One Hot Summer

by Heidi McLaughlin

  She nodded. “Your father made it impossible for us to stay. He didn’t do any of the things he threatened, but he made life hard for my mom. She lost shifts and her work was called subpar in her file. Rumors were flying about how I had stalked you—even following you to the camp when you tried to get away from me. Kim and Lori were being picked on. The whole town was talking about us.” She closed her eyes. “My mom’s cousin out east told us we could move there and he would help. We basically left everything behind and walked away. He had a place in a small town in the Maritimes, and we settled there. The girls went to school, Mom found a job, and I tried to pick up the pieces of my life. We even changed our name back to my mom’s maiden name so your father wouldn’t look for us. We all needed the fresh start.”

  I looked at her. “I changed my name too. I didn’t want anything of his. I’m Lincoln Webber now.”

  “I missed you every day.”

  “My memories of you, of us, were what got me through it,” I admitted.

  She lifted her head and pulled on a chain around her neck. The pendant I had given her, now dull, dangled from the necklace. I was shocked to see it, my heart bursting at the thought of what it meant. She had cared all this time. The same way I had cared for her.

  “You still wear it?”

  “I never took it off. It was the only thing I had that was still real. Well, that and this.” She pulled out a set of keys, held together with a strip of leather I recognized. I took them from her and touched the leather, thinking of her expression when I snapped the cuff onto my wrist, swearing never to take it off. Another promise I failed to keep because of that bastard.

  “Why did you come back?” I asked.

  She sighed. “My mom grew up here. She missed it.” She swallowed, her gaze on her hands. “She got sick, Linc. She wanted to come back. We had seen the news that your father died, and it had been so long, we figured most people would have forgotten us. The girls were busy and happy in university, and I wasn’t attached to anything or anyone out east, so I brought her back.” Her voice became thick. “She died last year.”

  “Sunny,” I murmured and dragged her back into my arms. She came easily, fitting against me. “I am so sorry,” I said, kissing her crown, my eyes damp. “Your mom was always good to me.”

  “She liked you. Even after everything, she always insisted there was more to the story than we knew.”

  “I’m glad she thought enough of me to think that.”

  “What happened, Linc? Why did you come back?”

  “My father brought me back just after I turned nineteen. He thought I was broken, that I would toe the line. He didn’t expect me to have done my homework and to beat him at his own game.”

  She frowned, confused.

  “It was all about money, Sunny. The money my mother left me. My father always led me to believe there was just a little money waiting for me when I turned nineteen. Nothing of significance. But I had seen the paperwork. He had left it out once in error. There were millions, and the way it was invested, it kept growing. He planned on me signing it away to him and then he’d get rid of me. Some job somewhere where I’d be none the wiser and he wouldn’t care what I did, or who I did it with. He could keep an eye on me but be rid of me at the same time. He really thought I was that stupid and that broken. But I knew about the money, and the years I spent in that place taught me a few things. I found out ways to get around the stipulations that kept me locked down with the help of a few friends. As soon as I was back, I contacted my mother’s lawyer, and we were ready. I met with my father just to watch the expression on his face when he realized I knew.”

  I stood and paced. “I walked away from him and started my own company. Just like him, I kept myself hidden, but I did the opposite of what he had done all those years.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I perched on the edge of the desk. “I started buying up properties here in town and gifting them to people he’d been screwing for so long. I used every resource I had and killed every deal he tried to make. News of his double-crossing started to spread. Word leaked out—I made sure of it. I bought every run-down home there was and rebuilt them, employing the people he put out of work. I made rents in the new places lower, and people flocked to them. His places were empty. I picked them up for a song and did it again. I used every dirty trick he had ever employed to take away the only two things that ever mattered to him. Power and money. Without power, the money dwindled until he was struggling and starting to lose everything he had. He died before it happened. I took over the estate and tripled the wealth.”

  “The park,” she breathed, already knowing.

  “Yes, that was for you.”

  Her eyes glimmered, and we shared a smile.

  “Did he know,” she asked quietly. “That it was you?”

  “Yeah, he did. The rest of the world, no. But him? Yes.” I studied her. “In some ways, I’m just like him, Sunny. I systematically set out to take him down and made him pay for every horrible thing he did. The people he hurt. How he treated my mother. His misuse of power. His hatred of me.”

  “That doesn’t make you like him,” she replied. “That makes you human. And your endeavors helped people.”

  I looked out over the town below. “I hope it did. It was the only thing that kept me going after I lost you.”

  She stood and crossed over to me. I pulled her into my arms, holding her close.

  “Are you still lost, Sunny?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “So much time, so many mistakes, and so much hurt has happened.”

  “But you’re here,” I insisted. “You came to me.”

  “To tell you off.”

  “But you stayed,” I added, my voice low. “You’re still with me.”

  She said nothing, her head resting on my shoulder.

  “We would have to take it slow,” she said finally. “I have to learn who you are now, Linc, and you have to get to know me. I’m not the same girl you lost ten years ago. I don’t know how you went from the boy you were to the man you are today.”

