by Liz Talley
So Summer sang the second verse and the chorus, thrilling at the beauty of the lyrics. Snow making the world dreamy, frosting the ugly, with miles stretched out like a ribbon. It reminded her of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that,” Rhett said, his eyes lighting up. “You sing good. Wow, Summer.”
She set the guitar down. “Well, you’ve seen that I’m okay. I have some stuff to do, so I will see you around.”
“Summer?” His brow furrowed, the smile falling away. “Something’s wrong.”
“Nope. Just tired.”
“You have some time free this week for calculus?” He stood and looked uncomfortable. She’d never seen Rhett Bryan look uncomfortable. He usually fit his surroundings like an old pair of Levi’s.
“Actually, I don’t. You can use those practice sheets I gave you. Keep going over those. You’ll be okay.”
Eyes the color of wildflower and poetry searched hers. She could feel the hurt in him, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself from being a total bitch. Okay, not a bitch, but a bit cold. She wanted to yell at him this was how girls were when they have goodness stolen from them. Melodramatic, sure, but she felt every inch of the drama at that moment.
The moment between them rose up and shimmered, like water vapor on hot asphalt. Then it broke apart.
Rhett nodded. “Yeah. That’s cool. I think I’m good anyway. Well, I’ll be seeing you, Summer. Have a good one.”
Then he walked off her porch, leaving her feeling like a shit.
But she didn’t call him back and apologize for her actions or words. Because she couldn’t. At that moment, she realized she’d been changed, and the Summer who’d walked in sunshine now lived in grayness. She hadn’t chosen for it to happen, but just like weather that rolls in and obscures the sun, she could do nothing about it. So she sat on the porch and plucked a few more strings, the sweetness of the vibration the only balm for her that day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
November, present day
When Sunday morning came, Summer felt like she’d been ridden hard and put up wet. She’d had zero sleep while David was under observation in the hospital, and then once they’d been released, she’d spent the afternoon getting him home—including a stop by CVS for hydration beverages and Tylenol—and fixing a leak under the kitchen sink. Thank God for YouTube and handymen who liked to film themselves. David had spent all day in bed, but she couldn’t seem to rest. Her mind kept rolling over the mistakes she’d made as a mother and stutter-stepping when she recalled the confrontation with Hunt in the ER.
Hunt had texted her to check on David, but that was it. No calls or follow-ups.
Something about the way he’d retreated from them worried her. Over the past few years, Hunt had been diligent in pursuing fatherhood. His attempts had been almost endearing, and she could tell he’d been reading parenting books by the way he asked questions or made subtle suggestions. He’d never stepped on her toes, always deferring to her decisions, until he’d pressed for David to attend this party. Pair that decision with the horrible scene between them, and Summer was afraid Hunter would head for the hills.
And while she didn’t mind seeing less of Hunt, it would be a tragedy for David, who’d grown to count on his father . . . perhaps even love him.
The doorbell rang just as she put the last glass in the drying rack. Summer glanced at the clock on the microwave and realized she’d forgotten to check her son’s progress getting ready for church.
“Yoo-hoo, Summer?” Maisie poked her head inside.
“Hey, come on in,” Summer said, grabbing a towel and drying her hands.
“Dave ready?” Maisie asked, closing the door behind her. Her sister wore a black sweater and gray wool skirt that hit the top of soft leather black boots. The only concession to the somber outfit was a red-and-black checked scarf. Her sister had taken to wearing dark colors the day her ass of an ex moved out of their four-bedroom house.
“Honey, Maisie’s here to take you to church,” Summer called toward the small hallway.
No answer.
“He’ll be out. Probably sulking. He doesn’t want to go. Guilt and all that,” Summer said, setting her hands on the counter.
“I understand,” Maisie said, glancing down at her watch. Her sister was a stickler for being on time. “In fact, you should understand.”
The words were true, but they didn’t sting any less.
