Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  What had she been thinking, opening herself up like that, letting him get close to her...again?

  She hadn't been thinking, of course. That was the whole problem. She'd been feeling. That always caused problems.

  Again today Luke had promised always. I've always loved you and I always will.

  She couldn't plead youth and innocence this time. This time she'd gone in with her eyes wide open, completely aware of the situation. She'd thought she had herself under control, her life well-ordered. She'd thought she could give her body and withhold her heart.

  Telling Luke she loved him was not part of that order.

  Neither was realizing the words were true.

  After all this time, how was it possible she hadn't learned to keep her heart safe? She'd been so pleased with the relationship she and Spencer had...safe, uninvolved. Yet she had thrown all that aside for a moment of wild passion and unbounded emotion with Luke, the man who'd taught her the foolishness of loving with her whole heart.

  Sure, Luke had said he loved her, just the way he'd once said he'd always be her friend, always be there for her. His relationship with Cindy hadn't lasted, either. That alone should have been enough warning to keep her from getting emotionally entangled with him again.

  Except she wasn't sure there was any again to it. Just as Luke had said about his love, her love had been there all along, even while they were apart, changing and evolving as they changed and evolved, shoved aside by both of them for different reasons, but remaining forever a part of them.

  She sat up, her head spinning with the shock of that realization.

  He touched her bare back, his fingers trailing a path along her spine, and even now her eyes closed as she sighed with the pleasure of that touch.

  "I meant it, Katie," he said softly. "I love you."

  She closed her ears to his words, stood and began retrieving her clothes. Funny how tossing them aside in the heat of passion had felt so warm and alive, and now gathering them up afterward felt empty and exposed. "We'd better go back. It's getting late. Everyone's going to wonder where we are."

  "I told them I was coming here and expected to find you. Sit down and let's talk."

  She avoided his gaze as she dressed. "I need to get back. I have a lot to do tonight." She needed to return to Dallas, to her well-ordered, safe life, away from Luke and Briar Creek and all the memories she couldn't deal with.

  He caught her shoulders and spun her around to face him. "Look at me, Katie. Look at me and talk to me. Something just happened between us, something important. You can't run away and ignore it."

  She looked past him, over his shoulder, into the dark, hidden depths of the cave, anywhere but into his eyes. She wasn't sure what she'd see there or whether she was ready for it...whatever it was.

  "What happened between us shouldn't have," she said. She shouldn't have let her emotions spill out, shouldn't have let Luke inside her heart again.

  All the pain she'd shoved down so many years ago resurfaced, and suddenly she wanted to hit him, to punish him, make him feel what he'd made her feel.

  "I'm still officially engaged to Spencer." She said it to make her position clear even though she wasn't engaged in her heart, even though Luke had made that sensible, nonthreatening marriage impossible. She couldn't stand before God and Sheriff and promise to love, honor and cherish one man when she loved another.

  He dropped his arms. "You said you weren't going to marry him." His voice had hardened, become that of a stranger. Luke had gone away. Again.

  That made it easier for her to button her blouse with trembling fingers and leave.

  At least, it should have made it easier.

  ***

  Luke sat on the blanket and watched Katie leave, restraining himself from going after her. For a few minutes there, their souls had touched again, they'd found the closeness they once shared with the added depths that came from being adults.

  At least, he'd thought they had. But then she became more distant than ever. Before they'd made love, she'd said she wasn't going to marry Spencer, but afterward she'd thrown her engagement in his face.

  He rose, gathered up his clothes and yanked them on, cursing himself for seven kinds of an idiot. Okay, so he'd wanted her and she'd wanted him. He could have—should have—controlled himself. But the Katie he knew would never give herself to any man she didn't care for. She'd said she loved him, and he'd thought after making love, after their bodies and hearts were joined, the distance of years and heartaches would be closed.

  But it hadn't happened that way. The distance had grown. She'd left without a backward glance, the way he'd always feared.

  He'd wanted more than friendship, just as he had with Cindy, and, once again, he'd ended up with nothing.

  Only losing Cindy hadn't hurt anything like this. When he'd lost her, he'd lost his wife, the woman who shared his bed and his home.

  When Katie walked away, he'd lost half of himself. This journey back to Briar Creek, back to his past, was supposed to be healing, but instead he suddenly felt the way he had when his father's death was new and he'd been forced to leave Briar Creek and Katie...empty and alone.

  He stooped and picked up the box that held their intact thorn.

  Damn it! He should have kept his libido under control, should have settled for having her friendship. They had come around to that, resumed the closeness they'd once shared.

