One Distant Summer

by Serena Clarke

  But after Jacinda had woken him the day before with her music, and her dancing, and her wardrobe malfunction, he couldn’t get back to sleep. He’d closed the window and pulled down the blind, trying to block out the brightness of the day, and got back into bed. But the image of her wouldn’t leave his head—curves, tousled hair, flexible body moving to the rhythm…and then, those breasts. Damn it. What he’d never seen as a teenager—what was off limits, even if he’d been bold enough to try—was now burned into his brain. As he lay there, eyes squeezed shut, she swayed and turned in his imagination, and the idea of her made him harden even more, just like it used to.

  At that, he got up and took himself to the shower—a cold shower. There was no way he’d let her have that effect on him. Maybe he could have rationalized it then, as a horny teenager full of newly brewed testosterone, even though it was his brother who’d had her attention.

  But now, after everything…no.

  So here he was, the day after, sitting at the kitchen table before noon, feeling like he’d landed up in a foreign country. His laptop was open in front of him, with the website he was working on, but his mind was not on HTML or anchor text or fixed width layouts. It was on the woman who’d once been the girl who loved and left his brother—and left disaster in her wake.

  He ran his hand through his hair and blew out a gale of air. Eleven thirty, and the summer heat was building along with his thoughts. A beer wouldn’t hurt. He went and grabbed a cold one from the fridge, then wandered out to the living room where, years ago, his parents had replaced one whole wall with a bank of folding glass doors. They’d had some amazing parties here, most of Sweet Breeze Bay’s teenagers hanging out long into the summer nights, he and Ethan playing guitar with the other guys. That one summer Jacinda had been here, she’d sat out with them too, still a bit shy, but embraced into the group. As Nana Mac’s granddaughter she was an honorary local, after all, and in their teenage minds, her American accent gave her an extra point of coolness. He knew she could play guitar too, but she never played in front of anyone. He remembered her throwing a Frisbee like a pro, braiding Riley Dawson’s hair, and laughing with the other girls when the boys goofed around, which was pretty much all the time.

  And he remembered her listening, her eyes soft, the night he and Ethan played her the song they’d written. She had no idea that the lyrics were his, not his brother’s. Ethan sang, and she soaked it up, mesmerized, hypnotized. Ethan was the singer, the consummate performer, and the boyfriend. As the little brother, Liam wasn’t in any position to steal that thunder.

  He glanced at Ethan’s guitar, sitting on a stand in the corner of the room, and took another slug of beer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d played, or even wanted to play. And he hadn’t even had those doors open in the two weeks since he came back from Australia. But it did look kind of nice out there…

  He undid the latches top and bottom, and flicked up the lock in the handle. As he pulled the door, it grated a little on its runner, but slid open easily enough. The smell of a flowering vine gone wild hit him as he stepped out onto the deck, and he realized that things were getting overgrown. Before, his parents had been paying for someone to come and do yard work once a month, but he’d promised to do it while he was staying here. At this time of year, everything grew by inches and feet—he’d have to make good on that promise before long.

  His eyes went to the entertaining area. Weeds were springing up through the paving stones, and long tendrils of the vine were winding themselves around the stacked outdoor furniture and up the legs of his dad’s pride and joy, a huge stainless steel barbecue that grilled, roasted, rotisseried, and made his father’s face light up with joy whenever he talked about it. The small kettle barbecue they had in Australia was no comparison, apparently.

  He put his beer down on the deck, and went to deal with the leafy marauders. Once the barbecue and furniture were cleared, and the paving stones weeded, he set to uncovering the narrow gate that led to the beach path. With the sun warm on his back, his mind started to feel clearer than it had in a long time, filled up with nothing but the work. The pile of pulled weeds and cut greenery grew pleasingly large, and soon he got too hot. He stopped and bent to wipe his forehead with the hem of his shirt. He’d almost forgotten the satisfaction of honest sweat through honest labor. In Australia, he’d helped out a contractor friend a couple of times a week—building houses was a perfect way to offset the time he spent sitting on his ass all night for his own web design business. He’d had too much computer time lately.

