Butternut Summer Read online

  She exhaled, closed her eyes, and sank a few more inches into the water. And, as she did so, an image of Jack came, unbidden, into her mind. It was an image of him smiling, smiling that smile. She hadn’t seen that smile today. He’d been too nervous to smile that smile. But the truth was, when Jack smiled, really smiled at you, he had a great smile. It was a slow smile, a smile that seemed to say that he had all the time in the world. And you, the woman he was smiling at? You were the only other person in that world with him. She had loved that smile once, and she wondered, now, if he still had it . . .

  Caroline sat up abruptly and yanked the plug out of the bathtub. What was she doing, thinking about Jack that way? If she started daydreaming about him again, the way she had when she’d first met him, she’d know it was time to go straight to a mental health professional. Because only a crazy person could go through what she’d gone through with Jack Keegan and still feel any attraction to him at all.

  Jason, seriously, are you going to take the shot or not?” Will asked. They were playing pool at the Moccasin Bar that night, and Jason had already lined up his shot three times.

  Jason sighed with mock exasperation and straightened up. “Will, you broke my concentration. Now I’m just going to have to start all over again.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not going to let us have this table all night,” Will pointed out, taking a swig from his beer bottle. “And I do mean all night, the way you’re playing.”

  “Patience, Will, patience,” Jason said, setting up the shot again, this time even more carefully than before. Will groaned, but only on principle. He didn’t really care how long this game stretched out for, not when playing pool at his favorite bar with his best friend seemed as good a way to spend the night as any other.

  “Three ball in the side pocket,” Jason said, finally taking the shot. As Will watched the balls scatter, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Although he knew who it was without turning around, he turned around. “Hi, Christy,” he said, and he saw, immediately, that there was something in his expression, or in his tone of voice, that she didn’t like.

  “You don’t seem that happy to see me,” she observed, her pink lip-glossed lips forming a pout. Oddly enough, Christy’s pout was one of the things that had initially attracted him to her. But tonight, for some reason, he found it mildly irritating.

  “No, it’s not that,” Will said. “It’s just, I’m in the middle of a game.” He looked over at Jason, who was setting up another shot. He was used to these interruptions from Christy.

  “Are you mad at me?” Christy asked. Her pout had gotten poutier.

  “I’m not mad at you.”

  “Are you sure? Because I know it’s been a while. But, Will, I can’t help that.”

  “I know you can’t help that.”

  “Good,” she said, and after a quick look around to see if anyone was watching them, she reached out and gave his T-shirt a tug. “So let’s go,” she said. “Now.” He saw then, objectively, how pretty she looked, with her wide blue eyes and her long, shiny blond hair. Saw it, but for some reason, tonight, he didn’t feel it.

  “I’m going to finish this game,” he said, shifting his pool cue to his other hand.

  A frown creased Christy’s smooth, suntanned forehead.

  “Look, it’s not a big deal,” he said.

  “This is the first time we’ve been able to see each other in what, two weeks, and it’s ‘not a big deal’?”

  Will closed his eyes, just for a second, bracing himself for what was next. Christy, he knew, did not take rejection well, since, like most exceptionally attractive people, she’d had very little experience with it. And, in fact, when Will opened his eyes, he saw there was a little muscle working in Christy’s tightly clenched jaw.

  “Okay, Will, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to go sit at the bar and order a drink and drink it while you finish your game. Not because I understand why you need to finish it but because I’ve missed you, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to see you again after tonight. So when you and Jason are done, come and get me and we’ll leave. All right?”

  “No,” Will said. He didn’t know who that single word surprised more, him or Christy.

  “No what?” she asked, her blue eyes, with their heavily mascaraed lashes, opening wide.

  “No, I’m not leaving here with you tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t need to know why not, Christy,” he said, trying to keep a lid on his exasperation. “I’m a free agent. I’m not your husband; you already have one of those, remember?”

  She flinched, visibly. They both knew Will had never said anything like that to her before. But then again, they both knew Will had never not wanted to go home with her before either. He watched, uncomfortably, as the expression on her face turned from shock to hurt to anger.

  “That wasn’t very nice, Will,” she snapped, and then she walked away.

  “What was that about?” Jason asked, mystified, when Will rejoined him at the pool table.

  “Nothing,” Will mumbled, setting up to take his shot.

  “That didn’t look like nothing,” Jason observed. “But I have to say, Will, she looks hot when she’s angry. Then again,” he added, drinking his beer, “she looks hot when she’s not angry too.”

  Will set up his shot and took it. It was a lousy shot.

  “Hey, Will, if you want to take off with her, that’s fine,” Jason said, watching as the pool balls scattered ineffectually. “I’ll find someone else to play with.”

  “No, I don’t want to go. But you know what? I don’t really want to play pool, either. Let’s get another round at the bar.”

  They both sat down at the bar and ordered a beer, and Will drank his moodily as he thought back to the night he’d met Christy. He and Jason were at a different bar, a dive bar called the Mosquito Inn, where they went sometimes just for the hell of it. Christy was there too, with a friend, and the two of them had sat down at the bar with Will and Jason. Will had seen her wedding ring right away, and he’d been on his guard. He didn’t have many rules in his life, but not getting involved with married women was one of them.

