Summer by the River

by Debbie Burns

  “But none of my new favorite things are better than Buttercup,” Zoe added, burying her face in his thick neck once more. His tail pumped in response, and his pink-purple tongue burrowed into her ear. “Except Lady Liberty, maybe,” Zoe said, drying dog kisses off her ear with her shoulder. “And the big lion at the zoo, but you couldn’t get close enough to touch him. Only Buttercup’s going to be with us forever, isn’t he, Mom?”

  Josie looked at Carter, who was pulling their luggage from the trunk. The more days they went without someone coming forward to claim him, the more it seemed he was Carter’s for certain. But would he want to take him back to New York?

  Her mother’s voice was somewhere under the surface, attempting to ruin the moment by insisting nothing was forever. Fighting it back, she said, “You know, Zo, he’s here now, and they say it’s always better to celebrate the things you have than to worry about what you get to keep.”

  A bit to her surprise, her words caught both Myra’s and Carter’s attention. They turned at the same time to appraise her.

  Zoe debated her mom’s answer for a second or two and seemed to accept it. “We saw ten hundred dogs, but none of them were as sweet as Buttercup.”

  Once they were inside the gate and halfway to the house, Zoe remembered the fairy houses. She dropped her backpack in the middle of the walkway and made a beeline for the closest one, exclaiming that, surely, they’d had a visitor by now.

  Josie bit her lip as she watched. Sure enough, Zoe’s whoop of joy carried across the yard as she wiggled her hips in a victory celebration. “The fairies came! The fairies came!”

  Carter glanced Josie’s direction again as they headed over with Myra to check out Zoe’s find. “You’re full of surprises today, Josie Waterhill.”

  Josie shrugged her shoulders in attempt to downplay his compliment, but heat rushed to her cheeks all the same. She made eye contact with him for the first time, locking her gaze away from his mouth, since the sight of it would almost certainly make her want another kiss badly enough to lose focus on anything else.

  Inside, at dinner, Zoe talked nonstop about their weekend, only pausing to chomp little bites of food and to let Carter and Myra chime in. Zoe’s favorite highlights included Central Park, the Statue of Liberty—as if there’d been any doubt—and the Brooklyn Zoo. The hot-dog stands and subway system also ranked high on her list. Her only dislikes were the smelly streets and crowds of people walking about not having any fun.

  By the time she’d eaten enough to warrant being finished, the first signs of exhaustion had clearly set in. After a giant yawn that went uncovered, and which Myra warned was big enough to catch flies, Josie suggested it was time for a bath.

  Surprisingly, Zoe didn’t argue. “Can I have bubbles tonight?”

  It was early enough that Josie didn’t mind. She’d been making her own lavender-infused bubble bath and bath salts since Zoe was three and showing early signs of a struggle with hyperactivity. On bubble-bath nights, Zoe liked to linger. That was less than ideal when they were in a rush. Tonight, Josie would have no complaints if she did. Giving Zoe a bath and massaging her little scalp was as calming for her as it was Zoe.

  Afterward, when Josie was tucking her into bed, Zoe pushed up and threw off the covers. “I didn’t say good night to Carter and Myra.”

  Josie couldn’t help but notice how Zoe called out for Carter first when she stepped into the hall. Carter was downstairs in the parlor setting up a full-sized computer he’d flown back in his luggage.

  She trotted downstairs and came back a few minutes later, stifling a big yawn. Josie had been trying not to listen, but she heard “I love yous” proclaimed by Zoe for both adults.

  Once Zoe was tucked back in, she snuggled next to her until Zoe’s face was calm and her breathing was deep and even, then she headed to Myra’s room.

  “I’m sure you’re wiped,” Josie said, shutting the door and stretching out on Tidbit’s side of Myra’s queen bed as Myra slipped underneath the sheets on the other side. “Can you handle a few more minutes?”

  “For you, for certain. But if that girl needs to sleep in in the morning, I hope you let her.”

