A New Shade of Summer

by Nicole Deese

  The two boys had already stretched out on opposite ends of the sofa, snacking on a jumbo bag of cheesy Doritos, while Kosher and Corrie lay atop a fluffy blanket on the floor. She popped another handful of caramel corn into her mouth, unscrewed the cap of her Sierra Mist, and took a long swig.

  Brandon aimed the remote at the giant flat screen, and in an instant, the familiar score from Star Wars pumped through the surround-sound speakers. Only this one was so much better than the others. Because this was Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Not surprisingly, the movie pick had been Corrie’s request. And the entire drive—from the supermarket to Davis’s house—I’d heard nothing but “This is the best Star Wars movie ever created because Rey—you know who Rey is right, Aunt Callie?—is so pretty and brave and such a good fighter, too . . .”

  Davis gestured to the empty sack in my hand while the sound of openmouthed munching rivaled the noise of the opening scene. “Looks like you bought them a dinner of champions.”

  “For the record, I never actually said the word dinner. I just told them each to pick out a movie snack, and you know, majority rules, right? It’s not like one night of chips, candy, and soda is going to undo all of Clem’s organic-food pushing.” At least, I hoped not. “And let’s not forget it’s still officially the first day of summer, which, as I’ve told you, is my favorite day of the year. So they get junk food today.” Although I was certain Clem would tear my argument to shreds if given the chance, which, of course, I wouldn’t give her. She had enough going on right now.

  “Shhhhh,” came a feminine hiss from the floor.

  I rolled my eyes playfully as Davis jerked his head toward his well-lit kitchen. He stopped near the hallway. “I’ll tell you what—I have some of Shep’s leftover enchiladas in the fridge. Do you want to pop those in the oven while I take a quick shower?”

  The struggle to keep my gaze from lingering too long on his toned calves was a real one. “Sounds yummy.”

  Davis jogged off down the hall, and I pressed the back of my hand to my cheek. Hot. If only I could blame that heat on the sunburn, too.

  After rummaging through his superbly compartmentalized fridge—taking note of how every label faced forward—I removed the foil-wrapped enchiladas and popped the pan into the oven. Running my fingertips along the granite island and peeking in the direction of the hallway, I took in the monochromatic scheme of the room once more. The man could use some pops of color in here.

  As yet another battle scene commenced in the next room, I exited the kitchen and headed for the glass patio doors on the other side of the dining area, stopping short at the sight of a potted bleeding heart sitting on the dining table. What was with him and these plants? Both yards were full of them. Were they purchases from his mother’s garden club business?

  The shocking shade of the blooms—an electric blue with rich fuchsia undertones—were decidedly the most vibrant colors I’d seen anywhere on Davis’s property. Delicately, I lifted one of the hanging blossoms and bent to inhale the sweet scent.

  My finger snagged on something sharp, and I peered into the green foliage. The corner of a small white card peeked out from in between the blossoms—a message staked into the soil by a clear plastic pick.

  I plucked it out.

  Davis—

  In memory of your anniversary.

  Thanks for loving our girl.

  xoxo

  Charles and Vivian Lockwood

  His . . . anniversary? I checked the time-stamp date. Sure enough, June 21. Today.

  I brought a shaky hand to my mouth.

  Was this why he’d taken the day off work to volunteer at the library? Had he wanted solitude and peace?

  I cringed at the flashes of what this day had provided him instead: Me pressuring him to perform onstage for a group of antsy children. Me teasing him about his vanilla-ice-cream cone on a park bench. Me showing up unannounced—hungry children in tow—to drop a load of my family burdens onto his shoulders.

  As if he didn’t have enough of his own to deal with.

  “Smells good in here.”

  At the sound of his voice, bold tears clouded my vision. And unlike in the driveway, when concern for my sister and Chris threatened to spill onto my cheeks, the tears that flowed now came from an entirely different place.

  I rotated from my spot near the dining table in time to see Davis enter the kitchen, check the contents in the oven, and swing open the fridge door. “Looks like we’re just about ready here. Thanks for getting the plates out. I think I have some salsa in here somewhere and . . .”