  Then he lifted the shirt off, leaning forward to pull it over his head…and as he stood up again, there she was. Frozen still, looking at him over the newly cleared gate.

  Even with her eyes covered by sunglasses, her shocked expression was obvious. It was probably a reflection of his own. For a moment she hesitated, maybe weighing up whether to just keep walking, but it was too late for that. Then she broke the silence.

  “Hi.”

  All the things he was going to say, all the words he’d done battle with over the years—good and bad—clogged his head and made him stupid. Shit. He cleared his throat.

  “Hi.”

  Her eyes flicked along the path, toward the beach, then back to him. Her face was pink, and he wondered if she felt ashamed about what she’d done, now that she was faced with a Ward after all this time. Why would she even come back here? He could only see her top half over the gate, but she was wearing a light cotton cover-up over her bikini, and she carried a beach bag over her shoulder.

  “Going to the beach?”

  At the sound of the inane words, he could have slapped himself around the head. Especially because he knew it wasn’t just the sun that had addled his brain. Where was the anger that had sustained him through the toughest times?

  But she didn’t laugh at him, just smiled. “Yeah. It’s such a beautiful day. I thought I’d soak up some sun.”

  The small talk made him feel itchy. Why are you here? he wanted to ask. Don’t you have anything to say to me? Instead, he frowned.

  “I hope you’ve got sunscreen. And you should have a hat.”

  She looked surprised, as well she might, with him sounding like someone’s disapproving aunt.

  “I guess so…”

  “The sun’s brutal here,” he said, trying to backtrack and justify himself at the same time. “You might have forgotten since you were here last time.”

  At that—last time—she looked right at him, and something passed between them. For a second it seemed like she might be going to acknowledge the past, say something about the not-so-distant history that they shared. But then the moment passed.

  “Yeah, well. Thanks for the advice, but I don’t need it. I’m a big girl now.”

  He willed himself not to look at her chest, like a complete jerk. On the other hand…was she glancing at his chest? Despite himself, he stood straighter, and threw the shirt onto the outdoor table.

  “Okay, then.” She could look if she wanted.

  She glared at him. “Okay.”

  “Right.”

  She made a little pfft of disdain, then turned and walked away.

  You idiot, he told himself. That was your chance to say your piece, tell her everything you planned to, if you ever saw her again. Nice work getting distracted by the thought of what’s under that cover-up.

  But he stepped to the gate, unable to resist watching her go. She stalked down the path, the cover-up only just skimming the top of her legs. Maybe she had looked at his chest…but she’d never need to know he was looking at her. That he’d been looking way back then, and it had only taken one bikini-string failure to spiral him back into that teenage longing.

  As she reached the beach, she turned to look back down the path, and he ducked behind the hedge, like the fool he’d suddenly become.

  Maybe coming home hadn’t been the smartest idea after all.

  * * *

  Jacinda walked a little way along the beac
h until she found a sheltered spot in the lee of someone’s stone wall, took off the cover-up, and spread her beach towel on the sand. As she stretched out on her stomach in the full sun, her heart was still pounding. She hadn’t expected to see one of the Wards. If Liam was at the house, was Ethan there too?

  She looked farther along to the end of the beach, where Mount Clarion rose abruptly from the shore, its base circled with evergreen forest. Nothing had changed. She remembered how the trees provided a shady retreat from the glare of the day…and, at night-time, from the eyes of the other Sweet Breeze Bay teenagers.

