Falling for Summer (2 page)

I'd forgotten this.  I'd forgotten what it was like: the sound of the birds calling to one another in the trees, the gentle rhythm of the lapping of the lake on the shore, the cicadas singing merrily away in the long grasses, the tree branches shifting gently overhead from the light wind.  I forgot how peaceful, how tranquil this place could be.  For a long moment, I push all thoughts of my sister, of my guilt, from my mind, and I simply soak up the sunshine, the birdsong, the sound and scent of the lake.

And then I hear it: splashing. 

Instantly, my eyes are open, my heart rate starts to build, and I'm looking out at the lake.  Splashing?  That means that someone's nearby.

And, yes, there
is
someone nearby.  I spot her, instantly.

She's swimming toward me. 

Her hair is flat against her head, and because it's wet—and dark because it's wet—it could be any color.  The woman keeps turning her head back and forth as she makes broad shoulder strokes, propelling herself strongly through the water in my direction.  There's no boat around, but a little way down the shore of the lake, I see the cabins of the campground.  I was pretty close, closer to the campground than I'd realized, when I pulled off the road to take in the lake. 

This woman gets to the shallows, and then she stands, the water up to her hips but too shallow to really swim through now.  She runs her fingers over her wet hair and glances up at me with a sly smile, her body dripping.

She looks a little...familiar.  Which is why I'm staring.  It was also, admittedly, a little surprising to have a woman emerge from the lake unexpectedly, like a mermaid.  She's wearing a black bikini, and her tan arms and legs are toned, muscled, like she swims a lot, her hips curving under the strings of the bikini and drawing my eye, even as I wrestle with my gaze, forcing it upward to meet her eyes.  She has abs, chiseled abs, so she's probably no stranger to workout machines or—knowing the occupants of Lake George—hard work.  My eyes linger on her muscles, and then my gaze lifts to graze her high-cheekboned face.

Her eyes are narrowed slyly now, to go along with her smile.  She has bright white teeth, and against the tanned color of her face, they're even brighter, almost dazzling.  Her eyes sparkle with the sunshine reflected off the surface of the lake, and her long black (I now realize) hair is plastered down her back as water drips from her arm muscles, her leg muscles, and she adjusts her bikini bottom with her thumbs, hooking them under the strings to better cover her bottom since the fabric shifted during her industrious swim. 

“Hi,” she tells me then, and there's a little bit of laughter at the end of that word, low laughter that shakes her shoulders as she straightens, stepping forward a few times through the water and then extending her hand to me.  “Are you Amanda Tedlock?” she asks me, her voice soft and warm-edged, like the sunshine.

I blink at her, straighten a little, suddenly very conscious of the fact that I'm barefoot, having walked through a patch of woods, probably trespassing, to get to the lake.  I nod, taking her wet hand.  “Yes, I am.  How did you know?” I ask her.

Again, that soft, sly smile.  “I'm Summer McBride,” she tells me, lifting her chin and holding my gaze.  “I own the Lazy Days Campground...  We spoke on the phone?”

Her hand is firmly shaking mine, and it's so cold—she was just swimming through the cold lake—but the feel of her fingers against my fingers is oddly haunting.  Familiar.

“Of course,” I tell her, and she lets me go, putting her hands on her hips again, still smiling at me, still standing up to her knees in the lake, the water lapping against her tanned skin.  I stare down at her then, my eyes going a bit wider as I finally remember.  “Summer.  You were...”  My mouth is dry, and I take a deep breath, trying to calm my suddenly erratic heartbeat.  “You were my sister's friend.”  I choke on the word
sister.
Then I clear my throat, force out, “You were Tiffany's friend.”

Summer's face grows dark for a moment as her smile fades.  “Yes,” she tells me with a sigh, and stepping up and out of the lake, she moves onto the shore beside me.  She leans over and slides her palms over her legs, sluicing off the water.  It runs in rivulets over her skin, and I fold my arms in front of me, averting my eyes, clenching my teeth as I remember the small girl she used to be, acutely aware of the beautiful woman she's become. 