  “I will.” Josie tucked the spare pillow underneath her head and curled around Tidbit, who’d gone from a tight ball to spreading out as long as his short legs would allow as if declaring that this side of Myra’s bed belonged to him.

  Myra closed a hand over Josie’s arm. “You should have been there.”

  “I know, I’m sorry I missed it. I wasn’t ready.”

  “Next time then.”

  “What makes you think there’s going to be a next time? Didn’t he get what he needed?”

  “I saw the kiss, Josie. I wasn’t spying, but I saw it in the side-view mirror.”

  Josie pressed her eyes shut. “Please tell me Zoe didn’t see it.”

  “She talked right through it. I have no idea what she said, mind you,” Myra said, chuckling. “It was some kiss.”

  Josie didn’t need Myra to tell her that.

  “It’s not every day a man comes around who’ll kiss you like that,” Myra added.

  Josie snorted but pressed her lips together as Myra pointed a stern finger her way.

  “This isn’t about sex, so you can stop giggling like a schoolgirl, Josie, although you could use a lecture on that too. What I’m talking about is a connection that goes much deeper, and I know that you know what I mean.”

  An image of Nico rushed to her mind, shoving her to the pavement and covering her as gunfire exploded all around. Yes, she did.

  “It was just a kiss,” Josie said, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Just. It’s my opinion that people use that word when they want to undermine the importance of something that shouldn’t be undermined.”

  Josie sat up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I was happy, Myra. Before he came—I didn’t want a man.”

  “Survival and happiness are two very different levels of living. Now, be a dear and hand me my tote bag over in the corner, will you?” Myra pushed herself up to a sitting position. “There’s something I want to show you, and you’re more limber than me.”

  Josie got it for her and waited as Myra sifted through it. She pulled out a folded-up brochure and passed it to her.

  “I found him tossing it into a waste can as the movers were putting his things in storage.”

  It was a flyer for a farm for sale in Connecticut. Josie skimmed the description and took in the storybook pictures. Rolling hillsides. A hundred-and-ten-year-old fully restored farmhouse on twenty acres. White fencing and flaming-red maple trees all around.

  “How does this have anything to do with Carter?”

  “He didn’t share at first, but the picture caught my eye. Turns out it was a dream of his. He was trying to convince his ex-fiancée to move out of the city so he could write, and they could raise a couple of kids. Thankfully for us, it turned out that it was only his dream, not hers.”

  Josie passed the flyer back to Myra, trying to close off the strange bubble of emotion in her chest she wasn’t ready to define. “I could picture him there.”

  “Funny, but I could just as easily picture you and Zoe there too. Someday.”

  “I’m never leaving you.”

  Myra smiled softly. “Some fledglings take a little more convincing to leave their nests than others.”

  “Chirp, chirp,” Josie said, leaning over to press her lips against Myra’s forehead. “Good night, Myra. I can’t help but wonder if you were this bad with your own kids.”

  “Sadly, I never thought my own children had such agreeable prospects. But the truth is, so few of us get it right with our own kids. By the time our grandkids come around, we start to understand the gravity of our mistakes.” Myra waved a hand dismissively. “But I won’t lose sleep over it. I’ll see you in the morning, dea
r.”

  Josie shut Myra’s door and paused at the top of the stairs, looking down. From here, the golden-yellow light spilling out of the parlor was warm and welcoming. The old writing desk Carter had taken over was out of sight from where she was standing. Buttercup was in full view, sprawled out on the floor watching as Carter assembled his computer. Hearing her, Buttercup thumped his tail but didn’t lift his giant head.

  The urge to head down into the light and warmth and life was almost overwhelming. Before Carter came, the house was weighted by silence after Zoe and Myra were asleep. In the three and a half weeks he’d been here, she’d gotten into the habit of drifting off to sleep lulled by the sounds of life he added.

  Her hand curled around the banister’s smooth newel cap. Twenty steps were all that separated her from a night of solitude to one of warmth, light, and—who knew what else. The memory of his lips on hers flooded in full force, warming her blood.

