Page 53 of Mistaken Identity
I was so fucking angry at her.
Mostly because she wasn’t here anymore.
I knew it was irrational, but I missed my friend.
Mistakes and all, she was my ride or die.
She’d been there—as much as I allowed her to be—through it all.
“So. Fucking. Mad. But it’s like I’m missing a limb,” he admitted. “Sometimes, I wake up and reach for my phone to text her and tell her about a dream that I just had.”
I swallowed hard, then slowed down when my GPS started telling me where I needed to turn.
“Whoa,” I said as I pulled into the gates. “You didn’t tell me you and your dad had this kind of place.”
I eyed the hulking fence around me.
The banana trees that arched high over the sides of the metal gate.
“Code to get in is…”
I inputted the code, then inched the truck forward as the gates swung open.
“Umm,” I said as the gates closed behind me and I got a good look at the beautiful oasis I was pulling into. “How, exactly, would you know that your neighbors had packages if you have a fence and shrubbery keeping it impossible to see?”
“The people delivering have a code to get into our place,” he explained. “My neighbor had to have been standing at the end of the driveway at the time of delivery, though. Because they really wouldn’t be able to see in any other way.”
I would have to look in the morning to see if you could actually see, or if the guy was just being a pain in the ass.
I parked the truck as close to the front as I could get and got out, grabbing my carry-on as I did.
Today I’d be putting the same uniform back on, but that didn’t mean I wanted to stay in a tight skirt and white blouse for the entire time.
I’d brought a pair of shorts and a tank top to wear until I was needed back at the airport.
Just as I’d stepped outside, the lights turned on all around me, illuminating everything.
“Wow,” I breathed. “I’d always heard that it was gorgeous, but wow.”
“That was my grandma’s doing,” he admitted. “She spent all her days outside there. Pruning, planting and weeding. I don’t think I ever went over there for the day without her being outside for most of it.”
“Well, she did a really fantastic job.” I touched a flowery bush as I passed. “Tomorrow I want to look at these in their glory.”
“Which ones?” he asked.
“The red bush-like things next to the driveway.”
I climbed the steps as his melodic voice said, “’Ohi’a lehua.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He repeated the flower’s name, and I tried to repeat it, but didn’t get close.
“You should try saying the state bird’s name.” He chuckled. “Make it up to the porch?”
I had, and I was staring at a ton of boxes.
“Every last one of them says ‘Dole’ on it,” I murmured.
