Page 24 of The Summer that Changed Everything
“I might make a good ally while you’re here,” he said.
“How?”she asked with a skeptical laugh. “You’re already allied with all the people who hate me—with your family and the other wealthy families in the area.”
“I’ve never hated you. And wealth has nothing to do with it.”
She skipped the minefield that constituted the first part of his answer and focused on the second. “It did before.” Money put all the power in the hands of those who’d treated her like a cockroach that’d had the audacity to enter one of their expensive homes. She’d been left with nothing. No way to convince anyone that she hadn’t known about her father’s evil deeds. No way to go to college. No way to survive, except to leave and scrape along as best she could. After she left North Hampton Beach, she’d been homeless, living out of that old van, for nearly five years.
“I was young and impressionable, Lucy,” he said. “And... andI shouldn’t have listened to my parents. I know you won’t believe me, but I’m sincerely sorry.”
She didn’t want an apology. She didn’t want anything from him. But the quickest way to get rid of him was probably to let him off the hook. “It’s fine. No problem,” she said. Then she disconnected and held her breath while waiting to see what would happen next. She hoped he’d leave. It was too difficult for her to interact with him. His voice brought back so many memories—some of which were among the very best in her life, which only made the problem worse. She’d been happier that summer than she could ever remember—until it all came crashing down.
He pounded on her door again. “I’m not asking to be friends,” he yelled. “I just want you to know that... that I’m glad you’re back here, and if there’s anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable, I’m just a few houses down.”
As if she could forget the proximity of his expensive beachfront property...
She squeezed her eyes closed. “Damn it,” she whispered. Why wouldn’t he just leave? On some level, she didn’t really blame him for abandoning her fifteen years ago. Sure, she’d been devastated when he turned his back on her, just like all the others. But she’d been stupid to believe he’d cared about her in the first place. They’d been teenagers, together for only five or six weeks. They hadn’t really known anything about life or love.
Besides, she’d been well outside his socioeconomic class, wasn’t someone his family would ever approve of. She couldn’t expect him to choose her over them, especially once her father’s murders came to light. “I don’t need anything,” she called back. “But thank you.”
“Are you sure? Because if you have a moment, you might be interested in a conversation I heard between Patti and Nelson Clark.”
“I can easily guess thewonderfulthings they had to say about me.”
He didn’t respond to her sarcasm. “They were talking about Reggie.”
This caught her attention. Why would they be talking about Reggie? She wanted to ask, but that would invite more interaction.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t trust him.He had no reason to care or get involved. So... why was he?
Could it be that the Clarkswantedhim to speak to her? Maybe they thought he’d be able to convince her to leave... “What did they say?” she asked grudgingly.
“I’ll tell you. But can you open the door first? It’s hard to talk like this.”
She rubbed her temples while trying to decide. “Fine,” she yelled at last. “Give me a minute.” Then she made him wait until she’d combed and dried her hair. It took so long that he was walking away by the time she opened the door.
“I thought you were planning to leave me out here all night,” he grumbled.
“Nobody asked you to come over,” she reminded him.
He returned to the closed-in porch, where he stopped about five feet away.
She’d thought she’d grown into a confident person in the years that’d passed since she’d been absolutely leveled. But seeing him again thrust her back in time and seemed to steal all the power she’d felt only a moment earlier.
“You look great,” he said.
She could’ve told him the same thing but swore those words would never pass her lips. He seemed to have gotten taller, had to be six foot four, with a thin yet muscular build and wavy blond hair. She couldn’t help remembering the thickness and texture of it.
She remembered a lot of other things about him, too—like the way his hands had felt on her body.
But only because she hadn’t been with anyone in months, andeven then she’d just gone through the motions. It was difficult for her to get that close to someone else, to allow herself to feel something beyond the physical pleasure she’d first experienced with Ford. As a result, as she’d grown older, she’d begun to isolate herself from almost any kind of real intimacy.
Looking at him now, however, she suddenly felt every moment of that long period.
A boyish smile broke out on his face, so something in her expression must’ve given her away, making her wish she hadn’t been foolish enough to agree to talk. Whatever he had to say couldn’t help enough to offset the impact of being this close to him. Her heart was suddenly pounding out of her chest. What she’d felt for him had beensopoignant...
Forcing herself to remember the agony of going day after day feeling as if she’d been staked in the town square for all to mock and belittle, without so much as a call or a text from him, helped her overcome the impulse to forgive everything and walk right back into his arms.
“Would you like to come in and sit down?” she asked.
