Girls of Summer

by C. E. Hilbert

  Acid that had been on a simmer began to boil in Mac’s belly. Eight years old? Abandoned by not one, but two parents? He thought about how he’d spent his second-grade year. Playing little league. Riding in the combine with his dad during harvest. Showing his prize lamb at the county fair. Eating his mom’s chocolate chip cookies. He spent second grade being loved and cherished.

  Charlie spent second grade abandoned and disregarded.

  Swallowing against the wave of nausea, he focused on Charlie’s words.

  “I didn’t know it at the time, but my parents’ divorce was final the day he came to visit me at school. He promised I would be able to spend the summer in Colin’s Fancy. I’d get to watch every home game from the dugout.” The corner of her mouth twisted. “I wanted to believe him, but I barely saw my mother, and despite my grandparents’ attempts at normalcy, adults and trust weren’t a combination I was used to.

  “But that summer he arrived on his own, and we flew to South Carolina. I watched every Bombers home game. Collected frogs from the creek. And met Remy for the first time at the corner of our properties.” The wisp of a memory danced across her face, lifting the corners of her mouth. “Remy was so boy and so southern. I loved everything about him from the first moment he shoved his hand into mine to introduce himself. I spent nearly every day with Remy. Swimming. Fishing. Going to ballgames. Playing tic-tac-toe on the back of the church bulletin. He was my best friend. Is my best friend.” Her words tumbled from her lips in a choke. A fresh stream of tears poured down her face. “He’s my best friend, Mac. Why didn’t I protect him?” She slipped to the floor, her body wracked with tears.

  Sliding down beside her, he tugged her into his arms. Her tears soaked his t-shirt. Wrapping his arms around her, he wanted to absorb her pain. Relieve her guilt. But he had no words of affirmation big enough to snatch her from the pit she was tumbling into. Lord, please help me help her. Let me know what to do. His prayer cycled in his mind and heart.

  With little thought to propriety, he hauled her onto his lap dragging her tighter to him. Sobs wracked her lithe frame, and he began rocking her as if she were a small child. Pressing a light kiss to her hair, he stroked her back in a soothing rhythm.

  Her tears slowed. She sucked in a deep breath, exhaling with a low whistle.

  Warmth oozed through him with the light touch of her fingers on his chest. He lifted her slightly, forcing her gaze to his. Her eyes were sprinkled with the fresh dew of her pain.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “No sorry needed,” he said with a quick peck to her forehead. But the brief touch sparked a trill of flashes through his body, awakening a new consciousness of her in his arms. Searching her eyes, he saw the grief retreat, replaced with something he couldn’t quite identify.

  “If you want to kiss me, Taylor, just put your lips together and go for it.”

  Her words froze his hand in mid-stroke. Sucking in a deep breath, he gently lifted her from his lap and set her on the smooth floor.

  Shoving away from the wall, he stood and placed three long strides between them. What was he doing? Was he really ready to kiss Charlie? Again. Bent’s Charlie? The woman who’d caused him nothing but trouble for the last few months? The woman whom his soul screamed to protect and save? His heart thumped against his chest with the answer: yes.

  Scrubbing his face, he snatched a bottle of water from the table and swallowed nearly the entire contents in one gulp.

  “I guess that answers my question,” Charlie muttered. “It’s just a kiss.”

  The water bottle crumpled in his grip, and he tossed it into the recycle bin by the door. With a quick twist, he closed the three steps separating them, yanked her into his arms, and tilted her chin up. He barely grazed his lips across hers. “A kiss between us will never be just a kiss.” His mouth took possession of hers.

  She dissolved into his embrace. He drew her tighter against him. The sizzle of lit fireworks tingled through his entire being, ignited by the touch of his lips with hers. Time. Questions. Worries. Death. Pain. Everything slipped from his vision as he melted into her.

  Before he fell over the edge of reason and no return, he broke the intimate connection. With a heavy-lidded gaze, he searched her face for answers to questions he was afraid to ask.

  “Well…no one would ever call you a liar, Taylor.”

