That Last Summer (Whispering Pines Island Book 1)

by Sara LaFontain

  “I’ll go,” Sato volunteered. “I just need to check with my wife first.”

  “Check with your wife? Oh, Sato, you’ve changed,” Amy teased.

  “You wish you had someone to check with,” Sato retorted with a grin. He really did appear happier than ever before.

  Married life suited him, Sam thought, with a brief pang of envy.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” Matteo said sorrowfully. “You should have seen this guy. All winter, I couldn’t drag him out to do anything. Marriage is a killer.” He jerked suddenly, like he had been kicked under the table, and his faux-sorrow transformed into a guilty expression. “Sorry Cara, I didn’t mean that.”

  Her smile appeared strained. “Don’t worry about it.” She turned to Ty. “So, Ty, you’ve been here four days. What do you think of our little island so far?”

  “It’s not that little,” Ty replied. “I know I need to do everything possible to learn this place before the guests arrive, but I’m worn out. Paddy sent me out on the hiking trails all day, and now my leg hurts. It’ll be nice to sit down and paddle tomorrow instead.”

  “The real one or the robot one?” Amy asked innocently.

  Tyrell demonstrated his ability to deliver a spectacular eye-roll. “For the millionth time, it’s not a robot leg. Those don’t exist. It’s just a prosthetic. It doesn’t do anything.”

  “That’s what he thinks.” Amy shook her head and looked at the others. “One day, when the robot wars start, he’s going to be surprised as to what side he’s on and how little control he has over it.”

  “Oh, Amy, quit teasing the new guy,” Cara chastised, but before Ty could thank her she added, “You’ll want to be on his good side when the robots make us their pets.”

  “I’ll make you my pet,” Matteo leered, and everybody but Sam laughed. “No, I’m kidding. I don’t even want to joke about it. When you broke off our engagement, you broke my heart, Cara.”

  “Shut up Matteo!” Amy snapped immediately.

  “You two were engaged? I thought …” Tyrell started to ask, but that was the point when Cara punched Matteo in the arm and called him a liar.

  “What? It’s true,” Matteo insisted. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember.”

  “I remember,” Amy said. “I remember how much trouble you got in for giving your mom’s engagement ring away.”

  “I don’t think I’m familiar with this story,” Sam looked from Matteo to Cara. He’d never heard anything about them being involved. He knew Matteo hooked up with Amy once—he bragged about that encounter every year—but Cara, too? How many broken engagements did she have?

  Cara rolled her eyes and focused on Ty. “I lived here for a couple of years as a kid, and when I was eleven and my mom and I were moving back to Midland, Matteo took his mother’s engagement ring from her jewelry box, gave it to me, and said that if I came back to the island, he was going to marry me. Believe me, I did not say yes.” Matteo started to protest, but she cut him off. “And then once we were there, I took the ring to school to show Amy. She said it wasn’t a real diamond, and we needed to test it by cutting glass.”

  Amy shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Yeah, until you said we had to pry the stone out and use the bottom of it—”

  “That was the sharpest part!”

  “Maybe, but how would we know since you dropped the damn thing on the gravel playground?”

  “Wait,” Sam interrupted. “You lost the stone for Matteo’s mom’s ring?”

  “Oh, it gets better,” Cara continued. “When I got home from school that day, my mom asked for the ring because Mrs. Capen called and said I stole it.”

  “I eventually told the truth,” Matteo interjected.

  “Yeah, but first I got in trouble. And my mom was furious when I gave her the ring without the stone.”

  “Well, I was grounded for a month, and my parents made me sell my bike and my brand-new kayak to pay for a new stone, so it was worse for me,” Matteo countered.

  “But, wait, the story gets better,” Amy continued. “Four years later, my little sister Mandi came home from school all excited because she found a crystal on the playground, and it was that goddamn diamond. But since Matteo already had bought a replacement, we kept it. I think it’s still in my jewelry box back home.”

  “Seriously?” Tyrell looked skeptically from Amy to Matteo. “I was believing you up until your sister found the stone.”

