Page 47 of Big Island Sunset
“Of course I’m not happy about this. But what I’malsonot doing is puttingmorestress on a seventeen-year-old girl who’s already a nervous wreck.”
“You know she can’t do this.”
“You’re doing it,” Toni snapped. “How hard can it be?”
Ethan turned and walked back to his truck without another word.
12
Tara
When Tara drove up the remote dirt road that Liam had directed her to, his truck was already parked off to the side. He was waiting for her in the shade of a huge tree.
He rose to greet her and wrapped his arms around her in an embrace that blotted out the stress of the rest of the world. For a moment, leaning into the solidity of the man she loved, Tara could breathe in peace.
A big picnic blanket waited for her beneath the monkeypod tree. As Tara settled onto it, Liam set out their lunch.
Looking around, she realized that he had taken out a whole big swatch of overgrown grass with his weed eater to create an open space for them to sit and have a picnic. There in the clearing that he had created, they were surrounded by a world of green.
There was a bottle of white wine chilling in a bucket of ice. With a flourish, he pulled aside a piece of cloth to unveil a massive charcuterie board, where he had set out an array of sliced cheeses, crackers, and pickled vegetables.
“What did I do to deserve all this?” she asked.
“You cook for other people all week long,” Liam said as he poured her a glass of wine. “I’m not much of a cook, but I can at least feed you. Here.”
She accepted the glass and took a sip. The wine was bright and refreshing, perfect for a picnic. Once he had poured a glass for himself, she clinked hers lightly against his.
“Cheers,” she said.
“To us,” he replied.
They were quiet for a while, enjoying the phenomenal spread of local cheeses and jams that he had put together.
“I can’t believe you made me a picnic,” she said, putting another dab of chili pepper jam on a generous hunk of goat cheese. “This is wonderful.”
“You’re too easy to impress,” he chided her gently. “You deserve a lot more than the occasional picnic, but I do what I can with the time you can spare.”
“I’m juggling too much,” she admitted. “I keep making sacrifices, making adjustments… I sold my cows and put the girls in school part time, but no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get ahead of it all.”
Liam just nodded, giving her his full attention. His eyes were as blue and deep as the ocean that Tara also saw too rarely, despite living just a few miles from the coast.
In that moment, she missed him preemptively. Life was so full and chaotic that she hardly had the time or energy to miss him when she was busy with other things… but every time she saw him, her heart ached to spend more time in his company.When she was near him, time seemed to slow down. He was a safe harbor from the hurricane of her life.
She looked away, and her gaze landed on the delicate yellow flowers that bloomed in the weeds all around their picnic blanket.
“I don’t know what happened with Cody,” she said. “It’s like I took my eye off of him for a minute, and he went right off the deep end. And now this.”
“It’s not your fault,” Liam said.
She just shook her head. “Life got busy, and I started treating him more like a business partner than the child he is.”
“He’s not exactly a child. The kid’s taller than I am.”
“But heisstill a kid,” she said, looking him in the eyes again.
“Technically, yes. But notreally. He’s in that tricky in-between phase.”
“I feel like I failed him.” Her voice trembled, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat.
