Chapter 22
COLT
Istood in front of the bathroom mirror and adjusted my collar. I’d been dressing myself for more than thirty years but I was suddenly worried I was doing it wrong.
“The collar is fine,” Cody said.
“Go away.”
“What’s the problem, Colt?” He tilted his head. “Is the great Colt Anderson nervous about a date?”
I turned away from the mirror and reached for my Rolex on the counter. The watch was simple. Nothing flashy. She wasn’t going to be impressed by flashy and I didn’t want to try. I wanted her to see me. Just me.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Dark jeans, white shirt, sleeves rolled up.” He nodded slowly. “You look like you do every other day of the week.”
“You’re an asshole.” I left my bedroom and headed downstairs with Cody behind me. I was taking the Mercedes. The Porsche was great for zipping around in but tonight was about treating her right.
“Don’t wait up,” I told him.
He snorted. “Don’t forget a condom.”
I left him in the kitchen and went into the garage. There was an SUV big enough to haul around nine people, which we rarely used. The Porsche, Mercedes, and the Jeep for those beach excursions. Was it excessive? Probably, but we were who we were and I wasn’t going to feel bad about it.
I only felt a little ridiculous about driving next door, but it was a date and I was going to do it right. It took me less than a minute to drive from my house to hers. I climbed out of the car and walked up to the front door two minutes before seven.
I raised my hand to knock and heard a shriek followed by laughter. No one was being murdered. It was just her niece and nephew playing—I hoped. I knocked and waited, telling myself to relax. It was dinner. We’d had dinner many times before.
The door swung open and I looked down to find a small girl in colorful pajamas staring up at me. Her hair was the most spectacular disaster I had ever seen on a human being. The child’s hair and gravity were not acquainted.
“Hello,” I said.
She looked me over like she was deciding whether or not she was going to slam the door in my face. “You’re Colt.”
“I am,” I said. “And you must be River.”
She beamed, clearly thrilled I knew her name. “Aunt Summer is getting pretty.”
I laughed and stepped inside. “Aunt Summer is already pretty.”
Her face lit up. “She’s a princess.”
“I like to think of her as a mermaid.”
That really had the kid grinning. The house smelled like popcorn. There were shoes by the door and library books on the table. A stuffed unicorn lay abandoned on the floor. The home had the lived-in look of a family that was comfortable right where they were.
“River, get back here,” a young boy said. “I wasn’t done.”
A boy about nine years old was standing in the middle of the living room holding a pillow with both hands. His hair was just as wild as his sister’s. I had interrupted a pillow fight. He looked up at me and the pillow lowered slightly.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“It’s Colt, Aunt Summer’s date, remember?”
Becca appeared from down the hall carrying a laundry basket. She offered me a friendly smile. “I see they listened when I said not to open the door to strangers.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She sighed and shook her head. “Not your fault my kids don’t listen.”
“It’s good to see you,” Becca.
“You too.”
Summer came around the corner. I had picked the dress. I thought I’d had a reasonable idea of what it might look like on her. I was wrong. Not even the model in the ad I saw looked as amazing as she did.
The fabric floated around her legs when she walked.
Her hair was loose around her shoulders, the way it dried naturally when she let it in those sexy beachy waves.
The backless cut showed the long line of her spine and the tan that went all the way down.
She looked like a goddess that walked straight out of Atlantis.
“Hi,” she said.
I nodded, trying to find words, but she left me gobsmacked. “Hi,” I managed.
I stared at her and felt Becca staring at me staring at her sister.
“You look incredible,” I said.
“Thank you.”
She glanced down at herself and then back up at me, running her hand down her flat stomach. “The dress is beautiful, Colt.”
“The dress is great, but you in the dress takes my breath away.”
Becca sucked in a breath. “Alright, you two should probably go. Go eat. Have fun. Do whatever healthy young adults do.”
She kissed the top of River’s head and smoothed the wild tangle of her hair with one hand, which did absolutely nothing to tame it. Then she crouched down and pulled Ocean into a quick hug that he only partially resisted before giving in. Summer straightened and looked at Becca.
“Don’t wait up,” she said.
Becca grinned. “I won’t.”
Summer grabbed a small clutch from the hall table and looked at me. “Ready.”
I held the door open and followed her out into the warm evening air. She stopped at the bottom of the porch steps when she saw the Mercedes in the drive. She looked at it and then looked at me with one eyebrow raised. I followed her to the passenger side and opened the door for her.
I pulled out of the driveway and headed north along the coast road. She was quiet for the first stretch. She had her hands in her lap and her fingers were working at the rings she wore stacked on her right hand, turning them in small rotations the way she always did when she was nervous.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
The restaurant sat at the far northern end of Surfside where the shoreline curved gently and the nearest building was a quarter mile back.
