Now it was her turn to look uncomfortable. She was silent for a moment, twisting the end of her pink streak over and again, tugging on her hair just hard enough to feel pain, so she could concentrate on something other than the horrific moment she was living through. She had done that for all the years I’d known her. She told me once at times it was the only way she could keep herself from screaming when she was younger. I let her gather her thoughts, knowing she would tell me the truth. She always did.
“My mother came to see me,” she finally admitted, not meeting my eyes.
I was out of my chair, gripping the sides of the desk. “Who the hell let her in the building? She isn’t allowed in there. She isn’t allowed to be near you.”
She shook her head, her eyes wide. “She didn’t come into the building, Linc. She—” Abby swallowed heavily “—she was waiting for me in the underground parking lot of my building when I got home.”
The implications of her words hit me. Her mother knew where she lived.
“You’re moving. This week.”
She didn’t acknowledge my words, but a tremor went through her. “It was such a shock, seeing her. It’s been so long, for a moment, I didn’t recognize her.”
I moved around the desk and sat beside her, taking her hand. “What did she want?”
“Money. She saw an article about you and saw me in the background of the picture they used.”
I frowned. “You are never in the pictures.” I approved every photo, making sure she was never around when cameras were being used.
“I think this was taken without us knowing. It’s an office shot. I’m not even looking at the camera, barely even in the shot, but my mother recognized me.”
“Abby, I’m sorry.” I had promised to always protect her, and I had failed.
She squeezed my hand. “Not your fault, Linc. Anyway, she saw the picture and tracked me down. She followed me and, somehow, a couple of days later got into the garage and waited for me. She informed me that if I lived in such a swanky place and had a job working for someone as wealthy as you, I could spare her some money.” Her voice began to tremble. “After all, I owed her.”
“The fuck you do,” I snarled out. “You owe her nothing, and she’s getting nothing.” When Abby didn’t meet my eyes, I groaned. “Tell me you didn’t give her any, Abby. She’ll keep coming back.”
She pulled her hand away and stood. She paced back and forth across the room, her hair an endless loop between her fingers. Then she stopped and stared at me. “When I told her to go to hell and stay there, she smiled. Just smiled. It was the fucking scariest smile I’ve ever seen.” Tears glimmered in her eyes, shocking me. Despite what she had been through, it was rare I ever saw Abby cry. She was too strong, so I knew the next thing out of her mouth was going to be bad.
“She said no problem. Then she paused and said perhaps I wanted to reconsider. When I told her I didn’t think so, she said fine.”
“And?” I demanded.
Tears ran down Abby’s cheeks. “She told me Carl got out of prison early for good behavior. She told me she would tell him I said hi and perhaps he’d drop over for a visit.”
Curse words I rarely used flew from my mouth. I stood, enraged, disgusted, and frightened. What kind of human being did something like that to their own flesh and blood?
Abby pressed her hand to her mouth. “He’s out, Linc. She’s going to tell him where I am. I-I’m so scared—”
She didn’t finish her sentence before the sobs began. I was across the room, yanking her snug into my arms and holding her. Violent tremors racked her body, and I pulled her tighter.
“He’s never getting near you. Ever. I promise you that, Abby. I’m here for you.” I dropped a kiss to her head. “I’m not leaving you alone, sweetheart. I promise.”
A noise made me look up, and I saw Sunny, standing frozen in the doorway. She stared at me—at the woman I was holding, her mouth agape, hurt written across her face. I knew what it looked like. That she had heard the words I’d just uttered. I stared back at her, torn. I couldn’t abandon Abby, but I couldn’t allow Sunny to think that, once again, I had lied to her. I shook my head, frantically trying to convey with my eyes the words I couldn’t yell out.
But I didn’t have the chance. Before I could do anything, Sunny was gone. The door shut, and her rapid footsteps faded away. I heard the crunch of the gravel indicating she was running down the driveway and away from me.
And there was nothing I could do to stop her.
10
Sunny
I came out of the kitchen to find the shop deserted. I frowned, a sudden frisson of fear running through my chest.
Where was Linc?
Shannon came from the stockroom, a large bag of flour in her arms. “Oh hey, boss. Got that supplier sorted out?”
“Yes,” I replied, distracted, heading to the window, my fear growing when I saw Linc’s car was gone.
“Michael said to tell you those towels will be back tomorrow. Oh, and that Linc guy had to meet someone up the hill. He wanted to tell you, but I said not to interrupt. He asked you to call him when you could.”
My chest loosened at her words, and internally, I shook my head at my foolishness. I checked my watch and flipped the sign to closed. It was a little early, but the day was done, and luckily, I called the shots.
I had one more task to do and then I would call Linc.
Time passed quickly, and by the time I finished my task it had been over an hour and a half. Rather than call Linc, I decided to go up to the house and surprise him. It was obvious being in that house made him tense, and he might like the distraction.
As well as the surprise I made him.
