The Summer They Never Forgot

by Kandy Shepherd

  ‘You’ll be my guest at the hotel. I’ll organise a room for you as soon as I get back.’

  She put up her hand. ‘But that won’t be necessary. I—’

  He cut short her protest. ‘No buts. You’re helping my family. You don’t pay for accommodation. You’ll go in a penthouse suite.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m happy to pay, but if you insist—’

  ‘I insist.’ He realised, with some relief, that the rain had stopped pelting on the roof. ‘The weather has let up. We’ll get you checked in now.’

  The twist to her mouth conceded defeat, although he suspected the argument was far from over. Like Idy, she was fiercely independent. Back then she’d always insisted on paying her way on their dates. Even if she only matched him ice cream for ice cream or soft drink for soft drink.

  ‘Okay. Thanks. I’ll just grab my handbag and—’ She felt around on the counter, looked around her in panic. ‘My bag!’

  ‘It’s at Reception. Kate picked it up.’

  Kate, her eyes wide with interest and speculation, had whispered to him as they were helping Ida into the ambulance. She said Sandy had been in such a hurry to follow him out of the restaurant and onto the sand she’d left her bag behind.

  Kate obviously saw that as significant. He wondered how many people now knew his old girlfriend was back in town.

  The phone calls would start soon. His mother first up. She’d liked Sandy. She’d never pried into his and his brother Jesse’s teenage love lives. But she’d be itching to know why Sandy was back in town.

  And he’d wager that Sandy would have a stream of customers visiting Bay Books. Customers whose interest was anything but literary.

  Sandy went to move from behind the counter.

  ‘Sandy, before you go, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.’

  She frowned. ‘Yes?’

  He’d been unforgivably ill-mannered not to shake her hand just to avoid physical contact. So what inexplicable force made him now lean towards her and lightly brush his thumb over her mouth where it was stained that impossibly bright pink? He could easily tell her what he had to without touching her.

  His pulse accelerated a gear at the soft, yielding feel of her lips, the warm female scent of her. She quivered in awareness of his touch, then stood very still, her cheeks flushed and her eyes wide.

  He didn’t want her around. Didn’t want her warmth, her laughter, falling on his heart like drops of water on a spiky-leaved plant so parched it was in danger of dying. A plant that needed the sun, the life-giving rain, but felt safe and comfortable existing in the shadows, living a half-life that until now had seemed enough.

  ‘Sandy....’ There was so much more he wanted to say. But couldn’t.

  She looked mutely back at him.

  He drew a deep, ragged breath. Cleared his throat. Forced his voice into its usual tone, aware that it came out gruffer but unable to do anything about it.

  ‘I don’t know if this is the latest city girl look, but your mouth...it’s kinda pink in the middle. You might want to fix it.’

  She froze, then her hand shot to her mouth. ‘What do you mean? I don’t use pink lipstick.’

  Without saying a word he walked around to her side of the counter and pulled out a drawer. He handed her the mirror his aunt always kept there.

  Sandy looked at her image. She stared. She shrieked. ‘That’s the ink from my niece Amy’s feather pen!’

  It was difficult not to grin at her reaction.

  Then she glared at him, her eyes sparking, though she looked about as ferocious as one of the stray puppies his mother fostered. ‘You! You let me go around all this time looking like this? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He shrugged, finding it hard not show his amusement at her outraged expression. ‘How was I to know it wasn’t some fashion thing? I’ve seen girls wearing black nail polish that looks like bruises.’

  ‘But this...’ She wiped her hand ineffectively across her mouth. ‘This! I look like a circus clown.’

  He shrugged. ‘I think it’s kinda cute. In a...circusy kind of way.’

  ‘You!’ She scrutinised her image and scrubbed hard at her mouth.

  Now her lips looked all pouty and swollen, like they’d used to after their marathon teen making out sessions. He had to look away. To force himself not to remember.

