Perfect Summer (35 page)

“Always looking out for me. I appreciate it.” She leaned down, Clint still attached to her, and picked up her steel Kitchen Aid mixing bowl. “Unfortunately, I need to get these cookies made and take a shower.”

“I’ll be right here for you, every step of the way. In water, I transform to the human sudser, ready to take care of all your bathing needs.” His thumbs teased her nipples.

“You’re very versatile.”

“I pride myself on flexibility.” He kissed her jaw.

“I’m glad you said that. I was hoping you’d show me sixty-nine. It sounds interesting.”

Clint sniffled loudly. “Chocolate chip cookies and sixty-nine, now I’m going to cry.”

Summer unfolded the block of shortening and dumped it into the bowl along with the brown sugar. She attached the flat blade and turned on the mixer. Cracking an egg on the side of the bowl, she dropped the innards in to mix with the brown sugar. She tossed the eggshell in the trashcan, reached behind her, grabbed the knot of Clint’s towel, and tugged. The towel drifted to the floor.

“Thanks, I needed to wipe my hands.” Summer grinned. Clint’s were still holding up her cleavage. He was buck-naked and hadn’t seemed to notice. “How can you walk around naked?”

Would she ever achieve that level of immodesty?

“What? I’m wearing a hot blonde as a codpiece.” His hands slid under her shirt and her bra and cupped her.

“Codpiece? How do you know what that is?” Summer rested against him. His fingers were doing some very interesting things to her nipples.

“I’m a man of many secrets.” He kissed her throat. “This would be so much easier if you were naked too.”

“The blinds are open. And the neighbor kids are jumping on the trampoline. I bet they’re learning a few things about anatomy right now.” Summer added the vanilla, mixed the dry ingredients, and added them to the mixer. With a knife, she cut open the chocolate chips and dumped them in. “Let me get these in the oven and close the blinds, then I’m yours.”

Summer pulled a cookie scoop out of the drawer next to her and the cookie sheet from the cabinet next to the oven. Using nonstick spray, she coated the pan. In a matter of seconds, she had a dozen cookie mounds slapped out on the pan. She picked it up, put it in the oven, and set the timer. “We have twelve minutes. Show me what you’ve got.”

Clint turned her around and kissed her gently, his lips parting for some light tongue action. Summer returned the tongue and added a little bite. Her hands roamed down his back and cupped his tight butt.

The doorbell rang.

“Ignore it.” His hand found the snap of her jeans as his mouth left hers.

It rang again.

“They’ll get bored and go away.” He bent his head and lifted her right breast to his mouth. “I love your breasts. I love your body. I love—”

“Hello? Summer? Anybody home?” It was her mother’s voice.

Summer batted Clint’s hands away. “Wait. Give me a minute.”

“Did I come at a bad time?” her mother asked.

“Yes.” Clint answered. “I’m naked and doing my best to get your daughter that way. Go away.”

“Maybe we should come back later.” It was a male voice Summer didn’t recognize. A man? Her mother had brought over a man?

“Maybe you’re right, Davis.”

Davis? Could this be the father of her mother’s baby? Summer replayed that last sentence in her head. She was about to meet her mother’s baby daddy. Surreal wasn’t surreal enough.

“No, wait. Give us a minute.” Summer leaned close to Clint’s ear. “This is the baby’s father.” A giggle rose up and shimmied out of her mouth. Summer was opening her heart to her mother, but this was going to be a hard conversation for Lilly. The perverse side of Summer’s personality couldn’t wait. Not that she would be condescending and rude like her mother had been when Summer was a child, but she would take some pleasure in watching the older woman squirm.

“Oh.” He grabbed his towel off the floor and headed to the bedroom.

Summer straightened her clothes. Her nipples showed through the tee shirt. She crossed her arms.

“Okay, I’m in the kitchen.” The key was to keep her shoulders hunched so her shirt didn’t pull tight across her chest.

Stomp…slap…stomp…slap…stomp…slap
. Her mother walked into the kitchen, leaving a trail of water in her wake. From head to toe, she was a sopping mess, her purple dress splotchy with mud and her hair stuck to her head.

“Mother.” Summer choked on the laughter rolling around in her mouth. Apparently her mother’s fall from grace had involved a dunking booth and some mud. Why hadn’t anyone called Summer? She’d have taken out a mortgage on her house to fund the volley of balls she’d have thrown at the dunking booth’s target. “What happened?”