My stomach dipped as I walked up the hill toward the house Linc grew up in. I had always hated the ostentatious look of it when I lived here as a teenager—and when I had moved back. It towered over our small town like a beacon of wealth and privilege no one else could hope to attain. I had only been inside it once when Linc and I were young. His father was away on a business trip, and Linc asked me to go to his house. He had taken me on a tour, showing me the massive structure room by room. So many of them were empty. Others felt staged. The family room with the big TV no one watched. The formal dining room with its gleaming table and silver that sparkled under the lights that was never sat in.
Linc looked sad as he showed me his mother’s old sitting room—empty and barren.
“He threw away everything of hers,” he said, the pain evident in his voice.
“You didn’t get anything?”
“A few little items I grabbed. I heard him making arrangements to have it all taken away, and once I heard him go out, I packed up some things and hid them in the basement in a room I knew he never went into. Things I knew he wouldn’t notice or care about, but I knew she loved.” He sighed. “I couldn’t take her chair or the little sofa she had. She always let me lie on it while she read to me. I had to leave the pictures she loved because if he figured out that I had taken even one, he would have hunted down everything and destroyed all of it.”
I grasped his hand. “Linc, I’m sorry.”
He stared at the room, the wallpaper faded, the shadows of long-lost pictures removed and destroyed leaving their imprints. I wondered if he was remembering the sound of her voice, a time when life wasn’t so difficult for him because he had her. His voice was thick when he spoke. “It was better to have a few things than none at all, you know? A few of her books, some of the needlepoint pieces she had finished but not hung up. Her letters from her parents. Personal things.” He shivered. “I think my father would have killed me if he’d found me going through her drawers and cupboards taking private stuff.”
I recalled his sadness, then his intense panic when he realized his father had returned home early. We both knew what he would do if he found out I was in the house. Linc had rushed me down to the kitchen, and I’d slipped out the back door, hurrying down the path that skirted the house and maki
ng my way home in the dark. Linc had been upset for days that he’d made me walk home alone. I had stumbled in the dark, scraping my hand badly. He checked it every day, kissing the torn skin and worrying about infection, fretting over me needlessly.
I’d never ventured into his father’s house again with Linc.
Until yesterday.
It had been a shock to see the boy I had loved for so long standing in front of me—no longer a boy, but a man. Gone were the developing muscles and youthful, handsome face. The shy smile and the guarded expression he often had to adopt when seeing me was absent, replaced by a confident air and demeanor.
The man in front of me wasn’t shy. He was tall, his shoulders broad, his waist trim. His hair was darker than I remembered, and he wore it longer than he had when we were younger. His sharp jaw was covered in scruff, and he wore an expensive suit tailored to perfection. Something deep within me strummed with recognition at the stranger in my shop, staring at me, his body tight with tension. When he pulled off his sunglasses, revealing the eyes that still haunted my dreams, I was shocked.
Then I became angry.
Angry enough to march up to his father’s house and confront him. To hurl the furious words I had kept inside for so many years. Slapping him had been one of the most violent things I had done in my life.
What transpired afterward was unexpected, wondrous, and frightening.
To hear what he went through, what that bastard of a father had done to him. Listen as Linc told me of the years spent at what amounted to a prison for him had been like. Accept the letters he had written to me that his father waylaid. All of it difficult, heartbreaking, and almost surreal.
After we separated for the evening, I sat and read some of the letters, once again transforming into the girl he had written them to. I felt his pain, his anger, the terror of not knowing or understanding what had happened, or how he could get away. His pleas to wait for him, to know how much he loved me, how much he would always love me. His loneliness, isolation, and fear jumped from the pages. His longing for me grew with each letter, the pain he was feeling soaked into the ink on the pages.
His honest, handwritten words mended some of the pieces of my heart that had shredded the day he disappeared from my life. Knowing I hadn’t been abandoned. That he hadn’t fucked and run. The fact that his love had been real—all of it healed a part of my broken spirit I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in until now.
I stopped in confusion outside the house, staring at the bright-pink SUV. Linc had told me his lawyer was coming back today, but I doubted he drove such a feminine vehicle. The flowers and sparkle decals on the sides were not something I would associate with a lawyer. But perhaps, I told myself, it belonged to his wife or daughter and he had to borrow it.
The front door was ajar, and I followed the sound of voices to the den. I frowned at the obviously feminine-sounding tone, stopping in shock in the doorway.
Linc was holding a woman, kissing her head. Murmuring to her in a low, gentle voice. His entire stance was protective. She was wrapped in his embrace, his hand spread wide across her back. I heard his endearment as he spoke, assuring her he was wasn’t leaving her and he would protect her.
Their familiarity was palpable, the intimacy of the moment clear. This was someone very important to Linc.
How important, I didn’t know, but suddenly, the ten years we’d been apart seemed longer. A chasm of unknown questions, memories, moments neither of us knew about.
Who was this woman to Linc? What did it mean for us?
Had his response, his closeness the past hours, simply been a reaction to the memories of us and not actually real feelings? Did he already belong to someone else and was now realizing his actions had been just that?
When he looked up and met my eyes, his grew wide with anxiety, and he shook his head, telling me what I needed to know.
I had to leave. I wasn’t any more welcome here now than I had been years ago.
He didn’t have to say anything. I turned and left much the same way I had the other time.