  “Oh, every word is true,” Cara promised. “Especially the part where I rejected Matteo.”

  “Yeah, you brag about that too much. Breaks my heart.” Matteo shook his head morosely. Then he cheered up surprisingly quickly for a man who had just been reminded of perpetual rejection. “Doesn’t matter. There are hundreds of women out there looking for some island loving. Ty, are you single? Sammy and I have had a lot of success here. The tourists love us, right buddy?”

  He tried to high-five Sam, but Sam shook his head and left him hanging. He felt the need to defend himself. “Hey, I’ve had no success lately. At least, not at getting what I really want.” He carefully looked at Cara when he said it, but she had turned to say something to Amy and didn’t seem to notice.

  Later, when Matteo went home to walk his dogs, Sam, Sato, and Tyrell moved to stools at the bar and leaned against it to watch as Amy and Cara started doing shots.

  “Those girls can drink,” Tyrell commented.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Tim the bartender told them conspiratorially. “Every time Amy comes up to buy a round, she gets vodka for Cara and tap water for herself. She doesn’t want to get too drunk, but she wants Cara to enjoy herself. Meanwhile, Cara thinks she’s going to have to take care of drunk Amy later, so she’s doing the exact same thing. Neither of them knows it.”

  “You going to tell them?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Tim shrugged. “They tip well, so I’ll probably keep my mouth shut on this one.”

  Tyrell observed them with amusement. “Are they always like this? I need to know what I’m getting into, working here this summer. I’ve never lived with women before. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Nah, they’re just blowing off some steam,” Sam said. “Once tourist season starts they work pretty hard and don’t have time for stuff like this. None of us do.”

  “Yeah,” Tim chimed in. “He’s right. Summers are busy. My bar gets packed, especially during the Fourth of July weekend, and around PrideFest.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I just read an article about that,” Tyrell nodded. “So it’s a good one?”

  “PrideFest?” Tim put his elbows on the bar and leaned closer. “Yeah, it’s fantastic. Lots of fun people, and it’s family friendly. That’s what brought me here. Came for the festival, fell in love with the island, and bought the bar. I’ve been here ever since.”

  “Oh yeah?” Tyrell turned around on his stool to face the bartender. “Were you staying because of the island or because you met someone special?”

  At that point, Sam tuned them out. As much as he enjoyed attending the annual celebrations, spending hours at a grill for a barbeque did not appeal to him nearly as much as creating refined dishes in his well-appointed kitchen. He thought of grilling as a craft, and he preferred cooking as an art.

  He watched Amy come back for another round, and wondered when he would finally be able to talk to Cara. Would it be tonight? Or should he wait until she was sober?

  Sato clinked his beer against Sam’s, interrupting his train of thought. “Cheers, man. I didn’t get the chance to say welcome back. Glad you came.”

  “Me, too,” Sam smiled. “I think it’s going to be a good summer. Hey, listen, I should apologize for missing your wedding.”

  “No worries, I know it’s tough to travel mid-season.” Sato waved a hand dismissively. “I understand. You were busy at the resort. Wedding was beautiful though. I’m not usually into that kind of thing, but Paddy set everything up, and at
a discount, too. I think he was using it as a test run.”

  “A test run for what? We have weddings here all the time. Didn’t he say there are ten this summer?”

  “You didn’t hear?” Sato gave him a quizzical look. “Paddy’s thinking about staying open year-round. Only on weekends, I think.”

  Sam was surprised. Throughout the inn’s ninety-year history it had always only been open from May to September. After that, the tourist trade dried up and most of the businesses on the island shut down. The summer residents and workers left, and only the hardiest locals stayed to endure the long, cold winter. It never seemed feasible to Sam that they would decide to stay open longer.

  “That would be . . . interesting.” Sam wondered about the restaurant, and what that would mean for his own job security. If they were open all year, they wouldn’t need a seasonal chef, would they?

