Rowan drifted toward a rack of T-shirts printed with pineapples in sunglasses, surfing pineapples, pineapples in Santa hats. Then she saw it.
A bright yellow shirt featuring a plump cartoon chicken wearing a grass skirt and doing a hula, beak in the air in a ridiculous grin.
Rowan held it up and bit her lip to keep from laughing. “Hey, Suit. I found your shirt.”
He stared at it, horrified. “Absolutely not.”
“You’d look amazing in this.”
“You want me to go out in public wearing a dancing chicken?”
“It’s a hula chicken,” she corrected. “Respect the culture.”
Kelsey dashed over and gasped. “Oh my God,Buy It. Dad,Please. Youhaveto.”
“No.”
Rowan draped it against his chest anyway. The yellow made his skin look warm and tan, and the absurdity of the dancing chicken almost made her crack up. “You look very ... approachable.”
“I don’t want to be approachable. I run a luxury hotel.”
“Exactly,” Rowan said. “You need balance.”
He gave her a narrow, suspicious look that said he knew she was winning. Kelsey grabbed his arm. “Dad, come on. For me. Please?”
Everett sighed—the long, suffering sigh of a man who knew resistance was futile. “Fine. But I’m wearing itonce.”
Rowan grinned. “Deal.”
She marched to the register before he could back out. When she paid, he frowned. “I was going to get it.”
“Nope,” she said. “It’s more fun this way.”
They stepped back out into the sunshine, and Everett shook his head at her. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“You haven’t even heard the train jingle yet.”
He blinked. “There’s a jingle?”
The Dole Express chugged around the plantation with a cheerfulness that bordered on alarming. The conductor gave a booming speech about pineapple history while speakers overhead piped in a bouncy, relentlessly upbeat song about Dole and pineapples and sunshine.
Kelsey was in heaven. She leaned over the rail, pointing out fields and plants and waving at workers driving tractors.
Everett, seated beside Rowan, stared straight ahead as the jingle repeated for the third time. “I can’t get it out of my head,” he said in a low voice. “It burrowed into my brain. It’s lodged in there.”
“It’s catchy,” Rowan whispered. “They sell the CD in the store.”
“It’s torture. This is how psychological warfare starts.”
She pressed her knee lightly against his. “Welcome to family outings.”
He glanced down at where their legs touched. Heat sizzled up her thigh. “I’m not sure I signed up for this part.”
“You did when you agreed to the shirt.”
His mouth twitched. “I should’ve known.”
He shifted closer, arm brushing her shoulder like an afterthought. Except Rowan knew nothing Everett did was an afterthought. Not when he looked at her like that. Not when his hand slipped to rest on the bench, almost touching her hip.
