One Perfect Summer

by Brenda Novak

  Since she didn’t expect him to pay her much attention, she crouched down to talk to Lucy about the snow and how fast it was melting, while Serenity took the lead at the door. But when Serenity turned to introduce her and Lorelei stood and shook their host’s large hand, she was slightly embarrassed that the warmth of his touch lingered in her mind long after he’d said hello.

  “It’s very nice to meet you,” he said to Lucy.

  Lorelei smiled as her daughter ducked shyly behind her, and he stepped back so they could come in.

  “How can you even call this a cabin?” Lorelei muttered to Serenity as soon as she saw the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake.

  Serenity’s cabin had a similar view and almost as many windows. It, too, was beautiful and expensive. But the ceiling wasn’t quite as high and dramatic, and the furnishings weren’t nearly as formal. Lorelei was certain the owners of this place had used a professional decorator, but in her opinion, that decorator had lost all grasp of what most people wanted out of a lake house.

  Because Lorelei’s comment had been directed at Serenity, she was surprised when Finley Hatch—or “Finn” as he’d told them to call him at the door—responded. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? The owners are friends of my father’s, and gave me and my brothers a steal of a deal, or I would’ve chosen something else.”

  Reagan whistled softly as she gazed around. “On the plus side, you could do a lot worse. It’s certainly not cramped.”

  “That’s true, I guess,” he said. “But who puts white furniture and carpet in a ski cabin?”

  Lorelei eyed the large chandelier dangling above them. “This isn’t a ski cabin—it’s a mansion.”

  It had been an offhand comment, one that didn’t really require a response, so she was surprised again when he singled her out. “Where are you from?”

  “Me?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “Florida.”

  “That’s a long ways off. Do you come to California very often?”

  “This is the first time I’ve ever left Florida,” she told him.

  “What about you?” Reagan asked, turning the question back on him. “Where are you from?”

  When his eyes shifted to her half sister, Lorelei slowly let her breath go.

  “LA, born and raised. My whole family lives there.” He gestured at the grouping of furniture around a spectacular rock fireplace, offering them a seat before continuing on to the gourmet kitchen.

  They could hear him digging through the drawers behind a large, granite-topped island. Eventually, he came up with a wine opener for one of the bottles Serenity had given him.

  Reagan chose a high-backed white leather chair, and Serenity perched on the ottoman, which looked as though it had never been used.

  Lorelei tossed a throw over the couch to protect the upholstery before pulling Lucy onto her lap, since they’d just come in from the snow.

  “What brings you to Tahoe?” Serenity asked as he took some wineglasses from a rack overhead.

  “My older brother was released from the hospital a week ago. Lost his arm in a motorcycle accident. So my other brother and I decided we’d get him out of the heat and the crowds of LA. We’re hoping a summer spent up here might encourage him, keep his spirits high, help him recover.”

  “I’m sorry about his arm,” Reagan said.

  “He’s taking it pretty hard,” he admitted as he popped the cork. “He’s always been capable, active. Loves to play almost any sport, which he’ll have to relearn now, if he can. And he was an actor, so losing his arm impacts a lot of what he had planned for his future.”

  “That’s tragic,” Serenity said. “Has he appeared in anything we might know?”

  “He’s only gotten a few bit parts so far. He was working for our father, managing one of the car dealerships to cover the rent. But he signed with a reputable agent two months ago and felt that was going to make a big difference.”

  “Is he married?” Lorelei asked. It sounded as though their father was wealthy, so maybe Finn’s brother didn’t have to worry about his living expenses while he recovered. But the emotional support of having someone who loved him and was committed to him would probably be invaluable.

  Finn started to pour the wine. “Not anymore. He went through a divorce last summer. Thank goodness they didn’t have any kids, or it would’ve been even harder.”

  Since Lorelei was potentially facing a divorce, and she did have a kid, she could easily sympathize.

  “Sounds like he’s had one hell of a year,” Reagan said. “I guess I can quit feeling sorry for myself now.”

  Before he could respond to Reagan’s comment, Serenity said, “It’s great that you and your younger brother can take the summer off to be with him through his recovery.”

  “We won’t technically be off.” He came toward them carrying two glasses. “I’m an artist, so I can work from anywhere. That’s partly why this place sounded appealing. There’s plenty of room for me to set up my studio. And Nolan, my younger brother, just finished his BA in business at UC Santa Barbara. He’s managed to get a part-time job bartending in Truckee, so he’ll have to go to work whenever they schedule him. But the commute will take only twenty-five minutes. Then he’ll start at one of the dealerships in the fall, once we all go home.”

  “You don’t have anything to do with the dealerships?” Lorelei asked.

  “No. I’m sort of the odd man out. I’ve never been interested in the car business. But you know what they say about struggling artists.” He gave them a wry grin. “We’ll see if I wind up selling cars for my dad in the end.”

  Lorelei avoided Finn’s gaze when he offered her the first glass. For some reason, he threw her off balance. She figured it was the beauty and appeal of youth. She’d decided that Serenity was right—he was younger than she was, probably by as many as five years.

