One Reckless Summer (8 page)

Amy beamed proudly. “You haven’t heard? I own the bookstore in town—Under the Covers.”

Ah—while it wasn’t what she’d predicted, it was another bit of news that didn’t surprise Jenny at all. Amy had always wanted to be a librarian when she grew up—and it sounded like she’d come close. “Wow—color me delighted to hear Destiny now
has
a bookstore.”

“Times, they are a
changin
’,” Tessa quipped, adding, “I work there part-time, so stop in and say hello.”

Jenny was still talking with Tessa and Amy when she felt two hands clasp her own. She looked up to see Miss Ellie’s other daughter, Mary Katherine, who
had
been the town librarian Jenny’s whole life but—according to her father—had just recently retired. Jenny turned to the older lady with a smile. “It’s great to see you, Mary Katherine,” she said, truly pleased.

They exchanged pleasantries for a moment until Mary Katherine said, “Now you must come over and say hello to Mother. She doesn’t get around so well anymore, so we’ve got her sitting in the shade in the gazebo, and she’s dying to see you.”

After promising her old friends they’d get together soon, Jenny let Mary Katherine lead her by the hand up into the gazebo, complete with gingerbread trim, to find Miss Ellie seated in a patio chair in a yellow dress sprinkled with blue flowers, looking as bright and chipper as a woman her age could.

Her aged eyes lit up when she spotted Jenny. “Why, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t sweet Jenny Tolliver.”

Jenny had mentally braced herself for all the
sweet
and
good
comments, and especially given that this was beloved Miss Ellie, she let it roll off her back. She took Miss Ellie’s withered hands in hers, having been reminded by other greetings, both here and at the mahjongg party, that this was how Destiny ladies expressed affection. “Hello, Miss Ellie—it’s so wonderful to see you again.”

“What’s that you say, dear?”

Oh my—poor Miss Ellie’s hearing must be starting to go. Jenny leaned closer and spoke louder. “
Hello
,
Miss Ellie—it’s wonderful to see you again
.”

Miss Ellie nodded in understanding. “You, too, sweetheart—you, too.” Miss Ellie still held one of her hands and now squeezed it. “Your father tells me you’re here for the summer.”

“That’s right,” she said, nodding. She’d forgotten to speak up, but Miss Ellie seemed to understand.

It was then that Miss Ellie began to peek around behind Jenny, and then around the gazebo in general, as if looking for someone.

“What is it, Miss Ellie?” Jenny asked, remembering to project her voice this time. “Can I get you something?”

“No, no—I was just looking for your Terrence. Where is he?”

Oh dear.

On one hand, it would be easier to fib to Miss Ellie than a lot of people. Jenny could just say he was busy today and it would suffice—and probably not
technically
be a lie. But on the other hand…
hell
,
why not just get over this madness and tell it like it is.
So, for the first time ever, Jenny didn’t mince words or try to choose the best way to say it. “We’re divorced.”

Miss Ellie lifted a palm to cup her ear. “What’s that, dear? My hearing’s gone bad. Can you say again?”

Jenny took a deep breath and leaned nearer, but didn’t raise her voice overmuch. “He’s gone, Miss Ellie. We’re no longer together.”

Miss Ellie knit her brows. “Oh my—where did he go?”

Oh crap. Hell.
Just say it
. “He…left me for a twenty-one-year-old
chippy
.”

“What’s that, Jenny? I’m afraid I still can’t hear you.”

Jenny raised her voice, just slightly. “I said that he left me for a twenty-one-year-old.”

But Miss Ellie still clearly wasn’t hearing her, squinting and shaking her head, and cupping her ear more tightly. “Again, dear?”

So Jenny tried again. “
I said that Terrence left me for a twenty-one-year-old
chippy
!
”

When a hush fell over the garden, she realized that anyone in Destiny who hadn’t known why she was here before definitely knew
now.
She met Sue Ann’s gaze across the garden, and her friend delivered a tight-lipped smile, as if to say,
Oh well
,
at least it’s out now.
She caught looks of sympathy from Tessa and Amy, as well.

