Second Chance Summer

by Allie Boniface

  “Do you want me to come down there? Wait with you?”

  “No. Don’t bother.” She couldn’t keep her eyes from returning to the two hunks of metal sitting in the middle of the road.

  “Do you know who was driving?”

  “I don’t, no.”

  “Call me later when you get back to the motel, okay?”

  “I will.”

  As she hung up, a police car came screaming up the road from town. A rescue vehicle followed seconds later. Behind them, a smaller pickup truck with a blue flashing light pulled to a stop. Two men hopped out, and within a matter of minutes they had placed orange cones and lighted flares in a long, sweeping line.

  Medics clambered over the scene like ants, attending to the sedan and pulling open the pickup’s door. Summer leaned against the hood of her own car and licked her lips. After standing in the sun for nearly twenty minutes, her throat felt parched, and perspiration slid from her neck to the small of her back. One policeman took down plate numbers. The other walked over to her. She didn’t recognize him.

  “You the one that called this in?”

  She nodded. “I was following the red car. Actually, it pulled out in front of me. I didn’t see what happened. I didn’t even see the truck coming from the other direction.”

  The officer flipped open a notepad and began to write. Her name? Address? Details of what she’d witnessed? Summer answered his questions as best she could and tried to avert her eyes as the medics pulled the unconscious driver from the truck’s wreckage and loaded him into the waiting ambulance.

  “Are they going to be okay?”

  The officer glanced behind him. “Well, it’s a nasty accident. Looks like the truck driver took the steering wheel and the windshield pretty good with his face. Good thing you were following. They might have been out here for a while before anyone else came along.”

  Summer tried to nod. Right now she couldn’t feel glad about that. All she wanted was to go back to the motel and get on with the rest of her day. She didn’t have a strong stomach for blood. Or car accidents. “Do you need me for anything else?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think so. I have your phone number, anyway, just in case.” A yell from one of the other men interrupted him, and she turned away.

  Summer wiped sweaty palms on her shorts and reached for her car door. Then she stopped. The man, the one who had yelled, jogged over to where the policeman stood. Dressed in his standard-issue blue shirt and pants, he looked like one of the many volunteer firefighters and paramedics in town. Yet something about the way he crossed his arms and cocked his head made her squint. Then he opened his mouth and spoke.

  “It’s Lonnie Perkins in the car. I went to school with him. He’s banged up bad.”

  Lightning bolts jumped from the sky into Summer’s skin. For an instant, the sunlight bouncing off the pavement distorted her view, but it didn’t matter. The tugging in her heart knew, if her eyes weren’t certain. Gabe Roberts—her Gabe Roberts, dark-haired and square-jawed, the boy she’d fallen in love with a lifetime ago—stood mere yards away. The pavement tilted beneath her feet. Her throat closed.

  Then he glanced past the policeman’s shoulder and saw her. “Summer?”

  She couldn’t say a word. She hadn’t talked to him in ages, hadn’t heard what had happened to him in the years she’d been gone. Part of her was surprised he still lived here at all.

  “Hi, there.” Two words rolled off his tongue, and a decade unfolded in a heartbeat.

  “Hi.”

  He walked toward her with an uncertain smile, and for a minute she stood again in the yellow light of Lou’s Fifty Flavors ice cream stand as a teenage Gabe crossed the parking lot with his eyes on her. Hi, there. He’d said the same two words back then, and she hadn’t heard anything else the rest of the night.

  “Welcome home,” he added. Something dark moved across his face, a shadow of something she imagined he saw on hers as well. “Sorry it’s under such lousy circumstances.”

  Home. Is that where I am? Summer felt more like she’d tumbled down the rabbit hole, flown up to the moon, vanished into another dimension where everything was upside down and backwards. She wondered if she were hallucinating, or if the accident had thrown her into shock. After two or three years, she’d learned to put away the hurt of losing Gabe. And after two or three more, she’d forced herself to forget about him and move on. Only one scrapbook sat on a shelf back in her apartment, with pictures of their summer together and a few melancholy poems she’d scribbled when her father sent her away.

