“Um…seven. Ten after.” She couldn’t believe it. The sun had barely broken over the hills, and they’d already captured a criminal and saved a little girl.
“Call me later, okay?”
“You’re leaving?” Summer wasn’t sure her legs would hold her if she walked outside. “Don’t yet. Stay for a while, would you?”
“I’ll be back. Just tell me what happens,” Rachael said as she pulled open the front door.
“What are you talking about?” Then Summer saw him standing at the foot of the porch steps, and she knew. Unshaven, exhausted, with a bruise rising on his jaw, Damian Knight was still the most attractive man she had ever seen.
She took in a deep breath and moved down the stairs until she stood on the step above him. Here they met almost eye to eye. Electricity jumped between them. She lifted her chin. You saved me. You risked your life. He could have stayed far from the house or left her alone to deal with the problem. But he hadn’t. She wanted to embrace him, thank him, love him.
Blue eyes met hers and dropped away. “So you’re leaving?” He ran both hands through uncombed hair. He didn’t cross the space to touch her. Neither did he walk away.
Tension stretched between them, thin and taut, filled with everything that had happened the last time they’d been this close.
She couldn’t speak. Yes. She meant to leave. That was the plan, after all. Sell the house and return to her home out west. Yet somehow, after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, the plan seemed to have lost its appeal. In fact, it made no sense at all.
…studying the past doesn’t mean it defines the person you are forever, does it? It’s just who you were. Not who you are…
…it’s the stuff of history books and museum exhibits. It shouldn’t be the way we frame our lives. Learn from it, and then let it go. The present, and best of all, the future, well, that’s up to us…
They’re right, she thought suddenly. Once the past floated its way into memory, once people died, houses crumbled, kisses grew cold with a new dawn, no amount of wishing or years of study could bring it back. Or change it. It was what you did with the now that mattered.
“Were you going to say goodbye?”
Summer’s gaze moved to the mountains beyond his shoulder. “I didn’t see any reason to stay,” she whispered. “After what happened with T.J. and Dinah, and then I saw you with Joyce, and I thought…”
“You thought what?” Damian crossed his arms, and Summer thought the dimple on his left cheek popped.
“I just figured…”
He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her close. “Can I tell you something?”
She nodded.
His mouth twisted a little. “Joyce is a good person. She was there for me when I needed someone to talk to. She listened.” Damian took a deep breath. “But I’ve been waiting for you since before I knew you, Summer Thompson. Since the day you got into town. Since the moment you tripped down those back stairs. There hasn’t been anyone else in the world for me since that day. Whatever you saw with Joyce, whatever you thought…it means nothing.”
One rough thumb stroked her cheek, and a longing wider than the heavens swept between them and knotted up her insides. Sparklers went off inside her skull, inside every pore, and she wondered if he could feel it too.
“Damian…” Summer began, and then he was there, meeting her mouth with his. Sparks flowered, flooded, turned from pale yellow to brilliant orange and red until she saw a blazing rainbow of passion behind her eyelids. She clung to him and wound her fingers through his. She wanted to swallow him up so that her insides burned with sated desire. Tasting him, she drank in the sweetness and wanted it to go on forever.
In Damian’s touch she was safe. More than that, she was swept away, up toward the clouds and beyond, to a place she’d never imagined existed. His hands moved along her spine, down her arms, raising gooseflesh. When he finally leaned back from her to breathe, she didn’t want to let him go.
Damian’s breath was a rasp of emotion. “Stay here in Pine Point. Please. I can’t let you go. I won’t.” His voice was guttural; his eyes roved her face, searching for the answer he needed to find. “We all love you—Dinah, and Mom, and…and me too.” He smiled. “Summer Thompson, I think I’m crazy in love with you. So please. Stay.” The last words whispered away, and he crushed her lips with his again.
Summer wasn’t sure if the warmth she felt on her back was the sun rising above them or the blood spinning her head around. Damian parted her lips with a tongue that needed, wanted, poured out possibility. He caressed the nape of her neck and the small of her back.
The girl of eighteen she’d once been, scared of the universe, injured almost beyond repair, felt her heart move up to the top of her head until she thought she would explode with pleasure. Every reason she’d returned to Pine Point, every hope she’d nourished, lay here, in the arms of a man she’d just met and yet known forever. Revisiting the past didn’t mean going down old paths, then, but saying goodbye to them and forging new ones. Her mind swelled with the realization.
