Page 88 of Big Island Summer
Theo slapped his plastic tray with both hands, a sound accompanied by something that fell between screaming and singing. His face was covered in scrambled eggs.
“So does Theo,” he added, and they laughed. That made the baby laugh too, and Fern’s heart felt full to bursting.
“I love him,” she said without thinking.
As soon as the words were out, she looked to Ethan, wondering if she had crossed a line. There was a tumultuous mix of emotions in his hazel eyes, and she didn’t know him nearly well enough to guess at what was on his mind.
“He’s easy to love.” Ethan smiled, but there was a familiar sadness to it.
“I’m not sure where we stand,” she admitted.
“Ditto.”
Her anxious heart hitched, then settled again when he pressed another kiss to her knuckles.
“I need to go slow,” he told her. “I’m still processing a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with you, and none of that should be your burden to carry. So I’m going to need a little bit of patience, and I’m going to ask you not to take it personally if there are days I seem distant.
“I need to go slow,” he said again, “but I don’t want to lose you. I want to keep hiking together, adventuring together, eating together… I want to see where this goes.”
“I want that too.”
His smile was brighter than a sunrise over the volcano. “You’re the most extraordinary woman I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know what you see in me but, I’ll try my best to live up to it.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Good. Now try your lasagna before it gets cold.”
She picked up a fork and sawed off a corner of the huge slice he had given her. Firm pasta gave way to luscious cheese andflavorful sauce, and for a moment, her mind was blissfully clear of everything but that bite of home-cooked food.
“That’s phenomenal,” she told him.
“Is it?” Still holding her hand in his, he wielded a fork in his non-dominant hand and took a big bite. “Not bad. Not quite as good as my grandma’s, but not bad.”
“Will you show me how to make it?”
“If I reveal all my secrets, what reason will you have to stick around?”
“For you,” she said, and she saw vulnerability flicker behind the joy in his eyes.
“The pleasure of my company?” he asked, trying to turn it into a joke.
But she wasn’t joking. “Yeah.”
He leaned over to kiss her full on the lips, and the heady sensation that overwhelmed her was more delicious than any lasagna. Then he retreated again, and picked up his fork, and turned the conversation to more mundane things as they ate the dinner that he’d made.
And through all of it, he kept hold of her hand.
25
Emma
“Shoes on, kiddo. Uncle Ethan’s here!”
Kai crossed his arms and stomped one bare foot on the floor. “I hate shoes.”
“That’s what you said last time we went adventuring, but remember how glad you were to have them when the parking lot was burning hot?”
“But I don’t have to wear them in the car!”