  Still, it had seemed to him, at first, that if getting involved was the farthest thing from his mind, it was the farthest thing from Christy’s mind too. She wasn’t flirtatious—except, maybe, for that adorable pout—she was just unhappy. Very, very unhappy. She’d gotten married too young, she told Will, to a man who didn’t really love her. Mac, her husband, was a salesman who traveled a lot on business, and she was lonely when he was away, but she was even lonelier when he was home. Most of the time, he just ignored her. When he wasn’t ignoring her, he was being mean to her. She started her story sitting at the bar with Will and finished it sitting in his pickup truck in the bar’s parking lot. By then, she was crying, and even with mascara-blackened tears running down her cheeks, she’d still looked ridiculously beautiful. He’d comforted her, as best he could, getting cocktail napkins from the bar for her to dry her tears with, holding her, stroking her back. But when none of these worked, he’d taken her home to her lonely house and made her feel less lonely—all night long. And leaving her house the next morning, Will hadn’t felt especially guilty about it either. He figured if her husband was as big a jerk as she said he was, he probably didn’t deserve her fidelity, anyway . . . That had been a year ago.

  Since then Christy had seemed happier. She rarely mentioned Mac anymore, though that was partly because Will, who tried not to think about him, didn’t want to talk about him either. He’d never met him before, and, except for the pictures of him at Christy’s house, he wouldn’t have recognized him if he had. But sometimes, Will felt bad for the guy. And that wasn’t the only problem with their arrangement. Because between the coded messages Christy insisted they use when they texted each other, and the sneaking around, and the lying, he was starting to feel like Mac wasn’t the one who was the jerk here. He was.


  He had a bitter taste in his mouth now, and he took a slug of his beer, hoping to wash it away, but it stayed there, and thinking about the first night he’d met Christy wasn’t helping. He was wondering if she’d ever been as unhappy as she’d said she was, wondering, too, if Mac had ever treated her as badly as she’d said he had. And, most of all, he was wondering why this was the first time he’d bothered to ask himself either of these questions.

  “Christy’s still here,” Jason said now, breaking into his thoughts.

  “Yeah?” Will said.

  “Uh-huh. And I don’t think she’s ready to give up on you yet,” Jason observed, looking down the bar.

  Will followed his eyes and saw Christy talking to two men sitting at the other end of the bar. She was pointedly ignoring Will and Jason, but she was lavishing attention on her two new friends, tossing her long blond hair, and laughing exaggeratedly at whatever they were saying. Will looked away, but Jason was fascinated by her performance.

  “She keeps looking over here, Will. I think she’s trying to make you jealous.”

  “It’s not working,” Will mumbled into his beer.

  “Okay, she just walked away from those two guys. One of them, by the way, looks like he’s about to cry in his beer. I think he thought he was gonna get lucky. Let’s see, what’s she doing now. She’s walkin’ over to the jukebox, she’s puttin’ some quarters in—”

  “Hey, Jason,” Will broke in. “I don’t need the play by play.”

  Jason shrugged and was silent for a few minutes, but then Will heard him whistle softly under his breath. “Will, you have got to see this,” he said.

  Will glanced over to where the jukebox was and saw that Christy was dancing, suggestively, by herself. Even Will couldn’t quite bring himself to look away, which meant he was in good company, since by now the whole rest of the bar was staring at her too.

  She was dressed tonight in a tiny, vintage rock concert tee, denim cutoffs that were so short the linings of the pockets peeked out from beneath their fashionably ragged hems, and high-heeled wedge sandals that made her long suntanned legs look even longer. Her arms were above her head, her head was thrown back, and her eyes were closed, as she swayed and swiveled to an ’80s rock anthem that everyone in the bar knew by heart.

  “Will, seriously, just go with her already,” Jason said. “I can’t take much more of this.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re pathetic,” Will said, making a point of staring into his beer.

  “I’m not pathetic,” Jason said, unperturbed. “It’s just . . . her legs, Will. What’s up with them? Seriously. How does she get them so shiny?”

  Baby oil, Will almost said. This was true. He knew for a fact that Christy rubbed it into her legs to make them softer and smoother because he’d seen her do it on more than one occasion. But he didn’t tell Jason this; he’d never hear the end of it if he did.

  “You know what?” he said suddenly, taking out his wallet and throwing some money on the bar. “Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Jason objected. “The show’s just getting started.”

  “Well, it’s over for us,” Will said, sliding off his bar stool.

  “Will, I haven’t even finished my beer yet.”

  “We’ll stop and buy a six-pack,” Will said. “Then we’ll go back to the garage and play some darts, and I’ll try really hard not to beat you.”

  “Okay,” Jason said reluctantly, taking a final swig of his beer and giving Christy one last look. “But you’re paying for the beer.”

  An hour later they were back at the garage. They’d finished their dart game, and they were sitting outside in a couple of beat-up old lawn chairs, drinking beer.

