The Fireman Finds a Wife

by Felicia Mason

  “Let’s go see if we can drum up some more customers back at the intersection,” Summer suggested to the car wash cheerleaders.

  She and a group of girls gathered up signs that had been made and raced off together toward the main entrance of the shopping plaza.

  Cameron was utilizing the lull to hose off some of the rags used to wash the cars when Joshua McKinsey, one of the youth team coordinators, joined him to do the same with a pile of sponges.

  “Thanks for your help today, Chief Cam, and for the pretty assistant you brought.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” Cameron said.

  “I’m not trying to horn in,” Joshua quickly added. “Just stating a fact. Besides, anybody with eyes can see that the two of you were meant to be together. She’s a born leader with the girls. You think Summer might be interested in being a youth group mentor?”

  Although he was a bit younger than Cameron, the two men had become fast friends in ministry at The Fellowship, even though Josh insisted he was not and would never be a minister.

  “She’s not a member of The Fellowship,” Cameron said.

  “Really?” Josh said with a tone that could best be described as teasing. “So, if she isn’t a member of the church, but she’s out here today with you laboring on behalf of the missions team, this is like what, your idea of a date?”

  “No,” Cameron said. Then, apparently realizing how sharp and almost angry he sounded, he added, “How did you get roped into this today? I thought you weren’t interested in being co-lead for the Youth Missions Team.”

  Joshua made a face and shook his head. “Webber’s wife conveniently went into labor. Around three in the morning, my phone buzzed and he sounded like he was in the middle of having a heart attack.”

  Cameron grinned.

  “I wished him a happy baby’s birthday and resigned myself to the fact that no matter how I try to run, the Lord keeps pulling me back to this group.”

  “There’s a lesson in there,” Cameron said.

  “Yeah,” Josh said with a wry smile. “When the phone rings in the middle of the night, check the caller ID before answering.’”

  At the end of their shift at the car wash, Cameron and Summer both gave a monetary donation to the cause, the big bucket already bulging with cash, checks and change. When they were back in his car, he told her about Joshua’s suggestion of her working with the youth team.

  Summer was quiet for a bit, her brow creased in thought. She pulled from her bag a tube of lip gloss and then flipped down the mirror on the sun visor to apply it. When she finished, she turned toward him.

  “Let me think about that. I’ve never worked with teenagers before.”

  “The kids on the missions team are a good bunch.”

  He thought about what Joshua had said regarding Summer’s church affiliation.

  “I was wondering,” he began. “A while ago, you said you’d like to go to a service with me at The Fellowship. How about the upcoming second Sunday? It’s Friends and Family Day.”

  Summer’s expression looked ruffled. “Cameron, I’d love to. Really. But I can’t,” she said. “I have a, well, a family thing.”

  “Sunday dinner at Mom’s?” he casually asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. My sisters and I go to church with Mom and then have dinner with her every second Sunday.”

  Cameron waited. As the silence between them in the car wore on, he realized that he was waiting in vain. No invitation to Sunday dinner was forthcoming from Summer.

  He was disappointed, but somehow not surprised. Despite what her sister had said, he’d heard Lovie Darling loud and clear outside the council chambers.

  He wasn’t wanted in the Darling family.

  * * *

  Summer had finally been able to arrange a meeting with Ilsa Keller. It probably wouldn’t be a pleasant twenty minutes, but she couldn’t see any other resolution to the problem.

  The night she’d spent baking cookies for the fire house crews she’d come to the realization that working at Manna wasn’t something she needed to do. She enjoyed it, but there were other places and opportunities for community service. She’d realized that during the car wash.

  And despite Cameron’s distance—there had definitely been an unexplained chill in the air with him when he’d dropped her off—she enjoyed working with the youth group girls today.

  Maybe that was why she was actually there. Was the Lord showing her another way to offer service? That had to be it. Common Ground had several outreach ministries. She had no medical skills and would be useless at the free clinic where Spring volunteered. But maybe she could do something at the recreation center or the homeless shelter.

  After cleaning up and changing clothes, she checked her messages and found she’d missed a call from Spring.

  Summer sank onto the bed after listening to her sister’s message about what had transpired at the City Council meeting.

  “Well, now his weirdness this afternoon makes sense,” she told Spring when she reached her sister. “No wonder Cameron was so cool today. He probably thought we’d already talked and that I knew all about what he’d overheard.”

  “I tried to reach you,” Spring said.

  “I know,” Summer said. “It’s not your fault.”

  When she got off the phone with Spring, she knew that the conversation with Ilsa wasn’t the only potentially painful one she needed to endure.

  She stared at her cell phone for a moment, then sent Cameron a text: We need to talk about my mother.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The last thing Cameron wanted to talk to Summer about was Lovie Darling. But he agreed to meet her at a coffee shop back at Commerce Plaza.

