Page 43 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Nice underwear,” her sister said. “Is it new?”

Eva pushed her sundress down. “Ma always told us to wear nice underwear in case we were in an accident.”

“I have a feeling even Ma didn’t envision you getting us stuck in the alley.”

Eva snorted. “Duck so I don’t hit you when I bring my legs over.” She rolled onto her back and swung her legs over the headrest.

“Okay, hug the door,” Gia said, and then gracefully slid into the back seat. She gave Eva a smug grin. “I’m telling you, you have to start coming to my yoga classes.”

Three minutes later, they discovered the back doors wouldn’t open but there was enough room to get out the back windows. At least for Gia there was. Eva’s legs and butt were hanging out the window. Struggling to keep her dress from riding up with one hand while pushing herself the rest of the way out of the window with the other hand, she muttered at her sister, who’d gotten out of the window as easily as she’d gotten into the back seat. “G, what are you doing? I could use a hand here.”

Her sister’s head popped up in the open window on the other side of the car. “I dropped my purse, and my change fell out. Just give me a sec.”

“Leave it! I think we’ve drawn a crowd, and I can’t get out of the window.”

At that moment, large, warm hands that definitely didn’t belong to her sister settled on either side of Eva’s waist and a deep voice with a British accent said, “Mind your head.”

When Eva’s feet landed firmly on the ground, she leaned against James’s hard body and tilted her head back. “My hero.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, taking her back to Sunday night and their accidental kiss. She’d spent an inordinate amount of time during the dinner thinking about that kiss. It had thrown her off her breakup game as much as David bringing up Camilla had.

Eva needn’t have worried, though. David and Gavin had done a bang-up job without any help from her. And inviting Luke and his family had been an inspired idea. She hadn’t missed the way Lila’s gaze kept going to the table across from them, and neither had David.

“You do know that you just flashed half of Sunshine Bay and that several people had their phones out?”

She turned in his arms. “Good thing I was wearing nice underwear.” Over his shoulder, Eva spotted Johnny Wright, a guy she’d gone to school with and the owner of Surfside, glancing at his phone with a grin on his face. “Johnny, you better not put that up on the bar’s Instagram account.”

Johnny crossed his heart. “No way, babe. This is for my own personal use.”

She was pretty sure he was joking. “You need to start dating, Johnny. You really do.”

“You keep turning me down,” he said with a wink as he walked back into the bar.

“That really doesn’t bother you?” James asked.

She shrugged. “Why should it? My underwear covers more of me than half the women’s bathing suit bottoms do.”

“Half the women don’t look like you,” he muttered.

“Was that a compliment, James?”

He held her gaze, and she felt as she had the first time her mother left her in charge of the dinner service—flustered, afraid she wouldn’t get it right and it would end up a disaster.

She cleared the nerves from her throat and dragged her gaze from his, turning her head to get a look at the car. “My mother really is going to kill me.”

“I’ll take care of the car. You go deal with our daughter.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I think she has cold feet.”

Eva couldn’t help it. She smiled.

“On second thought, you take care of the car, and I’ll take care of Lila.”

“Don’t be silly. It’s the mother of the bride’s job to shop for the wedding dress, not the father of the bride’s.”

“If the mother of the bride wasn’t trying to sabotage the wedding, I’d agree with you.”

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