Summer's Road (9 page)

D
ee sat with me at a small table outside Mel’s Café and watched me play with my salad. I pretended not to notice. Eventually, she drew her brows together, dropped her fork, and glared at me.

“Out with it. What’s wrong?”

I sighed. Where to start? “Nothing. I’m sorry. I’m fine.” Dee didn’t look convinced. “Okay, but don’t tell anyone. Got it?”

She leaned forward, her eyes round in panic. “Summer, what’s going on?”

As if expecting someone to approach us, I glanced at the other diners sitting at their tables. No one looked familiar. “My mother showed up at my house the other day.”

Dee flew back in her chair as if she’d been slapped. “No way. What did she want?”

“To take my house.” I rubbed my forehead, relieved to have it out in the open, and told her everything. A tremendous weight lifted from my chest, my shoulders. I was still sinking rather than swimming, though. Ian’s weird behavior, Matt moving here, and my mother’s damn visit had been bothering me to no end. I was barely eating, hardly sleeping. “She also said she needed to see me or something.”

“Are you going to?”

“Before she showed up, I had no way to contact her. I didn’t even know where she was living. I mean, she bailed, Dee. How am I supposed to feel?” Dee waited patiently for me to work it out, talk it out. She was good at that. “I don’t want anything to do with her. But I feel bad now. I was horrible to her.”

She nodded. “I don’t think anyone can blame you for that. What does Ian think?” I shook my head as realization dawned on Dee’s face. “Oh, Summer. You gotta tell him.” I just kept shaking my head as if the movement would dislodge the past two weeks. “Why?”

Dear, dear Ian. He’d have a coronary. “He’s gonna get pissed off and worry. He doesn’t need to know. No one does. I’ll deal with it. If she shows up again, I’ll send her right back. My lawyer is trying to fix the property issue.” I crossed my arms over the table and decided the hell with it. I needed girl advice. “Matt was in town this morning.”

A corner of Dee’s mouth quirked. “And was the talk he wanted to have as nerve-wracking as you thought it would be?”

God, yes. “He’s moving to Charlotte. In two weeks.”

“Huh.” She sipped her water.

“What’s that mean?
Huh?
Spill.”

“Well,” she drawled, making the word sound like three syllables. “Is he moving in with you or getting his own place?”

After Matt had dropped the “L” bomb a second time, we’d discussed that very thing. He must have sensed I was in conversation overload. “He said it’s up to me. I’m supposed to give him an answer when we’re at Seasmoke next week. He’s waiting until after vacation to tell his boss he’ll take the promotion.” I suspected he chose to do that because he feared I’d change my mind.

I usually couldn’t wait to get down to Ian’s family home on the coast. We’d vacationed there every year since birth. Matt’s family had a house right next to the Memmers. But I couldn’t shake the horrible sensation something bad was coming. Moving in with Matt wasn’t just a big relationship step, it was him moving into my house.
Daddy’s
house.

“Huh.”

I tossed a napkin at her. “Stop with the huhs.”

She leaned forward, her hand holding back her thick, brown curls. “It’s a ginormous change, and I don’t ever remember you saying you loved him.”

Because I wasn’t sure if I did. God, I was a bad person. “He said he loved me this morning.” There. I’d told someone else besides Ian. Which made the situation seem way too real instead of hypothetical.

Dee laughed, a throaty, robust sound that had several patrons glancing our way. “Not the same as you saying it back. And I know you didn’t. So, are you going to have him move in?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Entirely too much. I shrugged. “How’s our boy Rick doing?”

Her grin widened as if she just remembered she was married to the greatest man in South Carolina. Which she was, the bitch. “He’s good. He was just thinking about you the other day.”

Not surprising. Rivers and I had this uncanny twin-like connection. “Oh yeah, what for?”

“Don’t know. He didn’t say. But curiously enough, Ian and my hubby went golfing this morning.”

I laughed. “Neither of them golf. Or know how, for that matter. Interesting.” I toyed with my empty glass and told Dee about turning Peter down for a date. What he’d said bothered me. Ian’s reaction more so.

“You’re serious with Matt now. And you don’t like Peter anyway.”

True story. I bit back a sigh. “Eric Holcomb says we need to buy me a new dress for the benefit. I told him we’d go shopping in Myrtle since I know he doesn’t trust my judgment.”

Dee grinned. “Shopping. I can do that.”

“He’s making me go see Miranda for my hair, too. What’s wrong with my hair?”

She assessed me from head to toe. “It’s beautiful, but you never wear it down. I’d kill for your hair. Anytime there’s even a threat of rain, mine turns into a French poodle on steroids.”

The waiter came and refilled our drinks. It was so hot the ice from my sweet tea was already melting. I watched him walk away, wondering why I wasn’t ecstatic about Matt stepping up, about not having any kind of emotional reaction to him loving me. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Would you like a list or was that a rhetorical statement?”

“Har, har. Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious. I can’t remember the last time I had sex, never mind the last time I felt...something for a man.” I hadn’t meant to let that last part slip, but it was too late to take it back.

“You obviously feel something for Matt. You guys haven’t slept together. That’s probably what’s eating you. Once you guys go there, things will fall into place. As for love, you just know when it hits you.”

Perhaps she was right. Matt, being a born-again, had told me he didn’t want to get intimate with a woman until he knew it had the potential for marriage, if not after the vows. Maybe because we hadn’t been physical, I was lacking the element to connect. Except, it wasn’t just Matt. No guy I’d dated or slept with had made me want to go all in. “I never had a first love. You know, the one you never really get over.” Wasn’t that a right of passage or something?

