Summer's Road (28 page)

Rick shoved his hands in his pockets. “How do you think he is?”

Miserable. I knew he was. I closed my eyes and breathed deep before kneeling in front of the grave. Absently, I brushed some grass clippings from the stone face. “I didn’t know he came here.”

“You’re not the only one who misses your father, Summer.”

My chest constricted. Daddy had taught Ian about woodworking, how to build. He’d treated Ian like a son. In my own grief, I had sometimes overlooked how much Ian loved my father, too. Swallowing tears, I nodded.

“I hear your mother is moving back to town.” His feet shuffled behind me.

“Yes.” I rose, smoothing my black skirt. “We’re working on mending things.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. “That must be really hard for you.” There was no malice or edge to his voice, just understanding.

“Actually, no.” I looked at him, my dear Rick, who had been a quiet pillar of support. I wanted to tell him how easy it was to talk to Mom, or how she’d held me when I’d cried, or that she’d spent the better part of twenty years almost as alone as me. But none of it needed to be said, really. What Rick really wanted to know was if I’d finally let go, if I finally forgave myself.

I made sure to hold his gaze when I spoke, so he would understand my meaning. “I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend to you through the years, Rivers. I think I took you for granted.” He swallowed, a small smile curving his lips at my use of his nickname. “I’m sorry I hid things from you and made you worry more because of it. Mostly, I’m sorry I let my depression affect you, let it drown me. I never meant to do that.”

Eyes red with unshed tears, his gaze roamed my face. He took my hand and splayed my fingers over his chest, covering them with his own. “You were,
are
, the greatest friend a guy could ask for. Selfless, really. All I ever wanted for you was happiness, Summer. The kind of happy you made me. No one deserved it more or got it less. When we counted stars together on your front porch as kids, when we threw pennies into the Baker well, that’s what I wished for. That’s all I ever wished for.”

Kissing my fingertips, he dropped my hand and backed away. “Look at you.” He shook his head as if in awe. “I guess wishes come true, eh?” Turning, he headed toward his car. He got about twenty feet before I called out to him.

“I love you, you know.”

Turning halfway around, he grinned over his shoulder. For the first time in memory, he didn’t look like he was picking my brain or worried sick. “I know. Always known.” He kept walking. “Love you harder.”

I laughed, staring after him until he disappeared. I turned back to the grave. Kneeling, I bit my lip. “I thought if I held it all in, I wouldn’t bother anyone. It only served to worry you all more, didn’t it?”

A sudden and irrevocable need to keep talking wrapped around me. Like...he was listening.

“I hurt you, too, didn’t I? Wishing for her to come back when you were right there all along. It wasn’t fair to you. But I did love you, Daddy.” My voice broke. “So, so much. I love you still.” I sighed. “Mom came back. We talked a lot and I’m forgiving her. She’s moving here in a couple weeks. I can’t help but think the most tragic part in all this is she never stopped loving you.”

I sat in silence, letting the sun warm me for awhile. A whippoorwill called from a nearby tree, the sound both romantic and sad. I wondered what they were really saying.

After a long few moments, I pressed my hand to his grave. “Don’t worry about me anymore. I love you.”

I called Dee after leaving the cemetery, needing to get something off my chest. She picked up and I told her to sit down, as I feared she might get weepy. “I didn’t like you when you first moved to Wylie. There was no real reason. You did nothing wrong. But you know what changed my mind?” Unlike me, Dee wore her emotions on her sleeve. Time for me to do the same. “Prom night, alone in a bathroom stall, I sat and listened to you defend me against Ian’s date. You defended a girl you hardly knew, who wasn’t all that nice to you, simply because Ian and Rick loved me. So, you did, too.”

Dee cleared her throat. “You knew? You were there?”

“Yes and, in turn, I used you from that point on. I’d talk to you and tell you things because I knew you wouldn’t tell the others, and I could change the subject without much objection. I should’ve protected you, too. I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I should’ve told you how much I loved you. That lost, lonely girl you rescued in that bathroom may have needed it then, but I’m not her anymore.”

Dee’s breath caught. “Summer...”

“I’m so very sorry I hurt you.”

She sniffed. “Do you realize you just told me more in the past five minutes than you have in the past ten years? That’s all the apology I need.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ian

D
ee came back into the room, her eyes suspiciously wet, phone clutched in her hand. She sat next to me on the couch in their living room and deflated.

“What’s wrong?”

She waved her hand. “Nothing. Pregnancy hormones.”

I didn’t believe her, but I kept silent.

My knee bouncing, I stared at the front door, willing Rick to walk through. The three of us had decided it was best for Rick to attend Jon Melbourne’s funeral. In my effort to keep my distance, to let her stand on her own, I’d had to hear through the grapevine that Summer’s student had passed away. And about her mother moving back to Wylie.

