The Stranger

by Anna del Mar

  “You know, missy,” Alex said, loud enough for me to hear. “It never does anybody any good to slam the door shut.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said over my shoulder, trudging on. “Consider this door slammed in your face. Oh, yeah, and by the way, Alex? Rot in hell.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It was a day of traps. The harder I fought to get to Summer, the harder other people fought to get to me. No sooner had the governor and I finished talking, than the CEOs of several of the oil companies corralled me in the garden. I dealt with them as quickly as I could, but Grandmother waited for me at the fountain, the only way out of the rose garden. I considered jumping the hedges, then decided against it. Running from natural predators only triggered the chase instinct.

  “How did it go with the governor?” She took my arm and walked with me, silver hair shifting in the wind, steps strong, mind sharp as ever.

  “The contract is ready to go.” I scoured the crowd for Summer. “We sign tomorrow.”

  “Lovely work.” She waved a delicate hand to greet someone from afar. “I do like to see you in action. Are you ready for the board meeting?”

  “Have I ever not been prepared for a meeting before?”

  “No, but there’s a lot going on,” she said in her best didactic tone. “This meeting is very important. I don’t want you to succumb to distractions.”

  “Distractions?” I realized what she meant. “You’re talking about Summer, aren’t you?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “Aren’t you looking for her as we speak?”

  I took the fifth on that one. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Summer since I’d met her. The attraction intensified with each hour that passed. The last few days had been particularly difficult. When she was far, I felt deprived, as if the air lacked enough oxygen to power my lungs. Talking to her on the phone or seeing her on a screen wasn’t nearly as satisfying as touching her or breathing in her scent.

  Christ, I was screwed. I got hard just thinking about her. I wanted to be in bed with her right now, kissing her mouth, drinking her pleasure, plugged into her body, charging my need with hers. My craving for her was distracting, overriding, overpowering. For the past few days, I’d been miserable knowing that she was in my home and I wasn’t. And now, it drove me insane that she and I were in the same location and yet we weren’t together right this minute.

  “Is this Summer person something we need to worry about?” Grandma asked.

  “She’s not something,” I said. “She’s someone. She’s also my business, not yours.”

  “Interesting.” Grandma smiled at a group of guests as we passed. “Summer said something similar to me. She’s not one to mince words. She’s her own breed, very odd, outspoken. I find her...vexing.”

  “Vexing?” I stifled a laugh. “Yes, I suppose you’d find someone like Summer vexing, but I need you to be nice to Summer.”

  The look she gave me could’ve iced my bone marrow. “The most important board meeting of your life is coming up. You don’t ask me to support your initiatives, pledge you my votes, or help you put to rest the assorted variety of rumors going around. Instead, you ask me to be nice to this Summer person who popped out of nowhere.”

  “You won’t support anyone’s initiatives unless you believe in them,” I said. “You vote strictly on financial performance and you know the rumors aren’t true. Why bother? I’m asking you to do something for me, personally, something you could do, if you wanted to. I’d like to have a fair shot at Summer. I can’t do that if you scare the hell out of her.”

  “Oh, please.” Grandma rolled her eyes. “Anyone wanting to join our family needs to have a backbone.”

  “Join our family?” Shit. “Tell me you didn’t say those words to Summer.”

  “Why are you so upset?”

  “Because anyone wanting to join our family would need to be certifiably insane.” I glared. “Which is why I would really appreciate it if you didn’t bring up the subject with my girlfriend. She barely knows me.”

  “And she isn’t particularly interested in marriage, I know.”

  Why the statement stung like a lick of fire was beyond me. “She told you that?”

  “Indeed,” Grandma said. “She seemed quite spooked by the idea of it. If her attitude is any indication, we won’t be seeing any green-eyed Erickson babies out of her belly anytime soon.”

  “Grandma!” I wanted to strangle her. “Please tell me you didn’t mention marriage or babies to Summer!”

  “I did nothing wrong,” Grandma said. “I’d like to see you settled with a proper wife and a brood of children before I die. As to the rest, I do approve.”

  I more or less snarled. “You approve of what?”

  “Of a girl that covets you and not your money,” Grandma said. “Of a woman who doesn’t want you for your name, but loves you.”

  The air rushed out of my lungs. Had I been flying, I might have crash-landed on the spot. I was stunned. Had my grandmother just said what I thought I heard?

  “You think she loves me?”

  Grandma’s bright blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “Seth, dear, she’s crazy about you. I’m certain of it. Your grandfather didn’t marry me for my good looks only. She loves you. Why else would she defend you like a lioness protecting her cub? She flew all the way out to the Golov’s to get a jar of pickled fish.”

  She had done that.

  “A feisty soul like her, making a supreme effort to hold her tongue while facing a bitch like me, for as long as she did?” Grandma let out a throaty laugh. “It’s a feat of love, I tell you, whether she knows it or not.”

  It was the best news I’d had all day and, coming from a reliable source, it was news I could trust.

  “Sorry if I seemed cranky earlier,” I mumbled.

  “What I do for you,” she said, “what I do for all of you is for your benefit only.”

  “I know.”