Then, at a loss, she looked back down at old Miss Ellie, who said, “Well, just between you and me, I never did think that boy had much sense—and now he’s proven it if he’s stupid enough to give up a sweet girl like you. Although…” she added, clearly puzzled, “I wonder why he was attracted to a hippie.”

The rest of the party was awkward, no two ways about it. But Jenny survived.

And in the days after, she began to realize she was glad the news was completely out—it took a lot of pressure off when she stopped into the police station to meet her dad for lunch a couple of days later. And when she stepped into the Daisy Dress Shop on the town square, no one asked her a thing—she chatted with the owner, Mary Ann, about normal topics like the weather and fashion, then bought a pretty cotton skirt suitable for other upcoming Destiny summer social occasions. When she ran into Tessa on the same outing, crossing the square, they
did
briefly discuss the divorce, but Tessa was supportive and didn’t dwell on the topic. “According to Sue Ann,” Tessa said, “he’s a rat bastard and you’re better off without him.”

Running into Tessa and Amy at Miss Ellie’s party had reminded Jenny that she had more here than she remembered—more than just Sue Ann and her dad. She, in fact, had a lifetime of friends and other people to get caught up with. And sure, she’d seen a lot of those other people even before Miss Ellie’s party, but despite her faux pas in the gazebo, something about those reconnections was starting to seem more like a comfort than something to avoid.

Jenny spent the rest of her time that week…rediscovering herself.

She read astronomy books and turned to the Internet for more recent information, since new findings were being made in space all the time. She downloaded some of her favorite pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope and created a slide-show screensaver. She put on garden gloves from the shed out back and tidied up the perennials in the front yard. And a couple of times she took a chair back down to the dock to soak up the morning sun—and let her eyes stray across the lake to wonder if Mick Brody was still there, what he was doing, and if he’d changed his mind about coming back.

That would be best, of course. A guy like him could bring nothing but trouble into her life. And yet—the more time that passed, the more she couldn’t deny to herself that she’d never experienced such deeply
pleasurable
trouble.

In the evenings, she took walks, and once stopped in to see Miss Ellie and drop off some oatmeal raisin cookies after a visit to the bakery in town. She grilled out some nights; other nights she whipped up light salads. She started watching reality TV competitions, which Terrence had frowned upon, and soon began to understand the national indulgence. Twice she took her telescope down to the dock, but the first night turned out to be too cloudy, and on the next, although she did spot Saturn and Jupiter, she found that, as she’d suspected, the taller trees on the shoreline tended to get in her way, which quickly became annoying.

Of course, that led her thoughts back across the lake, as well. It was frustrating to have this new freedom, freedom to do whatever she wanted, accountable to no one else, but
still
not be able to do what moved her the most: exploring the cosmos one-on-one, through her telescope.

On that particular evening, she briefly considered throwing caution to the wind, climbing back in the canoe with her equipment, and paddling across the lake. Because surely he wouldn’t be out walking again. Surely she could sneak up the hill to the rocks without being noticed.

But then sense prevailed. He might be able to kiss more softly than she’d first thought, but he was still potentially a criminal. And though he’d never directly threatened her, he’d made it very clear she wasn’t welcome there. And sure, the wild, feral sex had sent a
blatantly
mixed message—but she had to remember:
He does not want you there. He told you repeatedly to stay away.

So a week after their sexual liaison in the woods, she stood on her dock, let out a sigh, and started dismantling and packing her telescope carefully back in its case, accepting that it would be foolish to go back over to the Brody property and that maybe she just wasn’t meant to see the stars like she wanted to right now.

Though as she trudged back to the house and stepped in from the hot June night, she couldn’t help feeling a little…let down. Because even if she was enjoying the freedom to do whatever she wanted—or nothing at all—she still wasn’t quite used to spending so much time alone. Or maybe it was disappointment over the stargazing, not being able to reach out to the universe and find that sense of peace it always gave her. Or…was it because Mick Brody apparently wasn’t coming back?

