Somewhere on Maui (an Accidental Matchmaker Novel) by Toby Neal Read Free Book Online Page A

off over his head, wrapped a beach towel around his waist, stripped out of his work pants, and hoisted up his board shorts.
    Let her take her best shot. He was nobody’s bitch.
    He grabbed his board off the racks and ran down the sand, launching over the shore break and paddling out in a burst of energy. The surf was small and blown-out from the wind, but Adam worked every little mushburger that rolled through, pumping his board through the crumbly whitewater sections and churning back out with all the power in his arms.
    He stayed out until those arms had turned to rubber and his stomach rumbled. Rinsing off under the cold park shower, he felt tired in a good way, the surges of emotion of the morning dissipated by exercise.
    He remembered that tonight he had a Crazy Blind Date.
    That is, if his mother was okay to leave—he’d have to go home and see.
    Imagine his date knowing what was really going on in his life—sexually harassed at work, taking care of an elderly parent, unable to see his stepkids, struggling with an anger problem, and quite possibly fired.
    This was one time he wouldn’t “be true” if he could help it.

Chapter 6
     
    After her morning beach walk and trash pickup with Sylvester, Zoe had spent the day working on several pitches for new stories and structuring the article for Ladies’ Home Journal . She had a nice outline going: a little personal intro on how she’d never expected to be Internet dating but that she had trouble meeting people in a new location and wanted to try this “modern connection tool” to help with that. She used the hook of a quote from a success story on one of the sites, crediting online dating with “finding the love of her life” and the question: “Who wouldn’t want that?”
    Zoe followed that introduction with the strange experience of filling out the profile and the dilemmas of how truthful to be. Hoping the reader would be hooked by then, she outlined a paragraph with statistics on Internet dating, how prevalent it was and how many people met success.
    Actual numbers on this proved difficult to find, as each site and service touted their statistics—and who knew how truthful they were? She planned a paragraph or two on the different types of sites, who they catered to, and went on to the details of her experience on the site and her first Crazy Blind Date with a big-wave-surfing Brazilian bodybuilder who ate chocolate chip cookies and drank soy lattes.
    By the time she leaned back, stretched, and glanced up at the clock, it was almost five o’clock. The new date was for a drink at Charley’s in Paia, a well-established local bar and restaurant only a few blocks from her house. She’d planned to walk.
    “Okay, boy. Time to get ready for who-knows-what,” Zoe said to Sylvester, who was napping on her feet. She hurried through a shower but didn’t have time to dry her hair, so she didn’t wash it, leaving it down and curling from the wind and humidity.
    At her closet, she frowned. She’d had to get a whole new wardrobe upon arriving on Maui, but what said “interesting, intellectual, and not desperate” for something as “desperate” as a computer-generated blind date? Oh God. She wasn’t really looking for someone, was she?
    That’s right; this was research. She was a journalist on a story. She shut her eyes, reached in, and grabbed.
    In her hand was a handful of black jersey, a backless knee-length halter dress she’d worn back home in the Bay Area to business dinners. Very not-Maui, but also sexy if she uncovered her shoulders. The bra situation was challenging; she’d dealt with it in the past by wearing stick-on boob supports, but she didn’t have any and she was just too full up top to go without something. In the end, she put on a black bikini top, tied it on under the dress and turned back and forth in front of the mirror.
    Good. She looked as close to hot as she ever did—and in case the guy was not someone she wanted to encourage, she