One Summer: An uplifting, feel-good summer romance

by Jenny Hale

  One Summer

  An uplifting, feel-good summer romance

  Jenny Hale

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  The Summer House

  Jenny’s email sign up

  Also by Jenny Hale

  A Letter from Jenny Hale

  Summer by the Sea

  Summer at Oyster Bay

  A Barefoot Summer

  We’ll Always Have Christmas

  Acknowledgements

  For Justin, my rock

  Prologue

  Alice Emerson plopped down in the sand, looking out at the restless ocean as it peeked over the sea oats. The blooms at the end of each thin stalk of wild, tall grass made them top-heavy, so they always seemed to be leaning. Each stem swayed on the dune in front of her, while she forced herself to keep her mind on the landscape instead of somewhere else. She closed her eyes briefly to allow her concentration to move from the sea oats themselves to the last time she’d seen them: bright green and swaying as if they were dancing in the coastal breeze, the sun on her face, stinging her nose and cheekbones, the smell of the sea all around her.

  Alice leaned against the weathered clapboard wall of her gramps’s bicycle shop, where she’d gone to sit and collect her thoughts, rushing outside to catch her breath, every inhalation in that building pulling her back into the life of her beloved grandfather. If she let herself, she could channel the smell of the chocolate chip cookies he’d bake whenever she asked, the natural wood floors that she’d run on, barefoot, as he chased her around, and the clean cotton of the crisp sheets she used to sleep cocooned in after a day of swimming, falling into bed and closing her eyes right away so she could still experience the swishing feeling from bobbing in the waves all day.

  The building itself, having stood the test of time since its construction nearly a century ago, was stronger than she was, clearly. While it had withstood many storms, Alice was struggling to handle this one. She grabbed hold of the earth beneath her and lifted her hands, allowing the grains of sand to drop from her clenched fists, opening her fingers until the red of her nail polish emerged. Her shoulders ached and her mind was swimming with emotion, her only solace the lull of the tide and the screech of seagulls overhead.

  “When you need to know the answers to life,” Gramps had always told her, his bushy eyebrows pulling together the same way they had when Alice was worried about something and he wanted to help her, “you turn to the sea. It gives you the calm you need to filter through the static in your head, until you can hear the answers loud and clear.”

  Alice needed those answers right now. She needed him. Six months had slipped away already—six months without her beloved Gramps. She’d only just now been able to return to his old bicycle shop on the North Carolina coast. Originally constructed to house the people who’d built the protective sand dunes from Corolla to Ocracoke, and later inhabited by fishermen, the tiny building had seen its share of visitors. Alice was its most recent, but this time was her first visit alone, without Gramps. She’d waited for the sunshine of spring because that was how she wanted to see it again: bright and happy.

  To Alice, this beach wasn’t just for vacations, mini-golf, and paddle boarding. It was the place where Gramps had allowed her to stay up past her bedtime to hunt ghost crabs, where he’d told her the legends about Blackbeard the pirate’s adventures on nearby Ocracoke Island; it was where she’d spent her days running through the foamy surf as it bubbled around her little toes just before Gramps scooped her up into the air. Alice had spent many summers here—just her and Gramps in his shop.

  She tipped her head back to let the sunshine warm the cold that was filling her chest. It was getting late, even though the sun didn’t want to admit it. She stood up and stretched her back, wondering if it wasn’t the sea that gave her the answers, but Gramps’s presence. Alice didn’t have any more idea of what to do now than she had when she’d gotten here.

  With a heavy sigh, she turned to face the shop that now sat nearly empty. It looked sad, broken like her heart. Gramps had given this place to her—for what? What was it without him? She had no idea what to do with it, but all she knew was that staying here was too difficult. Perhaps she could sell it, like she’d sold all his bikes, add the profits to the money that Gramps had so generously left for her, and follow her dreams on some big adventure. Was that what Gramps would have wanted for her?

  One more time, she looked over her shoulder for answers, but none came. After that last glance at the ebbing tide that had comforted her for years, she opened the door on the back of the bicycle shop and went in to see what the future held.

  Chapter One

  “I can’t believe he didn’t show,” Sasha said quietly from behind her double decker vanilla and strawberry ice cream cone, her pale blue spring manicure complementing the ice cream colors.

  Alice and her best friend Sasha Miller sat together at an outdoor picnic table, Alice’s gaze darting to the counter across from them where her five-year-old son Henry was waiting for his ice cream, before focusing on her friend.

  Alice had known Sasha since they were seven years old. Sasha had moved in down the street from her and they’d met on the bus ride to school. All the seats had been taken except the spot beside Alice. Sasha had dropped down next to her that day and started talking as if they’d been together their whole little lives. To this day, Sasha could talk Alice through anything. And that was exactly why Alice had called her right after Matt hadn’t shown up, when he’d texted that he would.