  She cupped my cheek in her porcelain-white hand. “But do you really know?”

  My lips twitched. “I wouldn’t put up with the bullshit if I didn’t think it so.”

  “Seth!” Ally called out, scampering to meet up with us. “Where have you been? You’re not answering your cell. I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  “You found me.” I reached out to steady her as she teetered on her heels. “Why are you in such a tipsy?”

  “It’s Summer,” she said, holding her side and bending over her knees to catch her breath.

  My mind went instantly on high alert. “What about Summer? Is she all right? Didn’t I tell you to look after her?”

  “It’s not easy to keep track of Summer.” Ally wheezed. “She doesn’t follow instructions. If you look away for one sec, she’s gone and in some sort of trouble.”

  “Oh, dear,” Grandma said. “She does breed trouble, that one.”

  “Besides,” Ally said, still gasping for air. “After dinner, I thought she was with you.”

  “She’s not with me.” I looked around us. “Where the hell is she?”

  “She was down by the north overlook a few minutes ago,” Ally said. “You’re not going to believe what she did. Alex cornered her—”

  “Alex?” My blood pressure shot up.

  “He was looking for trouble,” Ally said. “Gina was there too, saying all kinds of rude and inappropriate things. Alex was being a jackass.”

  Son of a bitch.

  “But Summer, she told him—no—she told everybody that...” She looked at Grandma, hesitated then clammed up.

  “What?” I said.

  “Come on,” Grandma said. “What did she tell Alex and the others?”

  “You may not want to hear this,” Ally cautioned.

  “Don’t be silly,” Grandma said.r />
  “What did Summer say?” I demanded.

  Ally took a deep breath. “She told everyone you were sweet, wonderful, and smart.”

  “She did?” A stupid grin tickled the corners of my lips.

  “That’s not all,” Ally said. “She also told everyone that you were an extraordinary lover. She told Alex you made her come seven times in a row.”

  Well, funny shit. Summer Silva had my back. The grin overtook my face and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Grandma tsked. “Whatever happened to privacy, good manners, and polite conversation?”

  Ally started to speak. “But Grandma...”

  “Quiet!” Grandma snapped. “I didn’t ask for your opinion. Seth, that Summer child is insolent, sassy, and...gutsy.” She squared her shoulders. “That impertinent girlfriend of yours just scored a PR coup that money can’t buy. Don’t let it go to waste.”

  Hell, yeah. I agreed. From now on, there would be no more time wasted.

  * * *

  I thought of myself as a simple guy. I was on or off, good or bad, smart or dumb. But as I made my way through the crowds in an effort to find Summer, my emotions broiled and my mood swung between joy, awe, and fear. Fear because in confronting Alex, Summer had risked his anger. Christ help me, she might never learn to assess danger’s intangibles. Awe because her reactions to challenges never ceased to amaze me. Joy because she was on my side. It wasn’t my imagination. Grandma had said so. A guy as lucky as I was, even one with thickened scars, singed lungs and numbed skin, ought to be able to do something with all of that.

  I pulled out my cell and called Summer. No answer. Was she mad at me for abandoning her to her means? Hell, if she was, I couldn’t blame her. At least I had some options. The big house was one of the safest places in Alaska, but just in case, I’d assigned a few security agents to watch over Summer at the party.

  Status? I texted.

  The reply came back in seconds. Lighthouse.

  What the hell was Summer doing at the lighthouse? Was it even safe out there?

  I shook hands and greeted guests as I made my way through the gardens, but I disentangled myself from any potential conversations before they began. I needed to find Summer.

  I stomped down the old path and through the woods. I hadn’t been at the lighthouse in years. I remembered going there when I was younger to visit with Uncle Ben. After the lighthouse had been decommissioned, he’d used it as his private retreat.

  The tower rose from the rocky inlet at the end of the causeway. As I approached, one of my agents stepped out from the trees, smartly dressed and indistinguishable from the rest of the guests.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Erickson.”

  “Good afternoon,” I said. “Everything in order?”

  “The area is clear and the perimeter secured.”

  “Keep it that way.” I marched across the causeway, where the surf rustled against the rocks and a heap of fat seals basked like bloated sausages under the sun.

  I strode onto the ground floor. It was like stepping back in time. Uncle Ben’s furnishings filled the place, mid-century refined, dust-free, polished, and lovingly maintained. Robert’s doing, I was sure, with Grandma’s blessing. The comfy couch, the antique daybed, and the shelves full of mystery books were exactly as I remembered.

  A door creaked upstairs.

  “Summer?” I called out.

  No answer.

  I tackled the steep spiraling steps, all two hundred of them. The clang of my feet pounding on metal echoed in the hollowed heights. The fast climb made me suck in for air a little. The stairs ended at the top floor. I took in the circular room, where the glass windows showcased the spectacular three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views.

  In his time, Uncle Ben had affixed a wood tabletop to the concrete stump where the light had once been mounted, converting it into a game table. I ran my fingers over the table, where an elaborate map of Alaska was finely etched in the wood.

