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Finding a bravado she didn’t feel, Summer tossed her phone back in her tote and said, “I’m checking for messages, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Okay then.” He turned to go, his hands up in the air.
“Wait,” she said, regretting her rude nature. “I’m sorry. Look, it’s just been a long day and I’m really tired.”
“Want me to take you home?”
She raised her brows. “And where would that be?”
He shrugged, gave her a smile that made little flares of awareness shoot off in her system. “You have several choices.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You can go to your parents’ home. You can stay here in one of the guest apartments they keep for family, or I can stay here in an apartment and…you can have the house, keeping in mind, of course, that the house is barely livable right now. But you could sleep there at least.”
Summer felt as if a soft wind had slipped up on her and knocked her flat. “You’d do that for me? Give up the house, I mean?”
“Only temporarily,” he said, grinning. “But, yes, if it would make you feel better, I’d be glad to do that. I go back and forth between Golden Vista and the house and sometimes spend the night there, but I’d stay away if you decided to stay at the house.”
Summer thought about his offer. It was so tempting, but then, the house wouldn’t be the same. Nothing was the same. Mack owned it now, for whatever reasons. She couldn’t bear to stay there without her grandparents.
“I think I’ll just stay here at Golden Vista for now,” she said, her voice hoarse with frustration. “But…thank you for the offer.”
He pushed off the post and came toward her, that predatory look in his eyes. “Want me to take you to the office, so you can get a key?”
“Sure.” She wanted a long soak and a soft bed. “I’m so tired.” Then she stopped. “I forgot about my car. I need to call a tow—”
“I already did that.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. While you were having another slice of pineapple upside-down cake.”
“I only had one slice, but it was a really big one.”
“Yeah, right. You have quite an appetite.”
She smiled then. “I can pack it away.”
“It looks good on you.”
Summer wasn’t one to blush easily, but she did now. “I like to walk,” she said by way of explaining herself. “I walk all over New York. Especially in Central Park.”
“It’s a nice park.”
Surprised that he’d been there, Summer realized she knew nothing about this man who’d moved to Athens and intruded in such a big way on her life. Or rather, the life she’d left behind. “When were you in New York?”
“Years ago,” he said as he looked off into the setting sun. “A lifetime ago.”
“And I lived here a lifetime ago,” she retorted.
“But we’re both here now.”
“Yes,” she said. “Isn’t it funny how things happen that way. You just never know—”
“No, you don’t,” he replied as he guided her back toward the covered walkway. “I never dreamed I’d wind up in a small Texas town, working at a retirement complex.”
The warm, fuzzy feelings Summer had been experiencing turned cold and harsh. “You work here?”
He nodded, looked sheepish. “Maintenance man and groundskeeper. That’s why I stay here sometimes. Sorry.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me that?”
“Didn’t seem important. Besides, you and your grandparents were too busy having a good time.”
She regarded him as if he’d turned into roadkill. “So that little news flash sort of slipped your mind.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think it would matter one way or another.”
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“You wouldn’t believe,” he said, his smile open and pure. And challenging.
Summer wanted to believe. She wanted to think that Mack Riley was just a nice man who’d become friends with her grandparents. But she’d learned not to accept things at face value. Especially pretty words coming from handsome men.
Something else was up here. Something that didn’t sit well with Summer. And she intended to find out what that something was.
Chapter Four
“Are you all settled in, honey?”
Summer turned from putting clothes in the white chest of drawers to answer her grandmother’s question. “I think so. This is a really nice apartment.”
Martha beamed her pride. “Yes, the Golden Vista is so accommodating to family members. They have two of these efficiency apartments, I think. And they keep them open to anyone who wants to come and visit. We’ve even got Internet hookup, so you can use that laptop thing I saw you unpacking.”
Summer tried to muster up some enthusiasm as she glanced around the homey L-shaped apartment. “I’ve got wireless, but that’s convenient.”
