Laughing inwardly, I shook her hand. “Sebastian Sawyer.”
Her lips parted into a slow smile. “I love that name. Seb ... Wait. You’re not... Sebastian Sawyer?”
“Yep.”The guy you said ruined both names for you.
Heather blinked, then tilted her head, the recognition dawning slowly, mixed with something else.
“Well damn.” Her gaze swept over me in open appraisal. “I mean,wow. Heard you were working for NASA.”
“I am.” I gave her a neutral smile.
“Are you visiting, or back for a while?” she asked, huffing a flirty chuckle and stepping a little closer.
“Just here for work. Helping out at the Coral Bay Inn,” I said on purpose.
Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s Ruby Locke’s place.”
Bingo.“Yep.”
“Interesting,” she said, drawing the word out. “Maybe not. You were friends in school.” After a short hesitation, she added with another smile, “If you feel like catching up, you know ...”
“I think we just did. Great catching up, Heather,” I said, then walked to the counter, paid, thanked the shopkeeper, and stepped out into the late-afternoon sun.
At my parents’ house, I welcomed my mom’s hugs, her delight over the gift basket, and my dad’s predictable questions.
“That was just baby fat. It can’t grow back,” my mom said when Dad pointed out she’d made too much food and added, “You don’t want him gaining weight again, Trudy. Do you?”
I sighed quietly, recalling the days they’d been worried that my action figure collection—mocked as “playing with dolls”—might ruin my chances with girls.
When they asked about Ruby, I kept it to the work we were doing at the inn. Neither pressed further.
Only when my dad walked me out to the car—a rented Mustang, his kind of thing—did he shift gears. He let out a low whistle when he saw it. “That’s a great machine. American-made,” he said, leaning on the driver’s side window while I settled in. I sometimes rented cars I knew he’d like.
But then his expression became serious. “You should either get serious with this girl ... or if she’s not it, cut it. You’re thirty-five.”
He didn’t have to say more. That pretty much confirmed that he’d heard Ruby’s reply to her mother that day.
“Dad, don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried, but I have someone I want you to meet,” he stated.
“No, thanks.”
“Just have a cup of coffee with her while you’re here.”
“No, thanks.”
“As a personal favor to me.” He put his hand over his heart.
Great. The guilt card.
“Dad. No. Sorry.”
“I’ll text you her number. Look her up on the internet. She’s a beaut. I work with her father. She picks him up from the office. Nice girl. Good, nice girl.”
“You saidnicetwice.”
“Pretty too.” He wasn’t fazed. “And young. Twenty-seven. Single. Like you. Just one cup of coffee.”
