Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105697 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“Impossible, honey.” She swoops in to retrieve the plate just as I finish rinsing it and set it in the dishwasher. When she stands back up, her eyes are shining as she takes me with a gentle smile. “You look so much like your mother in the morning light. I can still picture her eating breakfast right where you just did.”
I waffle my head on my neck and laugh. “I look like my dad, and you know it.”
I don’t kid myself anymore. Before I was ten, I was told how much I resembled my mom, but the preteens set me squarely on track to inherit the Season family's traits. Not unattractive by any means, but not as delicate or glowy as our maternal side. Dolly Loving is still beautiful and looks younger than her age. Despite her wild and youthful ways, she always had her choice of suitors. Maybe more so because she never needed a man to make her feel whole. She thrives in her independence. Gotta love that about her.
I can’t say the same. Standing tall on my own is fine and dandy, but it would be nice to have someone help carry the load of the world instead of it all weighing on my shoulders. So I don’t think a companion of the male species would be so bad, would it?
“Your dad was an attractive man, Summer. Your mom fell head over heels the moment she laid eyes on him.”
She’s never been shy about sharing our parents’ love story. We’ve heard it a million times and still hang onto every word, like we cling to our memories of them. I stand next to her at the sink, resting my hip against the counter, and drag the gold butterfly along my mom’s delicate chain wrapped around my neck. Silence comes over her so quickly that I’m worried she’s gotten lost in her own memories of my mother, her only child. With the sponge in one hand and a plate in the other, she looks at me with a fresh glassiness to her eyes and smiles. “Faith and Charlie were a beautiful couple.”
Yes, they were—notably so by anyone who met them.
I move closer to wrap my arm around her. Dolly’s shorter than I am by a few inches these days, but we’re as bonded as we were when I was little. We stare out the window as the wind picks up, causing the water to lap the rocky shoreline at our little part of the cove, and let the feelings feel, as she likes to say. After taking a deep breath that she releases, she adds, “You should be getting on before the morning slips away from ya. You don’t want to keep your gentleman from New York waiting.”
The eye roll comes automatically as I release her and cut through the kitchen. I knew I shouldn’t have shared any details. She has a knack for letting her imagination run away with the smallest of details. “He’s not my gentleman from New York. He’s a guest, a tenant at most, and he’s brought his son with him. So don’t let the ideas I know you’re already concocting hatch into plans.”
“Sounds like he’s single if it’s only him and his son all summer.”
I catch my fingertips on the doorframe to stop and turn back. When I meet her gaze, I level her with a flat look of my own. “I don’t know if he’s single, but he’s here to get away from life, not get caught up in mine. So please, Dolly, don’t make this into something it’s not before I’ve even met him.”
“Can I make it into something once you meet?”
Shaking my head, I want to laugh, but I can’t relent, or she’ll play matchmaker all summer long. “No.” Total menace, but she still makes me grin like an idiot because I wouldn’t have her any other way.
“You act like we get a new selection of men around these parts all the time. A missed opportunity can turn into regret.”
“I’m not going to regret not jumping the man.” I walk out knowing this conversation is heading toward the gutter if I let it. “See you later.”
“You’re twenty-six, sweet girl. Go have the kind of fun that leaves the town gossiping.” Her voice follows me into the front of the house, but I don’t reply. I haven’t been a girl in some time, but the name still fills me with the warmth she’s always given my sisters and me. She wholeheartedly loves us as her own, through the ache she carries inside over the loss of her own daughter and son-in-law.
I return to the kitchen and kiss her on the cheek. “Love you, Dolly.”
“Stop getting sappy on me and take care of your business.”
“On it.” I make my way toward the front room when I hear the creak of that third step that’s never been fixed. My gaze pulls up the staircase.