Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 (20 page)

“I know.” For once, Rachael didn’t say much.

Summer opened her swollen eyes and saw a collection of men in her front yard. T.J., who’d managed to shoot himself in the foot, lay strapped to a stretcher. Two cops and a medical technician hovered over him. Damian stood a few feet away under the oak tree, talking to a state trooper. Summer watched him with a heart so full it ached.

“How did you know?” she asked Rachael.

“Damian called us after he talked to you. Thought we should probably have the police come over here, just in case.”

“And you came too?” She looked at Cat, who stood near the hedges with his hands in his back pockets. His blond hair shone in the sunlight.
God, T.J. might have tried to shoot them both
. The thought sent her head spinning all over again.

“Well, of course we came,” Rachael said. “You think we’d miss all the drama? Please.”

Summer’s breath hitched in her chest. Across the yard, the officer flipped his notepad closed and shook Damian’s hand.

“Told you he was a keeper.”

But Damian didn’t look up at them as he stood in the lawn talking to his mother. “I don’t know…I mean, I’m still leaving. I told everyone that. I don’t have a reason to stay, really.” Summer stopped and remembered something else.
“Besides, I saw him with Joyce Hadley last night. Outside Zeb’s.”

“So?”

“So they were
together
, Rach. I think the other night with us was—I don’t know—just something that happened.”
Something he probably regrets
. “Yeah, he came over here. But I asked him to look at my toilet. That doesn’t mean he wants happily ever after with me.” She looked down at her T-shirt and boxer shorts, torn from struggling with T.J. “I’m a mess.”

Rachael leaned back. “How long are you gonna do this?”

“Do what?”

“You already stood up for a public stoning last night. You gonna turn into the martyr of Pine Point? You think you don’t deserve any happiness because you made a mistake or two?”

Summer looked up, stunned. Rachael had never spoken to her like that. Never.

“Stop blaming yourself for everything that’s ever gone wrong around here. You’re not the reason T.J. took Dinah. You’re not the reason Gabe spent time in jail.”

“Maybe, but I—”

“You always said people had to come to terms with the past in order to understand the present,” Rachael went on. “You’ve spent the last decade telling me that. But studying the past doesn’t mean it defines the person you are forever, does it? It’s just who you
were.
Not who you are.”

Summer stared at her feet. All this time, Rachael had been listening
.

The crowd in her yard thinned a little. For the first time, Damian glanced up at Summer, but she couldn’t read his face.

“They’re putting together search parties to look for Dinah. Want to help?”

Summer nodded. “Just let me shower first.” She turned to head back inside and froze. Rachael’s midnight message played inside her head. Was it possible? She stared at the house and then grabbed her friend’s arm. “Wait.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe—I know where she is.” Summer dashed inside. “I know where Dinah went.”

“Wait a minute—what?”

“Get the police before they leave.” Summer couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it earlier, right away. There was only one place in this town a scared little girl would go if her home had been violated and she didn’t know where else to hide. Only one place safe enough to keep the bogeyman away.

And Summer knew exactly where it was.

* * * * *

“Up on the third floor.”

The policeman stood at her elbow and huffed onto the back of her neck as they climbed the stairs. He stopped Summer on the landing of the second floor. “Don’t want you going any farther. Tell me where it is.” His hand encircled her wrist and pulled her to the side.

But she stood her ground. “I have to go up. She’ll be scared. She might not…” Her voice trailed off as the front door opened. Damian, Hannah and a second policeman stepped inside. Damian rushed to the staircase, but the policeman put a hand on his arm and said something she couldn’t make out. She looked at Hannah and then was sorry. The woman was barely holding herself together. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. In one hand she held a wad of tissues.

Summer turned. She hoped she was right. She had to be right. “It’s on the next floor up. Back bedroom.”
She was here the whole time…

One more flight and they reached the closed door. The cop put a heavy hand on Summer’s shoulder. “I want you to stay back.”

She chewed her bottom lip but stayed where she was. Damian and Hannah hurried up the stairs. The policeman stepped inside the bedroom. Summer held her breath and counted to ten. Twenty. When she reached twenty-two, the man stuck his head back out into the hall and said in a low voice, “Come on.”

Morning light shot the room with gold, and despite the dust everywhere, the walls glowed. She pointed, but she didn’t need to. A black seam ran along the back of the far wall. The hidden door remained open a little more than an inch. Summer’s heart nearly broke.
Poor thing
. Dinah had gotten it open but then hadn’t managed to close it again. In the quiet, they could hear soft sobs.

“Dinah Knight?” The cop spoke first. His voice was kind. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m a policeman. I’m here to make sure you’re safe.” He took a few steps toward the door, but no one answered.

“Ladybug?” Damian’s voice broke on the word. “Are you in there?”

For another second they heard nothing but silence.

