Inspiration struck.
“Gram, I’ll buy the house from you. Then you can live here or in a condo. Your choice.”
“Oh?”
“I want you to call Zach and tell him you won’t sell. Hopefully, when he learns I’m here checking up on you, he’ll back off.”
Her grandmother watched her intently for a long moment. “You never looked at Edward the way you used to look at Zach. Fifteen years is a long time for you to still be bothered by a man,” said her grandmother wisely. “Have you ever asked yourself why?”
“No.” Summer yanked her scrunchy out of her hair and pulled her ponytail even tighter. “Because I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is. Can we quit talking about him and not start on your dissatisfaction with my single state?”
“Oh, all right, dear. I won’t bring him up again-or the fact that you’re an old maid-not unless you do.”
“Old maid? Gram, there’s no such thing anymore.”
“Maybe that’s so in Manhattan, but that’s definitely not so in Bonne Terre. Ask anybody.”
Gram’s set expression stung way more than it should have.
Tuck stuck his head out the door. “Zach called and needs me to come in, so I’ve got to get to work.”
“Hey, Tuck, your job is one of the reasons I came home. Can we talk?” Summer said.
“Later. He needs me to run an errand.”
Summer ground her teeth as she watched her brother lope out the door.
Tuck refused to quit his job. Summer and he had quarreled about it briefly, but Zach had just promoted Tuck to full-time status and he now spent his whole day running errands for Zach’s contractor.
As for Gram, she was as good as her word. Two whole days had passed without her ever once mentioning Zach.
She was the only one silent on the subject, however. The whole town was buzzing because Summer and Zach were both in town. Whenever Summer went shopping, the curious sneaked sidelong glances at her. The audacious stopped her on the street and demanded to know how she felt about Zach now.
“Do you regret what you and Thurman did-now that Zach’s so rich and nice and set on saving this town from economic disaster?” Sally Carson, the postmistress, had demanded.
“Your grandmother told me he’s been real sweet to her, too,” Margaret York, one of Gram’s oldest friends, said with a look of envy.
“Well, his return to this town has nothing to do with me,” Summer replied.
“Doesn’t it?” Margaret’s face was sly and eager. “Men don’t forget…”
“Well, I have.”
“I wonder how you’ll feel when you see him again. We all wonder.”
One of the worst things about fame was that it made everyone think they had a right to know about her private life. Some things were too personal and painful to share with anyone, even well-meaning neighbors.
So Summer stopped going into town. Instead, she stayed at the house to work on her script and formulate a new way to approach Tuck.
On this particular afternoon she’d set a plate of cookies and a glass of tea garnished with a sprig of mint beside a chaise longue on the screened veranda. She paced in frustration, gesturing passionately as she fought to discover her character, a young mother. The role eluded Summer because, for her, young motherhood was a painful theme.
But today she did something she’d never let herself do before-remember how she’d felt in New Orleans when she’d been expecting her own child. Suddenly, she broke through the protective walls inside her, and grief washed over her in waves.
Her eyes grew wet, and she began to tremble, but she didn’t relent. So deeply was she immersed in painful memories, she didn’t hear the hard, purposeful crunch of gravel beneath a man’s boots until he was nearly upon her.
A low vicious oath startled her. Expecting Tuck, Summer whirled, dabbing at her damp eyes with the back of her hand.
And there he was.
At the sight of Zach’s hard, chiseled features swimming through her tears, the pages she’d been holding fell to the wooden floor.
“Well, hello there,” he said.
“Zach.” She hated the way his low, velvet voice made her heart accelerate, made the air feel even hotter. Frantically, she dabbed at her eyes so he wouldn’t see her tears. “Gram said you’d been visiting a lot.” Her voice sounded choked and unnatural.
“Did she?” Black eyes narrowed as he pushed the screen door open. “She told me you were coming home.” Zach scowled. “You’re pale, and your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”
“No! It’s nothing,” she whispered. “I was just acting out a part.”
His lips thinned. “You always were damn talented at that.”
Good, he bought it.
Tall and dark in a long-sleeved white shirt and jeans, and as lethally handsome as ever, Zach’s tight expression told her he wasn’t happy to see her.
As she bent over to retrieve her script, his insolent dark eyes raked her body in a way that made her aware of how skimpily clad she was in her snug blue shorts and thin, clingy blouse.
Feeling strangely warm and too vulnerable suddenly, she bristled and sprang to her feet. “I told Gram to tell you. If she decides to sell, she’ll sell to me. So, why are you here now?”
“I haven’t spoken to her. My secretary arranged my appointment with your grandmother,” he said, striding closer. “When I saw you in those shorts, I imagined she told you I was coming and you were lying in wait…”
“As if I’d do-and, hey, it’s August. I…I have a perfect right to wear shorts,” she sputtered.
“Yes.” His gaze drifted over her appreciatively. “You look good in them. Too good-which I’m sure you know.”
“Gram didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“And she didn’t tell me to cancel my visit. I wonder why. Maybe she likes my company. Or maybe she’d prefer to sell to me. This old place and that brother of yours are way too much for her.”
“None of that is any of your business.”
“Your Tuck was running pretty wild, got himself fired from a bar because money went missing…”
“As if you know anything about Tuck. He doesn’t steal!”
Zach’s black brows arched. “Still thinking the worst of me while you defend everybody else. Your stepfather’s been giving me hell, too.”
The comparison to her stepfather cut her…deeply. Zach hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him either, had he? He hadn’t cared…
Maybe because he hadn’t known.
“As a matter of fact, I like your grandmother. That’s why I hired Tuck. When I happened on him late one night, he’d had a flat tire. He didn’t have a spare or money or a credit card, and his phone was dead. So he accepted my offer to haul him to a service station and buy him a new tire on the condition that he become my pool and errand boy and work it off.”
“I see through your Good Samaritan act.”
“I was sort of suspicious about it myself.”
“You’re just using Tuck to get at me in some way. So go,” she whispered. “You are the last person I want involved with my family, especially with Tuck, who’s extremely vulnerable.”
“Well, sorry if my return to Bonne Terre upsets you, or if Tuck’s being my employee bothers you,” he said, not sounding the least apologetic. “But since I’ve got business in this town for some time to come, and Tuck works for me, I suppose you and I were bound to meet again…sooner or later.”
“Gambling? Is that your business?”
“Yes. What of it? You’re an actress, someone skilled at weaving seductive illusions. You sure seduced me with your little act. And I let you off easy. You should feel lucky. I’m not known for lenience with people who betray me.”
Easy? Lucky? New Orleans lay like a weight on her heart.