Babycakes Read Free Page B

woman laughed outright. “Now that’s the Alva I know and admire.”
    Kit knew she’d been standing at the screen door way too long, but her mind was spinning with all the Westlake talk. The doubts she’d had about moving to Sugarberry suddenly tripled. But she could hardly walk away without saying hello. She owed Charlotte that much for going to the trouble to set up the interview. At the brief break in conversation, she rapped on the door without further delay. “Hello?” she called out, over the conversation and the music. “It’s Kit Bellamy.”
    The door suddenly opened and Kit had to lower her gaze almost a foot to meet that of a tiny, senior-aged woman as she popped into view.
    “Well, hello there!”
    “Hello.” Kit smiled fully for what felt like the first time in ages. It was pretty much impossible not to. The woman—Alva, she presumed—barely topped five feet, with twinkling eyes and a welcoming smile, pearls clasped to her earlobes and strung around the starched Peter Pan collar of her lemon-colored blouse, which she’d paired with a moss green cardigan sweater. Pearl buttons, of course.
    All of what you’d expect from a grandmotherly type, except, perhaps, for the hair, which had been teased into a spectacular beehive of curls and waves, and was a rather shocking, unnatural shade of red. Add to that, the entire ensemble had been topped with an apron that was essentially a movie poster for Pirates of the Caribbean —namely its star, Captain Jack Sparrow, as played by the very swashbuckling Johnny Depp. Kit couldn’t help staring.
    Alva followed her gaze, then looked back up, beaming. “I like pirates.”
    “I-I do, too,” Kit stammered.
    “Well then, I like you already.” Alva stepped back and waved Kit inside. “Come on in. Welcome to Sugarberry.”

Chapter 2
    “ M oggy, where’s the mama turtle?”
    Morgan Westlake knelt down in the damp sand near the nest of loggerhead eggs, his gaze level with the somber one of his niece, Lilly. “The mama turtle built this nest so her eggs would be safe. Then she had to go back to the water.”
    Lilly looked at the mound, under which an untold number of eggs were nestled. “Will she come back for them?”
    Morgan ducked his chin. Without even trying, Lilly broke his heart every single day. He told himself often that wasn’t a bad thing. She needed him to help mend her heart . . . and by doing that, maybe he’d mend his as well. He looked into her oh-so-serious blue eyes and smiled. “She doesn’t need to come back. When the baby turtles hatch, they will know to head straight to the water.”
    “How do they know?”
    “They just do,” he said, then took her hand as he stood up and brushed the sand from the knees of his jeans. “Sort of like how babies know they’re supposed to crawl.”
    “Won’t the baby turtles be cold?”
    “They have that nice shell keeping them warm.”
    Lilly seemed to think about that for a moment, then nodded. “Can we come watch them when they get borned?”
    He smiled. “That would be pretty cool. But from what I understand, they hatch at night.”
    Lilly immediately looked alarmed. “Then how will the find the water?”
    Morgan crouched back down again, but kept hold of her hand. “Well, that’s one of the things the researchers here are trying to figure out. They think it’s because the moonlight reflects on the water and makes it sparkle.” He knew the commonly held belief was that hatching at night enabled the babies to stay safe from as many predators as possible. But that was the last thing Lilly needed to be concerned about.
    “It would be better in the sun. Then they can see the water by their selfs.”
    “That makes sense to me, but if they only hatch at night, then there must be a pretty good reason. That’s why I’m going to help Dr. Langley get more grant money and donations. Then he can grow this research facility and find out more about why sea turtles do what they do.”
    Lilly thought