  “What do you paint?” Reagan asked as he went back for the other two glasses.

  “Skyscrapers. Cars. Diners. Houses. Inner-city stuff. But it’s so gorgeous up here, the lake might tempt me into doing my first nature scene.”

  “There’s a nude beach not far away called Hidden Cove. That might give you some inspiration,” Serenity joked.

  “Is that where you three ladies will be hanging out?” he joked in return.

  “If I didn’t have Lucy with me, maybe I would,” Lorelei piped up. “I’ve never been to a nude beach, so at least it would be an experience.”

  Her response had been impulsive, born of a desire to do something others might not agree with just to be that bold, to rebel and flip off the rest of the world for a change. But she wished she’d kept her mouth shut when they all turned to stare at her.

  “I’ll watch Lucy if you really want to go,” Serenity said.

  “And I’ll go with you,” Reagan told her. “If you can’t do something daring with your sister, who can you do it with?”

  Lorelei had begun to like Reagan, despite their rocky start. “Okay,” she said with a bit more conviction.

  “Okay?” Finn echoed in surprise. “Definitely let me know when you do that. I wouldn’t want you two to go alone.”

  They all laughed except Lorelei. “I need to live a little,” she said.

  The raw honesty in her voice must’ve given away the fact that she wasn’t joking, because he sobered instantly. “What’s the riskiest thing you’ve ever done?”

  She thought back over all the years of struggling to walk the high wire that was her life—of how hard she’d always tried not to lose her balance for fear she’d plummet to the ground. “I can’t think of anything.” She smoothed back Lucy’s hair. Just living had been hard enough; she’d always been careful not to do anything that might make it worse. “That’s kind of pathetic, isn’t it?”

  “My mother would say it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said.

 
But his mother didn’t know how careful she’d been. “What would you say?”

  His grin turned slightly devilish. “I’d say you only live once.”

  Going to a nude beach with a new friend and her sister wasn’t any big deal. It wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t dangerous. And it wasn’t immoral—at least according to most people. Not like cheating, anyway. Mark wouldn’t approve, but that was partly why it appealed to her. If he could have an affair, certainly she could be audacious enough to visit a nude beach with a neighbor and a half sister. “We’ll have to see what the weather does.”

  “Then I’ll hope for sunshine,” he said, but she could tell he was teasing.

  Reagan changed the subject. “Do you have any samples of your work you could show us? I’d love to see it.”

  Lorelei was interested, too, but he shook his head. “I only brought the piece I’m working on. And that’s nowhere close to being ready to show anyone.”

  Serenity took a sip of wine. “You must have a website.”

  “I do.” He got the other two glasses from the kitchen. “It’s RealArtByFinn.com. Double n.”

  Setting the wine he’d just handed her on a side table, Reagan took out her phone and typed in the URL.

  After exclaiming that he was very talented, she passed her phone to Serenity and Lorelei so they could have a look.

  His work was good—so good that Lorelei took several minutes to study the pink-and-black small-town diner he’d depicted. It had an old-fashioned neon sign with a giant arrow and a 1950s convertible sitting out front.

  It was all so lifelike, so real. At first she thought it had to be a photograph. “This is called photorealism, isn’t it?”

  He came over to view the screen with her. “Yeah. That diner’s in Palm Springs. I took a picture of it once when I was there and decided to paint it. I love the palm trees.”

  “Me, too.” Lorelei hoped he never wound up working for his father; it would be a travesty for him to give up art.

  “Thank you.”

  She used the excuse of returning Reagan’s phone to be able to get up and move away from him. When she sat back down, he asked if Lucy would like some lemonade. Lorelei requested water instead and, fortunately, Lucy didn’t complain. She seemed a little awed by Finn, too. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since they arrived and gave him a shy smile when he brought the water.

  “I hope you won’t be too sore tomorrow after all the shoveling you did this morning,” Serenity said. “Especially since it looks like it’s going to warm up, which means it’ll melt quickly on its own.”

  “I thought my brothers were coming, so I had to do it. Davis would never allow me to help him into the cabin like some kind of invalid. He’d insist on walking in on his own even if he’d lost a leg instead of an arm. And with all the ice and snow on the front steps, I was afraid he’d fall.”

  “He sounds stubborn,” Serenity said.

  “He is.” Finn rolled his eyes in exasperation. “And right now he’s angry, which makes him a bear to deal with. But once he gets over the anger, I’m hoping that fighting spirit of his will give him the determination he needs to rebuild his life.”

  Lorelei could hear the affection behind those words. “You seem close to your brothers.”

  “We fought a lot when we were younger, which is probably typical. But we’re close now. We’re still not too thrilled with our stepmother, though...”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Reagan asked.

  “She’s only six years older than me, for one. The rest, you can probably guess. But our real mom is great. She’s a nurse. Matter of fact, she was on duty the night the ambulance brought Davis in.”

  As a mother herself, Lorelei couldn’t help cringing. “They took him to her hospital?”

  “That was the closest one.”

  “It would be so hard to see your child like that!”

