Unforgettable Summer: Wild Crush, Book 1 (24 page)

He half-turned, sending her a sharp look. “You’d tell me?”

Summer knew she didn’t deserve to be hurt by the doubt inherent in his query, but she was. “Of course I would.” She drew in a tremulous breath. “But you don’t have to worry. It won’t happen, and I’d never make your life difficult if it did.”

“I bet you wouldn’t, not even if I wanted you to.” With taut strides he stalked back over to her, his eyes blazing in the dim hallway. “Don’t you get it, Summer? It was you.” Grasping her wrist, he drew her hand toward his chest and placed it over both his hearts—the ink one that decorated his taut pectoral and the real one that beat hard beneath it. In his passionate, angry gaze she read the truth, and it made her own heart tremor. “It’s always been you.”

He dropped her hand and turned away so fast Summer didn’t have time to process what he’d revealed before he was gone. He yanked open the door and left, slamming it behind him so hard Summer jumped. A moment later, there was a screech of tires as he peeled out her driveway.

Legs weakened, Summer sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She sat there a long time after he was gone. She had no idea how long, but when she came back to herself, it was dark and she was still huddled on the floor, nude. She trembled with cold.

Or possibly grief.

It was you. It’s always been you.

What had she done?

Chapter Twelve

Daytime television really sucked.

Summer rarely had the chance to play couch potato during work hours, but today she’d decided to take the day off. She’d soon realized what a mistake it was. At least at work she was occupied. Gloomy and distracted, but occupied. At home the silence mocked her. The very couch she sat on mocked her, because she’d once made love on it with Ty.

In her quest to find something that would take her mind off her own misery, she’d flipped on the television. Now she simply stared at the screen, unable to turn it off even though she found nothing but lurid talk shows and bad soap operas filled with beautiful, unhappy people. The so-called entertainment only depressed her further.

Her gaze slid to the coffee table and the bright pink-and-white box sitting there, unopened.
Do it, Summer. You have to eventually.
She’d taken the whole day off to deal with this problem after all. It was well past time she did exactly that.

Summer reached for the box, her fingers trembling. She almost had it when a rap on her door made her yelp out loud and knock the packet to the floor. Closing her eyes, she pushed out a breath and tried to get a hold of herself. The box didn’t contain a bomb, for goodness’ sake.

Only an ordinary, everyday pregnancy test kit.

The knock came again, more insistent this time. “Open up, Sum. I know you’re in there. Penny told me you were home sick.”

The familiar voice surprised Summer almost as much as the initial knock. Taking a few seconds to stuff the test kit under a couch cushion, she went to the door and opened it.

The woman standing on the other side was like a taller, more vibrant version of Summer. She wore a vermillion red dress that skimmed sexy curves and a pair of black knee-high boots. From behind large-framed, Hepburn-style sunglasses, the woman gave Summer the once-over. Then she screwed up her nose. “Jesus, sis. You look like ten different kinds of shit.”

“Thanks, Jas,” Summer drawled. “It’s always so nice to get a surprise visit from you.”

“Aw, don’t be so sensitive,” Jasmine said, flipping her long dark hair over her shoulder. “Well, are you going to invite me in or what?”

Without waiting for an answer, Jasmine Campbell swept past Summer and into the apartment. Not caring enough to make a pithy comment about her sister’s presumptuousness, Summer simply shook her head and closed the door.

She found Jasmine in the living room surveying the rumpled sofa cushions, the coffee table littered with empty teacups and unopened mail, the drawn blinds. She slipped her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Wow, this is worse than I thought.”

“I’m sick, remember?” Not exactly true but Summer felt the need to provide the excuse now that she saw the unsightly mess that was her living space through someone else’s eyes. “I haven’t had the energy to clean.”

“Hey, I’m not having a go. This is in better shape than my place. But I’m not a neat freak like you are.”

