CHAPTER THREE
South Carolina, present day
Summer dug her toes into the sand and watched her son drop the skim board on the beach and leap upon it with a natural grace she envied. To her right, the evening sun hovered over the horizon as if reluctant to accept its watery fate.
“Watch, Mom,” David called out, picking up the board that had slipped from beneath his ever-growing feet. He tossed it back onto the water rushing to and fro on the hard-packed sand.
“I am,” she said, shielding her eyes against the dying rays.
He rode the flattened water pushing onto the beach, his brown body tight, arms spread out, before leaping nimbly off.
“Nice,” she called because he expected a compliment. Like every man. Her brown-eyed boy with his too-long shaggy hair and beautiful white smile lived for the applause, no matter who it came from.
“Dad said he has a surfboard I can borrow,” David said, picking up the skim board and jogging her way. His tongue hadn’t tripped over the word dad this time. Her son was getting used to the fact that he had a father in his life now. Summer was not . . . even though she’d moved back to Moonlight, where his father lived, and tried to accept what was best for David.
“I’m not sure I want you out surfing, honey. There are plenty of sharks—”
“Mom, don’t be moronic. More Americans get injured by toilets than attacked by sharks,” David scoffed, catching up with her as she started back toward the parking lot, where her car sat under the shadow of the Hunting Island lighthouse. She’d already packed up her beach chair and bag containing the remainder of their snacks and the near-empty bottle of sunscreen. The beach was David’s Sunday afternoon choice nine times out of ten, but now that November had arrived, bringing cooler temps and more school activities, their times frolicking in the waves were drawing to a close.
“How does one get injured by a toilet?” Summer asked, wrapping her arm around her son’s neck.
He promptly ducked beneath her embrace. “I don’t know. Fall in?”
“Or trip and hit their heads on it?” Summer tried not to feel miffed that the boy who had once snuggled next to her at every opportunity now ran from her embraces. This was what fourteen-year-old boys did. They pulled away.
David tucked his board beneath his arm and dug for his cell phone in the bag she’d shouldered.
“Don’t get it wet,” she cautioned.
“Dad got me a LifeProof case,” he said, head down, thumbs moving on his phone as he tuned her out.
“David,” she chided, tapping his forearm. “At least wait until we get in the car.”
“I’m just checking something,” he said, nearly walking into one of the palm trees that had fallen across the beach.
“You’re always just checking something,” she said, trying not to sound like a nag. It grew harder and harder to have patience with her son. He’d started at Mangham High School that fall, something she found tough to believe. When had her chubby toddler become a freshman? When had watching YouTube videos and Snapchatting his friends become more important than her?
David didn’t have the problems she’d had as a teen. Her son, with his good looks and athletic ability, never lacked for friends or, as she’d found out recently when checking his social media accounts, admirers. She so wasn’t ready to have a kid that all the girls were crazy about, but it looked like that’s what he was becoming. God help her.
“What’s for supper tonight?” David asked, still not looking up.
“You’re going to trip if you don’t look where you’re going,” she said, pulling his elbow as he nearly hit the beach rules sign. “I’m picking up something from the Shrimp Shack. Didn’t get by the store this morning like I thought I would.”
David had gone to church as he did almost every Sunday with her mother. It was an easy concession to make since she wanted her son to have a good moral foundation, spend time with his grandmother, and, if she were honest, give herself a few hours to sleep in.
“I love their gumbo. I’ll have that. And some fried shrimp,” David said, still tapping at his phone but with a smile. Feeding a teenager broke the bank, but dinner tonight was on Pete Bryan, their irascible landlord.
Summer had been back in Moonlight, South Carolina, for almost a year. After struggling to make ends meet in Nashville, having little success at a songwriting career and losing her father to a massive coronary, it had been a no-brainer to come back to where her mother and Maisie lived. Her mother, for all her protests that she was fine, liked having Summer and David back in Moonlight. And then there was Hunt McCroy, David’s biological father.
Hunt was another link in the chain that had pulled her back to South Carolina. David needed a father in his life, which was something the child had made clear last fall, when he’d bought a ticket to South Carolina and left for Moonlight while she was at a late-night gig. When she’d finally swallowed the fear clogging her throat and gotten past the desire to beat her son within an inch of his life, she’d gotten the message—if she didn’t let David have his father in his life, she’d cement a wedge between them she’d never chip away.
After she’d completed community college with a degree in business administration, she’d passed up going to Columbia and the University of South Carolina for a chance to grab her dream. She’d taken David and climbed on a bus to Nashville. There she worked hard managing a restaurant during the day while playing three or four gigs a week. With a child at home, she didn’t have much time for friends or dating. And it had been enough. Or so she’d thought.