  She was still shy that summer, a hopelessly unsophisticated seventeen despite her adult curves. All the moving around with her mom had never given her a chance to hone her social skills, and she was horribly aware of the attention her bust attracted. Ethan was tall, funny, handsome, and good at everything, the star of his little town and of the high school over the hill. She’d had no idea why he chose her, out of all the girls who admired his every move and hung on his every word. Every morning that summer, she woke up convinced this would be the last day of Ethan Ward liking her best. But the days went by, and he kept liking her. And then, that night, he sang her the song, looking at her so intently as he strummed the chords that she felt like the only woman on earth. A woman, not a gauche teenager. Caught in his orbit, she hardly noticed his brother playing harmony on a battered acoustic guitar. And later, when he pulled her away from the beach bonfire and the hum of the party…she went.

  That song, with its perfect, cut-to-her-heart lyrics, still played in her head some nights.

  She sighed and turned her head in the other direction, resting her cheek on her folded arms. If Liam hadn’t been such an ass, she would have asked him about the rest of the family, about why they’d moved away, and what had happened. Now she felt bad—if something terrible had happened, like Riley said, she should have said something appropriate to him. There were things she didn’t want to talk to him about—his brother, for example—but she wasn’t completely hard-hearted.

  Well, if he hadn’t distracted her by being such an old woman about sun hats. And, unexpectedly, by being so…shirtless. She didn’t remember him being so cute. But then, they’d all grown up. Herself, and Riley, and Liam, and all of them. She wondered what Ethan looked like now.

  It had been forever since she just lay on the sand, letting the sea breeze and the sound of the waves flow over her. Last time she went to the beach, on a rare outing with a couple of the guys from her band, Hannah had spotted photos online within hours. She was grateful that she made a good living from her music—enough to look after her mom, too. But it was annoying to be in a sort of middle zone. Famous enough to have paparazzi shots turn up on the internet, but not successful enough to afford private islands and personal jets and the kind of peace that only big money could buy.

  Well, that was in some other life, anyway. And look, here she was, anonymous after all. She only had to go to the ends of the earth to achieve it, but hey—it was worth it. And despite the memories, and Liam Ward’s bad attitude, it felt surprisingly like home.

  Now, with the sun on her back, she felt too lazy to even get out her book. She let her eyes close, just for a moment. Everything could wait.

  Chapter Six

  Hot.

  Oh God, so hot.

  She started to lift her head from where one cheek rested on the pillow of her folded arms…and pain rippled across the back of her body. Every square inch of her skin felt like it was on fire, every pore and follicle screaming.

  She let her head fall again, wincing as the tender skin on the side of her neck flexed with the small motion. Oh, no. Lulled by the warmth of the sun in her soft, sandy hideaway, and probably by jet lag too, she’d fallen asleep. And slept, and slept, as the ultraviolet, ultra-violent rays baked her to a scarlet crisp.

  With a mighty effort, she pushed herself up off her stomach and turned to sit upright. The foamy breakers and blue horizon tipped out of alignment, and her head spun. For one literally sickening moment, she was sure she’d throw up, but she rested her head on her knees until the feeling passed.

  Home. She needed to get back to the house, out of the sun, and into a cold shower, followed by a vat of after-sun lotion.

  She gritted her teeth and winced as she slowly, carefully got to her feet. From there, the distance she had to bend to pick up her things seemed too great to contemplate. The backs of her legs would surely split right open if she bent down that far. Somehow though, moving in miniscule increments, she gathered up her towel and beach bag. Inside it, under her cover-up, was the sunscreen lotion that she’d fully intended to apply once she got to the beach. She wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to not sunscreen just to defy Liam. But the encounter with him, along with her memories of this beach, had been a distraction.

  And now she was paying the price. Wouldn’t he love that, after his lecture? Well, he didn’t need to know. She gave up on the idea of struggling into the cover-up, and started cautiously back down the beach. There was no way to avoid going past the front of his house, but she’d sneak down the little alley, then hightail it to the safety of number ten. Assuming ‘hightail’ was a speed she could achieve in this state.

