CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
Lynne was having everyone over to celebrate my first day of work. She was making all my favorites—her barbeque chicken, homemade macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I didn’t think there was a better meal anywhere in the world, to be honest.
We all sat around the table and talked during dinner. I’d already had to explain my battered face to everyone. When Pete had first seen me, he’d been ready to grab his shotgun and go find whoever did that to me.
He calmed down when he heard the story, of course.
“Ooh, and you have a date with the handsome doctor, huh?” Lynne asked, waggling her eyebrows.
I would have rolled my eyes, but it would have hurt my black eye. “Yes,” I said, my face turning slightly pink. I hated that it still did that like I was fifteen years old.
I was relieved when Alexis started talking about what was going on in her complicated romantic world. She was going to a college nearby on a tennis scholarship and could come home often. She regaled us with her soap opera style life.
Finally, Sadie held up her hands. “Oh my God, Lex. I’m going to need charts and graphs to keep up with all these people.”
“I’ll make a presentation and it can be the entertainment at Thanksgiving.”
Everyone laughed except Alexis. I wasn’t so sure she was joking—or that I was opposed to a presentation. She had a way with words that sucked me right into her stories.
The table felt strangely empty without Wyn or Tim there.
Wyn was at the University of Georgia on a tennis scholarship.
She didn’t get to come home often, and I was sad not to see her a bit more often.
As much as Alexis had once been the tennis start of the family, Wyn had taken it further.
Much further. There was a lot of talk of her trying to go pro after she graduated.
Of all the Summers siblings I knew her the least well.
One, she was quiet and reserved, and two, she was so much younger than the rest of us.
She kind of got left out of the fun, it seemed.
I wasn’t sure where Tim was, though I couldn’t help but wonder if he was out with some woman.
“Where’s Tim?” Alexis suddenly asked as if reading my mind. I hadn’t wanted to be the one to ask.
“He had to work late. You know they sometimes work later hours at the quarry in the summer with the longer daylight hours,” Lynne supplied. “It all evens out in the winter. They can’t exactly work safely when the sun is down by five in the afternoon. At least not certain kinds of work.”
I guessed that made sense, but it had to kind of suck in the summer.
“Well, I wanted to wait for Tim to get home, but I guess I’ll just have to keep a plate warm for him,” Lynne said. “Let’s go sit outside and enjoy the sunset before dessert.”
I didn’t know how I’d eat another bite, but I’d have a hard time passing up one of Lynne’s desserts.
We enjoyed sitting outside with glasses of wine or bottles of beer while we enjoyed the breezy weather as the last of the days’ light faded away. The Edison bulbs strung in the trees and around the deck provided plenty of light at night.
It wasn’t long after we got out there that Pete and Lynne went back in to work on getting dessert ready.
Alexis, Sadie, and I sat out there, talking.
Sadie shared that she was having difficulty getting used to Harrison being back in her life, at least temporarily, during Melinda and Drake’s wedding preparations.
My heart hurt for her. Having been through something similar with Tim, I knew how badly betrayal hurt. And hers? Well. It was worse than what happened to me.
“God, where is Tim? I bet he’s shacked up with some blonde and never comes over at all,” said Sadie.
“He’s not as bad as you think he is,” Alexis said, looking at her new manicure.
“What do you mean?” Sadie asked while I listened with bated breath. I didn’t want the answer to matter to me, but it did.
“What do you think about this color?” Alexis asked, making a face and wiggling her nails at us. “Too dark purple? I can’t pull off emo…”
“Alexis! What do you mean about Tim?”
I was glad Sadie asked. I wanted to grab Alexis and shake the answer out of her.
“Oh. Just that he’s not a manwhore anymore.”
“He’s not?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Nope. He doesn’t hang out with women very often at all anymore. And when he does, he actually takes them on dates and doesn’t always sleep with them even then. In fact, I’m not really sure he sleeps with any of them.”
Sadie and I exchanged a glance, and I couldn’t help but wonder why she didn’t know this. She and Tim were close. But I knew she’d been busy with her teaching job and now the Harrison thing was probably throwing her off.
“Oh, and he tried to date Katie Rutherford over in Halliwell for a while.”
I sucked in a breath at the same time Sadie’s mouth dropped open. Everyone knew Katie Rutherford and I were often mistaken for each other. That’s why I even knew her name. I had gotten mistaken for her so often, I’d found out who she was.
We looked a lot alike. Especially from a distance. The only major difference was our eye color.
“But he couldn’t make it work,” Alexis was still talking. “He said she didn’t act like he hoped she would. Whatever that means.”
She went back to looking at her manicure.
Sadie and I were quiet for a minute, processing what she’d said.
That’s when the door opened and Tim walked out on the deck with a glass of whiskey in his hand.
I tried not to notice how good he looked, even at the end of a long day.
He had his work shirt rolled up, showing off his muscular, tattooed forearms. If anything, he’d gotten more cut, more muscular in my absence.
And I thought I saw some new tattoos as well.
“Hey, everyone.” He set his glass on a side table and started to flop down in an Adirondack chair but paused halfway to sitting down. His eyes were locked on my face.
His crossed over to me in two steps and pulled me up from my chair.
“Oh my God, who hurt you?” Tim asked, looking concerned as he grabbed my face.
Before I could step back, our eyes met and that old chemistry zinged between us.
His hand softened until he was stroking one side of my jaw and looking deep into my eyes.
I sucked in my breath and felt my heartbeat quicken.
“Okay, the dessert is ready! Y’all come on in and eat,” Lynne called.
I jumped away from Tim like he’d tasered me or something. I knocked a patio chair over in the process, and he had to reach out to steady me.
Alexis gave me a look. “My lord, Nat. Clumsy much?”
“Alexis! Be nice,” Tim snapped.
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m just dealing with so much evidence. You don’t even know.”
“Know what?” He looked back at me in confusion.
I heaved a sigh. I’d already told the entire Summers family why I looked like I’d been in a boxing match. I really didn’t want to repeat it. “I got hit by a door, fell in a holly bush, and had to be carried unconscious through the lobby on my first day of work at the hospital.”
Tim’s mouth dropped open. The look on his face slowly morphed from one of concern to one of amusement. “On your first day?”
“Yeah. Although they wouldn’t let me start today. I guess they didn’t want someone with a possible concussion scrubbing in for surgery.”
“Makes sense,” Tim said. He glanced at Alexis. “Okay, I reverse what I said. You had every right to call her clumsy. Jeez, Nat.” Then he burst out laughing. “Were you unconscious when you were laying in the holly bush?”
“Well, I don’t remember it, so I guess so.”
He and Alexis leaned on each other they were laughing so hard.
“Tim Summers! What a question. Get in this house right now. I warmed up your dinner, and it’s getting cold.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he hurried in with a quick, mischievous look back at me. I just shook my head.
But I couldn’t help but compare the difference between his touch and the handsome Dr. Reyes’ touch earlier in the day. Why did Tim bring out those feelings in me? It wasn’t fair.
I could only hope I would develop those sorts of feelings for another guy soon.