Читать книгу The Fireman Finds a Wife - Felicia Mason - Страница 14

Chapter Four

“Really?”

The grin transformed his face into one of boyish delight.

She smiled back. “Yes, really.”

“How about Friday night?” Cameron asked.

Summer willed herself to ignore the apprehension that raced through her and to savor the unfamiliar thrill of anticipation. She would have two days to get herself together emotionally. But right now, this felt right.

“Friday night sounds terrific,” she heard herself say, and could only wonder about the breathless tone that seemed to accompany the words.

“I can pick you up at your house,” Cameron said. “I think I know where you live.”

He kept a straight face for half a beat and then chuckled as a blush blossomed on Summer.

“I can explain...”

He halted her words with a finger at his lips. “Summer, I told you. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

Suddenly feeling a bit like the Summer she used to be years ago, she cocked her head a bit and gave him a saucy smile.

“So,” she said, “aren’t you at all curious about why I changed my mind?”

He winked at her. “Woman’s prerogative,” he said. “That is definitely something I have learned to respect.”

That earned him a laugh. He held his hand out to her and she took it. The gesture, old-fashioned and sweet, made her smile.

“Thank you,” she said as they headed toward the vehicle she indicated. “For everything you did today. I really, really appreciated the help.”

He nodded. “I hope to get you some permanent help. I’m going to let Pastor Hines know that more than financial contributions are needed here. You and Mrs. D should not have to scramble the way you did today.”

Summer was pretty sure that what she was hearing was unique. Not every man would see a problem and immediately seek a solution. Maybe that was why he was the fire chief at such a young age. She pegged him as being in his mid-thirties, and that was being generous. She was pretty sure that police and fire chiefs were supposed to be much older, men and women with gray hair at the temples and grandchildren they liked to spoil when they were off duty.

“Thank you,” she simply said.

“May I call you?”

She smiled, liking the chivalrousness that he seemed to exude, sort of like an old Southern gentleman. “Yes, you may.”

She gave him her cell number.

“It has a Georgia area code,” she said. “I haven’t transferred it to a North Carolina one, and my friends there...” she faltered, then shook her head. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear about all that.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

They stood there, the moment awkward as neither seemed to know quite how to conclude the conversation.

In the end, it was Cameron who found the way. He leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’m looking forward to Friday.”

* * *

Hours later, Summer still felt that kiss and wondered just what she had agreed to.

A date!

She sat in her bedroom at the vanity second-guessing herself, fretting and in a state her mother would describe as working herself into a tizzy.

The good thing about being back home in Cedar Springs was that when she wanted or needed to connect with one of her sisters, it could be face-to-face, instead of long distance from Georgia to North Carolina.

She glanced around, looking for the phone. The house on Hummingbird Lane was in pristine condition. It was nothing at all like the Greek Revival McMansion that she and Garrett had called home back in Macon. No professional decorator had come through with a horde of minions designing the house for maximum impact or with an eye toward the critical review of country club wives. She sold the Macon house fully furnished, taking with her just a few sentimental pieces and the antique furniture that had been passed down to her from her grandmother.

This house, her new home, was spacious but not ostentatious. And the only interior decorators who had crossed its threshold were her sisters. That was why she had no idea where the phone was. One of them put it somewhere that Summer did not consider intuitive.

Summer sighed.

She knew it was not the missing telephone that bothered her. That was just symbolic of her life at the moment: not where she thought it would be.

What really bothered her was what she had agreed to do with Cameron Jackson.

A date.

She was going on a date!

Summer didn’t know what was scarier: the idea of a social engagement with a man she had, for all intents and purposes, just met, or the very notion of going out. It almost felt as if she were cheating on Garrett. Intellectually, she knew that made no sense. It had been almost two years since her world imploded around her. Almost two years since she’d buried the one man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with, the man she had exchanged holy vows of matrimony with. For better or worse, in sickness and health, until death do we part.

How was she to know—how could she have ever even imagined— that those vows did not guarantee them fifty years of wedded bliss?

Instead of heading out on their highly anticipated tour and cruise of Italy to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary, at twenty-six years old, Summer was burying her husband. She felt the sharp sting of approaching tears.

Stop it, Summer. Just stop.

Refusing to give in to the temptation to wallow in self-pity, she snatched up a tube of mascara and refreshed her eyes even though she wasn’t going anywhere.

Feeling a little better, she got up and plucked her cell phone from her purse. Spring would still be with patients at the free clinic, but maybe Autumn had a few minutes to spare for a sister who was acting like a total spaz.

As the phone rang, she walked around her bedroom trying to figure out where the receiver for the landline telephone might be. The Darling sisters and their mother had taken over the house, throwing themselves into making Summer’s new home as comfortable and cozy as possible.

They had done a good job.

As Summer headed into her large walk-in closet, Autumn’s mobile phone went straight to voice mail.

Summer sighed.

Instead of continuing the search for the landline, she decided to stare at her clothes and try to figure out what was appropriate to wear out on a date with Fire Chief Cameron Jackson.

