by Sara Davison
The movie ended and credits rolled across the screen. Ryan looked over at her and smiled but didn’t let go of her hand as they stood and made their way out of the theater. “Do you have time for coffee?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
They strolled outside, beneath stone walls and arches draped in twinkling mini lights. A Hallmark movie moment. She smiled at the thought. As much as Summer had gotten used to the noise and chaos of the city, her heart was definitely warming up to Elora. In fact, she was starting to wonder how she could ever go back to living in Toronto again. She glanced at Ryan, walking beside her. What if she hadn’t decided to come to this particular small town? She might never have met this man who, in spite of his admission that he didn’t do it often, had definitely swept her off her feet.
That thought sobered her, enough that she stopped walking. Ryan had mentioned another woman, one who had hurt him by forgetting all about him. Where was that woman now? Had he ever gotten over her loss? Was there any chance she could come back into his life? The thought of losing him to this mystery woman caused an intense ache in her chest. What had she done, letting herself become this vulnerable? If there was anything she hated, it was feeling vulnerable.
“Ana?”
She blinked rapidly, pulling herself back to the present. Ryan squeezed her hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry. Lost in thought there for a minute.”
He drew her over to a bench and tugged her down beside him. “What were you thinking about?”
“Only that, if I hadn’t randomly picked Elora out of a map book in a gas station a few weeks ago, I would never have ended up here and I might never have met you.”
He shifted on the bench to face her. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “Do you really believe it was random?”
She could easily lose herself in the hazel eyes that met hers. He was right. She shook her head. “No, I guess I don’t.”
“Neither do I.”
Ryan let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her. Summer rested her head on his shoulder. A few flakes of snow drifted down from the sky, swirling through the air in the light of the streetlamp. Other than that evening reading a book in front of the fire with Nancy, she couldn’t remember ever feeling such complete peace.
Ryan pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “What did you think of the movie?”
“I don’t have a clue what was happening on the screen. Was it any good?”
He laughed. “I have absolutely no idea.”
She sat up and smiled at him. “Next time we might as well stay home and sit on the couch, save the thirty bucks.”
His eyes gleamed. “That works for me. More privacy, too.” He lifted the hand that had been resting on her shoulder to run his thumb down the side of her face.
Summer swallowed. Probably best to go get that cup of coffee now. “Should we walk?”
“All right.” He stood and reached for her hand again. The Taste of Heaven was closed, so they walked past it and stopped at another small coffee shop a few blocks away. One that didn’t offer nearly as many tantalizing desserts as Shawn and Daphne’s place did. Which was just as well.
Summer studied the menu board. “We should probably get them to go so we can walk back to Nancy’s place. I have an early morning tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
She decided on a decaf latte while Ryan ordered a black coffee. When she pulled a ten-dollar bill out of the purple wallet she’d tugged from her bag, he started to protest, but she held up a hand. “It’s my turn to pay.”
He covered her fingers with his. “All right, on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You agree that this is a date.”
“Fine.” She started to hold her hand out to the cashier, but Ryan didn’t let go of it.
“I want to hear you say it.”
She stared at him for a moment before relenting. “Okay, this is a date.”
“Did you hear that?” Ryan let go of her and turned to the cashier, a teenage guy with blond hair hanging over his eyes who couldn’t look less interested in the drama playing out in front of him. “We’re on a date.”
“Congratulations,” the kid said in a complete monotone, holding out his hand for Summer’s money.
She bit her lip to keep from laughing as she gave it to him. Ryan slid an arm around her shoulders as soon as they stepped outside. “Did you see how excited that guy was for us?”
“Yes, he could barely contain himself. My guess is he didn’t even know what you were talking about. I’m pretty sure kids don’t call this sort of thing dating anymore.”
“What sort of thing?”
“You know, hanging out, holding hands at the movies, sharing popcorn.”
“Kissing?”
She tilted her head to look up at him. “I suppose.”
He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. More sparks of electricity hummed through her. Definitely Hallmark material.
He straightened. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“I think I could get used to this dating thing, or whatever you want to call it.” He tightened his hold on her and took a drink from his takeout cup.
Summer could definitely get used to it too. She wrapped both hands around her own cup, allowing the warmth of the liquid and of Ryan’s arm to flow through her. As long as she could keep from worrying, not only about everything that was going on in her life at the moment, but about Ryan’s mystery woman, she actually might find her happily ever after in this small town.
Chapter Forty
Although the stone stairs were slippery and covered in snow, she skipped down them as lightly as a schoolgirl playing tag with her friends. Jude gritted his teeth. Where was she going now? He was tired and not in the mood to play games.
“Come on, it’s only fifty-nine steps, you can do it.” Her voice, playful and teasing, floated up to him, carried on an icy breeze that drove into the exposed skin on his face and neck like a thousand tiny daggers.
He didn’t want to go down fifty-nine steps. After the day he’d had, climbing all those stairs to the top again would feel like trudging up the last five hundred feet of Everest with a giant pack on his back.