  There was no denying the itch in her bare feet to descend the steps. With nearly five and a half years of being the last one awake, she’d had enough solitary reflection to last a lifetime.

  But her breath had gone shallow from fear more than it had excitement. Carter was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. If she let him in, he’d want to see behind doors she was doing her best to keep bolted shut.

  When it came to a choice between fear and pleasure, she wasn’t her brother. Had they both suffered from the same poor impulse control, God knew, their volatile world would’ve fallen apart even sooner.

  But Sam wasn’t here anymore. He hadn’t grown up enough to make safer choices. And the one thing Josie knew was that she wasn’t going to let the same thing happen with Zoe. Dropping her grasp on the newel cap, she turned away and headed into her room, shutting the door and allowing the too-comfortable blanket of seclusion to envelope her for another night.

  Chapter 25

  On Tuesday morning, Zoe woke up wide-eyed and eager for school, so getting her dressed and on the bus was a breeze. Oddly enough, Josie was a bit disappointed. She missed having Zoe around all the time and wouldn’t have minded her going in late. Had she treasured those formless days before Zoe’s school years enough? From now on, all she’d have with her were summers and holidays. Before she knew it—God willing—Zoe would be even busier with normal kid and teen things like after-school sports, hanging out with friends, getting a job, driving a car, going to prom, heading off to college.

  After waving goodbye as Zoe’s bus pulled away, Josie headed back to Myra’s. Nothing about her own life had been normal or ordinary. How old had she been when she’d taken on the role of making sure she and Sam made it to school on time? Eight, maybe nine. Those years blended together, a mix of sweet pleasure during her mom’s good days and sadness and fear during the bad ones. Josie had heard enough horror stories about her over-the-top Jehovah’s Witness grandparents to wonder, if her mother had had a kinder upbringing, things might have been different for her and Sam.

  Linda, who’d been prepping today’s special when Josie and Zoe left for the bus stop, had stepped out to the porch for a phone call. She held up a finger as Josie passed by. “Be in in a sec,” she whispered.

  Josie heard Carter’s low voice coming from down the hall as she stepped inside the house and shut the front door. Until he came, Josie hadn’t craved a thing. Not a damn thing. As far as she’d been concerned, she and Zoe had lived in a dream world.

  Now, Zoe was drawing “father wanted” posters, and Josie was doing her best not to notice how her blood was pooling in her nether regions like a long-slumbering volcano waking from dormancy.

  Knowing she couldn’t avoid the kitchen just because he was in there, she kicked off her shoes and headed barefoot down the hall, savoring the cool floor against the bottom of her feet.

  She couldn’t help but notice how Carter and Myra’s conversation stopped as she soon as she pushed open the swinging door. So, they had secrets now? A sharp prick of jealousy stabbed at her.

  “Hey.” She headed for the sink and filled a glass with water, even though she wasn’t thirsty.

  “You running today?” Carter stood up from the table and carried over his empty coffee cup, setting it in the sink. Damn it if some part of her didn’t long to lean close and soak in his smell. He wasn’t like some of the guys, young and old alike, who came here to dine and had an invisible cloud of cologne surrounding them; Carter’s scent was subtle enough that she only caught it when they were this close or it wafted over on a breeze.

  “At some point,” she said, stepping back half a foot to put a smidgen of distance between them. “Probably not until later. Did Stump’s call with the delivery time?”

  “Between ten and ten thirty,” Myra answered. The majority of the week’s food and supplies were delivered every Tuesday before noon.

  “Good, because I still need to rotate the inventory this morning.” As careful as everyone was, when they got busy, things shifted out of place over the course of the week, and Josie needed to rotate what remained, bringing the oldest items to the front.

  Resting against the counter, Josie sipped her water and looked over at Myra. Myra’s lips were pursed tightly together, and she seemed to be looking anywhere but at her.