But David’s misadventure paired with some less-than-savory friends he’d started hanging with had convinced her David needed some male influence in his life . . . in spite of the huge issues she still had with Hunt.
She’d not forgiven the man for their past, but she wouldn’t deny her son a relationship with the man who fathered him, even if Hunt had treated them both horribly in those early years. She shook off her thoughts, wanting to live in the present. The past was too damned murky.
Loading everything into her secondhand Toyota RAV4, she made sure David buckled up and then started the winding drive back to the Nest, Pete Bryan’s ancient house that sat right outside the luxurious gated community of Seagrass Island. Pete had five acres on Rowen’s Creek he could sell for several million, but the old coot refused to budge from the land that had been in his family for generations. Summer wasn’t complaining, because Pete let her and David live in the adjacent cottage for half the rent in exchange for her running his errands. Of course, she did much more than pick up Pete’s prescriptions or take him to the doctor. Summer paid Pete’s bills, organized his medications, and made sure the older man ate something decent every night. She wasn’t exactly his nurse, but she tried like heck to look out for the eighty-year-old rascal who still went out crabbing in storms and refused to use a walker when he probably should have done so years ago.
“Mom, can I spend Christmas with Dad? Um, not like the whole holiday or anything. But Mamie and Mitchell are having all my cousins over on Christmas Eve for dinner and then we’re going to church in the morning. After that, I can come back and spend the rest of the day with you.” David put his phone down and zeroed in on her.
Her heart lurched. She’d known this day would come. David and his father had grown closer over the past year, but she hadn’t expected her son to want to abandon her for a major holiday. “What about the Christmas Eve party at Coco’s? You love making gingerbread with Maisie. I was going to ask Pete to come to Mom’s house since Rhett never comes home, and he doesn’t want to go to his cousin’s house in Columbia this year.”
David looked out the window. “Yeah, I like that, but Dad sorta asked if I could come with him. He’s kind of lonely.”
Summer repressed a sigh, wishing for a few seconds she’d kept Hunt at arm’s length. So what if Hunt was lonely? “Let me talk to your father and we’ll see what we can work out.”
“You’re saying yes?” David sounded shocked.
“I’m saying ‘we’ll see.’”
“Cool.”
As she drove over the Harbor River Bridge, she tried to let go of the aggravation that seized her every time Hunt’s name came into the conversation and instead admired the beauty of the evening. Living outside Moonlight had its pluses. Coastal South Carolina could compete with any place in the world for natural beauty. The grass marshlands, carved up by natural waterways and shaded by mossy oaks, were breathtaking in the orange glow of the fading day. She never thought she’d come back, but on days like today with a salty, windblown boy beside her trying to find rap music on the radio, she was glad she’d come home.
Of course it hadn’t been easy returning to a place she’d left in, well, not disgrace, but something different from what she’d envisioned as a child. Summer was no longer that nice, smart Valentine girl. It had been easier to leave Moonlight than it had been to come back. Currently, she taught after-school music lessons and worked part-time at her sister’s flower shop. Refusing to totally give up on her past life, she’d joined a band and did a few gigs around the county. Between that and Hunt’s child support payments, she made ends meet.
“Mom, you’re going to miss the turn,” David said, jarring her from her thoughts.
“Thanks,” she said, making a tight turn and waving to the man at the guard shack before turning down the old dirt road that led to her tiny rented house. Pete had sold the real estate development company a thin stretch of land as long as he could have right of access to his place. To her right, she passed million-dollar homes with their big columns and fancy outdoor kitchens facing the Rowan River. It took only four minutes to reach her tiny cabin situated to the left front of Pete’s house, which sat on pilings. The wide porch of his house jutted out onto the river, and that’s where she found Pete on most afternoons, reading crime fiction and swatting at the mosquitos.
Instead of parking at her place, she pulled into the horseshoe in front of Pete’s house. “Go ahead and take the food. Pete likes to eat early and I know you’re starving. Just save me some shrimp and coleslaw. I’m taking a quick shower.”
David jumped out, gave her a salute, and grabbed the plastic bags with their Sunday-night dinner. Her son and Pete would watch the Sunday Night Football game on TV while she played on Pinterest and read the magazines stacked up on Pete’s coffee table. It was a nice end to one week and beginning of the next.
Summer drove around and parked in the makeshift driveway beside the cabin. The two-bedroom house was painted dark brown and had a potbellied stove, a tiny galley kitchen, and old hardwood floors that needed refinishing. Still, it was cozy and just big enough for her and David.
Climbing out of the car, she grabbed the beach bag and her guitar case from the trunk. She’d need to hurry if she wanted dinner. Both Pete and David were bad about “forgetting” to leave her some food. Each blamed the other, but that didn’t help her empty belly. Summer pulled out her key to the back door but then realized the door was already unlocked.