She’d reached the bottom. From the first step, he followed her with his eyes, tracking her journey by the flashes of red that appeared between openings in the trees and rocks. He frowned. Why was she wearing a red dress down to the river? And why hadn’t she put on a coat? It was the middle of winter—she had to be half-frozen.
Should he call her? Ask her to come back? He let out a hiss of frustration, knowing he would be wasting his breath and that he would need every bit of it if he was going to have to go down and retrieve her.
Wearily, he stepped onto the second cold stone. The heavy thud sent a wave of angry tingling up his leg. He was half frozen himself, and he had his black ski jacket on, although his head and hands were bare. How could she stand the cold in her sleeveless red dress? He settled into a stomping rhythm as he descended the stairs and eventually reached the bottom. To get to the edge of the river from here, he had to follow her footsteps down another slope, fraught with stones and tree roots hidden under a layer of snow.
Shaking his head, he started down, testing each step to make sure no buried hazard would trip him up and send him hurtling the rest of the way to the bottom. Adrenaline and anger pumped through him, energizing him to scramble down to the shore.
He stopped and peered down the path that wound along the river. Where was she? Another flash of red up ahead caught his eye. His sister had stopped at the edge and stood gazing out over the ice-covered expanse. Her long, dark hair cascaded down the back of the red velvet dress. She wouldn’t go out on the ice, would she?
The adrenaline coursing through him thickened to sludge. Of course she would. She had never encountered a rule that something inside her wasn’t compelled to challenge. In a way, he envied her that, the way she lived her life with absolut
e abandon, unhindered by the boundaries and regulations that kept the vast majority of the population hemmed in.
Tonight, though, that instinct of hers to disregard rules put in place for her own safety was sending twin tendrils of fear and fury winding through him.
As he watched, she stepped forward, her black, lace-up boot hovering above the ice.
No. He tried to call out the warning, the command, for all the good it would do him, but the fear had tightened up his throat and no sound emerged. He lunged forward, desperate to stop her.
His hesitation at the top of the stairs had cost him precious ground, and he was too far behind to reach her before she stepped onto the ice. She glided forward, the dress swirling around her until she appeared to be nearly dancing as she moved, floating over the glass-like surface. He neared the spot where she had stepped onto the river. Already she was fifteen feet out.
A loud crack stopped the heart in his chest. Before he could take another step, the ice beneath her feet shattered and she disappeared into the black, bone-chilling water beneath. He did call out then, not words but a primal, guttural cry for help from any being within hearing, natural or supernatural.
Dropping to his belly, he crawled toward the gaping hole, his palms scraping and burning on the ice. Silence draped over the river. Even as he slid toward her, he knew he was too late. She was gone.
Gasping in a deep breath so ragged it scraped like shards of glass against his windpipe, Jude shot upright in bed. Beads of cold sweat slithered down his back between his shoulder blades, and he clutched the sheet so tightly the knuckles of both hands ached.
Pressing his eyes shut, he forced himself to breathe in slowly and evenly for several moments, until the painful thudding in his chest eased. Flashes of red still pulsed behind his eyelids, brief glimpses of the dress his sister had worn down to the river in his dream. She’d never owned a dress like that, as far as he knew, and wouldn’t have worn it to clamber over rocks and trees in the dead of winter if she had. So what did that mean?
Releasing the sheet, Jude turned onto his side, punched the pillow up beneath his head, and rested his heated cheek against the cool cotton. Gray light filtered between the crack in the heavy curtains. Barely dawn. Was there any chance his traumatized psyche would allow him a couple more hours of sleep? He closed his eyes, concentrating on blocking out the images that continued to force their way into his tortured consciousness.
A revelation struck him then and his eyes flew open, fresh terror gripping his chest. His sister didn’t own a dress like that, but he knew who did. He’d seen it on her at a Christmas party three months earlier and the sight had taken his breath away. Jude drew in another shuddering breath. He’d had that dream dozens of times, maybe hundreds in the five years since Tessa had slipped below the surface of the frigid water that fateful night. This was the first time that she hadn’t been the one in his nightmares.
The woman in the red dress was Summer.
Chapter Forty-One
Still shaken by his dream, Jude followed Cash into the one gym in town. He hadn’t worked out in weeks and guessed that, next to Cash’s regimen, his was going to look pretty pathetic. Still, he had to start somewhere. It had been too long.
After forty-five minutes of cardio on the treadmill and step machine, the two of them headed over to the weights. Jude’s white T-shirt clung to his chest and back. Cash rolled up his sleeves before lying down on the bench and gripping the bar above his shoulders. Jude adjusted the weights on the ends of his bar, trying not to let the fact that he was about to pump about half of what his brother was bother him. Like earning his way back into the inner circle with his family, it would take time, but he’d get there.
He stretched out on the bench next to Cash. For twenty minutes they worked on arms and abs. Jude pushed himself to near-exhaustion. If he was lifting far less, he could at least hold out as long as Cash did. Finally his brother set the bar into the holders with a clang, sat up, and reached for a towel.
