Love on a Summer Night (12 page)

“Will you follow us to Mac’s?” she asked, tilting her face up to his.

“Yep. See you there.”

He beat them, in fact, because he’d parked closer to the entrance of the park, and could manoeuvre his bike around the slow moving parade of exiting vehicles.

Arriving at the diner first was a good thing, because Rafe and Olivia were there as well, waiting for takeout.

“A craving for meatloaf and mashed potatoes,” Olivia admitted, patting her now prominent pregnant belly. Prominent but cute—pregnancy suited his sister-in-law.

Zander thumped his brother on the shoulder. “Cook your wife a good dinner.”

Rafe scowled. “I tried. She prefers Frank’s potatoes.”

“Fair enough, so do I.” He glanced out the window. “Listen, I’m here for dinner with friends and I don’t want you to make a big deal about it.”

Rafe’s frown turned into a gleeful grin. “But because you’re telling me about it, I know it
is
a big deal. Is this Faith?”

“Jesus. Don’t you old ladies have anything else to talk about? When she and her son come in, pretend you don’t know me.”

“But I’ve known you my entire life. The day I was born you poked me in the eye. This is going to be hard to pull off.” Rafe groaned as Olivia covered his mouth with her hand.

“We’ll get our food and leave without making any eye contact,” she said sweetly. Too sweetly, because she continued with a level threat. “Provided that tomorrow we get the skinny. Got it? You’ve been holding out on everyone except Dean, and that’s not fair.”

Zander knew the bastard wouldn’t keep that secret.
 

He didn’t say yes but he didn’t say no. Honestly, he didn’t have anything to share with his nosy but well-meaning family.

This was why he’d left Pine Harbour twenty years ago. Everyone else thought life was a joint exercise when Zander barely had a handle on doing a solo run at it.

Frank, the cook and owner of Mac’s, dinged the bell and Deena the waitress bagged up Olivia’s requested dinner. Zander stepped out of the way, breathing a sigh of relief that they were leaving before Faith and Eric arrived—and not a minute too soon, because the little hatchback pulled into a spot just as Rafe and Olivia headed outside.

He held his breath, watching as his brother not-so-subtly gave Faith the once-over. And Eric. There was that tightness in his chest again. He wanted to run outside and wrap them up in his arms.

But he didn’t need to, because Eric was running inside, straight to him. The little guy reached way up high and pulled the door open, then flew into Zander’s arms.

“I want a cheeseburger,” the kid pronounced. “They make everything better.”

Up until this moment, Zander would have agreed. Now he was pretty sure that it was hugs from a four-year-old that held that trump card.

— NINE —

T
HURSDAY dawned grey and rainy, which matched Faith’s mood. Zander was leaving the next day and she hated how much that upset her.

She distracted herself by having Vera kill a nasty group of vampires.

Faith hated vampires.

She took a break when Eric got up and they read some books after breakfast, but when she kept trailing off mid-story, he finally sighed and asked if he could play on his tablet for a bit. She ignored the guilty pang in her gut and agreed. She left her office door open so she could hear him playing in his room—first on the tablet, and then when his timer went off, with his Lego and blocks as he recreated the video he’d just watched.

Twice she pulled out her ponytail by accident. Three times she stabbed herself in the scalp as she shoved pencils into the elastic, then yanked them out again as she made notes to remember. Her monitor was growing quite the multi-coloured post-it fringe—it was alarming.

A quiet knock at the door dragged her back to reality.

“I’m heading to Owen Sound to do some grocery shopping,” Miriam said. “I’ll drop Eric at the library on my way.”

“Thank you! And remember that we’ve got that picnic for dinner tonight, so you don’t need to rush back.” Faith tried hard not to turn red. She’d told her mother about it in the loosest of terms over breakfast, and Miriam had assumed it was with a friend of Eric’s.

“I won’t—I might go see a movie.”

“Okay, have fun.”

She listened to her family get ready as she turned her attention back to the post-it notes.
 
God, she had a lot more to layer in. She rubbed her eyes. Maybe she should plot them all out into future scenes, get them off her monitor.

