Lisa Childs - Learning to Hula

Leaving the box sealed, I reach through the broken window and pull out an individually wrapped cupcake. I shouldn’t be tempted. My stomach is full of good food—a delicately seasoned chicken breast, strawberries, walnuts and greens drizzled with light poppy-seed dressing. None of that is junk.

This is.

My hand closes around the wrapper. I should crush it…the way I crushed that whole display in Smiley’s. Instead I pop it open.

I have to know. I have to know why Rob couldn’t stop eating these things.

My hand is shaking as I lift the cupcake toward my mouth. The frosting oozes across my tongue now, melting. The cake is sweet and moist. The frosting is dark and bitter. The filling is creamy and sweet. The combination is euphoric.

And now I understand Rob.

Award-winning author Lisa Childs wrote her first book, a biography…of the family dog, when she was six. Now she writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction. The youngest of seven siblings, she holds family very dear, in real life and in her fiction, often infusing her books with compelling family dynamics. She lives in west Michigan with her husband, two daughters and a twenty-pound Siamese cat. For the latest on Lisa’s spine-tingling suspense and heartwarming women’s fiction, check out her Web site at www.lisachilds.com. She loves hearing from readers, who can also reach her at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

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Dear Reader,

One of my best friends is a widow, twice. I have always marveled at how strong this little, four-foot-nine, ninety-pound woman is to have survived losing not only one love of her life, but two. And she hasn’t just survived—she’s happy again.

I’ve wondered how I would handle such an unspeakable tragedy, to lose the man I love. My husband is one of those fun-loving, never-met-a-stranger types who makes me laugh every day. How would I laugh without him? Like the main character in Learning To Hula, I’m sure I’d focus on my children and lean on my family while I passed through all the stages of grief and, like Holly, I’d learn to hula and find happiness again. Being strong is more a state of mind than body.

Wishing you every happiness!

Lisa Childs

To: Tara Gavin, with deep appreciation, for your vision

and dedication to Harlequin NEXT. Thank you for

including my stories in this empowering, relevant series.

Jennifer Green, with special thanks, for your insight

and guidance. I love working with you!

Jenny Bent, my amazing agent, thank you for your

constant encouragement and unwavering support!

Mary Gardner, for always being a true friend.

PROLOGUE

STAGE 1

STAGE 2

STAGE 3

STAGE 4

STAGE 5

STAGE 6

STAGE 7

STAGE 8

STAGE 9

STAGE 10

STAGE 11

STAGE 12

STAGE 13

STAGE 14

STAGE 15

STAGE 16

STAGE 17

EPILOGUE

The experts say that when you suffer a loss, you pass through five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Well, I’m certainly no expert despite all the experience I’ve been getting lately. But I think there are more than five. Or maybe I only think that because I’ve been through each stage so many times that I’ve stopped labeling them.

At any rate I know which stage the experts have omitted. Happiness. And I know you can find that stage again no matter what kind of loss you’ve suffered….

Holly DeJong. That’s the name on the check. Not the signature, but on the payable-to line, which is good since that’s my name, and there are a lot of zeroes in the box after it.

A lot of zeroes but still not the most I’ve seen. I got a bigger check six months ago…when I buried my husband.

“Do you have any questions?” the bank manager asks.

I shake my head. My hand is shaking, too, as I pick up the pen I just used to sign all the documents; I endorse the back of the check and hand it to him. “Here, you take it.”

“Holly…”

“Do your magic with it, Keith,” I tell him. I’d given him the other check, too, and already the account he put it in has added zeroes to the original total.

Rob would like that, that the value of his life has kept increasing even after his death. That’s what that first check represented—his life. The second, for the sale of his business, represents his life’s work.

I know he would make some joke about all the zeroes; he was always making jokes. Sometimes I think he’s not really dead, just pulling one of his pranks that usually amused only him, and taking it too far.

“Holly, are you sure?” Keith asks.

I glance up from the check and focus on him, staring at his dark suit and the matching circles beneath his eyes. His hair, once dark, too, has gone mostly gray. He hasn’t looked this old in all the years I’ve known him.

And I’ve known him a long time, ever since he started dating my oldest sister, Pam. He’s been married to her for twenty-five years.

But if she has her way, they won’t make twenty-six. She’s left him. I’m not sure which has made him look old so suddenly, twenty-five years of marriage to her finally catching up with him, or her leaving.

The latter is why he’s hesitating to take the check, why he hesitated to participate in the closing to begin with. But the twenty-five year relationship is why I would trust no one else.

For the past six months he’s held my hand and guided me through the maze of paperwork involved with settling an estate and transferring ownership of a business.

“Keith, you’re always going to be my brother.”

I have none, just two sisters. Emma, the second oldest one, has been married twice, but I never felt as close to either of her husbands as I have to Keith. I can’t understand why Pam is leaving him.

She blames Rob.

She blamed him for a lot of things when he was alive; I shouldn’t have expected his death to change that. Pam never understood his sense of humor, so the only thing she “got” about the practical jokes he played on her was angry. After he let the air out of her tires once, she blamed him every time she got a flat, and whenever something sticky was on her door handle, she thought Rob was fooling around with the peanut butter again.

Despite their mutual antagonism, she claims that his death somehow brought her clarity. She can’t put off doing what she really wants because she sees now that life is too short.

They hadn’t agreed on much when he was alive, but Rob wouldn’t be able to argue that one with her. He’d been forty-one when he died.

Death by cupcake is what I call it. He lied and cheated on me with those things, breaking every promise he made to cut them out of his life and stick to the diet I put him on. I should have known he was lying. A man’s waistband doesn’t keep expanding like that. He’d called it a beer belly, but he’d never been able to swallow a sip of beer; he’d hated the taste of it. He actually hadn’t liked anything that wasn’t sweet.