  A soft tilt to her full lips filled him with an inexplicable joy.

  “That was definitely more than just a kiss.”

  Resting his forehead to hers, his mouth stretched to a wide grin. “We’re in trouble, Charlie.”

  25

  Tiny ice chips melted against Georgie’s lips as she sipped from the frosted mug of root beer. The tangy sweetness tasted bitter in her mouth as her mind retraced the last few hours, reliving the horrors Charlie revealed with whispered stories. How could she not have known what her sister endured for the majority of her life?

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Cade asked. He settled on the barstool next to her as they waited for the pizzas.

  She shifted her gaze from the strong-shouldered FBI agent to the dark paneled walls of the corner pizza shop. She’d come here often as a child, taking swinging steps between her parents’ protective grips after innumerable home Bombers’ games. Her childhood had been loaded with sticky summer nights, sweet as cotton candy, and parents who thought everything she did was angel kissed. But her sister hadn’t been so fortunate.

  The wet warmth of a tear slid down her cheek, and she felt the gentle touch of Cade as he squeezed her shoulder. Scrubbing her face, she twisted to face him. “I don’t think there are enough pennies on the planet to pay for the crazy twists and turns of my thoughts tonight.”

  “Try me.” He tucked a stray piece of her wild hair behind her ear, shooting errant sparks under her skin.

  “I just don’t understand…” She paused, unable to put into words what she was feeling.

  “That’s a pretty broad start, Georgie. Do you want to get a little more specific?”

  Lifting her gaze to his dark, mossy green eyes, she felt her throat tighten against the words. She swirled her fingers over the warped grain of the bar. Where was she supposed to start? With her sister who’d been the maudlin villain in every Dixon drama for the last fifteen years? Or her father whom she’d thought nearly walked on water but in fact left his precious little girl in the care of the wicked? Or with the sweet man she’d found nearly drowned and still neatly dressed in his New Year’s Eve tuxedo this afternoon?

  No words would squeak through her lips. Giving words to the revelations of the last twenty-four hours would make all of it real. And she desperately hoped she was in the throes of a horrible nightmare.

  He cupped his hand over hers, halting her fingers twisting journey. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  She snorted a strangled laugh through her lips. “You think? My sister just spent the last few hours telling us what she’s endured throughout her life. And, that just tops off me finding her best friend swollen with creek water, barely alive. Our house catching fire. Oh, and, Charlie was nearly killed with a car bomb. I’d say ‘a lot’ is an understatement, Special Agent Murphy.”

  “Cade. Please. Call me Cade.”

  Georgie bit her cheek against the warmth pouring through her at the simple permission. “Cade,” she whispered. “How can you be so calm? I know she’s my sister and it makes her story all the more horrible to me. But how can you take it all in as if…as if you were watching a boring play?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw you tonight.” She tugged her hand from his. “Barely registering a word Charlie said. Just watching her. Waiting for her to make a mistake. Admit it. You think she’s involved with all of this somehow, don’t you?”

  Cade chewed on his bottom lip, but his face remained smooth, unwavering. “Georgie, I don’t know what to think about your sister. I want to trust her, but until tonight she hasn’t been cooperative. And, as far as Dylan and I
know she might be misdirecting us on purpose.”

  Georgie stood with a start. “How dare you?”

  Cade clamped his hand over hers. “Listen. I want to believe her, but it’s my job to remain impartial. Your sister’s story is…well, let’s just say it’s more than I thought it would be.”

  “But can’t you see how much pain she’s in?” Georgie choked on her words. Tears flooded her vision. Her breath came in short clips. “Charlie’s been…protecting everyone…since she was little.”

  Cade’s thick fingers squeezed her shoulder. “Georgie, can you tell me about your mother’s death?”

  She twisted on the barstool and stared straight into his eyes, devoid of emotion. “What kind of person are you? Why are you asking about my mother’s death?”

  “Your sister mentioned she came to visit Mrs. Dixon when she was receiving treatments for cancer. But our records show your mother died in a car accident.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “I just wanted to know about the events surrounding your mother’s death.”

