Unforgettable Summer: Wild Crush, Book 1 (12 page)

“You said he was no good for me.” The words came out embittered. For some reason Summer was galled that Jasmine hadn’t given Ty a moment’s thought in years.

“Ty was a different situation,” Jasmine said dismissively. “You were eighteen then.”

“So?”

“So you had no idea what the male of the species could be like. Ty took advantage of you just to get back at me for dumping him.”

Summer sat on the edge of the tub, gaping at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, not really seeing herself. Instead, her mind’s eye conjured the image of her sister breaking Ty’s windscreen.

Summer had assumed Jasmine’s fury at finding her with Ty was directed at her, and she had accepted it as her due. Now, her sister’s words shed new light on that event. She saw things clearly, for the first time without the blinders of her own guilt.

Stunned, she said, “You were angrier at him than you were at me.” Jasmine hadn’t reacted so violently because she was jealous or hurt or heartbroken. She’d just been plain pissed off. “I walked away from him because of you and you didn’t even love him.”

“I never said I loved him,” Jasmine remarked. “But hell yes, I was angry at him. I knew the sort of stuff he did with girls, and he thought he was going to do the same to my little sister just to spite me.”

“Do you have any clue how self-involved you sound? It never occurred to you that maybe he liked me?”

“You weren’t his type.” Jasmine rejected that notion out of hand. “Ty liked his girls experienced and wild. That wasn’t you.”

“Maybe it would have been if I’d had half a chance to live, to break a few rules or to even
breathe
in that house.” Summer heard her voice rising but could do nothing to stop it as the realizations came tumbling in. “But you couldn’t have that. I had to stay the good girl. If I hadn’t, you might have been forced to step up and take some responsibility for keeping what was left of our family together.”

On the other end of the line Jasmine cursed under her breath. In mystification she implored, “Where’s all this coming from? I thought it was water under the bridge, that Ty was history. You married someone else.”

“I had to marry Duncan because I was pregnant.”

Silence fell between them after her blurted announcement. That time in her life was not something Summer had intended to relive, but the bitter emotions had taken hold of her. She was angry at her sister, furious with herself. Her hand shook where it still clutched the bed sheet to her chest. In the mirror, she could see her pallor was ashen.

At length, Jasmine spoke. “Well, I had my suspicions at the time, because that marriage happened so fast. But when there was no baby…”

“I lost it two weeks after the wedding. It was an ectopic pregnancy. The baby never stood a chance.” Just like her marriage hadn’t after there was nothing keeping her with Duncan but a sense of obligation.

“Shit, Sum.” A rare note of sympathy could be heard in Jasmine’s sigh, and it made Summer’s eyes sting. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”

“I could
never
talk to you,” Summer rasped over the lump wedged in her throat. “When Mum died, it was like whatever relationship we had died as well. I was heartbroken. I was scared. I needed you to be a big sister and help me through it, but instead you pulled away from me and Dad. You started sneaking out and getting into trouble, all because you couldn’t deal with Mum dying.”

“She was forty-one years old and she dropped, just like that.” Summer heard the click of Jasmine’s fingers. “Life’s too short. I wasn’t going to hang around the house letting Dad tell me what to do. That’s what he did to Mum and it killed her.”

“It was an aneurism,” Summer said sadly, the familiar pang gripping her at the thought of how quickly she’d lost her main source of support, how swiftly the rug had been pulled out from under her. “Mum would have died no matter what.”

“But she was running Dad’s errands, like always. Rushing around to get his damn dry-cleaning when she collapsed in the street. He treated her like an employee, not a wife. He treated us like his property, not his daughters.”

Although to blame their father for a medical condition that couldn’t be detected or stopped was wrong, Summer knew better than to battle against Jasmine’s hatred. Instead she took a perverse comfort from knowing Jasmine would for once be on her side if she learned the one truth Summer had never told another living soul.