Tiffany was ten when she died, and she had many friends her same age, so this woman must be seven years my junior.  She's thirty, then, right?  God, she's gorgeous.  But even as my body becomes aware of the fact that I'm attracted to Summer, I'm mentally horrified by the fact that, the moment I arrived in Lake George, I immediately encountered someone closely connected to Tiffany.

But isn't this what I wanted?  Wasn't this part of my penance, my “torture,” as Ashley put it?  To be surrounded by a million things that would remind me—in excruciatingly vividness—of my little sister?

“So you own Lazy Days?” I ask Summer awkwardly as she wrings out her long black hair and casts an appraising glance in my direction. 

“I inherited it.  My family's always owned it.  Don't you remember?” she asks me then, straightening fully.  Her hands are back on her hips, and she's smiling again, but this time her expression is darker.  Shadowed.  A long moment of silence passes before Summer shrugs a little.  “Tiffany used to come to my house on the campground to play,” she tells me, glancing away.  “I thought you'd remember me.”

I'm horrified that my very first reaction to her words is frustration, anger, pouring through me.  “I've tried to forget everything,” I say, my voice a little sharper than I intended.  I take a deep breath, realizing how high my shoulders are, practically up to my ears with anxiety.  I gulp down air, shaking my head.  “Look, I'm sorry...  It was a long ride up from the city, and I'm...I'm pretty exhausted,” I tell her, which is only partially true, but I'm appalled at myself for snapping at her.  “I'd like to check into my cabin, if that's all right?” I ask, biting my lip.

“Sure,” Summer says, her smile deepening.  “No hard feelings, right?” 

“Right,” I tell her, voice soft, though my heart is still pounding in my chest.

“So, I'll race you back,” she tells me with a wink, and before I fully understand what she means, she's back in the lake, going under the water with a small, graceful dive, surfacing and making a beeline toward the distant cabins, her strong stroke pushing her through the water at top speed.  She'll probably make it there before me.  She's so fast.

I bite my lip, watching her go, then pad quietly back through the woods toward my car, shoving my feet into my flats the minute I get there. 

My thoughts are dark as I make my way through the trees, and by the time I've reached my car, I know this was a mistake.  This was a
complete
mistake.  I only remember Summer a little, one of Tiffany's entourage of sweet, adorable kid friends.  Now I've met her again—and within a minute I'm snapping at her for something she couldn't possibly have known would upset me?  What right do I have to come back here?  After all, I have terrible associations with Lake George, and most people love this place with a fierce passion, especially the ones who built their lives around this gorgeous lake.  I don't have any right to come back with my cloud of sadness...

But I open my car door, anyway, put the key into the ignition, and then I'm driving toward the campground.  I made a decision to come here, and I'm nothing if not painfully stubborn.  I'm going to stay for the week, and then I'm going to leave Lake George, and I'm never going to return.  I know that. 

This trip was a last-ditch attempt to try to put everything that happened here behind me.  I've got to try.

I pull into the long gravel driveway marked by an old, rickety sign reading “Lazy Days Campground.”  The sign for Lake George may have be lovingly maintained, but this sign looks as if it would make an excellent opening shot for a horror movie, the type of campground where ax murderers usually take up summer residence.  But there's an air of nostalgia about the sign, too.  We used to have family reunions here every year, and I remember playing tag with my cousins among the tall pine trees ringing the lake.

I park the car in front of a boxy building marked “Main Office,” with a cheery, painted sign nailed to the wooden door.  This sign looks as if it was recently painted, and the office building itself looks new.

Summer is already here, sitting in the rocking chair on the porch with a towel wrapped around her lower half, another towel in her arms as she towels off her hair, her head tilted to one side.  Her dark, wet hair hangs over her shoulder, dripping down onto the boards of the porch floor below.

She glances up at me through her eyelashes, then tosses the towel to the floor, leaning back in her rocking chair.  “Beat ya,” she tells me, with a little hint of triumph, as her smile deepens.  “Welcome to Lazy Days,” Summer says then, turning to look at the two rows of cabins leading down the gravel driveway, heading toward the lake. 

