Page 74 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Our mother did what?” Eva looked at Bruno. “Tell me she didn’t.”

He lifted a shoulder and gave her a sad smile.

Eva held out her hand. “James, I need your keys.”

“Where are you going, Eva?” he asked, reaching into the pocket of his jeans.

“I’m going to kick someculo.”

He bit back a smile. “Exactly whose ass are you going to kick?”

“My mother and Jennifer’s husband. He won’t let her come help us.”

“Eva, you don’t know that,” her sister said.

“Oh yes I do.” She made a gimme gesture with her fingers to James.

“Cara, don’t have a fight with your mother over me. Please,” Bruno said.

Eva tugged on Bruno’s arm, moving him out of Ana’s reach and earshot. “Tell me you’re happy. Tell me this is what you want, and I’ll back off.”

“Sometimes we can’t have what we want. Sometimes we have to settle for what makes us content.” He dipped his head to meet her eyes. “You know that as well as I do,cara,” he said, casting a pointed glance at James.

She pretended she didn’t know what he meant and gave a decisive nod instead. “Okay. That’s all I needed to hear.”

James joined them and placed his keys in her hand, curling her fingers around them. “Just do me a favor and don’t get any more dents or scratches on the car. It’s going to cost me more in repair work than it would to buy it,” he said, and then took her chin between his fingers and gave her a hard, fast kiss. “Don’t do anything to get yourself arrested.”

She laughed, grateful that he didn’t try to stop her. “I went to school with the chief of police, and she likes me.” Most of the time she did.

Lila walked in as Eva was walking out. “Mom, where are you going?”

“Ask your father,” she said, and then decided her relationship with her daughter was on shaky ground as it was. “Jennifer isn’t coming, and I’m almost positive that your father-in-law-to-be is behind it. If he is, I’m bringing her back with me, and if he tries to stop me—”

“You’re going to kick hisculo.” Lila nodded. “Good. It’s about time someone did.”

“Good,” she said, and walked to the Ferrari without smiling or patting her daughter’s cheek. Lila had hurt her badly.

“I love you, Mom,” Lila called to Eva as she got into the Ferrari.

“I love you too, darling.” She smiled as she drove away. It was a start, but Eva’s hurt went deep.

She spotted her mother coming out of the hardware store on Main Street, flirting with the owner, who was twenty years her junior. Carmen wore a cute red top, white shorts, and red heels.

Eva rolled to a stop. “Hey, old lady, get yourculoover here before I come and get you and throw you in the car.”

Carmen gaped at her before hurrying over. “What’s wrong with you, calling me ‘old lady’?” she asked as she got in the car, smiling at the hardware store owner and giving him a flirty wave.

In her mother Eva saw herself twenty years from now, and it was no longer a comforting thought. She glanced at the road and then the car. She didn’t have time to waste, but neither did she want to ding up the Ferrari by taking a shortcut through an alley. “Hold on,” she told her mother, and pulled a U-turn into oncoming traffic, wincing at the sounds of tires screeching and horns blaring.

“What has gotten into you?”

“What has gotten into me? You fired a man who’s devoted his life to you, to us, and to La Dolce Vita. A man who has loved you for decades, and a man who you love too. A man who has just announced he’s marrying Ana and moving with her to Puerto Rico.”

“He’s what?” her mother whispered.

“Yeah, he’s getting married and moving away because he’s finally realized you’re never going to give your relationship a shot.”

Her mother’s chin trembled. “The curse.”

---