Dee mulled that over. “That might be better. When you finally do fall, whether you open up to Matt or someone else, it will be forever.” She pushed her salad plate away. “You had a rough week, huh?”

Understatement of the year. I felt bad for unloading on her, though. “I’m fine. Are you packed for Seasmoke?”

She smiled and clapped her hands like an excited monkey. “Yes. Beach, sand, sun. I got a new bikini. I can’t wait to wear it.”             

I could use the break myself. My father had named the Memmer’s beach house Seasmoke years ago. It was actually the name of the private drive the house was on, near a clandestine area of Myrtle Beach. A week without work, stress, or small town minds. To wade in the surf and lounge around the bonfire at dusk. To have that connection to each other, to our past, made the yearly trip down the coast a priority. Seasmoke was different than Wylie in many ways. More like a dream, really. The fantasy and magic there couldn’t be found here. Wylie was as picturesque as it was ordinary.

“Did you hear me?” Dee laughed.

“No. Sorry.”

“I was saying we need to get you a new swimsuit. A two-piece, I think.” Dee grinned and shook her head, ignoring my narrowed eyes. “We can’t have you seducing cabana boy for the first time with that same boring blue suit.”

I wasn’t so sure Matt could be seduced. Or if I should. I planned to let him set the pace, not wanting to push him into something he wasn’t ready for. His beliefs were important to him. “I wish you wouldn’t call him cabana boy. And Matt likes me just fine in that blue suit.”

“There’s no harm in making him drool.”

Before I could argue, Dee dropped some bills on the table and pulled me by the arm to the shopping center across the street. While Dee browsed the swimming suits—if one could call glorified dental floss a swimming suit—my cell rang. My hands shook when I saw the caller ID.

“Summer? It’s Tim.” My attorney’s voice was winded, like a flight of stairs had preceded him dialing.

I backed away from Dee and turned around, keeping my voice low. “What’s up?” If my nerves caused me to throw up all over the merchandise, would I have to buy it?

“They set the hearing for Monday.”

The room spun. “What? That’s tomorrow. Are we ready?”

He cleared his throat. “Lucky for us, it’s only a preliminary to determine if further action is needed. Your mother’s lawyer claims she wants the house. She’s not backing down.”

I almost dropped the phone. “God. What do I do?”

“Meet me at the courthouse at nine tomorrow. Just stay calm. Nothing will be decided right away.”

As we disconnected, I had a sudden, impenetrable urge to see Ian. I shook from the inside out—afraid, mad, empty. Ian always fixed things. He made everything better. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath and fought tears.

“Dee, we have to go home.”

Ian

S
tretched out on Rick’s couch after an insane attempt to go golfing, I stewed. The outing hadn’t been the distraction I’d been hoping for. “Have you talked to Summer this week? Did she tell you what that asshat Peter said?”

Rick eyed me as if to say,
finally you start talking
. “Peter from the hobby store? The guy who’s crushed on her since third grade? No. But it must be interesting if you’re mentioning it.”

I looked over at him, irritation making my temples pound. “I thought you and Summer had this little psychic friends network going.”

“It’s not like that and you know it. I sense things about her, is all. She doesn’t dig Peter anyway.”

I stood. Paced. Made a tight fist until I lost circulation. It felt better than my knotted gut. “Peter asked her if she wouldn’t go out with him because I was in love with her.”

“Observant of Peter to notice.”

My glare could have melted the arctic. “Funny.” I could give a rat’s ass what spewed from Peter’s mouth. “It was Summer’s reaction that concerns me.”

“And what was her reaction?”

I still wasn’t entirely sure. She’d looked at me like she’d hoped it was true and then promptly freaked out when I’d not responded. As if the idea was entirely preposterous, me desiring her. In her defense, I’d never even hinted.

Rick scratched his jaw. “You need to tell her how you feel.”

“What?” I spun around on him. “Are you drunk?” Rick was the sole person in my life who knew my true feelings about Summer. He’d hung out with me when I’d sulked, listened to me brood, had given me an outlet to channel my frustrations. He’d never, not once, suggested I tell
her
. He knew as well as I did how epically stupid that would be. There was a laundry list of why-nots.

Rick folded his hands in his lap as if waiting patiently for me to blow a gasket. “She’s in a different place in her life now. So are you. Are you going to sit back and watch her with every other guy but you until she finally settles on one?”

Direct hit. None of the guys she’d been with had been a threat. She’d felt nothing for them. They never lasted. Except Matt. And he was in town, right this very second. I sat on the couch and put my head in my hands.

I’d kissed Summer once, a year after I’d first noticed romantic feelings for her. She’d come over to my house in a huff about the jock she’d been dating. I’ll never know what had gotten into me, or where I’d mustered the courage, but I’d kissed her. Swift and hard. After pulling away, I had waited for her to say something. Anything. Instead, she’d laughed.
Laughed.
She never brought it up again and I never tried again.

“You don’t know how she’ll react until you say something.”

I was pretty certain I knew how she’d respond. She’d either laugh like I was screwing around or she’d flip out. I would bet my left nut she, in no way, reciprocated my feelings. If, just once through the years, she’d given me any indication, a blip of a hint that she saw me as someone other than her friend, I might’ve made a move. A spark of recognition. A parting of her lips. But no. Thus, here we were. Me, lusting for what I could never have, and her, oblivious.