That Last Summer (Whispering Pines Island Book 1)

by Sara LaFontain

  “Whatever. It didn’t kill me. It was kinda fun. Like one of those polar-bear swims people do. Most people would miss out on an awesome experience.” Amy began combing out her long hair. “Hey, can you believe that guy?”

  “What guy? I only saw one idiot in the pool.”

  “Very funny. You know I meant Sam, that guy. I’m still mad at him,” Amy dropped the comb and started making faces at herself in the mirror.

  “You sure didn’t act mad when we picked him up.”

  “You know I hug everybody. Besides, we’re friends. I can be excited to see him while still being mad and thinking he’s a colossal asshole.”

  “I’m sure he had a good reason not to call.” Cara didn’t want to keep poking at that wound. She had never told Amy exactly why Sam had cut himself out of her life, so she hadn’t been able to explain his lack of contact.

  She thought back again to that day in the rain when it all went wrong. She still remembered his hands on her face, the way he brought his forehead down to hers, how he looked in her eyes with a terrifyingly intimate intensity. His hands, so warm. His breath. The way he told her he loved her and whispered her name. And she clutched handfuls of his jacket, supporting herself against him because she was afraid her legs wouldn’t be able to hold her up. And the way she pushed him away as soon as he tipped his lips down to hers, how she shoved at him and stumbled backwards. The wounded look he gave her. “I’m engaged,” she had cried out, as if he hadn’t known and he looked at her with an expression so full of pain.

  “You’re with the wrong man,” he said, and she turned away, even though she didn’t want to, even though he was right, even though she wanted nothing more than to fling herself into his arms. But instead she abandoned him and ran off into the rain, feeling empty and conflicted and so very lost. He avoided her for the next week, the final week of tourist season. And that was the end, it was all over. His contract was up, and she drove him down to the ferry. He wouldn’t look at her. She was actually surprised when he sat in the front seat, surprised he didn’t ride in the back as though he was just another guest she had to chauffeur down to the dock. As he took his oversized suitcase out of the cart, he finally did look directly at her.

  “You getting married?” he asked, and she nodded.

  He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head and walked away. He boarded the ferry and strode straight to the far end, looking out towards the mainland. She watched the whole time while the workers loaded the cargo, while the last passengers scrambled aboard, and while the ferry pushed off and took him from her life. He stood perfectly upright, rigid, and never once turned around. Maybe if he had, she would have broken. Maybe she would have yelled for him to come back. And maybe he would have; maybe he would have made the return trip right away (or, in her fantasy, he would have dived into the water and swam back in a daring romantic gesture straight out of the movies). But he didn’t, and she didn’t, and months later she’d heard from others that he’d taken a job in Denver and she would never see him again.

  “Everybody else called or emailed or sent flowers, and he didn’t.” Amy twisted her hair into different styles while continuing her complaint. “He’s a selfish jackass. All he had to do was pick up the phone and say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Five words, that’s all. It’s not difficult to be supportive. He does look kinda hot though, with that new haircut. I mean, I’m disappointed he did that, but those curls were a bit too much. He looks better without them. If I were single, I’d at least give him a try, make this the Summer of Sam.”

  Cara hoped she was joking. “I liked the curls. And Summer of Sam is a movie about a serial killer; I’d rather you not get killed. We’re not going to be able to hire someone to replace you this close to the start of the season.”

  “Yeah, that’s the only reason you want to keep me alive. The hiring process is a bitch. Hey, speaking of hooking up, have you given any thought to your own love life this summer, now that you’re single? Oh, maybe this will be the year you finally get with Matteo?”

  Cara laughed so hard she snorted. “I believe Matteo is damaged goods, Miss Drunken Fling 2009. Not interested. Plus, when we were eleven, he wiped a booger on me. That sealed his fate for all eternity. I will never be attracted to him.”

  Matteo was the only other kid in her grade at the school she attended during the two years she and her mother lived on the island. They were best friends back then, and remained quite close throughout the years. But she always considered him to be more like an annoying brother, which made him off-limits and irrevocably unattractive, even if he hadn’t carried on a two-week love affair with her cousin.