  “You okay? You look a little white.”

  “I’m fine.” Summer reached for the car to steady herself.

  Gabe nodded. “I know. Been working as an EMT for close to five years. It never gets any easier.”

  “You do this? All the time?” She stared at him. “How?” After everything they’d been through, how?

  He studied the man with the flares and didn’t answer. “I heard you were coming back.” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “Scared me to death, if you want to know the truth.”

  She could have asked why, but she already knew the answer. Seeing you again makes it real. Reminds me of what happened. Makes my heart ache all over again.

  “You look good,” he said after a minute. “Not so scary, after all.”

  She laughed and lifted a hand to her hair. Strands had fallen and stuck to her cheeks. “So do you.”

  He shrugged.

  “I sort of own a house here now,” she went on.

  “The McCready place.”

  “Heard that too?”

  “You know how people talk.” He paused. “How long are you staying?”

  “Only another few days. Long enough to list the place with Sadie Rogers. Then I’m heading back to San Francisco.”

  “Ah.”

  The rescue truck roared to life. A lanky arm waved from the driver’s side window, and the horn beeped.

  Gabe raised a hand in acknowledgement. “Guess I’d better go.”

  Summer nodded, not sure if relief or disappointment kept her from speaking.

  “Do you want to get together before you leave?” he asked. “Maybe have a drink or lunch or something?”

  Her chest tightened. Peel back the layers of ten years? Make conversation about the present while the past sat on the table between them and waited for attention? Her hazy flashbacks were one thing. Facing the one person who could bring them all to life was something else altogether.

  He spoke again before she could answer. “Never mind. Probably better we don’t. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do, anyway.”

  Summer nodded as he walked away and thought that was the smartest thing anyone had said to her in a long time.

  Chapter Twelve

  The following day, Dinah perched on the curb as Damian unloaded bags of supplies from the trunk of the car. She hopped from one foot to the other, across the sidewalk and back. “Can I help?”

  “Not with this, ladybug.” He juggled two bags of supplies and set them on the ground. Reaching inside the front door of the Camaro, he pulled out a smaller paper bag. “But you can carry lunch.”

  “Yum! What is it?”

  “Sandwiches from the deli. Turkey and tomato, your favorite.”

  Dinah grinned.

  “And salami with lots of peppers and onions for Mac,” he added.

  “’Bout time too,” a gruff voice called from the front lawn. “I’m starving.” Mac stuck his head through the hedgerow and winked at Dinah. “So you’re the one with the food, little lady?”

  She nodded, her face aglow. “Right here.”

  “You get pickles?”

  “And soda and chips.” Carrying the supplies, Damian followed his boss and Dinah around to the back porch.

  The three sat in their usual spots on the back steps. Mac dug into the bag and passed around cellophane-wrapped sandwiches, and Damian broke open the bottles of soda and handed Dinah a stack of napkins. Within a minute
, a moustache of mustard spread across her freckled face.

  “Is that mine?” He pretended to reach for the sandwich she held, but Dinah jumped to her feet and dashed down the steps and around the side of the house. At the corner she stopped, one eye on her brother, and ate the rest of her sandwich through giggles.

  “Man, she’s cute,” Mac said around a mouthful of pickle.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “How’s your mom doing?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “She working?”

  “Not right now.” Panic attacks combined with depression made it tough for Damian’s mom to keep a job. One fist tightened in his lap. Because of T.J. Because of a man they hadn’t seen in years who still had the power to haunt her.

  Mac stood, one hand massaging his left knee.

  “You all right?”

  “Yep. Just too many tackles in high school. Left me with no cartilage in either knee. Course, I didn’t care back then. Told coach to wrap me up, and I’d play ’til I couldn’t move.”

  “And now you really can’t.”

  Mac laughed. “Who thinks about that when you’re in high school?”

