Another Summer

by Georgia Bockoven

  “Maybe, but it’s the truth.”

  He gave her that much. “Perhaps.”

  “You know if I go into environmental law it won’t be here. I’ll have to leave the firm.”

  He nodded. “I was afraid that might be how you’d feel.”

  It hurt that he wasn’t willing to fight to keep her a part of his life when she’d fought so hard to be there. “And you still went ahead?”

  “Actions speak louder than words, Kelly,” he said softly. “This is my way of telling you how much I love you.”

  “By driving me away?”

  “By letting you find your own way, by letting you discover your own passion. You can’t live your life to please me. I thought I was doing what was best for you and your sisters when you were sitting on my knee and I preached ambition instead of reading you fairy tales. I came to the realization too late for Alexis and Donna; they look at me as if I’m out of my mind when I try to tell them what they are missing in their single-minded drive for success. They have ambition but no passion. They go from one relationship to another without regret when it ends or hope that they’ve found their life’s partner when another one begins.”

  “That’s the way things are now, Dad. No one believes in ever after anymore. Alexis and Donna–and me, too–are simply trying to make the best of what we’ve got.”

  He was suddenly, pointedly angry. “If you’re willing to settle, then that’s what you’ll get. Expect better. Demand better. You and your sisters deserve the best.”

  “What you want for us isn’t out there.” How could she explain that she’d never dated a man, that she’d never met a man who didn’t flinch at the mention of marriage and children. If pressed, they would talk about settling down someday but not until they’d experienced all that life had to offer. Their goals were to live in an upscale apartment, own a status car, and at forty-five marry a trophy wife who was twenty years younger than they.

  “All I want for you is what your mother and I had.”

  Her gaze locked on his. “You, of all people, should know how rare that is. How long has it been since Mom died? Has anyone come close to replacing her?”

  She had him. He sighed and patted her hand. “We were destined for each other. I knew it the minute we met.”

  “How?” Her question went far deeper than simple curiosity.

  “I had never been so comfortable around anyone. Right from the beginning, we talked and laughed as if we’d known each other forever. She felt it, too, and we knew we had to find a way to be together.”

  “And you were married two and a half months later.” Growing up, she’d asked to be told the story so many times she had the words memorized and would say them with him. She never felt closer to her father than when he talked about her mother.

  “How did you know what would happen if I went to this class?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Because you have the heart and soul of an environmentalist. I never did understand how you managed to bury it under all that commercialism that took hold of you in college.”

  “You’re going to have to explain yourself better than that.”

  “Think back to when you used to help me in the garden. Do you remember the time you accidentally cut that worm in half?”

  “Yes … and I bawled my head off until you told me that God liked worms so well that he made them special.”

  “When you cut them in half …”

  She smiled. “You had two.”

  “I found you in the garden the next day digging up worms and cutting them in half so we would have twice as many.” He chuckled. “I often wondered how many of them lived.”

  “I loved the time we spent in Mom’s garden.”

  “You loved the garden, too, Kelly. How could you not grow up to care about this great big garden we all live on?”

  “I should be mad at you.”

  “But you understand why I had to do what I did.”

  “You’re going to miss me,” she warned.

  “Don’t think I didn’t consider that.” He reached for her other hand and held it between his own. “Now, tell me about Matt Landry. He seems an interesting sort.”

  She smiled. “I have a feeling you know a lot more about him than I do.”

  “Indulge me.”

  “He’s everything I didn’t know I wanted in a man.”

  One of Harold’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Is that good?”

  Kelly laughed. “Better than good. Now I have to find out if he feels the same way about me.”

  “How could he not?”

  “From your lips to God’s ear.”

  7

  MATT STOOD AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS and scanned the beach, looking for Kelly. He’d been there five times over the past two days, and had decided that if he didn’t find her this time, he would start making phone calls.

  He spotted her halfway to the southern promontory, standing at the shoreline, talking to a fisherman. His heart took off, thumping his ribs with all the subtlety of a drummer in a garage band. Like it or not, convenient or not, rational or not, something had happened to him where Kelly Anderson was concerned. He’d known her all of three days–five if he counted that first day on the beach–and all he could think about was seeing her again.

  She couldn’t have come into his life at a more inconvenient time. He was too busy for a courtship longer than the four weeks he’d be there for the class, and then it was off for months of nonstop conferences, legislative meetings in Washington, and three court cases that were scheduled to come to trial before the end of the year. No woman would put up with that. No man had the right to ask.

  On top of everything else, there was the boyfriend to consider. Undoubtedly they’d patched things up by now and were back together. There was no reason Kelly should know, or even suspect, the doors she’d opened in his mind the day they’d spent together, or how she’d turned his world upside down with that kiss. He’d tried to mentally compartmentalize her, to slide her into the category of friend–special friend, maybe, but no more than that. But he couldn’t get past the kiss, how it had made him feel, and how thinking about it took him back to the boat and triggered memories of her laugh and her smile and her quick intellect. She’d made him think of possibilities instead of roadblocks to a new relationship.

