Page 30 of Megan's Mate
Megan studied her beer. “She didn’t take our order.”
“She won’t. She’ll bring us what she wants us to have.” He took another pull of the beer. “Because she likes me. If you’re not up for beer, I can charm her into switching it.”
“No, it’s fine. I suppose you know a lot of people on the island, since you grew up here.”
“A few. I was gone a long time.”
“Nate sailed around the whole world. Twice.” Kevin slurped soda through his straw. “Through hurricanes and typhoons and everything.”
“It must have been exciting.”
“It had its moments.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I sailed on another man’s ship for more than fifteen years. Now I sail my own. Things change.” Nathaniel draped his arm over the back of the booth. “Like you coming here.”
“We like it.” Kevin began to stab his straw in the ice. “Mom’s boss in Oklahoma was a skinflint.”
“Kevin.”
“Granddad said so. And he didn’t appreciate you. You were hiding your light under a bushel.” Kevin didn’t know what that meant, but his grandmother had said so.
“Granddad’s biased.” She smiled and ruffled her son’s hair. “But we do like it here.”
“Eat hearty,” Julie ordered, and dropped three enormous platters on the table.
The long rolls of crusty bread were filled with chunks of lobster and flanked by a mound of coleslaw and a small mountain of French fries.
“Girl needs weight,” Julie proclaimed. “Boy, too. Didn’t know you liked ’em skinny, Captain.”
“I like them any way I can get them,” Nathaniel corrected, which sent Julie off into another gale of laughter.
“We’ll never eat all of this.” Megan stared, daunted, at her plate.
Nathaniel had already dug in. “Sure we will. So, have you looked over Fergus’s book yet?”
“Not really.” Megan sampled the first bite. Whatever the atmosphere, the food was four-star. “I want to get the backlog caught up first. Since Shipshape’s books were the worst, I dealt with them first. I still have to work on your second quarter, and The Retreat’s.”
“Your mother’s a practical woman, Kev.”
“Yeah.” Kevin managed to swallow a giant bite of lobster roll. “Granddad says she needs to get out more.”
“Kevin.”
But the warning came too late. Nathaniel was already grinning.
“Does he? What else does Granddad say?”
“She should live a little.” Kevin attacked his French fries with the single-minded determination of a child. “’Cause she’s too young to hole up like a hermit.”
“Your granddad’s a smart man.”
“Oh, yeah. He knows everything. He’s got oil for blood and horses on the brain.”
“A quote from my mother,” Megan said dryly. “She knows everything, too. But you were asking about Fergus’s book.”
“Just wondered if it had scratched your curiosity.”
