Read Online Swept Away by Michelle Dalton - Free Book Online Page A

another lunch.
    That’s probably a good sign, I tell myself. It means she doesn’tfeel the need to check up on me. But it also means that I’ll have to settle for whatever’s on the menu at the Keeper’s Café. Luckily, I don’t have to pay for the overpriced fare since it’s a “perk” of the job, but I should really start thinking about bringing lunch.
    I hang the GONE FISHIN’ sign on the door and lock it. Then I walk around to the main entrance of the café, the one you can enter without having to go into the lighthouse.
    The café is supercute, with lots of Maine-related decor and old photos, but the menu’s limited to what can be prepared on a hotplate or in a microwave. The idea had been that the café would offset some of the costs involved in maintaining the lighthouse, but I don’t see how that’s possible. No year-rounder or even Summer Regular eats there since the menu is so limited and, frankly, pretty bad. And tourists to Rocky Point are only a trickle, not a deluge.
    I’ve only taken a few steps inside when I realize there’s someone sitting at the counter, talking to Celeste Ingram.
    Not just someone. Oliver.
    I spaz out. I freeze, and the screen door bangs me in the butt, making me yelp and drop the magazine I’m carrying. My scrunchy bag slides down my arm and lands on the floor with a thwump . All this commotion makes Celeste look up and Oliver swivel on his stool at the counter.
    Invisibility spell now! I plead silently.
    â€œMandy, hi,” Oliver says, a smile lighting up his face.
    I give him a weak smile and an even weaker wave. A wave? I’m waving at a boy just a few feet away? Oliver seems to bring out the utter dork in me.
    â€œHey there, Mandy,” Celeste says. “You meeting Cynthia for lunch?”
    This is even more shocking than seeing Oliver a second day in a row. Celeste Ingram not only knows my name, but she also knows I’m best friends with Cynthia? Not possible! Then I realize that it’s more likely she knows who Cynthia is and recognizes me as the sidekick.
    They’re both looking at me, waiting. Right. Words. They’re those things that come out of your mouth. “Actually, Cynthia’s away till August,” I say, taking a few tentative steps into the café.
    â€œWorking today?” Oliver asks.
    I nod and keep approaching the counter. Slowly. They don’t seem mad about my being there, but I still have the awful fear that I interrupted something. Once a boy has Celeste’s attention, his own stays pretty riveted on her.
    â€œLunch break, huh?” Celeste picks up a menu and drops it onto the counter right beside Oliver. Not that I need the single laminated page. Still, I take this as a sign that she completely expects me to sit there.
    I like that assumption.
    â€œYou two have met?” Celeste asks.
    I slide onto the stool and pretend to study the menu waiting to hear what Oliver will say about our encounter.
    â€œI was in the lighthouse yesterday,” he explains.
    The bare facts. Oh well. I suppose he doesn’t want to admit to the celestial Celeste that we shared some serious eye beams at the festival, too.
    â€œCan I have a veggie burrito?” I ask. “And a lemonade.”
    â€œSure.”
    Celeste picks up the menu, slips it back beside the cash register with the others, then pushes through the swinging doors into the small kitchen.
    Alone with Oliver, I’m stumped for things to say. He seems equally stymied. He just smiles at me. There’s no plate in front of him. Did Celeste already clear it away, or did he come here just to see her? The Keeper’s Café opens at eleven. Has he been here a whole hour already? Even a completist would have completed checking out the café decor and gift shop by now, since the upstairs exhibit area is closed.
    â€œHere ya go.” Celeste returns with the burrito and lemonade. Microwaving