Every Summer Since (The Sister Pact #4)

Prologue

COLT

“Beer.” Cody pushed a cold Corona into my hand.

I twisted the cap, stuffed it in my pocket because I’m not an animal and I don’t litter, and took a long drink.

Eric Church’s voice carried on the breeze from a beach bar a quarter mile away. Unfortunately, someone trying to sing along with him was killing the song about Talladega, but that’s what happened when the alcohol flowed.

Grinning, I moved from dry sand to the shore, where the ocean rushed up to swallow my feet. Not that I would ever say it out loud, but it felt like a hug from a long-lost friend and the small town itself. Surfside hadn’t changed. I couldn’t say the same thing about me.

My brother and I were going to enjoy one last hurrah in southern California with our toes in the sand before it was back to Texas and said toes were stuffed in boots wading through horse shit. Technically, not wading, but there was always horse shit. Cow shit. Occasionally some goat shit.

My gaze turned west. The sun had set beyond the horizon and now it was just open blackness. I could see the lights from the few boats anchored off the shore, but other than that, it was nothing but the sound of the Pacific rolling in and out. Even the gulls were mercifully quiet.

Cody joined me in the surf just as water rolled over my feet, reaching about mid-shin before rushing right back out.

Like me, he wore board shorts and a loose tee.

When I’d first put them on this morning I’d felt unlike myself.

It was jeans and boots on the ranch, a freshly pressed suit during business calls.

“There she is,” Cody said, voice filled with excitement.

I followed his gaze up the beach to the bonfire.

Maybe a quarter mile down the stretch of sand from us, flickering orange against the dark.

Sparks danced upward to the sky and beckoned us from the shore to the flame.

We’d been going to this thing every summer since we were old enough to convince Dad to stop asking where we were headed.

It was a weekly tradition in this place.

Cold beer, warm sand, good music, and a whole lot of people who came to Surfside for the same reason we did—to breathe a little easier.

“You nervous?” I asked him.

“About what? Anderson men don’t get nervous.”

“Anderson men also don’t get giddy and yet, here you are. Giddy.”

Cody pointed at me with his beer can. “I’ve been chasing this chick all damn summer. Tonight is the night.” He spread his hands before him as we strolled up the beach, like he was celebrating victory already. “Touchdown, baby.”

I laughed and took a drink. Too bad I didn’t have a lime. Maybe someone at the bonfire would have some.

The closer we got, the clearer the conversations and laughter became.

Young ladies in bikinis mingled with guys in board shorts and not much else.

Red solo cups stood propped up in the sand, full of mysterious mixtures.

Everywhere I looked were beaded ankle bracelets, bucket hats, tan lines, and smiles.

“What about you?” Cody asked.

“What about me?”

“Who are you going after? Lila? Oh, what about the redhead? What’s her name, Carly? Cindy?”

I shrugged off the question. “I’m leaving my options open.”

Cody gave me a playful shove. “That’s what I’m talking about. My brother the player.”

I didn’t deny it.

“Why didn’t you ask her out earlier?” I asked. “You’re doing it at the tail end.”

“That’s exactly why I resisted. I had all summer to flirt with the ladies.

Sampling here and there. But tonight, I get the one I’ve wanted all along.

And by the weekend, it’ll be over without me having to break her heart.

” He flashed me a grin and the blazing fire reflecting in his eyes made him look like a devil.

His elbow poked me in the ribs. “The end of summer is the natural end of a relationship.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot.”

“You haven’t?”

I laughed and took another drink. “Clearly not as much as you.”

The crowd was larger than usual. I’d guess thirty people. All locals with a handful of “summer people” like us. People that got to spend their time in Surfside Cove for about three months before life took them back to the real world. Like me.

The song changed and “Old Town Road” had all the ladies dancing, red solo cups in hand, salt-water hair down and messy.

I caught a whiff of tequila and knew there would be some people passed out on the beach by midnight—and someone around here probably had some limes.

A couple of guys to our left were throwing a frisbee in the dark like they could actually see it.

It was one of those nights. Easy. Good vibes.

Cody stopped walking and tapped my chest with the back of his hand. His beer sloshed and spilled on my shirt. I frowned and smacked his hand down. “Use your words.”

“There she is,” Cody said. His attention tunneled on a beautiful young woman sitting with a couple of her friends, laughing at something one of them said.

Her long hair hung over one shoulder, and when she spotted Cody, she patted the open spot on a piece of driftwood beside her.

He started walking and spoke over his shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I told him. “But go get her.”

Now unencumbered by my brother and his plans, I scanned the party, unsure what I was looking for.

Nothing really. I didn’t have an agenda.

There would be plenty of that when I had to go back to work.

Schedules, meetings, agendas, high priority nonsense from every client I crossed paths with.

There would be phone calls and negotiations about everything from how much water we could use to the cost of feed.

I had two days left to live it up. Maybe I should take a page out of Cody’s book. It would be easy enough to meet a girl tonight. All I had to do was flash her a smile and tell her my last name was Anderson.

I was just about to join the fun around the bonfire when something moved in my peripheral vision. I turned without thinking.

A quick shadow with long blonde hair hurtled down the beach away from the blaze. She wore a bikini top and jean shorts, and her toned legs carried her directly to the water. A tight knot formed in my throat as I watched her peel across the sand like her life depended on it.

Is she running from something? Or someone?

I turned quickly, sand kicking up around my feet, but nobody gave chase. The knot in my throat dropped to my chest and an uneasiness spread through my body that I recognized immediately. My body was ready to fight if it needed to.

But there was no threat.

Regardless, something was obviously wrong.

