Summer shaded her eyes. “Hey, Mac?”
“Yeah?”
“What was that all about?”
He leaned both arms on the balcony railing. “Not sure. Damian’s mom has an ex who’s bad news. I know they moved here to get away from him, but maybe he’s back in the picture. Damian worries about it a lot, the guy finding them and causing trouble.”
Summer’s shoulders sagged as her guilt deepened. “Really?”
Mac nodded. “He keeps telling his mom to get a restraining order, but I guess she hasn’t yet.”
She shivered. No wonder Dinah walked around scared of her shadow; no wonder Damian kept one eye on home. You can’t read this place. Closed doors hide so much.
She made her way back to her car, turning over possibilities inside her head. Maybe she could work something out with Sadie or an engineer after all. She couldn’t turn the Knights out of their house, not if some crazy ex-husband was stalking them. If they’d found safety here in Whispering Pines, why should she rip that away from them? She knew enough about ghosts to know they never stopped haunting you.
Summer stared at the mountains. Why couldn’t people’s lives here match the idyllic hills or the green lawns that formed such perfect patchworks when seen from the highway? Why did shadows have to carve things up into an ugly, fractured mosaic? Why did pain ride on the heels of happiness?
And why did she care so much about someone she’d met less than a week ago?
Chapter Thirteen
“Mom?” Damian rushed into the house.
“In here.” The voice came from her bedroom. He crossed the hall and pushed open the door.
Hannah sat on the bed facing him. Though white, her face remained composed, with her hands folded in her lap like small, fragile birds.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her gaze flickered toward Dinah, and she lowered her voice. “I called the police. They’re going to file a report.”
“Did they trace the number?”
“They said they couldn’t. It was a prepaid cell phone or something.” She sighed and turned away from him. “He called my cell phone, Damian, not the house. That’s a good thing. He doesn’t know where we are.”
But how long until he finds out? Damian’s hands tightened into fists. “What about a restraining order?”
“He isn’t here. He’s probably a thousand miles away, just making noise.”
“You don’t know that. He could be hiding out in the next town over.” Damian’s knuckles turned white as his anger grew. “File one anyway. Just in case.”
“I don’t want to turn it into something uglier than it already is. I don’t want Dinah thinking her father is a monster.”
Damian scowled. T.J. was a monster. It didn’t matter whether he’d fathered Dinah or not.
She leveled her gaze on him. “Let it be. Please.”
“Maybe we should at least get an alarm system or have the police drive by on a regular basis.” T.J. already had her cell number. A new address and a couple of deadbolts wouldn’t keep the guy away forever.
Hannah sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She leaned against the pillows. “I think I’ll lie down for a while.”
“I’m here if you need anything.” He pulled a blanket over her shoulders.
She murmured a response, already half-asleep. The veins in her eyelids pulsed as she headed toward dreams, and in a few seconds she breathed the silent, steady rhythm of someone far away, lost in slumber and glad to be there.
Damian eased the door shut. Dinah waited in the hallway. He ran a hand over her ponytail and felt his heart tremble. Why couldn’t they live a normal life in Whispering Pines like everyone else? Why did the past have to rear up in their faces? He squared his shoulders. No matter what, he’d protect Dinah and his mother. No matter what.
“Want something to drink?” he asked. He didn’t have to go back to the jobsite right away. Mac would understand.
Dinah stared at him with her lips pressed into a straight, silent line. “Okay.” Her quiet understanding broke his heart. They headed for the back porch and sat side-by-side, sipping glasses of iced tea and watching the light change.
“That lady at the house...” Dinah began.
“Summer Thompson.”
“I know her name,” Dinah said with impatience, and Damian forgot that she’d talked with Summer under the trees. “Is she going to make us leave?”
His chest tightened. “I don’t know. I hope not.” How he wished he could comfort her, tell her something else. His cell phone rang and he jumped. He checked the screen but didn’t recognize the number that came up. Call this number. I dare you. I’ll have you arrested within the hour. But it wasn’t T.J.
“Hi, Damian.” Joyce Hadley’s soprano tones bubbled across the line.
“Oh. Hey.” He studied the pattern of the sunlight on the floor.
“How’s Dinah? All ready for her big game this weekend?”
“Yeah, I guess. What’s up?” Maybe he owed money for Dinah’s uniform or was supposed to organize the parents’ carpool next week.
“Well...” She drew out the syllable in anticipation, as if she were about to announce the grand prize of a game show. “We’re having some people over for a party on the lake next weekend. Wondered if you could make it.”
This is a social call? Damian closed his eyes. No way. Not on your life.
“You can bring Dinah if you want,” she added.
He reconsidered for a half-second and then shook his head. Sweetening the deal by inviting his kid sister wasn’t enough to sway him. “Sorry. Mac and I have to work straight through the weekends. No time off during building season.” He tried to sound flip, as if he wasn’t turning down her so much as the notion of partying in general.
For a minute she didn’t say anything, and he wondered if the lie rang as hollow on her end of the line as it did on his. “Yeah, well, it’s okay. I know you’re busy. Let me know if you change your mind.”