  “Ok, fine, not Booger Boy. Still, it would be nice to find you a fun fling, since that didn’t actually happen on our trip. I don’t expect you to just get over Phillip, but, come on, I know you. You need someone to kick start your love life, get some of your needs met, if you know what I mean. Have a fling, or find a rebound guy you can date all summer and then dump in September. Maybe there’s some potential at the Village Hotel? I think Bernie is bringing in a couple of new staffers. Or the ferry brothers are both single, if a little young. You could be a cougar. Or what’s the name of that steelworker over on Gallery Row that always flirts with you?”

  “Or how about none of them? I’m not ready to move on. You know that.” She would have been, maybe, if the man she was interested in reciprocated that interest. But he hadn’t called.

  I’m the only one who will ever love you. Phil’s voice jumped unbidden into her head again, and she closed her eyes and shook her head, determined to ignore him.

  Chapter Six

  Sevilla, Spain, November 2010

  It is another post-tourist season trip. This year both Cara and Amy have temp jobs starting in January. Flush with cash from a summer saving on Whispering Pines, plus some good contract work through Amy’s marketing business, they have decided to spend their break in Europe. It is not their first time, so they have lots of friends to visit and things to do. Right now, they are in Sevilla, where Kelsey, one of Amy’s old roommates, lives.

  They take turns choosing what to do when they travel. The morning is up to Cara, and she chooses to spend it in the Parque de María Luisa, her with her sketchbook, Amy with sunglasses to hide the fact that she is napping.

  Cara has always liked to draw, though she’s not talented enough to make a career out of it. She had a show once in the community center on Whispering Pines, which was thrilling but not at all lucrative. It doesn’t matter. She does it because she enjoys it; it’s a relaxing hobby, and a fun way of documenting her life. Her current passion is drawing the foreign landscapes where she and Amy are traveling, but changing the people in them to her loved ones. The older couple by the fountain become her parents, smiling and holding hands. The homeless woman yelling at a flock of doves transforms into her stepmother—petty, but satisfying. A man walks by with a dog, and she quickly sketches him as Matteo and adds several additional dogs to round out Matty’s pack. The tourist snapping photographs of the Mudejar Pavilion is her Uncle Paddy, and the man sitting alone reading a book becomes that executive chef they’ve just promoted, the one with unsettling blue eyes and a strangely disarming smile. And, of course, draped on a bench sleeping with an arm flung dramatically out is her beloved Amy.

  Amy’s nap gives Cara time to finish a rather nice preliminary sketch—she’ll fill in more details later. Eventually, though, Cara gets hungry enough that she nudges her cousin awake so they can go eat lunch.

  Amy always prefers activity to observation, so that afternoon Cara sets aside her pencils and they wander around getting lost in the winding medieval roads of the Barrio Santa Cruz. Now it is nearly evening, and time to meet Kelsey for drinks followed by a late dinner. They leave the Barrio and are arguing about the fastest way to get to their meeting spot when, from the corner of her eye, Cara sees a man stepping off the curb into the path of a bus. The bus is not stopping. She is close, no more than an arm’s l
ength away, and she is fast enough to knock the man over onto the sidewalk and keep him out of the road.

  Ten cuidado, amigo, be careful friend, she tells him in Spanish, and he stares at her, holding his head. She suspects he hit it on the ground. She looks for assistance, and a police officer who saw what happened comes running over. She speaks to him rapidly in Spanish, makes sure the man is getting help, and jumps into a taxi that Amy somehow managed to hail. They make it to their destination, and the incident is largely forgotten.

  The next day, Cara and Amy are supposed to join Kelsey again, this time at a bar popular with foreigners. Kelsey wants to introduce them to some American tourists, friends of her cousin or some distant relation who happen to be in the area. The O’Connells are running late, which is not unusual for them. Amy met a man at a club the night before, and they are having a little trouble ditching him. That sometimes happens with Amy; she is too friendly for her own good.