  “You think Charlie was involved. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what to think. That’s why I’m asking the question. How did your mother die, Georgie?”

  She sucked in a deep breath. The images of her mother’s mangled body and battered face, so badly damaged her wake was closed casket, flashed across her mind. Georgie had been young, but her father believed she needed to see her mother in death for closure. The tortured memory haunted her through her teens and even today she felt weighted down by the sharp images chiseled into her brain. “She was on her way to treatment. She’d been out of the hospital for a while. I didn’t know at the time, but my mother was in palliative care. The doctors agreed to let her live out her final days at home. There wasn’t much that could have been done for her. Anyway, Daddy hired a driver because he couldn’t take her to treatment that day. The driver lost control of the car. The driver died on impact. My mother died within an hour of arriving at the hospital. Her body was so weak at that point, she didn’t have much left in her to fight.”

  “Based on your sister’s story, do you think she had anything to do with your mother’s death?”

  “No! Of course not. You heard how much she loved my mother. Charlie couldn’t be connected.” Could she?

  Cade tugged his gaze away from Georgie. “I think you’re right. I just wanted to check my gut. As much as I try to be impartial, I sometimes have a hard time separating my emotions and my logic. This case has pressed my ability to remain neutral to its haggard limits.”

  Georgie shoved the sudden doubt out of her mind and focused on Cade’s words.

  “I understand your blind loyalty to your sister. I felt that way about my brother.”

  “Felt?” Past tense?

  “My brother, Aaron, died. Drug overdose. He was an artist. Free thinker. He made a ton of mistakes and I was always defending him to my parents or making excuses.”

  She stretched her fingers and cupped his broad hand with hers. “I’m so sorry.”

  His lips tightened to a thin line. “He was my best friend. The only person who ever seemed to understand him was my fiancée.”

  “Oh, well, it’s good you had her.” She slid her hand from his. Regardless of whether the comfort was platonic, or the something more her subconscious began to tempt her with, she shouldn’t be touching a committed man.

  He twisted to face her. “But I didn’t. Not really.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “We all need to share. If we don’t, we will explode with the burdens we carry. Why do you think you didn’t have your fiancée?”

  A grin, that didn’t reach his eyes tugged at his lips. “I found out a few weeks after Aaron’s death that Heather was pregnant.”

  “Oh, well, I guess that happens sometimes.”

  “Except I’d been at Quantico in training for four months when my brother died. Heather was only two months pregnant.”

  “Cade, I’m so sorry.”

  “My brother was the father. Apparently long before I left for training, they started an affair. Brought together by their mutual addiction.” He dragged his gaze from hers, shaking his head. “I was so focused on pursuing my dream I couldn’t see that I was losing both my brother and my fiancée to a dark world.”

  Georgie didn’t have words to comfort him. The revelations of the past twenty-four hours were too much for the soft and gentle life she’d known. How was she supposed to offer the hand of grace to this man she barely knew? Lord, please give me the courage and the wisdom to share Your love and peace. “Cade, sorry isn’t sufficient.” She sucked in a deep breath. “Were you able to reconcile with your fiancée?”

  He shrugged. “I was so angry with her…”

  “Justifiably…”

  “I don’t know about that, but my anger at her and my brother sliced through me. She tried. Begged for my forgiveness. But I couldn’t. Their betrayal was too much.” He lifted his gaze to hers. A soft sheen of tears glistened. “And my inability to forgive was too much for her. Heather overdosed two weeks after my brother’s death.”

  Georgie stifled shock burning in her throat. She smoothed her hand across his taut shoulders and squeezed.

  He swallowed deep, drawing a long breath. “Their deaths motivate me. But they also make me leery of any sad story. Including your sister’s.”

  With a soft nod, she slid her arm back to her lap and tilted her head to meet his gaze in the back-wall mirror. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to convince you Charlie’s innocent.” Shouldn’t be hard. As soon as I convince myself.

