Page 59 of The Summer that Changed Everything
Maybe he was right. Maybe she needed to suck it up and navigate this summer with him. The sooner they found the answers they were looking for, the sooner she could return to Vegas. That was when she’d really be safe—even from the heartbreakshe risked by getting too close to him. “I’ll think about it,” she grumbled, reluctant to give in too easily despite the fact that it made so much sense.
“Well, while you’re thinking, I’m going to make dinner,” he said. “I’m starving. What would you like?”
Now he was offering to cook for her?
She was about to say she’d make something at her place, but if she was going to be staying here, she figured she might as well embrace the friendship that was springing up between them, at least for the next few weeks. “Whatever you want is fine.”
He grinned, which told her he knew she was capitulating. “I make a mean beef stroganoff,” he said. “Or would you rather I throw a couple steaks on the grill?”
“Stroganoff sounds good.”
“Great. Stroganoff it is.”
She followed him into the kitchen and watched while he pulled various ingredients from the fridge. “Don’t you want to know what Vickie Zampino told me?” she asked.
He put the meat, onions and sour cream on the counter. “I got so caught up wanting to teach Reggie a lesson I forgot about that,” he said. “What’d she tell you?”
Taking the knife he’d just pulled from the butcher block on the counter from him, she nudged him out of the way so she could slice the meat while telling him about the rowboat that went missing and then was mysteriously returned.
As he listened, he put on a pot of water for the noodles. “That’s weird,” he said when she was done.
“What do you make of it?” she asked. “It would have to be a neighbor who brought it back, right?”
He cooked the onions and mushrooms before adding some beef broth. “I would think so. But if itwasa neighbor, why wouldn’t the Zampinos be able to say who did it?”
“It’s possible Vicki was speaking generally when she said she asked around. Maybe she didn’t really make a concerted effort.”
“Still. Seems to me whoever it was would’ve come forward after learning Aurora was at the Zampinos’ the night she was killed—if they weren’t involved, right?Everyonehad to have heard what happened. The whole community was in an uproar, and that makes me think the boat might be important. After all, Aurora’s body was found in the river.” He turned down the heat on the broth to a simmer. “We should canvass the Zampinos’ neighborhood, see if we can figure out what happened there.”
Finished cutting the meat, she put down the knife. “I can do that tomorrow.”
He shot her a frown. “Nice try, but I’ll go with you. Now that word is spreading that we don’t believe Aurora’s killer was caught, there’s no telling what the real killer will do with us poking around and asking questions.”
“Aren’t you being a little overprotective?” she asked.
“Possibly. But it’s because I didn’t protect you fifteen years ago, and I wish I had.”
Their eyes met, and she felt the same reaction she’d experienced when he wiped the frosting from her mouth—butterflies and weak knees. For her, there’d never been anyone else like him, and since that hadn’t changed in fifteen years, she was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
Clearing her throat, she pulled her gaze away. “Won’t your mother get angry if she finds out you’re providing shelter to someone she doesn’t deem worthy of your friendship?”
He scowled at her.“Please!”
“I’m serious,” she said. “She won’t like it, right? And that matters.”
“How?”
“She’s still your mother.”
“That doesn’t give her the right to choose my friends.”
“Okay, what about your wife?”
He didn’t answer this question quite so quickly.
“Ford?”
“Christina has no say over what I do, just as I have no say over what she does. If we were to get back together, that could change, but I’m not even willing to think about that right now.”
