Lana'i of the Tiger (The Islands of Aloha Mystery Series) Read Free Page A

I said. “I was just out for a quick run and I saw your sign in the
window.”
    “No worries, you didn’t disturb
me. The doctor wants me to keep off my feet.” She patted her bulging belly.
“I’ve got a whole new appreciation for my mother. I guess it takes nine months
of this to realize what I put her through.”
    I wanted to say, you think
this is bad, let’s talk when the kid’s fifteen , but instead I said, “So
I’ve heard. I don’t have any children of my own.”
    “Well, I’m not complaining, but
I’ll be glad when this little dude decides to make his entrance. I feel like
any day now my neighbors are gonna start advertising whale watch tours.”
    We smiled at each other,
seemingly both silently agreeing we could dispense with the small talk and get
down to business.
    “So, you’re here about the job?
Do you have any experience?”
    Uh-oh, it never occurred to me
that maybe they’d want someone whose thumb wasn’t every color of the rainbow
but green.
    “Uh, not really. I’m a quick
study, though.”
    “I’m afraid we don’t have much
time to train you. We need someone who can hit the ground running, like
tomorrow. I’ll be flying over to O’ahu as soon as my water breaks.”
    “Maybe if you showed me the
greenhouse, and what needs to be done, I could write down some notes, and take
it from there. I’m kama’aina and I’ve done all kinds of jobs, from
restaurant work to tourism gigs, and really, I learn fast.”
    She looked puzzled. “You’ve
worked in tourism? I thought you said you didn’t have any experience.”
    “Well, not with plants.”
    She turned to look toward the
backyard. The greenhouse wasn’t visible from where we were standing, but we
both knew it was back there somewhere.
    “No, you misunderstand,” she
said. “We’re not hiring a gardener. We have a great gardener, Ho Wing Shu. Do you
know him? He lives over on Lana’i Avenue. He designed the entrance gardens at
the Manele Beach Hotel. He’s a highly respected horticulturist here on the
island, and he’s been in the paper lots of times.”
    “I’m kama’aina from
O’ahu, but I’m new here on Lana’i.”
    “Oh, well then you probably
don’t know him. Anyway, we’re a bed and breakfast. See the sign?” She pointed
out the window to a small wooden sign hanging below their rural mailbox. I
couldn’t read the words on it through the screen door. “Yeah,” she continued,
“we’re the White Orchid Bed and Breakfast. We’ve got a four-star rating on Trip
Advisor.com. You know, on the Internet.”
    I shot her my most winsome
smile. Could I have lucked into anything more perfect?
    “So you’re looking for someone
to help with the guests?” I asked. “What type of work? Housekeeping, cooking,
taking reservations?”
    “Well, pretty much all of the
above. We’re just a two-person operation, my husband and me. We only have three
rooms, but we clean the rooms, help the guests with local activities, fix
breakfast, and so on. We do most of our guest reservations online but we also
take them by phone, or even the occasional walk-in. Running a B and B is a lot
of work, but we love it.”
    I kept the smile going. This
would be perfect since most of the people I’d be dealing with would be visitors
who probably wouldn’t give two cents about who I was or where I was from.
    She went on. “The only problem
is this is a temporary job. I plan to be at my mother-in-law’s on O’ahu no more
than a week or two. I might need you to stay on for a while after that, but
that’s all. I’ve had a few applicants, but everyone wants something more
permanent.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry.”
    “A few weeks is no problem,” I
said. “I’m a new widow, over here from Honolulu to recover from my husband’s
combat death and get through the holidays. Back home, I lived on base, at
Hickam, when my husband was in Afghanistan, but now…”
    “Oh, I am so sorry,” she
said. “Would you like to sit down? Can