Relieved, Jude sat up too. Something on Cash’s shoulder caught his attention and he studied the drawing of a small bird. Not the kind of tattoo he’d have pictured his brother going for. “Nice ink.”
Cash glanced down. “Oh yeah.” He looked a little sheepish. “It’s a wren.”
It took a few seconds for the light to come on. “Oh, as in Renee.”
“Yep.” His brother shifted around to show him his other shoulder. “Maddie and I got this one on our left shoulders about a year after Tessa died. It helped us both to do it. Something you might want to think about.”
Jude’s throat tightened at the sight of the red rose. Tessa’s middle name and her favorite flower. He’d never seriously considered getting a tattoo, but he loved the significance of this one. “I might do that.”
Cash wiped himself down and then stood and ran the towel over the machine. “That’s it for me.”
Jude stood too and remarked, casually, as though he could go for a couple more hours, “Already?”
His brother’s lips twitched. “I’m game to hit the treadmill again if you are.”
Calling his bluff. Jude swiped his towel over the bench. “I would, but I’m supposed to go out with Summer tonight. I better head back to the motel and get ready.”
Cash fell into step beside him as they made their way to the change room. “How are things going with you two?”
“Good. Great, I think.”
“No hint that she has any idea who you are yet?”
A twinge shot through his chest. “Not yet, no.” He shoved open the door of the change room. “What did you think of her?”
Cash shot him a look as he pulled open his locker. “Do you really want to play that game?”
Probably not. “I wasn’t talking about her looks. I want to know what you thought of her.”
“Oh. Then from what I could tell, she’s great. Kind of hard to get a definite bead on her when we had such a brief conversation, but I could definitely see why you were so drawn to her from the beginning. There’s something about her, something real and authentic. Which is pretty remarkable, given that she has no idea what she’s been doing the last few years and is pretending to be someone else at the moment.” He pulled out a black sports bag and closed the locker door. “Plus, she’s gorgeous.”
Jude punched him in the upper arm and Cash laughed. “I warned you.”
“I guess you did.” Jude slung his own bag over one shoulder. “Speaking of gorgeous, you still haven’t told me what’s going on between you and Renee.”
Cash pulled on his coat. “I’d need a week.”
“How come the two of you aren’t married yet?”
His brother sighed. “You’d have to ask her that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d marry her tomorrow. In fact, I’ve likely asked her a dozen times over the years, including a couple of weeks before you showed up at my door. She always turns me down.”
“Why?”
“The last time she said something about not being ready, but I didn’t buy it. She’s been acting strangely for awhile now. We haven’t been seeing that much of each other because she’s so busy doing her residency, but this seems to be more than that. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on, but it’s tough, because at the moment she won’t talk to me or return my texts.”
“What are you going to do?”
His brother picked up the bag he’d set on a bench. “There’s not much I can do. I’m trying to be patient and trust she’ll talk to me when she’s ready.”
The two of them made their way through the machinery to the front door of the gym, a journey that took about ten minutes because almost everyone greeted Cash as they walked by. Several women flirted openly with him. Although Cash was good at lightly deflecting those kinds of interactions, they did give Jude a little more insight into the challenges Cash and Renee faced.
“Jude?”
He’d been waiting for Cash to finish a conversation and the f
emale voice caught him by surprise. He spun around. A petite woman in spandex and a skimpy tank top, strawberry-blonde hair caught up in a ponytail, swiped a towel across her forehead as she gazed at him.
“Justine, hey.” Jude struggled to keep his voice neutral. Running into someone he knew in a town this size had been almost inevitable. The fact that it was someone he’d dated, briefly, was a worst-case scenario, though. At least he wasn’t in the café or somewhere else with Summer.
“I haven’t seen you in forever. How are you doing?” She draped the towel around her neck and hung onto both ends of it as she took a couple of steps closer to him.
A loaded question. “I’m good. I’ve been living in Toronto for a few years, just back for a visit.”
“For how long?”
Jude threw a look at his brother over his shoulder. Cash was watching the two of them, a smug look on his face, and didn’t appear remotely inclined to rescue him. He turned back to Justine. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Well then, give me a call if you want to get together while you’re around.” She sashayed past him, almost brushing against him as she did. “We can reminisce about old times.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Or maybe not. His ex-girlfriend had been a pretty big partier, from what he remembered. So had he, as far as that went. In fact, they’d met at a bar shortly after his family moved to Elora. Not something he would have wanted to be around anymore, even if Summer hadn’t been in the picture.
She glanced back, her ponytail swishing against her neck. “See ya, Cash.”
“’Bye, Justine.”
His cheeks warmed at the amusement in Cash’s voice. Jude headed for the door, not bothering to see if his brother was following. When he reached the sidewalk, he stopped for a moment, breathing in the crisp air. Cash stopped beside him. Jude shot him a look. “What?”
He shrugged. “Maybe you don’t blend in to the background as well as you think you do.”
“Maybe not as much as I had hoped I did, anyway.”
“I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t happened before, given the size of this town.”