Perfect Summer: Mason Creek, book 7

by Lopez, Bethany

  Perfect Summer

  Mason Creek, book 7

  Bethany Lopez

  Perfect Summer

  Copyright 2021 Bethany Lopez

  Published April 2021

  ebook ISBN - 978-1-954655-10-2

  Cover Design by Opium House Creatives

  Editing by Red Road Editing / Kristina Circelli

  Ebook Formatting by Bethany Lopez

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please don’t participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is also available in print at most online retailers.

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  Created with Vellum

  To the authors of the Mason Creek Series. Thanks for inviting me to share in this small town with all of you. It has been an adventure!

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Faith

  2. Mitch

  3. Faith

  4. Mitch

  5. Faith

  6. Mitch

  7. Faith

  8. Mitch

  9. Faith

  10. Mitch

  11. Faith

  12. Mitch

  13. Faith

  14. Mitch

  15. Faith

  16. Mitch

  17. Faith

  18. Mitch

  19. Faith

  20. Mitch

  21. Faith

  22. Mitch

  23. Faith

  24. Mitch

  25. Faith

  26. Mitch

  27. Faith

  28. Mitch

  29. Faith

  30. Mitch

  31. Faith

  32. Mitch

  33. Faith

  34. Mitch

  35. Faith

  36. Mitch

  37. Faith

  38. Mitch

  39. Faith

  Epilogue

  Want More Mason Creek?

  About the Author

  Also by Bethany Lopez

  Prologue

  I picked up the last of my packed boxes and looked around my now empty apartment with a sad smile.

  Hope and I had lived here for the last year, ever since her father died, and we’d both grown a lot in the small space.

  Hope had taken her first day of kindergarten photo by the fireplace. We’d made cookies for Santa in the small galley kitchen. And I’d hidden Easter eggs throughout the rooms on Easter Sunday.

  I’d never imagined we’d end up here, but I was thankful we had.

  Now, even more unbelievably, we were leaving the city I loved and moving back to Mason Creek, the small town I’d run far and fast from the second I graduated high school. I’d always sworn I’d never go back, save the occasional visit, but now that I was raising Hope on my own, there was no place in the world I could think of that would give her a better childhood.

  My folks were over the moon, and the more I thought about it, the more excited I became.

  There were friends I was excited to reconnect with, family I wanted to share with Hope, and a bevy of traditions, festivals, and hidden treasures in Mason Creek that I couldn’t wait to show to my sweet daughter.

  Of course, going home again also meant owning up to my past, which meant … Mitch.

  Mitch and I had been the golden couple of Mason Creek. Homecoming King and Queen, Prom King and Queen, and the couple voted most likely to be together forever.

  He’d been my ride or die, and I his … until I wasn’t.

  1

  Faith

  One Year Later

  “Come on, little bear, it’s time to go,” I called as I put the packed True and the Rainbow Kingdom lunchbox in Hope’s matching backpack.

  This was the tail end of our morning routine.

  Every weekday morning, we got up at six. I made sure Hope brushed her teeth and hair and got dressed in the outfit she picked out the night before. Then we had breakfast together and while I made her lunch, she got on her shoes and jacket, if necessary.

  I loved routine and because I was so consistent, Hope now depended on it.

  When I’d been married to her father, it seemed like our lives were in a constant state of chaos, which had made me feel like I was always living on edge. Like any little thing would, and did, set me off.

  Living with an alcoholic was difficult, especially one whose moods ranged from euphoric to downright violent.

  Luckily, that wasn’t our life anymore. Now we were staples of the Mason Creek community. Hope went to the K-8 grade school on Mason Creek Road downtown and I owned the beauty salon, Serenity, which was right around the corner.

  “Ready,” my little blonde beauty called with a smile as we met at the front door.

  I glanced down to see she was wearing two different shoes.

  “Did you mean to do that?” I asked.

  “Yes, Mommy,” Hope said sunnily. My girl loved to march to the beat of her own drum, and I loved that about her.

  “All righty then,” I replied, helping her put her backpack on her shoulders.

  I’d bought us a sweet little two-bedroom, two-bath, ranch-style home a couple months after we’d arrived in Mason Creek. I absolutely loved it. Not just the pretty blue paint job and white shutters, but the location.

  It was only two blocks away from the house I grew up in where my parents still lived, and only another few blocks in the other direction from downtown, which was the heart and center of Mason Creek.