“Jeez, Sum,” she chided herself. She rarely forgot to lock her doors. When she’d moved to Nashville years ago, she’d learned that lesson the hard way. It only took three months and a stolen guitar to learn the important habit of locking up her stuff.
She nearly tripped over David’s book bag as she headed toward the small table sitting in the corner. She spent most of Saturday working for Maisie, and since David had spent Friday and Saturday night with Hunt, she’d gone to her mother’s house and helped her hang a new ceiling fan. After struggling for hours on that not-so-small feat, she’d stumbled home exhausted and had slept nearly to noon, which left little time to pick up the week’s junk that had collected in the living area and kitchen. She knew from living in small spaces that being diligent with picking up was the key to being able to find her keys, the phone bill, and her sanity.
After dumping everything on the cluttered table, she headed back to her room, pulling off the white swimsuit cover-up and kicking off her flip-flops. She felt the sand in her suit, and the sunscreen made her sticky, but it was nothing a quick, hot shower wouldn’t cure. She untied the bow behind her neck holding up the halter top of her one-piece and pushed into the bathroom . . . and right into a man.
“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit,” she chanted, backing from the bathroom.
The man stumbled backward, the towel at his waist dropping to reveal a lean backside as he scrambled, knocking into the toilet. “Oh fuck, that hurt.”
Summer didn’t stick around to see what happened next. Fear tearing through her, she ran into the living room, her mind racing as she tried to think. A man in her house.
Oh God, she needed a weapon. And her phone.
Where had she set her phone?
The living room, still cloaked in darkness, held nothing she could use to defend herself. Lurching toward the kitchen table, she scanned the table for her purse. Damn. It was on the front seat of the car. If it came down to it, she was prepared to fight. Multiple personal safety classes paired with martial arts workshops ensured she wouldn’t go down easy.
Whoever had been naked in her bathroom knocked around, saying curse words.
Screw putting up a fight—she needed to get out. Holding the ties of her suit together, she scrambled for the back door.
“Wait, wait,” the man said, rushing into the room, holding up a hand. “I’m not trying to—”
“Who are you? What’re you doing in my house?” Though she stopped, her hand stayed on the knob as her heart pounded in her ears.
“Your house? This is my grandfather’s house,” he said, sounding confused. He moved into the faint light streaming from the kitchen window.
“Wait, Rhett?” Her pounding heart dropped to her toes. “What the hell? Why are you in my house?”
“Huh?” he said, holding the edges of the towel together, looking confused. “You live here?”
“Yeah. I’m renting the place from Pete and helping him out around here.” She dropped her hand from the doorknob and flipped on the kitchen light. Harsh fluorescent light flooded the room, making them both blink.
“Guess that explains the pink hairbrush and tampons. I thought one of the cousins left them over the summer. Grampy didn’t tell me someone was living here.”
“He wouldn’t. Stubborn man likes everyone to think he needs no one.” She wished she hadn’t noticed how splendid Rhett Bryan looked with a fluffy rubber-ducky towel looped about his trim hips. He was brown as a berry, a virtual postcard for California beach life. His wet hair was plastered to his forehead, somehow making his boyish features more masculine, almost craggy.
Rhett grunted. “Sounds about right. Sorry I scared you. I’m Pete’s—”
“I know who you are,” she interrupted. Then it dawned on her. Rhett hadn’t recognized her. Of course, the last time he’d seen her, she’d been in pajama bottoms and had puffy eyes from crying. The past fifteen years stretched like a galaxy between them. “You don’t recognize me.”
“You’re not one of my cousins, are you?”
“No. I’m Summer. Summer Valentine.”
“Summer? From Mangham High?” His baby blues widened as he took her in. At that moment she was very, very grateful she did daily yoga and watched what she ate. She’d gone from a pudgy size twelve in high school to a svelte size six. Her highlighted hair framed her square jawline. She still wasn’t much for makeup, but she had developed a natural, Bohemian style that suited her personality . . . not that Rhett could tell from her simple, navy, one-piece swimsuit.
His eyes moved over her body, rising to her face. “You look . . . uh, great. Not that you didn’t before or anything. You’ve always been a pretty girl, but . . . wow.”
Summer stifled the blush that threatened to rise. She wasn’t that stupid girl who’d found excuses to watch boys like Rhett anymore. Life had changed her, made her tough, made her into a woman who didn’t blush or stammer. Hell, she’d been hit on while singing at bars by more charming, better-looking guys than Rhett Bryan.
Rhett smiled. “It’s good to see you, Sum.”
Okay. Not as hot as Rhett. Damn, but there was power in that man’s smile. “What are you doing here?”