She preferred to write in a linear fashion, but some characters—Deacon—would get in her head, and as she wrote one thing, it felt like an echo of something that should happen later on.

She needed to get the man out of her head. He didn’t need to be in this book.

Except that she felt very much, deep down, that he did.

Vera needed him.

She rubbed her eyes again, and scribbled
why Deacon?
on another post-it note. It was there, niggling at the back of her mind, but it wasn’t enough to trust that the character had a reason for showing up in the book—she needed to understand why, in her kick-ass heroine’s series, on book four a hot guy shows up and takes over and it’s a good thing.

It didn’t sound like a good thing.

It sounded dangerous and distracting and unhelpful.

It also messed with her plan for this to be the last book in the series, the grand finale. Because she was rounding the corner into the third act and while the monster of the week was being conquered, new plot lines were popping up.

A corrupt mayor.

A new, deadly drug in the underground club system.

And Deacon.

With a gasp, she sat straight up and tightened her ponytail. Three more books.

It was a seven book arc, not four, with a slow-burning love story over them all—and more books wasn’t a problem, but…had she set it up well enough? And could she wrap up this book in a way that would satisfy her urban fantasy readers, giving them a satisfying conclusion before turning the series into a romance of sorts?

And did she even want to write a romance?

That had been her passion, back before she was published, before she had Eric.

Before Greg died.

When she worked at the Toronto Public Library, she’d dreamed of writing Regency romances. Dukes and seasons and clever, scientific-minded heroines.

And then life happened, and she couldn’t imagine weaving a fantasy that could be believable.

She’d lost her faith in that romantic ideal.

Demon-slaying aligned better with her reality in more ways than one.
 

Spinning around in her chair, she grabbed the printed out copy of chapter one from the top of the book case and started reading.

Forty-five minutes later, she put down the third chapter and opened a web browser window. Her best writing friends had a private group online that any of them could use to vent or brainstorm or just hang out in when procrastination was the order of the day.

Faith Davidson:
So… I think I’m going to expand the Darkness Rising series. Vera’s found a love interest. Thoughts? I can see three more books, and while I thought it would be a bit of a mess, now that I’ve re-read the first three chapters that I wrote in this book, I think I’ve been setting it up all along. Is that possible?

Instead of refreshing the page waiting for a response, she got up and went downstairs to get herself a can of pop from the pantry.

She stood there for a minute, warring with herself before she dragged over a chair and hauled down the box of Halloween treats that she’d pretended were in fact for the holiday, still two months away.

Ha. She nabbed two of the snack-size bags before carefully closing the box up again.

As she returned the chair to its rightful place, she reasoned that after the salty, she’d need something sweet, and she grabbed a chocolate bar from the secret stash, too.

Reinventing her entire series—and her author brand—was scary stuff. The treats were totally justified.

When she got back to her computer, both Gillian Ford and Samantha Harcourt had weighed in. The fourth member of their self-named Quill Quartet, Cecilia Dark, was on a social media hiatus while she finished her book.

For the best—Cecilia would tell her not to do it. That she wasn’t known as a romance author and going soft could be the kiss of death.

Faith knew that. And still her heart pounded harder as she read the responses.

Samantha Harcourt:
Yes! Come to the dark side. Who is the hero? Is he a demon? Make him a demon. Ooooh…. Or a vampire.

Gillian Ford:
She hates vampires.

Samantha Harcourt:
So? Readers don’t.

Gillian Ford:
Also, Vera’s a vamp slayer. Focus.

Samantha Harcourt:
You don’t even write romance!

Faith snickered. It was true. Gillian wrote cozy mysteries. The closest she got to romance was a double entendre over a whimsically splayed dead body.

Gillian Ford:
Maybe I’ll follow her lead and mix sexy firefighters into my next series.

Samantha Harcourt:
I’m loving all of this. Go on….

Gillian Ford:
Faith first. Honestly? I think your readers will want more Vera, and any guy she’s going to fall for is going to be bad-ass, right? So it’s all good. Do it. Trust your gut!

That was the problem. Faith
didn’t
trust her gut. Her gut had her kissing Zander even though he was completely wrong for her.