“Yeah, I do,” Summer said, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. “But the guilty should be welcome at church, right? The people there are supposed to love and forgive, aren’t they?”
Not that the congregation had been willing to forgive an unwed teenager who had tried to trick the hometown hero. Summer didn’t have a problem with God. She had a problem with hypocrisy.
“I wasn’t being ugly,” Maisie said, looking contrite. “I just remember that time and how hard it was for you. For all of us.”
Of course her sister was right. Summer understood why her parents had bowed to pressure. It hadn’t been just about Summer. There was Maisie . . . and their family’s livelihood.
Summer remembered the night she’d told her parents about being pregnant. She’d finally summoned up the courage a week after she’d taken the home pregnancy test. The initial explanation of what had happened at the beach house hadn’t gone well. When she’d gotten to the part about Hunt ignoring her pleas and forcing himself on her, her father had threatened to kill Hunt.
He’d actually walked to the gun cabinet, his jaw set into stone, his kindly brown eyes turning into rusty bullets, and removed his shotgun. “I hope I have enough rounds for that little bastard.”
Summer’s mother smacked her hands on the laminate table. “Put that goddamned gun down, Jeremy. Enough violence has been done. We’re going to go to the police and tell them what happened.”
Her father had snorted. “Yeah, because the kid’s going to admit to what he did. Not likely. But he’ll talk to the end of this gun.”
“Jer, put the gun up. You know good and well that’s not going to happen. We’re going to figure out what to do and how to make this kid pay for hurting Summer. Put it back.”
“Mama?” Maisie asked from the couch.
“Oh my God. How long has she been there?” Carolyn asked, rising from the table. Summer sat there studying the lines in her palms. She felt sick to her stomach all over again.
“What happened to Summer?” Maisie asked, sniffling through tears. “That boy hurt her?”
“Come to the back, sweetheart. Your daddy and I have some things to talk about with Summer. Go play with your dolls, okay?”
Summer’s father had set the gun back in the cabinet and sunk defeated to the chair. Over the next half hour, her parents debated what to do, and when they finished, it was decided the first thing was to talk to the McCroys.
But a few weeks later when Summer came home for fall break, her parents had changed their tune.
Their about-face had surprised her . . . or maybe, rather, it insulted her. She’d come in the door and her parents had sat her down, suggesting she think things through before doing something that might be a mistake. Even though Summer was only eighteen, she understood the game afoot.
“I’m not lying,” she’d said to her father.
“I know, baby, but there’s no physical evidence. You didn’t tell us until now. It’s your word against his word. You even admitted that you kissed him in front of others and willingly went upstairs with him. That looks bad, baby.”
“So you’re going to tell the McCroys I was mistaken?”
Her father flinched. “I don’t want to, baby, but I have to. Brother Clark was nice enough to mediate this for us. The McCroys are going to pay for the baby, child support, all that. And once we do the paternity test, they’ll pay for your school.”
“We’re selling out.” Summer shook her head, incredulous her father had bowed to this asinine agreemen
t. Hunt would be off the hook for violating her, and she’d look like the town whore. “But he forced me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does, Sum,” her father said, sinking down on the couch beside her. “If this world were fair, then justice would be carried out. But it’s not. If we go to the police and pursue this, you’ll be dragged through more than what you would . . . well, just having the baby and letting people think whatever they want to think. If we accuse Hunt of rape, our whole family will suffer the consequences. We already have.”
“But you said Mom got laid off,” Summer said, her voice not even convincing. She knew Hunt’s mother was Millie King’s best friend. Her mother had worked for the King family for years. When it came down to it, loyalty had meant squat to the Kings.
Her father gave her a flat look. “Even so, the police and lawyers will examine everything we’ve ever said or done. They’ll pry into your life, make you sound desperate and manipulative, and it will go on for years, baby.”
Summer swallowed hard at the thought.
“But if you agree to not use the word rape, you’ll escape all gossip and endless investigation.”