  Because I had errands to run during the day, I opted to drive instead of walk, so I loaded Hope into her car seat in the back of my blue Volvo hatchback before moving to the driver’s side and getting in.

  We drove the short trip to Hope’s school, where I followed the carpool line to drop her off with one of the volunteers waiting at the front of the school.

  “Have a good day, sweetie,” I called as she hopped out. “Love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mommy,” she said as the volunteer closed the door and gave me a little wave.

  Glancing at the clock, I decided I had time to grab coffee before heading into the salon, so I turned my car toward Town Square and searched for a parking spot close to Java Jitters.

  “Yes,” I cried when I found a spot close.

  I looked both ways as I crossed the street, lifting a hand in greeting to the people who were already out walking along Town Square this early in the morning.

  I took a deep breath as I entered the coffee shop, loving the sweet and savory smells that always lingered in the air like the best possible perfume.

  Most of the tables were filled and there was a small line for the register, so I moved through the dining area to secure m
y place as I looked at up at the menu. I should know it by heart, I’d been in enough times over the last year, but I still always looked up and read it over as if something may have changed.

  It hadn’t, but even it if had it wouldn’t have mattered, which made my perusal of the menu so nonsensical.

  I ordered the same thing. Every. Time.

  “Good morning, Faith. Dirty Chai with nonfat milk?”

  I smiled at Jessie, the owner, and said, “You know it.”

  “How’s your little princess doing?” she asked conversationally as she took my credit card and ran.

  “Oh, she’s getting so big. Can you believe she’s about to finish first grade? I have a rising second grader on my hands,” I replied, thanking her when I took my card back.

  “This year is going by too fast. Have a good one,” she said.

  “You, too.”

  I moved over to wait for my order to be ready, glancing down at my phone when it vibrated in my hand.

  I had a text from Olivia, my best friend.

  Sweets, can you get away one night this week? I need a drink with my bestie… or five… in the worst possible way.

  I bit my lower lip and frowned as I wondered if everything was okay.

  Of course. Let me talk to my parents and I’ll get back to you.

  My folks had been loving the fact that they were now my go-to babysitters for Hope and Hope absolutely adored her Mammy and Pappy. Although, up until now I’d avoided going out to Pony Up, the only bar in town, instead opting to spend my time at friends’ houses or hanging out and going to dinner and a movie. But I figured it had been long enough since I’d become Hope’s only parent and going out for drinks actually sounded fun.

  Thanks, Faith!

  “Faith. Dirty Chai.”

  I put my phone in my back pocket and moved to get my drink.

  “What’s a Dirty Chai?”

  I froze and my breath caught in my throat at the man’s voice behind me.

  It couldn’t be. I’d been successfully dodging my ex since the move, which was a small miracle in itself. Please tell me I’m not about to be caught off guard with a dozen pairs of eyes watching.

  But of course, that’s exactly what was about to happen. It was Mason Creek, after all, and it wouldn’t be home if half the town wasn’t there to witness the queen laying eyes for the first time on her rejected king.

  “Hey, Faith,” Mitch said easily, although the expression in his eyes was anything but.

  “Hi, Mitch,” I replied warily.

  Guess my chickens had finally come to roost.

  2

  Mitch

  How is it possible that she’s become even more beautiful?

  I stood there, in the middle of Java Jitters, feeling all eyes on us and knowing we’d probably be in the next edition of the Mason Creek Scoop, but not caring. Suddenly I was seventeen again and standing before me was the girl who held all my firsts.

  My first kiss, my first love, my first lover, and my first heartbreak.

  Yes, there were a million other firsts in there, but those were the big ones.

  Faith Evans had been the girl who made my hands sweat in seventh-grade math class and the young woman who’d held me in her arms the day my father died.

  But as I stood there taking note of the changes in her face, the subtle highlights in her hair, and the fact that she smelled exactly the same, none of it mattered.

  She hadn’t just broken my heart when she walked out without so much as a backwards glance … she’d destroyed me.

  “Hi, Mitch,” Faith said in reply, her eyes wide with shock.

  I’d started this. I’d seen her from behind and had decided it was time to stop playing games and finally acknowledge the fact that she was living back in Mason Creek.

  I’d seen her around, of course. The town was ridiculously small. I couldn’t go anywhere from one side of town to the other without running into people I knew, no matter the time of day. So, of course there was no way Faith could live here for a year without us running into each other.

