“Mornin’,” he greeted politely. “Beautiful day, eh?”
Did she imagine Bono singing “Beautiful Day” in her head? Yes. Totally.
Slowing her roll until they were across from each other on separate driveways, she stopped and acknowledged the stranger.
“Good morning to you too, and yes, it’s another glorious day in the neighborhood.”
“Out for a walk, I see,” he said with a big, friendly smile. “A bit chilly, though. Brr.” He chortled with a shivering pantomime.
She liked the man immensely.
Gesturing toward the house under renovation, she asked, “Are you with Stan?”
His smile became bigger. “As a matter of fact, yes, I am!” He held his hand out. “Silent investor,” he told her in a dry tone brimming with amusement. “I’m Ned, by the way.”
“Summer,” she replied. Nodding at the rolling suitcase, she pried just to see what he said. “I take it you’re a traveling man?”
He threw his head back and barked with laughter. To her surprise, Ari squirmed as if she wanted to see who was so amused.
Before she could inquire what he found so funny, the front door of the renovation house flung open with a bang, and Stan came running out wearing a panicked look. He moved so fast he was with them in seconds.
“Hey,” he stammered. “Everything, uh, copacetic?” he asked Ned with panic evident in his voice.
She found his behavior odd.
Ned winked and thumped Stan on the back. “It’s all good, son. I was just introducing myself to Summer and explaining my silent investor status.”
“Stan!” She pushed the sunglasses onto her head and chortled. “Wait up. Ned is your father?” She playfully smacked her forehead and grinned. “Duh. This explains why he seems so familiar.”
The two men exchanged looks. Stan appeared relieved and lost his panicked vibe.
“Does your dad check up on you, Summer?” Stan asked teasingly. “Moneybags McGee wants firsthand updates on how his money is spent.”
“I wish,” she responded. “My dad passed almost six years ago. But my brother?” She snorted a giggle. “He checks up constantly.”
Ned sobered and took one of her hands. He squeezed it gently, and in a soft voice, he said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” He glanced at the carriage. “I assume he’d be a grandfather?”
Out of the blue, a lump of emotion wedged in her throat. She searched Ned’s expression. His eyes were full of compassion, and the somber set of his mouth and jaw told her this was a man she could trust.
“Thank you,” she whispered. Swallowing the painful lump in her throat, she offered a feeble smile and looked at her beautiful child. “He would have loved being a granddad.”
Ned held her gaze. In a gentle tone, he asked, “May I have a peek?”
When in public, she was super protective of Ari and rarely let strangers close, but without hesitation, she smiled and waved her permission. She bent close and made an introduction. “Arianne? Say hello to Mr. Ned.”
Ned looked at her so strangely, and for a second, she thought he was going to cry. “What a lovely name,” he murmured. Then he peeked around the raised bonnet of the carriage.
“Oh, my,” he gasped.
Summer was glued to the man’s reaction but didn’t know why. He seemed gobsmacked and way more emotional than one would expect from a stranger.
But the thing was, he didn’t come across as someone entirely unfamiliar. When Ari let out a squeal of happiness, the area around her heart surged with warmth.
What the hell was going on? Stan was rocking the overall appearance of a guy waiting for the other shoe to fall. Ari was making goo-goo eyes at a man they just met. And finally, she looked at Ned and saw a curious light in his eyes.
Summer didn’t feel like an outsider, but the three of them definitely knew something she did not.
Stan looked around the neighborhood and at the sky. He took his dad’s rolling suitcase and motioned to the house. “Come on. I’ve got Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.”
He smiled at her. “By the way, I have the wood stain options for your bookcase, so anytime you want to take a look, give me a call. You have my card, right?”
Card? Oh, sure. Yeah, somewhere. She gave a playful grimace and took out her phone. “Let’s save time.”
He laughed and took the phone from her hands. “I’ll put my contact info under S for Stan.”
When he handed the phone back to her, she tapped the number he entered and laughed when his pocket rang. “There! Now you have my number, too!”