  When he arrived she was sitting at an outside table looking as pretty as summertime. He parked and walked toward her. Like him, she’d changed from the casual shorts, top and flip-flops that she’d worn earlier that day at the car wash, and was in some sort of shift dress with a belt and high-heeled sandals. As his eyes traveled over her, he thought about what Mickey had said about Lovie Darling. Summer had definitely inherited her beauty from her mother.

  A delicate gold chain that disappeared under the top of her dress was her only accessory this afternoon. And her hair was pulled back in a ponytail with sunglasses perched on her head.

  Cameron was again reminded of the moth and flame analogy. But he also remembered what Mickey had said about not living to regret something.

  “Hi, Summer,” he said as he reached the shop’s outdoor patio.

  “Hey, Cam.”

  He slipped into one of the wire-woven chairs.

  “I ordered us a couple of iced coffees,” she said. “I hope that’s okay.”

  He nodded.

  “Summer...”

  “Cameron...”

  They both began at the same time. Cameron yielded.

  “I want to apologize about what you heard my mother say.”

  He shook his head. “Mrs. Darling has champions in her daughters.”

  “It’s my fault,” Summer said. “She, well, she’s always trying to fix us girls up. That’s why I hadn’t said anything to her about you...about us. Then when I was telling her about Mickey...”

  Cameron nodded as understanding dawned. “I slipped into the conversation and she wondered if I was worthy.”

  Summer shook her head. “No, she mourned for what was lost with Mickey. She cried, Cameron. I can’t remember the last time I saw my mother cry. It had to have been when my father died. She’s a very strong woman.”

  A server brought the iced coffees. Summer took a sip from hers. Cameron didn’t touch his.

  “Your comment in the car about Sunday dinner makes sense now.”

  “You talked to Spring.” His statement wasn�
��t a question.

  She nodded. “There was a message from her when I got home from the car wash.” She pushed her iced coffee glass away and leaned in toward him. “Cam, I didn’t invite you to Sunday dinner because with my mother, it’s always about more than dinner. The meal is just the subtext for...” she paused, trying to find a word “...her none-too-subtle form of interrogation.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “Don’t ‘hmm’ me, Cameron. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  He was pretty sure that wasn’t a good idea.

  “Summer, I’m not interested in going out with your mother. I’m interested in you.”

  Because I can’t seem to help myself, he added silently.

  What, exactly, was it about this woman that appealed to him so much?

  “Really?”

  Those big blue eyes seemed suddenly filled with equal parts wonder and fear, a curious combination that endeared her to him even while part of his brain told him to run for the hills.

  He nodded.

  Summer smiled. She reached for her iced coffee, took a sip and then sat back still holding the cup. “I’ve given some thought to what you said earlier today, after the car wash.”

  “About what?”

  “Working with the Youth Mission Team. I’m going to quit working at Manna.”

  “That’s a mistake. I’ve seen you in action there, Summer. You’re a natural. You work well with the volunteers and the guests, people like Sweet Willie and the other homeless people. They need you.”

  “But Ilsa...”

  “Ilsa Keller shouldn’t run you out of something that you love doing. From what I’ve witnessed, she’s the problem, not the rest of you who volunteer there.”

  “I have a meeting coming up with her. I was going to tell her I’m resigning.”

  “Just give it some more thought,” he said. “That’s all. Pray about it. Retreat may not be the answer.”

  She nodded. “What about you? What were you going to say?”

  When he’d come out here, his plan was to have her say her piece and then go on his way. So the words that came out of his mouth probably surprised him as much as they did her.

  “I was thinking that maybe you’d like to give me another shot.”

  She eyed him warily, which was what he deserved.

  “Why?” she asked. “You’ve made it clear that...”

  “I’m an idiot,” he said.

  That made her laugh. He liked the sound of her laughter.

  “Go for a drive with me.”

  “We just spent the morning together,” she pointed out.

  “And now it’s the afternoon.”

  She smiled. “All right. Let’s go for a drive.”

  * * *

  “Have you been out to Fountain Lake Park?” he asked as he slipped behind the wheel of his Lexus after she settled in the passenger seat.

  “Not in forever,” Summer said. “The last time was probably when I was in Girl Scouts.”

  “It’s a nice drive out there,” he said.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Summer’s shoes were barely made for walking, let alone hiking, so they parked at one of the scenic vistas overlooking the lake that the park was named for. Cameron powered down the windows and cut the engine.

  His goal for this outing was to get to know Summer more, avoid the land mines he seemed to always step on when they were together and just enjoy the afternoon in her company. It all went well until the trip back into town.

  “So, what was it like growing up in Cedar Springs?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Normal. With four girls who had wildly different interests, my mother had to figure out how to keep the peace among us. Autumn was only interested in sports, which I took no interest in. Spring could spend hours in the library. I wanted tea parties and dance lessons all the time, and poor Winter, who just wanted to come home from school and talk on the phone with her friends, found herself dragged around from one activity to another.”

