“Please, Aunt Eve,” Lila pleaded. “I know you don’t really want to go on them.”
“I’ll go with her too,” a young male voice came from behind them.
They all turned.
A teenage boy stood there, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with an easy smile and the kind of wholesome face that made you trust him immediately.
“Brian?” Eve looked at him curiously. “What are you doing here?”
“My grandmother is on the committee that organizes the fair,” Brian told her. “I help out between shifts at the Inn.”
That’s when David recognized the teenage boy.Of course, he was Daisy Norman’s grandson.
Eve seemed to relax completely. “Okay. If Brian goes with you, that’s fine.”
“Great,” Milly said, introducing herself to Brian. “Let’s go look for my husband.”
“Oh, wait,” Eve reached into her purse to pull out some money for Lila.
“Nope,” Milly stopped her. “This is on us. A welcome to St. Augustine from some old locals.”
Eve smiled and thanked her, and just like that, David and Eve were left alone.
The silence stretched for a moment, comfortable but charged with something David couldn’t name.
“I don’t like the rides,” Eve admitted, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’ve just seen too many injuries from when they go bad.”
“I don’t like them either.” David smiled. “Too many variables. And way too much rust.”
“Exactly,” Eve said, her eyes lighting with amusement. “If they’d seen the injuries in the emergency rooms from those things that I had…” She blew out a breath. “No one would ride them.”
“I worked in risk assessment for years,” David said. “I have the same assessment problem with them.”
They talked easily after that, finding common ground in their shared distrust of carnival equipment and their love of quiet mornings with good coffee.
“Is Milly a relative?” Eve asked after a while.
“She’s like a sister to me,” David said. “She and her husband have been friends with me for years. They moved to St. Augustine on my recommendation. Now we’re neighbors.”
“That’s nice,” Eve said. “It’s good to have people you trust nearby.”
David nodded, then turned the conversation away from himself. “What about you and Lila? She calls you Aunt Eve, so I guess you must be her aunt?”
“Her great-aunt, technically, but not by blood,” Eve said. “Lila’s mother is my late best friend’s daughter. I’ve known Lila’s mother, Mia, since she was eight years old. She’s like the daughter I never had, and Lila is the granddaughter.” Her eyes darkened with emotion. “When my best friend passed away, I stepped in to try and fill the void she’d left.”
David felt warmth spread through his chest. “That’s a beautiful relationship.”
“Are you married?” Eve asked, composing herself once again. “Do you have kids of your own?”
The warmth died instantly, replaced by the familiar ache that never quite went away.
“I was married,” David admitted. “But my wife passed away many years ago. I have a daughter, but we lost touch.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Eve said, her eyes filling with compassion. “It always breaks my heart when I hear about families that are torn apart.”
“Sometimes it can’t be helped,” David said with a tight smile. “Trust me, my daughter is better off where she is right now.”
“Oh?” Eve’s eyes narrowed with curiosity, and David could’ve kicked himself for saying too much. “So you know where she is then?”
