Angel Beach (Summer Romance Collection) Read Online Free PDF

the tide. An eerie quiet pervaded the beach.
    “You didn’t sleep well?” Mimi asked.
    “No. I was up for half the night.”
    Mimi placed her hand over mine. “You shouldn’t worry so much about things. It will all work itself out in the end.”
    Mimi had been out on the beach with Riley when the glass bottle had shattered on our front door mat. I swept it up quickly so she wouldn’t see it. But there was no doubt in my mind that there would be more incidences like it.
    Mimi took a sip of coffee then peered at me over the rim of her cup. “I saw you talking to one of those boys yesterday down by the water.”
    “Who Joey and Mike? They were out skimboarding. I talk to them a lot.”
    She put her cup down. “Coco, you know I’m not talking about Joey and Mike.”
    “Oh . . . that boy. The nerve of that guy. He actually introduced himself like he wanted to be friends.”
    “I couldn’t see him clearly but he had a very striking profile.”
    I shrugged and wrinkled my nose. “I hadn’t really noticed.” This was of course a lie. I had noticed and it was one of the causes of my sleepless night.
    Mimi had that all-knowing expression on her face. “Is that so?”
    “I’m still astonished that he was brazen enough to shake my hand.”
    “And did you return the gesture?”
    I swirled the bananas around in my oatmeal to stall for time, but Mimi was waiting for a response. I dropped my spoon. “Well, I couldn’t very well not shake his hand. I mean you’ve taught me to always be polite. Not taking his hand would have been rude.”
    “Yes.” Mimi smiled behind her cup, and I was almost expecting to see a little star twinkle in her eyes. “It would have been rude not to take his hand.”
    We ate our oatmeal quietly. The first crack in the silence came from voices mumbling outside the shop. Mimi sighed. “Well, they’re starting to line up. I guess we should get off our bottoms and get to work.”
    I downed the last of my coffee and dropped the dishes into the sink.
    “While you’re there, Coco, open the kitchen window a bit. We’ll let some of that delicious steam make its way down the beach.”
    I turned and opened the window. Salty, moist air drifted in immediately. “You’re not going to win them over with baked goods, Mimi. Those boys have everything they want and more. Besides, something tells me, they are fast asleep in a drunken stupor.”
    Mimi looked at me with puzzled innocence. “I wasn’t thinking about the Freely boys. I just thought some of our neighbors needed encouragement to drop by.” She did not sound the least bit convincing.
    “I see.” I tied on my apron. “I’ll start pouring glaze.”
    Mimi and I had been at this a long time, and we had the entire operation down to an art. The afternoons were for mixing the massive batches of dough and filling. Evenings were for rolling, shaping, and cutting. Mornings were for baking, glazing, and selling. Then the entire process started again. It was a great deal of work, but the shop had kept Mimi and me comfortable and happy. The business slowed a lot during the school year, and I helped then as much as I could. I never got tired of it. And like Mimi always said, if you love what you’re doing, it really isn’t work.
    Friday mornings always brought more customers. While it was still too early in summer for the huge crowds, many people had come to the coast for a long weekend. Once the door of the shop opened, time passed in a blur of steaming hot rolls, paper boxes, and sticky fingers.
    It was nearly nine o’clock before the end of the line was in sight.
    “Coco, fetch another stack of boxes from the storeroom,” Mimi said.
    I ran to the back, grabbed a stack of flattened boxes, and returned to the storefront. Mimi elbowed me lightly as I unfolded a box. She motioned to the window at the front of the shop. The rainbow striped awning of the window still cast a shadow on the front sidewalk, but it was easy to recognize the well-built