It had taken everything in me not to race to her side and verify with my own two eyes she was all right. Strangely, the need wasn’t out of a sense to protect her, to unload her burden for her, but because I just wanted to be there for her. Next to her. For support, not as a knight. A hard habit to kick, but I’d done it. I guessed that meant the week we’d been apart had done more than kill me. It proved I was capable of trusting her.

In truth, I should’ve given her the credit she was due. She was the strongest person I knew. She’d handled more than what most people were dealt and had come out with her chin up. I’d been too close to the situation, to her, to see it.

The latch on the front door clicked and Rick strode in. I resisted bolting from my seat to interrogate him. He sat in a chair across from us and dropped his head back on the cushion. “She’s good. She’s...” He rubbed his chest as if to squelch an ache. “Damn, she’s really good.”

Dee nodded as if she’d known that.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I set my elbows on my knees and scrubbed my face with my hands.

“Relax, Ian. You did the right thing. What we should’ve done all along.” Rick shifted in his seat. “We did this to her. We made her like this. She’s been trying to tell us for too long she was okay. And, in response, we coddled her, making it impossible for her to talk to us.”

I knew that. The past week had only cemented the proof. Still, my gut ached and there was a black hole where my damn heart used to be. All those years of pining for her. I’d always thought if I could just get her to see me, the rest would fall into place. That if she noticed how deep my feelings ran, we’d get our ever after. Like her effing movies.

Turned out, it was way more complicated than just loving her. I’d spent too much time wishing and hoping, too much time tiptoeing around her, waiting for her to break, than actually seeing the woman.

Dee stood. “I’m going to get you two a beer and pretend I can have one.”

After she’d left, Rick eyed me. “You know, I did it as much for you as I did for her. The coddling.”

I jerked my gaze to his.

He crossed his arms. “I never confronted you either. I could have told you years ago to talk to her, to tell her how you feel, but I didn’t. That’s on me. I didn’t give you enough credit.”

I studied him, the guilt in his eyes, and the years cindered to dust. “I miss her.”

Rick nodded, glancing away. “I know you do. It’ll work out.”

Somehow, I wasn’t as confident. Optimism hadn’t gotten me anywhere but my friend’s couch and a gaping wound where Summer used to be.

Dee came back and handed us both a long neck bottle. “Can I smell it when you open it?”

And, look at that. I was capable of laughing.

I stayed another hour and then took off, needing to keep my hands busy. Making my way into the workshop behind my house, I sat at the drafting desk to sketch out nursery furniture for Rick and Dee. Building something for my new niece or nephew would keep me busy, keep me from crossing the distance to her. I’d walked away from her, a necessity, but she needed to chase me. Prove to me I was what she wanted. Reach for her happy. Until then, I’d build.

Donning safety goggles, I tried to cut and sand and nail and stain her right out of my head.

Futile.

Summer

A
storm swept through the area just after dark, causing the humidity to reach uncomfortable highs and forcing an electricity in the air which had everything charged, including my nerves.

I stood by the front door and watched the torrent. The rain poured down in sheets, the wind bending the trees at unusual angles. In the distance, a roar of thunder boomed as the worst of the storm headed our way.

I checked my cell again. No missed calls. I sighed and dialed Ian’s house number, then his cell when he didn’t answer. His bedroom light was on and so was his porch light. They’d come on an hour ago when he’d left his workshop. He was home, just ignoring me. Rather than leaving yet another message, I dropped the phone on the table.

Somehow, I knew he was waiting for me. For me to come to him. He’d stayed radio silent for a week. He’d proven he trusted me to handle the obstacles on my own. He had to know through the rumor mill about my student passing away, about my mother’s visit. Yet, he hadn’t come, hadn’t tried to step in and take charge.

I guess it was time for me to go after him. He wasn’t my happy. I’d done that on my own. But he was my happy ending.

With a deep breath, I bounded out the door and into the storm. As I paced across the two acres, rain slapped my face, soaking my T-shirt to my chest and jeans to my thighs.

Leaping up the porch steps, I tried the doorknob. Locked. Pounding my fist against the door, I yelled over the rain. “Ian, open this door!” Two beats passed. Nothing. “Ian, I mean it. Open up!” Nothing.

I rounded the side of the house, rain dripping off my hair and into my eyes. “Ian!” Grabbing a handful of pea gravel from the base of the bushes lining his house, I tossed a few at his bedroom window. It was too high. Backing up a step, I tossed some more, this time hitting the window pane. “Ian Joshua Memmer, get down here!”

The curtain brushed aside from the window and then settled into place again. I couldn’t tell through the rain if he’d seen me or not.

Seconds later, he came out the front door and stopped halfway to me in the middle of the yard. His black T-shirt plastered to the hard planes of his chest, his flat stomach. The muscles in his biceps bunched as his hands fisted by his side. He said nothing, just stood there with his black hair matted from the rain and his thick lashes wet.