“I’m not a
freak
just because I’m not a slob.” Summer took another look around her flat. How long had those empty teacups been sitting there anyway? Summer walked to the coffee table and picked them up, muttering, “At least I’m not usually.”

Summer carted the teacups and some of the junk mail to the kitchen. She added the cups to the empty bowls in the sink, which were crusted now with remnants of cereal. She really ought to do the dishes. And maybe start eating properly again.

But all she’d had the motivation to consume the past week was breakfast cereal, and even then she only bothered when the hunger got so entrenched it caused dizziness.

At least she’d assumed lack of food was causing the dizzy spells. Until it dawned on her she was four days overdue for her period when ordinarily she could set a clock by her monthly cycle. Hence the emergency day off, the trip to the chemist and the continuous palm sweats.

When Summer went back to the living room, she found Jasmine sitting on the couch, right beside the gray cushion under which Summer had stuffed the evidence of her recent indiscretion with Ty. She saw the bright pink label peeking out and hoped Jasmine hadn’t noticed.

But Jasmine was looking at her with speculative gaze, not searching under the couch cushions. “So, what is it you’ve got? The flu? A tummy bug? Lime disease?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the second option.” Summer took a seat next to Jasmine on the sofa. “I’m really tired.”

And really sad too, so sad it felt like the melancholy had settled into her bones for a long stay. Not to mention slightly nauseous because there was the distinct possibility she was pregnant.

“Uh-huh.”

There was a dubious note in Jasmine’s voice, as though she sensed all Summer left unsaid. But Jasmine being intuitive and empathetic? That would be a first. So Summer figured she was safe from having to explain what was really going on.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”
Good idea, Summer. Jasmine will spend the next half an hour talking about herself, her most recent messy breakup or job loss or whatever else had brought her here looking for reassurance. Then she’ll leave none the wiser.

“I was never very good at math,” Jasmine said suddenly. She pulled an electronic tablet out of her oversized handbag and switched it on. She began moving things around the screen with her finger. “All those complicated rules and dry old numbers. Gak. But I’m not so dumb I can’t add two and two and get four.”

“Okay.” Summer had no idea what Jasmine was getting at.

“So two is I called you this week and you didn’t return the message. It’s not like you, so I figured something was up.”

“Oh right. Sorry.” Summer sighed and looked out the window. Only she couldn’t see the view of her pretty green courtyard because the blinds were drawn. She didn’t think she’d opened them in a week. “Like I said, I’ve been—”

“—sick.” Jasmine had the audacity to twitch her fingers in an air quote gesture. “That’s what you said.”

Summer scowled at her.

Jasmine merely smiled and carried on. “And the second two is you calling me the other week to ask how to have a meaningless fling.”

Meaningless. You were such an idiot, Summer.
Her gaze strayed to the corner of the room, where her surfboard was propped against the wall. The day after she’d told Ty she wouldn’t give a relationship with him a chance, she’d opened her front door to find the board in the alcove at the front of her apartment. No note, no explanation. Not that one was necessary.

Ty wasn’t keeping the board for her anymore. He wasn’t going to hang on if she wasn’t.

Why couldn’t you have just held on, Summer?

“So by my calculations, this is four, the answer to this little equation.”

Jasmine shoved the tablet under Summer’s nose. Displayed on the screen was a photo of Ty, his arm slung around the shoulders of a teenage boy standing next to a surfboard stuck into the sand at Shelley Beach. The caption read
Couldn’t believe it! I met Ty Butler in Leyton’s Headland last week, and he even signed my board!

“This kid finishes high school and decides to surf every beach between Warnambool and Noosa instead of going to uni. People will blog about anything these days. When you mentioned Ty’s name the other week, it got me thinking about him. And when—out of sheer curiosity—I searched ‘recent news about Ty Butler’ one of the first things that pops up is this.”

Jasmine’s words barely registered. Summer stared at the picture—at her Ty. His smile was genuine, not forced as one might expect it to be given the nature of the photo. He was so good at talking to people, making them feel special. He’d made her feel special.