“I told him about the baby.” Her mind cast back to that dreadful conversation and a shudder ripped through her. “He was appalled, called me things I’ll never repeat. I begged him to let me stay at home while I figured out what to do, but he refused. He said if I didn’t marry Duncan he’d never speak to me again.”

“That bastard! Is it any wonder I don’t even like to come down there for Christmas?”

“Let’s not start that yet.” Summer half-smiled, some of the tension she always seemed to hold inside unraveling. “It’s only March.”

Every year in December, Summer and Jasmine had the same conversation. Summer called and invited her sister to the Campbell Christmas lunch because she knew an invitation from their father wouldn’t net results. Every year Jasmine railed against Summer’s attempts to stick the pieces of their shattered family back together, if only for a day.

It seemed like trying to hang on to the dream of her family was something she’d been doing forever. Summer couldn’t remember the last time she’d done something purely for herself, simply because she wanted to.

“For what it’s worth, I know I’ve been a crappy sister,” Jasmine admitted.

“You’re not that bad.” After all, Jasmine
did
always give in and attend Christmas lunch, and she even tried to be hospitable for that one day a year. Summer knew she didn’t do that for their father’s sake.

“It might be too little too late, but here’s some sage sisterly advice. You should go for it with this guy you’re seeing. Jump on that thing and ride until you can’t ride anymore.”

“Jasmine!”

“You’ve spent your life trying to do right by other people. Our cold-fish father, your lackluster husband and your very undeserving sister.” The last she said with a sardonic turn. “Do something for yourself for a change. Whatever happens after, you’ll handle it. You’ve handled worse than the end of some meaningless fling. You’re stronger than you think.”

A moment later they said their goodbyes and disconnected. Summer sat where she was, staring at the phone, her body sagging from all the expelled emotion. Her mind reeled with a combination of memories, doubts and fears—but also with possibilities.

Go for it with this guy you’re seeing.
She hadn’t told Jasmine the man in question was Ty, but it was clear from their talk that possessiveness over him had never been the issue with Jasmine. In her own twisted way, she’d been trying to protect Summer by forcing them apart years ago, not acting out of pain.

She hadn’t thought about Ty in
years
. Jasmine’s lack of a stable relationship had nothing to do with Ty, there wasn’t some corner of her heart still pining for the man, ruining her for all others, as Summer had always suspected.

No, that was Summer’s hang-up and hers alone. Now, here was an opportunity to be with Ty, nobody standing in the way or making her ashamed of how she felt. If Jasmine didn’t have feelings for Ty, there was no need for Summer to carry any guilt about being with him. Was there?

Was it really that simple?

A knock on the bathroom door made her nearly jump out of her skin. Ty’s voice sounded through the door. “Sum? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Or at least she would be, one way or another. “I’m just going to have a shower and be right out.”

“Hurry up, I’m making eggs.”

Summer blinked. “For me?”

“No, for Santa Clause. Just get a shuffle on, before I offer to come in there and help.”

Arousal stirred in the pit of Summer’s belly, making it flutter like a million tiny bird wings. Here was her chance. She could invite him in to wash her back—that was a universally understood euphemism for let’s have sex, wasn’t it?

A slice of last night’s events came back to her, making her face heat. She’d stood in her living room, stripped and told Ty to do her. The emboldening power of alcohol was an amazing thing. Too bad Summer had sworn off drinking. She was going to have to embark on this thing stone-cold sober, with eyes wide open.

Summer opened her mouth to say something, to somehow let Ty know she wasn’t going to fight what was between them anymore. Then a sound in her kitchen enlightened her to the fact he’d already left his position on the other side of the bathroom door. Typical. If there was anything Summer was good at, it was letting opportunities slip away.

Not this time.
In a flurry of movement, she yanked open the bathroom door and stalked out to the kitchen. Ty was bent over with his head in the fridge, giving Summer a fabulous view of his denim-clad behind.
No wonder they use his ass to advertise board shorts.
Giving in to impulse, Summer reached out and grabbed a handful of his delectable glutes.

