“Of course.”
“The family that’s associated with the business…”
“The Santorinis.”
“Yes. Do you know them?”
“I do,” she said. “And all their extended relations here in town.”
“Are they good people?”
She sighed and smiled. “The best.”
“How so? Be more specific.”
She considered that for a moment. “Well, they love with everything they have. They care about people and the community, and I’d trust any of them with my own child. In fact, I do,” she added on a laugh. “And John Santorini is no different, sir. He’d do anything for anyone and runs this business with heart and intelligence. I can’t imagine a better person to invest in professionally. Or,” she added a wistful smile. “Personally.”
He drew back a little, probably getting more than he bargained for from the hostess. “I’ll keep that in mind. All of that is very important to me.”
“To me, too,” she added, surprised at how much she meant it.
With a quick goodbye and another promise that John would call, she headed back to the hostess stand, where Travis waited, perusing a menu.
On the way, she took a deep breath and tried to get her head on straight for this conversation. It was time to clear the air…and get back to John. Really, that was all that mattered to her now.
“Across the street?” he asked as she reached him. “It’s been a long time since I took a walk in Bushrod Square.”
“Sure.” It felt weird to go in the middle of the day without Mav—and without John—but she headed to the door. He took her hand again, holding it tight as they stepped out onto the sidewalk, and he looked from side to side. “Half of me is happy to be home, but the other half wants to throw up. I hated a lot of things about this town.”
Who could hate anything about Bitter Bark? “I think it’s charming.”
He slowed his step and smiled at her. “I think you’re charming.”
“Travis, I—”
He lifted their joined hands and pressed his knuckles against her lips. “Me first. I get to go first. Come on.” He crossed in the middle of the street, taking her to the entrance of Bushrod Square, where he stopped, turned, and looked at Santorini’s.
“I gotta say, he’s done a good job with this place. So much nicer than what it used to be.”
Summer breathed a sigh of relief. At least half of the reason Travis was here had to do with his father’s business with John. “It’s a great restaurant, and he has amazing plans for a franchise. I hope you came to accept his offer.”
He shot her a look she didn’t quite understand and brought her around the brick wall into the square, walking toward the first bench under a tree. “I’m definitely accepting an offer,” he said, the vague statement giving her hope that they really had worked out the sale of the building.
“So you came to Bitter Bark to find me,” he said as they sat down. “I can’t tell you how good that feels.”
“I owe you an apology,” she said, burning with the need to get the words out and end this conversation as politely and as quickly as possible.
“Shhh. Summer Jackson.” He took one of her hands and captured it between his. “I waited too long for this moment to start with an apology.”
But it was all she wanted to say. Taking a breath, she eased her hand out of his again, determined not to engage in anything physical that could lead him on. “It’s why I came, Travis. For the sole reason to look you in the eye and tell you that I was wrong to disappear like that, and I’m sorry I didn’t give you a better explanation. Instead, you got no explanation.”
His eyes flickered, then he frowned. “Excuse me?”
“When I ghosted you. It was such a small, cowardly thing to do.”
He stared at her, then shook his head. “I ghosted you, Summer.”
For a long moment, she didn’t speak, trying to make sense of that admission. “After you said you loved me,” she reminded him. “We talked a time or two, then I disconnected that phone number, took down my Skype account, and deleted the email account. I closed up all social media under my name and…” She tried to make sense of his bewildered expression, but couldn’t. “Didn’t you try to reach me and fail?”
“I shut down all contact at the same time,” he said. “I had the Army issue me a different email by telling them mine was compromised. I took down my personal Skype account. I blocked your name and number from everything.”
She leaned back on the bench, stunned. “Why?”
“Well, why did you? Fear? Guilt? An abundance of caution?”
She pressed her hands together and touched her fingers to her lips, gathering her thoughts. “Yes,” she answered. “But I thought I owed you an apology, which is why I came here.”
“And I saw you on that video and knew you hadn’t gotten over me yet.”
“Gotten over…no. No, Travis. I may not have been clear back then, or forceful when I told you I didn’t feel the same. But I didn’t, Travis. I didn’t then and I don’t now.”
“Summer, listen to me.” He captured her hand and inched closer, his powers of persuasion on full display. Along with a shocking scar on his wrist. “I’ve dreamed of this second chance for years. I didn’t think I was worthy of it because the Army really screwed up my head and confidence. I went to Nashville and tried that, but I realized I didn’t want to do life without you.”
She barely breathed, the words slicing her chest, her gaze falling to that scar. Please, God, tell me I didn’t cause him to do that.
“When I found out you were here, I believed you must feel the same way. I figured since I’d disappeared, coming here was the only way you could find me. And what a statement it is about how much you care.”
“I do care, Travis,” she said, as gently as possible. “But not in the way you…want.”
He stared at her. “That’s why I swallowed my pride and told my parents I’d take the restaurant.”
She frowned, trying to process that. “Take the restaurant? What are you talking about?”