“Dame?” Dinah slid open the door and came running across the uneven floor at full tilt. Her arms reached out for her brother. Tears wet her cheeks, and both braids had come undone from their ribbons. Her eyes, pale moon saucers, darted from side to side, and she stumbled in her bare feet and called his name again.

In an instant he swept his sister into his arms. “It’s okay, ladybug. I’ve got you. It’s okay.” Clutching her to his chest, he rocked back and forth, murmuring the words into the top of her head. “It’s okay. It’s all over.”

Summer pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. Tears dampened her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. For a moment she felt dizzy, and she wondered if another memory of the accident would knock her off her feet. It didn’t. Strangely enough, she hadn’t had a single flashback in over a day. Of course, they weren’t hidden pieces of a whole any longer.

“Son of a bitch,” the cop said as he stepped inside the hidden room. “Always heard about these things but never saw one before.” He pushed his hat back on his head and kneeled. “Must-a been pretty small slaves to hide in a space like that.” He looked over his shoulder. “That’s what it was for, right?”

“Yes.” Summer thought about telling him that slaves hadn’t been that small, just desperate. And the ones traveling on the Underground Railroad had suffered far worse conditions than a warm, dry, ten-by-ten space in an isolated house this close to the Canadian border.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” He creaked up again and both knees popped. “Wait ’til the guys at the station hear about this.” He radioed an all-clear down to his partner. “She okay?” he asked Damian. “Gotta get a statement from her if she’s able.”

Damian didn’t speak. He just cleared his throat and moved into the hallway. Summer reached out to pat Dinah on the back, but she only brushed the wrinkled cotton shirt before Damian negotiated the two flights of stairs with his sister in his arms. Once they were back on the ground floor, Hannah swept her daughter into her arms with sobs and hysterical laughter.

“Oh, God. My baby…my baby…thank you…”

Summer descended with slow footsteps. By the time she reached the foyer, the heavy front door had shut behind the Knights. Hannah, Dinah and Damian—a ring of three, a closed circle, a family that didn’t include her. Her fingers rested on the smooth cherry banister until she slid to the first step and sat there, hugging her knees. She swallowed and tried to dislodge the lump in her throat. She’d gone to sleep in Damian’s arms. She’d woken with the tip of a dream on her tongue that in the daylight had found truth after ten years of hiding. She’d talked to Gabe. She’d talked to the police. She’d helped find Dinah.

Summer wondered if it were possible to live an entire lifetime in a single day and night.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Damian sat on the bottom porch step with Dinah beside him.

“I was only a little scared when Dad took me away from the house,” she was saying. “I didn’t know where we were going and why you couldn’t come too. He said if I was good and didn’t cry, we could be a family again.” She sat up and her eyes welled. “But he lied.”

“I know, ladybug.” Damian stroked the back of her hair and tried to contain his anger. “I know. The important thing is that you’re back here with us now.” Even as he comforted her with one hand, he squeezed the other into a fist.
What kind of father steals his child away? Then loses her in the middle of the night?
The only thing keeping Damian sane was knowing that T.J. was on his way to a long prison sentence.

“Summer told me about that secret room,” Dinah whispered. “She said it was a place where people used to hide.” She smiled.

Damian hugged her. “Then it was very smart of you to go there.” His voice broke.
Summer told me about that secret room…

There’s a whole life out there, starting with someone on the other side of those trees who’s waiting for you to come to your senses…

He squeezed his sister’s thin frame. “Ladybug, run over to Mom, okay? I’ll meet you in just a minute. But there’s something I have to do first.”

* * * * *

Rachael yawned and leaned against the banister next to Summer. “I need a nap. What time is it?”

“Um…seven. Ten after.” She couldn’t believe it. The sun had barely broken over the hills, and they’d already captured a criminal and saved a little girl.

“Call me later, okay?”

“You’re leaving?” Summer wasn’t sure her legs would hold her if she walked outside. “Don’t yet. Stay for a while, would you?”

“I’ll be back. Just tell me what happens,” Rachael said as she pulled open the front door.

“What are you talking about?” Then Summer saw him standing at the foot of the porch steps, and she knew. Unshaven, exhausted, with a bruise rising on his jaw, Damian Knight was still the most attractive man she had ever seen.

She took in a deep breath and moved down the stairs until she stood on the step above him. Here they met almost eye to eye. Electricity jumped between them. She lifted her chin.
You saved me
.
You risked your life
. He could have stayed far from the house or left her alone to deal with the problem. But he hadn’t. She wanted to embrace him, thank him, love him.

Blue eyes met hers and dropped away. “So you’re leaving?” He ran both hands through uncombed hair. He didn’t cross the space to touch her. Neither did he walk away.

Tension stretched between them, thin and taut, filled with everything that had happened the last time they’d been this close.

She couldn’t speak. Yes. She meant to leave. That was the plan, after all. Sell the house and return to her home out west. Yet somehow, after everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, the plan seemed to have lost its appeal. In fact, it made no sense at all.

