One Summer (20 page)

“Let me guess,” Mikki whispered to Liam as she pointed at the woman. “Tiffany’s mom?”

Liam nodded. “How’d you know?”

“I just flash-forwarded Tiffany twenty-five years.”

“Chelsea Murdoch. I heard my mom once say she was even worse than her daughter.”

“Wow, now, that’s a lady I have got to tangle with.”

When Liam and Mikki reached the table, Chelsea Murdoch looked up at them with such a haughty expression that Mikki just wanted to slap her. “Yes?”

“We’d like to enter the competition,” said Mikki politely.

Murdoch glanced at Liam and looked confused. “Both of you?”

“That’s right. Together.”

“Liam Fontaine, right?” she said.

“The one and only.”

The woman smirked, and then her gaze swiveled to Mikki. “And you are?”

“Michelle Armstrong. We’re down here from Cleveland for the summer.”

The woman looked amused. “Cleveland?”

“Yes, it’s the largest city in Ohio. Did you know that?” Mikki said innocently.

“No, I never saw a good reason to find out,” she replied dryly and then bumped elbows with the woman sitting next to her, who chuckled. Mrs. Murdoch pushed a paper toward them. “Fill this out. And there’s a ten-dollar processing fee. What are you going to do for your act?”

“Music,” said Mikki. “Drums, keyboard, and guitar.”

Murdoch looked at her coolly. “Pretty ambitious.”

“I’d like to think so,” Mikki replied sweetly. “I’m sure the competition is pretty tough.”

“It is. In fact, one young lady has won it three years in a row and is looking to make it four.”

“Would that be Tiffany?”

“Yes. She’s my daughter.”

“Of course. But I already knew she’d won it three times in a row.”

“How?”

Mikki pointed to the mammoth banner on the wall behind them, which had a large picture of Tiffany holding up three trophies with the words
TRIPLE CROWN
stenciled over her head. “That was, like, sort of the first clue.”

Mikki returned Murdoch’s scowl with a smile.

“Just put the form in the box over there and give your money to the lady in the blue dress,” she snapped.

“Great. Thanks for all your help, Mrs. Murdoch,” Mikki said in her most polite schoolgirl voice.

Mikki could feel the woman firing laser eye darts at her as they walked off. She filled out the form and gave it and their entry fee to the woman in the blue dress.

“Okay, step one is done,” Liam said.

“And here comes step two.”

Tiffany and some of her friends had just walked into the lobby of the theater.

When Mikki marched up to them, Tiffany stiffened.

“Hey, Tiff.”

Tiffany looked puzzled, and then glanced at her friends and back at Mikki. “Hi,” Tiffany said coolly.

“I wanted to thank you for the great time on the beach. It was really memorable.”

Tiffany snorted, and the other girls laughed. “Uh, okay,” said a grinning Tiffany.

Mikki leaned closer. “And just so we’re straight, we’re, like, so going to kick your ass in the talent competition.”

The smile vanished from Tiffany’s face, and her friends stopped laughing.

Mikki drew even closer. “Oh, one more thing. You ever lay another finger on me, they won’t be able to find all the pieces to put you back together again, sweetie.” She’d unconsciously used the same threat she’d overheard her dad invoke back in Cleveland.

Tiffany blinked and took a step back. “You think you’re so tough?”

Mikki put her face an inch from the other girl’s. “I’m from Cleveland. It’s sort of a requirement.”

Outside, as they passed Tiffany’s red convertible, Liam glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then reached in his pocket and pulled out a white tube. Pretending to be picking up something, he squirted the clear liquid from the tube onto the convertible’s driver’s seat. It was invisible against the leather.

“What’s that?” Mikki asked.

“After what they did to you, I think Super Glue is in order.”

“Liam, I’m so liking your style, dude.”

“Okay, so what’s the conspiracy?”

Jenna had come into the kitchen at the Little Bit to find Liam and Mikki using their break to huddle in one corner.

“Nothing, Mom,” Liam said a little too innocently.

“Son, you forget I was a lawyer. My lie detector is well oiled.”

He looked sheepish and glanced at Mikki. “You want to tell her?”

Mikki said, “We entered the talent competition as a musical act.”

“Well, that’s great. Why keep it a secret?”

Liam answered. “We’ll be going up against Tiffany, and I know her family is an important player in town. We beat her out of winning for the fourth year in a row, the Murdochs might mess with you.”

“They can try and mess with me, but I don’t think it’ll do much good. The Little Bit is pretty much here to stay.” She looked at both of them curiously. “So why this sudden interest in beating Tiffany Murdoch?”

The two teens looked at each other.

Sensing they were holding something significant back, Jenna said, “Okay, both of you, I happen to be the boss. And I want the truth. Right now.”

Between them, Mikki and Liam told her what had happened on the beach.

When they’d finished, the look on Jenna’s features was very dark. “That was a criminal assault on you, Mikki. And you too, Liam. You two could have been really hurt.”

“It was no big deal, Mom,” said Liam.

“It was a very big deal. Those kids need to be held accountable for what they did. Otherwise, they might do it again.”

“Mom, please don’t do anything. We want to handle this in our own way.”

Mikki added, “And if my dad finds out, he’ll beat them all up and probably end up in jail. I know my dad. He’s really overprotective. They were just teenagers, and he’s an ex–army ranger. You saw what he did to those two big guys. He can be like a SWAT team all by himself when he needs to be. They’d throw the book at him. So please don’t say anything, Jenna. Please.”

Jenna’s features finally lightened. “Okay, I see your logic. But does your dad know you’re entering the talent competition?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I think the sooner he knows, the better.”

