One Summer (15 page)

“He called my mother a crazy, nutcase whore.”

Principal Ferguson’s cheeks reddened a bit at that. Johnny knew she didn’t tolerate bad words in her school. Tough. If she’d really cared, she would have called to her office all the kids who threw even worse words at him like a shower of stones every day and written all those words down in
their
permanent records.

A really bad thought occurred to him. “Did she turn in Angel, too?”

The social worker nodded. “Yes.”

That hadn’t made sense to Johnny then. And six years later, it still didn’t. Okay, so maybe he
was
a “problem child.” But his sister was an angel. Or as close to one as you were ever going to find here on earth. But it hadn’t mattered, because their grandmother had dumped her, too.

And it was all his fault. If only he’d behaved better. If only he hadn’t gotten into fights, and had cleaned his room, and not sassed his grandmother when she complained about having two brats dumped on her, Angel would still have a home.

As he left the office, the principal finally spoke. “Johnny.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Using his fists wasn’t the only thing Johnny had learned from Buck.

He’d flipped her the bird. Then hadn’t looked back.

He and Angel had spent the next six years bouncing from home to home. He’d always known it was his bad attitude that had kept him from being adopted. Not that he wanted to be placed in a permanent home. Because his mom was coming back and he knew that if he wasn’t waiting for her, something terrible could happen.

But he’d never been able to figure out why no one wanted his sister. Especially since they’d been separated the entire time. So why should his behavior have anything to do with Angel?

The question had remained a puzzle until a year ago, when a bitch of a foster parent even more wicked than that bad witch in
The Wizard of Oz
had told him that no one would ever adopt either Johnny or Angel because no one trusted their blood history.

“No one knows who either of your fathers were,” she’d said. “And according to your records and the police report, your mother’s a mental mess.”

Which was, unfortunately, true. But that didn’t keep him from feeling guilty. Maybe if he’d just loved his mother a little harder, taken better care of his sister so she wouldn’t have to worry so much, they’d still be a family.

Not all his foster parents had been like old Wicked Witch of the West. Some were kind, and a few even treated him the same way they did their own children, even inviting him to call them Mom.

But he couldn’t do it because they weren’t his mother. His mother was out there. Somewhere. And she’d always told Johnny that whatever happened—that whoever took him away from her and kept them apart—she would always be his mother. His only mom.

So, refusing to forget her, as so many adults advised, forgiving her for past painful behaviors he understood were out of her control whenever her damaged mind burst its boundaries, he’d steadfastly waited for her to come back. Which, in his heart, he knew would probably never happen. But that didn’t keep him from hoping.

And waiting.

While his mother’s face and the scent of her jasmine perfume followed him like a shadow, from placement to placement.

Like a ghost.

Time might be slower on the coast, but this was ridiculous, Charity thought as she looked up at the pawshaped wall clock for the umpteenth time. Having just assured a nervous cat owner that it wouldn’t die after scarfing down an entire pork chop it’d snatched from the countertop, she was counting the hours before the Marine was due to show up at the house.

You’re behaving like a teenager before a first date.
It was ridiculous to be so nervous. It was, after all, just dinner.

“Good point,” she muttered.

“Did you say something?” Amie glanced up from stocking the supply cabinet.

“Just talking to myself.”

“I do that all the time,” Janet, who’d come back to announce a new patient, offered. “I figure as long as I answer, I’m okay.” She handed Charity the patient’s color-coded file. “It’s when I start ignoring myself I may be in trouble.”

“You’ve been jittery all day,” Amie accused.

“I have not.” It was a lie. But only a small white one.

“You’ve reminded me of a blind cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” Janet jumped in.

“I’ll bet it’s the date,” Amie said knowingly.

Janet nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“It’s not a date.” The denial sounded as false as when she’d tried it out on herself. “Simply dinner.”

“A dinner you bought a new outfit for,” Janet pointed out.

“And did your nails.”