For a second, she thought about changing the subject. Her girls had held her up when Greg died, helped her figure out what she could write that would make enough money to support herself. Samantha had even flown up to be with her and Miriam when Faith’s father died eleven months later and she’d fallen apart all over again.

She would tell them about Zander. Soon.

After the week was over and he’d left her, because he was just her Mr. Right Now. Mr. One Week.

Mr. Awesome With Eric.

She dropped her head to the desk, ignoring the quiet beeping of her computer as her writing friends continued to discuss the pros and cons of Faith finally getting back into writing romance.

Given how hopeless she was at managing her own love life, she hardly felt qualified. But maybe by the time she got to the next book, where Vera and Deacon would stop threatening each other with swords and start getting naked, she’d have a more recent reference point for what that was like.

Not that she’d ever stabbed anyone, and she managed to write that just fine, but watching dirty gifs on Tumblr was a poor substitute for Zander.

She sighed, breathing his name. Not that they’d have a chance to do anything tonight. Or ever.

Two days until he got on a plane.

If only she’d been brave enough to suggest he come over when Eric was at the library.

On her desk, her phone lit up. Her cheeks turned red as she glanced at the screen. Her filthy subconscious must have sent out a bad boy bat signal.
 

“Hi,” she half-squeaked, half-breathed. Not a sexy combination.

“Did I interrupt your writing?” Of course he sounded sexy as sin. Not fair.

“Uhm…” She sat up straighter and pasted on a smile. Telephone speaking rule number one. “Nope! I was just brainstorming the next book in my series.”

“I know we made plans to have a picnic dinner, but if I came up your direction sooner than that…?”

“Yes!” She leaned back in her chair. Too excited. “I mean, sure. Whenever.”

Jeez. Overcompensating much, Faith?

But Zander didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah? Really?”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced in horror at her t-shirt and sweat pants. No, not whenever. She needed time to not look like a scary hot mess. “Well, give me fifteen minutes.”

“I’m leaving right now. You’ve got twenty-five.”

— —
 

Zander climbed the steps to Faith’s house. The flowers he carried were a big gesture that showed his hand. But he wanted Faith to know how interested he was. He wanted her to see that even if it pushed her out of her comfort zone, because he didn’t have a lot of time this visit.

Be a gentleman
, he told himself over and over again as he waited for her to answer the door.

His resolve lasted until he saw her.

She stood in her foyer in a bathrobe, her hair still damp from a shower.

He grabbed the doorframe to keep from lunging for her, but he couldn’t keep himself from doing a head-to-freaking-adorable-bare toes once over. On the way back up, his grin got painfully big. “Did I drive too fast?”

“I’m terrible with time. Something you should probably know about me.” She swallowed hard, and he watched her throat work before dragging his gaze up to her dusky pink lips, swollen from the warmth of the shower.

“I’m on vacation, what do I care about timings?” His biceps flexed on their own accord, hungry to wrap themselves around her. He tightened his grip on the open door frame, crushing the stems of the wild flower bouquet he’d all but forgotten about.

“Oh, that’s a relief.” She blinked almost shyly. “Aren’t you going to come in?”

Hell, yes. But first… “Where’s Eric?”

“Library program.” She gave him a surprisingly flirty look that made him glad he’d called and asked if he could come around early.

“When I let go of this door, I’m going to kiss you.”

She beamed. “So let go.”

His first thought as he pulled her into his arms, kicking the door shut behind him, was that her eyes were extra blue right out of the shower. The next was that her mouth was extra soft, like velvet.

Then the flowers hit the floor and he stopped thinking.

Where their first kiss had been gentle, this one was an immediate clash of two people in need. Her hands went to his neck and up into his hair. His arms banded tight around her and his palms cupped the swell of her ass beneath the soft terry cotton.

He was painfully aware that only a soft belt separated him from the naked woman he’d been dreaming of all week.

That frustration poured right out of him as they kissed. He couldn’t hold back, and thank Christ, she was just as desperate—she moved restlessly against his body, pulling herself tighter into his embrace as she breathed him in, her tongue inviting his right into an X-rated kiss that had him hard as a rock in seconds.