Page 61 of One Night in Hawaii

“Ryder gave me a day pass,” I said. “Does he know you’re here?”

Her face lit up. “No. I thought I would surprise him.”

“Oh, he’s going to be surprised,” I said, laughing. “He’s down at the beach.”

“I’ll wait until he’s off. I don’t want to get in the way.”

“Trust me, I don’t think you could ever be in his way,” I said, smiling. “He’s going to be thrilled to see you.”

“I can’t wait to see him,” she said with a shy smile.

I wanted to ask about her fiancé, but it was none of my business. Whatever she was doing with Ryder was her business. I wasn’t going to get in the way. They were adults. They could decide what they wanted to do.

“Are you staying here?” I asked. “The resort, that is.”

“Yes,” she said.

I had so many questions. I didn’t know if I had the right to ask them.

“Did you just get in?” I asked.

“Yep, I flew commercial,” she said with a giggle. “It’s been a while since I did that.”

I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to fly private. “I’m surprised you’re back.”

“You can ask me,” she said.

“What?”

“You want to know about Archer,” she stated.

“I don’t want to put you in the middle,” I told her.

“Have you guys talked at all?” she asked.

“No. He called but I was diving. I didn’t want to bother him. How is he?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head. “Honestly, he’s fine, but he’s stuck cleaning up a huge family mess. I didn’t want any part of it. I bought a plane ticket and hightailed it out of there.”

I could only imagine what that mess was. I felt guilty that I was actually happy there was a mess to clean up. That implied he was digging in and rejecting the pressure to marry Ashley. I hated that he was dealing with a mess, though. I hoped he was okay.

“How long are you staying?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m not sure what I’m doing. I just know when I was here, I felt like I could breathe. I felt like I could be free to be whoever I wanted. I need that.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” I said. “I know Ryder is going to be happy to see you.”

She smiled at me, a small tear forming in the corner of her eye. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I just knew I had to be here. This was the only place I wanted to be.”

“I get it,” I said. “Do you want to grab some lunch? Ryder works until four. If you want someone to keep you company, I’m your girl.”

“Thank you. I would like that. You can tell me what you’ve been up to the last week.”

We collected our things and made our way to the restaurant. We ordered salads and talked about her flight. It was funny to listen to her go on about flying commercial. She made it sound like a ride at Disneyland.

As we ate, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was. Ryder was a lucky man. I was happy for him. I just hoped she didn’t break his heart. I knew she was the equivalent of royalty and Ryder was a guy that worked just enough to pay rent and eat. The rest of his time was spent surfing or hanging out and doing whatever made him happy for the day. It wasn’t a bad way to live, but it was probably not the way Penelope was used to living.

“So, have you done anything exciting?” she asked. “Diving? Checking out reefs?”

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