  26

  Charlotte’s steady breath fogged the window, giving the ballpark’s lights an ethereal glow. Ignoring the subtle sounds of her sister playing hostess, doling out pizza slices and sodas, she tightened her grip on the window sill. In the distance of a memory, she could hear the sounds of summer.

  Cheers, cracked bats, and clean strikes snapped in a catcher’s mitt. Her eyes drifted shut and she melted into the innocence of summer days, longing to drown in their delicious sweetness. She could almost ignore the hushed, urgent conversation between Murphy and O’Neal, huddled around Mac’s kitchen bar chomping on pizza. They were deliberating her sentence.

  Was she a liar or a patsy?

  She wasn’t sure she knew the answer.

  “Charlie.”

  Hauling open her eyelids, she stared directly into Mac’s fuzzy reflection in the window.

  “Why don’t you come eat some pizza?”

  Shaking her head, she settled her gaze back on the ballpark.

  “You need to eat something.” His words were low and laced with compassion.

  Her heart sped. She sucked in two short breaths against the tears fighting for control of her vision. Spinning away from the windows, she stalked past him toward the front door. “I need some air.” Yanking the door open, she slipped on the worn flip-flops in the entryway. She took two tentative steps across the threshold, her feet nearly walking out of the shoes.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Murphy yelled after her.

  She kept walking. Gaining speed with each step, she tottered on the blacktop-patched brick streets, finding her balance. Lengthening her strides, she began jogging. The flip-flops caught against the dragging fabric of her borrowed sweatpants. With a hopped step, she tugged off each shoe and stretched her legs long.

  The night chilled against her heat flushed cheeks. Misty air plastered her hair against her forehead. Her speeding heart paced with the pounding of her bare feet against the slick bricks. Weaving through the deserted streets, she skipped over the rounded curve of the sidewalk, and broke into a sprint down the narrowed walkway to the back entrance of the ballpark.

  The gate was secured with a four-inch-thick chain wrapped through the slick wrought iron bars, but she remembered many steamy summer nights when she couldn’t sleep and Daddy would bring her to his private sanctuary. Memories floated like
cherry blossoms in a spring storm. Wisps of stories, of a time when day games filled the schedule because only God’s light would do for His sport and of tall tales of barely mortal men who could make sparks fly with a swing of round bat. The long-hidden memories twisted through her, spikes against the frozen surface of her heart.

  Dabbing her cheeks with the back of her hand, she wove through the turnstiles and stopped in front of a long brick wall filled with the names of fallen war heroes. With a tap against a brick marked with a single star in honor of those unknown who gave their lives for the freedoms of the United States, she heard the hollowed promise.

  Sliding her slim fingers around the edges, she gently tugged on the brick, releasing silt, dust and the hollow center of her father’s favorite hiding place. A single key on a baseball bat keychain slid into her palm. The cool metal warmed in her hands–a calm promise soothing her soul and steadying her heart.

  Her bare toes curled against the rough concrete as she closed the small distance between the Wall of Heroes and the entry gate. The key notched against the lock with a click, releasing the gratifying clank of rusted chains against the iron bars. Shoving the bars, she wiggled through the opening and stepped onto the concourse.

  Her long strides gobbled the twenty stadium steps to the sunken field below. Tossing the flip-flops onto the manicured grass, she hopped the low fence separating the game from the fans.

  Wrapped in a heavy black tarp, the infield waited for the break of spring sunshine through the clouds, but the outfield stretched like a welcome green blanket of soft summer grass. Her toes dug into the dirt as she stretched her legs to begin a slow jog.

  Her feet pounded against the packed clay that quickly transitioned to scratchy, winterized grass. Charlotte’s pace quickened, creating her own wind tunnel. Stretching her arms away from her sides, the t-shirt transformed to wings, and she felt as if she were flying. Tears slashed across her cheeks as she spun on her heel against the warning track dirt, slowing her pace to a jog.

  She dragged a cleansing breath through her nose, her heart slowed to the pace of her steps. Bracing her hands against her lower back, she tilted her head and blinked against the sparkle of the stars pressed into the black velvet sky. A single star raced across the sky before darting into the darkness.