Damian shoved his phone back into his pocket. Any guy in town would give fifty bucks to be in his place. Joyce Hadley had been after him for months. She was single. Good-looking. Obviously interested. Why didn’t he just go out with her?
He laced both hands behind his head and stared out the window as the answer came to him. Because I feel nothing when I look at her. He tried to picture himself kissing Joyce, winding her long hair around his fingers, breathing her in. It didn’t work. Instead he saw a painted pink mouth and painted pink nails, a tinny laugh and shallow eyes. As much as he sometimes hated himself for it, he’d never been able to date, or even take a woman to bed, just to scratch an itch. He needed more—a soul to burn for, someone to open up the darkest corners of his mind and heart and make him laugh from the inside out. He’d felt that way once, a long time ago. But something like that didn’t happen twice in a lifetime.
Did it?
Chapter Fourteen
“Gabe, you want lunch? I’m doing a deli run.” One of the part-time medics stuck his head into the break room of the Heartland Ambulance Corps.
Gabe glanced up from the reports on his desk. “Sure. I’ll take a foot-long Italian sub. Extra pickles on the side.” He fished out a ten and passed it to the newbie, who was stuck with lunch patrol this week.
“You got it.”
“Thanks.” Gabe scrawled a signature across the last report and slid them all into a folder. Quiet morning, which was good for the EMTs on duty, but not so good for the thoughts rattling around inside his head. He reached for the remote and flipped on the TV in the corner. At eleven in the morning, it looked like his choices were talk shows or cartoon reruns. Closing his eyes, he rolled his head from side to side. He tried to believe that seeing Summer Thompson yesterday didn’t have anything to do with last night’s lack of sleep or the tension now squeezing his neck in two. He wanted to call her. He didn’t want to call her. He had no idea what he’d say if he saw her again.
He changed the channel and watched
a weepy teenager tell the father of her baby she wanted him back.
The distraction didn’t work. All he saw was Summer’s face. That night. The accident, and everything that happened after. Does she know? He slid open a drawer in the desk he shared with two other guys. A small blue ball lay inside, and he pulled it out. Hand to hand, back and forth, he tossed it in higher and higher arcs.
“Gabe, I’ll need you to stand over here.” Chief Walters’ chin bobbed as he spoke. “Been drinking tonight, son?”
Gabe shook his head and chewed furiously on a stick of gum. “No, sir.”
“Mm hmm. Then you won’t mind blowing into this for me, will you?”
Gabe squeezed the ball between his fingers until he thought it might split in two. He’d done his time, come back home and tried to convince Whispering Pines he wasn’t a bad guy. Some people in town believed him. Some didn’t. Of course, no one knew what had really happened the night Donny Thompson died, and Gabe wasn’t sure it was his place to tell them. Summer had long since left town, and she was the only other person who might remember the details. Or she might not. He’d never asked her father. He hadn’t wanted to know.
Instead, Gabe had gone about his own business, become a paramedic and blended back into his hometown the best he could. The job came easy, and he liked it most days, which wasn’t really a surprise. Rescuing made sense to him. It always had.
His fingers drummed the desk. Today’s humidity had sunk into his knees, and they ached more than they had in a long time. Or maybe it wasn’t the humidity at all.
“Please read over this plea bargain, Mr. Roberts, and then sign at the bottom indicating your agreement...”
Summer was leaving Whispering Pines soon, that much he knew. Whether she’d agree to have coffee or a meal with him, he could only guess. He turned up the volume and threw the ball across the room, where it hit the wall just beside the TV. His headache grew.
The funeral. The sentencing. The nightmares. He glanced outside at the cars that drove down Main Street and the mothers who pushed their babies in strollers under the morning sun. He retrieved the ball, lay it back in the drawer and ran a hand over his forehead, slick with perspiration.
From what he’d heard around town, Ron Thompson had sent his daughter to Chicago one week after the accident without telling her anything except that he didn’t want her to come back to Whispering Pines. No chance to say goodbye to Donny. Or her friends. Or her high school boyfriend, who’d pushed the memory down so deep it had turned into a small, tight ball in a corner of his gut. He wouldn’t bring up details if they saw each other again, but if she asked? He wasn’t sure he could lie to her. Summer Thompson had always deserved the best Gabe could give her.
In this case, it would be the truth.
“OH, SUMMER, IT’S GORGEOUS.” Sadie Rogers stood in the middle of the kitchen and waved a pen. “You could get much more than you’re thinking of asking. With this square footage, all the acreage, and the rental property out back...” She trailed off and scribbled something on her legal pad. Dots of mascara had fallen onto her cheeks, and her blouse was damp at the collar. A good forty pounds heavier than back in high school, Sadie breathed heavily as she pushed curls off her forehead. A few gray hairs sprinkled her hairline.
Summer took a deep breath. “Speaking of the rental property, I wanted to ask you something.” This will change things. This decision will slow everything down. “I want to leave it as a contingency. I want the Knights to be able to stay after it’s sold.”
Sadie stopped writing and clicked her ballpoint pen with a look of consternation. “You’re sure? I think it will be harder to find a buyer that way.”
