“Oh,” Kate said, wide-eyed. They heard a man talking to Jack. “Who’s that?”
“Gil.”
“The foreman?”
“Yes.” Sara smiled. “Good memory! I can never remember names. I’m good with faces, but names elude me.”
“When you have as many relatives as I do, you have to memorize lots of names.”
Sara frowned. “Are your uncles still as obnoxious as they used to be?”
“They get worse every year.” She paused. “They want Mom and me to move in with them.”
“And let me guess. Your mother’s income—and yours—would go into the community pot.”
“Exactly,” Kate said.
“I think I’m seeing why Ava let you come here.”
“It was my decision,” Kate said defensively.
“Anyway, Jack texted Gil last night. He thought Gil might have been in the same class as Cheryl and he was. Gil said he’d come over as soon as he got the men started on the job. He—”
She broke off when Jack entered with another man and introduced him.
Gilbert Underhill was shorter than Jack and as pale as Jack was dark. Gil was young but he had little hair, and for all that his T-shirt showed muscle, he had a round, almost cuddly look to him. Kate liked him immediately.
Jack looked at Gil and Kate smiling at each other. “She’s taken. Alastair Stewart has stolen her eternal love. She has room for no other man.”
“Not true. I’m free for whatever life holds.” Kate nodded at the book in Gil’s hand. “Is that a yearbook?”
“It is.”
She motioned to the stool beside her, the one Jack had vacated.
With an eye roll at his seat being usurped, Jack poured Gil a coffee and got the sugar bowl. It looked like something he’d done before. He took the stool on the end and Sara sat beside Kate.
Jack flipped through the yearbook to Cheryl’s class. “There she is!”
Kate and Sara peered in disbelief at the girl he had his finger on. She was quite plain-faced, with frizzy hair and a look of “Woe is Me, the World is an Awful Place.”
“That’s Cheryl?” Kate asked.
“No, of course not.” Jack turned the pages. “Here’s Cheryl.”
All the other photos looked like regular kids with bad hair, but Cheryl Morris was perfect. Hair, makeup, smile, pose. Flawless. And old. She looked to be in her twenties.
“Wow,” Kate said. “I wish I looked that good now.”
“I like red hair.” Gil didn’t look up from the book.
“Do you? You don’t think it’s too loud? It’s my natural color but I was thinking of putting some blond streaks in it. What do you think?”
“I like it just the way it is.” Gil turned to look at her. They were very close.
“Do you have to flirt with every male?” Jack snapped. “Stewart, Flynn and now Gil?”
Before Kate could reply, Sara spoke loudly. “So who’s the first girl you pointed out?”