Page 21 of Two Tickets to Paradise

He nodded, slowly. "It should be obvious that you don't. I mean, where did they think Hawaii 5-0 came from? It is the fiftieth state."

She grinned at him. "And you just earned a few cool points from me."

Vince's smile was like the sun, it lit her up inside. "I'll take those points. I'll have to keep banking them."

Cora nodded. "That's a good idea."

Reaching forward, she pulled her carry-on bag out from under the seat in front of her and pulled out her eReader. "I bought a book about Hawaii and read it. It's got some great information in the back. In the glossary."

Powering it up, she turned the screen toward the window and clicked open the book at the top left corner. With a few swipes, she opened the book she'd just started reading. The last in a series of romances set in Hawaii.

"Here."

Turning the screen to face up, Cora pointed at the top of the page. "From what I've read, the Hawaiian language was only averbal language for thousands of years. When the Missionaries from the Northeastern part of the United States came over in the early eighteen hundreds, they wrote it down." She pointed to the pronunciation guide on the page. "It came down to twelve letters."

Vince nodded. "Twelve? That's got to be easier than twenty-six."

She shrugged. "I thought so, too. But then you have more repetition. It's easier in that there's nothing silent."

Vince sat back against his seat. "Good. My mother thought I should try learning French in middle school, but I couldn't pronounce things. Talk about hellish memories."

Cora gave him a nudge with her shoulder. "That was a long time ago. You've gotten over it now, right?"

He smiled, but there was a tinge of something like regret she saw in his features. "There was a lot of teasing back then. I was tall, but skinny. Spindly skinny."

She nodded, understanding how painful teasing could be at any age.

"And the girl I had a crush on laughed the loudest."

Cora heard the ache in his voice. Wounds like that hurt. She had some of those, too.

"So, I'm glad we're not going to France, then."

He looked up at her with a smile. "Or anywhere they speak French Canadian." He frowned a little. "Is that a language? Or a people?"

She chuckled softly. "Hey, don't ask me. I'm just trying to help you with Hawaii. French Canadian will have to be your responsibility."

"Yes, ma'am. Whatever you say, ma'am." He gave her a salute. “I’ll take the lead when we go to Canada for our next trip."

"Oh..." she couldn't help but smile at that. "Sounds like a plan, then."

Vince dropped his hand back into his lap.

"So," she lifted one of her hands from the eReader and touched her cheek, it was only too easy to get flustered around Vince, "remembering the five vowels is the base of everything."

Cora paused as the food cart moved up the aisle. Had so much time passed already? They were going to start their meal service soon? Until this trip, flights always seemed to take forever.

She pointed at the letters in the middle of the page. "A, E, I, O, U."

"Normally, I'd ask if this was something about Old MacDonald, but I'm afraid to get you riled up again."

She rolled her eyes. "Ah for A. Eh for E."

He nodded and she continued. "Ee is what you say for the I."

"Like the word LEI." His gaze narrowed and she saw his brow furrow. "Eh and Ee. L-eh-ee."

She grinned and nodded, excited that he got it.

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