“Summer.” The word was a breath against her cheek.
Don’t stop kissing me, she wanted to say. Take me upstairs, climb with me to the roof, show me the stars or the sun or the way the wind moves through the grasses on the hill. I don’t care. Just be with me.
“What?” she said instead.
Damian didn’t answer. He just looked down at her with a kind, funny grin, and she saw in his expression the place where she wanted to stay, to make a life and grow a love. He met her mouth with his, touched tongue to tongue in a whisper of desire, and their embrace changed again, from a fire against the sky to a warm glow that bathed her in safety.
Her friends were right after all: she belonged in Pine Point with a man who loved her, a little girl she adored and a quiet woman who’d filled an ache in her life. She belonged in the place that had shaped her, and she belonged in a house where she could see and remember her brother as well.
There was just one thing left to do.
“Wait.” She dropped his hands and moved away.
He frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Summer shook her head as she darted back into her bedroom. He’ll understand. Emerging with the small silver box, she reached for his hand and led him to the oak tree out front. The sky opened above them, a wide plain of light. Summer’s hands shook as she opened the lid. Thanks for bringing me back to Pine Point, Dad. Her throat clogged with tears.
The morning breeze lifted her father’s ashes. They spun, then sank in a lazy circle and floated to the ground. With one arm around her waist, Damian brushed a kiss against her hair. He laid a hand on hers, and they closed the lid of the box together. For a moment, neither spoke.
Damian cleared his throat. “So does that mean you’re staying?”
She didn’t answer. She had no words left beyond the flood of emotion that filled her. Instead, she placed her lips against his jaw and let her head fall against his chest, strong, certain, safe, beneath her.
It is home, she thought in the seconds before Damian lifted her into his arms and carried her back inside.
I am home.
About the Author
Allie Boniface is a romance novelist and high school English teacher living with her husband in the northern New York City suburbs. She’s had a soft spot for love stories and happy endings since the time she could read, and she’s been caught scribbling story ideas on scrap paper (when she should have been paying attention to something else) too many times to count. When she’s not writing, shoveling snow, or grading papers, she’s traveling the United States and Europe in search of sunshine, back roads, and the perfect little pub.
Visit Allie’s website at www.allieboniface.com to sign up for her newsletter, where you’ll be the first to know about upcoming releases, giveaw
ay and contests, review opportunities, in-person appearances, and more!
Look for these titles by Allie Boniface
Now Available
One Night
One Night in Boston
One Night in Memphis
One Night in Napa
Coming Soon
Pine Point
Winter’s Wonder
Don’t miss the other titles in Allie Boniface Pine Point series!
When a bad boy falls for an angel, the sparks could set the coldest season on fire.
Pine Point, Book 2
Pine Point hasn’t changed much in the eight years Zane Andrews has been away. But Zane sure has. These days, this reformed bad boy has no problem resisting the bored housewives who flirt shamelessly with their gated community’s security guard.
The only thorn in his side is the stray dog that keeps overturning the neighborhood’s garbage cans, and the cute, crusading do-gooder who barks at him for trying to chase it off.
Becca Ericksen knows Zane is just doing his job, but his tactics are making her job—to rescue strays and bring them to Pine Point Paws—much harder. Clearly, they have nothing in common, yet when the legendary playboy asks her out, she finds herself saying yes.
With a sizzling kiss, something warm and unexpected begins to grow between them. Opposites can attract, but is attraction enough?
Warning: Contains a bad boy gone good, and a woman who’s one good deed away from disaster. Cold noses and warm kisses—and that’s just from the canines.
Enjoy the following excerpt from Winter’s Wonder:
At five o’clock, darkness had already descended, and the streetlights didn’t permeate the tightly packed pines. Probably lives back in there. Then he saw movement, a quick flash of brown beneath the green. His hand tightened on his pistol.
A moment later, a long, dirty snout emerged, followed by a painfully thin body and bright yellow eyes.
“Well, there you are, you scavenger.”
“Hey!”
The dog vanished into the trees. Zane whipped around.
A figure dressed in a red ski coat and jeans marched toward him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Her arms pumped, and her breath came out in long white ribbons. As she neared him, he could see a long blonde ponytail under a red wool cap and mismatched mittens on her hands—one blue and one black.
“I’m taking care of my property,” he retorted, royally pissed. He’d almost squeezed off a shot, she’d startled him so. “Who the hell are you?”
