Page 74 of Secrets of Sandpiper Shores: Wildfire Hearts
June and Holt pulled apart and were on their feet before the footsteps reached the deck.
Willa barreled through the glass doors like a furious tornado, her eyes blazing and spitting fire.
Rad was a step behind her as he tried to calm her down and manage whatever situation had just transpired that had set her daughter into such a blind rage. Then June’s eyes dropped to Willa’s hand.
She was gripping a piece of paper so tight her knuckles were white.
June’s heart dropped. Even upside down and in Willa’s shaking hand, she could see enough of what was written on that paper to know exactly what it was.
June’s throat went dry as her sister’s warning from that morning came back to haunt her, and she knew Karma had just slapped her in the face. The moment of truth had arrived without her permission and at least thirty-eight years later than it should have.
“What on earth is going on?” Holt asked, looking between Willa and Rad.
“Is it true?” Willa’s voice came out low and shaking, her eyes fixed on June with an intensity that June had to work not to look away from. The paper trembled in her daughter’s hand. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Holt asked, his brow furrowing as his eyes moved to the paper.
June said nothing, her voice died in her throat as her mind went blank, and her heart rate accelerated.
Willa turned to Holt, and the fury in her eyes had a specific, targeted quality now.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Willa said, her voice climbing. “You admitted to Rad that you knew. That you walked away anyway.”
“I knew what? Willa, I don’t understand what you’re—” Holt’s expression shifted into genuine confusion.
“Stop it!” Willa seethed at him. “Just stop it.” Her grip tightened as she held up the paper.
“What is that?” Holt said, reaching across and taking the paper from Willa’s hand before she could pull it back.
Holt looked at it. June watched his face as he read what was written on it. The dates in their careful sequence, the intervals noted beside them in shorthand that told the story without spelling it out.
She watched Holt’s face change as he put the pieces together in what felt like slow motion.
His confusion gave way to something that moved across his expression with the force of a reckoning he hadn’t been preparedfor. Holt’s eyes kept going over the dates, then to June, then back to the dates.
“Stop pretending,” Willa said to Holt, her voice cracking at the edges. “You said you walked away. You admitted to your son that my mother would’ve been Rad’s mother and he would’ve had me as a sister.” Her jaw was tight. “You knew, and you just left.”
“Willa,” Rad said quietly, stepping up beside her. He put an arm around her in an effort to comfort and soothe. “Calm down, let’s talk this out…”
“No,” Willa hissed at Rad, pulling away from him. She turned back to June and Holt. The expression of pain and betrayal that shone in Willa’s eyes ripped right through June’s heart. “The time for talking was thirty-eight years ago.” Her voice broke on the last word, and she pulled herself together with visible effort. “All I want to know right now is…” Her eyes met and held June’s “Is it true,Mother?”
“June.” Holt’s voice was quiet and entirely stripped of everything except the question in it. “What is this?” He glanced at Willa and then Rad, then back to June, holding up the paper. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” His voice was hoarse with pain and betrayal, echoing the look in her daughter’s eyes.
June looked at him. She looked at Willa.
She thought about Carmen. She thought about the thirty-eight years of the right moment that never came. She thought about the night Holt had left for Virginia and two days later when she’d tried to reach out. While she knew it still was no excuse for the secret she’d kept. June let herself hold onto that one moment of Holt’s betrayal as it helped her gather her strength. Like it had all those years ago.
She took a breath.
“Yes,” June said. Her voice was steady as she was able to keep it. “It’s true.” She looked at her daughter, then at Holt, who was now standing beside Willa. She was suddenly hit by the full, irreversible weight of what she was saying. A strange numbness settled over her. “Willa, Holt is your father. He’s your biological father.” She swallowed, fighting back the tears she knew she had no right to shed. “And I should have told you both a very long time ago.”