  Damian scanned the lawn. “Where’s Dinah?” He didn’t like it when she disappeared, even for a few minutes. Made him nervous to have her out of his sight. He supposed it wasn’t really fair to his sister, watching over her shoulder all the time, calling her back and interrupting her games of make-believe, but he couldn’t help it. He knew what T.J. was capable of.

  Mac hobbled down the steps and looked around. After a minute, he pointed to a grove of small pine trees. “Over there.”

  Damian shaded his eyes and saw her crouched down, talking to a chipmunk. He let out a tense breath. She’s so quiet. Too quiet. Sometimes he wished his little sister would run screaming in circles. Even on the soccer field, Dinah stood silent, apart from the others as she waited for the ball. She never slapped her teammates in high fives or cried out when she twisted an ankle. He supposed she’d learned the silence from their mother. He didn’t like the idea.

  “Hello?” The voice came from somewhere around the front of the house.

  Mac grinned. “Back here, Summer!”

  Damian ignored his buddy’s knowing glance and leaned against the railing as she approached. Part of him wanted to disappear inside the house. The other part wanted to pick up where they’d left off the other night, after the kiss and before the anger. He cleared his throat and ran one hand along the banister. She looked as good as he remembered. Better, even. One strap of a green tank top had slipped off her shoulder, and he stuck his hands in his back pockets to resist the urge to slide it up again. Or down.

  Summer fixed the strap herself as she juggled two white Styrofoam containers. “I brought some goodies.” She met his gaze. “Peace offering.”

  You can’t buy me off with brownies, he wanted to say, but the comment made him sound like a jerk even inside his own head. Get over it. Not her fault she’s gotta sell the place.

  Mac had crossed to her before the words were out of her mouth. “Lanie’s? All right.” He dug into one container and came out with an enormous chocolate chip cookie. “Thanks,” he mumbled. The crumbs fell from his mouth.

  She offered the other one to Damian, and when he took it, he let his fingers brush against hers. “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said under her breath, and Damian’s throat closed. She had bottomless eyes. Fifty different emotions shimmered under their surface, and for an instant he wanted to lose himself there, just plummet down into her invisible ocean and find a place to float.

  She stepped back after a long moment of silence. “Wow. It looks good. I didn’t get a chance to see the roof the other day.”

  “Sure you want to sell it?” He hated himself for asking, but he had to try. So much lay at stake if they had to pull up roots again. “You could subdivide it,” he went on before she could answer. “You talk to Sadie about that? Maybe we could work something out. I could buy the piece with the farmhouse on it, and you could put the rest on the market.” He’d stayed up thinking about it last night, trying to work out the finances in his head. It was the best solution so far.

  She looked away, across the tree line. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “It would take weeks to subdivide it. Months, maybe. I’d need an engineer. Someone to draw up new blueprints. Someone else to do an environmental study.”

  “So it’s not worth it.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I just don’t have that kind of time or money.” Her voice shook with emotion. “Believe it or not, I’m not doing this to try and ruin your family.”

  “You don’t know my family. Or anything about me.”

  Her eyes blazed. “Well, that goes both ways.”

  “I know that half the reason you’re running back to San Francisco so fast is because your father—”

  “Be very careful what you say next.” Her voice, low and threatening, seared him straight through the gut.

  He lifted both hands and backed away. “Fine. You have any paperwork for me, put it in the mail. Or give it to Mac.” He thought he saw tears rise in her eyes, but he turned away before he could see for sure. “I have work to do,” he added.

  She started to say something else, but he didn’t stick around to listen. Instead he headed for the nearest scaffolding. Hand over hand, he hauled himself twenty feet into the air. Without a look behind, he pounded nails into shingles until anger and fatigue drove thoughts of Summer Thompson, and that stupid green strap sliding down her shoulder, from his mind.

  SUMMER STOOD IN THE middle of the lawn, stunned. She’d brought them cookies. She’d apologized and tried to explain herself. And Damian had thrown her words back in her face and then ignored her. If he’d slapped her, it might have hurt less.

