by Ciara Knight
Chapter Sixteen
The front door to the cottage swung open, hitting the wall. Houdini skittered from the room, probably to his hideout behind Julie’s bed.
Kat waltzed into the center of the living room, dropped her bag on the ground, and looked down her nose at the décor. “Well, I’ve seen nothing has changed.”
Everyone held their breath—well, Julie did—and waited for the next comment to come out of the rich and famous Chicago attorney’s mouth.
“Just like you. How do you do it, girl? I mean, seriously? I pay a ton of money to keep my skin looking this good, and you live in Florida. The place where people turn into raisins by the age of forty-five from sun damage.” Kat dropped her coat and opened her arms.
Trace shot past Kat and wrapped her arms around Julie. “Thanks. We all wanted to know how you really felt about our quaint little lives.”
It was a quick Trace kind of hug. Little emotion, but being raised only by a father and having no women in her life had turned Trace Latimer into a tomboy who didn’t believe in showing emotions.
Julie looked around at all of them, her three high school best friends. They all passed glances around the room until Wind threw out her arms. “Watch out, Summer Island. The girls are back together.”
They all fell into easy conversation as if a minute hadn’t passed since their high school graduation. Julie had savored their friendship then, and she welcomed it now. Each crazy, pushy, outrageous one of them. Funny, she’d dreaded their return, not wanting them to push her into something she wasn’t ready for, but now she was so excited to see them, she forgot about all her apprehension and listened to all their latest and greatest news.
The ease couldn’t last, though. Trace cleared her throat and studied her hiking sandals. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay longer after Joe’s passing.”
Julie eyed her little blonde friend with the courage and aggression of a bull shark. “No. Don’t apologize. You came home for me all the way from Antarctica. I didn’t expect you to stay. You had important work saving the penguins.”
“Right, the Gentoo or Pygoscelis papua.” A shadow passed over her, like something had happened during those days.
“Stop with all the ocean geek talk before Julie doesn’t invite us back,” Wind said.
“It’s fine. And of course I’ll invite you all back.” Julie looked to each of her long-lost friends. “I hope we can all stay in touch for a while after this.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t come back to visit more.” For the first time since her arrival, Wind looked honest, without a flair of theatrics.
“It’s okay, really,” Julie said. “I should’ve tried harder, too.”
“Maybe, but after we didn’t come home the first few years that you invited us to holidays and spoke about our book club, it was up to us to make things right. I think we were all so caught up in our own lives, we forgot how important our friendship was. I, for one, was excited when I received Bri’s invitation.” Kat lifted her chin.
“Really?” Trace asked what Julie assumed everyone else was thinking.
“Yes. I missed my friends. My real friends. Not the corporate, tough-skinned types who can’t pick a book to read if it means winning a case of the century.” Kat laughed. “And I make a new vow that I’ll come back more often.”
Trace put her hand out. “So I vow.”
Kat and Wind piled on top with their hands, and Julie followed. They all shouted, “So I vow.”
Wind shot back from the hand pile and waved her arms. “Julie’s got a new man.”
The house fell silent, and then squeals erupted all around her.
“I hate you, Wendy Lively,” Julie grumbled, slapping her forehead and collapsing into the nearby chair.
“But you love me, too.” Wind tugged Kat down to the couch by her side.
Julie shot up so she could escape to the kitchen. “I’ll get some refreshments for us. I’m sure you’re all thirsty since you’re no longer used to the Florida heat.”
Bri stood behind her with a tray in hand already stacked with goodies. “I thought you young ladies would enjoy some cookies and milk while you played.” She giggled and set the treats down on the table.
“You think you’re so cute, don’t you,” Julie said. “My daughter here wants to pay me back for bringing cookies and milk into a study group here at the house when she was in high school. She’s never going to let me live that down.”
“Hey, I won’t turn down a treat.” Trace sat cross-legged on the carpet in front of the coffee table and snagged a piece of fruit.
“So I hear that this guy is so special, you’re willing to take on gators and blood-sucking bugs to be with him on our girls-only beach.” Kat picked up a cookie and nibbled on the edge of it.
Julie scanned the room for an easy exit but knew she’d never escape the conversation, so she plopped on the floor next to Trace, snagged a cookie of her own, and leaned against the chair behind her. “Fine. He’s a guy who is opening a charter business. I’ve been introducing him around town to help him.”
“And kissing him,” Wind announced loud enough for all in the room and across the Atlantic Ocean to hear.
“Ooooh!,” they said in unison. Even her own daughter was standing nearby, contributing to Julie’s discomfort.
Still, the thought of the kiss energized her, and she thought she could run a marathon, which was hilarious because she could swim miles but run only a few hundred feet.
“Not just kissed.” Bri touched the top of Julie’s head. “Sucker kissed.”
“Ooooooh!” they all said again.
“You don’t even know what that means.” She looked to Trace.
“Of course I do. And you are so doomed, girl.” Trace gave a crooked smile. “But taking him to our beach for tourists to visit? That’s not like you. So I’m assuming you definitely were sucker kissed.”
“I forbid him to show anyone else,” she said, as if that wiped out her indiscretion.
