A Summer to Remember

by Toni Blake

  When he pulled her down onto the bed with him, she went willingly. Because it was hitting her that this was…a gift. The least expected occurrence of her entire life, but it was the gift of getting to have him, be with him this way, one more time.

  And the truth was that once she pushed past all the suddenness and confusion, this felt right as…rain. Touching him was easy, natural. Kissing him was the same. She’d kissed only a few boys before him—and actually only a few since, as well. And his kisses were the ones that melded so well with her mouth—they kissed the same way because, she thought, they’d largely learned to kiss together. They’d spent hours in their youth just kissing, kissing, kissing.

  And when his strong hands pushed up under her hoodie, gliding up her stomach and smoothly over the cups of her bra, that felt natural, too. Delectably, intoxicatingly natural. He molded her breasts in his palms, making her sigh and moan, the mere touches turning her inside out.

  Together, they removed the thin hoodie over her head, tossing it aside—then he reached for the button on her denim shorts. She lifted, letting him slide them down and off—and she pulled in her breath as he shed his jeans as well, leaving him in black boxer briefs. She bit her lip at a glimpse of the firm bulge in front. The more naked they got, the more memories and emotions came rushing back.

  At some point, she began to tremble—but Trent lifted his hands to her face and kissed the quivering away. And what had started out as something urgent, untamed, had grown slower, more deliberate.

  He removed her bra, peered down on her breasts, framed them with his hands and stroked the tips with his thumbs. And then more kisses—now to the two taut pink peaks, making her moan and hunger for him in an even-deeper way.

  There came a time when she stopped thinking, surrendering to the sensations, letting them drive her moves and responses, turning her body and her pleasure fully over to him. Because if she was honest with herself, nothing had felt this good to her since the day he’d last left Summer Island.

  When finally their underwear was gone, he pressed her legs open and pushed his way inside her, and…ohhh. Her whole being felt filled with him. Joined to him. Back where she belonged. Back where the world made sense and love was real and dreams came true. Her arms circled his neck tight.

  Don’t cling. Don’t cling to him. But it was too late—she was clinging, she was holding on for dear life. It was like being on a rapturous but dangerous ride—one she’d climbed onto accidentally, yet now never wanted to get off despite the risks and fear.

  Her throat tightened, her eyes ached with the emotion of having him inside her, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Oh God, please don’t let him see. She freed one hand from around his neck, rushing to wipe it away—but his thumb arrived there first, gently swiping the wetness from her skin. So he knows you’re overcome with emotion. So overcome that you’re crying a little. Ugh.

  Yet his only other response was to drop a gentle kiss on her lips—before he began to move inside her. She cried out at the first deep thrust, again catapulted into past pleasures even as she soaked up present ones. Each powerful drive took her more fully into oblivion, a place where emotion continued to war with sensation—but eventually sensation won out.

  She never forgot—where she was, who she was with, how shocking and crazy and profound it was all at the same time—but she gave herself over to the pleasure, let it own her, let it wrap around her and take her away from anything bad. Because this was good, good, good. The most perfect connection she’d felt with another human being in ten long years.

  “Do you want on top of me, Allie Cat?” he whispered. It had been so long since she’d heard that nickname.

  “Yes,” she whispered back.

  Because in one way it was perfect to be beneath him, to give over all control to him, to feel his raw masculinity hovering above her and moving within her—but it was perfect in another to take a little of that control back and reach the ultimate pinnacle. And once she straddled him, it took mere seconds for the climax to come rushing over her like a cloudburst—sweet release, made sweeter by the fact that she’d never expected such bliss to be delivered by the love of her life again, and yet, here he was, making it happen.

  She cried out as it pulsed through her—and she’d just come down from it when he groaned, “Aw…me too,” and thrust up into her hard, hard, hard. She curled her fingernails lightly into his chest as he came.

  Though as she collapsed softly atop him, with him still inside her, she realized it wasn’t actually perfect after all. Perfect was…someone who loved you, someone who would stay with you, someone who this part would feel just as good with—just as easy, just as comforting. Instead, a different feeling hung in the air: What now?

  A little logic had returned, so the first what now was: Disconnect your body from his. Even if you don’t really want to—ever. So she steeled herself for the loss and rolled off him. She didn’t look at his eyes, because that felt scary right now.

  And the next safe what now seemed to be: “I’m gonna toss your clothes in the dryer.” Thus she bounded up from the bed to start collecting them from the various places they’d fallen.

  “Allie, you don’t have to—”

  “I do if we ever want your clothes to dry. They’re soaked.”

  Of course, scurrying around the house naked with her ex-fiancé’s clothes still felt pretty far from normal—but she’d succumbed to the need to escape the room, at least for a minute. Partially to go to the bathroom and tidy herself up in some privacy. But mostly so that she could shed a few more tears, which she did in the laundry room between throwing his clothes in the dryer and starting them tumbling. Tears from too many emotions to name. She got them out, wiped them away, then put on a braver face as she returned to the bedroom.

  “Come lie down with me,” he said.