It wasn’t exactly five-star, but it had location and the rest didn’t matter.
The place hadn’t changed much. It still sat right at the edge of the sand and looked like an average shack.
Tables had been set up directly on the beach, white tablecloths weighted at the corners and candles burning in glass holders at the center of each one.
Tiki torches were staked into the sand around the perimeter.
I got out and came around to her door. She was already opening it, which I expected. She wasn’t going to sit there and wait. I offered my hand anyway, and after a brief pause, she took it.
The hostess led us to a table. I pulled out her chair, sat across from her, and picked up the wine list. I already knew what I wanted but I studied it anyway to give myself something to do with my hands. The server appeared and I ordered a bottle of white wine.
“You nervous?” I asked.
She looked at me. “Are you?”
“A little,” I admitted.
She seemed to appreciate that. “Yeah, this is weird.”
“Is it?”
“Dinner with you. I feel so exposed.”
“Because no one knows about our past.”
“That’s the way we wanted it.”
I nodded but I wasn’t sure I completely agreed with that. She didn’t want her dad to know and I got it. I accepted it.
The server returned with two glasses of wine. I watched her sip it, her hair gently lifting away from her shoulders in the breeze.
“I used to think about this,” I said.
“Dinner?”
“Bringing you somewhere like this. Taking you out properly.” I set my glass down and looked at her. “I always imagined it would be different circumstances. Better ones.”
She was quiet, watching me with those eyes that still captivated me and I knew they always would.
“Me too,” she said.
Two words. Barely audible but I heard them and they had a power over me I couldn’t quite explain.
I felt the full force of what I had walked away from four years ago.
I told myself she was fine. We would never last. But looking at her now, I knew it was never going to be one of those things that was fine.
She was looking out at the water now. I had brought up the past, which was reopening a wound that never quite healed.
But if I wanted anything with her, it had to be said. I had to clear the air.
“Summer.” I waited until she looked at me. “I owe you a real apology. More than one, probably. But tonight I want to start with the most recent thing I’ve done to earn your contempt and distrust.”
She tilted her head slightly. Listening. Waiting.
“When I came into this project with Judd and the other investors, the board had been searching for a location for almost eight months. We had a list of criteria. Deep water access. Existing infrastructure we could build on. A coastal community that wasn’t already saturated with what we were offering.
” I paused. “When Surfside came up, I was the one who pushed for it. I knew this place. I knew the coastline and the general area better than anyone else in that room because I’d spent summers here my whole life. ”
She was watching me with her irritation growing. My apology was starting to sound like a speech. The same one Judd had delivered. That earned him a tomato to the head.
“I sat in that boardroom and I made the case for this town,” I went on.
“I want to be honest with you about what I was thinking when I did it. I saw profit margins. I saw projections. I saw a revenue model that worked because Surfside was still small enough that the infrastructure costs would be manageable and the land values hadn’t peaked yet.
” I met her eyes. “I saw dollar signs, Summer. That’s the truth of it.
I wasn’t thinking about the people who live here.
I wasn’t thinking about what it would actually cost. I was running numbers and I got excited the way I always get excited when a deal lines up.
It’s what I do. I make people money. I make my family money. ”
“Congratulations on being rich,” she said through clenched teeth.
I was bombing my apology tour.
“I never stopped for a second to consider that growth is too high a cost for a paradise as protected as Surfside,” I said.
Her head tilted, her irritation lessening just a bit. “What?”
I saw her body relax and got a glimpse of the Summer I knew from so many years ago. The woman who was perfectly content to eat a meat and cheese sandwich on the beach while watching the sunset. She never needed much—just her beach. And I threatened to take it away.
“I understand the true cost,” I said. “It’s too steep.”
“Took you long enough,” she whispered as her eyes sparkled with tears.
I wanted to grab her across the table and pull her into my lap. I was desperate to have my mouth on hers. Instead, I took a sip of the wine. I wasn’t about to cross any more lines. I had to do this right.
“I promise I will never try to destroy your home again,” I said.
“What about your partner?” she asked. “I’m guessing he’s not going to pack up and go back to whatever penthouse he crawled out of.”
“I’m working on it,” I told her. “No promises, but I’m going to fix this.”
“Can you?” she asked.
“I’m pretty sure I can,” I said with a cocky grin. “I’ve got some pull in this world.”
She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her wine. “Big talker.”
“I’m sorry, Summer. Truly. Thank you for making me hear you. I feel like an ass for not paying closer attention. It shouldn’t have gotten this far. I’m sorry.”
“I guess we’ll have to see how sorry you are,” she said softly. “Because sorry doesn’t mean much if we lose everything.”