Summer's End (Evening Island Book 2)

by Olivia Miles

  She chewed on that for a moment and picked up her coffee mug, which had now gone cold. She drank it anyway, hoping to push back the panic.

  “Well, I wanted to let you know that I’m going to be visiting Dad later this week,” Kim said.

  Andrea hadn’t seen her father since Christmas when he had come to Chicago to take all of his daughters to the theatre and dinner at his hotel. He was in and out in twenty-four hours, then off on another business trip.

  “I’m glad he found the time,” Andrea said, even though she was guilty of the same. She was her father’s daughter—only her father probably wouldn’t have lost a major account.

  “I’m just stopping by for the night,” Kim explained. “And after that, I’m heading to Evening Island. Heather’s going to meet me up there.”

  Her sisters were both going to the lake house? This weekend? Andrea tried to connect what conversation could have led to these plans not only being made but actually put into action. Evening Island was a solid seven-hour drive plus a ferry ride away from Chicago, regardless of which route you took. When they’d grown up in Michigan, they’d gone every summer, but now Andrea hadn’t been back in years.

  “Heather’s going?”

  Heather had become very withdrawn lately, and Andrea had never excelled at heart-to-heart chats. That was their mother’s territory.

  “I’m as surprised as you are, but yes! And I already know what you’re going to say, but I figured I would still ask you just in case you wanted to join us.”

  Andrea tried not to take insult, but it stung anyway. She’d let Kim down, slowly over time, but this past year especially. Kim had rebounded, found someone to lean on, a whole new family, really, but it didn’t go unnoticed that somewhere along the way Kim had realized that Andrea was unavailable, maybe even disinterested.

  This weekend. The start of her forced two weeks off. She could do it. She could pack her bags and drive up to Blue Harbor, Michigan, and catch the ferry to Evening Island. By this Saturday she could be sleeping in the front bedroom with the window open and the sounds of nature flowing in with the breeze. She could swim in the cool waters of Lake Huron. She could ride her bicycle into town, have a proper drink on the wide stretch of bright green lawn overlooking the harbor.

  She could have something to do. Somewhere to be.

  An excuse for her sudden departure.

  “I’ll come.”

  There was a very long pause. Finally, Kim’s small voice said, “Did I just hear you say you’re coming?”

  She pulled in a breath. “Yes. I’ll come.”

  “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Wait until I tell Heather! Oh my gosh, Andrea! This is going to be so much fun!”

  Andrea was still smiling when she hung up the phone. But as for fun…that part was yet to be seen.

  4

  Kim

  It had been fifteen days shy of a year since Kim had last been home—by home, she meant the large Tudor-style house in Michigan and not the walk-up one-bedroom apartment in Chicago. She could blame it on her master’s program, which was a year-long commitment, or she could say it was because of Bran, which would be slightly more true. But the real reason she’d stayed away was that there just wasn’t any reason to return now that her mother was gone.

  Her father would be at the office until seven like usual, giving Kim time to settle in on her own. She eased her foot off the gas pedal as she pulled onto the tree-lined street, the branches of the large, old oaks creating an arch of shadows that led her to the brick-paved driveway that swept the front of the home, dividing it from the lush green lawn that was just another thing their father didn’t have time for and never had. She parked the car—a rental because Bran couldn’t part with his vehicle for more than a day—leaving most of her luggage in the trunk except for an overnight bag that contained her toiletries and pajamas, and a few changes of clothes. With trepidation, she walked up the stone steps to the door. She didn’t know how she would feel when she went inside and was reminded that her mother wasn’t home and never would be again. That there would be no lemonades out by the pool, no card games after dinner over gin fizzes. No stories to share, no laughter to have.

  It was so much easier to not think about what she was missing when she wasn’t faced with it every day.

  She knew the security code: her parents’ wedding anniversary that they had locked in when the system was first installed. Now she pressed each button firmly then reached for the door, hearing the lock release at the same moment her phone started to ring.

  She didn’t know if she should be relieved or annoyed. She’d been spared the momentous occasion of walking into her empty home. Maybe she should see it as a sign.

  She glanced down at the screen. Or not.

  “Hey, babe,” she greeted Bran, hoping that the smile she was forcing couldn’t be detected in her tone. She stayed outside and set the bag at her feet. Her back ached from the long drive from Chicago to Grosse Pointe, and she did some stretches, hoping to alleviate the tension but suspecting the drive wasn’t the only cause of it.

  Bran wasn’t happy about her trip. It was too close to the wedding, he’d remarked. And of course, there was that charity dinner that he’d promised his mother they’d attend next weekend, without consulting her first.

  “Perfect timing. I just stepped out of the car.” She crouched to sit on the steps, feeling the warm sun beat down on her.

  “I can call you later if your father is there.”

  “I won’t see him for a few hours,” Kim said. “We’ll probably have dinner at his club. It will be nice to catch up.”

  Bran had met her father briefly, when he’d visited Chicago at Christmastime, delaying their trip to Colorado, where they’d spent the remainder of the holiday with the Crofts. Lynette had made sure to point out everything they’d missed every chance she had.

