“Here you go.” She hovered, ready to settle in for a chat. “So, you look familiar, honey. Have you been in here before?”
Keeping her head down, Summer dunked her tea bag. “No, first time. Just got one of those faces.”
The last thing I needed was this juicy piece of gossip escaping into the wild. Before I could jump in, Gemma had her hand out.
“I’m Gemma.”
Summer shook it. “Shelby Mae. Pleased to meet you.”
Shelby Mae? Gemma was squinting at Summer, so I needed to put a stop to the interrogation.
“How’s Baz?” Asking after her son seemed a good strategy to deflect.
“Still working down at the harbor. I expect you’ll be taking the boat out soon. You should call him to pull her out of storage.”
“I might just do that. Is he still with Marla?”
“Nah, she’s runnin’ around with some motorcycle freak from Douglas. Baz was crushed, I can tell ya.” We chitchatted for another minute or so, only stopping when more customers came in. “Okay, back to work. You say hi to your pop for me. Tell him we all support his decision but that we’d prefer if he kept playing forever!”
I gave a dutiful chuckle. “Sure will.”
Once she was out of earshot, I caught Summer’s eye. She looked amused.
“What’s so funny?”
“People are kind of obsessed with your dad around here.”
“He’s a native son. Well, he wasn’t born in the town, but he spent his formative years here. The townsfolk are proud of the connection.”
“How does it feel?”
I sipped my coffee. “How does what feel?”
“To have such a legend for a dad?”
“He’s a lot to live up to, a larger-than-life character. People look at us and think I should act like him as well as play like him, but we’re different people.”
Did I sound defensive there? I couldn’t help it, I supposed.
Summer sipped her tea. “I never thought you were like him.”
Silently, I smeared cream cheese on my cinnamon raisin bagel and pushed the blueberry one toward her.
“He’s the cap,” she went on. “The lovable team leader. The Theo Kershaw. And you’re your own person.”
“So, you’ve noticed.”
She waved the cream-cheese covered knife. “Meaning I can understand why it might bother you. I think I said something once to you about you being his clone and you did not like it.”
The night she accepted Carter’s marriage proposal, just over a year ago. I’d left that bar in a foul mood and my summer had only gone downhill from there.
“I might have been a bit touchy about it.”
She looked sympathetic. “Well, I think anyone who’s met you will realize you’re not a mini version of Theo Kershaw. So you’ve got the gorgeous green eyes and the killer cheekbones and that hair I’m sure women love raking their fingers through. Physically similar, otherwise not a chance.”
She slathered cream cheese onto half the blueberry bagel. More than fifty percent, which meant she would have less for the second half. I wasn’t sure why that bothered me.
“You think my eyes are gorgeous and my cheekbones are killer?”
