fog from the bathroom mirror and inspect my reflection. My hair is plastered to my head. Wet, it’s dark brown; dry, it’s golden. I push it behind my ears, checking for frosting back there. The ends drip water onto my shoulders and the towel I’ve wrapped around myself.

My suit lies in a corner of the tiny room, balled up in disgrace. I, curiously enough, feel none.

Knuckles brush softly against the other side of the door, its white paint peeling due to moisture in the unvented room.

“Are you okay?” Emma asks, her voice low with concern. The knob turns, and she opens the door, unwilling to wait for or untrusting of my response.

“I’m fine,” I assure her.

She studies my face with much more scrutiny than I’d given it in the now refogged mirror. Then she hands me one of Pam’s velour track suits. We’re at her new place, the cramped apartment above The Tearoom, the shop my mother owns less than a block from Smiley’s, in the heart of our small town.

Emma and I have houses on what’s left of our dad’s old dairy farm a few miles outside of town. Mom sold off most of the property after he died, dividing among the three of us what land was left and some of the money she made. The rest she used to buy this building and a condo. Pam has a house with Keith near mine and Emma’s. It’s a gorgeous modern contemporary with granite and slate and smooth white walls. Nothing like this place, with its exposed brick and dark wood.

I wonder again how she’ll be happy here without Keith. She says she’s leaving him because she was never happy with him. This is another rare thing Rob would have agreed with her on; he used to say Pam didn’t know how to be happy.

But she does know how to shop. My fingers sink into the velour as I take the pale yellow suit from Emma. “Thanks. I’ll get dressed and be right out.”

She looks at me as if she wants to stay, maybe help me dress as though I’m a small, clumsy child. But she’s raised three of her own and two of somebody else’s; she knows when to help and when to step back and let someone go. Although she’ll stop them from making dangerous decisions, she always says that kids have to make their own mistakes to grow. She leaves and shuts the door for me.

Yellow isn’t a color I usually wear, but at the moment I can’t be picky. Outside the bathroom, my sisters have lowered their voices to whispers. I can’t hear their words, only their hushed murmuring. It takes me back to when we were younger, Emma and Pam sharing all their scandalous secrets and leaving me out.

At thirty-eight, I’m six years younger than Emma, nine younger than Pam. Back then those years had made a difference, had made me the baby, but age hasn’t mattered for a long time. With Rob gone, I’m not anyone’s baby anymore.

In case there are other guests, I raid Pam’s medicine cabinet for powder and mascara so I look passably decent. Then I rescue my underwear from the frosted suit, hurrying to dress. I fling open the door, cutting my sisters off midwhisper as they hunch over the tiny table in Pam’s kitchen. It’s only the two of them, no one else.

“I hope you haven’t canceled the party,” I say to Pam, bracing myself to face her. I expect that same tight expression of disapproval she wore over Rob’s funeral attire. Instead she’s wide-eyed with concern, the way Emma looked in Smiley’s when she helped me up.

I don’t like that any more than the pitying glances I get from people since Rob died. “The poor widow.” If they only knew how many zeroes Keith had to work with.

Pam shakes her head, then runs her fingers through her new short bob. “No. This is it. Just us.”

No other friends? But then the three of us are so close, we are as much or more friends than sisters.

I smile at her, hoping to reassure her. Then I gesture toward the stained butcher-block counter where the Lambrusco sits. “Nobody’s opened the wine?”

Three short strides bring me to the counter, where, grateful for screw caps, I open the bottle. Pam’s wineglasses are on the counter, too, a bright red bow atop them; obviously they are Emma’s gift to her. I don’t worry about washing them before I pour burgundy liquid into three. I reach over, setting a glass in front of each of my sisters on the small, cottage-blue table. Wine sloshes close to each rim as the table teeters.

Pam looks from me to the glass clutched in my hand and back, her blue eyes full of questions. Unlike Emma, who exercises tact she’s had to learn when dealing with exes, hers and his, Pam asks, “What? Looking to drown your sorrows?”

“Hell no, I’m celebrating.” I lift the glass and offer a toast to myself instead of drinking to her new life. “I kicked Kitty’s ass.”

“Massacred is more like it,” Emma mutters, just loud enough that I catch it and am reminded of the little girl shopping with her mother.

A twinge of guilt steals some of my triumph. I hope I haven’t scarred her for life. But then if this incident keeps her away from the little killer cakes, I don’t feel bad at all. In fact I feel powerful. Wonder Woman and Charlie’s Angels all rolled into one small package.

I can feel my smile against the rim of the glass as I take a sip. The warm, sweet wine joins the laughter bubbling inside me. “Yeah, massacred,” I gloat.

“I can’t believe you—” Pam chokes out, for maybe the first time in her forty-seven years at a loss for words.

The mayor of our town is a bachelor, so as the bank manager’s wife, Pam has been the first lady of Stanville for as many years as Keith’s held his position. She’s used to maintaining a certain level of decorum, of class, and commanding respect because of that.