  When they arrive, they can’t find Kelsey. Presumably, she remembers they are always late and planned accordingly, so the cousins order drinks and go sit at a table to wait. There are a lot of American accents in the bar, and they shamelessly eavesdrop on other conversations. One is particularly interesting: at a table near them, a man is telling the story of a beautiful Spanish woman who saved his life and then disappeared. “She may have been an angel,” the man says, seemingly seriously, and his friends laugh.

  “She can’t be an actual angel. I got her picture. See,” says one of the other men, the loudest of the group. He is holding an extremely large and expensive digital camera, one that Cara suspects will be stolen before the end of his trip. “I was taking shots of the crowd. This is her, right, getting into this taxi?”

  Another American voice. “No, that’s her.”

  “That’s what I said, that’s her, look at the picture.”

  “No, I mean that’s her. Hey Phil, your Spanish girl is at that table right over there.”

  Cara suddenly realizes the men are talking about her. She and Amy exchange a look, she raises an eyebrow, Amy subtly nods, and they wordlessly agree, yes, they are Spanish.

  The man named Phil comes over to their table, staring at her almost reverently. No one has ever looked at Cara like this before. He is handsome, she notices, and his eyes are kind.

  “You saved my life,” he tells her.

  Cara smiles pleasantly, tipping her head to the side and giving him a quizzical look. Amy just looks perplexed. They don’t speak a word of English.

  Phil blushes. “I’m sorry, no Spanish. Ummm . . . habla inglés? Ummm . . .” He glances helplessly at his friends. None of them speak the language either, and so one of them resorts to the American trick of increasing his volume to make his English more understandable.

  Amy shakes her head, shrugs, and casually gestures to the now-empty wineglasses on their table. This, the Americans understand, and one of them immediately heads to the bar, coming back with more drinks. “I didn’t know white or red, so I got two of each.” He holds up four glasses shouting loudly, “WHITE AND RED!”

  Cara takes both reds, “Vino tinto,” she corrects gently. “Gracias.”

  Amy takes the whites, pours them together into one very full glass and begins to drink. “Cierra la puerta, por que yo no tengo naranjas,” she tells them in a friendly tone. She speaks French and some Mandarin, but not Spanish, that’s Cara’s language. But it doesn’t matter. The men don’t understand that she told them to shut the door because she doesn’t have oranges. The cousins could say whatever they want; these men would never notice.

  Phil is still trying to speak to them. He runs a hand through his hair, and Cara represses the sudden urge to reach out and smooth it back down. “Ummm . . . my friend um, my amiga is coming, and she’ll translate. I just want to thank you for saving me. THANK YOU!”

  “De nada,” Cara replies, saluting him with one of her wine glasses. She doesn’t know how much longer she can do this. Amy’s face is turning red, and she looks like she’s about to choke.

  Kelsey arrives and starts making her way over to them. “Oh, you’ve already found each other,” she says in surprise.

  “Yes, we found her. This is the Spanish woman who saved me yesterday,” Phil tells her excitedly. “You have to translate for me. Tell her she’s beautiful and amazing, and I owe her my life.”

  Kelsey looks at the cousins and back at Phil. “The Spanish woman . . .” she repeats doubtfully, looking at Cara.

  Amy finally cracks and starts laughing hysterically.

  Cara gives up the charade and offers Kelsey the second glass of red wine. “Here, you may as well take this,” she says, and it takes the men a moment to notice that she is speaking English. “Wait, Kels, are these the Americans you wanted us to meet?”

  Chapter Seven

  Whispering Pines, May 2013

  On Sam’s third night back, Paddy invited his five full-time staffers to a night out before the season started. It would likely be the only time all of them would be able to hang out away from the inn together. They went to The Digs, the island’s only real bar. It was still uncrowded this time of year, but Sam knew that in a couple of weeks it would be near impossible to snag a table there.

