Summer's Road (12 page)

Summer

T
here was a cross between hope and dread that my mother would make an appearance at the hearing. I didn’t know if she’d gone back to Texas or if she was still around. She hadn’t tried to make contact with me again since the day she’d shown up at my house. Tim didn’t think she’d come. I was trying not to think at all.

The judge, a seventy-five-year-old southern Baptist with no tolerance for nonsense, calmly read over the stack of papers in his hand. He’d been doing so for twenty minutes.

“Is Ms. Quinn here, Mr. Thompson?” The judge looked at my mother’s attorney.

Mr. Thompson stood. “No, Your Honor. She had other obligations, but directed me to file this motion.”

“I see. And the other Ms. Quinn is contesting that the house on Willows Creek is rightfully hers?”

Tim Avery stood. “Yes, Your Honor. It was willed to her by her father four years ago at his death, unaware the deed hadn’t been changed.”

The judge sighed. “Unusual predicament. I’m setting a hearing for August twenty-sixth to determine my findings. In the mean time, I suggest all parties try to get together with counsel to work this out. If not, I’ll see you all on the twenty-sixth. And, Mr. Thompson? Tell your client her presence is required.”

Mr. Thompson bowed his head. “Yes, Your honor.”

“What just happened?” I whispered to Tim.

“Absolutely nothing.” His lips pursed as he shoved papers into a briefcase. “We need to meet with your mother and her lawyer. I’ll call you soon.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow for Myrtle.”

“It’ll be at least two weeks before we can arrange something anyway. Try not to—”

“Worry,” I interrupted. “I know.” As if that were possible.

I lifted my purse from the chair and turned to leave. Ian, Dee, and Rick sat in the back row waiting for me. I stilled in surprise, my eyes welling in gratitude. God, I loved them so hard.

Drawing a steadying breath, I shoved the emotion down. “I didn’t see you come in.”

Rick’s normally pale complexion was flushed red and he had his hands balled into fists at his sides. Angrier than I’d ever seen him. “Why didn’t you tell me all this was going on?”

“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry. There was nothing to report yet and I didn’t want to worry you.”

His features softened. “We worry anyway.” He pulled me in for a bone-cracking hug and kissed the top of my head. “I love you.”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Me, too.” I checked my watch to focus on something else. “I have my board meeting in an hour and you’re supposed to be at Seasmoke by now.”

Ian’s quiet presence sent a flitter of unease through me. Last night had been put on my mind’s back burner in order to get through the hearing. But now, with him standing in front of me, his touch and kiss and words from the night before had my face heating and my breath short. I chanced a peek at him, but his gaze was glued to my mother’s attorney. He wanted to talk at Seasmoke, and now wasn’t the time or place to get into what happened.

Leaning in, I gave Dee a hug, and shooed my friends toward the door with the promise I’d see them tomorrow. I had somewhere I needed to be, so Ian would have to wait.

I drove across town, dreading these damn board meetings as much as a root canal. But, such as a root canal, they were necessary. For the kids. For the hope of someday making a difference. And to have to deal with this after the hearing was overkill on my nerves.

Once at the school, I waited at the conference table for the meeting to begin, toes curling in my shoes as last night slammed into me. We’d crossed the line in his bedroom, Ian and I. It was one thing to suspect his behavior lately leaned toward...more than friendship. I could deny what was happening or tell myself I was reading too much into things. But it was something else entirely to have it all but confirmed.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. The whole thing seemed like a dream, like someone else’s movie playing before my eyes. I’d known him my whole life, had watched him grow from a boy to a man, and the person with me last night had not been my best friend. He’d kissed all sense out of me, had looked at me with gutting sincerity and leashed passion. As if suddenly unsure of himself, when he’d always had enough confidence for the both of us, he’d touched me, held me gently with shaking hands like the moment was the epitome of importance. An embodiment of everything.

Like...he’d been waiting forever.