Rhett hadn’t been back to visit his grandfather in over four years, instead electing to fly the older man out to California last December. Pete had vowed he’d never fly out there again, even if it had been on a private jet. Said California and all the fruit-eating nuts weren’t his cup of tea when it came to celebrating the holidays. Summer had gotten a big kick out of his stories of movie stars and Rhett’s weird house, though she noted Pete liked all the soft cashmere cardigans and fancy monogrammed robe he’d received as gifts.
“I wish I knew,” Rhett said, giving her another smile but unable to hide the shadows lurking in his eyes. She knew the past months hadn’t been easy for the Hollywood celebrity. His star burned brightly, but the accident with the girl last summer had dampened it a bit. Pete hadn’t talked much about it . . . or the pending wrongful-death civil suit. Or the breakdown Rhett had on the show a few weeks back, when he’d interviewed Bev Bohanan, the reality star of BEVerly Hills Blondes.
“Pete didn’t say anything about you coming home. Usually he tells me things like this.”
Rhett looked guilty. “Actually, he doesn’t know. I got here about thirty minutes ago. I hadn’t showered since I left LA yesterday, and after the long drive south from New York, I thought I’d clean up. I knew where the key was hidden.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Around back. I didn’t want to . . . to be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I would stay. I wasn’t sure if I would even let Gramps know I was here.” He shook his head. “It was a last-minute decision I don’t know why I made. When did you move in?”
“In March. Your grandfather goes to church with my mom and mentioned he wanted to rent the cabin out. It just worked for both of us. You do know there are easier ways to get to South Carolina. LaGuardia’s not the closest airport.”
Rhett’s laugh was dry. “Well, I had planned a much-needed vacation at a Catskills spa, but when I neared the exit toward I-95, I just turned south.” He held his hands up like he couldn’t fathom how he’d ended up where he stood.
Summer stared at him, wondering about a man who would make such a spontaneous decision. Pete was going to be both ecstatic and irritated his only grandson had shown up without warning. Her perusal seemed to unnerve Rhett. He pushed a hand through his wet hair and avoided eye contact. “Let me grab my bag and get dressed. Then I’ll clear out so you can. . .” He looked at her hand grasping the ties of her suit. “ . . . take a shower.”
She nodded, realizing it wasn’t her son’s bag she’d tripped over earlier but Rhett’s overnight bag.
Rhett passed her, smelling like the vanilla bath gel she liked. Funny how it smelled different on a man. Or maybe it was just Rhett. He’d always been larger than life, a quintessential Carolina golden boy, a guy she’d built up in her mind as the ideal.
But Rhett wasn’t perfect.
He was just a man . . . a man who seemed to have shadows dogging him.
“I’ll be quick,” he said before closing the door.
He didn’t even lock it.
Summer sank onto one of the dinette chairs.
Rhett Bryan had come home to Carolina.
But he wouldn’t stay. Pete constantly complained, or rather made excuses, about Rhett’s failure to visit. Rhett hadn’t even made it in for Pete’s big birthday celebration that past June. Summer had been disappointed in Rhett for not coming, instead sending a huge cake that exploded to reveal a buxom redhead dressed in a bunny costume. Summer had not been upset about the silly prank, but because she’d known Pete’s feelings had been hurt. Rhett had excused himself with commercial shoots and production meetings, but she found none of those good enough reasons to not show up for the eightieth birthday celebration Pete’s buddies at the Elks Lodge had thrown.
Five minutes later, Rhett emerged wearing a pair of designer jeans and a tight, light-blue T-shirt. His feet were still bare, but he’d tamed his locks. “Okay, she’s all yours.”
Summer stood, wrapping her arms about her midriff before realizing she looked uncomfortable in her own place. She dropped them. “So are you staying?”
He shrugged. “I’m here. Might as well see my grampy.”
“Pete would like that. Why don’t you go on up to the Nest? I picked up dinner, but if you want some, you better hurry. My son’s fourteen and he has an empty leg.”
Rhett opened the front door and stepped out into the fading day. At her last words, he turned. “You have a fourteen-year-old kid?”
How could he not remember all that had happened? “His name’s David.”
His expression grew cloudy. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, trying to remember, trying to catch hold of the wisps of memory. “I remember now. You and Hunt. You two getting together always surprised me.”
Summer felt something cold slither down her back. “Together? Hunt and I were never together, Rhett.”
His smile flickered before he tried to capture some lightness. “No. I remember. You hooked up at prom. I had forgotten about the pregnancy. God, I . . . that must have been rough.”
Summer stared at him for a second . . . two seconds . . . .three.
“Yeah, something like that. Welcome home, Rhett,” she said, walking toward the front door and pulling it closed.