Page 80 of Big Island Sunset
“You do look pretty.” Keith’s tone was serious, and she felt her cheeks color.
“Do you want to play catch?” Kai asked her.
“In a little bit,” she replied. “Have you fed your animals yet today?”
Kai sighed dramatically and turned his face up to the blue sky. “No.”
“The sun’s so high already. They must be hungry.”
“Nell feeds Zuko all the time, so much he practically lives there,” Kai grumped. “But I’ll feed Dio.”
“And the ducks,” she reminded him. “You could throw some scratch to the chickens too.”
“Fine.” He shoved the ball in his pocket and stomped off towards the duck pond.
Emma looked at Keith. Standing four feet off the ground on her lanai, she felt a bit like Juliet on her balcony. This would-be romance had about as much hope as those two foolish teenagers in Shakespeare’s Verona.
“Thanks for your help.”
“It’s work I enjoy,” he said with a shrug. “Would you come out into the yard for a minute?”
Emma’s heart froze at the thought of the ruined jaboticaba tree. She didn’t feel ready to face it. Not yet.
But Keith persisted. “Please? There’s something I want to show you.”
She nodded soberly and walked down the stairs, looping around the side of the house with Keith walking next to her. She surveyed the front yard, neat and shining after the work he had done that morning. She took it all in, looking everywhere but the spot where the little sapling had once stood.
Then Keith took her hand. She looked at him in surprise, startled again at the sight of his bright blue eyes, and looked away.
Her eyes landed on the jaboticaba sapling at their feet.
It was still standing.
Or, more accurately, standing again.
“How did you…?” Her voice faltered, and she slipped her hand out of his so that she could crouch down to examine the tree. Keith knelt beside her.
“I grafted it back together.” He had made clean cuts on either side of the broken piece and bound the trunk back together, splinting it with another bit of wood to hold it steady. “I pruned it way back, because it won’t be able to support fruit while it heals. But itcanheal, with a bit of luck.”
Emma pressed a hand over her mouth, holding back another wave of tears.
“Sorry,” she said after a moment. She stood and wiped the tears from her face. “I thought I was all cried out.”
Keith stood and looked at her. His expression was thoughtful, his gaze steady on hers.
“Thank you.” Emma tried to say more, but her throat was too tight to get the words out.
“I know that you’re still grieving,” he told her quietly, “and that he’ll always be your first love. I just want you to know that I’m here for you — even if that’s just as a friend.”
“I think that’s all that I’m ready for.” But as she stood there, his gaze holding hers, that felt… not entirely true. There was a buzzing current between them that couldn’t be ignored.
“There!” Kai came barreling around the side of the house, Dio loping by his side. “I fed everybody! Can we play now?”
Keith looked to Emma with a question, and she responded with the barest nod of her head.
“Sure,” he said to Kai. “Let’s play catch.”
“Mom too!” Kai insisted.