  He continued speaking about the different condiments in his fridge, but I’d stopped hearing. All the sounds in the house seemed to mute simultaneously as one simple word sliced through them all.

  A-n-n-i-v-e-r-s-a-r-y.

  Without thought or command, my feet carried me toward him, my emotions like the wind under a sail.

  He’d just bumped the refrigerator door closed with an elbow, one hand locked around a container of sour cream, the other around a jar of salsa, when I threw my arms around his middle and smashed my cheek to his shirtfront.

  He knocked back a step and then immediately reached around me to deposit the containers on the counter. Without a word, his arms encircled my back as if my unexplained meltdown was completely acceptable. Understandable, even.

  “You should have told me,” I rasped.

  “Told you what?” He smoothed the back of my hair.

  “About your anniversary. I never would have gone on and on about, well, everything when I’m sure all you wanted was a peaceful day. I . . . I can’t believe I ruined that for you, like, ten times over.”

  The shower-fresh scent of him overwhelmed my senses, and all at once, I felt an uncharacteristic urge to weep. It had been so long since I’d been held in such a solid embrace.

  His back stiffened momentarily, and I expected him to ask how I’d found out such a fact. But instead, he simply sighed and said, “You didn’t ruin anything.”

  “But I asked you to make barnyard noises.” My guilt-soaked words intensified as I continued, “And if that alone doesn’t make me the most insensitive friend on the planet, then showing up on your doorstep tonight and heaping my family drama on you certainly does.” Humiliation heated me from the inside out. “I’m so sorry, Davis.”

  “You don’t need to be sorry.” A sizzle of awareness tingled down my scalp as his breath kissed my neck. He was so . . . close.

  A thunderous crash followed by laser beams and cheering sounded behind me, giving me the wherewithal to step away from his comforting hold. I gestured toward the sound. “Of course I need to be sorry, a room full of kids cheering at galactic explosions certainly isn’t conducive to . . .” Grieving? Mourning? Reflecting? What was the right term? “Thinking.”

  He brushed my hair away from my cheek with a gentleness that no longer surprised me. “Trust me, Callie, I’ve done more than enough thinking over the years. And if you want to know the truth, you’ve been the best part of this day. By far.”

  I couldn’t look away from his brushed-charcoal eyes. “So you don’t want me to pack up the kids and go?”

  “No,” he said, moving in several inches closer. “What I really want is to have dinner with you on my patio.”

  I knew the right response to such an invitation, of course. The only logical reply was currently chiming a warning in my ear. Telling me not to enter these uncharted waters. Telling me it was time to leave. Davis needed a different kind of woman. Someone less like me and more like my older sister. Someone stable. Someone grounded. Someone who didn’t believe every relationship had a shelf life.

  I mean, really, what kind of woman agreed to a dinner date with a widower on his wedding anniversary?

  Me, that’s who. “You should know I’m always a fan of eating dinner outside.”

  “I thought so.” He smiled. “Although your cheeks look like you’ve fulfilled your recommended dose of vitamin D for the rest of the summer.”
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br />   That’s not just the sun.

  With a soft chuckle, he turned and pulled a steaming tray out from the oven.

  After setting up outside under the shade of a spectacular alder tree, we took our first few bites in contemplative silence.

  While Davis’s demeanor seemed unchanged, a confident calm I couldn’t help but envy, my thoughts continued to crash together, one after another. I suddenly had no idea how to start a conversation. Just the thought of cracking a smile on the day Davis married his late wife was . . . nauseating.

  The ting of his fork against the porcelain plate brought my gaze upward. “Okay, so, obviously this is going to be an issue.”

  “What is?” Admittedly, my acting skills could use some work tonight.

  He lifted an are-we-really-going-to-do-this eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure this is the first five minutes of silence I’ve ever experienced in your company. So”—he gestured to me—“ask away.”

  I wiped slick palms down the seams of my cropped pants. “I don’t want to pry.”