  I’d dodged her at least a dozen times.

  I’d hidden behind trees, cars, even Old Man Morton once.

  I hadn’t been ready to see her, and I’d heard through the grapevine that she wanted to put off seeing me for as long as possible, so I played along.

  But, five minutes ago I’d stood outside the coffee shop and watched as she chatted with Jessie, and I’d decided enough was enough.

  Now that I was here, smelling her and looking into those startled blue eyes, I realized I’d made a mistake. I still wasn’t ready.

  “I can’t do this,” I muttered, before turning on my heel and striding out of there as fast as I could.

  Once out on the sidewalk, I started left, before remembering I’d parked my truck to the right. So, I spun around to go back the other way, only to find Faith clutching her to-go cup in front of me.

  “Mitch,” she repeated, and the sound of my name seemed to slap into my chest like a bullet. “Are you okay?”

  “Yup. Fine,” I lied, as I tried to walk around her.

  Faith blocked me and gave me a sad smile.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” she asked.

  I wanted to tell her to go to hell, but I knew my mom would hear about it and be sorely disappointed. She had raised me to be a gentleman, after all. So, instead I said, “Just. I have a job to get to.”

  “That’s right. Olivia said you own your own business. Painting houses, right?”

  I wasn’t about to sit there and discuss my livelihood with Faith Evans.

  “What’d you want to talk to me about?” I asked instead.

  ‘Oh, I, uh, have been meaning to get with you … to clear the air. I’m sorry about what happened after graduation, but, you know, we were just kids … I hope you can forgive me, and we can be amicable. I mean, we’re bound to run into each other around town.”

  “We’ve been doing okay so far,” I said, regretting the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. I sounded bitter … and like an ass. Like a bitter ass. “Just kidding … we’re fine. It’s water under the covered bridge … as they say.”

  Relief crossed her features and I itched to get out of there.

  “Well, if that’s all, I really do have to get to work,” I said, rocking back on the balls of my feet.

  “Of course,” she said with a light laugh. “I’ve got to go open the salon, so … it was nice to see you.”

  “Yup, you, too,” I said, this time moving around her without issue and hightailing it to my truck.

  I opened my door and hopped up into it.

  Mason Creek was the kind of place you could leave your work truck, full of tools and equipment, unlocked without a worry.

  Once I was in the safety of my cab, I let out the breath I’d been holding and grabbed on to the steering wheel. I wanted to let out a shout, but I knew the gossips were out on their morning walk around Town Square, eyes on me as they waited for me to give them something to get them through the day.

  Well, I wasn’t giving them the satisfaction. Being gossip fodder once in my life was more than enough.

  Needing an outlet, I pressed Wilder’s name on my phone and listened to it ring.

  I knew he’d be up, as a rancher he woke before the sun, but I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to answer right away or not. If he couldn’t, I knew I could count on him to call me back when he was free.

  “What’s up, Mitch?” he said when he picked up.

  Wilder had been a couple years ahead of us in high school and he and I hadn’t really connected until a few years after graduation. He’d had his heartbroken by his high school girlfriend, too, so we’d bonded over that one night at Pony Up, the local pub, and we’d been close ever since.

  “It finally happened,” I told him, my eyes drifting back to where Faith and I had spoken on the sidewalk.

  “You hooked up with the redhead from the bar?” he joked.

  “No, I spoke with Fa
ith.”

  “Shit, Mitch. How’d that go?”

  “Not great. You think you can meet up tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah, man, of course. Whatever you need.”

  We hung up and I pulled my truck out of the parking space and headed down the street, but this time, rather than avoiding the salon, I drove right past it.

  3

  Faith

  My hands were shaking as I unlocked the back door to Serenity.

  Seeing, and speaking to, Mitch had really thrown me off. Damn, he’d looked good. Like, really freaking good.

  The weather was heating up as summer approached, so he’d been in a well-worn, fitted T that accentuated the fact that he was a man who did manual labor. His body had been incredibly fit. Toned but not overly bulky.

  His sandy-brown hair, which had always been cut short when we were younger, was grown out and a little shaggy, as if he hadn’t had time to get a trim in the last few months. It was a good look on him, making him appear even more handsome and endearing, if that was possible.

  His brown eyes, which had always regarded me warmly, had held none of the affection they used to.