Chapter Twenty-Two

Billy’s youngest sister, Emily, stood to the left of the sink dicing vegetables. A peeler in one hand, Ava waved a carrot at her baby sister with the other. The two women were laughing so hard tears streamed down their cheeks. Angela couldn’t help but smile.

“Some things never change.” Billy nudged Angela the rest of the way into the kitchen. “Where’s Mom?”

“In her room getting dressed—again.” Emily set down the knife and wiped her hands on a nearby towel. “We promised not to touch anything on the stove. As usual, the only thing she’ll trust us with are the raw vegetables.”

Ava dropped the carrot and opened her arms to her older brother. “Damn, you look good.”

“You need glasses.” Arms folded around his sister’s waist, Billy dipped his chin and kissed the top of her head.

The contentment on the young woman’s face as she leaned into her brother was matched by the expression of pride on his. For a long moment, they didn’t move, making Angela wonder how long it had been since the siblings had seen each other in person.

“All right. Break it up.” Emily inched up on her tippy toes to kiss her brother on the cheek. “Mom needs you to start the grill. She says you have the magic touch.”

“It’s called a lighter.” Shaking his head, Billy crossed to the island, opened the middle drawer, and pulled out a lighter gun. On his way outside, he slowed by Angela. “I’ll be right back.”

When Billy closed the door behind him, Ava shot her hand out. “Nice to meet you. I’m the favorite sister.”

Emily rolled her eyes and shook her head. “She has spent all of my life and probably all of hers trying to trick Mom or Dad into agreeing with her. Never going to happen since I’m the favorite.” Teeth clenched, she spread her lips in a cartoonish grin. Ava smacked her lightly on the backside.

Angela found herself smiling with the two women and wondered if this is what her life would have been like had she had a sister instead of three brothers.

“You come bearing gifts. Flowers and chocolate. A woman after my own heart.” Ava slid her arm 

through Angela’s, linking elbows, and led her to the counter. “I can tell already we’re going to be marvelous friends.”

“I get dibs on the chocolates. We’re already friends,” Emily chimed in.

“Billy said your mother doesn’t drink wine.” Angela’s words came out a little high pitched.

Emily opened an upper cabinet and pulled out a tall glass vase. “But she loves flowers. Which is why I get the chocolates.”

“All set.” Billy came in through the patio doors at the same moment the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.”

In the next ten minutes, a parade of people shuffled about giving hugs and high fives. First Kara arrived with little Bradley, who of course headed straight for Mama Maile’s cookie jar. Next Nick pulled up with Lexie behind him. Dressed in a loose-fitting floral dress of bright pinks and dark purples, Maile joined the growing crowd.

While the Everrett family and friends stood around the open doorway, Emily’s boyfriend rode up the driveway on his motorcycle. Like a pair of salmon drawn upstream, the two former military men migrated out the door and straight to the bike.

“Men. Always focused on what’s between their legs.” Shaking her head, Ava did a one-eighty turn and led the crowd of chuckling women to the kitchen. Bradley footed after his father.

“So glad you could make it.” Maile offered a big smile that helped leach some of the tension that had been building all day for Angela. “Why don’t you three ladies have a seat while we finish up. Then everyone can all move onto the lanai.”

Mimicking the chaos from earlier at the front door, the six women maneuvered around each other. Angela, Kara, and Lexie sat at the big kitchen table while Maile, Emily, and Ava took their places along the counter.

“Mama.” Having resumed her position at the cutting board, Emily pointed to the vase. “Angela brought you flowers. I called dibs on the chocolates.”

The older woman’s eyes traveled from the tip of her daughter’s finger to the lovely floral arrangement at the end of the counter. “Oh, how beautiful. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

“Now,” Ava interrupted, returning her attention to the carrots. “How did you get my dear brother to leave his office and take a whole day off? I want all the juicy details. “

“She’s not a steak, Ava.” Maile pulled the peeler out of her daughter’s hand. “That’s plenty. Get the lettuce out of the fridge, please.”

“Good. My fingers were starting to cramp anyhow.” Ava turned to face Angela, a satisfied gleam in her eye. “So tell us, how long have you and my brother been dating?”

She looked to her left and noticed Kara and Lexie eyeing her with a little too much interest. “We’re just friends.”

“Considering what a hermit he’s been since leaving the navy, I’d consider just friends with a girl a damn miracle.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Angela replied.

“I would,” Lexie muttered through a smile for only Angela to hear.

Ava stuck her head in the fridge and emerged with a head of lettuce in her hand. “Now can you please do something about getting him back in the water? Or at least on the blasted boats.”

“Ava!” Maile huffed at her daughter. “Really.” “Don’t pay too much attention to my sister,” Emily continued. “Mom dropped her on her head as an infant.”

“Did not.” Ava hefted her hands onto her hips.

Emily ignored her sister’s drama-queen antics. “The filters in her brain never developed properly.”

“Oh, come on.” Ava turned her palms up in a questioning gesture. “It’s what we’re all thinking. I don’t have a lot of time to pussyfoot around. Billy hasn’t brought a girl home since before the navy. Since none of us have been able to figure out what’s going on in big brother’s head, maybe Angela can help.”