  She made it to the path, shuffling like an old woman. The sun on her head and her frazzled skin was like a blowtorch. Yes, she wished she had a hat. But she kept on, grim determination compelling one foot in front of the other…until, damn it, the next foot wouldn’t go quite where she was aiming it…and wait, now her legs weren’t working right either…and then the world skewed, and her knees buckled…and there was nothingness.

  * * *

  Liam looked at his watch again, even as he willed himself not to. He didn’t care, of course. But…how long had it been? Maybe three hours? He rattled the space bar with his thumbs. From the other side of the table, where he’d switched to, he had a view out the kitchen window to the little gate. He hadn’t seen her go past—but then he hadn’t been looking every second. Nope, not every second. Only every other second. He sighed. She’d probably gone farther along the beach and come back to Fife Street via the surf club, or maybe in the opposite direction, through the bush walk down by Mount Clarion. She knew that spot well enough.

  He pushed the thought aside, and slapped the laptop closed. He wasn’t achieving anything here—might as well get some fresh air.

  Two doses of fresh air in one day? Revolutionary. Most of the Sweet Breeze Bay air he’d had since he came back was night air, shared only with the occasional mosquito. So far, he’d successfully avoided seeing anyone. He waited until night fell to go to the twenty-four hour supermarket on the Other Side, only buying enough to fit in the saddlebags of his dad’s motorbike, and parking it back in the garage when he got home. The people he knew before—which included everyone in town, pretty much—didn’t seem to have realized he was here. Or if they had, they’d let him be. It couldn’t last, he supposed. But while it did, it was just simpler.

  Although…he kept thinking about Connor and Dane. It had always been simple with those guys. Messing around, up to nothing half the time, but cracking each other up non-stop. God, they had so much to laugh about in those days. Gangly, wild-haired philosopher Connor, and sporty, outdoorsy Dane. On the surface, the three of them should’ve had nothing in common. Liam was a computer geek even then, and a music aficionado (like Ethan), boring the other two to death with facts about this band and that label. He’d got over his teenage obsessiveness about it all, but he still loved how the patterns in music were somehow reflected in coding, an unexpected symmetry between his two loves.

  Yeah, he was still a geek.

  He knew that Connor and Dane had both left Sweet Breeze Bay to go to university—engineering for Connor, at the other end of the country, and sport and exercise science for Dane, in Melbourne. He didn’t know if they’d come back when they finished...but then, why would you? There was nothing here.

  An accusing voice barged into his head: W
hy are you here, then?

  He shoved it away and stepped out through the folding glass doors onto the deck. The chirping of a hundred thousand cicadas merged into a roar in the late afternoon sun, and the salt-tang in the air was the essence of his childhood. Suddenly he remembered playing with Jacinda when they were kids, one summer when she came to visit just with her mom. He didn’t think he’d ever met her dad, now that he thought of it. That must have been the summer he turned nine, because his ‘big’ bike was brand new, and his mother had lent Jacinda his old one. The gap in the hedge they used to squeeze through to visit each other had grown over long ago, but he remembered how they’d found a space inside big enough to make a hut. On hot afternoons they whispered jokes to each other in the shady hideout, hung shells on the branches and threaded leaves onto twigs, and ate their way through his mom’s homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  Ethan was a whole year older than him, too cool to play with someone who was still only eight. And a girl.

  That had sure changed.

  He turned away from the hedge and the past, and went to look over the gate, trying to appear casual. But—shit. There she was. In a flash he swung the gate open and was in the alley, gathering up her crumpled form. Her crumpled, bikini-clad form, in the top that had come undone yesterday. He ignored the part of his brain that zeroed in on that, and concentrated on getting her to safety. As he maneuvered back through the gate, trying not to bang her head on the gatepost or let her beach bag get caught on the latch, his mind was tossing up what to do. Where should he take her? He could hardly squash her through the non-existent gap in the hedge, and he didn’t want to carry her along the street like this. It would have to be his house.