He had not said where they would be going, but she had a general idea. Dinner and a movie were typical first-date fare. And unless he planned something for them to do in Raleigh, the options in Cedar Springs were pretty much limited to movies or bowling and eating.

For a town its size, Cedar Springs, North Carolina, boasted an eclectic mix of restaurants. Everything from traditional Southern fare and Americana to national chains and the nouveau cuisine that might be associated with large cities like New York or Washington, D.C., could be found either in town or nearby.

Cameron looked like a Carolina barbeque kind of guy.

That thought made her smile.

Something about his rugged good looks made her think he wouldn’t object to a pig-picking backyard barbeque. She could imagine him enjoying the food, not minding if barbeque sauce dripped on his shirt.

The contrast with Dr. Garrett Spencer or even Dr. John Darling, her father, could not have been greater. If it were true that little girls grew up and married men just like their fathers, the case had certainly proven true with Summer.

When Autumn said as much, Summer denied it. Now, however, with Garrett gone, she did see the similarities between the man who raised her and the man she married. Both were physicians dedicated to their professions and their patients. Both doted on their wives, providing the wealth that made outside employment for their spouses the stuff of hobbies and volunteer work.

Summer knew it was true that her oldest sister, Spring, had taken after their father by going into medicine, while Summer tended to hearth and home, much like their mother, Lovie Darling. Lovie’s example had been one of quiet grace, Southern gentility and charm, and a strong faith enhanced with a healthy sense of humor.

From her mother, Summer inherited the domestic gene. Autumn and Winter called themselves the changelings, because beyond physical attributes, neither of them seemed to carry the traits of either parent.

Summer was pretty sure that Cameron Jackson was interested in her because he had not yet met Autumn. Her little sister was the Darling daughter who wowed everyone she met: men, women, teenagers and even little kids. Autumn knew how to bring people together. Spring was the healer and organizer of the bunch, championing causes and making things happen. Winter was always on a quest, off exploring or doing something slightly dangerous. But Summer, well, she was basically a boring homebody, content in the kitchen, tending to her garden flowers and being known as a gracious hostess.

She sighed.

Compared to her sisters’ lives, hers was vapid.

And without the social connections she had taken for granted in Macon and Atlanta—being a doctor’s wife—she was home in Cedar Springs but felt much like a fish out of water. She had her sisters, of course, but had yet to make many new friends.

Lovie had already tried to set her up with a radiologist who was the son of one of her church members.

That hadn’t gone well, but Summer suspected he would be just the first of many eligible men her mother sent her way. Lovie Darling gathered business cards of single professional men the way some women collected recipes. She then parceled the business cards out to her daughters, none too subtly suggesting that she wanted her four daughters married and producing grandchildren for her to spoil.

And now, less than two weeks since the radiologist debacle, she was going out on a date with a man she had just met—a man who was not a whit like her father or her husband.

What was she thinking?

Her cell phone rang as if to answer the question.

“Hello, this is Summer Spencer.”

“You know, you don’t have to announce who you are. What if it’s someone on the other end that you don’t ever want to talk to?”

Summer smiled. She left her closet and moved back into the bedroom where she settled on a chaise near the large bay window.

“That, little sister, is because, unlike you, I do not live a life that requires me to be in hiding from some people.”

“Hey, I resent that,” Autumn declared. “I do not hide. I just don’t feel like being bothered with some folks sometimes.”

“Is that why you let my call go to voice mail?”

“You wound me, Summer. I did no such thing. I was actually in the shower. Just finished racquetball and tried out a Zumba class a friend was teaching.”

Summer shook her head. “You make me tired just listening to you.”

“There’s a half marathon coming up in six weeks. It’s gonna be down in Fayetteville. Lots of cute soldiers from Fort Bragg will be running in it. I can fast-track train you and get you ready to join me.”

“I think all of that physical activity has cut off the oxygen to your brain. Sweat and I do not go together.”

Autumn laughed.

Summer heard the chirp of Autumn’s car door as the electronic lock disengaged.

“Where are you headed?”

“I was gonna grab a bite to eat, then crash.”

“I have quiche.”

“You have any of that raspberry cheesecake that you made for Spring left?”

“I didn’t make it specifically for her, I just made it.”

“Whatever. She got first cut and that’s just wrong.”

“A big slice will be waiting for you.”

Autumn let out a triumphant whoop. “Hah! Guilt trip works every time.”

Summer laughed at her sister’s antics. “See you in a bit. And, Autumn?”

“Yeah?”

“Drive carefully, please. No texting while driving.”

“Bye, worrywart. Oh, hey! Summer!”

Summer held the phone away from her ear. “What?”

“I want to hear about this fire chief that you’ve been making googly eyes at.”

Googly eyes?

Summer was pretty sure she had not made googly eyes with anyone since Jason Weathersby in third grade.

“Well, uh, that is sort of why I called you, Autumn,” she confessed. “I have a date with that fire chief.”

The cheer that came over the phone line really may have damaged Summer’s ears.