Same Time Next Summer

by Holly Jacobs

  “I loved you so much that summer.

  If only…”

  Stephan understood what Carolyn was saying. “Yeah, if only. We were young and both had plans—plans that couldn’t include each other.”

  He shrugged and tried to look nonchalant, but the pain came again just as sharply. A small tug back in time to the realization that what he and Carolyn had was over. “I’m glad we found a way to keep our friendship.”

  “It was foolish to think that summer magic could last, but it was a lovely time. I was so young and ready to fall in love.” Carolyn paused for a moment. “It’s nice to recall that once upon a time, magic existed.”

  Stephan looked from the child on the hospital bed back to Carolyn and hoped that magic still existed. That it would work not only to wake Emma, but maybe it would help Carolyn rediscover those feelings from so long ago.

  Because as he studied Carolyn Kendal, he knew that it wouldn’t take much for him to fall for her all over again.

  Dear Reader,

  In the first scene of Same Time Next Summer the heroine, Carolyn Kendal, is recalling a childhood game she played with the hero, Stephan Foster. They learned a basic truth from that game. That even though shadows happen, the trick is remembering that eventually the sun will come out again.

  As a mother, I can’t imagine anything more horrifying than one of my children suffering a life-threatening illness or accident. As I wrote the scenes where Carolyn sat vigil over her daughter, Emma, my heart was breaking. I so admired Carolyn’s belief in her daughter, her willingness to fight for her. I knew she needed the perfect guy. And I knew that Stephan was that man when he walked into the hospital room, pulled up a chair and willingly waited with her. Of course, their road to love wasn’t a smooth path; there were shadows they had to race along the way. I hope you enjoy their journey.

  I’m so thrilled to have a book in the Harlequin Superromance line. For years, some of my best buddies have written for Supers—pardon my bad pun when I say that they’re some “super” writers!

  And in October please watch for the first book in my Harlequin American Romance AMERICAN DADS trilogy, Once Upon a Thanksgiving.

  Best,

  Holly

  SAME TIME NEXT SUMMER

  Holly Jacobs

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  In 2000, Holly Jacobs sold her first book to Harlequin Enterprises. She’s since sold more than twenty novels to the publisher. Her romances have won numerous awards and made the Waldenbooks bestseller list. In 2005, Holly won a prestigious Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews. In her non-writing life, Holly is married to a police lieutenant and together they have four children. Visit Holly at www.HollyJacobs.com, or you can snail-mail her at P.O. Box 11102, Erie, PA 16514-1102.

  Books by Holly Jacobs

  HARLEQUIN EVERLASTING

  THE HOUSE ON BRIAR HILL ROAD

  SILHOUETTE ROMANCE

  1557—DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR?

  1653—A DAY LATE AND A BRIDE SHORT

  1683—DAD TODAY, GROOM TOMORROW

  1733—BE MY BABY

  1768—ONCE UPON A PRINCESS

  1777—ONCE UPON A PRINCE

  1785—ONCE UPON A KING

  1825—HERE WITH ME

  Thanks to Northeast Ohio RWA

  for all the years of support, and for all

  the Ohio help with this book!

  And to the Harlequin Superromance writers…

  I’m so glad to finally be counted as one of you.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PROLOGUE

  “CARO. CARO, COME ON.”

  Twelve-year-old Carolyn Kendal threw open the cottage door and ran out onto the porch. The force of the wind took her breath away.

  She looked out at Lake Erie. The wind had whipped it into a frenzy, pounding wave after wave onto the shore.

  Stephan Foster, her best friend each summer, was on his family’s porch, waving at her.

  Caro tugged at the leg of her swimsuit. The suit didn’t fit as well as it had when she’d arrived with her mom and dad at their Heritage Bay, Ohio, summer-home last month. She smiled as she continued pulling it into place. Normally, she didn’t like things to change but she was pleased that she’d finally started growing. For two years she’d been lamenting her lack of height, certain she’d never get any taller than four feet eleven.

  She glanced down at her chest and hoped that if she was growing taller, she’d also start growing out, but truly, she didn’t feel very optimistic.

  Optimistic was her word of the week. She liked the way it felt as it rolled off her tongue.

  Optimistic.

  It seemed like such a happy word. And on days like this, when the beach was this perfect, it was the right word to describe herself. She, Carolyn Kendal, was optimistic.

  “Caro.” Stephan’s voice was laced with exasperation. “Come on. We haven’t had a day like this all summer.”

  He was now down on the beach, waiting for her.

  “Caro,” he called again, louder, more impatient.

  And though she knew they were getting too old for this game, there was a comfort in it. She might be starting seventh grade in September, but this was familiar and hadn’t changed. She stopped pulling at her yellow suit, quit playing with words and ran to him. The slapping noise made by her bare feet on the cement walkway quieted as soon as she reached the rocky sand.

  “Here comes one.” Stephan stood poised, ready to run.