  He’d slid under the thin summer quilt on her bed—despite the season, the rain had put a chill in the air. So she scooped up her hoodie and threw it on over her head—a thin form of protection, and the easiest to grab at the moment—then drew back the quilt and got in bed, torn down the middle of her soul as to whether that was the right next what now move.

  “Tell me about the Knitting Nook,” he said quietly, propping on one elbow.

  Oh, so that was his approach to what now. Catching up, getting-to-know-you-again talk. The kind of stuff most people would engage in before getting to the sex part. Well, people who weren’t struggling with old anger and grudges anyway.

  And maybe it was a nice idea for both of them to try to push that aside—the anger. And maybe it was nice to just skip right past acknowledging the other enormous elephants in the room: We just had sex, and I cried a little, so I’m clearly having some complicated emotions here. If she wanted to be critical of him, the catch-up stuff was also clearly about just avoiding all the bigger issues. But that was okay by her at the moment.

  She lay on her back, staring up at a vaulted ceiling of knotty pine, unsure she could bear looking at him again just yet. “It’s…everything I hoped it would be back when I opened it,” she told him.

  And that was when it hit her—he’d actually never been there, to this place that was the biggest part of her life. He’d disappeared right when she’d started the business, before she’d even opened the doors. Trent out, knitting shop in.

  So she took a little pride in describing to him the vision she’d made into a reality. “It’s part yarn shop, part gathering place,” she said. “We stock a wide variety of yarn—from the simplest worsted weight to every exotic blend and weave you can imagine—but the place is also dotted with comfy chairs and couches where people are welcome to sit and knit or crochet as long as they like. We also sell some knitted goods—hats, scarves, blankets, kitchen goods—all made by me and my staff in our free time. And we have knitting classes for different skill levels, and we hold a knitting bee every week. It’s especially nic
e during the off-season when it gets quiet around the island and there’s not much to do—people look forward to having a reason to get together. It’s…cozy.”

  “That sounds exactly like the kind of place I’d expect you to have—cozy.”

  She didn’t look at him, but his tone made her take it as a compliment.

  “This cottage is cozy,” he went on. “And I remember your parents’ house being cozy when we were young.”

  He sounded almost wistful—leaving her to realize, maybe for the first time ever, that perhaps it wasn’t something he’d ever had very much of: cozy. The vacation home on the island’s summit was beautiful, but more grand and sprawling than cozy. When she’d visited their home in Charlevoix, it had struck her as the same. The Fordhams had never been cozy people.

  “I’m glad it’s worked out for you, Allie.”

  Her heart beat a little harder—at again simply absorbing the separation between them. Not knowing anything about each other’s lives felt so wrong to her. But he went away and never came back—so of course your lives are distant mysteries to one another. What else could they be?

  She took a deep breath, trying not to let any reaction or emotion leak free as she asked, “So are you happy in your job, too?”

  She waited for the robust Of course, I love it—but instead silence weighted the air for a beat too long, until he replied, “I like practicing law. But I can’t really say the same about my job. It’s two different things.”

  The surprise of finding out he didn’t have some perfect career drew her glance to him unwittingly. Oh God, he was handsome—so, so handsome. Breathe, just breathe. “How so?” Little words were easier to get out when short of breath.

  He shrugged, looking a little more arrogant and in control than his reply had suggested. Maybe he already regretted not giving the pat one she’d expected. Still, he told her, “Guess I thought practicing law would be about helping people and getting justice. But I work at a large powerhouse firm where I don’t pick my own cases…and I’m not always sure I’m on the right side of things.” He stopped, sighed. “Let’s just say some days I have to remind myself that everyone is entitled to the best possible defense and that my job is to give it to them and not think too hard about the rest of it.”

  She turned that over in her head. Stared back up at the knotty pine. “That sounds…difficult.” Yarn and knitted goods sounded a lot easier. Less important maybe, but easier.

  He gave a short nod. “What I signed up for, though.”

  “When you said you were here to handle the home closing, I thought maybe you’d ended up a real estate attorney.” Of course, now that she knew his parents had died, his being here for that made more sense to her.

  From her peripheral vision, she caught the shake of his head. “No—Mom specifically left the house to me, so it’s mine now to sell. The Charlevoix house went to Justin, and the Boca house to Nate. Three kids, three houses—she kept it simple that way.”

  She tipped her head back slightly on the pillow in acknowledgment. “When is it—the closing?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. That also made sense, of course—it was the reason he’d come. This wasn’t summer vacation like in the old days. But it meant he was here for a very short time. It meant he was going to waltz right back out of her life as quickly as he’d shown up in it.

  Eh, at least this time you know he’s leaving.

  She said nothing, trying to feel nothing. Good trick if you can pull it off, since you haven’t succeeded at that yet, even ten years later.

  They’d barely scratched the surface of this catching up business—both perhaps realizing it was challenging, despite intimacies just shared. Or maybe that it was ultimately…pointless, since tomorrow their lives would go back to being just as far apart as they’d been yesterday.