  She glared again. ‘Don’t you ever, ever let me go out in public again looking weird, okay?’

  ‘I said cute, not weird. But okay.’ He couldn’t help his mouth from lifting into a grin.

  Her eyes narrowed into accusing slits. ‘Are you laughing at me, Ben Morgan?’

  ‘Never,’ he said, totally negating his words by laughing.

  She tried, but she couldn’t sustain the glare. Her mouth quirked into a grin that spilled into laughter chiming alongside his.

  After all the angst of the morning it felt good to laugh. Again he felt something shifting and stirring deep inside the seized and rusted engine of his emotions. He didn’t want it to fire into life again. That way led to pain and anguish. But already Sandy’s laughter, her scent, her unexpected presence again in his life, was like the slow drip-drip-drip of some powerful repair oil.

  ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘While the rain’s stopped let’s get you checked into the hotel. Then I have to get back to work.’

  As he pulled the door of Bay Books closed behind him he found himself pursing his mouth to whistle. A few broken bars of sound escaped before he clamped down on them. He glanced to see if Sandy had noticed, but her eyes were focused on the street ahead.

  He hadn’t whistled for years.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SANDY SAT IN her guest room at Hotel Hideous, planning a new list. She shivered and hugged her arms to herself. The room was air conditioned to the hilt. There was no stinting on luxury in the modern, tasteful furnishings. She loved the dolphin motif that was woven into the bedcover and decorative pillows, and repeated discreetly on the borders of the curtains. And the view across the old harbour and the bay was beyond magnificent.

  But it wasn’t a patch on the charm of the old guesthouse. Who could have believed the lovely building would come to such a tragic end? She shuddered at the thought of what Ben had endured. Was she foolish to imagine that he could ever get over his terrible losses? Ever be able to let himself love again?

  She forced herself to concentrate as she turned a new page of her fairy notebook. The pretty pink pen had been relegated to the depths of her handbag. She didn’t have the heart to throw Amy’s gift in the bin, even though she could never use it again.

  She still burned at the thought of not just Ben but Kate, Ida and who-knew-who-else seeing her with the hot pink stain on her mouth. It was hardly the sophisticated image she’d thought she was putting across. Thankfully, several minutes of scrubbing with a toothbrush had eliminated the stain.

  But maybe the ink stain had, in a roundabout way, served a purpose. Thoughtfully, she stroked her lip with her finger, where Ben’s thumb had been. After all, hadn’t the stain induced Ben to break out of his self-imposed cage and actually touch her?

  She took a pen stamped with the Hotel Harbourside logo—which, of course, incorporated a dolphin—from the desk in front of her and started to write—this time in regulation blue ink.

  1. Reschedule birthday celebrations.

  No.

  Postpone indefinitely.

  Was turning thirty, with her life such a mess, actually cause for celebration anyway? Maybe it was best left unmarked. She could hope for better next year.

  2. Congratulate self for not thinking once about The Wedding.

  She scored through the T and the W to make them lower case. It was her friends who had dramatised the occasion with capital letters. Her so-called friends who’d gone over to the dark side and accepted their invitations.

  She could thank Ben’s aunt Ida for pushing all thoughts of That-Jerk-Jason and his lucrative trip down the aisle out of her mind.


  Or—and she must be honest—was it really Ida who’d distracted her?

  She realised she was gnawing the top of the pen.

  3. Quit chewing on pens for once and for all. Especially pens that belong to first love.

  First love now determined not even to be friends.

  Which brought her to the real issue.

  4. Forget Ben Morgan.

  She stabbed it into the paper.

  Forget the shivery delight that had coursed through her when his finger had traced the outline of her mouth. Forget how he’d looked when he had laughed—laughed at her crazy pink ink stain—forget the light in his eyes, the warmth of his smile. Forget the stupid, illogical hope that sprang into her heart when they joked together like in old times.

  She slammed the notebook shut, sending glitter shimmering over the desk. Opened it again. She underscored the last words.