She walked straight to him, and only when she looked up and met his gaze did the iron in her stance falter. “Zane?”
He stared. She looked a little familiar, and under other circumstances she might be cute, but— “Sorry. Do I know you?”
“Becca Ericksen. As of last night, I’m the manager of Pine Point Paws.”
“The animal shelter?”
“Yes.” She glanced at the trees. “Someone called me about a homeless dog out here.”
He waved in the general direction he’d seen it disappear. “You didn’t need to come out. I can take care of it.”
She looked at his face, then the trees, then the gun in his hand. “Take care of it? You know shooting a domestic animal is—”
“Whoa.” He held up his palm. “Stop right there, sweetheart.”
Her face turned two shades of pink.
“I wasn’t going to shoot it.”
“You’re holding a gun.”
“It’s a pistol I carry for the security job. It’s registered to me and fully legal.”
“You know the law says you can’t discharge a firearm within five hundred yards of a residence.” She turned and pointed, as if he was a child. “Looks to me like that’s a residence.” She pointed in the opposite direction. “And that. And that over there too.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what the gun laws are.”
She dropped her arm. “Fine.” She walked closer to the trees. “Could you tell if it was hurt?” she asked over her shoulder.
Just what he needed. A bleeding-heart animal lover. He huffed out a breath and walked over to join her. “No. It didn’t look hurt. Just skinny.”
She nodded and rubbed her arms as if to warm herself. “I’ll bring one of the guys from the shelter out here tomorrow, see if we can catch it.”
Her nose had turned pink, but bright blue eyes blinked up at him. He had no idea what her figure looked like under all those clothes, but the parts he could make out looked pretty damn cute. “Will you need any help?” he asked before he could stop himself. Walk away. Last thing you need is a hard-on for the local crazy do-gooder.
“No,” she answered, taking care of his wishy-washy thoughts. “In fact, it might be better if you weren’t here at all.” And with that, Becca Ericksen turned on her heel and left, taking her perky butt and attitude with her.
Don’t miss these other titles by Allie Boniface
Can anything really change in 24 hours? Can everything?
A One Night Story
Journalist Grant Walker has one chance to salvage his job and his relationship with his domineering father. Terrorists have kidnapped a fading film star’s son, and Grant has scored the first interview with the grieving mother. Even better, a new twist has just arrived on the scene—an illegitimate granddaughter who hasn’t been heard from in seven long years.
It’s the story of a lifetime, and all Grant has to do is deliver.
After discovering a terrible secret about her birth, Kira March left home vowing never to return. With her father kidnapped and her grandmother cracking under media pressure, it’s up to her to find and destroy all evidence of that secret. Trouble is, a reporter has weaseled his way into the house looking for answers—and he isn’t leaving until he gets them.
Yet as the hours pass, Kira finds herself falling for the very man who could destroy her. And when Grant comforts her in the wake of a midnight tragedy, he remembers why it’s a bad idea to get emotionally involved with an interview subject. Especially when the family name is on the line.
Warning: This title contains a hunky hero who thinks he knows it all, an unconventional heroine who’s out to prove him wrong, a ticking clock, family secrets, and enough sexual tension to heat every corner of an enormous mansion…especially when the power goes out.
Can anything really change in twenty-four hours? Can everything?
A One Night Story
What if a woman, tired of bad choices and broken hearts, traveled a thousand miles to the heart of Memphis, Tennessee, and spent a night forgetting her past in the blues clubs of Beale Street? What if a man who lost his wife to cancer ventured to Beale Street’s social scene for the first time in over a year? And what if they met and realized love was still possible for them both?
Both Dakota James and Ethan Meriweather have given up on finding happiness in a relationship. When they meet in downtown Memphis, neither has romance on the brain. But as the evening unfolds, and small talk turns to the stuff of hopes, dreams, and shared loss, a kinship grows that neither expects.
Before the night is over, though, Dakota’s past will catch up with her in the form of a violent ex-boyfriend. As dawn approaches and tragedy threatens to tear Dakota and Ethan apart, both will have to make a snap decision that could change their lives—forever.
Warning: This title contains mild profanity.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Sa
mhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Summer’s Song
Copyright © 2009 by Allie Boniface
ISBN: 978-1-60504-693-8
Edited by Deborah Nemeth
Cover by Amanda Kelsey
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: November 2009
www.samhainpublishing.com
Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 Page 21