  Well, fine. I won’t bother talking to you again, that’s for sure. She dusted crumbs from her hands and turned to go. But then she saw a little girl sitting under the trees a few yards away. “Mac, who’s that?”

  The stocky man adjusted his tool belt. “Ah, that’s Damian’s little sister. Dinah. She hangs around here sometimes.”

  Dinah? Summer glanced up to where Damian worked above them. The one he’d mentioned the other day. The one she’d thought was his girlfriend, his fiancée even. Not his sister. Hmm. What else wasn’t he telling her?

  She walked over, watching Dinah sing and trace patterns in the grass. The girl’s hands moved in circles, fingers fluttering. In her lap lay a pile of daisies and dandelions. She seemed to be enjoying herself, but she didn’t smile. Rather, a serious look darkened her face, making the expression in her eyes appear much older than the nine or ten years old Summer guessed she probably was.

  “Hi, there.” Summer knelt beside her. “I’m Summer Thompson.”

  Dinah didn’t say anything for a minute. Her hands continued to orbit an imaginary sun above the grass, skimming the surface in rhythm to her humming. Finally she raised her head. “Hi.”

  “What are you playing?”

  “Just a game I made up.”

  “What’s it called?”

  The little girl exhaled at the question, and Summer recalled how she herself had been as a child, impatient of adults who tried to understand her language or pretend they remembered what it was like to be young.

  “It doesn’t have a name.”

  Summer leaned back on her heels. She’s carrying around the weight of the world. Why?

  As if she’d read Summer’s mind, Dinah looked at her and asked, “Are you going to make us leave our house? Damian said some lady was going to sell it and make us leave.”

  Guilt stabbed Summer in the chest. “Oh, sweetie. No, I’m not. Not if I can help it.” Terrific. Now she’d just lied to a little girl. But she hadn’t realized Damian lived there with his sister. Actually, she had no idea who Damian lived there with. She hadn’t thought much about it. She sat there for another minute without speaking. “Have you seen the
inside of this house? The one your brother is working on?”

  Dinah shook her head, but curiosity filled her wide brown eyes.

  “Would you like to?”

  “Okay.” Dinah scrambled to her feet.

  Summer watched the girl’s thin back and long legs move in silence as they walked back to the house. Something about the way Dinah carried herself, the shift of her shoulders and the jut of her chin, reminded her of Damian. No matter how many years separated them, the family resemblance ran strong. Without warning, an old, familiar ache pulsed inside Summer, the wish for a sibling still living. The wish for two parents or a close-knit family like the Hunters’. The simple, impossible wish to go back in time and rewind the events that had shattered her life. Oh, Donny. Summer’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Just a few days back in Whispering Pines had set those old bruises to hurting.

  A cell phone rang as she and Dinah neared the house. Summer checked her pocket, but she’d left her own in the car.

  Two stories up, Damian answered his. “Mom? What’s wrong?”

  The concern in his voice jerked her attention upward. He stuck his hammer in his tool belt and was on the ground in less than ten seconds. A combination of panic and anger contorted his expression. “Slow down. Dinah’s right here, with me. Of course I’m sure. I’m looking at her.” He wrapped an arm around his sister and drew her close.

  “Did you call the police? Well, call them right now. Did you lock the doors? Did you get a number off Caller ID? I’ll be right there.” He dropped the phone into his pocket. Without looking at Mac, he yelled up, “Gotta take Dinah home and check on my mom, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  From the balcony, Mac grunted assent.

  Damian pulled off his tool belt and ran a rag across his forehead.

  “Everything all right?” Summer asked, though clearly it wasn’t. So Damian’s mother lived in the rental house too? But that just raised more questions.

  Dinah’s lip trembled. “Is Mom okay?”

  Damian smiled, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. “She’s fine. She just got a phone call that made her nervous, so we’re going home to make sure she feels safe.” He took her by the hand and led her toward the path that wound around the property to the farmhouse. In less than a minute, they were gone.