  “I know.” I reached behind me into the box and held out the stacks of envelopes. “You could start by reading these.”

  She took them, confused. “What are they?”

  “The letters I wrote you. My father obviously had them waylaid. I don’t know why he kept them, unless he planned on using them to hurt me at some point.”

  She took them from my hands. “There are a lot.”

  “I wrote you every day. Some days, it was the only way I could cope. It felt as if I was talking to you.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “Are we too damaged for this, Linc?”

  “No. We made it through all this shit for a reason.” I cupped the back of her neck. “Let us be the reason, Sunny.”

  She bit her lip, the gesture familiar and comforting. “Slow,” she repeated. “It would have to be slow.”

  “I’m good with slow.”

  She stepped back. “I’m going to leave. I need to think, and I have some reading to do.”

  I stood. “I’m ready to get out of here.” I slammed the lid shut on the metal container and added it to the last box I had.

  “What are you doing with this place?”

  “It’s being emptied then I’m having it bulldozed. I want to keep nothing of his, and I want no reminder of him in this town.”

  “And the land?”

  “I’ll decide that later.”

  Outside, I loaded the two boxes into my car. I looked around. “Did you walk here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I drive you down?”

  “Okay.”

  “And can I see you tomorrow?”

  She smiled. “I guess you’re on a roll, Linc.”

  I smiled as I slid into the driver’s seat. I pulled away from the house that had been another kind of prison to me.

  I didn’t look back.

  I was at the shop before it opened the next morning. I had
barely slept all night, thinking of Sunny. I had kissed her when I dropped her off. A long, gentle kiss that promised more. I would let her set the pace. I made sure we had each other’s phone numbers and even texted her a few times just to check in. By her fast responses, I knew she was feeling the same anxiety. The last time I’d kissed her goodnight, we’d been torn apart. Morning couldn’t come fast enough for me.

  She came to the door, rolling her eyes. “I’m not even open yet.”

  “But I can come in, right? I smelled biscuits.”

  “Of course you did.”

  I stepped inside, leaning down and brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Hi.”

  She turned and kissed my mouth. It was far too brief for my liking. “Hi.”

  “You okay today?”

  She nodded.

  “You look tired,” I murmured, tracing a finger under her eye.

  “I read some of your letters.”

  “Just some?”

  “They were difficult to read. I had to stop.” She hesitated, and I saw the look of pain in her eyes. “They upset me. Knowing what you went through. That you were alone and scared.”

  “I’m here now. I was tougher than he thought. I was fighting to get back to you.”

  She nodded, looking as if she wanted to say more. But I wanted today to be about us. Now.

  “Um, biscuits?” I prompted. “Hungry here.”

  “Right,” she replied, wiping her eyes and straightening her shoulders. “Savory or sweet?”

  “Um, both?”

  “Sit down.”

  I watched her from the spot I chose in the corner. She moved gracefully, confident with herself. I tried not to stare, but she was so beautiful. Even years later, there was an air of sweetness around her.

  She placed a plate in front of me, piled high, and a small pot of jam alongside of it. “Milk?” she asked.

  I tried not to be too pleased that she remembered I always liked milk with biscuits. I shook my head. “Cappuccino, please.”

  “You never liked coffee.”

  I shrugged. “I learned.”

  Without a word, she turned, and a few moments later, a steamy bowl of froth was set in front of me. “Thank you.” I looked up. “These are as incredible as I remember.”

  Her smile was bright, her voice teasing. “I guess after making about a million fucking dozen they should be.”

  My biscuit froze partway to my mouth. “You don’t swear.”

  She smirked, then turned and walked away. “I learned,” she called over her shoulder.

  I chuckled as I ate my biscuit.

  Learning. That was what we had to do. Relearn each other. Move forward from the past.

  Could we do that? Could we be Linc and Sunny again?

  She slid into the seat across from me, sipping a cup of coffee. She looked out the window.

  “It’s almost summer,” she mused. “It’ll be busy here again.”

  I reached across the table for her hand. She let me take it, and I liked how mine engulfed hers, folding over her small palm protectively.

  “Will you try with me, Sunny? Can we use the summer to get back to where we were?”

  She shook her head, and my heart sank.

  “I don’t want to go back to where we were, Linc. It was too tumultuous and scary. Can’t we just be Linc and Sunny now? Two people who have met and want to get to know each other?”

  “Let the past go, you mean?”

  She looked down at our hands. “The past shaped us, made us who we are. It will always be a part of us, but I would rather face the future looking forward.” She smiled. “I know we still have a lot to talk about, and deal with, but I would like to try.”

  “With me?” I asked, hopeful.

  “With you.”

  “Another summer of us, then?”

  Her reply was all I needed to hear.

  “I’d like to think of it as the start of us. A lifetime instead of a season.”