  “Listen, I don’t like how we left things off,” Bran said, and Kim softened. They rarely argued, and when they did, it always seemed to be about some family obligation—and lately, the wedding. She missed the first half of their courtship when it was just the two of them, and every moment they spent together felt carefree and special. “It’s just that the timing is so bad. You’ve said how much work is involved in the planning.”

  Now Kim’s heart was hammering and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was sitting outside her childhood home for the first time since her mother’s funeral. “There is a lot of work, but…” But your mother is taking care of all of it, she wanted to say. Instead, she closed her eyes and said, “But everything is pretty much taken care of at this point. Now we’re just waiting for the RSVPs to come in so we can finalize the seating chart.”

  “That’s not what my mother said,” Bran said after a moment.

  Of course.

  “Look, the last few things can be taken care of when I get back. It’s important for me to spend time with my sisters too,” she said, knowing that by doing so, another argument was brewing.

  “Your sisters live in Chicago. You could spend time with them here if they wanted to get together.”

  The words cut the deepest part of her because she knew that there was truth in them. “My sisters have a lot going on in their own lives. This is a chance for us to get away from—” She couldn’t finish that part. “My sisters mean a lot to me.”

  “I’m just saying that your sisters haven’t done anything to help plan the wedding.”

  Again, true, and again, it hurt to hear. “It’s been a tough year for all of us.”

  “I never said it wasn’t,” Bran said. “But going away for two weeks, with our wedding next month? It just makes me wonder…”

  She blinked. “Wonder what?”

  “Are you having second thoughts?”

  Now it was her turn to pause. He was voicing the very question she refused to ask herself, the one that even her best friend Kate hadn’t said, not in so many words, at least, though the look was there, at every fitting at that bridal salon, every t
rip to the florist, and of course, at that miserable bridal shower.

  “You know I love you, Bran,” she said. “But I love my family too, and this is the first time I’ve been home in a year.” And from the way Lynette was packing their social schedule, she wasn’t sure when the next opportunity would arise. “And you know how hard it is to get my sisters together. This is a special trip for us. And now is a perfect time, before I start my job.”

  It was something she’d been excited about—a temporary teaching position that she would start in October when the permanent teacher went on maternity leave. She had jumped at the opportunity, feeling like her life was starting to become more complete. But it wasn’t just that—her mother had been a teacher before she’d eventually become a stay-at-home mother to her three daughters. Following her path gave Kim a sense of direction for the first time since losing her.

  “About that. Have you given any more thought to our honeymoon?”

  Kim stifled a sigh. This was an argument that had been going around and around all week, causing her to struggle to sleep, and wake up with neck and shoulder pain. She rubbed a spot on her back now with her free hand.

  “I still think it’s something we should plan on our own,” she said, stressing the point she’d made earlier this week when she’d come back from the bridal salon.

  “My parents are giving us this trip as a gift,” Bran reiterated. “How am I supposed to tell them thanks but no thanks?”

  Kim had thought long and hard about this, knowing that had it been easy to say no to Lynette, she would have done so, months ago. That maybe, Bran would have, too. “Maybe you can tell them that you’d already been planning something, as a surprise to me.”

  “My mother will be insulted.” Bran’s voice sounded stressed and agitated, and for the umpteenth time, Kim wanted to ask if his mother’s feelings mattered more than her own.

  “Then use my job as the excuse. I already told your mom that I couldn’t go away for that length of time.” Not that Lynette had accepted that as an excuse, either.

  “Kim—”

  Kim swallowed hard, hating the direction this conversation was taking. It wasn’t always like this, not when it was just her and Bran, going out to dinners and shows, enjoying their free time, and getting to know each other. But that was before Kim learned how close Bran was with his family. Before she knew that Bran was not only expected to take over the law firm with his two brothers but also show up for every event the family held.

  Maybe, it was before she knew Bran at all. When she just knew the surface.

  “I can’t talk about this right now.” Her hand was shaking as she reached for her bag. “It was a long drive and I need…” A glass of wine. A bath. A long chat with her mother, who would listen intently and know exactly what to tell Kim to do.

  But that wasn’t possible.

  “So there’s no chance of you coming back in time for the gala next Saturday night? It’s the hospital’s biggest fundraiser all year. You know my dad is on the board. I was looking forward to showing you off… And it won’t be any fun without you.”

  He was sweet-talking her, but Kim didn’t need time to think about that one. “I’ll be back the following weekend.”

  “My mother won’t be happy,” was all Bran could say to that, and Kim couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “And what about my happiness?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Bran’s voice inched up a notch in volume. “What are you saying?”

  Kim stood, feeling angry and frustrated and so confused she felt like she might cry. It was difficult enough coming back here, knowing what she wouldn’t find behind that door—that her mother wouldn’t be at her wedding. That her sisters weren’t around to help plan it in her place. That lately, she felt like she had lost more than her mother; that she’d lost her entire family too. And that maybe that’s what Bran wanted. Maybe that would make it easier.