  “You went to public school?”

  She cut a glance at him. “Yes, Cameron. My sisters and I are all products of the Cedar Springs Public School system.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Is that your little passive-aggressive way of disagreeing with everything?” she asked.

  “I may be a lot of things,” Cameron said, “but passive aggressive isn’t one of them. And there’s no need to get your hackles up, Summer. I just thought you were one of the academy girls.”

  “I did go to the academy,” she said. “But not the one you’re thinking of. The Augusta Griffin Academy was more hoity-toity than my parents could stand.”

  By now they were back at Commerce Plaza, and Cameron pulled into the space adjacent to the one where Summer’s Mercedes was parked. Neither moved to get out of his car, even after Cameron cut the engine. Sitting there, they continued their conversation.

  “So what private academy did you attend? A finishing school in Switzerland?”

  Summer was beginning to get more than a little irritated. Cameron Jackson was being rather patronizing and it was irking her.

  Did he think she was some spoiled rich girl?

  The fact that that’s exactly what she was only served to irritate her all the more.

  “Are you deliberately picking another fight or is this just a continuation of the one you started the other day?”

  He jerked as if she had slapped him.

  Summer stared at him for a moment, disgust etched on her face and disappointment clouding her eyes.

  “I’m leaving,” she said, bending to get her bag.

  He halted her with a light arm on hers. “Summer, you told me you spent some summers abroad. I just thought...” He shook his head. “Why are you angry? What just happened here?”

  “If you don’t know, that’s all the more reason for me to leave.”

  She was out of his sedan before he could get out to open the door for her.

  He stood next to his car as she gunned the engine of her Mercedes-Benz and peeled out of the parking lot.

  “What just happened here?” he asked the air around him. He got no answer, not that he had really expected one.

  Women.

  An hour later he was still trying to figure out how a pleasant afternoon had turned into an argument with Summer.

  Replaying the conversation in his head, he could not pinpoint where things fell apart, but he knew if he didn’t figure it out, his chances of anything developing with Summer were going to be nil.

  * * *

  Summer didn’t know what was more frustrating—hearing the subtle put-downs from Cameron or having him not realize that he had a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder when it came to certain things.

  Swiss finishing school, indeed.

  She would not apologize for or be made to feel guilty for having money. Her parents had worked very hard to make the comfortable life they offered their daughters, and Summer had fallen in love with Garrett Spencer, not the wealth he’d inherited from his family or earned by working long, exhausting hours in a demanding field.

  Summer thought about calling one of her sisters to vent, but they would probably say she was being just overly sensitive—as usual.

  At a stoplight, she reached for her cell phone, then she decided on a better option. Making a U-turn, she headed toward the place that always made her feel better.

  The old house always felt like coming home.

  Although she, like all of her sisters, had a key, Summer didn’t go inside. She took off her shoes and settled on the swing on the porch of the farmhouse.

  She loved the comfort and the solitude of the porch swing—and what it represented to her: family and good memories.

&
nbsp; As far as the eye could see was Darling land. But not for much longer—if her mother agreed to the sale that was being pitched by the developer. None of them harbored any illusions that that developer was somehow connected to the project Mayor Howell was so interested in—the one allegedly in just the preliminary stages of planning.

  Lovie had said she wouldn’t make a decision without getting independent views from her four daughters, but Summer and her sisters already knew they would agree to whatever their mother wanted.

  Money wasn’t an object. Lovie Darling had plenty of it—in her own right and inherited after Dr. John Darling’s death. Spring’s concern about the proposed development was what would be destroyed in the name of progress. Lovie wanted what was best for the town she loved...and for the legacy she would eventually leave her daughters.

  Money.

  Cameron had plenty of hang-ups about it, whether he wanted to admit to them or not.

  Summer had enough on her mind about their burgeoning relationship without his hurt feelings confusing her even more.

  Summer pulled out the gold chain from around her neck. Hanging on the fine herringbone gold was her wedding ring and engagement ring. She’d taken them from the jewelry box and put them on the chain. She needed the reassurance they brought her.

  That she’d worn them while out with Cameron hadn’t escaped her notice.

  “Somehow I thought that would be you driving up.”

  Summer screamed and nearly fell out of the swing.

  “Spring! Do not sneak up on me like that! You practically gave me a heart attack.”

  Spring Darling stood in the doorway of the farmhouse. She pushed open the screen door that creaked, and carried out two glasses of lemonade. She handed one to her little sister, who glowered at her.

  “I thought you heard me coming downstairs.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  Spring raised an eyebrow at the snappish tone, but didn’t make a comment. She instead settled on the porch’s top step, placing her glass of lemonade on the step below her.