Martha rushed across the sitting room/kitchen combination. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”
Summer never could hide anything from her shrewd grandmother. “Nothing, Memaw. I’m just tired…and all of this is a bit overwhelming, I guess.”
“I told Jesse we should have called you and told you about selling the farm, but it was kind of spur of the moment. Then once we got here, well, we’re always going and doing.” She shrugged, shook her head.
“It doesn’t matter,” Summer said, finishing her unpacking with a slam of the last drawer. “I haven’t exactly been faithful in the calling-home department.”
Martha came to stand next to her, her arm going around Summer’s shoulders as they stared at their reflections in the oval mirror over the dresser. “But we always knew you were there if we needed you.”
Summer looked down at her petite grandmother, love pouring over her. “Why didn’t you…call me? I mean, if you needed money or a place to live—”
“Oh, honey, we’re all right, money-wise. Your grandfather, Lord love him, he saves money with a frugal vengeance. And whether you want to believe it or not, your parents have always helped us out. They just don’t make a big fuss about it.”
Summer scoffed, then laughed. “Oh, not like they make such a big fuss about everything else? The trips, the houses and cars, the celebrities they hang out with.”
“They’re not as bad as all that,” Martha said, a touch of censure in her voice. “They just like to enjoy life. I do wish you’d make your peace with them.”
Summer walked into the compact kitchen, then stood staring at the stark white counters and cabinets. A wistful ache pulsed through her heart. “Oh, I’d love to do that, if I ever saw them.”
Her grandmother gave her a knowing, gentle look. “Didn’t they visit you last time they were passing through New York?”
Summer raised her chin. “Yes, in the airport restaurant at JFK. That was a charming visit, let me tell you.”
“But they did make the effort, right?”
“Right,” Summer replied, her defenses up. “So I guess they should get the Parents of the Year award for that little layover?”
“No, but you could cut them some slack,” Martha said, a twinkle in her eye.
“Okay, I’ll try, for your sake at least,” Summer retorted. “But…it’s just too hard to explain.”
Martha pursed her lips. “Well, I can’t squeeze blood from a turnip, so let’s change the subject. Tell me what brought you home for this special visit.”
Summer wanted to pour out her heart to her grandmother, but the day had just been too full of surprises for that. She needed time to think, to comprehend all the things that were going on around her. She needed time to absorb all the country charm of Golden Vista. Right now, it was screaming just a bit too loudly for her to fully appreciate it.
So she turned to her grandmother, determined not to put one speck of worry on those loving shoulders. “I just wanted to see y’all, is all.”
Martha came around the counter and took Summer into her arms. “Well, I’m so very thankful for that. I pray for you every day, honey. I pray for you to find love and happiness, and I pray for all of you girls to be safe up there in that big, scary city.”
“Well, only two of us are left,” Summer pointed out. “April is staying in Texas. We’ve got a September wedding to attend, Memaw.”
“Oh, that’s so precious,” Martha said, clasping her hands together. “April and Reed belong together.” Then she hugged Summer again. “I hope you find that kind of happiness one day.”
Summer allowed her grandmother’s sincere love to envelop her like a warm blanket. She closed her eyes and sank against the soft security of her grandmother’s embrace, sending up her own thanks to the God she was so mad at right now. “I love you, Memaw.”
“I know, darling. And I love you right back.” Then Martha let her go, but held onto her arms, her eyes going big. “So…what do you think about our Mack?”
“Mack Riley is a pushy, overbearing, overrated gardener,” Summer wrote in an e-mail to her cousins later that night.
Well, actually he’s not so overbearing, and he seems to be a good groundskeeper, but I don’t like the man. I didn’t like him on sight, even though I must admit he’s easy on the eye. Attractive in a rugged, outdoors kind of way. But I’m not interested. Not one bit. Even if the man did give me a ride and call a tow truck for my car. I’m not so helpless that I couldn’t have handled that myself, but it was nice to have someone step up and do something thoughtful. But then, that same man now lives in my grandparents’ house. And that’s just not right. Never mind that Memaw and Papaw act as if they’re on some sort of permanent vacation. I think they’re just putting on a good show. I can’t imagine that they’d actually be happy in this overblown old folks’ home. I came home expecting to find everything the way I’d left it. But everything has changed so much. Too much. I don’t know if I can handle this. Or Mack Riley.