  Caro got ready, too. She extended her right leg, bending at the knee, waiting for just the right moment. She knew from years of experience, it was all about the right moment. Too soon, too late…either would ruin the run.

  “Go.” Stephan sprinted forward; she followed on his heels.

  The wind whipped the marshmallow-puffy clouds across the sky. Pushing. Pushing. The clouds bumped into the sun high over head. That was the moment that signaled they could start.

  They ran between the rocky cliff and Lake Erie, on the small swatch of pebbly sand, chasing the edge of the sun’s shadow.

  Sometimes, if the breeze was lazy enough, they would catch it. But on days like today, when the wind really kicked up, they never did. But it didn’t matter. The joy was in the chase.

  “We lost it.” Caro stopped, panting for air.

  “There will be another shadow in a few minutes.” Stephan, a year older than she was, had the weight of that extra twelve month’s wisdom. This time he nodded sagely, his summerlong hair flopping onto his forehead, and added, “Yep, everything always changes. We just have to wait, catch our breath, ’cause there’s always another shadow.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  1994

  EVERYTHING ALWAYS CHANGES.There’s always another shadow.

  Carolyn Kendal awoke with a start, then immediately listened to make sure everything was all right.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  She heard the rhythmic noise and sighed with relief as she craned her neck from one side to the other, hoping to work out the kinks, but knowing she wouldn’t. Two weeks of dozing in a hospital chair had left every muscle in her body knotted and strained.

  She wasn’t sure why she was dreaming about Heritage Bay and that almost-forgotte
n childhood game she’d played with Stephan Foster. Maybe because the words seemed so prophetic in retrospect.

  Everything always changes. There’s always another shadow.

  She didn’t doubt it in the least. She was so much older than that long-ago day, and she knew for a fact those words were true. What she doubted was ever having this particular shadow blow away to reveal the sun once again. For weeks she’d forced the belief when she could, and faked it when she couldn’t.

  She had to believe. No one else did.

  She shook her head as if she could physically loosen the pessimistic thoughts. She couldn’t afford to give in to them. She had to remain positive. But it was hard. And the nights were the worst.

  At midnight, the hospital was eerily quiet. Visitors had long since left and the patients were sleeping, if they were lucky. Nurses bustled about, but with cotton-soft footsteps and hushed whispers. The normal glare of the institutional lights was muted, leaving the room blanketed in grays.

  The lack of daytime hospital activities and sounds meant that Carolyn had nothing to do but remember the past and nothing to listen to except the heart monitor beeping along to its own comforting cadence.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  Beep.

  The first few days, the sound had driven her crazy, but now, each beep represented her five-year-old daughter’s heartbeat. Each chirp was a sign that Emma was still fighting.

  And as long as Emma fought, so would Carolyn.

  She’d fight the doctor and his dire prognosis.

  She’d fight her family’s loving attempts to get her to leave her daughter’s bedside.

  She’d fight death itself if she could.

  Carolyn would fight whoever she had to, do whatever it took, to keep her daughter with her.

  “Carolyn?”

  The noise fractured the silence, and she turned, already knowing who stood in the doorway, not because she’d expected him.

  She hadn’t.

  She heard the door open and just knew before she saw him, before he said more than her name, who it would be. She turned and tried to smile, though she wasn’t quite sure she’d pulled off the expression. “Stephan. They called in the big guns, huh?”

  Stephan Foster was thirty-five now to her thirty-four. His dark-brown hair sported the first streaks of gray. But for an instant, time moved backward and she could see the sun-freckled boy with the impish grin beneath the tall man with the serious expression.

  He walked into the room, the heels of his probably designer shoes discordantly clicking on the tiled floor, at odds with the rhythm of the heart monitor’s rhythm. He stood behind her, his hand lightly squeezing her shoulder. “I came as soon as I heard.”

  She knew that by “as soon as I heard,” he meant, “as soon as your parents called to tell me you were losing it.”

  She wanted to argue that her parents were wrong. They didn’t understand that it wasn’t that she wouldn’t leave her daughter’s bedside, it was that she couldn’t leave. Emma needed her, and Carolyn wasn’t going to let her daughter down.

  Caro’s parents had raised her in what they considered a logical manner, very much in accordance with the rest of their lives. Order, discipline, reason and ethics. Two college professors, they’d run their classrooms that way and found no reason not to follow suit when bringing up their daughter. However, Carolyn had never been satisfied with simple logic. She’d raised Emma with her heart, feeling her way through it. More importantly, she tried to tell Emma every day she loved her, something her parents had never felt was called for.

  And right now her heart was telling her that Emma needed her here, battling alongside her, despite the fact that logic, the doctor and her parents said that Emma might not win this fight.

  “You didn’t need to come all this way, especially given the weather.” It had been the snowiest February on the books, band after band of lake-effect snow had struck the Cleveland area. The trip from Detroit to Cleveland was almost three hours in good weather. She couldn’t imagine how long it had taken given the snow between the two cities.