Uh-oh, bad thought. Because it was
good
he hadn’t come back, she told herself again as she stashed her telescope in the coat closet. And a soft kiss doesn’t make him any less dangerous, she reminded herself as she went upstairs to change into a pair of cotton drawstring pajama pants with little slices of watermelon on them, topping them with a mint green tank. And as she headed back down to do a little reading before bed, she decided that disliking the “good Jenny” label was one thing, but abandoning her good sense was another.

She was just about to curl up on the old sofa with Brian Greene’s
The Fabric of the Cosmos
when she remembered she’d left some gardening tools on the back patio today and there was a slight chance of rain overnight. Rain that would be very welcome, given the unrelenting heat that had been building since her arrival in town, but she didn’t want to be responsible for letting her dad’s tools
get
rusty.

So she tossed the book on the couch and went to the back door, pulling it open and starting through—only to find herself face to face, chest to chest, with Mick Brody. His warm hands curled around her wrists to keep her from barreling him over as his deep voice washed softly over her.

“Hi there, pussycat.”

Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

Carl Sagan

J
enny sucked in her breath and tried to get hold of
herself
. “Um, hi.” She felt how wide her eyes had just gotten, felt even more how close she stood to him. Then she summoned the strength to take a step back.

“You look surprised to see me,” Mick said, voice low, even.

She swallowed, wishing she could hide it. Damn it, she’d just never been very good at disguising her feelings. “I…thought maybe you’d changed your mind. You know, decided you could trust me.”

Now that she’d moved back over the threshold, into the house, he came inside, too. “Can I?”

As the words turned her indignant that fast, she crossed her arms—and realized that just like once before, all those years ago, the move shoved her breasts higher beneath her already low-cut tank. But she ignored that. “What difference does it make how I answer? You won’t believe me anyway.”

He shrugged, then smiled lightly as if conceding the point, and it made his eyes sparkle in a way that nearly paralyzed her. “Tell me enough times and maybe I’ll start believing, pussycat.”

So she pursed her lips and spoke matter-of-factly. “For the twentieth time, no, I haven’t told anyone about you, and no, I don’t intend to.” She really no longer even counted Sue Ann because she trusted her implicitly.

“That’s good,” he said, that small, sexy smile still playing about his lush mouth.
But
,
oh God
, s
top looking at his mouth already.

She watched then, a bit surprised, as he moved with ease from the small kitchen into the living room. Taking a deep breath, she followed, yet stopped in the doorway. It seemed important to keep some distance between them, and she was pretty sure her nipples were showing through her top again—though there was nothing she could do about it but try to at least
act
unaffected by him. “I was just getting ready to go to bed,” she said—then immediately wanted to bite her tongue. What if that sounded like…an invitation?

“Sorry, pussycat,” he told her. “I won’t keep you up long, but how about another glass of iced tea? It’s still hot out. And it’s a lot of work rowing across that lake.”

She stood up a little straighter. She hadn’t even thought before now about how he was getting here. But it only made sense, she supposed, since the road around the other side leading to the Brody place was a long and twisty one.
Which, she
further
supposed, is what made it such a good place to hide…whatever he was hiding.
Remember that. He’s hiding something. Something big.

“Sure,” she heard herself say, heading back into the kitchen—then berating herself as she poured the tea.
Why did you say sure? Why didn’t you tell him no
,
you’re sleepy
,
or that you’d put it in a plastic cup for him to take with him?

But as the cold air from the fridge hit her skin, she
knew
why. It was the mystery of Mick Brody. She hadn’t solved it yet, and she wanted to. No matter how she might try to deny it to herself, deep down inside, she was glad he’d come.

When she returned to the living room, he’d taken a seat on the couch. She noticed he’d placed her book on the coffee table so as not to sit on it. “Here,” she said, passing him the glass, then sat down across the room in her mother’s old easy chair.

“That you?” he asked, motioning to the giant photo of her and her mom in the rose-colored dresses.

She nodded succinctly, watching him take a sip from the glass, noticing his Adam’s apple and the bottom edges of his hair, damp with sweat. They curled slightly, and she found herself wanting to run her fingers through them to straighten them. “When I was five.”