  “He didn’t even have the decency to face me. After two years together.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to meet him.” Sasha rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t deserve your presence.”

  “It would’ve been hard to see him again, but I was hoping to have some closure.”

  With a paper bag of Matt’s things clasped tightly in her grip, Alice had waited for Matt at their favorite park, where they’d had their first date. She’d had to take in calming breaths the entire time to keep the tears from surfacing, focusing on the tinkling of her dangly earrings in the breeze to try to take her mind off of what he’d done. She’d worn those earrings just to spite him; they were the ones she’d bought after finding out he’d been unfaithful, the ones she’d decided matched her new overpriced highlights the best.

  Alice hadn’t been trying to win him back with her little makeover, but she did get a certain amount of satisfaction from knowing that she’d never let herself spend another evening crying over Matt again, depressed in her sweats, holding a pint of rocky road ice cream and an empty box of cookies. She had firmly made that decision.

  It had taken that monumental event to bring her to her best.

  “For Matt to show up and give you closure, it would mean that he was actually a good person, which he is not. He’d only disguised himself
as one.” Sasha took a bite off the top of her cone.

  “I did get a little closure, though, leaving our park. There was something about walking away from it that made me feel stronger.” Alice played with her bowl of ice cream, not really eating it. “And it made me feel better when I chucked the bag of his things in the trashcan.” She grinned deviously before sobering. “I thought he could be The One,” she said, shaking her head. “The sad thing is that both Henry and I loved him. If he’d been a better man, he could’ve had the two of us forever.”

  Alice tucked her curly blonde hair behind her ears before dragging the small spoon around the lump of overflowing ice cream in her bowl, to keep it from dripping down onto her fingers in the evening heat. She looked over at her son again. Henry could barely reach the counter, but he’d insisted they take a seat and let him get his on his own—he was a big boy, he’d said. He stood patiently, his fingers tapping the shiny surface that held the container of napkins and a tip jar that read, “We’re all in college. Need we say more?”

  Alice took a bite of the melting ice cream and swallowed, still angry at the situation. “I’m so awful at picking guys.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  Sasha was just being kind. Alice had fallen for some real losers: one had claimed to be a traveling musician, but was more of a homeless party guy with a guitar; another had decided to follow his dreams and sail around the world. He just forgot to tell her that he’d financed a boat with their joint bank account. And there was Henry’s father, the biggest loser of them all, a minor league baseball player who’d run off the very minute she’d told him she was pregnant, joining a European team and leaving the country and his son.

  “It’s not your fault that he decided to run around with his personal trainer behind your back. Who does that?” Sasha said, her eyes squinted in irritation, a frown on her face.

  On that point, Sasha was right: it wasn’t Alice’s fault. But it was her fault that she’d let her guard down enough to waste two years on him and allow herself to be emotionally wounded by him. The hurt at being blindsided was only a tiny piece of it all—she could get over that. What she couldn’t get over was the look on Henry’s face when she had to tell him that Matt wasn’t going to take him to hit baseballs anymore.

  But she’d realized, after Matt’s leaving, that she didn’t need anyone to go through life with her; she could do it on her own. She could be the sole parent for Henry—after all, she knew better than anyone else what kind of person she wanted to raise him to be. She didn’t need any help with that. She also didn’t need any assistance with finding things that made her happy—she knew how to do that too. So from this point on, she wasn’t going to allow another man to ruin what she and Henry had. Relationships introduced risk, and she wasn’t willing to gamble anymore. She was too tired of wondering at the end of every relationship how they’d gotten there. Instead, she wanted to turn her energy to herself and Henry, and with her new inheritance, something new and wonderful could be right around the corner.

  Chapter Two

  Alice had let her ice cream completely melt, thinking about the wreckage of her love life. Sasha brought her back to reality, reaching down and tugging on Einstein’s collar to keep him from running off. Alice, just realizing she’d dropped the leash, picked it back up. They’d been holding the puppy while Henry got his ice cream. He turned around and waved at them from the counter, a smile on his face under that old ratty baseball cap of his that he refused to take off.

  “This puppy is so cute,” Sasha said, stroking Einstein’s head, clearly trying to get Alice’s mind off of Matt. Einstein’s deep chocolate eyes peered up at Sasha as he nudged her with his snout for more affection.

  Einstein was the black Labrador Alice had bought Henry after she’d told him about Matt. Henry had had to go to baseball practice, and she’d made him go even though he’d said he didn’t feel like playing ball that day. She wasn’t going to let him wallow like she had. Matt didn’t deserve Henry’s energy. And Henry always felt like playing ball; he’d be just fine once he got those dusty cleats to home base and the bat in his grip as he circled it by his shoulder, waiting for the ball to sail into his view.