“We have been hoping something would change.” Maile abandoned the salad-making on the counter and moved to sit by Angela. “He won’t go in the water, he won’t go on the boats, and he won’t tell us why. We don’t know what happened. Not when he was hurt. Not when he was in the hospital. Not when he stayed on the mainland after they released him. Nothing.”

All eyes were on her, waiting for an answer. Everyone had clearly jumped to the wrong conclusion. She didn’t have any power over Billy. She knew even less than they did. She couldn’t tell them the truth. That she wouldn’t even be here now if Billy hadn’t agreed to try and get her pregnant. Panic inched its way up to her throat and smothered her breath.

Kara turned to Mrs. Everrett. “Has anyone suggested he seek counseling?”

Maile pushed to her feet, shaking her head. “He says he’s fine. He could wrestle—”

“Alligators if he wanted, but he won’t do that either,” Emily finished for her mother.

“He says that to all of us,” Lexie added, this time for all to hear.

Angela blew out what little breath was left in her lungs, thankful the focus had shifted from her.

“He’s avoiding his navy buddies, too.” Ava moved into the seat her mother had vacated. “Jim Borden called me last week. Billy hasn’t responded to the invitation to Jim’s bachelor party.”

Angela recognized the name from Billy’s recount of the accident.

“He’s called the shop a few times,” Lexie volunteered. “Who is he?”

“Jim was on the same team when Billy lost his foot. Jim’s stationed at Pearl now, is getting married, and some of the guys from the old team are flying in for an early bachelor party. Billy won’t take Jim’s calls, so he looked me up.”

Lexie nodded. “I could tell it wasn’t a business call. The guy seemed too friendly. Knew too much. Asked about all of you.”

Maile wiped her hands on a towel and inched toward Angela. “I love my son. I’m glad he’s home. But we’ve all been afraid to push him too hard. Of making things worse. We keep hoping he’ll work it out on his own. And frankly, if his never setting foot in the ocean again is the price paid for having him home alive, I can live with that. But I worry, can he?”

* * *

“Pass the pork, please.”

“Send the sweet potatoes this way.”

Platters made their way back and forth in front of Billy. The salt then pepper shaker followed. Serving spoons clanked against clay dishes as the food made the rounds from person to person. The din of chatter, an orchestral background to the silverware sonata played out by a table of friends and family.

It had been this way most of Billy’s life. Holidays and birthdays. Friends and relatives overflowed. More people for dinner? No problem. His mother pulled out another folding table and tacked it onto the end. No such thing as one too many.

“The boy seems to be taking it the hardest.” Lexie’s voice carried from several seats away.

“Poor thing. It has to be hard on him,” Maile Everrett said softly, her glance and that of a few others at the table, including Nick and Kara, shot over to little Bradley. Seated at the opposite end of the long table with Margaret’s grandson, neither boy paid any attention to the adult conversation.

“I still don’t understand why you got dragged into this.” Emily handed the grilled shrimp to her sister but looked to her brother. “I mean, I know the Delucas have been one of our best customers and all, but I don’t get it.”

Neither did Billy. Ever since Maggie Maplewood had left the shop, that same thought had danced around in his brain. Why him?

“Well it does make sense that Mrs. Deluca would chose someone in Hawaii since a friend or relative in California wouldn’t do her any good with the children vacationing in Kona.” Kara scooped a forkful of pineapple chutney. She’d turned her nose up at the poi, but had developed a heartfelt relationship with his mother’s pineapple blend.

“But why Billy?” Ava repeated.

“Do they know anyone else here?” Angela
 asked.

Billy and Nick both shrugged, but Billy answered. “Hard to say.”

Maile waved a fork at her daughters. “They did spend the most time with Billy. After all, none of you girls worked the boats with your dad.”

“I’m sure they spent a lot of vacations with a lot of different people, but I don’t see them making those people secondary guardians,” Emily added.

Maile offered a halfhearted nod. “It is a bit odd.”

“So what are you going to do?” The soft voice came from Angela. The way her fingers played with her fork, he had a feeling it wasn’t a casual question.

“Nothing.”

Eyes wide, Nick spoke up this time. “Nothing? What happened to ‘no way’?”

“I can’t storm into Mrs. Deluca’s LA hospital room and tell her she’s lost her mind. The Delucas have come to Hawaii for every summer since before the kids were born, and no one has had to have an emergency run to the hospital yet.” Besides, the lost look on the kid’s face got to him. Which left him counting on this year being the same as every other year and hoping Murphy’s Law didn’t want to play any tricks on him. He did not want any more surprises.

“I hope you’re right, big brother.” Emily refilled her wine glass and passed the bottle.

Billy poured some more for Angela then turned to Kara sitting next to him.

Kara slid her hand over the empty glass.

“None for me.”

A quick glance around the table told Billy no one else noticed her refusal or the slight shade of pink that tinged her cheek except for Nick. Fork in mouth, his other hand had immediately covered his wife’s free hand and squeezed.

The little secret keepers. Nick and Kara are pregnant. He turned his attention to Angela, who was now chatting with Emily’s boyfriend on her other side. She’d missed the entire little screenshot. And how the hell was she going to react when the news was made public that Kara’s pregnant and she’s not? Shit. So much for no more surprises.