  “I thought you said you were going to let me beat you at darts,” Jason said, a little sulkily.

  “Did I say that?”

  “Yep,” Jason said, reaching into the cooler between them and grabbing another can of beer. “You said that, Will.” But Will could see he’d already forgotten about it. This was why he could spend as much time with the guy as he did; Jason was the most easygoing person Will had ever met.

  Jason started to open his can of beer, then changed his mind and held it up against his forehead instead. Even now, with a decent breeze finally blowing, it was still at least ninety degrees outside.

  “By the way, you were right about that girl,” Jason said, taking the beer can away from his face and popping it open.

  “Which girl?”

  “That girl from today. Daisy. She called right before closing to see if her cell phone was here. I said it was, so she’s going to pick it up tomorrow.”

  “Why are you just telling me this now?” Will asked, annoyed.

  “I don’t know. Is it that important?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  “I might ask her out when she comes back,” Will said casually, swatting at a mosquito.

  Jason stared at him, then shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  Jason leaned back in his chair. “Well, for one thing, Christy won’t like it.”

  “Christy doesn’t have a say in the matter.”

  “Okaaay,” Jason said slowly. “Well, then, there’s your MO, Will. It’s not going to work with a girl like that.”

  “My MO,” Will said, amused. “What’s my MO?”

  “Well, let’s see,” Jason drawled. “It’s been a while. But before Christy, you’d pick up a girl in your truck, drive her out to the lake, and split a six-pack of beer with her while you watched the sun set. Then you’d climb into the backseat for the evening’s entertainment.”

  Will smiled. “Sounds good to me.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t sound good to Daisy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I just know.” Jason shrugged. “You can just tell from looking at her. It’s going to take a lot more than a few beers to get her into the back of your truck—if she’d ever even go back there, which I seriously doubt she would.”

  “Okay, so I’d have to work a little harder with someone like her,” Will allowed.

  “A little harder? Try a lot harder, Will. They’re still some girls like that, you know. Girls where, if you want to get anywhere with them, you have to date them. Do you even know how to do that, Will? Do you know how to take a girl out, and, you know, do stuff with her? Like, show her stuff? And buy her stuff?”

  “It can’t be that difficult,” Will said, amused by Jason’s description of dating. It wasn’t something either one of them knew a lot about, seeing as how they’d both worked so hard to avoid doing it.

  “Besides,” Will added, finishing his beer, “I think you’re wrong about Daisy. I think she’s the kind of girl who could appreciate life’s simple pleasures.”

  Jason laughed. “Is that what you’re calling it now? ‘A simple pleasure’? I don’t know, Will. Maybe she’d appreciate it, but you’d have to wait for her to. And I don’t think you’d be willing to wait that long.”

  “Maybe,” Will said, distractedly. But he wasn’t really listening. He was thinking about Daisy brushing a strand of strawberry-blond hair off her cheek today. It was such a small thing to do, an ordinary thing, an uninteresting thing, really, on the face of it. So why couldn’t he stop thinking about it now?

  CHAPTER 3

  When Daisy walked into the office at the garage the next afternoon, Jason was leaning back in a swivel chair, his feet up on the desk, reading a video-gaming magazine.

  “Oh, hi,” he said, when he saw her. He took his feet off the desk. “You’re here for your cell phone.”

  She nodded and waited for him to reach into one of the desk drawers and pull it out. But instead he pointed in the direction of the service bay. “It’s right where you left it yesterday.”

  “Oh,” she said, hesitating.

  “Will can get it for you,” he said with a smile, and then he went back to reading his magazine.

  “Thanks,”
Daisy said, feeling a combination of relief and nervousness as she left the office. Relief because she’d been worried she wouldn’t see Will today; nervousness because, at the same time, she’d been worried she would. When she came around the corner of the service bay a moment later, she expected to find him working on a car, but instead he was rummaging around in a cooler filled with ice.

  “Hey,” he said, straightening up when he saw her.

  “Hi,” she said, hanging back. It had only been twenty-four hours since she’d last seen him, but already he looked different. He looked better. He wiped his hands, wet from the cooler, on his blue jeans.

  “I came to get my cell phone,” she said, wishing there was a more interesting way of saying that.

  “Right over there,” he said, pointing to the worktable where she’d slammed it down when she’d realized the battery was dead.

  Daisy went over and picked it up.

  “The battery’s probably still dead,” Will said, his eyes playful, and Daisy blushed at the mention of her near temper tantrum.

  “Well, thanks,” she said, backing away.

  “Anytime,” he said, rummaging in the cooler again. She started to leave, then stopped and turned around. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t have an excuse to stay, either. He looked at her for a moment, standing there, then smiled.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asked.

  “Okay,” she said, edging closer.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “Water? Soda?”

  “Um, do you have Diet Coke?”

  “Nothing diet. But regular Coke.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, coming closer.

  He reached into the cooler again and brought up two cans of Coke. He handed one to her, and she opened it immediately and took a sip. It was so sweet, she almost winced. But it was also cold and fizzy, and it felt good going down her suddenly dry throat.