Somehow, I
knew
it would be like that if we ever kissed, if we ever crossed that line. Through the years, I’d appreciated—recognized, even—his handsome face, his deadly smile, his yummy body. He exuded sex and naughty vibes, carried himself with a mix of assurance and swagger. But I’d mentally kept him in the don’t-go-there zone. I’d been able to stop myself from fantasizing or doing anything that could kill him and me. We were too important just as we were to screw up what we had.

But I had
no idea
it’d be like
that
. No amount of preparation or imagination would ever have prepared me for how Ian would level me. Undo me. It had
never
been like that for me before. Powerful. Emotional. Fierce. Tender. The contradictions were reeling.

As far back as I could remember, I’d always wanted the fairy tale. I was a dreamer, a visionary, and even though a part of me knew I romanticized aspects of love, I wished for it just the same. I’d been losing some of that idealism lately, and it was showing in my paintings. I was beginning to think romance didn’t exist. Nowhere in my fantasies had I allowed these feelings to come from Ian—my best friend, the solitary person holding me up most days.

No. That should have come from someone like Matt—the solid, handsome boyfriend who brought me daisies and who had just asked me for a committed relationship. Guilt swam in my stomach and tightened my throat. Not even twenty-four hours after I’d agreed to consider all in with Matt, and I’d kissed another man.

I blinked and snapped to when voices sounded around me. I hadn’t even realized the meeting had begun. This was too important to not pay attention.

The seven idiots who served on the committee with me understood normal people as much as they did the inner cities they’d never visited or the hospitals their kids hadn’t been admitted to. As of now, they were bickering over the football uniforms and whether or not to send the marching band to Savanna for a competition. Up next, they would start to slam the art program.

Alfred Mason piped up first. “If we cut one of the Advanced Painting classes from the curriculum, we’d have the money.”

And here we go
.

I stood. “The football team got new uniforms two years ago. They can wait until next year.” I raised my hand to silence the coach, Jason Miserly, before he could protest. “You didn’t even win the division last year.” There were muttered chuckles. “The band deserves to go to Georgia for that competition, as they missed it last year. Make them raise half of the money at a bake sale or selling candy bars. That will free up spending.”

Alfred continued to protest. “But the art classes need to be cut. The school needs repairs…”

I silenced him with a deadly glare. “My classes will
not
be cut. The money you save from the uniforms, reusing the Algebra books, and making the band raise half the money will cover the repainting and other needed repairs.”

Elizabeth Johnson, the high school principal, nodded. “I agree. If you look at the numbers, they add up.”

“And what about the drain that Saturday class has on the budget? Why don’t you increase the fee?” Coach crossed his arms, still butt sore at my jab.

“Your son is nine-years-old, Jason?” I made sure every word dripped with icy distain. “I just visited Jon Melbourne in the hospital. Ten-year-old Jon Melbourne, who won’t live to turn eleven. Him, along with eight of my other students in that class, are terminal or have been. The low cost of that class is what allows the parents to keep coming. Art therapy gives the kids hope and friendship. They have enough worries struggling to survive and paying medical bills.”

Coach waffled and raised his hand as if waiting to be called on. “Miss Quinn, we’re not saying—”

“My Charlotte benefit covers the supplies of that class. Parents pay tuition. The only cost to you is the energy bill. Furthermore, students who are involved in art and music excel in other areas such as math and science. Think about that, Jason. Like your older son, who was failing Geometry until Elizabeth made him take piano lessons and get tutored after school or be dropped from the team.”

Coach had no comeback for that, but Elizabeth smirked.

I sat and attempted to slow my heart rate by taking a few deep breaths. “You might not feel my classes are important, but they are to the parents and the kids. Some of the seniors last year went on to college with scholarships in the arts.”

Elizabeth let that statement stand on merit for a few moments before speaking. “Summer is correct. I believe we have our fall budget. Is there anything else?”

I drove home, still seething. Lately, I had been thinking about pulling the Saturday class from the curriculum and doing it elsewhere. Taking it out of the school board’s hands altogether. Maybe I could buy out a space by Ian’s store and open a place of my own. I could sell my paintings and have private classes for the kids.