Mikki gazed at her. “Would you mind telling him?”

“Me? Why?”

“It might be better coming from another parent. I don’t think he’ll mind, but he’s been a little preoccupied lately. And we’ve already entered. I can’t pull out now.”

Jenna thought about this for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll talk to him.” She checked her watch and smiled. “Break time’s over. We run a real sweatshop here. So get to it.”

Mikki gave her a quick hug. “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. So when do you think you’ll talk to him?”

“I think I know where to find him at the right time.”

At a little past midnight, Jack stood on the catwalk of the lighthouse, staring out at a clear sky. After his conversation with Mikki and the disappointment so evident on her face, he had really tried to not come out here, but something made his legs move, and here he was.

He’d worked all day with Sammy on Anne Bethune’s project, which had also given him time to see her camp. He had to admit that Jackie and Cory were having a wonderful time, and they were learning things too. Anne had an instructor who took the kids down to the water and showed them about marine life and other science subjects appropriate for younger kids. Cory was in his element with painting and acting out scenes that he had written in a performance art workshop the camp also offered. It was exactly the sort of experience Jack had hoped for when they came down here for the summer. However, Jack was trying not to focus on the fact that he wasn’t an integral part of that experience, that it was being done through what amounted to surrogates.

If I can just finish the lighthouse.

He walked back inside the structure and gazed down at the new stairs. He’d just driven in the last nail a few minutes ago. Work still needed to be done on them, mostly finishing items, but they were safe to walk on and would last a long time. He
planned to start disassembling the scaffolding tomorrow night and return it to the hardware store. He picked up Lizzie’s doll and went back out on the catwalk. Sweaty from all the hard work in the confines of the lighthouse, he took off his shirt and let the cool breeze flow over him.

He looked at the doll and then gazed up at the sky. Heaven was somewhere up there. He’d been thinking about where a precocious little girl would have thought it was located. He looked at discrete grids of the sky, much like he’d compartmentalized and studied the desert in the Middle East when he was fighting in a war there. Which spot was most likely to hold an IED or a sniper?

Only now he was looking for angels and saints.

And Lizzie.

He set the doll down and took the letter from his shirt pocket. Now that he’d finished the stairs, he told himself it was time to read the next one. The envelope had the number four written on it. He slipped the letter out. It was dated December twenty-first. He leaned against the railing and read it.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Jack turned to see Jenna standing there on the catwalk, a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand. She saw the letter in his hand but said nothing as he thrust it in his jeans pocket and quickly pulled his shirt on, his fingers struggling to button it up as fast as possible.

“What are you doing here?” he said a little harshly.

She took a step back. “I’m sorry if I snuck up on you.”

“Well, you did.”

“Look, I’ll just leave.”

She turned to go when he said, “No, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just wasn’t expecting anyone.”

She smiled. “I wonder why? It’s after midnight and you’re standing on your own property at the top of a lighthouse. I would’ve thought there’d have been hundreds of people through here by now.”

His anger faded, and a grin crept across Jack’s face. “Dozens
maybe, but not hundreds.” He eyed the wine. “Coming from a party?”

She looked around and set the glasses on an old crate while she uncorked the wine. “No, hoping I was coming
to
one.”

“What?”

She poured out the wine and handed him a glass, then clinked hers against his. “Cheers.” She took a sip and let it go down slowly as she gazed out over the broad view. “God, it’s beautiful up here.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“So you finished the stairs, I see.”

“Still need to do some work, but the heavy lifting’s done.”

“I guess you’re wondering what the heck I’m doing here?”

“Honestly? Yeah, I am.”

She told him about Liam and Mikki entering the talent competition but withheld the reason why.

“Hey, that’s great. I bet they have a good chance to win.”

“They do, actually. I’m no expert, but I’d pay money to hear them.”

Jack swallowed some of his wine. “But why didn’t Mikki just come and tell me?”

“I’m not really sure. She asked me to, and I agreed. Maybe you should ask her.”

Jack slowly nodded. “I know I’ve gotten my priorities screwed up.”

“Well, realizing the problem is a good first step to fixing it. And like you said, you fix things.”

“Yeah, well, lighthouses are easier than relationships.”

“I would imagine anything is easier than that. But that doesn’t mean you can ignore it.”

“I’m starting to see that.”

“I know what you told me before, but why is this so important to you, Jack?”

He put his wineglass down. “This feels like the place I can be closest to her,” he said slowly. He glanced over to find Jenna staring at him with a concerned expression. “Look, I’m not losing touch with reality.”

“I didn’t think you were,” she said quickly.

“But it’s still crazy, right?”

“If you feel it, it’s not crazy, Jack. You’ve been through a lot.”

“The Miracle Man,” he said softly.

Jenna gazed at him but said nothing, waiting for him to speak.

“I wasn’t supposed to be here, Jenna. I mean living. I was just hanging on ’til Christmas, for the kids. For Lizzie.”

She touched his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t owe me an explanation about anything.”

“No, it’s okay. I need to get this out.” He paused, drawing a long breath, seeming to marshal his thoughts. “I spent half our marriage in the army, most of it away from home.” He stopped, glanced at the dark sky. “I was crazy in love with my wife. I mean, they say absence makes the heart grow fonder? I could be in the next room and miss Lizzie, much less halfway around the world.”

A tear trickled from Jack’s right eye, and Jenna’s mouth quivered. She swallowed with difficulty.

“I always saw Lizzie and me as one person whose halves got separated somehow, but they found each other again. That’s how lucky I was.”

Jenna said quietly, “Most people never have that, Jack. You were truly blessed.”