Aloha Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

They pulled the canoes up onto the white sand and formed a border, making a path for the passengers to walk through, each one bowing, greeting. Jane saw then that the lee-eyes the greeters wore seemed to be made of shells and what looked like long teeth and pieces of bone.
    At first, Jane thought there must be some personage of high acclaim aboard ship, even though she thought she’d met all the passengers. The welcomes and greetings, however, seemed to be for each of them. At the end of the row of men stood many women and groups of children. The women came forward and greeted each of them as if they were long-lost friends.
    “Matilda. Is that you?” A man in a suit came up to them.
    Matilda screeched, “Russ!”
    Jane feared her aunt would break his body with her exuberant hug. However, he wasn’t a small man and seemed quite strong. He looked slightly older than Matilda, and his thin brown hair had a lot of gray in it. They broke apart, and she kissed his cheeks and he kissed hers. Both had tears in their eyes.
    Matilda stood shaking her head like it was all unbelievable. Finally, her brother wiped at his eyes and looked away from her. “Is this little Janie?”
    Jane nodded and went into his open arms. Then he held her away by the shoulders. “You’re not little anymore.”
    What could she say? “Ten years does that to a girl.”
    He laughed. “And it did it well. Ah, this is Pilar?”
    She said, “Yes, sir,” and he opened his arms to her.
    Uncle Russ motioned to a group of people. A woman and a little girl hurried up to them. Jane was surprised they wore clothing much like one would wear in Texas. But that healthy-looking woman couldn’t be Pansy.
    “Matilda,” her uncle Russell said, “meet a dear friend, Rose MacCauley.”
    “Oh, I’m so anxious to get to know you,” the woman said. She held up a long loop of flowers and managed, in spite of the big hat, to slip it over Matilda’s head and made sure it draped equally down her back and chest.
    “Jane, this is Leia MacCauley,” Uncle Russ said with a big smile. The child reached up for Jane, who bent down and for some strange reason felt like she might topple to the ground. However, as the child was arranging the loop as Rose had done for Matilda, Jane said, “Thank you, Leia, for the lee-eye.”
    The girl wrinkled her nose. “What’s a lee-eye?”
    Uh-oh. Jane felt like an excessive amount of saliva had formed under her tongue. Something wasn’t right. The people around her began to sway. “This. . .this necklace is called. . .what?”
    “It’s a lei,” Leia said and snickered. She pronounced it lay . To make matters worse, the child turned to a man, several feet away standing with a group of children. “Miss Jane called the lei a lee-eye, Daddy.” She put her hand over her mouth.
    Children snickered.
    Rose MacCauley motioned to the man called Daddy. “Mak, come and meet Russell’s relatives.”
    Jane looked at the ruggedly handsome man, who lowered his gaze to the ground. She resented what she felt was an unsuccessful attempt to keep a grin off his face. But, what could she expect from a man holding in front of him a hat with flowers around the band?
    The man came closer. But why was he swaying?
    She heard the name. “Mak MacCauley,” and somewhere in her swirling mind, it registered that he had been mentioned in Pansy’s letter as a teacher. But the hat? Was that another lei for her?
    Just in case, she said, “I could use a hat like that.”
    He said abruptly, without a smile, “Sorry I can’t say the same about yours.”
    Should she laugh? Be insulted?
    No, he must be drunk. He couldn’t stand still. In fact, he often seemed to be twins. Looking around at the others, she saw that they too became like waves on an ocean.
    She had that excessive saliva feeling again, and her ocean waves were not gently rolling but sloshing against her insides. She had to swallow it, but something wouldn’t go down. Instead, that something was