Summer stands easily, wrapping the towel tighter around her middle as she hands me a pair of keys attached to a tiny hand-carved wooden paddle.

“You're in cabin thirteen,” she tells me, jutting her chin down the row of cabins to the right.  “It's the one closest to the lake.” 

And then she bites her lip a little as she glances back at me quickly.  I know that look.  There's sympathy in it, and immediately I'm on high alert.  “Are you back,” says Summer softly, carefully, “because of...”  She trails off, looking at me closely.  “You know,” she finally says in a whisper, like a secret.

“I'm back because of the anniversary of Tiffany's death,” I tell her then, my mouth dry as she holds my gaze unwaveringly.  She has warm, dark brown eyes, the kind of brown that you could lose yourself in; it's so rich and deep.  “It's been twenty years since it happened,” I tell her, choosing the words as carefully as I can, “and I came back this year to...remember her.”  I clear my throat, gripping the keys and the paddle so tightly in my hands that an impression of the keys is probably pressed into my palm.

Summer takes a deep breath; then she shakes her head a little, her jaw tightening.  She lets the towel around her waist drop to the rocking chair, and she places her hands on her hips as she holds me in her sights.  I'm not expecting what she says next.

“It's been twenty years, Mandy,” she finally tells me, her eyes glinting.  “Isn't that long enough?”

Mandy
.  No one's called me Mandy since I lived here.  No one's dared.  Not that I'm so unapproachable, or that the name doesn't suit me...  It's just a relic from another time.  From another life, really, when life itself was easy and I
could
claim such a happy-sounding name as Mandy. 

But that was twenty years ago, that life.  Twenty years ago since I've last heard that name. 

My throat starts to ache.  I've been thrown for another loop by this surprising woman.  First she rises out of the water like a mermaid, and now she's asking me a personal question, like she thinks she knows me?  Well, she doesn't.

“No,” I tell her curtly, the word bitter in my mouth.  “It'll never be long enough.”  I swallow, hefting the keys in my hand, suddenly aware of how cold the metal is, how sharp.

“I'm sorry,” says Summer then, her eyes glittering with something I can't quite read.  She takes a deep breath, considering what else to say.

But there isn't anything else to say; there's only awkward silence between us, and I shake my head.  “Thanks for this,” I tell her.  Then I turn to go to my car.

“I'll bring you some beers later,” she calls to my back.  She's sitting on the rocking chair again when I crane my neck to look at her.  Her legs are crossed, and her hands are clasped in her lap as she pushes the rocking chair back and forth, back and forth with the ball of her left foot.  She cocks her head a little, smiling softly at me.  “You look like you could use them,” is all she says, with a small shrug.

I'm fuming as I get in my car, as I drive away from the main office and park in front of cabin thirteen.  Who does she think she is?  She might have been one of Tiffany's friends, but that was a
long
time ago.  She was a kid, I was a teen, and I don't really remember her that well...  And, anyway, even without the
enormous
span of time that has passed since I last saw her, I'm used to polite distance from people I've just met.  In my own friendships, I'm not a super-close kind of person, and here is this near-stranger, telling me that I need a couple of beers, asking if it's been long enough since my sister's death to finally come back home.

It'll never be long enough.  That's not what I'm here for. 

I turn off my car, biting my lip as I think angry thoughts and grip the steering wheel again, my knuckles tightening.  I open my door and climb out, and—still fuming—I haul my suitcase out of the backseat, slamming the car door shut.

Hasn't it been long enough? 
What the hell kind of a question is that? 

Whatever.  I feel as petulant as a child as I drag my suitcase up onto the front porch of the little cabin, the suitcase bumping on each step.  I let go of my suitcase handle on the porch, and then I turn and sit down on my own rocking chair, a creaky, ancient, weather-beaten thing, and I look out to the lake, leaning forward so that the chair gives a mighty creak beneath me, squeaking as it rocks.