Had anyone videotaped it and put it on YouTube? Lilly might have changed, but the thirteen-year-old Summer who’d endured the fat test was alive and well and needed some payback.

“Pool accident.” She waved it away like it was nothing. “This is Davis. Davis Jefferson, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Summer Ames.”

Pool accident? Hadn’t Clint said that his twin girlfriends had had a hot tub accident? It appeared that chlorinated water mishaps were on the rise.

Her mother stepped aside to reveal a tall man in his mid-thirties with red hair and kind eyes. The knees of his trousers were filthy, and his shirt had splotches of wet like he’d been hugging her mother. He wasn’t the polished type her mother usually dated. This man was the lean-muscled college professor whose cowlick was never tamed and whose shirt was not only untucked but buttoned wrong. Her mother had met her polar opposite.

“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Davis shook her hand and smiled.

“It’s nice to finally meet you too.” Summer released his hand and stepped into his personal space. Summer might be harboring some resentment toward her mother, but family was family, and no one messed with hers. “Are you planning on doing right by her and my brother?”

“Summer.” Her mother’s eyes were the size of saucers.

He laughed. “You’re spunky. You get that from her. I’ve already groveled, and she’s agreed to marry me. I would have done it sooner, but she’s a little hard to find.”

Summer nodded. “Good man.”

“Who’s a good man?” Clint stepped beside her, his hand going to the small of her back. He stuck out his free hand in the offer of a handshake. “Clint Grayson.”

Davis took it and pumped twice. He stepped back. “Wait a minute. You’re the quarterback.” He looked at Summer. “And you’re Summer…Ames. The Summer Ames.”

“Davis gave me a ring.” Her mother held out her hand, showing Summer the emerald-cut diamond. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Compared to the ring her father had given her mother, this might have come out of a gumball machine. The ring was elegant with no frills, just like her mother. Davis knew her mother better than Summer did.

Davis gaped at her mother. “That would make you Lillian Ames, not Leeds.”

Lilly studied the single shoe she was wearing. “Leeds was my mother’s maiden name.” She cleared her throat, and Summer could swear that her mother was blushing, which of course she did prettily with one perfect rose blossom of color on each cheek. “I might have forgotten to correct you when you assumed that it was mine.”

“Any other omissions, lapses in memory, or lies that I need to be aware of?” Davis looked like a tolerant man who was not only at the end of his rope but ready to wrap it around her mother’s neck and pull it tight.

“Um…” Lilly squirmed under his scrutiny as she chose her words. “You know how I told you that I’m forty-five…”

“Yes?” Davis’s patience was wearing thin.

“Actually, I’m forty-seven…”

Summer grinned and would have enjoyed popping some popcorn, pulling up a chair, and watching the payback in real time, but she was out of popcorn. “She’s forty-eight. And don’t take any crap from her.”

“Summer.” Lilly smoothed her wet and tangled hair. She chewed on the inside of her cheek and reluctantly nodded her head. “I deserved that. She’s right. I’m forty-eight.” She shot Summer a look that would have melted plastic. “And I guess some familial loyalty is too much to ask?”

Summer grinned. “While I like the new you, the old you is still in there somewhere and needs to learn a thing or two.” She held out her hand for Davis to shake. “Welcome to the family.”

He shook it and then pulled her in for a hug. “What else do I need to know about her?” He glanced a Lilly.

Summer nodded. “There is one thing that both grosses her out and pisses her off. It’s a word—”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Lilly’s eyes went reptilian. “Summerville Ames.”

“Summerville? That’s the name she stuck you with?” Davis looked from Lilly to Summer and back again. “Sounds like a ham.”

“That’s what I said.” Clint threw his hands up.

Summer took a step back so she could get a good look at her mother’s reaction. “Toiletries.”

Lilly’s whole body cringed, and she clamped her hands over her ears. “I hate that word.”

“I used to slip it into the conversation just to torture her.” Summer liked that she was finally admitting it out loud. Being bad was so much more fun when others knew she was doing it. And she’d walked on eggshells around her mother for long enough. “Toiletries.”

Lilly cringed again. “Stop…please.”

Davis gave Summer a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Summer, do you have something I could change into?” Her mother looked like she needed an escape route.