“You mean you will.”
“I mean us. We’re a family. What happened that night affects all of us. Maisie didn’t get invited to Juliet Markham’s birthday party. Your mother got fired. Brother Clark asked me to step away from being a deacon until things blow over. This isn’t about just you.”
Summer had felt like she’d stepped off a curb and gotten slammed by a Mack truck. All she thought she was—a good girl with a bright future—had slipped through her fingers. Her virtue wasn’t worth her family suffering. “You’re saying I should . . . what? Say I willingly had sex with Hunt? That I was some desperate dork craving his body so much I duped him into going upstairs and planting his baby inside me? Because I’m soooo desperate to have a baby at eighteen? Or am I just so money-hungry that I threw my ovulating uterus at him so I could score some cash? That’s what you’re saying?” Her voice rose to the point of hysteria.
Her father passed a hand over his face. At that moment he looked as if he’d aged a century. “Summer, I’m asking you to be practical. You won’t win. You can’t. So take the money. Take what you can get because if we go to the police station and press charges against the hometown baseball hero, you’ll regret it. Accusing Hunt of rape won’t change anything.”
Except maybe it would have. Summer may not have succeeded in making Hunt pay for the rape, but she would have at least known that she had value. That her parents recognized that what had happened to her that night was wrong and should be righted.
But then her father said the one thing that made her grow still.
“And what about the baby? Does he or she deserve to come into the world with that stigma?”
At that moment, she’d not actually thought about the child. But he or she wouldn’t have to know. Her parents had been urging her to consider adoption. Money was an issue for the Valentine family, especially after her mother lost her job. How would Summer support a baby . . . and did she even want to? Adoption meant she could take a hardship with the University of South Carolina and maintain her scholarship. She wouldn’t need the McCroys’ hush money, and people who adopted babies often paid the medical expenses. Giving the baby up would be the best solution.
Her father had patted her knee and given her a painful smile. “Just think about this, Summer. Pray on it.”
Summer nodded, but she didn’t pray about it. She was too damned mad at God. At everything to be humble, mindful, or contrite.
And after the first time she felt David move inside her, she’d wavered on adoption. And then one night while feeling the baby move, she’d had a realization. The only way she could make sure that her child didn’t have to go through what she’d gone through was if she kept the baby. He would never be alone, never feel abandoned. She’d spend every waking moment of her life righting the wrong done to the innocent babe. That would be her mission.
And now, looking at her grown sister, a woman who’d been hurt by a man who’d vowed in front of God and family to love and honor her until death they do part, Summer knew she couldn’t protect David any more than she could protect her baby sister. “You’re right. It was hard on all of us.”
David entered the room wearing pants too short and unable to tame the cowlick on his crown. Summer’s heart squeezed when she noted how fast he was growing into a man. “What was hard on everyone? What I did?”
“Yep,” Summer said, shooting a look at her sister. “But we’ll hold our heads up somehow.”
“Don’t joke, Mom,” David said, looking upset. “You know how sorry I am. And I’ll never drink again. I swear. Never. Ever.”
“Mark this down,” Summer said to her sister.
Maisie smiled. “You ready, D?”
“Yes, ma’am,” David said, turning to the slender bookshelf next to the mounted television and pulling out the Bible his grandfather had given him right before he’d passed away.
“We’re eating at Mom’s after church. You coming?” Maisie asked, opening the front door. A cool breeze pushed a few leaves inside.
“If I wake up in time,” Summer said, eyeing a stack of mail she needed to sift through. “I’m going back to bed once y’all leave. I’m beat.”
David shot her another apologetic look. The kid was getting good at the “I’m so worthless” shtick. Summer was almost ready to stop being disappointed in him. Kids made mistakes, right? At least David had learned early on the dangers of peer pressure. And other than a brutal copay for the emergency room visit, no permanent harm had been done.
Thankfully.