But I didn’t know a thing about running a business. Yet Ian did. Rick could help, too, being an accountant. I wouldn’t charge for the special needs class, just for summer workshops and crafts with other students.

I slowed the car on Main Street, eyeing the open storefront I’d spotted last week. Three doors down from Ian’s shop there was a place for sale. It had been a coffee shop until the owners had bought a new building to expand. It was a decent size, square-shaped, with a storeroom in back. Ideally located right on the main strip on 49. I could leave the ugly black marble tile as it was and paint the walls a bright color. Yellow? The windows were enormous, letting in the natural early morning light to accommodate a painting class. My father’s life insurance money wasn’t much, but it was enough to get me started. The house was mortgage free, having been paid off even before Daddy died. Teaching paid the bills. I could do it.

Maybe. I’d talk to my friends about it this week. For now, it was just one of those fantasies rolling about in my head. Like the paintings I needed to get done. Inspiration hit me, and I struggled to maintain the thread.

Later that evening, I finished the painting of my river birches, incredibly pleased with how it came out. The fireflies looked like fairies winking to each other in a silent language at dusk. After, I packed my bags for the beach.

I was about to call it a night when my cell rang. Ian. I blew out a breath and answered.

Silence greeted me, then he cleared his throat. “It’s me.”

“What’s up?” I slapped my forehead, cringing at my ridiculous response.

There was a prolonged silence, and just as I was about to question if we’d been cut off, he sighed. “Summer.” A chill raced up my spine at the way he said my name. Low, husky. Authoritative.

When he said nothing else, I panicked. This wasn’t like us. We didn’t have lapses in conversations or stalled breaks. I hated that things were off between us. “It was just a kiss.”

“Don’t, Summer. Don’t turn it into nothing.” He paused again, as if gathering himself. I could hear the ocean through the earpiece, a lulling roar despite the riot inside my head, and I pictured him on the beach, staring at the water under the stars. “Just needed to hear your voice. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Twelve Years Ago—Age Thirteen

D
addy was letting me redecorate my room. He had said I was a teenager now, that I was old enough to have a new room and design it myself. It was such a cool idea and very sweet, but I wasn’t like the other girls at school. I didn’t hang out at the mall on weekends and polish my nails pink and giggle over boys. As a matter of fact, my only two friends
were
boys.

He’d bought me a subscription to
Teen
magazine, too, for my birthday, but that really wasn’t helping either. All it did was make me feel more alienated from my peers. I’d asked Rick and Ian what they thought, but they’d shrugged and said, “I dunno,” in unison.
Boys.

I should’ve probably just left it alone. What was wrong with my pink frilly bedspread and matching curtains? Nothing. Who saw it but me and the boys and Daddy anyhow? No one.

Except it seemed like I was letting Daddy down by not doing something, and he must have thought a long time about the gift idea. Maybe I should call Ian’s mom. She’d know about this stuff. What did normal teenage girls’ bedrooms look like?

“Summer, look!” Ian emerged in my bedroom doorway.

Rick came in behind him, sat in a chair by the window, and started playing with my ballerina snow globe.

Ian was busting at the seams, his grin wide. “I was at the mall with Heather and—”

“Who’s Heather?” I couldn’t remember him mentioning her before.

Rick laughed and answered in a sing-song voice. “Heather is Ian’s new
girl
friend.”

What? Ian had a girlfriend? Did that mean I wouldn’t get to hang out with him? Chances were, she wouldn’t like me and then he’d maybe not like me anymore.

Ian shot him a glare. “She is not. Anyway, I was at the mall and I saw this poster.”

He handed me a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. I’d always liked the brush strokes of his work and I related to the helpless, whimsical feeling in this particular painting.

“So, you’ve been into art and painting and stuff lately,” Ian went on. “I thought you could get a bunch of these artsy posters and hang them up for your new room. You could have your dad paint the walls a light purple, since it’s your favorite color.” He frowned. “Or something.”

It was a great idea!

Five minutes ago, I had been sitting here, close to tears and wondering what to do to redecorate. And here came Ian and Rick to fix it, to make me feel better. I should have known they knew me, got me, and would make everything all right.

