Page 58 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

Lila’s shoulders lowered from her ears. “David.”

“Right! Who is more romantic?”

Lila smiled. “David.”

“The bride-to-be is on a roll! Who said I love you first?”

“David.”

“Right again,” Willow said with a little less enthusiasm. “Who wanted to get married the most?”

“David!” Lila gave her cousin a smug smile. Did she know her man or what? It had to be obvious to everyone now that they were the perfect match.

Willow nodded. “Who loves the other the most?”

“David!” Lila looked around when no one cheered. She wasn’t sure why until she got a look at her mother’s face and thought back to the questions and her answers. Lila pressed a hand to her stomach and got up from the chair. “Too much sangria,” she said with a fake smile, and hurried to the ladies’ restroom.

Lila had barely gotten the stall door shut and locked before she was on her knees, throwing up. As she ripped off a piece of toilet paper to wipe her mouth a few minutes later, she heard whispering behind the door.

“I don’t want to talk to either of you,” she said, knowing full well who it was.

“Too bad. We’re not going anywhere until you do,” Sage said in her lawyerly voice.

“Please talk to us. We didn’t mean to upset you. We love you,” Willow said through the door.

Lila flushed the toilet, then glared at them both when she opened the stall door. “People who love you don’t try to sabotage you at your bridal shower. Don’t give me the innocent eyes. I know exactly what you’re up to. Did you have to pay everyone to tell me their divorce horror stories? Is everyone in on it?”

“No, and it’s not our fault that most of our friends have horror stories to share. If you think those are bad, you should come to work with me,” Sage said as Lila moved past them to get to the sink.

“That’s not why you threw up, Lila. You were fine up until the he-said, she-said game. Okay, not so fine with tales of Zia and her magic tongue, and trust me, I could’ve done without those myself.”

Lila met her cousins’ eyes in the mirror. “So what? I got a few questions wrong. It doesn’t prove anything.”

“This isn’t about the questions you got wrong. It’s about the ones you got right,” Sage said, her voice unnaturally soft.

“David loves you, babe. That much is obvious. But do you really love him?” Willow asked, holding Lila’s hair back as she rinsed her mouth.

The tight rein she’d been keeping on her emotions for the past week snapped, and the truth came out. “I’m pregnant. I’m having David’s baby.”

Her cousins stared at her and then pulled her in for a hug. Willow jumped up and down squealing, and Sage held Lila tight. “We’re going to be aunties,” Sage said, sounding a little emotional. For all that she was a hard-ass, Sage had a tender heart.

And while technically they’d be cousins, Lila knew what Sage meant. The three of them had been raised more as sisters; it was how they’d always felt. She just wished they were as happy about her getting married as they were about the baby.

Sage drew back. “But you don’t have to marry David because you’re having his baby. The only reason you should be marrying him is because you can’t live without him.”

Willow looked at her sister as if Sage had been possessed by someone who actually believed in love and happy ever afters. Then she shook her head and put her hands on Lila’s shoulders. “You were raised by three single mothers, babe. We all were, and we turned out all right.”

“You don’t understand. You can’t. You didn’t go through what I did. You didn’t spend your childhood always worried that you’d upset one of your parents if they knew you were missing the other, pretending you were happy when you were missing your mom and her family or your dad and his. Feeling like you were being ripped in two, blaming yourself for their fights, for making your mom cry and your dad angry.”

She swiped at her damp cheeks. “Every summer I had to leave my mom and you guys and my friends, and I hated it. And then I’d hate it just as much when I had to leave my dad and Grace and my little sisters in September. I won’t put my baby through that. I won’t. David’s a wonderful man. He’s sweet, he’s kind, and he’s loyal. He’ll make an amazing father, and our baby will have two parents under the same roof.” She finished on a shuddered sob.

Chapter Seventeen

Eva stumbled back from the ladies’ restroom door. It felt as if a chef’s knife had been plunged into her chest. Lila’s every word, every sob, had cut off a chunk of Eva’s heart until she could’ve sworn she was bleeding out on the hallway’s threadbare carpet. Except it wasn’t blood, it was tears.

“Eva, what’s going on? Is Lila all right?” her sister asked, walking toward her.

For once Eva was glad of the dim lighting in the hall. She leaned against the wall with her back to Gia, smoothing her palms over her cheeks, brushing away her tears. “She feels like Sage and Willow sabotaged the shower. She’s upset with them.”

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