Read Blooming in the Wild for Free Online Page B

ripe around here?”
    Bella shot him a look of dislike until she realized his question had been for Cassie and Tanah, who were both smiling. Well, good. She certainly didn’t want him aiming that glinting look at her.
    “I’d like to see some passion fruit,” Tanah drawled, tracing her fingertip down Joel’s brawny forearm.
    “Oh, it’s easy to find,” Bella told her. “But it can be disappointing. Just round yellow balls on a skinny little twig.”
    Frank choked on a mouthful of beer, and Joel’s eyes narrowed dangerously behind the centerpiece.
    “I think you’re thinking of that chilly mainland passion fruit,” he retorted. “Around here it grows on great big vines.”
    Tanah and Cassie giggled, and even Camille chuckled. Matt tapped fists with Joel.
    Avoiding Joel’s smug grin, Bella looked down at her plate. Leilani’s cooking was delicious as usual, but she was no longer hungry.
    She pushed out of her chair, plate in hand. “I should go and make a couple of phone calls. Excuse me.”
    Behind her, Tanah spoke. “Oh, phone! Here, Matt, take my picture with Joel.”
    “Me too,” Cassie agreed.

Chapter Four
    To Do: To bring a difficult tour member in line, first learn as much as possible about his or her background to establish common ground .
     
    Bella escaped with relief. Not eating was unusual for her, but then so was camping with a bunch of strangers—one of whom was totally obnoxious, and one who didn’t seem to realize she’d frightened three of her fellow campers. Add being the one in charge of making sure everything went well—not to mention hearing voices urging her to leave it all behind and run away to join them—and Bella was ready to jump out of her skin.
    She’d managed to tune them out when she was busy helping direct the setup of camp, but now that that was done, her mind free, the warm whispers began again.
    “’Ai kâ mâua kua ‘ai, kaikuahine. Come and eat our fruit, little sister.”
    Bella swallowed hard, her mouth watering, her stomach rumbling again as if hungry for some sweet, wild fruit she could find only in the forest.
    On her earlier visit to Nawea, she’d spent as much time as possible up in the forest, hiking the trails north of here with her cousin Zane, exploring, learning the trees and plants. She’d been full of curiosity and energy and consumed with the need to learn, to know, to experience. She’d raced up and down the trails, outpacing even her long-legged surfer cousin. He’d called her a pupule wahine, crazy woman, but she’d only laughed, exhilarated by a sense that she couldn’t slip, wouldn’t fall.
    Now she felt conversely as if she dared not venture into the wild tangle of trees and plants above her for fear she could not bring herself to return even to this vestige of civilization.
    This might be paradise, but she was poised over it, balanced on a cliff’s edge between normality and an enthralling, frightening fantasy of…belonging. She needed to stay centered. She belonged to the world she’d established for herself—her condo in Portland, her friends, her job and her mother.
    But now she had a father too, and both he and her two best friends were here. Hawaii’s pull was more powerful than ever. Oregon, even DelRay’s Maui offices, seemed very distant.
    She made her way around the tents and walked a little way along the shore to sit on a rock at the edge of the surf. Around her, twilight was falling, the light dimming to a soft purple, the sea a sheet of molten pewter, the surf quieting with the ebb of the tide.
    Pulling out her phone, she punched the second number. Her mother’s was the first listed, but she’d call Grace tomorrow. Tonight she wanted to talk to someone here in the islands—someone who would understand.
    Daro answered on the third ring. “Nani, how are you? Are you at your camp?”
    Bella found herself unwilling to share all her concerns, which seemed petty now that she was speaking with someone unconnected to