“Then you admit it was a special visit.” Kat raised a colored, perfectly arched brow.
Julie had forgotten how stunningly beautiful her friend was. They were all beautiful in different ways. Trace had that sweet, blonde, blue-eyed girl-next-door look. Wind was theatrically beautiful and wore darker makeup that accentuated her darker hair and skin. Kat wore makeup, but more subtle shades that highlighted her features and shiny brunette hair.
“It doesn’t matter. None of you know what it’s like now. It’s heartbreaking. Trevor said he’d help clean it up, but even with our effort, there is so much plastic trash, mosquitoes, and that darn gator, we’ll never have our oasis back again.”
Wind slapped her knee. “We swore to keep our beach a secret and that it was ours and ours alone to keep beautiful. Obviously we’ve all failed, so we need to fix it. Tomorrow we’ll go clean out that beach. I’ll rent a couple of small boats with outboard motors that we can raise to get through the canal. We can load those up, and then I’ll hire a service to go spray the area. We’ll get our beach back, girls.”
“Can’t I pay someone to clean it for us?” Kat asked with the corner of her lip raised. She never had liked doing manual labor. Good thing her parents pushed her in school so much.
“And break the girl pact? No way.” Wind puffed out her bottom lip in that dramatic way of hers.
“But she did.” Kat pointed at Julie like a toddler on a playground who had stolen her swing.
“She gets a pass this once,” Trace announced, as if her opinion was law.
Julie liked the thought of working with all of them but knew there was still the danger of the alligator, and they could be aggressive. “It sounds great, except—”
“I’ll call some people.” Trace studied the cookies, and as if she’d given up on her self-control, she grabbed a huge chocolate chip one from the middle of the plate. “We’ll look into humanely relocating the gator since there are nearby homes with children and pets. It’ll be a threat to the community.
”
“How are you going to make that happen? You Trace Dundee now?” Kat huffed.
“Something like that. It’s what I do. Swim with dolphins, save penguins, wrestle alligators, and pull hair out of bitter old friends who make fun of my job.”
Bri snickered and left the room. “You were right about them, Mom.”
And with that crumb she’d dropped in the center of curious, rabid, hungry, attitude-flinging friends to devour, Bri hurried back into the kitchen.
“You get a pass on beach but not on trash talk.” Trace dropped her cookie and folded her arms. “What did you say about us?”
Julie held up both of her hands. “Nothing personal, and nothing that wasn’t true.”
They all snarled at her as if she’d committed the ultimate sin: the loyal friendship betrayal. “I know, I know, we never speak about one another to anyone else beyond our friend group unless specific permission is given,” Julie recited the old rule, surprised she remembered it verbatim after all these years.
It didn’t alleviate the harsh glowers, though.
“Hey, remember. Widow here. I thought you were going to cheer me up.”
“Not when you break the rules.” Wind tsked.
“What if she didn’t break the rules?” Bri peered around the corner, and Julie was never so thankful to have her daughter interrupt.
“What do you mean? How didn’t she break the rules? She spoke to you about us.” Kat rubbed her hands free of any cookie crumbs over the plate.
“But I’m family.”
“Family doesn’t have any place in our group. Our bond is more powerful than family relations.” Trace tilted her head. “Unless…”
“Unless I can apply to join? To be a member of the Summer Island Book Club?” Bri wrung her hands. “I know this sounds strange, but I’ve always dreamed of being a part of your group. I never had friends like you amazing ladies.”
Julie had to hide her smile at Bri’s obvious use of compliments to get what she wanted.
“Depends. Does mama bear think you’re ready?” Kat asked. “If so, we’ll have to take a vote and decide if any new members are being accepted. In the meantime, you need to find the perfect book for the next meeting. That is the most important part of SIBCS—the careful choosing of books. We’ll let you know then if you’re invited into our book club or not.”
Bri lit up, and Julie realized her daughter was serious. She did want to join. “Thank you. I won’t let you down.” She disappeared from the room, leaving the girls looking to Julie.
“So?” Wind asked.
Julie thought about it for a moment. “You know, that girl has only cared about how I’ve been doing since the day her father passed. She’s the one who encouraged me to bring us all together, and when I didn’t, she made it happen anyway. If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t be here now, so I vote yes. I didn’t realize it until today, but I think she needs some friends right now, too.”
“What say the rest of you?” Kat asked, the way she always had for any group decisions. She wasn’t the president of their club or anything like that, but she’d been spouting laws and rules since childhood. A girl born to be the prominent attorney she became, and Julie was proud of her accomplishments.
“Yes,” Wind said without hesitation.
Trace nodded. “Yep.”
“I agree. So, depending on her book choice, we can officially invite her into the society. Of course, that will take having the book club meeting and inauguration on Friendship Beach or she won’t be able to be admitted,” Kat announced in her authoritative way.
Trace snagged her cell phone. “Guess we better get to work, then.”
Before Julie could stop them, they scattered to make calls and arrange things. Tomorrow morning, they’d be working on restoring their past, and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t mind looking at the years behind her because she could see a life ahead of her now. A life with the possibility of her best friends who had been absent for so long returning to her life. And a life that included getting to know Trevor Ashford. A man who had sucker-kissed her. And she couldn’t wait for him to do it again.