  There was so much I wanted to say. Thoughts and dreams I wanted to share with her. Memories I needed to talk about and clear from my head. But with her words, I knew I could. We would find our way, and with time, we’d heal and move forward.

  Together.

  I leaned over the table and brought her mouth to mine.

  “I can live with that.”

  She smiled as I kissed her.

  And I was finally home.

  Also by Melanie Moreland

  Vested Interest Series

  Bentley (Vested Interest #1)

  Aiden (Vested Interest #2)

  Maddox (Vested Interest #3)

  Reid (Vested Interest #4)

  Van (Vested Interest #5)

  Halton (Vested Interest #6)

  Insta-Spark Collection

  It Started with a Kiss

  Christmas Sugar

  An Instant Connection

  The Contract Series

  The Contract

  The Baby Clause (Contract #2)

  Standalones

  Into the Storm

  Beneath the Scars

  Over the Fence

  My Image of You (Random House/Loveswept)

  About Melanie Moreland

  New York Times/USA Today bestselling author Melanie Moreland lives a happy and content life in a quiet area of Ontario with her beloved husband of thirty plus years and their rescue cat, Amber. Nothing means more to her than her friends and family, and she cherishes every moment spent with them.

  While seriously addicted to coffee, and highly challenged with all things computer-related and technical, she relishes baking, cooking, and trying new recipes for people to sample. She loves to throw dinner parties, and enjoys traveling, here and abroad, but finds coming home is always the best part of any trip.

  Melanie loves stories, especially paired with a good wine, and enjoys skydiving (free falling over a fleck of dust) extreme snowboarding (falling down stairs) and piloting her own helicopter (tripping over her own feet). She's learned happily ever afters, even bumpy ones, are all in how you tell the story.

  The Inheritance

  A Port Henry Novella

  Amy Briggs

  1

  Donovan

  Spring was coming to an end in Port Henry, an affluent seaside town roughly two hours northeast of New York City, and with the change of seasons, a transition in the ambiance of the community. As summer approached, the quiet of the square would shift to a bustling tourist trap and the locals who resided there year-round would either saddle up for an overtly profitable spell through fall, or they’d hide out and grumble as the weekenders and seasonal residents descended from the city.

  Donovan Hunter was a local, but he wasn’t one of the natives who purchased an opulent home, established residency, and invited celebrities and socialites to parties all season, nor did he inherit a big home from a wealthy family. The old money was an entirely different breed altogether, and they had a firm policy of not letting the new money take over wherever possible.

  While he had spent his entire life in the Port, Donovan was neither old nor new money. In fact, he’d grown up with very little. The only son of a single mother, Donovan spent his formidable years attending the one and only public school in the area while his mother cleaned the houses of both the long-standing residents as well as some of the more contemporary, newer folks. The subset of the working class on the shorefront was largely a group that didn’t stay long and, with the exception of a handful of his classmates, Donovan couldn’t wait to leave for college as well.

  But, as often happens with the sons of hard-working mothers, Donovan found himself back in Port Henry after graduating, working the summers at odd jobs and serving at high-end restaurants to put himself through veterinary school. Besides his mother, Maggie, their pets had been the only other reason he came back. By the time he graduated from veterinary school, he’d established himself as a small-town celebrity of sorts among the working class.

  Opening his own practice had always been a d
ream, and though he didn’t think he’d do it in Port Henry, it was the only true home he’d ever known. Any resentment he’d felt toward the wealthy had waned as he treated sick pups of the rich and famous, helped mend the semi-exotic felines who found themselves in precarious situations, and tended to the other random animals people chose to keep as pets.

  By the time he was thirty, he’d become the top veterinarian in the area. He was well-known for his bedside manner with the animals, but also after years of being in the employ of the well-off, he knew how to appease them and their demanding ways with a smile. It didn’t hurt his cause that he was also handsome. So handsome that, on numerous occasions, actors, directors, and wannabe somebody’s had tried to get him to attend their parties under the guise of their thanks for his work, but also to recruit him for parts in movies, television shows, and only God knew what else.

  He was always flattered, and couldn’t help his flirtatious nature, but the phony nature of most of his clients wasn’t exactly a turn on. That didn’t stop him from the occasional summer fling. He was, after all, still a man, and the dating pool in Port Henry wasn’t exactly a hotbed of dateable singles looking for monogamy. He gave as good as he got, and every summer brought a few of the same ladies by with their dogs that weren’t really sick. There was always one or two new acquaintances to make though, even if only for the evening.

  Donovan reflected on the approaching summer with a grin. It had been a while since he’d had any fun and the new crop of women coming to town with their plunging necklines, short skirts, and unfriendly dogs was about to begin. The summer crowd kept his business thriving, and his sheets warm. What more could a thirty-two-year-old bachelor want?

  The last patient of the day was a Bengal cat that was walking with a limp. Mrs. Forbes, who was pushing her mid-sixties and had a bit of a limp herself, had brought “Princess Dinah of the Nile” in on a leash.