…studying the past doesn’t mean it defines the person you are forever, does it? It’s just who you were. Not who you are…

…it’s the stuff of history books and museum exhibits. It shouldn’t be the way we frame our lives. Learn from it, and then let it go. The present, and best of all, the future, well, that’s up to us…

They’re right
, she thought suddenly. Once the past floated its way into memory, once people died, houses crumbled, kisses grew cold with a new dawn, no amount of wishing or years of study could bring it back. Or change it. It was what you did with the now that mattered.

“Were you going to say goodbye?”

Summer’s gaze moved to the mountains beyond his shoulder. “I didn’t see any reason to stay,” she whispered. “After what happened with T.J. and Dinah, and then I saw you with Joyce, and I thought…”

“You thought what?” Damian crossed his arms, and Summer thought the dimple on his left cheek popped.

“I just figured…”

He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her close. “Can I tell you something?”

She nodded.

His mouth twisted a little. “Joyce is a good person. She was there for me when I needed someone to talk to. She listened.” Damian took a deep breath. “But I’ve been waiting for you since before I knew you, Summer Thompson. Since the day you got into town. Since the moment you tripped down those back stairs. There hasn’t been anyone else in the world for me since that day. Whatever you saw with Joyce, whatever you thought…it means nothing.”

One rough thumb stroked her cheek, and a longing wider than the heavens swept between them and knotted up her insides. Sparklers went off inside her skull, inside every pore, and she wondered if he could feel it too.

“Damian…” Summer began, and then he was there, meeting her mouth with his. Sparks flowered, flooded, turned from pale yellow to brilliant orange and red until she saw a blazing rainbow of passion behind her eyelids. She clung to him and wound her fingers through his. She wanted to swallow him up so that her insides burned with sated desire. Tasting him, she drank in the sweetness and wanted it to go on forever.

In Damian’s touch she was safe. More than that, she was swept away, up toward the clouds and beyond, to a place she’d never imagined existed. His hands moved along her spine, down her arms, raising gooseflesh. When he finally leaned back from her to breathe, she didn’t want to let him go.

Damian’s breath was a rasp of emotion. “Stay here in Pine Point. Please. I can’t let you go. I won’t.” His voice was guttural; his eyes roved her face, searching for the answer he needed to find. “We all love you—Dinah, and Mom, and…and me too.” He smiled. “Summer Thompson, I think I’m crazy in love with you. So please. Stay.” The last words whispered away, and he crushed her lips with his again.

Summer wasn’t sure if the warmth she felt on her back was the sun rising above them or the blood spinning her head around. Damian parted her lips with a tongue that needed, wanted, poured out possibility. He caressed the nape of her neck and the small of her back.

The girl of eighteen she’d once been, scared of the universe, injured almost beyond repair, felt her heart move up to the top of her head until she thought she would explode with pleasure. Every reason she’d returned to Pine Point, every hope she’d nourished, lay here, in the arms of a man she’d just met and yet known forever. Revisiting the past didn’t mean going down old paths, then, but saying goodbye to them and forging new ones. Her mind swelled with the realization.

“Summer.” The word was a breath against her cheek.

Don’t stop kissing me,
she wanted to say.
Take me upstairs, climb with me to the roof, show me the stars or the sun or the way the wind moves through the grasses on the hill. I don’t care. Just be with me.

“What?” she said instead.

Damian didn’t answer. He just looked down at her with a kind, funny grin, and she saw in his expression the place where she wanted to stay, to make a life and grow a love. He met her mouth with his, touched tongue to tongue in a whisper of desire, and their embrace changed again, from a fire against the sky to a warm glow that bathed her in safety.

Her friends were right after all: she belonged in Pine Point with a man who loved her, a little girl she adored and a quiet woman who’d filled an ache in her life. She belonged in the place that had shaped her, and she belonged in a house where she could see and remember her brother as well.

There was just one thing left to do.

“Wait.” She dropped his hands and moved away.

He frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Summer shook her head as she darted back into her bedroom.
He’ll understand
. Emerging with the small silver box, she reached for his hand and led him to the oak tree out front. The sky opened above them, a wide plain of light. Summer’s hands shook as she opened the lid.
Thanks for bringing me back to Pine Point, Dad.
Her throat clogged with tears.

The morning breeze lifted her father’s ashes. They spun, then sank in a lazy circle and floated to the ground. With one arm around her waist, Damian brushed a kiss against her hair. He laid a hand on hers, and they closed the lid of the box together. For a moment, neither spoke.

Damian cleared his throat. “So does that mean you’re staying?”

She didn’t answer. She had no words left beyond the flood of emotion that filled her. Instead, she placed her lips against his jaw and let her head fall against his chest, strong, certain, safe, beneath her.

It is home
, she thought in the seconds before Damian lifted her into his arms and carried her back inside.

I am home.