  “It’ll be great for me.” Sato grinned. “You know how work dries up around here in the winter, and I need to earn some more money. I’m going to have a family to support soon. It’s not just the inn, either. The Village Council has been meeting to discuss details a lot lately. Matteo, you won’t be surprised to hear, is strongly in favor of winter tourism. I think he gets lonely. But yeah, the hotel, the bed and breakfasts, everywhere but the campgrounds are excited about the idea. Paddy’s thinking winter weddings, company retreats, and they’ve all been talking about a holiday festival. I think Amy’s going to help set that up. You know her. She’s already halfway through designing some sort of marketing campaign.”

  Sam continued watching Cara and Amy. They were playing darts and laughing with some people Sam recognized as summer employees from the Village Hotel. He idly wondered if those employees were considering sticking around for the winter. This might change everything. This really could be his last summer on the island. He needed to make it count.

  Chapter Eight

  “Whiskey?” Even though it was barely mid-morning, Paddy didn’t wait for an answer. He poured a glass and slid it across the desktop to Sam.

  They were in his office behind the lobby reception desk where he conducted all his business. Most of his business seemed to be delegating things to Cara and drinking whiskey. Sam liked meeting with him there to discuss menus, food orders, and, of course, Paddy’s favorite subject, island gossip.

  “I’m glad you changed your mind and came back,” Paddy said. “I need you in the kitchen. Plus, Cara doesn’t sit in my office and drink whiskey with me. Doesn’t like it. I even got rum for her once, and she was all, ‘Uncle Paddy, I’m not going to sit here drinking straight rum with you when we need to go over these accounts.’” He delivered the last bit in a prim falsetto that sounded nothing like Cara.

  Sam laughed. “You need to work on your impressions. You didn’t sound nearly Texan enough.”

  “I save my best Southern accent for when I’m quoting Amy. It annoys them both more that way.” Paddy took another sip of whiskey. “Listen, before we start going over menu plans, we’re going to have a little talk about Cara. I want to make sure that whatever sourness was happening between you last year is over. I can’t have my general manager and executive chef not speaking to each other.”

  “Everything is fine,” Sam promised. “Seriously.” Privately, he thought he wasn’t the one with a problem last summer. Sure, he’d stopped speaking to Cara, but she was avoiding him anyway, so it didn’t matter. It hardly counted as not speaking to someone if they weren’t around to notice.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened between the two of you?” Paddy folded his arms across his chest and looked at Sam appraisingly.

  Sam almost felt like he was back in high school, sitting in the principal’s office, waiting to find out his punishment. He looked down at his hands and didn’t respond, unsure of what he should say.

  After a long moment, Paddy slapped his hand down on the desktop, making his framed pictures jump. “Damn it, she wouldn’t tell me either. You know I like gossip.”

  Sam sighed. He did not want to have this conversation with his boss. “Look, Paddy, it wasn’t a big deal. I just told Cara that I thought marrying Phil would be a mistake, and she disagreed with me. We argued over it. That was all.” Obviously, that wasn’t all, but it was all he was willing to say.

  “Oh, well in that case …” Paddy topped off Sam’s glass. “You said what we were all thinking. I knew she wasn’t actually going to marry that guy. So did Amy. We had a bet going as to whether Cara would ever start planning the wedding. I lost, by the way. I tried really hard to get her to ask me to host it here, but she never took the bait, and now I owe Amy a case of wine. Under the circumstances though, she’s not tried to collect. Did you have a chance to meet Phil when he visited here last summer?”

  “Oh, I met him.” Sam almost laughed at the memory. Phil was pretentious and possessive, and Sam rather enjoyed needling him. “He didn’t seem like Cara’s type.”

  “No, no he didn’t.” Paddy shook his head. “It’s a shame what happened to him though.” Sam was about to ask for details about the breakup, but thought the better of it. He decided he’d rather give Cara the opportunity to talk about it herself.

  Paddy changed the subject. “Hey, did you have fun at the bar last night? What do you think of your new roommate?”

  “Tyrell?” asked Sam. “What’s not to like? He’s easygoing and he makes his bed every morning. And he doesn’t put up with any of Amy’s nonsense, so I think he’ll be a good fit here.”

  Paddy leaned forward. “Don’t tell anyone I asked this, but does he take off his leg when he goes to bed? That’s not the kind of thing I can ask directly, right? I was just wondering about that.”