Present

I
pulled my Cavalier into the circular driveway just off of Seasmoke Road, made up of a combination of crushed clam shells and pea gravel. I shut the car off, staring for a moment at the two-story stone cottage with shutters the color of an ocean swell. Flower boxes were attached under the spherical windows, with petunias and pansies poking out for cheer. The roof peaks were curved slightly toward the ground, designed to be a softer composite than the harsh, clean lines of the city homes. A wrap-around porch gleamed bright in the sunlight with a fresh coat of white paint, the matching, wooden rocking chairs still and calm, waiting for someone to sit.

The summer after Ian’s parents had bought the house, hurricane Hugo had swept through with brutal force and left wreckage of massive proportions in its wake. It had followed an earthquake fault straight up through Charlestown and into Charlotte. I remembered residents carrying chainsaws in the bed of pick-ups to cut away trees and debris just to get through the roads. But this house had made it. Not many had. It had suffered roof and minor external damage, but nothing like what had littered the coast around it. I’d been just an infant when they’d bought the house, but this place always felt like a safe haven, like coming home.

Before the Memmers had closed on the property, they used to rent a condo farther into south Myrtle with my dad. Rick’s parents, the O’Callahauns, would come down, too. We’d met Matt’s folks, the Holcombs, that first year, as they had been renting one of the other condos on the beach. All our families had vacationed together every summer ever since.

Nostalgia set in, heavy and intense. I could almost see our parents sitting on the porch, drinking sweet tea and reminiscing about how it was just yesterday that we kids were in diapers, where the time went, or how bad the next storm was going to be. My daddy would gesture for me to come over and sit in his lap.

How easy things seemed then. Daddy had been there to protect me from everything, even myself. Who would do that now? Who would tell me what to do about Ian? Matt? My mother?

The sandy beach was around back, where the roll and lull of the ocean called upon the memories of us playing as children. The long, gray grass was gone from the side of the pier and replaced with large geraniums potted in our old sand buckets. Mrs. Memmer always was a crafty lady. She had left the grass by the dunes, though.

I had no idea how to act around Ian, what to say. It was a mess. A great big catastrophic mess. We’d never had tension like this between us and I wasn’t even sure of the root cause. Matt and I were together. He was the stable, solid choice. I don’t know what had come over me the other night when I’d kissed Ian but, logically, nothing could come from it except chaos. I had to wonder if I was just one more conquest for him.

I bit back the tears rising in the back of my throat and opened the car door. Breathing in the salty sea air to calm the frazzled tatters of my nerves, I grabbed my bag from the backseat. The heat and humidity pummeled me immediately. It was a scorcher today.

I glanced over at Matt’s place next door, farther down the beach, and didn’t see his car yet.
Matt.
Dear God, just last week I’d been contemplating whether or not we should move in together. What was I supposed to do now? Call things off? Wait it out?

The screen door snapped shut, knocking my thoughts more out of whack. Dee barreled toward me, squealing, with no apparent intention of slowing down. She plowed me over with a hug, knocking us both to the ground with a thud.

I wheezed. “Good to see you, too, Dee. Though, it’s only been a day.” I laughed. “What are you? Five years old? Get off of me!”

Dee harrumphed and brushed her dark curls from her eyes, straddling me. “We’re here!”

Rick’s face appeared over mine, haloed by the sun. “Girl on girl action. Very nice.”

Dee shook her head. “You wish.” She took my bag inside while Rick helped me to my feet.

“You all right? Is my wife too rough for you? I’ll make her put the whips away.”

I laughed and started to say
yes
, but my gaze flitted from Rick to the house and stalled.

Sweet Lord.

Ian filled the doorway, a towel around his waist. Droplets of water from either a swim or a shower trailed down his well-toned, tanned chest, stopping at the slight ripples in his abs. The muscles in his defined biceps shifted and bulged as he crossed his arms and leaned against the jamb. His hair, messy, dark, and damp, was complete bedhead, and the shadow on his unshaved jaw gave him a sexier, bad boy image. Such perfect bone structure, that man. He held my gaze, unsmiling, as if trying to reach inside my brain.