  What a crock! The feeling between Katie and him had been more than friendship from the first time she'd walked into his office on Friday. Hell, it had been more for as long as he could remember. Just because sex hadn't been a factor in the equation when they were young didn't mean love hadn't been there.

  Sure she'd been his friend, but more than that. She'd been his partner, his soul mate.

  He took the old thorn from the box and started to toss it away. Fat lot of good it had done.

  But he couldn't do it. Instead, he put the thorn in his shirt pocket and left the cave. At the entrance, he stopped and looked back to the dark depths that stretched toward the rear, to the place he and Katie had once discovered ended not in a rainbow or golden treasure but simply with the roof and floor meeting. That was just the way he felt right now, only Katie wasn't with him to share the blackness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The bright sunlight was muted by the approach of evening as Kate drove home. Maybe that was why the silver Mercedes parked in front of her father's house glared with an intensity that hurt her eyes.

  Surely that wasn't Spencer's car. He wasn't supposed to be here!

  She pulled in behind him and recognized the license plates. It was Spencer.

  Damn! What was he doing here? She'd hoped to have at least the night and the drive home tomorrow to get her feelings for Luke sorted out and back in proper order, then decide what to tell Spencer...or at least how to tell him. Especially after what had just happened, there was no doubt about what she had to tell him.

  Her first impulse was to keep driving, go right past Spencer's car, run back to Dallas, to the mature, satisfactory life she'd built there.

  But Spencer was a part of that life. She had to face him.

  And then you're going to have to face your feelings for Luke.

  No!

  She pushed that annoying little voice down, shoved it into a compartment along with her feelings for Luke, shut it away in the dark.

  She got out and strode resolutely along the walk, across the porch and into the house.

  Spencer, looking as tense as she'd ever seen him, shot up from the sofa. He was immaculate as always, every blond hair in place, the crease in his khaki slacks razor sharp, but something in his expression or his demeanor made him appear rumpled.

  The old photo album was open on the coffee table. Great! Papa had been showing Spencer her baby pictures!

  Papa, lounging comfortably in his recliner, smiled. "Katie-girl! I'm glad you're home. Spencer's been waiting for you. Your mother and I were starting to get worried.
"

  Your mother and I? Baby pictures and Mama. No wonder Spencer looked tense and rumpled.

  Leo curled beside the empty arm chair, and a glass of tea sat on the lamp table next to it. Well, hadn't she known it would come to this eventually? Mama had finally joined them for tea.

  Spencer moved toward her. "Kate, we need to talk." He took her arm to guide her out the door. She started to resist, just on general principles, but he was right. They did need to talk.

  "We'll be back in a minute, Papa."

  "Don't hurry. I'll go get us some more tea."

  As she started out the door with Spencer, she heard Papa say, "Emma, let me get you a fresh glass, too. The ice has melted, and I know you don't like your tea when it gets all watery like that."

  Spencer gave her a significant glance then hurried her on outside. He stopped once they were on the porch, but she urged him on.

  "Let's sit in your car." Only the screen door separated her from Papa who would soon be returning with fresh tea for everybody, Mama included, and she had a feeling her conversation with Spencer wasn't going to be anything she wanted Papa to hear.

  When they reached Spencer's car, Kate felt an odd reluctance to get inside, to leave the beautiful summer evening.

  Or maybe she just dreaded talking to Spencer.

  She forced herself to slide onto the leather seat and allow him to close the heavy door behind her. Thus trapped, she gazed out the windshield, suddenly wishing with all her might that she was out there instead.

  He got in the other side and started the engine.

  "I don't want to go anywhere," she protested.

  "I understand. But we need some air conditioning. How do you manage to breathe in that hot house, especially with that lilac room deodorant?"

  "Actually, I rather enjoy the scent." Room deodorant. Of course. That explained the fragrance.

  "Kate, I realized when you first started talking about coming down here that something wasn't right. You seemed distressed, but it was none of my business, and I didn't want to interfere. Now I understand. You should have told me about your father. Surely you weren't worried I wouldn't want to marry you just because your father has mental problems."

  "No, of course not. Well, maybe." Actually, she realized, that had played a part in her keeping Papa's secret from Spencer. In some dark spot of her mind, she had feared that her fiancé, always so perfect, wouldn't want to be associated with her if he knew her father consorted with her mother's ghost.

  "It's not like we plan to have children who might inherit your father's defective gene," Spencer reassured her.

  She looked at him, at his handsome, regular features, into his blue eyes that had always seemed calm and stable but now seemed a reflection of the artificially cooled air coming from the vents of his car.

  "Papa's defective gene?" she repeated slowly. "There's nothing defective about my father."

  Spencer smiled, and again she saw him in a different light. What had always appeared to be a confident smile now seemed smug. "Nothing except he thinks your mother's still alive."