He leaned his head back, appearing to study the large image closer. “That’s a really big picture.”

True enough, it was way too large for the room, overpowering. “I’m thinking of taking it down,” she admitted, “but this is still technically my father’s place, so I’m not sure if I should.”

His gaze shifted to hers. “You don’t like it?”

She shrugged softly, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s like you said—it’s too big for the space. And it makes me think about my mother’s death too much since I got home.”

He nodded. “You look like her.” It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. “When did she die?”

“When I was thirteen.”

To her surprise, he flinched.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head lightly. “I guess I just…figured it was more recent.”

Because of the shrine, she presumed. “That’s why I want to take the picture down. Dad doesn’t seem quite able to get over it, even though it’s been eighteen years.”

“Wow,” Mick murmured, still studying the portrait, and looking shockingly…reverent. “That’s something. A guy that crazy about his wife.”

She couldn’t help being reminded of the “domestic calls” out to the Brody cabin when she was younger and bit her lip. “I guess it’s pretty rare,” she mused, thinking, too, about her
own
marriage.

So she was relieved when Mick’s gaze drifted from the shrine to some other old pictures on the wall—until she realized they were of
her
, in her teenage years. In one, she hugged Snowball to her chest. “I remember your cat,” he said.

Why did that please her? Probably the same reason it pleased her that he’d remembered calling her “pussycat”—it meant he remembered that day as well as she did. Still, she tried to act annoyed. “
I
remember your friend trying to get her drunk.”

He shrugged, as if she’d over-reacted to that and was
still
over-reacting, and she supposed a guy like him couldn’t really grasp how protective a girl could be of her cat. “Whatever happened to that cat anyway?” he asked.

Jenny cringed at the unpleasant memory. “She got hit by a car.” God, it still stung. It had happened the weekend before she’d left for college. She’d had Snowy since her
kittenhood
, when Jenny was nine, so it had been a blow.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding like he actually meant it—and as usual, she knew she wasn’t camouflaging her pain very well. Then he took another drink of his iced tea and shifted his gaze slightly down the wall to a photo of her in her cheerleading uniform, holding her pompoms overhead while doing the splits. “I used to see you,” he ventured. “Cheerleading.”

Her chest tightened. To think Mick Brody had been watching her then,
aware
of her then—when she’d been aware of him, too. Only vaguely before that day at the dock—but even then she’d been drawn to study him across a parking lot or the gymnasium, drawn to his lean, lanky boy’s body, his dark looks. And after the dock encounter, she’d sometimes found herself actively keeping an eye out for him on trips to town, especially in summer when people were out and about more.

She didn’t know what to say, so she just bit her lip,
then
drew her gaze down, afraid he would see the sex in her eyes.

“What’s that one?” he asked, pointing to a photo of her in a formal gown, standing next to Adam Becker—they both wore crowns on their heads. Then he lowered his chin, casting another slightly accusing grin. “Don’t tell me you were the prom queen?”

She tilted her head to one side, thinking how silly something like that must seem to tough Mick Brody. “Guilty as charged.”

He laughed softly.

And she couldn’t help saying, “What? What’s so funny?”

He pinned her in place with those blue eyes of his, even from across the room. “Let’s just say…you’re my first prom queen.”

Heat climbed her face—and it also invaded down below, in her panties. In her mind, she saw harsh, dark images of them writhing together on the ground.

He chuckled a little more then. “Hell, I’ve never even
been
to a dance.”

“Really?” She wasn’t sure why it caught her off guard, but it was just one more reminder of how different they were, how different their lives had been.

Instead of answering directly, he tilted his head slightly and said, “What’s that like, pussycat? To do all that high school stuff—the sports, the dances, everything else?”

She thought back, tried to encapsulate it in a way he would understand. “It’s not for everybody, I guess. But I liked it. It…made me feel good about myself.”

He laughed. “I guess I’d like it, too, if I had a pretty cheerleader to dance with.” Then he shook his head again. “Damn, I wouldn’t have the first idea how to even do it.”