  Sam was happy for the opportunity to go out. He hadn’t had any time with Cara, had hardly seen her really, since she spent her days in the inn’s office doing paperwork while he was busy preparing the restaurant kitchen. He thought maybe a night of drinking would loosen things up, and maybe give him the courage to say what he wanted to say. He managed to maneuver his way into sitting next to her at the table, and he shamelessly kept ‘accidentally’ bumping his leg into hers.

  “So is this everybody?” Tyrell asked, looking around the table.

  Sam had been surprised to meet him when he arrived. Nobody told him they were getting a new employee. Apparently, Hannah, who had worked with them for the past two summers, accepted a permanent position elsewhere, and Tyrell had been hired to replace her.

  “We’re the important ones,” Amy told him. “Sammy has a kitchen staff and some waitresses, but they’re all part-time. And we have housekeeping, of course, and a couple of on-call people who fill in, but again, part-time. We’re the ones who put in a million hours a week and do all the real work.”

  “Amy is bad at math,” Paddy reassured Tyrell. “I don’t work you that hard. Slightly less than a million hours a week. But your schedule will be packed and irregular. That’s why I give you room and board on top of salary. It’s to make up for all the uncompensated overtime. Trust me, you’ll all earn your end-of-season bonuses.”

  Sato returned from the bar balancing a pitcher of beer and a stack of glasses. He looked softer than Sam remembered. He’d gained a little weight and had an overall countenance of contentment. “I don’t get room and board. You should give me a raise,” he said, joining the conversation.

  “Nice try. You can move back into the staff house whenever you want. And don’t think I don’t know how much you eat.” Paddy began pouring the drinks.

  “Not happening. Sato snores. Tyrell doesn’t.” Sam crossed his arms and leaned back, bumping into Cara’s arm. “I’m perfectly happy with the arrangements this year.”

  They discussed business for a while, planning out the upcoming season. There were several weddings scheduled, and the entire property was almost fully booked from mid-June to mid-August. Finally, Paddy finished all the logistics he wanted to go over, and announced he was heading home, to his little cottage behind the inn.

  “Drink all night, do whatever you want,” he told them, “But I already told Timmy not to put it on my tab.”

  “Not even my drinks? But we’re family!” Cara exclaimed in mock horror.

  Paddy pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and threw it at her. “That should get you drunk, my dear. Goodnight, everyone be safe.”

  “He seems like a good boss,” Tyrell commented as they watched him depart.

  “He is, and we need to listen to
him,” Amy announced. “Paddy said he wants us to drink all night, so let’s get started. Cara, you buying the next round? I know you can afford it.”

  “Actually, she’s not.” Sato told them all. “And I’m not paying for any drinks either. Anyone who didn’t bother to come to my wedding is buying for everybody tonight. You owe me. Even you Ty, and I don’t care that you didn’t know me then.”

  “Hey, I was working in Thailand,” Amy protested. “I couldn’t get time off, but I sent a gift. That should count for something.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll buy the next round.” Sam stood, but before he walked to the bar, he leaned over as close to Cara as he dared to get and whispered loudly. “Lend me twenty bucks?”

  She turned to look at him and for the first time he was able to see that under her tan she appeared tired and her eyes lacked their usual sparkle. Her smile was still sweet though.

  “Oh, Sam, if you don’t have the money, tell Tim to send the bill to the inn. I’ll be happy to deduct it from your first paycheck.”

  When Sam came back with drinks, he saw that he had been replaced. There was a blond man in his seat, leaning back with an arm draped all too familiarly across the back of Cara’s chair. Damn it, Matteo, he thought in irritation.

  “Hey, Sammy, welcome back,” Matteo greeted him. “I’m taking Cara and Ty out kayaking tomorrow. Want to come? We could use a fourth.” Matteo owned Cap’n Rentals, offering bikes and kayaks for rent as well as guided tours. He was a true local, born and raised on the island. Sam always liked hanging out with him, but he couldn’t help but be annoyed that Matteo had usurped his proximity to Cara.

  Although the outing sounded fun, Sam couldn’t join them. He had too much work. He and Paddy had been going over menus, and he had some experimenting and perfecting that he wanted to do. There was a lot of prep that went into reopening a seasonal restaurant.