  Even though they had no contact at all with Henry’s father, Joel, Alice hadn’t kept him a secret from Henry, putting old newspaper clippings of his dad’s accomplishments in his room. It was all he’d left behind. Since the time Henry was little, he’d always shown an interest in baseball. She’d wondered if he was just genetically predisposed to love it like his father did, or if it was some way for Henry to have a connection to the man who’d been absent his whole life.

  The day Matt had left, Henry had tied the laces of his cleats, looping the ends of them—they were stained orange from the clay on the fields—with tears streaming down his cheeks. That picture of him was now burned in Alice’s memory.

  She’d gotten Einstein for fifty dollars at the shelter after dropping Henry off at practice, and then surprised her son with him because seeing his sadness over losing Matt tore her heart out. She promised herself she’d do everything she could to bring back his smile to make up for it.

  So now, after they’d had dinner, Alice and Sasha had decided to take Henry for an evening treat at a walk-up ice cream shop. Henry loved ice cream about as much as he loved baseball, and taking him had been on Alice’s mind all day.

  “Just think,” Sasha said, her face blocking Alice’s view of Henry for a second, “if you both could love a dirt bag like Matt, what would your love be like for someone amazing? He’s out there.”

  Alice smiled, more out of kindness for her friend than agreement. The thing was, she’d devoted so much energy to finding Mr. Perfect, when really she didn’t think he was actually out there anymore. She was starting to think that she’d wanted a dream: someone to be that perfect family man for Henry, someone to keep her company during those quiet times, someone to share her life with. But as she looked around at the people she knew, she didn’t see that anywhere. She believed now that it was a fantasy that she’d created for herself as a young girl, and she needed to let it go. This was real life. She wasn’t looking for Mr. Right anymore.

  “What if he isn’t out there, Sash?”

  Sasha had always been the optimist of the two of them, whereas Alice was a realist. But there was a flicker of understanding mixed with fear behind those thrift store aviator sunglasses of hers, and Alice knew that, even though Sasha was a dreamer, she was plagued by the same question, having just gone through an awful divorce herself. The legal fees from the divorce alone had sucked Sasha’s bank account nearly dry and she was living on her tiny nest egg until she could recoup that money.

  More than fear lurked in Sasha’s face this time, however, yet Alice couldn’t place it. Her friend looked oddly worried. If Sasha didn’t tell her what it was, Alice was definitely going to try to get her to open up about it at another time because, by the look on her friend’s face, there was definitely something she wasn’t sharing; something was wrong.

  Henry came over with his ice cream: a vanilla cone with sprinkles for hair, two candy eyes and a licorice mouth. He held it out with a smile so they could see, as the sun filtered through the trees, casting its rays on his little face. Einstein stood at attention, his back end swinging from side to side while he nudged Henry’s arm.

  “I like it!” Alice said, the moment with Sasha gone. She gently petted under the dog’s ears as Henry sat down. The blond hair that peeked out from under his baseball cap would become almost white in the summer, his skin tan from playing all day in the sun. The weather had been unusually warm already and they’d spent tons of time outside to escape the small apartment they lived in.

  She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, getting a puppy this size when they were in that small apartment, and she barely had enough time to take him for walks. Alice was a secretary at a dental office, and she didn’t finish work until nearly six o’clock every night. Once she got Henry from daycare and arr
ived home, she wanted to spend time with him, helping him with his schoolwork and hearing about his day. But every time she found a chewed-up shoe or the puppy had an accident on the floor, she’d close her eyes and remember Henry’s face when he’d seen her walk across that baseball field with Einstein the night she’d gotten him. She wanted the rest of his life to be just like that moment.

  “Can I walk him in the grass?” Henry asked, holding his ice cream in one hand as he reached for the leash with his other. His baseball cap was on backwards, the sun still hitting his face and showing off his freckles. She noticed how long his legs were getting—he was gangly now, not a toddler anymore. It was as if she’d blinked and he’d become this well-spoken little boy.

  “Do you think you can handle him?”

  “Yeah. I’m strong,” he said, with vanilla on his bottom lip from his bite of ice cream.

  “Okay. I’m right here if you need me. Just call over.”

  Henry took Einstein, and the puppy happily trotted along beside him, alternating between jumping up to try to reach Henry’s ice cream and stopping to sniff spots in the grass. Alice smiled, warmed by the sight, the sun still setting earlier than it would in the thick of summer and making a silhouette of Henry, Einstein, and the ice cream—like in one of those movies that made her come out of the darkness sighing with a big grin, while everyone else hustled on to the bathrooms with their empty drink cups and popcorn boxes.