Alone, upset, and confused.
* * *
I paced my small apartment over the bakery on an endless loop. All the things I had loved about the space now seemed wrong. The coziness was claustrophobic, the furniture uncomfortable, the sight of the town, and the large house that loomed over it, daunting. I snapped shut the blinds, but I couldn’t get the images in my mind to stop.
Linc holding another woman. Soothing her. The way his long-fingered hands drifted up and down her back in comforting, familiar touches. His voice crooning to her.
There was history. A lot of it. She meant something to him.
A voice in my head told me that was why he said he wanted me to call. He didn’t ask me to come to the house. But once I finished with my supplier, and closed the shop, I wanted to see him. I looked at the bag I had dropped by my door when I’d arrived home, breathless, upset, and tearful.
Biscuits. I had made him an extra batch of fresh biscuits, and I planned on giving them to him with tubs of jam and butter. I wanted him to eat them in his father’s den. Let the crumbs fall on the expensive rug and not clean them up. Do something silly and make him laugh in a room that had only every brought him fear.
My gaze fell to the pile of letters. Ones that had hurt me to read yet brought me a glimmer of hope that perhaps my future might look different from what it had the day before. That maybe Linc might once again be part of my life.
Now, I couldn’t stand to look at them.
I couldn’t take the apartment anymore. I needed to get out before I let my emotions swamp me. Despite what I knew the place now meant, there was only one spot I could think to go and clear my head.
I grabbed my coat, shutting the door and leaving the letters, the biscuits, and my hopes behind.
* * *
The wind kicked off the waves, lifting my hair off my neck. I stared out at the cove, the constant motion of the water soothing. It always had been. Whenever I was upset, worried, or my sisters were driving me to distraction, I would escape to this place. Eventually, I shared it with Linc and it became our place, but once he was gone, I still went there. It had been my spot first. I refused to let him take that away from me too.
Despite all the development around the town, this little spot had never changed—the land around it the same as it had been for years. The land adjacent to it, the deserted area Linc and I would meet up in was now a park loved by the community and, as Linc confirmed, named after me. But this place remained the same. Idly, I wondered if Linc had anything to do with it, then dismissed the thought. I’d come here to escape him. To let the sound of the waves and wind clear my head. I built a fire, having learned how to do it myself over the years once I started coming here alone again. I kept a small pile of wood and some waterproof matches tucked under the edge of the rock. I knew one day I would come here and find it gone. Discovered by teenagers or sold and used as part of a development, but for now, it was still my spot.
I sat beside the small fire, poking the flames, watching them dance in the dark, chasing away the chill as night descended and the stars came out. I huddled close, my knees drawn to my chest, and with a sigh, I laid my head on top of them, feeling the emotion of the day catch up with me. Tears drifted down my cheeks, and I allowed them to fall, knowing I needed to clear them from my system. Tomorrow, I would face the day and be strong, but for now I had to let it out.
Linc, the past, the letters, today, the woman he was holding…it all was too much. My head ached with too many thoughts, and my heart yearned for something I didn’t think I could have. Tears dripped down my face, soaking into the fabric of my pants. I didn’t bother trying to stop them.
The back of my neck prickled, and the sound of the rocks moving under heavy footsteps startled me. In all the years I had been coming here, no one else had ever shown up, except one person. I didn’t have to look to know who it was. My body always knew when Linc was close. That hadn�
�t changed.
“Please go,” I pleaded. “I can’t, Linc. Not tonight. Tell me your excuses another time. Just leave me alone.”
He sat beside me, his warmth beckoning, his scent drifting around me. He still smelled like home, even after all these years. Ocean, cedar, and something pure Linc.
“I can’t,” he stated simply.
I refused to look at him, not wanting him to see the tears, or see the vulnerability he had somehow brought back out in me. I had worked for years never to show weakness to anyone again—to be a tough business owner, a capable daughter and sister, a trustworthy friend. But I refuse to care too much about anyone outside the people I considered my trusted circle. If I was being honest with myself, I even held back parts of me from them. The part that had been torn away from me the day Linc disappeared—the same part that seemed to have reemerged when he walked into my bakery.
“Please,” I repeated.
“Not until you hear what I have to say. If you still want me to go, I will.”
His voice was low—determined. I turned my head, meeting his gaze. His eyes were dim, worried, and grief-stricken. He gasped when he saw my face, reaching out his shaking hand.
“No, Sunny. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.”
“You know that woman—you’ve known her a long time.”
“Yes.”
“You’re close.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Not the way you think.”
“You love her,” I stated.
He didn’t deny it. “Yes. I love her. She’s been my best friend for more than nine years, Sunny. If it weren’t for her, I’m not sure I’d be sitting here with you right now.”
A tear dripped off my nose. Linc bent close, wiping the wetness away from my skin with his fingers, making soft sounds. “Please, Sunny-girl. Let me explain. I know you don’t owe me anything and I know how it looked when you came in, but please, god please, listen to me.” He moved his fingers faster as the tears came harder. “Tell me I haven’t lost you all over again.”
The Summer of Us Page 9