  “He takes it off. But I don’t think he’d mind you asking.” Tyrell had been surprisingly open about the mechanics of his prosthetic limb, though he was rather reticent about the accident that caused him to need it. Despite Amy’s multiple attempts, all he would reveal was that he deployed with two good legs and came back with one.

  “You know who I got him for, right? Did you figure it out?” Paddy asked, pouring himself yet another whiskey. “Hey, next time you come in for a meeting, bring a bucket of ice so we can drink this properly.”

  “Got him for? What?” Sam had no idea what Paddy was talking about.

  “I’m a matchmaker, Sam. I’ve owned this inn for almost thirty years and I’ve fixed up dozens of my staffers. I always know. It’s like Sato and Margaux. I hired him for her, and look what happened. That’s why I always made him do the bakery runs instead of you.”

  “Sato has worked for you for ten years. And wasn’t Margaux married to someone else for part of that?”

  Paddy winked. “I play the long game, Sam. Love doesn’t always take a direct path.”

  “Alright, I give up. Who’d you get Tyrell for?” Please don’t say Cara, please don’t say Cara.

  “If you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to tell you. I knew the minute I interviewed him. You’ll see though. End of the summer, I bet Tyrell sticks around. Just wait. He’s going to become a permanent resident.”

  Damn it, he must be talking about Cara, if what Sato had said about the winter season was true. Tyrell didn’t just come to replace Hannah as a Guest Services Specialist, he came to replace Phil as a lover. Sam took a deep breath. He was up for the competition.

  Then another thought crossed his mind. “If you’re such a matchmaker, who’d you hire me for?” If not Cara, then who? It certainly couldn’t have been Amy, could it? He watched Paddy’s face.

  Paddy leaned back, and his eyes narrowed before he let out a laugh. “You? Sam, I hired you for Geoffrey. He wanted to retire, and he needed someone he could train as a replacement. Why? Who’d you think?”

  ....................

  After the meeting with Paddy, and drinking some water to combat the whiskey, Sam got back to work. Most of his supplies weren’t in yet—Paddy didn’t want to spend money on fresh ingredients until they were ready to be used—so Sa
m set himself the task of arranging the restaurant seating. During the winter, patio furniture was stored in there, and all of the dining furniture was stacked against the walls covered in sheets. Fortunately, someone already had pulled out the patio furniture, so he started on the tables and chairs. It surprised him when Sato wandered in to help out.

  “I thought you’d decided to go kayaking with everybody else. What are you doing here? Margaux wouldn’t let you go?” Sam teased.

  “Nah, I let Timmy go in my place. I thought he’d have more fun than I would. Besides, who would help you if I went? Not Amy, that’s for sure. She’s not gonna dirty her hands with manual labor.” Sato yanked sheets off and threw them in a pile. Sam had been neatly folding and stacking them because, until he saw Sato’s nonchalant attitude, he had forgotten that they were going to be sent to the laundry rather than stored away for the summer.

  While they worked they chatted a bit, and finally Sam got up the nerve to ask something he was curious about. “Hey Sato,” Sam said, trying to sound casual. “What do you think about me and Cara?”

  “Nope, I’m not playing this game.” Sato tossed another sheet on the pile.

  “What game?”

  “Look man, I’m friends with both of you, plus she’s my boss. Don’t ask me to take sides in whatever you’re fighting about.”

  “I . . . we’re not fighting.”

  “Yes, you are. You guys went from being best friends and hanging out all the time to you completely cutting off contact with her last summer. And don’t deny it, everybody knows. Hell, we were all surprised you came back.”

  “Seriously, we’re not fighting,” Sam assured him, though he honestly wasn’t sure if that was true. He hadn’t really had time to talk to Cara yet and to work things out between them. He planned to though. He was going to take her out to a nice dinner and tell her he meant what he said last summer when he told he loved her, and she’d . . . well, he didn’t know what she’d say, but he had his hopes. “To be honest with you Sato, she’s the reason I came back this year. You know, now that she’s single . . .”