When both women’s eyes zeroed in on Charity’s fingernails, she was tempted to put her hands behind her back to hide them from view. “It’s clear polish.”

“True. Which is a shame, because if I had your long fingers, I’d want to show them off,” said Amie, who was currently wearing a sky blue color on her own short nails.

“But they’re not chipped like they usually are,” Janet said, proving to have the eye of an eagle, which probably served her well when painting landscapes. “And you shaped them.”

“Jeez.” Charity opened the file, determined to move the topic away from her. “It’s not as if I go around town looking like a bag woman.”

“Of course you don’t, dear,” Janet said. “It’s just that it’s been obvious that you’re anxious about something. Since the day’s been so quiet—”

“Don’t say that!” Amie and Charity immediately cut the older woman off. If there was one thing every veterinarian knew, it was that the surest way to invite chaos was to state out loud how quiet things were.

“Sorry!” Janet covered her mouth with her hand.

Too late. A second later the bell on the door jangled. Then jangled again. And, as the receptionist bustled out to start triaging their patients, yet again.

Amie and Charity exchanged a resigned look. The deluge had begun.

Kara Conway was sitting out on the porch of Sax Douchett’s cliff house—which she and her son, Trey, had moved into—sipping a glass of wine and watching the early-evening sunlight dance on the waves. Although winters might admittedly be gray and wet here on the coast, summers were heaven.

“I saw your brother’s friend today,” she said as she rocked on the porch swing with the man she’d fallen in love with.

“What friend was that?” he asked idly as he sipped on a beer and played with the strands of hair hugging the nape of her neck.

“The one from the wedding. The photographer.”

“Gabe St. James.”

“That’s him. He was walking on the beach.”

“Taking pictures?” Now he was nuzzling her neck, which made it really difficult to concentrate. With Trey on a sleepover and Bon Temps closed on Monday evenings, Kara knew exactly what Sax had in mind. The same thing she’d been planning, which was why she’d stopped by the Oh So Fancy lingerie boutique and picked up a pretty rose pink silk and lace camisole and tap pants, which she was currently wearing under her jeans and T-shirt as a sexy surprise.

“No.” She tilted her head back, allowing his lips access to her throat. “He had a dog.”

“I know. I saw it sitting in the front seat of the Jeep when he stopped by Bon Temps yesterday. But I couldn’t tell what kind it was.”

“I’ve no idea.” Just when things had begun to get interesting, she’d managed to sidetrack them. Reminding herself that they had all night, Kara took another sip of wine. “Some little black thing. Maybe part Shih Tzu, with some poodle in it.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re kidding.”

“No. He said he was just keeping it overnight until Charity can find it a home.”

He laughed again, the deep rich sound slipping beneath her skin and warming her from the inside out, as it always did. “That’s what he told me. I also told him good luck with that.”

“Once again we’re on the same wavelength.”

He’d always been able to read her mind. Even back when they’d been in high school. Giving up on the seduction part of the evening for now, she leaned her head on his shoulder and watched the fishing boats chug along the horizon, nets trailing behind them.

“I think there may be something going on between them,” Sax said. “More than her trying to place another dog.”

“Did he say that?”

“It was more what he
didn’t
say. And the way he didn’t say it.”

Kara frowned. “I don’t know if that would be such a good idea.”

“Why not? They’re both single and uncommitted.”

“She’s had a sex moratorium since she called off her wedding.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Damn if it isn’t true. Men don’t stand a chance because women
do
tell each other everything.”

Female bonding and sharing information is cultural, going back to the beginning of time. It was important to keep the community together while the men were out hunting woolly mammoths. And it’s not like males don’t tell each other stuff. I refuse to believe that you only talk sports over those poker games and fishing trips.

“My point,” she stressed, holding up a finger as he opened his mouth to argue, “is that if Charity’s going to get back on that particular horse, so to speak, perhaps she ought to start out with an easier one.”