“Do what? Dance?”

He gave a slight nod,
then
looked like maybe he was sorry he’d said it.

She decided to put his mind at ease and share the truth of the matter. “
No
boy knows how to dance in high school. It’s more like…hugging on the dance floor.”

He looked skeptical. “There’s no moving? Just hugging?”

A soft laugh escaped her. “Well, you kind of rock back and forth and sometimes turn in a slow circle, but trust me…for seventeen-year-old guys, it’s mostly hugging.”

Mick shrugged and said, “Now that I could probably master,” making her giggle yet again.

When her laughter faded, her gaze had dropped from his, but she found herself lifting it back to his face. “I could teach you.”

He raised his eyebrows matter-of-factly. “How to hug? Thanks, but I’ve already got that part down.”

“No. How to dance.” She knew a guy like him would never admit to wanting to learn, and—feeling a little sad that he’d missed out on all the things that had made her youth special, more bearable, after her mom’s death—she couldn’t help the urge to make it easier on him.

He looked doubtful, lowering his chin. “I don’t know, pussycat. Not sure I’m the dancing type.”

She’d never seen him even come
close
to looking sheepish before, and “good Jenny” continued wanting to relieve his discomfort. “Come on,” she said. “It’s painless, I promise.” Then she pushed to her feet and moved to the old stereo across the room. She didn’t have any of her own CDs with her, but it was just as well since the stereo was circa 1980s anyway, pre–CD player. So she opened the built-in cabinet and pulled out the first record she found: The
Honeydrippers
, Volume One. Lifting the cover to the turntable, she carefully lowered the vinyl onto it and set the needle on the second track, “
Sea
of
Love
.”

As the slow, dreamy music filled the room, Jenny stepped near the couch and reached out her hand. When, after a short, tentative look, he took it—that’s when she realized what she’d put into play here. Closeness. With a guy she hadn’t even meant to make more small talk with. It had just happened.
What are you doing? Stop this! Stop it now.
But she only bit her lip as she drew him to the open center of the room, realizing there was no turning back.

“The proper way to dance,” she said, nervous but trying to hide it as she looked up into those crystal blue eyes, “is like this.” She placed one of his hands on her hip, then closed the other in her own and assumed the common slow-dance position. “But in high school, it was more like
this
,” she added, situating
both
of his palms at her hips and easing her arms around his neck.

“And then you move,” she said, but that part came out in a whisper, because his hands were on her now and she could smell the musky, woodsy scent of him.

Stupid
,
stupid
,
stupid—what were you
thinking
inviting him to dance? What a
horrible
idea!

Except for the fact that it felt so darn
good.

She looked down, no longer quite able to meet his gaze as they began to sway slowly to the music. His movements were awkward at first, but she concentrated on easing them back and forth, and whispered into his chest, “Shift your weight from one foot to the other, in time with the music.” His motions grew smoother, more comfortable—as her body grew hotter and more sensitive.

As he caught on, she changed her focus from teaching him the moves to being sure she kept a couple of inches between their bodies. Even though it would have been easy to lean into him. Easy to show him how much slow-dancing could feel like sex when you wanted it to.

They didn’t speak for a while, the music seeming to cocoon them. They swayed and turned ever-so-slowly, and Jenny got a little lost in the moment, in the simple effortlessness of it, dancing with a man, not thinking very much, just listening to a romantic song her mother had once loved and letting it build a pleasant memory for her.

“This isn’t bad,” Mick said low and soft near her ear. “Now I can see why guys bother going to dances.”

Without forethought, she smiled up at him, and realized how close his eyes were to hers, how close their mouths
were,
that somewhere in the last minute or so their bodies had grown closer, too. She’d forgotten to keep concentrating on the separation, and now her breasts brushed against his chest.

He gazed down on her with heavy-lidded eyes. “So, did you lose your virginity after the prom, pussycat?”

She blinked up at him and knew she looked surprised.

“I’ve just heard that’s how it happens a lot,” he explained.