Summer finished the e-mail, hitting the send button with a defiant punch to her mouse. She pushed away from the tiny kitchen desk and glanced up at the clock over the sink. It was past midnight, but she didn’t think she’d be sleeping any time soon. A deep fatigue pulled at her, making her wish for a long rest.
“If I could just be in my bed at the farm,” she said out loud to the quiet, efficient apartment. This little cracker box was clean and comfortable, but it didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right.
Her gaze fell across the little white Bible lying on the coffee table. A wave of guilt hit her, making her look away. “I don’t want to talk to You right now, Lord.”
But the Bible’s gold-etched cover drew Summer. She plopped down on the floral loveseat and grabbed the Bible, thumbing through it at random. The pages finally stopped at 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13. “Love is patience; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”
Summer closed the book, then stared down at the cover. “I guess I’ve messed up in that department.” But then, she didn’t believe in a perfect kind of love. Love only caused pain and heartache.
She got up and went to the curtained glass-paneled door that opened to a small outside patio. Maybe some fresh air would calm her frazzled nerves. Tentatively, so as not to wake up any of the old people sleeping all around her, Summer opened the door and stepped out onto the rectangular patio. Putting her hands in the pockets of her jeans, she took a deep breath and willed herself to find some of that love and peace she’d just read about.
“Nice night.”
Summer jumped at hearing the deep, masculine voice a few feet away from her. Squinting, she saw him there in the moonlight. Mack Riley was sitting in a large white wooden swing underneath an arched rose trellis.
Summer’s peace was shattered and frayed. Gone. “You scared me,” she said, her gaze taking in the circular pavilion centered between the apartments.
“Didn’t mean to do that.”
“Don’t you ever go home?”
“I do. But I told you, I’m renovating the house right now. It’s a mess. I have an apartment here, too, remember? I stay over sometimes when I’ve got an early day ahead. Just until I get the house finished, though.”
Great, Summer thought. She’d have to see him night and day, hovering around all over the complex. Maybe she could keep busy and avoid him. “So that line about allowing me to have the house all to myself was just for show then?”
His foot stopped pushing and the swing creaked to a halt. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you knew you had an apartment here when you made the offer. And here I was thinking you were being so gallant.”
“I told you I stay out there at the house sometimes, and here sometimes. If you’d decided to stay there, I couldn’t have done that. So, yes, I was trying to be considerate.”
She shifted then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Forget it. I’m all unpacked here and things are just dandy. So how many apartments does this place have?”
“All told, over a hundred. That’s just the first phase though.”
Summer leaned against the wooden porch rail. “Well, I didn’t realize there were so many senior citizens in Athens, Texas.”
“They come from all around, looking for a good climate and a safe environment near the big medical centers. It’s a long-term answer to retirement.”
“I’m so glad you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I’m just here to do my job.”
She wondered about that, about how he’d wound up here of all places. But she’d save that for another day. “So what are you doing sitting out here in the dark?”
“Taking in the night air.” He patted the space on the swing next to him. “Want to sit with me?”
“No, I don’t. I came out here to…take a breath before I go to sleep.”
“Uh-huh. You couldn’t sleep either, right?”
She put her hands on her hips. “And how do you know that? Were you spying on me through the windows?”
He pushed his feet against the flagstone platform underneath the swing, causing the swing to creak as it moved back and forth. “No, I most certainly wasn’t. I didn’t even know you were in that particular apartment.”
“Yeah, right. You’re the yard boy, and you did take me to the office to check in and get a key. You probably know every nook and cranny of this place.”
“I wasn’t spying on you,” he repeated, a hint of irritation in his words. “I don’t have to resort to spying to be around pretty women.”