Ty’s skull bumped against the freezer with a loud thud. Cursing and rubbing the back of his head, he swung around, his expression aggravated. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“I’m sorry.” Summer grimaced. “I was just…I don’t know. I’m not very good at this.”

“At what?”

“Being forthright and seductive.”

The irritation fell away from his face, to be replaced by a sexy grin. “That was you trying to be seductive? Bloody hell, you’re cute.”

Summer sighed her disappointment. “I wasn’t going for cute.”

Ty’s eyes sparkled. “If you want to seduce me, Summer, all you have to do is drop the sheet.”

In her kitchen in the morning light? She wasn’t quite there yet. Summer clutched the sheet tighter around her. “Will you settle for this instead?”

Before she lost her nerve, Summer twined her free arm around Ty’s neck and pulled him down for a blatantly sensual kiss. He emitted a small sound of surprise, then sighed his pleasure and cupped both sides of her face. Summer let him take control of the kiss, because he was a far better kisser than she’d ever be. With Ty in the driver’s seat, it wasn’t long before Summer melted into him, the sheet slipping so her breasts slid over the smooth skin of his chest.

“Oh, no.” She turned her face to the side, breathing hard. “I meant what I said. I really have to get to work.”

Ty merely transferred the heat of his lips to her exposed throat. “You started this.”

“Because I want this. I want you. But…” Summer gasped when he lightly scraped his teeth over her neck, “…later.”

Ty muttered a swear word and dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. “If you’re teasing me, there are certain parts of my anatomy that will never get over it.”

“I’m not teasing.” When he lifted his head, Summer read the hope, the need, smoldering in his eyes. She stroked the side of his face, appreciating the pleasant scratch of his morning beard on her palm. “Let’s find out what we missed.”

“There’s never been a better idea in the history of great ideas.”

His emphatic agreement made Summer laugh. She was giddy with this newfound courage. As she left Ty in the kitchen, his hot stare boring into her bare back, Summer realized Jasmine was right. She’d endured worse than the end of an affair. She’d lived through the end of a pregnancy and a marriage. She’d lived through her mother’s death and her father’s distance. She’d built a career, a life, of her own out of mere ashes. She could handle whatever was to come.

Even having her heart break all over again when Ty left.

Later that evening Ty knocked on the door of Summer’s apartment. The crazy dance his heart had been doing all day picked up tempo. It had started to jive the second Summer had easily agreed to let him take her out tonight, had practically performed gymnastics when she’d planted a hurried kiss smack on his lips before taking off for work.

Now, when the door swung back, and he saw Summer standing there in a simple white cotton dress that showcased her pert breasts, his heart finally stopped dancing. He was pretty sure it had moved on to beating him to death from the inside.

“Hey.” It was all he could manage to rasp. Swallowing the unfamiliar ball of nerves clogging his throat, he forced himself to add, “You look hot.”

You look hot?

But Summer didn’t scold him for his lack of finesse or suitable adjectives. She smiled like his crude compliment was the nicest thing anyone had ever said. “Thank you.”

“No problem. You ready to go?” Ty gestured toward his midnight-blue Holden Monaro with a sweep of his arm. “Your chariot awaits.”

Fucking hell!
Could he sound any cheesier? What was wrong with him? As he settled Summer in the passenger seat, Ty vowed to keep his mouth shut until he had something intelligent to say. Seeing as all cogent thought seemed to have fled his brain, it made the slow cruise through Saturday evening traffic very damn quiet.

The problem was, this felt very much like a date. And Ty did not date—he picked up. One-night stands were pretty easy to find when you were on tour, so getting laid rarely took much in the way of wooing on his part. Plus, Ty liked women and women knew it, which made collecting friends with benefits a fairly simple proposition. Not a one of those women had made him blurt idiotic clichés, and he’d never considered getting serious.