  Then got on to the next item.

  5. Visit Ida and get info on running bookshop.

  She had to open Bay Books tomorrow and she didn’t have a clue what she should be doing. This was scary stuff.

  She leaned back in her chair to think about the questions she should ask the older lady when the buzzer to her room sounded.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out, slamming her notebook shut again in a flurry of glitter.

  ‘Ben.’

  In spite of her resolutions her heart leaped at the sound of his voice. ‘Just give me a second,’ she called.

  Her hands flew to her face, then smoothed her still-damp-from-the-shower hair. She tightened the belt on the white towelling hotel bathrobe. She ran her tongue around suddenly dry lips before she fumbled with the latch and opened the door.

  Ben filled the doorway with his broad shoulders and impressive height. Her heart tripped into double time at the sight of him. He had changed into jeans and a blue striped shirt that brought out the colour of his eyes. Could any man be more handsome?

  She stuttered out a greeting, noticed he held a large brown paper grocery bag in one hand.

  He thrust the bag at her. ‘For you. I’m not good at gift wrapping.’

  She looked from the bag up to him. ‘Gift wrapping?’

  ‘I feel bad your birthday turned out like this.’

  ‘This is a birthday gift?’

  He shrugged. ‘A token.’

  She flushed, pleased beyond measure at his thoughtfulness. ‘I like surprises. Thank you.’

  Not sure what to expect, she delved into the bag. It was jam-packed with Snickers bars. ‘Ohmigod!’ she exclaimed in delighted disbelief.

  He shifted from foot to foot. ‘You used to like them.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I still do. They’re my favourite.’

  She didn’t have the heart to add that when she was eighteen she’d been able to devour the chocolate bars by the dozen without gaining weight, but that at thirty they were an occasional indulgence.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t have given me anything I’d like more.’

  She wasn’t lying.

  Ben’s thoughtfully chosen gift in a brown paper bag was way more valuable than any of the impersonal ‘must-have’ trinkets Jason had used to choose and have gift wrapped by the shop. Her last present from him had been an accessory for her electronic tablet that he had used more than she ever had.

  Her heart swelled with affection for Ben. For wounded, difficult, vulnerable Ben.

  She looked up at him, aching to throw her arms around him and kiss him. Kiss him for remembering her sweet tooth. Kiss him for the simple honesty of his brown-bagged gift. Kiss him for showing her that, deep down somewhere beneath his scars and defences, her Sir Galahad on a surfboard was still there.

  But she felt too wary to do so. She wasn’t sure she could handle any more rejection in one day. His words echoed in her head and in her heart: ‘I don’t want you in Dolphin Bay.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again, feeling the words were totally inadequate to express her pleasure at his gesture.

  He looked pleased with himself in a very male, tell-me-again-how-clever-I-was way she found endearing.

  ‘I bought all the shop had—which just happened to be thirty.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘The shopkeeper must have thought you were a greedy pig with a desperate addiction to chocolate.’

  ‘Nah. They know chilli corn chips are more to my taste.’

  She hugged the bag of chocolate bars to her chest. ‘So I won’t have to share? Because you might have to fight me for them.’

  ‘That makes you the greedy pig,’ he said. ‘They’re all yours.’ He stood still, looking deep into her eyes. ‘Happy birthday, Sandy.’

  She saw warmth mixed with wariness—which might well be a reflection of what showed in her own eyes.

  Silence fell between them. She was aware of her own quickened breathing over the faint hum of the air-conditioning. Felt intoxicated by the salty, so familiar scent of him.

  Now.

  Surely now was the moment to kiss him? Suddenly she desperately wanted to feel his mouth—that sexy, sexy mouth—on hers. To taste again the memory that had lingered through twelve years away from him.

  She felt herself start to sway towards him, her lips parting, her gaze focusing on the blue eyes that seemed to go a deeper shade of blue as he returned her gaze. Her heart was thudding so loudly surely he could hear it.