  One moment, my hand trailed the etching on the table. The next moment, it was Mom’s long and delicate hand tracing the map as she, Dad, and Uncle Ben sat around the table, laughing over a game of cards.

  The flashback took me by surprise. I remembered that day. I’d been around twelve. We were watching the whales bubble-net feeding in the sound. I’d been on lookout duty, working the binoculars, trying to identify my favorite whale by the markings on her fluke, a female born to the sound matriarch in the same year I was born.

  “You’ll find her,” my mother said. “Have no doubt about it.”

  A second image from my past took shape, also reflected on the glass windows. I walked into the ready room in Afghanistan, where my crew was engaged in a fierce game of cards. Shawn, my copilot, and Jonesy, my flight engineer, were locked in a poker duel.

  “Gents,” I said. “I hate to interrupt, but special ops needs a chariot and we’re it.”

  “Drop-off or pickup?” Shawn asked.

  “Pickup,” I said. “Hot zone, narrow canyon, going in dark.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun,” Jonesy said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Gear up,” I said. “Let’s go get our boys.”

  “I’ve got an awesome hand here.” Shawn threw a couple of chips on the table. “I’m not folding.”

  “I’m not folding either.” Jonesy upped his bet and set his cards facedown on the table. “I’ll see you when we get back.”

  An explosion jarred my mind. My heart raced. My forehead broke out into a sweat. Simultaneously, a plane crashed into the North Tower and an RPG slammed into my Pave Hawk. When I next knew it, my heart lodged in my throat and my friends and families lay in a smoldering heap of ashes and smoke.

  The images were so vivid they felt real. My lungs were on fire. I clung to the edge of the table and dug my nails into the wood, fighting to stay on my feet. The world as I knew it ended in a double whammy.

  “Seth?” Summer’s voice called out of the darkness. “Seth! Are you all right?”

  I forced myself to inhale and focus. Summer stood by the glass door leading out to the metal platform, with her face flushed by the cold and a cream shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her dress gathered the light streaming through the windows, showed off her slender figure and showcased her legs’ elegant mileage. But it was her stare that shocked me. Her eyes reflected the grief in my soul. She couldn’t see the images etched in my mind, but she could sense the sorrow in my heart.

  She was on me in three steps. Her arms Velcroed around me. Her embrace felt like a bulletproof vest. The sight of her dispelled the smoke darkening my mind. Her scent, vanilla beans and coconut milk, challenged the stink of ashes and burning flesh.

  “We can’t do anything about the past,” she whispered, her breath warm against my neck. “But maybe we can do something about the present.”

  I looked down at her. “Something like what?”

  “Maybe we can make new memories,” she said, “good memories, to replace the bad ones that show up in your eyes sometimes.”

  I liked the sound of that.

  I clung to her until the memories ebbed. I hated myself for the weakness, but I was glad for both her company and her silence. Words were useless. Her embrace, on the other hand, soothed the old grief and gave me the time and space I needed to regain control of my emotions.

  “I’ve been looking for you all over,” I said, after a little while. “Why did you come out here?”

  “I needed a break.”

  “Sorry.” I gathered her hands and rubbed her cold fingers between mine. “But Summer, I don’t want you talking to Alex. He’s an asshole and he’s not safe.”

  “I can handle Alex,” she said. “I put him in his place.”

  “I heard about that.”

 
She had the grace to blush. “I guess it wasn’t up to Erickson standards, but Alex made me so mad! And that Gina witch. I swear, the things that came out of her mouth pissed me off majorly.”

  “I don’t care what she said.”

  “But...”

  “But what?”

  Summer winced. “She’s so beautiful.”

  The doubt in her eyes punched me in the gut. Summer was jealous. Jealous! Part of me was profoundly flattered. The other part was stunned. Summer was jealous of Gina?

  “Gina might be flashy on the outside,” I said. “But she’s empty inside. That’s why it never worked out between us.”

  “But the things she said about you...”

  “I’ve heard them before and, if it helped her walk away, I can deal with it. If Alex wants that sort of hollowness in his life, by all means. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  Summer’s eyebrows spiked on her forehead. “Really?”

  “Really.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. “If you could look into my head, you’d know by the sheer amount of real estate you occupy in my brain that there can be no possible comparison. I never wanted her, whereas you, I always want you.”

  Her eyes shone brighter than any lighthouse in the world. She bracketed my face with her hands, gaze filled with emotions that echoed the ones cramming my heart and squeezing my throat.

  “Seth?” she said softly. “You don’t say much, but when you do, you really know how to knock it out of the ballpark.”

  Were those tears welling in her eyes? “Then why the hell are you crying?”

  “Because I’m so happy.” She flashed a crooked little smile. “Because I’m so afraid.”

  “Afraid?” I said. “Of what?”

  Her lips quivered. “Can we be?”

  “Summer, baby.” I traced the line of her jaw with my fingertips and followed it to her chin, which I tilted slightly to ensure a touch-and-go, the smooth, brief landing of my mouth over hers. “We are.”

  She ran her lips together as if savoring the quick brush. “Do you always know what to say?”

  “Hell, no.” I removed the shawl from her shoulders and set it aside. “But sometimes, I know what to do.”