He took the phone from his pocket, and answered, “Hello?”
Ned boomed with laughter. Ari gurgled and cooed. Summer smirked.
They waved goodbye and went their separate ways. As she fast-walked to the corner and went right, Summer felt a lightness of spirit she hadn’t experienced in a good long time. Not since …
She sighed.
Not since an Adonis Viking jokester came into her life, leaving her forever changed.
“Holy mother of fuck,” Arnie muttered through a thick layer of anxiety when his disguised dad and panicked brother burst through the door. “What happened? Did you two blow it?”
“I need a minute,” his dad choked out. He turned away from Arnie, and with his hands at his waist, he took several deep breaths—his shoulders rising and falling with each inhale and exhale.
He looked at Stan through worried eyes. What the fuck was happening?
“He’s fine,” Stan murmured quietly. His brother’s eyes darted everywhere. They were surrounded by bustling activity as the flooring, tile, and cabinet guys got down to work.
“Let’s take this out back.” He motioned for Arnie to follow and led their dad by the arm to the sliders.
“Oh, my god,” his dad exclaimed the second they had privacy. “She looks so much like Lianne. I wasn’t prepared.”
Arnie’s heart squeezed. Hearing his father’s emotion when he spoke his dead wife’s name tore him up inside.
Stan interpreted their father’s cryptic words. He held Arnie’s gaze and spoke bluntly. “He met Summer.” There was a short pause. “And then she introduced him to Arianne.”
Fisting the shirt above his heart, Arnie staggered slightly and then righted. He hadn’t seen his daughter yet, not in the flesh, so his dad’s reaction filled him with tension.
“You’ve seen her? My daughter?” he asked in a shocked voice.
His father nodded, hesitated, and then dug a wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. Arnie didn’t know what to expect when his dad pulled out a small photo and handed it to him.
“It’s your mother as an infant.”
Arnie struggled big time. “You’ve carried this all these years?”
He nodded once. “Along with others. If you’re wondering what the baby looks like, they’re practically twins.”
Stan peered over his shoulder at the picture.
Arnie couldn’t believe his fingers trembled, but they did. He was having a hard time comprehending everything. Twins? A picture Dad carried for decades?
He studied the old Kodak print. It was folded to fit in a wallet and showed a chubby, blue-eyed baby girl holding her toes and smiling for the camera.
Arnie always knew he took after his mom. He scored big time when her DNA imprinted on him. His dad’s emotional reaction to seeing his granddaughter in person was very telling.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so shocked.” His dad sighed heavily. “Son,” he said in a somber voice. “Summer’s little girl is a big part of your mama’s legacy. I hope you’re ready to move this thing along because I’m about to unleash a metric shit ton of double-fisted grandparenting on Arianne. And you can expect a similar reaction from Darnell Senior.”
Arnie came back to earth with a thud when Stan’s bitter laughter brought a lot of things into focus.
“I know it’s fucked up, but after everything she’s done, I hope this part drives my mother nuts. She tried
so hard over too many years to erase your mother’s memory, and I’m sorry for it,” he muttered. “I promise to be the best uncle ever.” He crossed his heart, fake spit into his palm, and held it out for a handshake.
He accepted the serious promise. Overcome by emotion, Arnie double pounded the area around his heart and shook Stan’s hand.
Happily munching a gigantic bear claw from a Ventura Boulevard coffee shop, Summer pushed Ari’s carriage away from the busy street and made her way through the cluster of neighborhoods making up the corner of Sherman Oaks where they lived.
She wheeled past a harried-looking postman and avoided a section of sidewalk covered in colorful rainbows.
“I love sidewalk chalk art,” she told a sleepy Arianne. “But it’s rude to walk on it.”
Cutting across the empty road, she went to the end of the suburban street, took a left followed by a quick right, and continued for another two blocks, arriving at last in the five hundred block of Wishing Star Lane.