  There wasn’t a major city in the world that he couldn’t pick up the phone and contact a friend. Until now that had been enough. After his divorce he’d accepted that from then on his work would be his passion, his mistress, his wife, his lifelong companion. He refused to acknowledge the loneliness because it didn’t matter, it couldn’t. He believed his work was important, more important than personal sacrifice or happiness.

  And then he’d met Kelly.

  KELLY WAVED GOOD-BYE TO THE FISHERMAN and turned to watch a pelican skim past the foam on an incoming wave. The salt-laden breeze caught her hair and filled her open windbreaker like a kite straining to be airborne. A flash of brown caught her eye, a sleek curving movement in the aquamarine of a swell. She waited for it to appear again and when it did, saw that it was a sea lion shopping for a late-afternoon snack.

  Growing up in San Diego she’d always loved the ocean in a fun-and-sun way. Here she’d come to see it differently, in the life that called the rolling water home and in the fragile forgiveness she’d always taken for granted. When the beaches at home were closed because of pollution it was an inconvenience, no more. Whatever party she or her friends had planned was moved poolside, the food cooked on backyard barbecues instead of portable grills.

  There was never a thought given to the fish or seals or passing whales or even to the men and women who caught fish to supplement the food they put on their tables.

  She’d thought and believed what she had because it was what her friends and their friends thought and believed. To be or think any differently would put her on the outside. She didn’t know how to be an outsider. She’d always played by the unspoken, but understood rules in her comfor
table society.

  As much as she didn’t know how to be an outsider, she didn’t know how to be an environmentalist either. She didn’t understand the people in small inflatable boats who put themselves between whales and whalers risking their lives in what was too often a fruitless gesture. And then the memory of what she’d felt when she saw the whale spout came back to her. Had she known that whale was about to die, would she have put herself in danger to save it?

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone approaching and decided to ignore them in the hope they wouldn’t stop. She wanted to be alone to think, to plan. The person came closer and she could see that it was a man. Finally, he came so close she couldn’t ignore him and looked up–directly into Matt Landry’s eyes. She caught her breath in surprise at his unguarded happiness to see her.

  He stopped inches away, just short of touching her. “You’re back.”

  “I had some things I had to do.”

  “I was worried.”

  They weren’t just words, he meant them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left without saying something.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” How strange that they were acting so polite with each other, like casual acquaintances, when in her mind they were so much more.

  He nodded. “Coming back to class on Monday?”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and for a moment looked as if he were going to leave. “Was it something I said?”

  The easy answer, the one that wouldn’t leave her vulnerable if she’d completely misread his feelings, was on the tip of her tongue when she decided she didn’t want to play it safe with him. If he couldn’t handle knowing how she felt, he wasn’t who she believed him to be.

  “It’s who you are,” she told him. The tide was coming in. She should either back up or let the waves claim her. Drawn by the symbolism, she stayed where she was. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

  “It’s the trappings. When you know me better you’ll see how unextraordinary I am.”

  The extraordinary thing was that he was sincere. He saved his ego for his work. “I can’t be like you, Matt. I’m a detail person. I build cases methodically and relentlessly and even when I know it’s a necessary means to an end, I don’t bend well. I’m an oak, not a willow.”

  He looked at her long and hard. “Where’s Ray?”

  “Home.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “No.”

  A piece of fishing line rolled in with a wave. Matt stooped to pick it up and put it in his pocket. “I take it the kiss didn’t work?”

  He was protecting himself. She would have done the same. “Oh, it worked all right. Just not the way I expected.”

  He eyed her. “How so?”

  “Ray asked me to marry him.” She hesitated telling him the rest, fearing it was too much too soon. Then her ever-present inner voice intruded and insisted she take the chance. “The whole time he was trying to convince me I should say yes, I was thinking about you–and the way you kissed me.”

  A slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Well, that pretty much settles it.”

  “Settles what?” she asked carefully.

  “The story we’re going to tell our kids when they ask how we met.”

  She should have protested, at the very least she should have told him he was moving a little fast. Instead she said, “Don’t you think we should get the second kiss out of the way before we start planning a family?”

  He put his hand at the back of her neck and brought her to him. With their lips almost touching, he murmured, “To show you how good I am at compromising, I’m even willing to wait for the third and forth.”

  He covered her mouth with his, sparking a liquid fire that enveloped her. She came up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body close, unable to get close enough. She’d been kissed in passion by a dozen men, but never like this. The yearning she felt left her breathless.

  Stunned, she moved out of his arms and looked at him, finding her own thoughts and emotions mirrored in his eyes. “Okay, so the first kiss wasn’t a fluke. Where do we go from here?”

  He brought her back into his arms, holding her as he looked at her. A wave washed over their feet. “I don’t think we should try to rush anything. We have another three and a half weeks to work things out.”