Chapter Seventeen
The morning sun rose, reminding Trevor of the way Julie looked when she was happy. He longed to make her life better, but how could he now that Marsha was the divorcée who kept on giving? Gifts he didn’t want. Not from her. How did this happen? They’d been together all that time with no issue, and now this?
The glass sliding door opened behind him. “She’s calling again,” Dustin said in an I’m-so-sorry tone.
“I don’t want to speak to her, not yet. I’m thinking.”
“Man, I feel for you. This is insane. How sure are you that it’s not your kid?” Dustin asked. “I’m not trying to be mean, but we both know how Marsha is when she wants something. If she’s even pregnant, do you think it could be yours?”
“Apparently she is.” Trevor removed the folded paper he’d printed last night as if he couldn’t see it clearly on the screen. “There’s a bump there. Trust me. I know how crazy she is about her waistline.”
Dustin took the paper and then collapsed in the lawn chair by his side. “Man, this is such bad timing. Believe it or not, I was rooting for you and Julie.”
“Sure you were.” Trevor gripped the plastic armrests.
“Okay, maybe not, but only because I didn’t want you hurt again and I knew Julie had a lot of baggage to deal with. But never, did I ever, want Marsha back around. If I could change anything now, I’d get in that little dinghy and take on the sharks to get you to Julie and far from Marsha.”
“Ha. You would never go on the ocean.”
“Okay, maybe not, but not because I don’t care. Just that I’m not getting in or on that ocean for anyone.” Dustin shook his head. “Sorry, man. What are you going to tell Julie?”
Trevor crumpled the piece of paper and shoved it back into his pocket. “I don’t know. If I knew for sure the child was mine, I’d tell her now. But I’m not willing to lose her over one of Marsha’s games. I’m going to demand a paternity test before I acknowledge any rights to this baby.” He sighed. “You want to know the most pathetic thing about this?”
“What’s that?”
Trevor dropped his elbows to his knees and looked down at the ants crawling around the pebbles and shells on the ground. “I didn’t even want to be with Marsha that night, but she said she wanted to try again, that she wanted to stop the divorce, that she’d grown so much and realized what was important. She was so insistent, but then the next day she received a phone call from the guy she’s with, or was with, and she was gone. Papers were delivered the next day, and that’s when I knew one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“That I had to get far from Marsha and her games. The woman has some power over men to make them stupid.”
Dustin palmed his forehead. “That’s why you gave her everything and ran. Not because you cared about who she was with or the breakup.”
“No, man, but it took me being here for a few days for the fog to clear enough to see why I’d left so abruptly. Now I like it here, and I don’t want to leave.”
“Then wait to tell her. Find out more.” Dustin slapped him on the back. “I won’t say a word to Wind either. They’re all doing cleanup work together over at that beach anyway. You headed that way, too?”
“Yeah. You sure you don’t want to come?”
“Let me think.” He tapped his temple like he was truly considering his options. In a weighing motion, he held his right hand up. “Go over water with sharks to get eaten by mosquitoes and a gator?” That hand lowered and his left one went up. “Stay here in the air conditioning, getting caught up on work and then catching a nap.” He raised his left hand higher. “Ding. We have a winner.”
“Coward,” Trevor called back to him as he headed to the dinghy.
“Father,” Dustin said, halting Trevor in his place.
Dear Lord in heaven, what
if he really was going to be a dad? His hands trembled.
“What, too soon?” Dustin called out.
“Eighteen years from now, when the kid is grown, it’ll still be too soon.” Trevor hopped into the dinghy and took off for the river, far from any talk about his ex and her lies. It had to be a lie. He’d always thought he couldn’t have children after his twenties, when he had a serious girlfriend and they’d been together for years without using birth control. Yep, he’d been young and reckless back then, believing nothing could happen unless they planned it. And when they graduated college and planned to marry, they decided they’d try to have kids leading up to their wedding. When they didn’t, things fell apart. He’d planned on going to a specialist, but his college sweetheart moved on before he could, and he spent the next two decades avoiding serious commitments. Until Marsha. But when their relationship started falling apart, he should’ve been more careful. As an older, wiser man, how could he have been this careless, this stupid? If he could have kids, did it have to happen with Marsha after all this time?
He spotted several boats near the canal entrance and realized he was zipping through too fast, so he slowed to avoid creating a wake.
A short blonde who appeared to be leading the show waved him through, so he eased into the canal, thankful to be in the dinghy instead of on a paddleboard. There were several other small boats with outboard engines up appearing to search the canal. He steered around and rafted up to another dinghy on the shore.
His heart double-timed at the sight of Julie. It wasn’t because she was dressed in a bathing suit that accentuated all her curves or that her smile radiated from the top of a sand mound all the way to the water’s edge. It was that feeling, the indescribable excitement that sparked when he saw her. It’s what they spoke about in movies and wrote about in books, what he’d thought was a myth. Had he finally found the right woman, the woman who made him want to live every waking moment with the sole purpose to make her happy? No, he barely knew the woman. But wasn’t that the point of the legend? That with one glance, a man was lost forever?