He jutted his chin in the general direction of Santorini’s. “They want me to reopen Hoagies & Heroes and run it. They’re actually offering to finance the business and set me up.”
“Not…there.” She pointed directly to the restaurant so there could be no doubt. “Surely you don’t mean—”
“Shh. I just discussed enough business. And yes, there. And no, I didn’t think I wanted to do that with my life, but then I saw you, Summer.” He grabbed her hand again. “You. Here. Waiting for me.”
Oh God. Her coming to Bitter Bark had made things worse for John. “I haven’t been waiting for you,” she said, as slowly and clearly as she would if trying to calm her daughter.
“Working at my restaurant?”
A bolt of resentment ricocheted through her. “It’s not your restaurant.”
“Semantics, really. Come on, Summer. You’re here, hundreds of miles from home, working in the only place you could possibly expect to find me, and I know why.”
“Travis, no. I’ve been riddled with guilt over disappearing after you confessed how you felt. I needed to apologize. You were an amazing friend when I needed one, but that’s all.” She patted his hand, as friendly as possible. “Please accept my apology.”
“If you accept mine.” He gave her a sly smile. “Over dinner.”
She shook her head. “I’m seeing someone.”
He grunted like she’d hit him. “Is it serious?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I’m still figuring things out, but it’s not a casual relationship.”
He frowned and took a breath like he was gearing up for his next onslaught of persuasion. She stopped it with her own question. “Are you seriously going to put Santorini’s out of business?”
Another grunt, this one louder. “I’m doing what someone I care about really wants me to do. I’m getting my act together, Summer.”
&n
bsp; “What about your music?”
He snorted. “What music? A year in Nashville, and all I did was learn how to tend bar. I left four months ago to stay with my parents down in Wilmington after I found out my mom…” He shook his head. “Listen, what matters is that I’m coming here permanently and starting a business. What will it take to convince you to stay at least for a while, until we can pick up where we left off?” He squeezed her hand. “We were so close, Summer.”
Oh God. He couldn’t move here and take John’s restaurant. He couldn’t. Especially if part of his decision was based on Summer being here. She tamped down another choking wave of guilt that threatened and tried to think straight. “Can’t you open somewhere else in town or near your parents?”
“We already own the building,” he said. “He’s a smart guy. He’ll find another place for his restaurant.”
“Travis. That’s so unfair.”
He inched back, his whole body stiffening. “You want to know what’s unfair, Summer? That I am thirty-five years old, and I have to quit the one thing in the whole world that matters to me. That my mother is dying of ovarian cancer and won’t ever see me get married and have a kid. You want to know what else is unfair? The shit I saw in Afghanistan, including your husband being blown to bits when it should have been me.”
She flinched, a mix of revulsion at the graphic description and a flash of sympathy for the survivor’s guilt that had always plagued him.
“And you know what else? That I have crap for talent.”
“That’s not true.”
“No one’s ever believed in me, Summer.”
In her mind’s eye, she could see Isaiah’s distinctive handwriting, two pages on how incredibly skilled Travis Shipley was on guitar and how he sounded like a younger, and better, Blake Shelton. “Isaiah believed in you.”
He stared straight ahead.
“He did, and I can prove it.” She grabbed his arm this time. “If I can, will you reconsider?”
“Reconsider what?”
“Doing something you already know you don’t want to do. Please.”
He turned back, scanning her face. “How can you prove it?”
“I have a letter from Isaiah about you.” She stood. “It’s at my apartment. I brought it with me to give to you.” She looked around, remembering that she’d driven to town with John. “But I can’t get it right now.”
“I’m parked right over there.”
She remembered that John left a key hidden by the door, since hers were in her bag in Cassie’s car. But should she take off with Travis?
“Summer, I can still read your every thought,” he said.
“Really? What am I thinking?”
“That you shouldn’t take a drive with me.” He shook his head and stood. “Just give me the address, and I’ll meet you there.”
“I don’t have my car today. I came in with my, uh…”
“Boyfriend?” he suggested.
She nodded.
That made him let out a sigh, and gave her hope that he was done with his campaign to win her. “Come on, I’ll drive us both.” He gestured for her to get up. “I could use a little Isaiah today, and maybe you can talk me out of opening a sandwich shop.”
Maybe she could. She had to. “Then I have just what you need.”
As they walked away, he draped a light arm over her shoulders. “You seriously ghosted me?”
“Apparently, we both knew what was right.”
“At the time,” he added.
“And now.”
“Aw, Summer. You were always a good friend,” he said.
“But I’m afraid that’s all I can be, Travis.”
He looked down at her and gave a tight smile. “I hear you. I don’t like it, but I hear you loud and clear.”
She smiled back up at him and put a friendly arm around his waist. “Can you let go of this? Of me? Of whatever you’ve been holding on to?”
“I’ll try.” He added a light kiss on her head, and she turned to glance over her shoulder at Santorini’s, just in time to see Karyn, who was serving a table on the patio, staring at her.
She slipped out of Travis’s arm, making some space between them, another punch of guilt hitting her.