  “I’m sure it was, but she’s a professional. She keeps saying it could’ve been much worse, that we should be grateful.” He went back to the kitchen, poured a bag of tortilla chips into a bowl and put them in the middle of the large dining table. “I can look at it that way, and so can Nolan,” he said. “I mean, Davis is alive, and he could’ve died. But Davis isn’t capable of that perspective quite yet. Right now, he feels he’d rather have died.”

  “Will it be possible for him to get an artificial limb?” Reagan asked.

  He went back into the kitchen. “Should be, but his doctor wants to wait until the residual limb heals fully from the surgery. That could be anywhere from two to six months. So we figure, if all goes well and Davis doesn’t develop any infection, he should be ready by fall.” He waved them over to the table, where he had some guacamole and salsa waiting with the chips. Lorelei was glad there was something Serenity could eat.

  She helped Lucy put some chips on her plate. “Why didn’t Davis come up this weekend?”

  “Couldn’t. His temperature climbed a few degrees, so the doctor asked him to wait.” He gestured toward them with the chip he was about to dip. “So what about the three of you? Serenity told me you’re half sisters, but I can’t figure out who’s the oldest.”

  “That would be Serenity,” Reagan said. “She and I are only six months apart. Lorelei’s two years younger.”

  “Six months apart?” he echoed in confusion. “So...you’re related through your father?”

  “We don’t know,” Serenity said. “We met for the first time yesterday.”

  “You’re not all from Florida?”

  “Just Lorelei,” Reagan said. “I was born in Ohio but live in New York City now, and Serenity’s from Berkeley.”

  He ran his free hand over the beard growth on his jaw as he considered this information. “Sounds like an interesting story. Do I get to hear more?”

  Lorelei tensed. Talking about her childhood was like reopening an old wound. She didn’t like the questions it elicited, since she didn’t have any answers, and she didn’t like the pity that it engendered. She wanted Finn to like her, to admire her the way she admired him.

  But she didn’t know how to avoid going down that road tonight. Reagan and Serenity would have no reason not to. They didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about, so they didn’t understand what being abandoned at such a young age did to a person. How it made her believe she was so flawed even her own mother couldn’t love her, and made her afraid that others would see the same unforgivable imperfections—whatever they were.

  So when Serenity started to explain, Lorelei got up and led Lucy over to the windows, where she tried to tune out the other voices in the room. “We’re going to go on the lake in small little boats with paddles if it’s warm enough by the end of our trip,” she told her daughter. “Would you like that?”

  Lucy pointed at the water. “Out there?”

  Lorelei kissed her soft, round cheek. “Yep.”

  “Can we do it tomorrow?” she asked, jumping up and down.

  “Probably not while there’s snow on the ground, but maybe in a few days.”

  “I like it here,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  Lorelei gazed out at the spectacular view. She could see why Finn would want to bring his injured brother to Tahoe. There was a magical quality about the lake—about this whole area. The peace and beauty reminded her to be more grateful for the simple things in life: her health, having good people around her, having enough food to eat and clean air to breathe. It also encouraged her to have the determination to push forward regardless of anything that stood in her way—not only to survive but thrive. “I do,” she said.

  Lucy’s little arms slipped around her neck. “Can we stay forever?”

  Surprised by the question, Lorelei studied her daughter’s face. “Daddy would never be able to leave his job to join us,” she said at length.

  But if her marriage ended in div
orce, who could say where she might live or what she might do?

  New adventures could be waiting just around the corner.

  Certainly, those adventures wouldn’t include anything as drastic as moving to Tahoe permanently. Lorelei doubted she’d be legally permitted to take Lucy so far from her father, even if she wanted to. But she would no longer have to live her life with Mark at the center of it—like a planet orbiting the sun. She wouldn’t have to stop what she was doing the minute he got off work. Wouldn’t have to cook and clean with the goal of pleasing him in mind. Wouldn’t have to live where he wanted to live.

  She would have a second chance to choose what she wanted to do with her life and what she wanted to be.

  The possibility of positive change instead of negative change made her feel something she hadn’t felt since she’d learned about Francine.

  She was pretty sure it was a trace of hope—and maybe even a little excitement.

  11

  reagan

  REAGAN WANTED THIS night to be like any other evening spent enjoying a drink with friends. But every time she started to reach for her wine, she’d think about the possibility of being pregnant and hold off, just in case.

  “What a story,” Finn said after she and Serenity had explained why they’d had their DNA tested. “I can see why you might not want to tell your parents that you’ve found each other, but that’s a pretty big secret. Could you really keep your mouths shut indefinitely?”

  “I don’t know,” Serenity said. “Secrets don’t come naturally to me, which is why I’ve made a profession of unearthing them. Would you be able to stay quiet?”

  “I guess that would depend on what I found,” he replied.

  Reagan could hear Lorelei talking to Lucy. She had moved to the couch with her daughter and taken an iPad out of her bag. They were playing some sort of learning game. But Lorelei could do that with her daughter anytime. Reagan found it odd that she wasn’t more engaged in the conversation.