Summer's Road (20 page)

Ruth kissed the top of my head awhile later as I calmed down. “He regretted nothing, darlin’. He loved you so much.” She sighed. “You’re a lot like her. The good parts, mind you. You look a lot like her, the eyes and coloring. You have her spirit and whimsical nature. But don’t let that fool you. There’s so much of your daddy in there, too. Your strong and giving heart. Dedication when you believe in something. You, Summer, are not her. So don’t let that kind of doubt cloud what you and Ian have together. Understand me?”

I nodded, letting her soft floral perfume comfort me, so familiar I closed my eyes. She was right about a lot of things, but she’d skimmed over the other areas of my DNA. Bad genetics I’d also inherited. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to stop the cycle and change the pattern set for me.

But, God, I wanted to try.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Seven Years Ago—Age Twenty-One

M
ost people on their twenty-first birthday go out drinking with co-workers and friends. They get drunk and rowdy and loud, enjoying the milestone in their life. It’s probably, of all the birthdays in life, the one remembered with the most fondness.

But I hadn’t done that today for my birthday. Instead, I’d stayed home with Daddy, who needed someone with him nearly every minute now-a-days. I looked across the living room at him sleeping in the recliner. His frail frame was huddled under a massive amount of blankets, because no matter what I did, he was always cold. He barely ate due to the chemo making everything taste bad and upsetting his stomach. He didn’t even look like my Daddy anymore. And today, he’d made the decision to stop treatment. According to him, it was delaying the inevitable.

I brought my knees to my chest and burrowed deeper into the couch. Earlier, after attempting to spoon-feed him some chicken broth, I tried to get him to lie down in bed upstairs. The response I’d gotten was the one I got every time I asked.
If I get up the stairs, I won’t get back down.

Daddy had remembered my birthday, which was surprising because he slept ninety percent of the time and wasn’t very oriented. He’d even ordered this music box over the internet when I and his day nurse hadn’t been paying attention. It was the saddest, sweetest thing I’d ever seen. It played
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
when I opened the lid. Years ago, before the cancer had eaten away at him, he would have made me something like that with his large, rough hands.

Ian’s parents had called to say happy birthday. Wanting me to go out and have fun, they offered to drive up and stay with Daddy tonight. I had respectfully declined. It was my responsibility. My daddy.

My last birthday with him.

Mrs. Memmer had started calling me their surrogate daughter since they’d moved down to Seasmoke full time. I thought it was sweet, but I shouldn’t have to be anyone’s surrogate anything. Though I wouldn’t have it any other way, I shouldn’t have to hire a nurse to watch him while I finished up my last semester of college, only to rush home and stay with him.

Sharon wasn’t coming back. I had accepted that, but it sure didn’t mean I understood it. Fleetingly, I imagined my mother calling, as I’d pictured her doing on every birthday in my memory, but it was ten o’clock at night, and the call never came. I should be used to that, too.

When the phone rang, I nearly jumped out of my skin at the timing. An eye on Daddy, I picked up the receiver and walked onto the porch. “Hello?”

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.”

I grinned for the first time all day. “Hey, Ian. You remembered.”

“Of course, I remembered. Can you come over for an hour?”

I poked my head through the window to check on Daddy, who was knocked out on pain meds and exhaustion, his oxygen mask in place. “He should sleep for a while. Sure. I can’t stay long, though.”

I wrapped my bathrobe tighter around my body to ward off the January frigidity and wind to make the hike next door. My Snoopy slippers crunched on the frozen grass. I should have put flannel pants on. It was freezing out. Ian could care less what I wore anyway.

Taking the stairs two at a time, I pushed Ian’s bedroom door open to find Rick, Dee, and Ian holding balloons and presents. I nearly doubled over with appreciation.

My hand fluttered to my chest. “Oh God, you guys!”

Ian dropped a wrapped gift into my hands. “Not quite a surprise party, but…” He shrugged. I took in the wideness of his shoulders and muscles in his arms. When had Ian gotten so built? Probably from all the woodworking in his workshop.

“No, no. Are you kidding? This is so sweet.” Looking down at the present, I grinned wickedly. “Can I open it?”

When he rolled his eyes at my stupid question, I ripped into it. Pulling the department store clothing box apart, I drew out a short, navy cotton nightgown that buttoned to the waist and had little stars and moons embroidered around them.

“I love it, Ian.”

He nodded, running his hands through his hair. He only did that when he was upset, and he suddenly avoided my eyes.

My stomach sank. “What’s wrong?”

He cleared his throat. “Nothing. Happy birthday.”

Dee jumped up and down. “Open mine!”

I placed my hands on both sides of Ian’s face, drawing him down to kiss his cheek and whisper, “Thank you,” before turning to Dee.

Present

I
stepped onto the pier and gazed out over the ocean. Nighttime here was different than back home. There weren’t any city lights to disguise the stars. The ocean looked black, as dark as the sky above, so that across the horizon, I couldn’t tell where the sky ended and the water began. It was kind of like looking into heaven, like looking into the earth’s soul.

The air was heavy, as heavy as my thoughts that had eluded me from sleep. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the salty fragrance and let the sound of the water enclose me, calm me. The waves crashing against the dock caused a rhythmic sway on the planks beneath my feet. This
was
heaven, or damn near close. I’d always wanted to paint this scene here at Seasmoke, when the rest of the world didn’t exist but me and the ocean and the night. Somehow, by doing that, though, the world would see and know my inner thoughts while here in these moments, and it just wouldn’t mean as much.