“I’ve been trying to call you for three days.”

He blinked the rain from his eyes, the shock receding and his jaw tense. “Come inside. You’re soaked.” I didn’t move. “Christ, Summer, you’re shivering. Come inside.”

I
was
shivering, I
was
soaked, and I was empty without him. “You left me.”

He strode forward two steps and stopped, still several paces away, as if remembering why he’d left me alone and forcing himself to stay back. His mouth firmed into a thin line, eyes darting back and forth between mine.

The night sky let out a flash of lightning and he broke the connection to look up.

“You left me.” Dropping his gaze back to me, the tortured, wrecked pain there told me how much it had cost him to do that, to walk away from me. “Thank you.”

His lips parted, eyebrows furrowed. Raindrops poured off his dark hair and over his face. He was the most glorious thing I’d ever laid eyes on. The muscled contours of his body were wrought tight with tension, his eyes pleading.

I nodded to his silent question. “Thank you. I know how much it killed you to leave me, but you did. You trusted that I’d still be here when you came back.” I pressed my hand to my heart. “I love you.”

He seemed to stop breathing. “How can you be sure?”

I shook my head, not understanding.

He stepped closer. “Why do you love me?”

I could barely detect his voice over the thrum of rain, but when his words registered, I almost fell to my knees. This was it. He wanted to know I loved him as a man and not the boy who’d saved me. Wanted to know I saw him. The fight in him was gone as he looked at me, his hope dangling for me to reach out.

“I love you because I think it’s adorable a grown man still eats Cocoa Puffs for breakfast.” I inched closer. “I love you because you’d rather spend time with me doing nothing than with someone else doing something.” Another step. “I love you for waiting ten years to tell me how you felt because you thought you’d lose me.” Step. “I love you because Daddy picked you for me.”

I closed the last of the distance between us, flush in front of him so I had to look up to see his face. Those beautifully dark eyes never left mine.

Ian blinked, ran a hand down his face, and blinked again. “Summer?” His voice was husky and edged with resignation.

“Yes?”

“It took you long enough.” A smile curved his mouth, spreading into a mischievous grin encompassing his entire face. But when he cupped my face, his hands frigid from the rain, there wasn’t any humor left, just the truth between us. “I love you, too. So damn much.”

He crushed his mouth to mine, his tongue sliding between my lips, telling me the story of us. I melted against him and sighed, tilting my head to give him better access to probe deeper, to draw him closer. The drenching storm forgotten, my entire body heated until I was alight with need and desire. Snaking his hands through my hair, he backed us up until my back hit a tree. He pinned me with his hips.

I laughed and drew away just enough to look at him. We needed to get out of this rain before we wound up making love out here against the tree, or on the lawn. But I couldn’t bring myself to move just yet. Wiping the rain from his face, I grinned.

Dropping his forehead to mine, he narrowed his eyes with a roguish gleam. “I’m serious. What the hell took you so long? A week, sweetheart?”

“Complain, complain.”

“Tease.”

“Brood.”

He smiled, tracing my lips with the pad of his thumb, and then pressed a kiss there. Lifting his head, he squinted through the rain and looked around as if gauging which of our houses was closer. Much to my delight, he bent, swept an arm under my legs, and carried me inside his house.

We barely made it to the bedroom before he set me on the bed and covered me with his body.

Perfection.

I woke a couple hours later to Ian’s arm draped over my middle and the sheet around our legs. A quick glance at the window and I noted it was still dark out, but the rain stopped.

I stretched, careful not to wake Ian, and grinned at how cute he looked all tousled after sex. Slipping from the bed, I grabbed a shirt from his dresser drawer and pulled my arms through. I made my way downstairs and stepped outside, breathing deep. The air had a tranquil, replenished scent that could only come from a good drenching storm.

I walked across the wet grass to my yard and eased onto the porch steps. The only sound was the rustling of the trees. Soon, fall would be sweeping in and changing things. With the sky clear, the moon illuminated my front yard, casting shadows across the lawn. The silly and sad romantic in me wanted to wish on the stars blinking brightly against the inky backdrop. But with my mother moving home, my new studio opening, good friends by my side, and Ian’s love, there seemed no need.

I’d found my happy. And I’d never let it go.

When Mom had things squared away in Houston, I was going to ask her to move into the house. It was time for me to let go of Daddy and move on. He would always be my father and I would always love him, but it was time to stop using his memory as a crutch and let him rest. Let the good memories wash back into the house. I’d only ask one thing from her after I gave her the house—to leave that photo on top of the fireplace mantle. The one of him and her in front of the lilac bush, because if it remained there, it would seem as if they were finally together again after twenty-eight years.