Page 7 of Big Island Sunset
“I know.” Jun pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes and took a ragged breath. “I don’t know.”
“No form of protection is one hundred percent effective.” Emma’s tone was gentle.
“Life finds a way,” Piper added with gravitas.
“Piper!” Tara exclaimed, turning to look at her. “Go to your room!”
“I’m the aunt,” she said, indignant. “Don’t I get a say?”
“Absolutely not. Go. Now.”
Piper turned and ran back down the hall.
“You’re sure?” Cody breathed. His attention was entirely fixed on Juniper.
She huffed out a sigh and gestured at the digital readout test on the table. “Pretty sure.”
“That’s why you haven’t called? Or answered my texts?”
Somehow, she went even paler. “Yeah.”
Cody let out a breath. He gave Juniper a weak smile.
Tara swallowed a groan. Her sweet, stupid boy wasrelieved.
Her brilliant son had turned into a lovestruck fool, and she had no idea how to handle that. How to handle any of this. She wasn’t ready.
A sudden anger flooded her chest.
Everything had beenfinebefore Emma moved in next door. Now their whole life, the whole trajectory of her son’s life– She cut herself off before she spiraled any further.
Her head was spinning. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She wasn’t angry at Emma, not really.
She wasn’t even angry at the foolish, lovestruck kids on her couch.
She was angry with herself for being blind to what was happening between them. And at Mitch for disappearing just as his son was becoming a man. Even after he moved back to Hawai‘i and got his new place in Hilo, he saw the kids maybe two or three times a month.
She felt like she had failed her son – and Juniper by extension.
“I thought you were mad at me,” he was saying.
Tara opened her eyes again, struck dumb by the drama playing out in her living room.
“No.” Juniper was quiet, looking down at her lap. “Just… spiraling.”
Tara glanced at her neighbor, who looked back at her with a helpless expression.
She was grateful to Emma and Juniper for including her… and at the same time, she felt horribly awkward, like she was eavesdropping on a personal conversation that had nothing to do with her.
Cody reached out and took Juniper’s hand. “What do you want to do?”
She squeezed his hand in a white-knuckle grip. She looked terrified and so, so young… and at the same time, there was a fierce determination in her expression that took Tara’s breath away.
“I want to do right by our baby,” she said with quiet intensity.
“Our baby,” he repeated in awe. He let out a breath with a sound that fell somewhere between a sputter of disbelief and a laugh. “I can’t believe it.”
“You’re going to have a baby?!” Paige exclaimed from the hallway. Piper shushed her, as if there was even the smallest chance that everyone hadn’t heard.