  He laughed—actually laughed—as if I’d just told the world’s most hysterical joke.

  “I’m serious,” I pressed.

  “And that’s exactly what makes it so hilarious—you can’t possibly believe you’re opposed to prying. Callie, if you were a tool, you’d be a crowbar.”

  “I do believe that’s the first tool I’ve ever been compared to.”

  “Good thing it’s one of my favorites.”

  I took a cool sip of water and mentally prepped my first question. “What was her name?”

  Thankfully, he didn’t flinch. “Stephanie.”

  “Stephanie Lockwood,” I said, testing it out. “That’s a nice name.”

  “Yes,” he said with a slight lift to his lips. My use of her last name was apparently a dead giveaway that I had indeed snuck a peek at the card in his anniversary plant. “But it’s good to know you don’t pry.”

  “Hey—it’s not like I went snooping around in your bedroom closet. The plant was just sitting there in the middle of your dining room table. Your front and back yards are lined with bleeding hearts, so how was I supposed to know this one held a private sympathy card in it?”

  Davis leaned back in his chair and assessed his landscaped backyard. “Yes, I do seem to have quite the collection going for me, don’t I? They—Stephanie’s parents—send me one multiple times a year, and my mom keeps finding new places to plant them.”

  “You don’t like getting them?”

  This answer seemed to take a while for him to formulate. “Stephanie was born with a rare congenital heart defect called TGA—transposition of the great arteries, and she knew from a young age that her heart would require lifelong attention. Surgeries, medications, and, of course, many restrictions as a child and adolescent. When I met her in college, her health was stable, though she was fairly limited when it came to physical activities. With that said, we knew her long-term prognosis. And we prepared ourselves the best we could. She died a few years after Brandon was born . . .” Davis’s gaze slid back to mine. “Vivian sends these plants all over the nation—to hospitals, specialized cardiology clinics, terminal heart patients, and to every fund-raiser she hosts in Stephanie’s honor.”

  “And to you as well,” I said sadly. “The symbol of a broken heart—both physically and emotionally.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  The weight of his response lay heavy on me. What kind of man married a woman with a terminal heart condition? Knowing the risk of death was likely? The answer formed quickly enough: a man like Davis Carter.

  “Weren’t you scared when she first told you?”

  “Yes. There’s only one other time in my life I can recall feeling so terrified.” He paused, and I wondered if he would share that with me, too, but instead he continued on. “But at some point I had to decide what I was more afraid of—living life without her, or facing death with her. There was no second-guessing once my decision was made.”

  Again, my nose tingled with ready emotion. Would I ever allow myself to experience that kind of love? “Wow. That’s really . . . extraordinary.”

  He gave a slight chuckle. “It didn’t feel extraordinary at the time.”

  Didn’t it? I wondered. How would it feel to love so deeply? To give myself to another person so willingly? I couldn’t even begin to imagine. “Well, take it from me, a love like that is beyond rare.”

  His inquiring stare burned through me, and I quickly hijacked the conversation, steering us back to the topic at hand. “So the Lockwoods—you’ve remained close to them?”

  His features hardened. “They are involved grandparents, yes.”

  I didn’t miss the tension that strained his tone.

  “I don’t have a lot of personal experience with in-law relationships outside of Chris . . . But I can imagine it’s a difficult balance to maintain.” Especially after Stephanie’s death.

  “That’s one way to put it.” He lifted his glass and upended it, drinking until the water was gone.

  His cheek muscles worked to smile as he set the glass down, but the result looked forced.

  I timed my next question on his long exhale. “So why the library today? Do you volunteer there every June 21st?”

  “I do.” The returning warmth of his voice relaxed me. “Stephanie loved the library. I used to tease that she’d research just about anything as long as it required a twenty-pound book.”

  There was something comforting in the way he spoke about her, an ease instead of the ache I expected. “What did she research?”

  His gaze trailed from my face into the yard. “Art history.”