“One who’s already been broke.”

“So to speak.”

“I was celibate until you came to town.”

“So Kelli told me.”

“What? How the hell did the woman who’s now my sister-in-law know that?”

“Cole told her. And she told me.”

“Like it was any of her damn business,” he muttered.

“You had a reputation back in the day,” Kara reminded him. “I think she just wanted to reassure me that you’d changed. Settled down.”

“Cole shouldn’t have told her. We only talked about sex once. In generalities, when we were discussing fixing up Bon Temps and he told me I should get laid.”

“Which you did.” She pressed a kiss against his frowning lips, then snuggled closer again. “But you were different. You were ready for a relationship when you came back to town.”

“I’m not sure about that. But I sure as hell was ready for you.” He pressed a kiss against the top of her head. “As for Charity, unless she has plans to open up a vet clinic in a convent, it makes sense that after nearly two years she’d be ready to get back on the horse. Or, mixing metaphors, the bike. Since I always figured sex is a lot like riding a bike. Once you figure out how to do it, it just comes back naturally.”

“Which certainly seemed to be true for you.”

“Why, thank you,
chère
.” He put his fingers beneath her chin, tipped her head up, and touched his lips to hers, creating the slow, familiar smoldering stir she figured she’d still be feeling when they were a hundred.

“But, as I said, he just doesn’t seem right for her. Not when there are so many other nice, easier men in town.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want easy. Maybe after all this time going without, she isn’t interested in training wheels. You turned out to have a thing for bad boys. Ever think she might want to take a walk on the wild side?”

“You’re not the same rebel you were in high school,” she reminded him. Though he still had enough of that bad-boy flare to keep things interesting.

“True enough.”

“So,” she mused, “I suppose it’s true that opposites attract.”

“Works in our case,” he agreed.

“But I don’t know.” She shook her head. “He just seems so intense. I like to think that I’m a pretty good judge of people—”

“You are. Which is undoubtedly important in the cop business.”

“It is.” And often could make the difference between life and death. Something her late husband had, tragically, found out the hard way. “And from the vibes I was getting from your Marine friend, just in that short time, I worry that the two of them together could be a lot like nitroglycerin and a flamethrower.”

“They’re grown-ups. They’ll be okay. And speaking of flames.”

He kissed her again. Longer, deeper. Skimmed a wicked hand from her shoulder down to her thigh.

“What would you say,” he murmured against her mouth, “to going back in and setting some sheets on fire?”

Reminding herself that Sax was right, that Charity was a grown woman who’d had the guts to call off a wedding at the last minute, while guests were waiting for her to walk down the aisle, Kara put the problem aside for a time as she twined her arms around his neck.

“I’d say you just read my mind.”

Although she’d experienced some tense moments during her career—such as the time a bullmastiff had plunked his huge butt down on her porch and refused to enter the clinic until she’d lured him in with a particularly smelly treat—Charity was not accustomed to feeling nervous.

“It’s just dinner,” she repeated yet again as she smoothed lotion into her skin after the shower she’d taken to wash off the kennel/hospital smell, then spritzed on the matching scent.

Which is why you’re using that outrageously expensive perfume,
a little voice in the back of her head piped up.
Which, until the wedding, had been sitting on the counter for the past six months.

It had been a Christmas gift from her father, who, like her mother, tended toward excess. A trait that appeared to have escaped her. The fact that the name was written on the label in real gold leaf had been enough to make her put it aside, waiting for a special occasion.

Not that this was a special occasion.

After all, if she didn’t use it, it would dry up. Or evaporate. She was only being frugal.

Okay. That was a lie. The truth was, like it or not, this
was
a date. She couldn’t try to insist that it was about placing another homeless dog. She had, after all, managed to find homes for dozens of animals since coming to Shelter Bay and none of those cases had involved dinner. Well, except for a few meals at the Douchetts’ home, but that had evolved much more into friendship than business.