  But as she moved he tensed and took an abrupt step backwards.

  She froze. Rejection again. When would she learn?

  She stepped back too, so hastily she was in danger of tripping backwards into the room. She wrapped her robe tighter around her, focused on the list of hotel safety instructions posted by the door rather than on him. A flush rose up her neck to sting her cheeks.

  She couldn’t think of a word to say.

  After an excruciatingly uncomfortable moment Ben cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been sent on a mission from Aunt Ida to find and retrieve you and take you to the hospital to meet with her.’

  Sandy swallowed hard, struggled to make her voice sound light-hearted. ‘Sounds serious stuff. Presumably an urgent briefing on the Bay Books project?’

  He snapped his fingers. ‘Right first guess.’

  She smiled, knowing it probably looked forced but determined to appear natural—not as if just seconds ago she’d been longing for his kiss.

  ‘Let me guess again. She’s getting anxious about filling me in on how it all works?’

  ‘Correct again,’ he said. ‘I promised to return with you ASAP to complete the mission.’

  ‘Funnily enough I have no other pressing social engagements in Dolphin Bay.’ She turned and started to walk back into the room, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘Do you want to come in while I get dressed?’

  His glance went briefly to her open neckline. He cleared his throat. ‘Not a good idea.’

  She blushed even redder and clutched the robe tighter. ‘I mean... I didn’t mean...’ she stuttered.

  ‘How about I come back to get you in half an hour?’

  Her voice came out an octave higher. ‘Twenty minutes max will be fine. Where will you be if I’m ready earlier?’

  ‘Downstairs in my office.’

  ‘Pick me up in twenty, then.’

  He turned to go.

  She swallowed against the sudden tension in her throat. ‘Ben?’ she said.

  He swung back to face her, a question on his face.

  ‘Thank you for the Snickers. I won’t say I’ll treasure them for ever, because they’ll be devoured in double quick time. But...thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘It was—’

  Afterwards she wondered at the impulse that had made her forget all caution, all fear of rejection. Before she could think about whether it was a good thing or not to do, propelled by pure instinct, she leaned up on her bare toes and kissed him lightly on his cheek.

  Then she staggered at the impact of his closeness, at the memories
that came rushing back in a flood of heat and hormones. The feel of his beard-roughened cheek beneath her lips, the strength of his tightly muscled body, the out-and-out maleness of him. She clung to him, overwhelmed by nostalgia for the past, for when she’d had the right to hold him close. How could she ever have let go of that right?

  His hands grasped her shoulders to steady her. She could feel their warmth on her skin through the thick cloth of her robe. Swiftly, he released her. He muttered something inarticulate.

  Reeling, she lifted her head in response, saw the shutters come down over his eyes—but not before she’d glimpsed something she couldn’t read. It could have been passion but was more likely panic.

  Bad, bad idea, Sandy, she berated herself. Even a chaste peck is too much for him to handle.

  Too much for you to handle.

  But no way was she was going to let herself feel ashamed of a friendly thank-you kiss. She was used to spontaneous expressions of affection between friends.

  She forced her breath to steady, tilted her chin upwards. ‘See you in twenty,’ she said, praying he didn’t notice the tremor in her voice.

  * * *

  Ben stood back and watched as Sandy talked with his great-aunt in her room at the brand new Dolphin Bay Memorial Hospital. He might have known they would hit it off.

  On doctor’s orders, Ida was lying flat on her back in her hospital bed. She’d been told she had to hold that position for six weeks to heal her cracked pelvis.

  Sandy had pulled up a chair beside her and was chatting away as if she and Ida were old friends.

  Why, although they were talking about authors and titles of favourite books, did he sense this instant alliance could mean trouble for him? Trouble not of the business kind—hell, there was nothing he couldn’t handle there—but a feminine kind of trouble he was not as well equipped to deal with.