Page 63 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Trust me, I have plenty to—”

Willow elbowed her sister. “We’re here to support you. If you say you’re happy and over-the-moon in love with David, we believe you.”

Lila narrowed her eyes at Willow, wondering what her cousin was up to. She’d never said she was over-the-moon in love with David. Lila wouldn’t ask her, though. She didn’t think Willow would tell her the truth. But if she did, Lila wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it. They had a restaurant full of women waiting for them.

“Thank you. We’d better get out there.” Lila brushed past her cousins as she walked to the door. “Please don’t say anything about the baby. David and I are waiting until I’m twelve weeks.” Which was next week. After how her cousins had reacted to the news—positive the baby was the only reason she was marrying David—Lila decided it would be better if they waited until she was sixteen weeks.

“And when are you twelve weeks exactly?” Sage asked, glancing at Lila’s still-flat stomach.

“The week after the wedding, actually,” Lila said smoothly. She made a mental note to tell David they were postponing the baby reveal, sighing when she realized that he’d want to know why. If she told him the truth, he might start questioning her motives too.

“Convenient,” Sage murmured.

Her hand on the door, Lila turned to her cousin, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything. Her grandmother and aunt nearly took Lila out when they burst into the restroom.

“What did you say to your mother?” her grandmother demanded.

“Ma, you don’t know that Lila said anything. Eva said she was going to the—”

“Bah.” Her grandmother waved her hand. “You said she looked like she’d been crying, and she’s not at the grocery store. I called.”

“You said she was crying, Ma! I told you she’d been chopping jalapenos and touched her eyes.”

“My Eva wouldn’t—”

“Stop! Please stop,” Lila said, pressing a hand to her racing heart, afraid that her mother had somehow overheard her. “Where was Mom when you saw her, Zia?”

Willow swore under her breath, no doubt thinking the same thing as Lila.

“Here.” She pointed to the door. “She was standing outside the restroom.” Her aunt’s gaze moved from Lila to her daughters. “What’s going on? What did my sister hear that upset her?”

Lila pressed a hand to her mouth, afraid she was going to be sick again. Everything she’d said to her cousins was true, but the last thing she wanted was for her mother to have heard her. She would never hurt her like that. It’s why she’d never said anything to either her mother or her father when she was younger.

It was a lose-lose situation. They’d have blamed each other, and it would’ve made everything worse. She loved them, and she’d never, not once, doubted their love for her. They had been the best parents a kid could ask for. They’d just sucked at sharing her.

Her cousins moved closer to Lila, while her grandmother and her aunt—their mouths tight, their expressions fierce—stared at her, waiting for her to answer.

As much as Lila had never doubted that her grandmother and her aunt loved her, she also knew that their loyalty lay with her mother. The three of them were closer than anyone Lila knew. They’d lived and worked together for decades. There wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do for each other. It was a beautiful thing to witness. Unless they suspected you’d hurt your mother, and then they were downright scary.

“Stop looking at her like that,” Sage said, stepping in front of Lila and crossing her arms. “We were having a private conversation. Zia shouldn’t have been listening at the door.”

“Lila’s having a baby,” Willow blurted, no doubt in an effort to protect Lila, but that didn’t mean Lila was happy about it.

“You never could keep a secret,” Sage muttered, stumbling back when their grandmother and their mother rushed forward.

“A bambino!” her grandmother cried, grabbing Lila’s face between her hands and kissing her cheeks. “We’re going to have a bambino.”

“Lila, that’s the best news,” her aunt said, blinking back tears. “I’m so happy for you. For us.” She nudged Carmen out of the way to hug Lila.

Then her grandmother and her aunt looked at each other and started to laugh. “Can you hear Eva telling her boy toys that she’s not only fifty, she’s a nonna too?” Carmen said, her voice gurgling with laughter.

“She doesn’t tell them she’s fifty. She tells them she’s forty,” Gia said, and the two of them hooted with laughter. Tears streamed down their faces as they continued sharing how Lila’s baby news would affect her mother’s sex life.

Lila sighed. She really didn’t want to hear this. She was tempted to put her hands over her ears and start humming, but then her grandmother and aunt stopped laughing and started frowning. This couldn’t be good.

Her grandmother lifted her red-framed glasses to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Something isn’t right. As much as Eva hates getting old, she’d be happy about the bambino.”

“You’re right, Ma. She’d be over the moon, and she wasn’t.”

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