Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) Read Online Free Page B

“You up there trying to save the cat, and your hunky neighbor hauls up and the ‘stuck’ cat just helps himself down? Comic gold, old friend.”
    “You suck.” Sofia flipped open a People magazine and pretended to sulk until Judy smacked her with Real Simple. “Ow!”
    “So, is he single?” Judy apparently had a one-track mind.
    Sofia peered over her magazine while the nail tech scrubbed her feet. “I have no idea.”
    Judy flipped open her phone’s keyboard and started typing. Within a moment or two, text message pings started coming in. Judy giggled.
    “What are you doing?” Sofia’s heart sank. “Jude?”
    “He’s single. New in town. Drinks at The Salty Cod, plays darts with Chuck Kellogg and Marty Swanson when there’s a game going. Generally considered hot.”
    “Generally?” Sofia couldn’t help it.
    “And I quote Meg Lafferty; you remember Meg? Um…” She squinted at her phone as if it held the answers. “She was Meg Carson? She works at the Town Clerk’s office. She says, ‘If you like that bed-head, surfer thing.’”
    Both women laughed out loud.
    “If?” Judy was chortling away again. She settled down with an audible sigh, fixing onto Sophia the frightening matchmaking gaze of a happily married woman. “You should go out with him.”
    “Yes.” Sofia snorted. “I’ll just knock on his door and haul him off by his hair.”
    “Mmm. Yep.” Judy dipped her feet into the warm water. “It’s a mane, isn’t it?”
    “You’re impossible. Were you always like this?”
    Judy flashed her a grin. “I’m getting worse in my old age.”
    “Oh, god. Stop,” Sofia moaned. “We’re only thirty-two.”
    “Shh!” Judy giggled. “I’m still twenty-nine.”
    “Liar.”
    The nail techs asked them both to hold still for polish.
    “He asked me out the other morning,” Sofia said quietly. “After the whole kitten thing.”
    “What?” Judy squealed so loudly the manicurist nearly painted her ankle. “Sorry,” she said. To Sofia she added, “And you said, ‘Yes, please, now, oh god, take me?’”
    “I said, ‘No.’”
    “So-feee-yah…” Judy drew out the syllables like she had when they were teens. “When a generally understood to be hot guy asks you out, you say, ‘Yes.’”
    Sofia gave her a withering glance.
    Judy ignored her. “I’m serious. So what if you’re only here for the season or whatever. He’s gorgeous and funny and wants to go out with you. What could possibly be wrong with this scenario?” She swung her polished, separated, and flip-flopped feet over the side of the pedicure chair and waddled towards the drying benches. “And I have to know how he kisses. I bet he does things Christopher forgot about years ago.”
    “It wouldn’t be a good idea, Jude. Really.” Sofia followed suit.
    “One of these days,” Judy said solemnly, “you’re going to have to stop running away from your father.”
    Judy saw past the carefully constructed version of herself she presented. Shame, guilt, and anger swirled up, and Sofia bit her tongue to keep from screaming at her childhood friend.
    Instead, she tapped Judy’s phone. “So, you have any pictures of your kids on there? I’m so bad about checking online.”
     
    ~~~
     
    Judy’s last warning stayed with her for the rest of the afternoon. When the July sun began to sink in the West, the Landing came alive. She sat behind the register, admiring her newly polished toenails between ringing sales and handing out colored golf balls. Behind her, she could hear her two teenage employees behind the snack bar. Gavin and Charlotte’s flirtation was getting serious. They’d gotten to the giggle-and-bicker stage; it would only be a matter of time before she started stealing his baseball hat and he started trying to read her texts.
    When Sofia had worked there, there hadn’t been mobile phones, but she’d certainly stolen her fair share of baseball caps.
    “What color did you pick?” Silas’s voice pulled her