The Summer of Us (Mission Cove 1)

What transpired afterward was unexpected, wondrous, and frightening.

To hear what he went through, what that bastard of a father had done to him. Listen as Linc told me of the years spent at what amounted to a prison for him had been like. Accept the letters he had written to me that his father waylaid. All of it difficult, heartbreaking, and almost surreal.

After we separated for the evening, I sat and read some of the letters, once again transforming into the girl he had written them to. I felt his pain, his anger, the terror of not knowing or understanding what had happened, or how he could get away. His pleas to wait for him, to know how much he loved me, how much he would always love me. His loneliness, isolation, and fear jumped from the pages. His longing for me grew with each letter, the pain he was feeling soaked into the ink on the pages.

His honest, handwritten words mended some of the pieces of my heart that had shredded the day he disappeared from my life. Knowing I hadn’t been abandoned. That he hadn’t fucked and run. The fact that his love had been real—all of it healed a part of my broken spirit I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in until now.

I stopped in confusion outside the house, staring at the bright-pink SUV. Linc had told me his lawyer was coming back today, but I doubted he drove such a feminine vehicle. The flowers and sparkle decals on the sides were not something I would associate with a lawyer. But perhaps, I told myself, it belonged to his wife or daughter and he had to borrow it.

The front door was ajar, and I followed the sound of voices to the den. I frowned at the obviously feminine-sounding tone, stopping in shock in the doorway.

Linc was holding a woman, kissing her head. Murmuring to her in a low, gentle voice. His entire stance was protective. She was wrapped in his embrace, his hand spread wide across her back. I heard his endearment as he spoke, assuring her he was wasn’t leaving her and he would protect her.

Their familiarity was palpable, the intimacy of the moment clear. This was someone very important to Linc.

How important, I didn’t know, but suddenly, the ten years we’d been apart seemed longer. A chasm of unknown questions, memories, moments neither of us knew about.

Who was this woman to Linc? What did it mean for us?

Had his response, his closeness the past hours, simply been a reaction to the memories of us and not actually real feelings? Did he already belong to someone else and was now realizing his actions had been just that?

When he looked up and met my eyes, his grew wide with anxiety, and he shook his head, telling me what I needed to know.

I had to leave. I wasn’t any more welcome here now than I had been years ago.

He didn’t have to say anything. I turned and left much the same way I had the other time.

Alone, upset, and confused.I paced my small apartment over the bakery on an endless loop. All the things I had loved about the space now seemed wrong. The coziness was claustrophobic, the furniture uncomfortable, the sight of the town, and the large house that loomed over it, daunting. I snapped shut the blinds, but I couldn’t get the images in my mind to stop.

Linc holding another woman. Soothing her. The way his long-fingered hands drifted up and down her back in comforting, familiar touches. His voice crooning to her.

There was history. A lot of it. She meant something to him.

A voice in my head told me that was why he said he wanted me to call. He didn’t ask me to come to the house. But once I finished with my supplier, and closed the shop, I wanted to see him. I looked at the bag I had dropped by my door when I’d arrived home, breathless, upset, and tearful.

Biscuits. I had made him an extra batch of fresh biscuits, and I planned on giving them to him with tubs of jam and butter. I wanted him to eat them in his father’s den. Let the crumbs fall on the expensive rug and not clean them up. Do something silly and make him laugh in a room that had only every brought him fear.

My gaze fell to the pile of letters. Ones that had hurt me to read yet brought me a glimmer of hope that perhaps my future might look different from what it had the day before. That maybe Linc might once again be part of my life.

Now, I couldn’t stand to look at them.

I couldn’t take the apartment anymore. I needed to get out before I let my emotions swamp me. Despite what I knew the place now meant, there was only one spot I could think to go and clear my head.