One Perfect Summer

by Brenda Novak

  “Two sisters? That’s...hard to believe. I’ve met your parents. They seem so open, honest. Have you talked to them about these women?”

  “Not yet. I’m afraid I’ve stumbled on a deep, dark secret, one that might end their marriage.”

  He took her hand and straightened her rings as he spoke. “Neither your mother nor your father has ever mentioned having other children?”

  His fingers looked so big and brown next to hers. “No. That’s how I know it must be a secret. But if my father cheated, and my mother learns about these other children... Or if my mother cheated...”

  “You said one of these sisters is only six months younger than you. How could your mother have been the one?”

  She went out to get her purse and handed him Uncle Vance’s letter when she returned.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  She gestured for him to read it.

  After he did, he looked up. “Who’s Vance?”

  “My uncle.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “Have you mentioned him to these new sisters? Tried to determine if they have a connection with him, too?”

  “No. I just found this letter not too long ago and I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around it ever since. I’ll probably tell them, though. I sort of have to, don’t I?”

  “Have you met them?” he asked. “Do you even know what they’re like?”

  “They’ve been staying with me for over a week. They’re at the cabin in Tahoe right now, waiting for me to come back. We’re planning to spend the rest of the summer together.”

  “What are they like?”

  “Normal people. Good people. Smart. One has a daughter who’s four. Lucy. She’s sweet.”

  He let go of her hand and stood up to finish dressing. “Can’t they shed some light on the past?”

  She’d liked sitting there on the bed with him, her hand in his. It had felt reassuring, comforting. But she couldn’t attempt to have a relationship right now, especially with Sawyer. “Unfortunately not. Lorelei was either abandoned or lost as a toddler. She was found in the middle of a busy intersection in Orlando and raised in foster care. The other one—Reagan—was raised as an only child in New York City. Her mother is a successful clothing designer who claims her father died when she wasn’t quite two.”

  His head came through his T-shirt. “Claims? You think her father might be your uncle Vance?”

  “After reading that letter, don’t you?”

  Before he could answer, there was a loud banging at the door.

  “Sawyer? I know you’re in there, damn it! I drove by last night and your truck hasn’t moved. You’d better open up and give me those pictures of Sean, or I’m calling the police to tell them Serenity’s trying to steal his property!”

  “It’s Nina.” Serenity’s heart began to pound as she hopped up and started digging through her drawers for a pair of yoga pants.

  Fortunately, Sawyer was already dressed, but his hair was standing up on one side and with that beard growth on his face, Serenity wasn’t optimistic that Nina would believe he’d just arrived. Nina had already said she’d seen Sawyer’s truck outside last night and it hadn’t moved.

  “Shit,” she muttered.

  He shot her a look that told her to calm down. “We haven’t done anything wrong. Doesn’t matter what they think,” he insisted and went out to answer the door.

  Although Serenity remained in the bedroom, she could hear everything Nina said. Sean’s mother accused him of all kinds of terrible things—that he’d probably planted those pictures on Sean’s computer to frame him and steal his wife, that he’d been jealous of Sean his whole life, that he didn’t have an ounce of loyalty in him.

  He responded with admirable restraint—tried to keep his voice low and talk some sense into her—so when Nina screamed that he was no better than a parasite and they should never have taken him in, Serenity threw down the yoga pants she’d been shaking too badly to put on and marched out of the bedroom in her underwear and sweatshirt.

  “Get off my porch right now,” she said, pointing toward Nina’s car at the curb, “or I’ll be the one to call the police. And don’t you ever contact me or come to my house again. Do you understand? I don’t care what excuse you think up. If I find something of your son’s—your pedophile son who’s in prison for his crimes—I’ll mail it to you. But I’ll never speak to you again.”

  A neighbor had just come home from the grocery store. He stood near his vehicle with several bags in each hand, gaping at them as Nina screamed, “So you’ve ruined Sean’s life, put an innocent man in prison and now you’re spreading your legs for his brother?”

  So embarrassed she wished she could crawl under a rock somewhere, Serenity was preoccupied with looking at her neighbor and would’ve been caught unawares when Nina reached out to grab her hair or slap her or...something. But Sawyer grabbed his mother’s hand.

  “You need to go home, Mom,” he said, keeping a tight hold on her wrist. “Your love for Sean has made you blind.”

  She wrenched her hand away, then jabbed a finger in his chest. “Don’t you call me Mom! Don’t you ever call me Mom again, you ungrateful bastard! You sack of shit! You, you—”

  Serenity yanked him back, out of the way, so she could slam the door. Then they both stood there as the house shook and the reverberation echoed around them.

  “She’s vile,” Serenity said, her voice barely above a whisper. “As if what Sean did wasn’t bad enough.”

  Sawyer rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache. “She’s hurt, too,” he pointed out. “No one wants to believe their child could be that kind of person. You know what they say about a mother’s love.”

  A mother’s love was something he’d been denied, at least for many years. And yet he was far more deserving than Sean had ever been. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be any justice in the world. But Serenity couldn’t help being impressed that Sawyer could look at the situation that objectively, especially after the hurtful things Nina had said to him.