There was a lot of negative about LA life, but if there was one solid positive, it was the basic north-south-east-west grid to the layout of the streets in the San Fernando Valley. A person had to be directionally challenged to get lost.
When she was still a block away from home, Summer noticed an erratically driven car zoom into her neighborhood and slammed on the brakes. She was too far away to see clearly, but a person exited the car, slammed the door, and stomped along a walk and into a house, leaving a cloud of anger resembling red dust pluming in their wake.
She considered crossing to the other side of the street to avoid the plume.
They waited at the cross street for a delivery truck to drive by and then strolled past Mrs. Pak’s house. Up ahead, she noticed Todd dashing from his front walk to Bud and Lynda’s house.
“Great,” she grumbled.
As she approached her destination, the sound of Todd knocking loudly on the Gerry’s door gave her a feeling of foreboding.
As she pushed the carriage into the driveway, her eyes went to the house next door, hoping Stan, Ned, or some workmen were around. She never liked talking to Todd and even less so when it was obvious something had him agitated. A few witnesses wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“What’s up, Todd?” she half yelled from the driveway to get his attention.
He stopped pounding on the door and whirled around to fix her with a fiery glare. His overall manner was shifty and tense. She wrapped her hands more firmly on the carriage handle.
“I need this like I need a rash,” she muttered tensely. Determined to shield the baby from his view, she pulled the visor down on the carriage’s bonnet.
Studying people was very much her thing, so when he pulled back to do a complete one-eighty in attitude, she knew he was putting on a show.
When he approached far too quickly for her liking, she placed her body between him and the carriage. If he creeped her out any harder, she might have to scream bloody murder for the hell of it.
“Hi, Summer.” He gestured with his thumb back at the house. “I was looking for Bud or Lynda.”
“They’re not home,” she informed him with a sotto voce delivery.
“Oh, well, uh, okay.”
“Can I help you?” she asked.
For the second time, he mumbled, “Oh, well, uh,” and looked at his feet. She knew he was stalling.
“I, uh, wanted to let them know there’s going to be some, uh, work in the backyard. Today.”
Why would Bud and Lynda care about work next door? She was about to ask when Todd filled in a crucial gap.
“We’re having some landscaping removed. There’s going to be digging and, uh, trim work on the hedge.”
“Will there be a mess? On their side?”
“Oh, uh, gee,” he mumbled. “Yeah, probably.”
“I’ll let them know,” she brusquely replied.
“Do you know when they’ll be home? I should really touch base with them—as the homeowners.”
The thought of Todd banging on the door every few hours did not sound appealing, so she cut to the chase and shut him down.
“They’re visiting their daughter. Palm Springs.” The minute the words came out of her mouth, she regretted telling him too much.
One more time, he broke out a muddled response punctuated with, “uh,” “well,” and “gee.”
“Oh, uh, well, gee, thanks for saving me the headache of watching and waiting for them.”
Watching and waiting? The word cluster didn’t inspire warm, fuzzy feelings.
It was hard not to whoop, “Hallelujah,” when the baby chimed in with an angry wail.
She looked at Todd, said, “Gotta go,” and pushed past him without another word.
Mariah swished her tail and sashayed back and forth beside Summer as she knelt to dump a can of smelly food onto a cat-shaped ceramic dish.
“Salmon pâté,” she announced. “Blech.”
The pale gray and white domestic longhair feline didn’t give a fig what anyone thought and ignored Summer in favor of dinner. She petted the soft, bushy diva cat and then wisely backed away. Lynda’s snotty pet wasn’t fond of people.
In the living room, a baby grand piano sat near a window with Ari in her baby seat on top. Her little mouth was torturing a binky—something Summer hoped was the first step to getting her stubborn daughter to accept the bottle. Poor Mrs. Pak had quite a time convincing Ari to drink.
While the cat picked at her dish of food, Summer sat at the piano and played a soft tune. Nothing fancy. Her skill was novice level at best.