  A jolt of surprise shot down my spine, but for the first time today, Davis avoided my conspicuous stare. It took all the self-control I could muster not to blurt out, Art history? No wonder your son has a passion for the creative life! Instead I said, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

  “She enjoyed it.”

  “What medium did she like best? Painting, sketching, modeling?” It seemed impossible that anyone could love art and not also enjoy the creation of it.

  “Actually, Stephanie only studied art, but Vivian—her mother—dabbled in painting before Stephanie was diagnosed. I think she always hoped to have an artist in the family.”

  “Pretty sure she got her wish.” His lack of response made me suspect that my assessment hadn’t hit him as intended. “You do realize that Brandon has natural artistic talent, right?”

  Discomfort shadowed his face. “My son has quite a few natural talents, and getting into trouble is near the top of that list right now.”

  I leaped over his sarcastic roadblock. “Davis, I’m serious. I’ve tutored technique to a lot of children over the years, worked in after-school programs and in one-on-one art lessons. But Brandon has something most kids and adults don’t when it comes to art—passion. Real passion. Not even the most gifted instructor can teach that.” I leaned forward and pressed my elbows to the table, ignoring the friction of fabric against my sunburned shoulders. “Art can be an amazing connecting point in relationships. Maybe it could even be the thing that fixes what’s broken between you two.”

  He shifted his gaze back to me as I silently pleaded for him to try.

  Let me help you.

  “I’ll think about it, Callie.”

  Only his words did not have an open-minded ring to them at all. He might as well have said, Your idea will never work. But I knew otherwise.

  I bit the insides of my cheeks as I stared at his striking profile, wanting nothing more than to poke at his stubborn resolve and list off every reason why he should give my advice the benefit of the doubt. I could tell him all the ways creativity promoted bonding and connection in relationships. How color could sooth. How art could heal. But not even the most passionate of believers could change an unwilling soul. Regretfully, I released a breath of unspoken thoughts and let the conversation die.

  Early shadows danced across the grass as another breeze pl
ayed a melody through the branches overhead. Skin prickling, I shivered.

  “Are you cold?” Disbelief tinged his voice as his gaze raked my upper body. “It has to be nearly eighty degrees out here.” Upon closer inspection, concern crimped his brow. “Oh.”

  He pushed away from the table and stood, closing the gap between our chairs. With a careful sweep of his hand, he brushed my hair away from my back. His fingers grazed my skin as he lowered the thin fabric of my wrap and revealed the light coral tank top underneath. The kiss of the summer air spread chill bumps along my shoulders and arms.

  “Your skin is burning up, Callie.” He pressed his hand to my hot flesh. “Isn’t this painful?”

  “My neck is a little uncomfortable, but I’m fine. Really.” It hadn’t been the smartest idea to wear my hair up while I explored the finer parts of Lenox all afternoon.

  He gripped my frosted glass of ice water and then pressed his fingers to the heat of my neck. Stunned by the contrast in temperature, I sucked in a breath.

  “That feel any better?” he asked.

  Forgetting to nod, I closed my eyes.

  “I should have some aloe in the medicine cabinet. I’ll grab it for you.”

  “Thanks,” said the husky-sounding woman who had borrowed my throat.

  The second Davis was through the sliding glass door and inside his house, I made my way to the window outside the living room. The kids were still snuggled in to their designated places, their eyes glued to the screen, their hands still in their respective snack bags. Rey had just defeated Kylo Ren.

  All too soon the credits would roll and reality would return.

  Reality. I made a point not to dwell on such things, but lately . . . lately everything felt muddled together. And whether I liked it or not, my current existence wasn’t nearly as simple as I wanted it to be. Whatever was going on at Clem’s house wasn’t going to be an easy fix. Nor was my ever-increasing attachment to a certain animal vet and his son.

  Davis stepped onto the patio and held up a bottle of green gel. “Found it.”

  Grateful, I wasted no time pumping the gel into my palm and slathering the cool antidote over my too-tight skin. “I’d forgotten just how sneaky the Pacific Northwest sun could be.”