Then she’d thrown that feeling away. She’d thrown
them
away.

The image on the screen started to blur.

“He was here when you called me.” Jasmine’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “He’s the one you were talking about.”

“I can’t look at this.” Summer shoved the device away, trying to give it back to her sister. Jasmine set it on the coffee table, where Summer could still see it. As long as it was in her line of vision, there was no way she’d be able to stop looking at it. “Please, Jas. I haven’t cried all week. You know what I’m like. If I start I won’t stop.”

“It’s that bad huh? Ah, shit.”

Jasmine grabbed up the tablet and shoved it back in her bag. The gesture came too late. The image had already had its impact. Summer choked back a sob, but the tears began to flow unabated. She didn’t protest when Jasmine put an arm around her, only curled into her sister’s embrace and cried. A long, loud crying jag punctuated by hiccupping sobs and noisy, wet sniffles. Jasmine found tissues and handed them to Summer a clump at a time.

“I’m such an idiot,” Summer wailed at one point. “I let him think I never wanted to see him again. I thought it would be easier to get the bad part over with.”

“What bad part?”

“The breakup. It was inevitable anyway. That’s what I figured, no matter what he said.”

“And what did he say?”

Summer crumpled into tears again, so the words came out in a high-pitched whine like a kettle about to boil. “That h-he…loved me. That he’s always…loved me.”

Softly, Jasmine prompted, “And you love him back. You’ve loved him all these years.”

Through her uncontrollable sobbing, Summer nodded.

“Aw, sis. I’m sorry. If I’d realized back then that you were really in love with him, I would have told you to go for it, go be with him. Screw Dad and everyone else.”

Summer wiped her nose and threw the used tissue on the growing pile beside her. She looked at Jasmine in surprise. “You would have?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want him for myself, I hope you know that now. We had fun together but that was all it ever was.”

“I guess it was hard for me to believe that any woman wouldn’t be crazy about him. I thought you felt the same way I did and that you were just too proud to say so.” Knowing that Jasmine would have supported her years ago, that she was supporting her now, balmed Summer’s heart, but a pang of regret remained. “I wish we could have been closer, that I felt I could tell you what was going on.”

“Me too,” Jasmine surprised her by admitting. “You were right on the phone. I’ve never been there for you—I certainly wasn’t there for you during the whole Ty debacle ten years ago. I thought I was protecting you. I assumed Ty was playing with you, that he’d shown himself to be a type-A bastard like all the other guys I knew. But you two were the real deal, even then.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“Now it is. I’ve finally seen the light.” Jasmine showed her a lopsided grin. “Nobody carries a torch for the same man for a decade unless it’s real luurve, baby.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Summer let out a shuddering sigh. “I’m never going to get over him. He’s the one for me. The only one.”

“Seems that way.”

“God!” Summer exclaimed. “I’m such a miserable, stupid mess.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad. Maybe you can fix it. Just tell him you were wrong.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Summer pointed a shaky finger at the cushion. “Look under there.”

With a quirked brow, Jasmine did as asked. She pulled out the pregnancy test kit. “Holy shit!”

“That’s about the size of it,” Summer said. “What am I going to do?”

“For a start”—Jasmine shook the unopened box at her—“may I suggest you actually take the test?”

Summer’s lip trembled. “I can’t.”

“I know it’s scary, but there’s no point putting it off. Believe me.” Summer glanced at her sister in surprise. Jasmine merely rolled her eyes. “You’re not the only one who’s done the walk of shame down the family-planning aisle of the local chemist. So take my advice and go pee on the stick already. You can’t make any decisions until you know your situation.”

Summer knew Jasmine was right. Her heart hammered as she took the box into the bathroom with her and followed the instructions. She was so stressed out, she nearly couldn’t pee. Eventually, nature took its course and a few minutes later Summer stared at the indicator, feeling numb as the direction of her future was decided.