Page 74 of The Summer that Changed Everything
Fulfilled.That was the word right there, he realized. He still had responsibilities and worries. Nothing had changed. But being with Lucy somehow made everything better.
He was tempted to start worrying again—about how it would all end, how he would put the life he’d already established in DC back together when the time came, how he could, for the sake of his child, fulfill his responsibility as a husband to someone he no longer even liked—but shoved it all away. He still had more than two months before he had to face his old life.
He hoped it would be enough. That he’d be able to do what he needed to do, so that he could respect himself. He was coming to believe, despite how young he and Lucy had been before, that if they’d continued seeing each other, they’d be married and probably in a much better situation—maybe raising a family by now. So it was hard not to resent his parents for insisting they knew what was best for him.
Fortunately, no one bothered them at lunch. Although he saw a few people he recognized out on the street while they were sitting on the patio, eating, and those people did a double take when they saw him with Lucy, no one approached. He and Lucy were left in their own little world as they talked about his brother and how frustrated he was with Houston, how well Wagner Business Solutions was running, despite the loss of hisfather and his unexpected and early ascendency to the company’s leadership, a job he thoroughly enjoyed—which was the silver lining, and how needy his mother had become after the divorce. They even talked about the good old days—their summer together before the murders and what they’d thought and felt as they first started getting to know each other.
As they drove home, Ford was trying to get Lucy to tell him what she did for a living. She was playing coy, still keeping it a secret, but it’d turned into a game in which he’d make a guess and she’d shoot it down.
She laughed as he suggested everything from a principal’s receptionist to a janitor. He’d heard her tell Claxton she “read faces for a living,” but that could mean a lot of things. And he was stuck on school-related vocations because he knew she was off for the summer. “You’ll never figure it out,” she said, supremely confident.
“What could it be?” He wondered how she’d managed to survive, let alone succeed, after what she’d been through. “You’re really not going to tell me?”
When she opened her mouth to respond, he thought she was finally about to, but that was when they pulled into Coastal Comfort and found Patti Clark standing on the front porch. They both must’ve spotted her at the same time because he turned his head to gape at her in the same instant she turned her head to gape at him.
“Here we go,” Lucy murmured with a wary expression.
Ford squeezed her hand. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Of course it is. Why would I ever think otherwise?”
He could hear the sarcasm in her voice, but there was no time to react to it. She was already getting out.
Patti’s expression hardened as they approached. Feeling Lucy withdrawing from him—essentially putting on her emotional armor—he took her hand, which surprised her enough that she seemed slightly discombobulated.
“Mrs. Clark,” he said, dipping his head in greeting. “What can I do for you?”
“Is it true?” she demanded.
“Iswhattrue?” he responded.
She stared down her nose at Lucy, which made Ford angry. Even though he knew he should feel pity for this person, he wouldn’t allow her to mistreat someone he cared so much about.
“Chief Claxton called me. He said my own son is claiming that Mick McBride did not kill Aurora.”
“He’s saying Mickcouldn’thave killed Aurora, which is more to the point,” Ford said. “I spoke to him about it myself, heard those words with my own ears.”
“He tried to say that fifteen years ago, too, but he’s wrong about the timing,” she said. “He has to be. He’s just angry. He feels as though all I’ve ever cared about is Aurora, and he’s striking back, trying to hurt me in return.”
Lucy spoke up, but her voice was surprisingly gentle. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Clark. He truly believes what he told me. He made that clear. The reason it’s taken him this long to try to make his voice heard is because he’s torn in two. Hedoesn’twant to hurt you, yet he feels an obligation to his sister. You’re not the only one who’s suffered a terrible loss. Maybe he and Aurora didn’t get along very well, but it could be that the rocky relationship they had only made her death harder on him. He may have to live with regretsyoudon’t have.”
Patti blinked several times, obviously astonished by what Lucy had said. But then she gathered herself and returned to her usual rhetoric. “You don’t know that. You don’t know a thing about our family or Darren. How dare you try to instruct me on what’s going on with my own son!”
“You have one child left.” Lucy’s voice grew firmer. “You don’t have to listen to me. I get that I’m the enemy. But I believe this to be true. If you don’t let go of the past and focus on your husband and son, you could lose them, too. It might bein a different way, but having them give up on you and move on—for their own sakes—is a very real possibility.”
Patti had come looking for a fight. As soon as Lucy had begun to speak, she’d put her hands on her hips and jutted her face forward, prepared to rebut whatever she said. But Lucy’s heartfelt words took the fire out of her. Her mouth fell open, and she blinked as tears filled her eyes. Then, instead of continuing to insist on anything, she ran past them to her car.
Ford drew a deep breath and faced Lucy as Patti’s engine flared to life. “I think maybe she heard you.”
“I hope so,” she said. “For her own sake, I hope so.”
He couldn’t help comparing how the same situation would’ve gone had he been with Christina instead of Lucy. Their emotional maturity was miles apart. Christina was cunning—it wasn’t as if she was stupid. She just had no self-control and very little empathy for her friends, let alone her enemies.
Could he really go back to her?
If he wanted a relationship with his child, one in which Christina didn’t villainize him and use their son or daughter as a weapon against him, he had no choice.
But that wouldn’t happen until the end of summer, he reminded himself. Lifting the hand that held Lucy’s to his mouth, he kissed her knuckles. “I hope so, too,” he said, but before they could go in, another car pulled up.