  “I’ll get the pictures from the basement and leave them on her porch,” he said. “Then we should be done with her.”

  We? Serenity shook her head. She should never have asked Sawyer to come over. She didn’t want anything to do with Sean or his family, didn’t need to be reminded of everything that’d happened. “There’s cereal in the cupboard, and I bought milk yesterday. Feel free to have some breakfast before you go,” she said. “But if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to Tahoe.”

  “Serenity...” he started, but she pushed past him to the bathroom. She had too much going on, couldn’t risk inviting more drama into her life.

  When she got out of the shower, he was gone.

  * * *

  lorelei

  When Lorelei went to Finn’s on Sunday with the dinner she’d prepared, Lucy was her only companion. Serenity had returned from Berkeley, but she’d excused herself by saying she hadn’t slept well the night before, that she’d meet Davis tomorrow. And even though Reagan had come out of her room for a while earlier, she said she still wasn’t feeling well enough.

  Lorelei had been tempted to cancel with Finn, but she’d already made some cheese and herb polenta and chicken with fig sauce, and she was eager to see him. It hadn’t been all that long since they were together, but it felt like an eternity. She was also looking forward to meeting his brothers. They’d talked about Nolan and Davis all week.

  Finn met her at the door and helped her carry in the food. He said Davis and Nolan were showering.

  When they finally emerged, she could see that Davis wasn’t quite as tall as Finn or Nolan, and the pallor of his face—as well as the way his clothes hung on his frame—made it plain he’d lost a lot of weight recently. But even so, he was attractive. He had the same chiseled feature
s and striking eyes as Finn, although his were brown.

  He greeted her with a polite dip of his head when Finn introduced them, but his “nice to meet you” was clipped enough to let her know he wasn’t interested in much social interaction.

  Nolan had tattoo sleeves on both arms and darker hair than either of his brothers, which he wore long. He hung out with her and Finn in the kitchen while she put the finishing touches on the meal. As they talked and laughed, Davis sat morosely in front of the TV and kept to himself—or attempted to. Despite the fact that Lorelei had tried to prepare Lucy to meet Finn’s injured brother, Lucy had never come into such close contact with someone who’d lost a limb, and she was absolutely transfixed by the empty sleeve pinned to his shirt.

  No matter how many times Lorelei drew her away from him, as soon as she got distracted with something Finn or Nolan said, she’d find Lucy near Davis again, staring at his missing arm. And, much to Lorelei’s mortification, at one point she came out and asked, “What happened to your arm?”

  He told her he was in a motorcycle accident, but that only inspired more questions.

  “The motorcycle cut off your arm?” she asked.

  “Lucy,” Lorelei called, but Lucy ignored her in favor of getting an answer.

  “The motorcycle smashed it and the doctor cut it off,” Davis explained woodenly.

  This answer seemed to horrify Lucy so much that she again ignored Lorelei when she tried to get her attention. “When will it grow back?” she asked Davis.

  “It won’t,” he said simply.

  “Then how are you going to tie your shoes?”

  Since Lucy wasn’t listening, Lorelei crossed the living room and grabbed Lucy’s arm, forcing her daughter to look up at her at last. “It’s time to eat,” Lorelei said and walked her over to the table.

  Lucy continued to stare at Davis while they ate, so dragging her away hadn’t made any difference.

  When Davis had difficulty cutting his chicken, Lorelei glanced at Finn, her expression asking if she should cut it for him. But Finn gave her a subtle shake of his head, signaling that she should leave Davis to his own devices, so they all cringed when Lucy piped up with the offer instead.

  “Want me to help you?”

  Davis pretended he didn’t hear her. He stabbed his chicken breast with his fork and bit off pieces instead of trying to cut it. Lorelei was so afraid Lucy would continue singling him out and asking about his recent injury that she stayed only two hours before saying she had to go home to give Lucy a bath and put her to bed.

  Finn walked them out. As soon as he closed the door behind them, Lorelei lowered her voice and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “He’s going to have to get used to that sort of thing.”

  “But it’s so soon!” She frowned at Lucy. “I don’t know what got into her. I told her it wasn’t kind to stare, warned her not to ask him any questions about his missing arm. But all of that went out the window as soon as she saw him.”

  He smoothed Lucy’s hair out of her eyes. “She didn’t mean any harm, did you, little one?”

  Lucy looked from him to her. “Are you mad at me, Mommy?”

  Finn spoke up before Lorelei could. “No. No one’s mad at you. It’s perfectly natural to be curious.”

  Lorelei rubbed Lucy’s back to reassure her but spoke to Finn. “You wanted our help to make things better, but I feel we’ve only made them worse.”

  “Davis will be fine,” he insisted.

  “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She started to leave, but he caught her elbow.

  Surprised, she turned to see him looking at her left hand. “Why don’t you come back after Lucy’s asleep?”

  Reagan and Serenity would be at the cabin, if, for some reason, Lucy woke up. They could alert Lorelei to any problem, not that she expected one. But Lorelei knew what would probably happen if she returned to Finn’s alone.