She’d explain to Karyn later, when she was back with John. Where she belonged.
Chapter Twenty-four
John drove straight to Foothills Regional Airport, doing his best to simmer down on the way. He needed to fly. To be up in that Cessna with Aidan for their last lesson. He needed to be at cloud level, thinking only about the plane and the wind and wiping away every thought of Travis Shipley.
Wiping away every feeling.
If Summer wanted that guy, who was he to try and stop her? He wanted her to be happy. And if George Shipley was going to screw him out of his restaurant, then he’d rise up from those ashes and find a new location. It wouldn’t be the first time John had stepped aside when a woman wanted to take a different path, and it wouldn’t be the first time life blew up his business plan. He’d take that curveball and hit it hard, seizing the day and soaring above the clouds. All the mess of mixed metaphors his dad preached still drove him on.
All that mattered now was getting to those clouds and forgetting everything else.
He hung on to that thought while he checked in at the airport management office to log his flight plan and sign out Waterford Farm’s Cessna, which Aidan had given him clearance to do. After a brief conversation with the desk manager he knew well by now, he scanned the radar, happy that the weather was perfect, and headed to the plane.
Aidan wasn’t expected for another half hour, so John dove into the preflight check. The simple, straightforward, and logical process of making sure every nut, bolt, screw, hinge, flap, gauge, and pump were in perfect working order was exactly what his soul needed right now.
He stood next to the plane, rolling up his sleeves, a sudden clarity in his head after an hour of fog. All he could see was…Summer.
Wait a second. Wait a damn second.
He needed to talk to her. Walking out on her—and Tom Barnard—had not only been senseless, it had been mean. And thoughtless. And not like him at all.
Before starting the electrical check, he pulled out his cell, touched her contact, and…got voice mail.
Stuffing the phone back in his pocket, he moved to the master switch, checking fuel gauges and the pump, then started to physically examine every bolt and screw in the flap. He shook the hinges of the aileron, peeked into the engines for signs of nesting birds, and tested every piece of metal on one side of the plane before heading to the other to start all over again.
Maybe she was still at Santorini’s.
Pausing in his process, he called the main number, and Karyn answered with a cheery, “May I help you?”
“Hey, it’s John. Is Summer around?”
He heard her sigh softly. “No, she’s not here.”
“Any idea where she went?”
“Mmm. I saw her head over to the square.”
“Alone?” He hated that there was hope in his voice.
“No.” There was nothing but distaste in hers. “She was with that guy you had in your office. Who is he, John?”
The enemy. “His father owns the building,” he said.
“Oh? Why was he draped all over her and…” Her voice drifted off. “Sorry. I just cannot abide a cheater.”
His gut tightened. “No one’s cheating,” he said, knowing right down to his bones that Summer wouldn’t do that to him. Not without letting him down easy first.
“Mmm. Whatever.”
“Look, he’s a friend of her late husband. They go way back. Just have her call me if you see her. And fast, I’m flying soon, so I won’t be able to talk.”
“Okay. Oh, her purse is here, if that means anything.”
“She left without it?” he asked. Why would she do that?
“Cassie came in looking for the secret shopper guy, who is long gone, by the way. She
said Summer left her bag in the car, so I put it in your office.”
Where could she go without her bag? Which always had her phone in it? “Okay, thanks.”
Accepting this minor setback, he put his head back in the preflight game. He finished the mechanical and moved on to chemical, testing each of the fuel tanks for air and water. Then he worked his way to the brake fluid and checked the spark plugs before climbing into the cockpit.
Just as he did, Aidan called.
“Do not kill me,” he said before John could even say hello.
And for the, what, fiftieth time that day, disappointment slammed John’s gut. “You can’t make it.”
“I’m still in town. I had to take Beck…” His voice faded out. “To the doctor.”
“Everything okay?” he asked.
Aidan just laughed. “More than okay. Let’s just say we are going to be making a happy announcement at Sunday dinner, so be there.”
He inched back, connecting the dots. “Seriously? That’s amazing.”
“It’s also secret until Sunday, but I am terrible at keeping secrets.”
“It’s safe with me. Congrats, man.”
“Thanks, John. I’m sorry about bugging out on you. I didn’t think the doctor would take that long, and then they had to do some tests and…” He sighed. “I swear to God, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard your own kid’s heartbeat.”
The way he said it raised the hairs on the back of John’s neck. “Spoken like a true father,” he said with a laugh to cover the punch of emotions the words gave him.
“Thanks. We’ll go up Sunday morning,” Aidan promised. “We’ll do the final hours and sign all the papers for you to start solo. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be. Everything sucks today. Except your news. And…hey, I’m getting another call.”
“Oh, yeah. So am I. Talk to you later.”
He tapped out of Aidan’s call and frowned at the number coming in. Shane? He didn’t call that often. “What’s up, Shane?”
“Where the hell is Summer?” his stepcousin demanded, his voice tight.
“I don’t know. Is something wrong with Destiny?” Even as he said the words, he already knew that was the only reason Shane would call him looking for Summer.
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