Page 80 of Summer on Sunshine Bay

“Thanks, Luke. Nice to meet you, Lila.”

Lila could barely contain her excitement as Rhonda walked away. “Luke, you have to hire her. She’s exactly what you need to compete with the other charters.”

“Lila,” he said in a deep growly voice, the one he used whenever she suggested something that would cost him either money or time.

“Luke.” She mimicked his voice.

He laughed and shook his head. “Don’t you have to go celebrate with your parents or something?”

“No. They’d expect me to be celebrating with David or to bring him to celebrate with them, and that’s not going to happen today.”

“How come?”

She explained about the divorce and the state David was in and then shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. We can celebrate another time.”

“It is a big deal. Come on.” He took her hand.

“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to ignore the way his big, work-roughened hand felt wrapped around hers.

“We’re going to celebrate. But first, we’re dropping doofus at my grandmother’s.”

Thirty minutes later, they were sitting on a patio on Main Street, eating lobster rolls. “This was a great idea, Luke,” she said, licking the sauce off her fingers. “I can’t remember the last time I had a lobster roll here.”

“You want another one?”

“You’re kidding, right? I couldn’t eat another bite.”

“You better have room for dessert. I ordered it especially for you.” He nodded at their waitress. He must’ve ordered dessert when Lila was in the restroom.

Moments later, the waitress returned with two pink-iced cupcakes decorated with purple flowers. Luke thanked her and smiled at Lila. “Congratulations. You’re going to be a wonderful mom.”

“Luke!” She waved her hands in front of her face in an effort to ward off the tears filling her eyes.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like cupcakes?”

“No! I love cupcakes.” She covered her face with her hands.

He reached over, peeling her hands from her face. “Are you crying?”

She sniffed and nodded. “Hormones.”

“Ah, okay.” Once again he waved over the waitress, then paid for the meal and asked if they could have the cupcakes to go. He came around the table and helped Lila from her chair, thanking the waitress who’d returned with the boxed cupcakes. Taking Lila by the hand, he led her onto the sidewalk. “How about we have dessert at my place?”

“I’d like that.” And she did—she liked it a lot.

They sat on Luke’s back deck, watching as the sky darkened, streaked with shades of orange, pink, and purple, listening to the crickets and bullfrogs down by the pond. Lila couldn’t think of a nicer way to celebrate the baby girl growing inside her. Except she wasn’t celebrating with her baby’s daddy, she was celebrating with a man who had taken her to dinner and bought her pink cupcakes. A man whose smile made her heart hurt.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Eva stood at the counter in the restaurant’s kitchen, using both hands to crack the shell of the last lobster tail for tonight’s featured soup. “Your heart is as hard as these shells, Ma.”

“Eva, let it go,” her sister said under her breath as she sautéed onion, carrot, and celery for the soup’s base.

Eva pulled back the sides of the tail and extracted the meat, then tossed the shell into the pot of steaming water that they’d cooked the lobster tails in to make a rich, fragrant stock. “Let it go? She accepted Bruno’s resignation letter without batting an eye. He’s leaving in September, G.” Unless they found a replacement for him before then. Eva knew they wouldn’t. Bruno was irreplaceable.

“It’s almost two months away. We’ve got time to change his mind,” her sister said.

“There’s only one person who can change his mind, and she won’t do it.” Eva looked to where her mother stood at the sink, washing dishes. “Will you, Ma?”

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