  Josie hadn’t been wrong when she’d walked in; there was a weird energy in the room. Carter lingering at the sink next to her didn’t allow her any mental space to figure it out either.

  “What’s going on?”

  Myra looked down at her mug of tea before turning to Carter. “Have you told her yet that the results came in?”

  Carter cocked an eyebrow. “Spoiler alert, but the email came Saturday. We’re related.”

  Adrenaline dumped into Josie’s system. Myra and Carter had made the trek to a DNA-testing lab a little over a week ago, and even though she’d suspected as much, having confirmation was something else altogether.

  No wonder Myra was acting strangely. Her father, the man who’d raised her and given her a love of tea and left her this home, hadn’t contributed to her DNA.

  “Myra’s your aunt, then?” She looked back and forth between them, feeling as if a canyon was forming, shoving her apart from them. “Congratulations, both of you. Even if it is a bit nontraditional how it came to be. Have you told your dad?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to give him a call today.”

  “It is a congratulations,” Myra said, “a big one. I couldn’t be more thankful to learn it, even at my age.”

  Josie knew she shouldn’t feel anything but happiness for them. And she was adult enough to know this news wasn’t going to change Myra’s love of her and Zoe. It was Carter’s significance here that was throwing her.

  He wrapped his hand around the rim of the quartz counter just a few inches from Josie’s hip. Even though she was doing her best to look anywhere but there, she caught a good enough glance to notice the defined muscles lining his forearm, the bump of bone on his outer wrist, and short, scant hairs on his arm.

  She cleared her throat and stood straight. “I’d better get this pantry organized.”

  “Want some help?” he asked.

  There was no way she could handle working side by side with him in the crowded pantry. Not right now. “I’m good, thanks.” Just then, Linda walked through the doorway. Saved by the bell. “And I’m sure you’ve got writing to do.”

  He nodded just a little too slowly. “We’ll catch up later, then.”

  Later, then? Josie had a sinking feeling he had his own agenda for talking to her today, and she suspected it had to do with that kiss.

  All too soon, lunch was over and the skies were clearing up and it was either time to head out for a jog or pretend she was too tired. She wasn’t ready to face Carter alone. Not with that kiss still to talk about.

  But when they met up in the kitchen and he said he could really use the run, she didn’t have the heart to back out. He
was stretching by the front stairs when she finished changing and met him out there. His mouth pulled up into a half smile when their eyes met; the lightness in his mood surprised her a bit. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been the playful, carefree Carter who’d been the first to get under her skin.

  At a loss for words for the second time in a few hours, Josie started down the steps and fell into a jog.

  He nudged her elbow as they rounded the end of the block. “I’m beating you up those stairs today.”

  She huffed lightly. “You haven’t run in four days. Don’t you think that’ll have set you back? That, and all those hot dogs?”

  “It was only one hot dog and more pizza and pasta than I’ve eaten in years, thanks to that kid of yours, so I guess we’ll see.”

  However far they ran, it always came down to who was going to make it up the stairs first. They’d been evenly matched their last few runs, but Josie had somehow found it within her to haul it up the last few just a brush ahead of him. She’d been running them for five years. She wasn’t about to let him outpace her in a matter of weeks, even if he had quit smoking.

  He hadn’t been exaggerating about that marathon thing, it turned out. He’d run the New York City Marathon when he was twenty-five and the Philadelphia Marathon at thirty. Now that he was closing in on thirty-five, he was thinking of doing another. And he’d been dropping hints about how they could train together.

  Josie wasn’t about to agree to something like that. Her jogs were somewhere between three and five miles, and even him jogging with her was enough of a change of routine to challenge her stride. God forbid she try to run with a crowd.

  Just the thought brought back a memory of the first time she’d run. Really run. Her thighs had turned to lead, and her lungs had burned like fire. She’d taken up jogging after she made the decision to stay on here, and it hadn’t been easy. Back in LA, she’d thought she was fit enough, but it turned out she was just thin. She would never find herself in that situation again. All brains and no body was just as bad as the other way around.