“Sure.” She took her mother’s hand.

Summer led her mother to the master bedroom. She ignored the mess and took her mother straight to her closet. She pulled out a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and some socks and handed them to her mother. “I’m happy for you. He seems nice.”

Lilly took a deep breath and let it out through her nose. “He is, and he doesn’t let me run all over him.”

That was pretty much the best her mother could hope for in a relationship.

Summer walked back into the living room, giving her mother some privacy. The bell on the oven dinged. The cookies were ready. She headed to the oven.

Clint stepped into the kitchen. “Davis is getting cleaned up in the guest bathroom.” He shook his head. “That man has his hands full with your mother.”

Summer grinned. “Better him than me.”

Clint pulled her to him and slid his hands down to her butt. “I’d like to get my hands full of you.” He cocked his head to the left. “We could go to my place. There are two Walgreens on the way. I’d be happy to let you thank me again.”

“I have to get the cookies.” She tried to sidestep him, but he was too fast and held her tight.

“That’s what I’m trying to do. Get your cookies.” He dropped a kiss on her nose and stepped back.

Summer opened the oven door, pulled out the cookie sheet, and stuck it on the stovetop to cool. She set the timer for two minutes to let the cookies crisp and got a plate. “Can you grab the milk?”

“Something smells good.” Davis walked into the kitchen. “Lilly said you were a wonderful cook.”

Summer didn’t think her mother had ever noticed. Until recently, Lilly didn’t eat anything but salad, poached fish, and the occasional square inch of steak.

Summer grinned. Was her mother a closet foodie? The possibility made her mother likable. “Thanks. I like to cook.”

Clint set the half-gallon jug on the island. “She’s being modest. Everything she makes is wonderful.” He put his arm around her.

“Do I smell cookies?” Lilly didn’t wait for an answer and walked straight to the stove, grabbed a plate from the cabinet, a spatula from the crock next to the stove, and scooped out four. She dipped her finger into the waistband of her jeans and tried to do the fat test on herself, but the jeans were so tight her finger wouldn’t budge. She shrugged her shoulders and unsnapped the top two buttons. “Clint, would you mind pouring me a big glass of milk? Junior likes whole milk a lot…so do I.”

Her mother had failed the fat test and now she wanted whole milk? What was next, crack cocaine and peanut M&Ms?

Lilly shoved two cookies in her mouth and glanced at Summer. “What?”

Her mother had broken her own two highest rules—she was eating carbs and talking with her mouth full. This was tantamount to anarchy. Summer still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. “It’s like watching a car wreck. I know that it’s happening, but a part of my brain doesn’t believe it.”

“I like cookies…a lot. My mother used to make them for my father all the time.” Lilly shoved in two more. “Yours are better.”

Summer didn’t want to beam at the compliment, but she did. Positive words from her mother had been so few and far between.

“If y’all want some, you’d better hurry. I’ve eaten half the pan.” Her mother had a milk mustache and chocolate commas around her mouth. If the woman had grown fangs and started drinking blood from the neighbor children, Summer would have been less horrified.

“Here, Summer. The cook deserves at least one of her marvelous creations.” Her mother moved to the side, giving her access to the cookies.

Anxiety grabbed at Summer’s stomach like a thousand tiny little hands. Eating in front of her mother—especially a cookie—opened her up to ridicule. Summer rubbed the tired muscles at the back of her neck. She was no coward. Not anymore. She squared her shoulders and thrust her chin in the air.

Clint’s arm came around her. How had he known that she needed him?

She reached for a cookie, but he pushed her hand away. “Allow me. I love feeding you, because I get to watch you eat. Your mouth…mmmm.” He scooped up a cookie and popped it in her mouth.

Clint accepted her and liked her just the way she was, her mother had offered her a cookie—the only person giving Summer the fat test right now was herself. She chewed with relish—all anxiety disappeared. No one found her wanting…even herself.

“I know what you mean. She has her mother’s mouth.” Davis kissed her mother full on the lips.

Summer chewed and gawked. She’d never seen her mother kiss anyone. And the kiss lingered, arms went around bodies, mouths opened wider, and tongues… Summer dropped her eyes to the floor. She didn’t want to think about the tongues.

Her shoulders shook with laughter as she said, “Toiletries.”