  "Okay, he's got one little glitch. That doesn't make him defective. He's the most wonderful man on earth. Seeing Mama makes him happy. It doesn't hurt anything."

  "Of course it doesn't. But we have to face reality. It doesn't look so good. After we get married, we'll find a nice home for your father."

  "I've already talked to him about moving to Dallas. He doesn't want to. He wants to stay right here."

  "Then we'll find a home for him here, get him the best of care. With counseling and drugs, he should be able to live out his remaining years quite comfortably."

  It suddenly dawned on Kate what Spencer was suggesting. The home of which he spoke wasn't going to be a new house. "You want to have my father committed to some institution and drug him up until he can't see Mama anymore? Absolutely not! That would break his heart!"

  An image flashed through her mind, the scene from the movie, Harvey, when Elwood P. Dowd, to please his sister, was waiting patiently for the doctor to give him the shot that would take Harvey away forever. She suspected Papa would do that if she insisted, give up his ghostly wife.

  She wasn't going to insist.

  She also recalled that the movie had left the viewer with a question as to whether Harvey might actually be real.

  Of course, that was only a movie.

  Spencer's forehead wrinkled in a scowl. "Are you saying you'd rather your father be mentally ill than get help? That's totally illogical."

  "We're not talking logic! We're talking about a human being!"

  "Kate, listen to yourself. You're not making any sense. You've always functioned on pure logic."

  Ironic, she thought, that she had always prided herself on being motivated by logic and reason rather than unstable emotions. Lately she'd forsaken that logic and seemed to be operating purely on emotions...with mixed results. Her encounter with Luke hadn't been the wisest choice, but she had to follow her heart where Papa was concerned.

  "My father isn't hurting himself or anybody else with his harmless hallucinations."

  "Not hurting—Kate! Good God, your father's the sheriff! He carries a gun! You can't have a man who talks to his dead wife running around with a gun!"

  Kate's temper blazed even though Spencer was saying exactly what she'd thought at one time. But Spencer had no right to say those things about her father.

  "I could defend Papa to you and tell you he's just as competent as he ever was and I know that because I've seen him in action, but I'm not going to because that's really none of your business. He's my father, he's the sheriff of Briar Creek County, and he's absolutely nothing to you, so you just stay out of it!"

  "Kate, what's the matter with you? First you send me that crazy email, and now you—"

  "What email? I didn't send you any email."

  Spencer gave her a strange look, as if he thought she might be in need of some kind of drugs herself, as if perhaps she had inherited her father's defective gene.

  He reached into the back seat and brought up his briefcase, opened it and withdrew a piece of paper. "I printed out a hard copy."

  Kate took the sheet of paper and scanned the printed message. It appeared to have come from the Sheriff's Department of Briar Creek, from Papa's email address.

  As she studied the paper, she recalled that Luke had sworn he had not sent a message to Jeff, but that message had supposedly originated at his terminal, and now a message had come from Papa's terminal under her name.

  What the heck was going on?

  She looked at the body of the note.

  My dear Spencer—

  "My dear Spencer? You think I'd start a letter like that?"

  "I admit, it didn't sound like you, nor does the rest of it. However, you've not been acting like yourself recently."

  She couldn't argue with that assessment.

  She read the rest of the note.

  I don't know if I can marry you. I'm very confused. I don't know what I'm saying or doing right now. I don't know what love is. I thought I had everything all figured out, but I don't know anymore. Please come to Briar Creek immediately.

  Kate stared uncomprehendingly at the piece of paper in her hand then read the words again to be sure she'd read them right. Except for that last sentence, it was, almost verbatim, what she'd said to Luke the night they'd danced on Papa's lawn.

  Had Luke sent the message to Spencer in a misguided effort to help her tell him the engagement was off? If he had, why would he add the last part, asking Spencer to come to Briar Creek? And where did he find Spencer's email address? Since it was through the company, even if Luke had been proficient at using the internet—and Kate was positive he hadn't lied about his lack of ability there—it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find Spencer's address.

  Luke had accused her of sending the message to Jeff asking him and Francine to come to visit, and she knew she hadn't done that. They had decided the only person
it could have been was Papa even though she hadn't been able to figure out how he could have. Jeff, being on the faculty of a college, would have an email address that was a little easier to find, but still Papa would have to know more about the internet than he did.

  "Kate?"

  She dropped the paper as if it had suddenly burned her fingers. "What?"

  Spencer retrieved the message from the seat between them and stuck it back into his briefcase in the exact space from which he'd withdrawn it.

  "Is it true?" he asked. "Do you want to call off the wedding?"