“But not impossible.”
“No. Of course not. It’ll just take the right person.”
Summer nodded. “That’s okay, then.” Wasn’t everyone looking for the right person to do something?
“Well, okay. If you’re absolutely sure.” Sadie stuck the notepad into her enormous purse. “I’ll have to draw up a new contract, but I’m booked the rest of the day, and I have two showings and a closing tomorrow.”
“It’s okay. I’m not in a rush.”
Sadie pulled out her phone and tapped the screen until her calendar appeared. “I can have it ready for you the day after tomorrow, how’s that? Is nine-thirty okay to meet at my office? The twins have swimming lessons at eight.”
“That’s fine.”
Sadie tapped a few keys and then put her phone away. “I thought you were in a rush to leave and get back to California.”
So did I. “I’ll change my flight if I have to stay to get everything situated. It’s not a big deal to stay a few more days.” Yeah, like that wasn’t the biggest lie she’d told herself all week. And like she wasn’t wondering about the look on Damian’s face when she told him the good news. Not at all.
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as Summer stepped inside Zeb’s Diner, Joe Bernstein waved from a corner booth. “There you are.”
“I’m sorry I’m late. I was meeting with Sadie.” She planted a kiss on his wrinkled cheek and slid into the opposite side of the booth.
“What can I get for ya?” Margaret, the middle-aged waitress who had worked at Zeb’s as long as Summer could remember, sidled up from behind the counter. A large wad of gum moved around her mouth, and she jotted down their order with a pencil she pulled from the bun atop her head.
“How’s work?” Summer asked after they placed their orders.
“Ah, the office is fine.”
“But?”
“But I’ve decided that this will be my last semester teaching at the college.”
“You’re kidding.” She rolled her straw wrapper into a tiny ball. “I thought you loved working there.”
“I do. But I’m getting old.”
“Please. You’re sixty-five. That’s barely retirement age these days.”
He smiled. “You didn’t let me finish. I meant, I’m getting old enough that I’d like to do other things with my life than convince young adults why they should care about ancient history.”
Summer flicked the paper ball with indignation. “Of course they should care! We can’t understand where we are, and who we are, unless we know where we’ve come from.”
He chuckled.
“Why are you laughing? It’s true.”
“Of course it’s true. I’m laughing because you sound like me thirty years ago, full of fire and ready to wrestle with anyone who couldn’t understand why studying the Civil War or the California Gold Rush was of any importance.”
“But you’re the reason I love it so much.” So many nights at the Thompson kitchen table, Joe had woven stories of long-gone civilizations, of wars fought for love and money and power, as Summer sat beside him and her father and listened with fascination. “You made it matter.”
“You flatter me. But I think it’s about time for me to move on. Besides, I can’t stay up past eight o’clock, and they always give me those god-awful night classes that go until ten. They’ll hire someone else, someone younger. It’s only one class a semester, anyway.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“Well, I’d like to think I’ll be tough to replace.”
Margaret delivered two cups of coffee, and Joe passed Summer the plastic box of sugar packets. “Still planning on leaving town soon?”
“Funny you ask. I just changed my flight this afternoon. Looks like I’ll be here a little longer.”
“Really? Why?”
“I decided to sell the house with a rental contingency, which will take a little longer to work out. I don’t want to evict the Knights.”
“That’s rather kind of you.”
“I’d like to think I’m a kind person once in a while.”
He took a long sip of coffee. “Ever think about keeping the place for yourself?”
One corner of her mouth twitched. You’re the second person to ask me that. “Not really. Why would I?”
“You
have friends here. A past. It’s the place where you grew up.”
She shook her head. “That—it’s all gone.” Her chest tightened. “My father told me never to come back. He made that clear the day I left.”
“He had a hard time dealing with your brother’s death.”
“And I didn’t?”
“He thought it would be better for you someplace else. Easier.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. I think he hated knowing I was alive and Donny wasn’t.” She pressed her fingertips to the table to draw strength from its smooth surface. “So why leave me a house here? I still don’t get it.”
“Maybe he was trying to make peace.”
She lifted a brow. “Without saying a word?”
“Your father wasn’t exactly the talkative type.”
“Tell me about it.” She looked outside. “Sometimes I wonder if he wanted to bring me back here and remind me what I did. Remind me that Donny died because of me.” Her eyes filled.
Joe set his mug on the table, hard enough that coffee sloshed over the side. “Your brother’s death was not your fault.”
Summer grabbed a napkin and blew her nose. “You don’t know that for sure.” No one did, except Gabe Roberts. No one else could bring back the memories that her own brain had buried. A stone of grief and regret and something else she couldn’t name pressed down on her chest.
“What’s this really about? Your brother? The house? Or something else?”
Joe’s voice sounded far away and Summer fought against the dots that swirled at the edges of her peripheral vision. “I can’t remember,” she whispered.
His face, at the end of a long tunnel, leaned closer. “Remember what?”
“Summer, look at me. If anyone asks, this is what you have to say...”
Second Chance Summer Page 8