  “Bad timing, huh?”

  “I’m going on the road as soon as the class ends. But I’ll find a way to get back as often as I can.”

  “What if I went with you?” she said impulsively.

  “What about your job?”

  “I quit.”

  “You didn’t have to do that. I would never expect you–”

  “I know.” And she did. It was one of the things she liked about him. She tilted her head and kissed him, long and slow and inviting.

  She was no longer afraid of loving him. From then on what they didn’t know about each other they would exchange like beautifully wrapped presents. She thought about the “present” her father and sisters would make and smiled.

  “There are some people I need to tell you about …” she began.

  Matt took her hand and led her to a log, where they could sit and watch the sunset and mark the beginning of the rest of their lives.

  July

  1

  “WELL? WHAT DO YOU THINK?” CRAIG Davis stopped on his way to the kitchen, bracing the box he was carrying against the back of a living room wing chair. “Is it what you expected?”

  Ann turned from the window, a blank look in her eyes. “What did you say?” When he didn’t immediately answer, she added, “I’m sorry. I was somewhere else.”

  It was a statement as common as the silence that had replaced their once eager sharing of the day’s events. He shifted the box under his arm. “Never mind. It wasn’t important.”

  “Please–” She held out her hand in a helpless gesture. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I was just thinking about … about how much fun Jeremy is going to have here and how hard you worked to get the whole month off.”

  He knew what she’d been thinking, and it had nothing to do with him or Jeremy or the time they would be there. He hated that she lied to him and at the same time was grateful she spared him the truth. “I asked what you thought of the house.”

  She looked around as if just then noticing her surroundings. “It’s lovely. Nicer than I expected.” She struggled for something else. “Rentals usually look …” She shrugged. “Like rentals. But this is really … nice.”

  He’d found the house through a friend and had almost backed out when he learned it had to be rented for an entire month. He’d never taken a two-week vacation, let alone stayed away from the office for four. But desperate times demanded desperate measures. If this didn’t work, at least he would know he’d given everything he had to give. “Where’s Jeremy?”

  She blinked and then frowned. “I don’t know. I thought he was with you.”

  “Jesus, Ann. You were supposed to–”

  Jeremy came into the room from the hallway. He moved protectively toward his mother. “It’s okay, Dad.”

  With his light brown hair in need of cutting, wearing a Garth Brooks T-shirt passed down from his cousin and two-size-too-big pants held in place with a tightly cinched belt, he looked like a poster boy for neglected children. No one would ever pick him out of a line up as the nine-year-old son of a man who had his own CPA firm and a woman who, until a year ago, had managed conventions for the largest hotel in Reno, Nevada.

  Jeremy took his mother’s hand. “I told her I was going to unpack my stuff. She probably didn’t hear me.”

  Ann gave Jeremy a grateful smile. “Would you like me to go to the beach with you later? You used to love the water. Remember the time I held you until a big wave came in, and then I’d let you go and Daddy would catch you?”

  “He was only two when we took him to Hawaii
,” Craig said. “I doubt he even remembers what the ocean looks like.”

  “I do remember, Dad. And I was three. Bobby came with us because Uncle Carl and Aunt Marcia were getting divorced.” As if obliged to convince his father, he added, “We went out to dinner and there were lizards in the restaurant and they scared Bobby.”

  With their son in Hawaii, Carl and Marcia had worked out their problems instead of working out the details of the divorce. Nine months later, Bobby had a brother and an intact family that grew more solid every year.

  As convincing as Jeremy sounded, Craig wondered if his memories were real or ones that came from the photograph albums he took into his room and studied every night the way he’d once disappeared to absorb Harry Potter.

  “Give me another half hour to get things put away, and I’ll go down to the beach with you.” Craig worked to make the statement appear casual. Jeremy didn’t need to know how worried his father was about leaving him alone near the water with his mother.

  “I can help,” Ann said. “What else needs to be done?”

  A futile flash of anger shot through Craig. All Ann had to do was look around and see what still needed doing. A woman who had once directed a staff of thirty, who’d thrived on challenge, who had an attention to detail to rival NASA’s, had become like a second child in the family. For months now she’d refused to take responsibility without direction.

  As always, Craig’s sorrow overrode his frustration. “The suitcases are only half-unpacked and the kitchen stuff still needs to be put away.”

  She had tears in her eyes when she looked at Craig and silently mouthed, “Thank you.”

  He nodded and glanced at Jeremy, noting his obvious relief at the gentle ending to what too often in the past had led to confrontation between his parents. Jeremy’s reaction was harder for Craig to deal with than Ann’s. When he thought about the outgoing, happy kid his son had once been, Craig had a difficult time accepting the serious, taciturn child he was now.

  “I’ll help Mom,” Jeremy said. They were words spoken so often the past year they almost went unnoticed, like a period at the end of a sentence.