I swallowed slowly, my throat dry. My girly parts wept while my nipples pebbled painfully as if it wasn’t a hundred degrees outside.

This was it. The blinding pang I’d been waiting for all my life. The proof there wasn’t something wrong with me, that I wasn’t a defect. In fact, I was very, very capable of feeling lust, it seemed. And our kiss the other night hadn’t been a fluke.

I wheezed air through my lips, trying to make my brain work. Apparently, desire shut down all other functions. Heaven help me, I was lusting after Ian.
Look away! Abort
.

I grabbed my flip-flops from the front seat and faced him again, keeping my gaze on his eyes and not the man candy body. “Put some clothes on. You’ll scare the pedestrians.”

There. That was normal. That was like us.

He stared at me another few beats, jaw ticking. Unnamed torrents of emotion shoved between us, too fast to nail down. Then, he nodded. Slowly. He turned on his heel and retreated inside.

I sucked oxygen like a woman dying. Maybe I had died because my chest ached something fierce.

Rick cleared his throat and lifted his eyebrows.

Damn it. I’d forgotten he was there.

“Like planets colliding, you two.” An amused smirk quirked his lips.

This wasn’t happening. Determined to shut this...chemistry down, I played stupid. “What?”

Rick laughed. “Save the act for someone who can’t read your mind. Or body language. You two kissed the other night and, judging by the incineration in your little exchange, I’d say Ian wasn’t the only one who got turned on.”

So Ian had told Rick. I didn’t know what to read into that, if anything. “I have a boyfriend.” Which I really,
really
needed to remember. Open relationship or not, Matt was a good guy and was looking for more from me. Ian would move on to his next conquest before the sheets had time to cool.

Rick looked disappointed and irked at the same time, an expression only he could pull off with ease. “And?” He crossed his arms over his gray shirt, head back, looking down his nose at me.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d lost my mind. “That’s crap, Rick.” I fisted my hands. Sucking in a breath, I glanced at the house to be sure no one heard. “You want me to break Matt’s heart and lose something potentially great for the sake of sex? You know Ian as well as I do. He’d be bored in under a week. You’re my friend, too. You’re supposed to…”

What? What exactly did I expect him to do? He was stuck between two of his best friends and it was wrong of me to put him there. I glanced heavenward, closing my eyes against the bright sky.

When I returned my gaze, Rick looked like I had just sucker-punched him. Guilt collided with shame. God. What was I doing? Blaming him? Mortified, and yet reluctant to let go of the anger, I stared him down, chewing my lip.

Helpless, awful fear swirled in my gut. It was a kiss. Granted, it had been an amazing, knock-my-socks-off kiss but, between Ian, myself, and now Rick, we were making a mountain out of a mole hill. Getting ahead of ourselves. Assuming facts not in evidence. Still, the fear clawed inside me. I had the terrifying sensation that nothing would be the same again. Everything had gotten so murky with one kiss.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, Rick.”

His understanding eyes leveled on me and the sincerity in his gaze rocked the foundation from under me. “None of us ever know what we’re doing, Summer. We muddle through.”

“Don’t give me your Yoda crap right now.” I rubbed my forehead, close to tears. First Ian, now Rick. They were all I had, damn it. “I’m scared.”

He skimmed his hand down my hair. “I know. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you wouldn’t be having this reaction if you loved Matt.”

The fact he was right only made the acid in my stomach burn harder.

His gaze shifted away, but his stance remained solid, as if trying and failing to hold me inside the truth or ground me.

I couldn’t do this now. Ian and I needed to hash this out. I needed to have a sit down with Matt. None of what had happened between Ian and I could amount to anything, but Matt deserved to know I was conflicted about us. Hard fact? Didn’t matter if Ian made my toes curl. His friendship was more important than a temporary attraction. If we didn’t get a handle on this now, we’d blow apart our intimate circle of friends, and I had the sinking suspicion I’d be the one left stranded.