  Though one large topic currently burned a hole in her stomach now that she’d let it come back to mind—a topic she couldn’t hold back from asking about. Even if the fact that they remained more or less naked under the covers right now—hoodie notwithstanding—made it all the more unpleasant and awkward. “So…you got married?”

  To someone who wasn’t me. What was she like? What did she have that I didn’t have? Maybe she came from a better family, one with more money. Is she a lawyer, too? Did you meet her at law school? Was there something more worthy about her than me?

  She bit her lower lip, kept all that word vomit inside her. Thank goodness.

  And could have worn she saw him flinch uncomfortably at having to talk about this. But all things considered, it seemed like fair game.

  Next to her, he blew out a sigh. And she dared look at him again—overcoming her emotion for the sake of seeing his, trying to read his expression and decipher how he felt about this.

  He shook his head. “I never should have married her. I guess I just wanted…that, to be married. I was in my midtwenties, climbing the ladder at the firm, and it seemed like time. But it was a mistake.”

  The answer lacked detail, yet overall, lifted a little of the invisible weight from her chest. He’d still had a relationship with someone else that was longer and deeper and more profound—but the word mistake loomed big, heavy. Of course, maybe he viewed her as a mistake, too—but she pushed that thought aside as quickly as it came and just hoped it wasn’t true.

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’m sure divorce is horrible.” She wasn’t sorry in some ways, but she was truly sad for that kind of suffering.

  “Yep, it is—was. Glad it’s behind me.”

  She simply nodded, drew in another deep breath. She yearned to ask more—but held that in, too. Like it or not, it was none of her business. Whether or not they’d just had sex.

  Her brain and heart whirled with the millions of questions she wanted to pose. Not just about his marriage, but everything. Every iota of his life that she’d missed. And that was…well, it was just silly. He left you, remember? He tried to make out like somehow it wasn’t his fault, but he left you and never contacted you again. And if a bad bicycle chain and a weird twist of fate hadn’t led him to your door, he’d have come to and gone from the island without you ever even knowing. So turn it off, right now. Turn off all those emotions.

  A mistake.

  Sex with him—that was a mistake.

  Could something be both a gift and a mistake? She wasn’t sure—but the course of this conversation made the mistake part clearer and clearer.

  You can’t take it back, though. You can only pull yourself together and move on. Maybe more completely this time—finally. Since she was beginning to suspect she never really had, no matter what she’d told herself and how pathetic that seemed.

  Maybe this will be the thing that allows you to truly close the door on what you lost with him. Of course, she had no idea how it was going to do that—since at the moment the door felt pretty darn wide-open—but it was the only hopeful thought she could muster right now.

  As a wave of quiet fell back over them, she realized everything was quieter outside, too. No more rhythmic rainfall on the tin roof. The very knowledge made the cottage feel a little less like a cocoon, and a little more like she’d just awakened from a strange, heady dream.

  “Listen,” he said congenially as she continued peering up at the sloped ceiling, “maybe we could—”

  “The rain has stopped,” she interrupted him, “so, um, you should probably…”

  “Oh,” he said softly, sounding a little taken aback. “You want me to go.” He clearly hadn’t expected that.

  But she steeled herself inside, answering just as quietly. “It would be best.”

  She hadn’t expected it, either.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALLIE STOOD ON the front porch of the Knitting Nook the next day, watching the summertime crowds of Harbor Street, some on bikes, others on foot, taking in a sunny seventy-two-degree d
ay—a day most people would consider pure perfection and the reason they came to Summer Island. Winters were harsh this far north, springs and autumns brisk, but the one remaining season was beautiful enough that someone had named the island after it.

  For Allie, though, the day felt pretty far from perfect. Yesterday had been utterly surreal. And now her heart ached—in both old ways and new. Part of her couldn’t believe she’d sent him away. But a bigger part of her had known she had to.

  Inside, tourists shopped, and gray-haired Mrs. Bixby, a regular and a lifelong islander, sat knitting in her usual rose-print easy chair in the back corner. Madison, a college student home for the summer, manned the register.

  Allie leaned inside the wide front door—propped open on such a lovely day—to ask Mrs. Bixby, “How’s the sweater coming?”

  The older woman held up a knitted panel of dark purple bulky yarn sprinkled with bits of pink. “Getting there, slowly but surely,” she called from the rear of the shop.

  “Oh, that yarn is making up nicely,” Allie said of the soft alpaca blend she’d first stocked last winter. “Your granddaughter is going to love it!”

  Hearing the slam of the old-fashioned screen door that connected her place with the coffee shop, Allie glanced over to see Josh walk through, carrying two cups. He held one up, indicating it was for her.

  It was the first time she’d really looked at him in a while—and what she saw was a man of average height and build, with shaggy brown hair in no particular style, wearing cargo shorts and an Iron Man T-shirt that hung on him in a slightly slouchy way. And she loved him dearly, but…seriously, Trent? You thought I wanted Josh like that?

  “Thanks,” she said, taking the big yellow mug of coffee when her business partner joined her on the awning-covered porch.