Summer turned off the lights, shrugged out of her jammies, and filled the bathtub, adding some rose petals and Epsom salts. She had a new romance book and a hot cup of herbal tea calling her name. She’d just dipped one foot into the fragrant waters when someone knocked at the door.
“Damn it,” Summer muttered, trying not to be aggravated. David had probably forgotten his cell phone or something. She shrugged into her bathrobe, jerked the belt tight at her waist, and padded to the front door.
“Hey,” Rhett said when she pulled open the door. He stood framed by the bright autumn morning, dressed in worn jeans, a T-shirt from some surfer bar, and flip-flops. Total Californian.
“Hey,” Summer said, suddenly very aware she was naked beneath the robe and that her hair was snarled in a clip atop her head. Oh, and, of course, she wore not a drop of makeup. “I was just about to take a bath.”
“Yeah?” he asked, his gaze dipping to the skin showing at the closure of the robe. She could feel a rivulet of water run down her leg. “I saw David get into someone’s car.”
“My sister. She’s taking him to church.”
An awkward pause hung between them. Summer didn’t know what she should do. She had a tub full of fragrant water and a morning to herself, but she wasn’t going to send Rhett Bryan packing. Not when he made her palms sweat and her heart beat triple time. The silly torch she’d always carried for him had found an accelerant over the past week. She’d like to chalk up the insane desire to slide her robe from her shoulders to all the memories dredged up, or maybe it was merely the fact she’d gone too long without sex. Either way Summer felt torqued and primed to toss reservation out the window.
“Uh, you want to come in? I have fresh coffee,” she said finally.
He studied her for a minute. “I thought you were about to take a bath.”
“I am. Or I was.” She cast a glance back to her bathroom door. The water was still running. “But I don’t want to be rude.”
“Why not?” he asked with a grin, stepping toward her. “I’m butting in on your morning. I’m interrupting your bath. You can tell me to take a hike.”
“Take a hike,” she said.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and turned.
“Wait,” she said.
Rhett turned, archin
g an eyebrow, looking so achingly familiar. “Yeah?”
“Why did you knock on my door?” Something that felt like hope fluttered in her gut. What did she want him to say? How far was she ready to go with him?
“I wanted to see you. Why did you invite me in for coffee when it’s obvious I inconvenienced you?”
Good question. “Because.”
“You’re polite?”
“I wanted to see you, too,” she said.
Rhett smiled. “In that case, I’ll have a cup of coffee.”
Summer stepped back and gestured with her hand like a flight attendant ushering someone aboard. “Come on in.”
After she’d shut the door, she stood a moment trying to figure out what to do. Should she excuse herself to pull on clothes? Plop on the couch butt naked beneath her terry cloth robe? Ask him if he wanted to join her in the bathtub? Of course, they both wouldn’t fit, and though the image of Rhett Bryan naked, slippery, and smelling like roses was so tempting it made her mouth dry, she’d told herself she wouldn’t go there with him. Her heart couldn’t handle the trampling.
Her sister’s earlier words echoed in her brain. If you have the chance . . .
But what if s-e-x wasn’t on Rhett’s mind? The kiss a few nights before had been incredible, passion had stirred beneath the sweetness, but she made a broad assumption if she thought Rhett wanted to—
His arms came around her and he pulled her to him, dropping a kiss on her nose.
“Oh,” she murmured, glancing up at him. “I’m naked under this robe.”
A naughty grin tugged at his lips. “Oh yeah?”
She studied his beautiful lips. How many times had she done that over her lifetime? Dozens? Hundreds? Even when she watched him on the flat screen chatting with some celebrity promoting a movie, she’d hungered for those lips. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
“But intriguing,” he said, sliding a hand down to her butt before giving it a pat.
For a few seconds their gazes hung up, their measured breaths quickened. She was keenly aware of his body hard against hers. Rhett was warm like sunshine and smelled like California—all fresh yet unfamiliar.