Outside the window, night had fallen. It was dark by six o’clock each evening. Her mind wandered, and she found herself wondering what long winter nights were like where the weather was icy cold. She imagined moonlight shining on mounds of freshly fallen snow would be quite pretty.
“You know what I just realized?” She looked at Ari. The baby was used to her mommy’s impromptu, extemporaneous ramblings and merely smiled.
“I’ve never made a snow angel.”
Summer dropped her hands into her lap. “Gosh, what a crazy thought, right?”
Her rapt audience of one kept on smiling, so she let the freeform of thoughts pour out.
“You don’t know this about me yet, but your mommy has a madcap side.” She giggled. “It’s all fun and games till my show-off tendencies get me in trouble. Take skiing, for instance. I’m pretty sure swishing down a mountain with the cold air in your face is a rush, but I’d get cocky and, well …” She lifted her shoulders and grinned. “Knowing how I am, there’s a better than good chance I’d end up airlifted out of the snow by the paramedics.”
The baby’s reaction to her mother’s thrill-seeking confession was a squirm and a gurgle.
“But cross-country skiing? Gliding across the snow using poles and muscle power? I think we have a winner. Bet it burns energy and calories. Not that body image is a factor,” she quickly interjected. There was no way her daughter was going to grow up thinking she had to conform to a cult of unrealistic expectations.
Nuh-uh. No way. It was time for a better paradigm because the current one wasn’t healthy or sustainable. She was going to parent smartly with compassion and also a few sharply drawn red lines. Laziness will not be tolerated. Manners will matter. Giving rather than taking shall be her family mantra.
“I’ve got it all figured out. Not.” She laughed. Every parent through the ages probably thought they were gonna break the mold. Ha!
Mariah and her swishing tail jumped onto the piano and sat next to the baby. Shadowy moonlight streaming through the window gave the scene a softness. Summer took out her phone and snapped a picture as her daughter and the longhaired feline looked at one another.
She checked the shot, and muttered, “Cool. Uncle Reed will love this.”
It only took a minute to send an email with the picture. If she texted him, he’d want to talk, and she wasn’t in the mood.
Scooting on the piano bench, Summer absently
glanced out the window and was startled to discover a clear view into the house next door. From a certain angle, with the curtains open and house lights on, it was like watching TV.
Feeling like a peeping Tom, she started to turn away until Todd’s back moved into view. He appeared agitated—his arms swinging and gesturing.
Flashing red lights, warning bells, and the dropping arm of a crossing gate brought her up short when a woman flitted through the window-framed scene. It was impossible to see much, just a head of black curls. But something was strangely familiar about the way her head tilted.
Apprehension filled her. She went to the window for a better view, and in an attempt to stay hidden, she tried to blend in with the drapes.
It didn’t take subtitles to see Todd and the curly-haired woman were arguing. She was shorter than him, but from what Summer witnessed, the woman had no problem getting up in his face.
“Move your ass, Todd. Lemme see the woman.”
When he shifted to the side, the woman turned at the same time, leaving only her back visible.
“Shit.”
Backing away from the window, she completely closed the curtains and nervously chewed her bottom lip. Her mind searched for everyone she knew with shoulder-length curly black hair and came up empty.
Bothered by what she’d seen, Summer dismissed the sense of familiarity before it ate her alive. Her neighbor was welcome to argue with whomever he liked. It was none of her business, and because it was Todd, the best thing she could do was not give him or his creepy energy access to her thoughts.
“I think we’re finished here,” she murmured to Ari.
Grabbing the handle of the baby seat, she did a quick house check to make sure everything was secure, turned on a few lights, and exited for home.
Unsettled was the best way to describe how she felt for the rest of the evening.
30
By half past eight, all the workmen cleared out, and the house became quiet—except for the sounds coming from the kitchen where his dad and brother were noisily ragging on each other about hogging the sauce from their double order of barbecue ribs.
Finding Summer (Nightwind Book 3) Page 55