Her arms went out over her head and then she dove into the black water just before a wave broke over her.

Plenty of people went swimming at these parties. Usually it was after a couple shots and a dare, and they never entered the water like that.

I heard it then. Over the music, laughter, and the conversation by the fire, came the faintest voice and splashing of water. Someone was in trouble out there in the midnight waves. Shit.

I searched the water and ignored my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

The woman who’d run in head first was hard to spot, but I saw her arms windmilling as she swam further and further away from shore.

I followed her trajectory, and there, about fifty or so feet from where she was, was the distinct frothy water of someone fighting for their life in the waves.

I dropped my beer in the sand and ran for the water right where I’d seen the woman go in. I plunged in, the water not cold but certainly colder than the night air. I came up for breath, the surf trying to carry me toward shore as I searched for blonde hair.

There!

I dove back under and swam against the waves, grateful for all the years of swimming in oceans around the world. I was a strong swimmer and it was a calm night. I dove under the waves where they broke, came back up, and oriented myself, continuing to push forward until I heard her voice.

“I’ve got you.” She had her arm around the upper torso of another figure that dwarfed her petite stature.

She spoke calmly into their ear, asking them not to kick her as they frantically tried not to drown.

She assured them she had them, that she wouldn’t let go, but that she needed their help to do so.

And then they were swallowed by another wave.

I swam harder and felt a foot. I grabbed it and pulled my body toward them.

The kid was big, probably two hundred pounds of dead weight. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen and he was completely panicked. His arms thrashed, grabbing her head and pushing her under the surface again.

“I got him!” I shouted, knowing I had the strength to get the kid to settle down.

She coughed and sputtered. I moved behind the boy, wrapped one of my arms around his chest, and started kicking, dragging him with me.

I used my hip under his spine to keep him above water while I dragged him, and he was able to suck in greedy gulps of air.

“Relax,” she said to the boy. “Float. We’ve got you. Catch your breath.”

The kid either listened or just ran out of steam because his body went limp. His head rested against my chest as I used one arm to propel myself through the water, letting the tide do most of the work.

As soon as I could touch sand, I stood. She took one of his arms and I grabbed the other, dragging the kid onto the beach a good ten feet away from the water.

She dropped to her knees beside him and rolled him onto his side. She slapped his back, not hard enough to really do anything, but it was the same move I’d seen mothers do.

“Come on,” she ordered. “Cough. Get it out.”

The kid jerked, gagged, and then puked up half the Pacific. I barely managed to jump out of the way before he spewed ocean water across the sand.

“That’s it,” she said. “There you go.”

She rubbed the guy’s back, patting between his shoulder blades.

I stood there, dripping, chest heaving, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Thirty seconds, maybe less. That’s how fast one of the scariest moments of my life had just unfolded.

The kid was sitting up now, sputtering, alive, blinking at the world like he wasn’t sure how he ended up on the beach. She was still beside him, steady as a rock as she talked him through it.

Then she looked up at me, water droplets clinging to her lashes, her wet hair plastered to her cheeks, neck, chest, and shoulders.

Holy shit.

The woman was stunning. She was breathing hard from the exertion of dragging a grown man out of the ocean.

Someone put another branch on the fire. Flames shot up and lit the area enough for me to see the gorgeous shade of her aquamarine eyes.

Sea glass. That’s what they reminded me of.

We had a bunch of little figurines in the kitchen window of the beach house.

When the sun hit them just right, they looked exactly like her eyes.

I couldn’t look away.

“Thanks.” The kid coughed. “You saved my life.”

He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at my angel. His angel too, I supposed.

“No sweat,” she said.

“Uh.” I cleared my throat. “I’m here too.”

She didn’t look at me again, but I saw the corner of her mouth twitch.

The kid stared up at her with glassy, devoted eyes. The kind of look that said he was thinking about flopping on the sand and holding his breath in the hopes she might give him mouth to mouth.

It wasn’t a terrible idea.

“I think I need CPR,” the punk said.

I rolled my eyes. Ballsy little shit.

She laughed. “Nice try, kid.”

She stood up and reached her hand out to help him up. “You’re fine, but if you start feeling like you can’t catch your breath—”

“You’ll give me mouth-to-mouth?”

“No, you get your ass to the hospital,” she said.

She pulled him to his feet and slid under his arm.

She told him they’d take it slow and go sit by the fire. “And if you have half a brain cell, you’ll lay off the booze for the rest of the night.”

Proving the kid was perfectly fine, he made a move and put his hand on her hip. “Yes, ma’am.”

She caught his wrist, moved it away from her body, and then stepped back. “Keep your hands to yourself,” she told him. “You have no business going out there or putting your hand on me. You’re an ankle-high tourist at best.”

He blinked and she slid out from under his arm. I didn’t blame her. The near-drowning victim was a punk, and the whole time she walked away, he stared at her ass.

So did I, but at least I hadn’t needed her to rescue me and then tried to make a move on her.

My lips tasted like saltwater. It dripped to the sand from my hair and the tip of my nose. My shirt and shorts clung to me like a second skin, which was mildly uncomfortable, but I remained rooted to the spot, watching her silhouette move down the beach.

I exhaled slowly. “Who was that?”

The kid started back up the beach to the fire and smirked over his shoulder at me. “It doesn’t matter who she is. She’s way out of our league, man.”

Nah. She was out of his league. She was very much in mine. Beautiful. Bold. Fearless in a way that still had my veins surging with the thrill of the rescue.

Either I’d just had my first mermaid encounter, or I’d met a true goddess of the sea.

And I missed my fucking chance.