The drum of footsteps from behind broke me from my reverie. Turning, I found Ian coming toward me. Shirtless—he hadn’t even bothered with the button on his jeans—he strode closer in bare feet with a bottle of wine in one hand and glasses in the other.

All I could think was how damn delicious he looked in the moonlight. Heat pooled in my belly and spread throughout my body like a wildfire.

“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.” He poured a glass of white wine and handed it to me, the look in his eyes saying,
it looks like you need this
.

I took the glass from him and sipped before answering. “That’s the point, to be by myself.”

He raked a gaze over me and I felt it from my hair roots to my toenails. “And if you fell in?”

Maybe it was the moonlight. Maybe it was the call of the ocean. Whatever it was, something made the tension and doubt I’d been harboring about us slither off into the ether. “Then you’d save me. You always do.”

His eyes darkened when he looked at me, his long lashes shadowing his cheeks as he shut his eyes. “I suppose I do.” Carnal lust looked back at me when his lids lifted again. “And you save me right back.”

I didn’t see how. I’d always felt like he did so much for me and I never gave half as much.

He shook his head as if reading my thoughts. “Every day, Summer.” As if to stop himself from saying more, he drew in a breath and faced the water. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”

I moved to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder. “I was just thinking.”

When he turned his head, I thought I might explode from all the heat radiating in his gaze. “That’s a dangerous pastime.”

“I was thinking about what my dad said in the hospital before he died. That thing about friendship being important. He was best friends with your parents. He was friends with my mother and look what happened.”

The muscle in his jaw knotted, the passion in his eyes going cold. “You’re not her.”

“No, I’m more like him.” Ruth was right about that, which was my point in bringing this up. “I’m not letting it happen to us, Ian.”

His eyebrows slammed together. “Maybe you are a little like her, then.”

It was a slap in the face. Ian and I fought a lot, he challenged me when most preferred to placate, but he’d never been cruel. I whirled and tried to leave, but he caught my arm before I could take so much as a step.

“I didn’t mean that,” he whispered. “Christ, I didn’t mean that.” He held my neck with one hand, thumb sliding along my jaw, and it eased the anger that had built. “You just...being with you scares me to death. We’re three days in, Summer, and I keep waiting for you to run, to give me some excuse—“

I gripped the wrist of the hand he held me with and he met my eyes. Emotion had his dialed to near black. Unsure what to make of him, I swallowed hard. The past two nights, he’d held me in his arms while we’d crammed into that small bed. We hadn’t made love again, but he’d kissed me endlessly long moments before we went to sleep.

“What I meant was, I’m not letting anything come between us, Ian.”

His eyes darted back and forth between mine, and it killed me he’d been sick with worry about this.

“I’m not going to make the same mistakes my parents did. Me and you, always. Nothing, not sex or other people or circumstances, will put a wedge in our friendship. No matter how this plays out, we will always stay me and you.”

He swallowed, and it seemed to take effort. “I want this new aspect of us to work.”

God, so did I. It was scary and there was a lot at stake, but so did I. No one had ever made me feel the way he did. And not just on a physical level. Ian had been inside me so long, I didn’t know how to breathe without him.

Seeking a small reprieve, I glanced at my feet, seeing our initials carved into the planks. We were maybe ten when we’d put them there. “Remember when we were kids and we’d run off this pier to see how far we could jump in?”

“Yeah.” One corner of his mouth quirked, and he dropped his hand. I missed the touch. He set the wine bottle down by his feet.

“Wanna do it now?”

The look he gave me was part
you’re crazy
and part
hell yeah
. Taking the wine glass from me, he tossed it into the ocean and pulled me to him. “I have a better idea.”

His kiss was drugging, pulling me under into this deep bliss that was satiating and excruciating all at once. I wanted my hands in his hair to tug him closer, bring the kiss deeper, but he had them trapped between our bodies. The hard planes of his chest was a contrast to the softness of his skin beneath my fingertips. His tender kiss was nothing like the desperation with which he held me.

Too soon, he wrenched away, but rested his forehead to mine. “For the record, your dad meant that love was nothing without friendship.” His jaw tensed. “We can have both, if you just let me in.”

I reeled. What did he mean, let him in? He was already embedded—

He grabbed my thighs and lifted me. I wrapped my arms and legs around him as he shifted and sat on the pier, me in his lap. Before I could catch my breath, his hands were in my hair and he was kissing me again. This time wasn’t gentle. He swallowed me whole, fought and won in a game of dominance, and the heat was enough to reduce us to ash.

He gripped my thighs and slid his hands up, connecting with my damp panties. I was dressed for bed, which meant I was only wearing a T-shirt. He groaned as if appreciating the access and slid his fingers inside the waistband at my hips. And ripped.

I gasped against his mouth as warm air hit the damp curls between my legs. He grinned and worked his hand between us, unzipping his jeans and freeing his erection. Then he grabbed my hips and pulled me flush with him, held me there while he thrust. His hot shaft slid between my folds and I whimpered. His hands shoved under my shirt, kneading my breasts while I rode him. It wasn’t enough to have him against me. I needed him inside me.