  “I’m saying that I think some space right now is good.”

  There was a long pause. Enough to make Kim wonder if they had lost the connection, if he hadn’t even heard what she’d said. And she didn’t know if she dared to repeat it.

  “Maybe you’re right,” he finally said, his tone clipped.

  Kim ended the call with a heavy sigh. All trepidation of walking into the empty house had disappeared, and now, she stood, picked up her bag, and pushed into the hall, into the familiar home with its bridal staircase and family portrait hanging above the sideboard with the vase that her mother had bought on their honeymoon in Italy and always filled with fresh flowers.

  The flowers in it were still fresh—orange roses, to brighten up the space, and no doubt tended to by one of the staff who kept this place running, and clean, who ironed her father’s clothes and cooked his meals and cut his lawn.

  She didn’t go to the kitchen at the back of the house, which would be dark, or the big great room overlooking the expanse of lawn behind it. Instead, she walked right back outside, opened the car door, found her swimsuit buried in a pile of clothing that she’d crammed into her luggage during yet another argument with Bran last night, and carried it back into the house, through the French doors that led to the patio, and changed in the pool house.

  The water was glistening when she stood at the edge, waiting before diving in, even though she knew that her father kept it heated to a comfortable yet refreshing eighty degrees. From her heap of clothing on the deck chair, her phone rang again, the sound grating on her aching shoulders, the noise cutting through the birdsong and solitude. This time she didn’t need to check the screen to know who it would be, and she didn’t want to talk to him. She was home. She was going to the lake house tomorrow. And for the next two weeks, she would be the girl she used to be, do the things she used to do, back when just being herself was enough, not something she had to think about or plan for. When nothing was expected of her.

  The phone stopped and then started again. Kim dove effortlessly into the water, feeling it wash over her hair, her back, her toes, drowning out the sound of the phone. Shielding her, for just this moment, from the world above.

  Kim didn’t even realize until she was seated opposite her silver-haired father, in the country club where she once swam for the team, learned tennis, and trailed behind her mother in golf, that it was quite possibly the first meal she had ever shared alone with him. Her mother had been the more active parent, and even when Andrea and Heather had gone off to college, leaving her behind in the big house while she finished high school, her mother was ever-present.

  Now, Kim shifted against her chair back, feeling stiff and uncomfortable and dodging for a conversation topic that didn’t evoke memories of her mother for either one of them.

  Her father seemed just as out of place as she did. He’d always been a little overwhelmed by the drama of three daughters, but now he seemed shy, almost, and he kept glancing her way as if hoping she might spare him and take the lead, the way his wife would have once done.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this, Dad.” Kim smiled and sipped her wine. The salad plates were cleared and the breadbasket was still half full. Kim always thought the Parker rolls at the club were the best part of the dinner, and now, not sure when she’d be able to taste them again, she helped herself to another. Good thing Lynette wasn’t here to remind her that she’d just had another dress fitting and they wouldn’t want to be letting anything out in the final weeks before the big day.

  Just thinking about that, she added some warm butter to the hot roll. “It will be nice to get to the island again, too.”

  “I wish I could get back, but I’m happy to hear you girls are all going. I’m afraid I haven’t put much effort into the house since…well.”

  Kim pushed back a wave of panic. The lake house was her mother’s, passed down through the generations, and her father didn’t hold the same attachment to it. Would he still keep it if the rental income wasn’t steady or the expenses piled up? Old houses of that size on a remot
e island weren’t exactly easy to maintain.

  “I’m sure it’s fine. You still have the caretaker,” she assured him. Even when trusty Edward had retired, his grandson had stepped in to look after the property.

  “So long as you girls still want to keep going back, I’ll keep it going,” he said with a smile that Kim knew was meant to be reassuring and wasn’t in the least.

  She cleared her throat, desperate to change the topic. “You’ve been traveling a lot?”

  Her father had always traveled for business, but now it would seem that he had thrown himself into work with full force. She didn’t blame him. It couldn’t be easy to come home to that big, empty house each night. But she also wished he might make a bit more time to stop by Chicago.

  “I have, and I wanted to talk to you about that, actually.” He cleared his throat, then reached for his wineglass.

  Uh-oh. Kim suddenly wished she had filled the silence with endless chatter about her upcoming wedding, trying to convince herself in the process that she was as excited as she sounded. Instead, she’d sat, thinking about all the missed calls from Bran, enjoying the music from the piano player in the club’s adjacent bar.

  “You’re not selling the house, are you?” She couldn’t bear the thought of losing her family home any more than the island cottage. As much as it hurt to return, to walk through the rooms, remembering that her mother used to sit in the leather club chair in the den or the wingback in the sitting room, or to stop and gaze at the framed photos of all their happy moments, she also couldn’t bear to have those memories banished. Surely, her father felt the same?

  “No, nothing like that,” he assured her.

  She smiled into a sigh. “Good. Because I know I haven’t been back often, and I want to start. It’s just been so crazy with the wedding and finishing my degree and…” She was getting nervous. There was news to be shared, and she needed to let her father come out with it.