  She’d removed her wedding ring after that exchange with Francine, and Finn had obviously noticed. He was taking that as a sign.

  “I don’t know...” she said, feeling conflicted.

  His gaze lifted to her face. “You don’t want to?”

  “That isn’t it.”

  He lowered his voice. “Then come.”

  She gestured toward the cabin. “You’ve got your brothers here now.”

  “It’s different with guys. They won’t care.”

  She let go of a long sigh. After what she’d told Francine, Mark had been trying even more frantically to get hold of her, but she hadn’t answered his calls or texts. She refused to let him or anything else continue to intrude. This was her summer. She had three months to spend with her sisters. Three months in which she could forget about the mess she’d left in Florida, with Francine and the baby. Three months to revel in the smell of the forest, the cushion of pine needles beneath her feet and the reflection of the sun on the lake before returning to real life.

  “Lorelei?”

  Her heart began to race as she looked up. “Okay, I’ll come back.”

  22

  serenity

  SHE’D LEFT BERKELEY before taking any photographs of the house so she could list it for sale. She should’ve stayed and cleaned it up again so she could put it on the market. She’d had the time. But she’d been afraid Sawyer would come back. He hadn’t liked the way their night had ended. She could tell he wanted to talk about it, but she didn’t. She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to start a relationship, especially with him. She couldn’t imagine they’d be able to make it work.

  But when she’d gone into the kitchen to fill the dishwasher before leaving for Tahoe, she’d found a vase from her own cupboard filled with purple hydrangeas. He hadn’t left a note or anything else, just the flowers, but seeing them had hit her hard. She’d stood there, staring at the delicate periwinkle-edged blooms for several minutes.

  She had a big hydrangea bush in the backyard. He must’ve cut the flowers from there. It wasn’t that they’d been hard to come by—because they hadn’t been—that held her so transfixed. It was the thoughtfulness of the gesture. She had several rosebushes right outside her front door and yet he’d chosen the hydrangeas, which meant he must’ve remembered that they were her favorite.

  She tried to recall ever having mentioned it to him, but no snippet of conversation about flowers came to mind. Had he overheard her talking to someone else? If so, it was even more impressive that he’d remembered. It wasn’t as though he’d ever paid her a great deal of attention. In the years before she found those files on Sean’s computer, he’d baited and teased her on occasion, been an absolute pain in the ass if there was anything competitive going on, but he’d never acted as though he was taking notes on what she did or didn’t like. Most of the time he hadn’t shown up at the family parties she and Sean attended. And if he was there, as long as they weren’t playing any sort of game, he gave her a wide berth.

  As she prepared for bed at the cabin that night, she thought of those hydrangeas and the man who’d gone to the trouble of bringing them in for her. Now that Nina knew Sawyer had spent the night, she’d tell the rest of the family. Serenity was afraid she’d get hate texts from Sean’s other two brothers, like she had during the trial. Felix had been particularly mean, which was why she’d had to get a restraining order against him. But Thomas had been a jerk, too. Either one of them could start bothering her again.

  Even with the threat of that hanging over her head, however, she couldn’t regret her time with Sawyer. He’d made the night everything she’d wanted it to be—and then some.

  She checked her phone as she’d been checking it all day. She hadn’t heard from him. Fortunately, she hadn’t heard from Nina or the rest of Sean’s family, either. Had Sawyer found the photographs while she was in the shower? Dropped them off after he left
her place? If so, how did it go with Nina after that embarrassing scene at her front door?

  Or did he simply put the box on the porch and leave?

  While she wondered about those things, she spent even more time wondering about something else: Was what had sparked between them over as quickly as it had begun?

  She doubted Sawyer would ever lack for female company. He could have just about any woman he wanted, so why would he choose Sean’s ex-wife?

  “Hey, you have a minute?”

  Serenity looked up to find Reagan standing in the doorway. She could hear Lorelei talking to Lucy down the hall, getting her ready for bed.

  “Sure. What’s going on?” Serenity put down her phone. “Sorry I didn’t say hello when I got home. Lorelei told me you were sick, so I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  Serenity blinked at her. “Then what’s wrong?”

  Reagan opened her mouth to answer, but covered her face instead.

  “Reagan?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, the words coming out as though they were wrenched from her.

  A jolt of surprise brought Serenity’s hand to her chest. “Are you... Are you sure?”

  She dropped her hands and cocked one eyebrow. “I’ve taken three home pregnancy tests so far, hoping I’ll get a different reading. Do you think I should take another one?”

  “No. Three should be enough. But...how did it happen?”

  She rolled her eyes and groaned in apparent self-loathing. “Don’t ask.”

  “You didn’t use any birth control...”

  “We didn’t plan on having sex in the first place! It was...unexpected and...and we did what we could but apparently it wasn’t enough.”

  Meaning they’d used the withdrawal method. Serenity’s mind immediately reverted to last night. Thank God Sawyer had had condoms. He’d had to go out to his truck to get more after they’d used the one in his wallet, but at least they hadn’t risked a pregnancy. “I’m sorry. I can tell you’re not happy about it.”