  “Really, you shouldn’t have come. We’re fine. Emma’s fighting. She’ll find a way to come back.”

  “Carolyn.” Despite the fact his voice was as hushed as everything else in the hospital at this time of night, she could hear pity loud and clear as he spoke her name. “Your parents told me what the doctor said. She’s not—”

  “No. Don’t say it. Don’t say anything else. She can hear you, and she’s fighting. She’s off the ventilator and breathing on her own. Just listen to the machine.” She was silent a moment, allowing the beeps to speak for her.

  “That’s her heart, Stephan. My daughter’s heart. It’s still beating. The nurses said they could turn down the volume, but I asked to keep it on. That sound tells me that she’s still trying despite the fact she’s so little. She’s not quite six and she’s got so much to live for. As long as she’s trying to get back to me, I’ll be here waiting. I can sleep at home in my bed when she’s better. Tell my parents I love them, but they have to back off. Emma needs me here, she needs me to hold on, to believe she’s coming back. I’m not going anywhere until she does.”

  It sounded crazy, but Carolyn knew that as long as she was here, standing by her daughter’s side, nothing bad could happen. She’d will her daughter to keep going. Maybe if she’d been in the car, been at Emma’s side the night of the accident, this wouldn’t have happened.

  If she hadn’t pushed her ex to take Emma, then the car accident wouldn’t have happened. No, not an accident, a drunk driver. One who’d hit Ross’s car and put her daughter in this hospital bed, while Ross walked away with only minor injuries. In fact, he’d walked away believing what the doctors had said about Emma…that she wouldn’t recover. Maybe if Carolyn had done something differently—

  She shook her head, glad she hadn’t said those particular words out loud. She knew if she voiced them she would have sounded as irrational as everyone thought she was. But though she wouldn’t vocalize them, she felt them, and so much more. The guilt that if she hadn’t pushed her ex to show an interest in Emma, her daughter wouldn’t have been in the car in the first place. She knew the what-ifs could go on forever. Just as she knew she had to deal with the here and now. And here and now, Emma needed her in the hospital.

  Caro owned a small independent bookstore, On the Shelf. Her regular staff, Melody and Dylan, assured her that they had everything under control and she shouldn’t worry about the business. With her permission, they’d hired a new bookseller to help pick up the slack. The store was fine, her friends were seeing to that. But even though they supported her need to be with Emma, both had encouraged her to leave the hospital, echoing her parents’ arguments.

  Carolyn looked at Stephan, her oldest friend in the world, and fully expected him to argue with her, to jump up on the bandwagon with everyone else and try to tell her it was hopeless, that Emma was gone. But he didn’t, and she realized she should have known better.

  Stephan simply nodded, walked across the room and pulled a chair over the linoleum until it was next to hers.

  He said, “I’ll just sit with you then,” as if that settled that.

  They waited in silence, the stillness of the hospital once again enveloping the room.

  Days.

  Nights.

  They’d all run together. Carolyn had lost track of how long she’d sat here, how many days and nights like this she’d listened to the sound of the machine. Yet now, with Stephan at her side, she knew the night wouldn’t be so long, so empty, so devoid of the constant noise that could at least distract her from her situation during the day.

  No, that was a selfish way of looking at it. This wasn’t about her. It was about Emma.

  But with Stephan here, she wouldn’t have to force herself to drag in each laden breath. Some nights she thought she’d suffocate on the smell of antiseptic.

  As if sensing her morose train of thoughts, Stephan aske
d, “Carolyn, do you remember our first boat ride?”

  Instantly, the hospital odor gave way to the long-remembered scent of Lake Erie in the summer. She was back in Heritage Bay, just outside Port Clinton, Ohio.

  Carolyn knew just what boat ride Stephan was talking about. She remembered the terror she’d felt that day, as well.

  “We were so reckless,” he continued. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there…”

  1974

  FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD STEPHAN FOSTER knew better than to take his father’s small fishing boat out onto Lake Erie without permission.

  He knew better than to jump into the still-spring-cool lake. It was so much warmer at the shoreline than it was here, miles into the lake’s watery expanse.

  And Stephan Foster pretty much knew that odds were he wasn’t going to see his sixteenth birthday. He’d never learn to drive, never ask a girl on a date, never graduate high school. All the thoughts tumbled about in his muddled brain.

  Whacking his head on the side of the boat as he dove, choking on the water he inhaled added to his exhaustion and the draining effect of the cold water. His head throbbed, and the rest of him felt numb and tired.

  Oh, so tired.

  If he just stopped kicking, he could rest. And right now, it was tempting.

  But before he could give in to the temptation, something splashed him, but he felt too weary to open his eyes to investigate.

  “Stephan, there’s the life ring, grab it.”

  Carolyn.

  He’d almost forgotten that Caro was on the boat with him. As if she could read his mind, she continued, “Stephan Foster, don’t you dare stop trying. Swim over and grab the ring. I can’t throw it any farther than that.”