Sweet Kiss of Summer

by Sophie Gunn

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"The wonderfully talented Sophie Gunn has concocted a real treat for readers--a small-town romance filled with humor, tenderness and warmth. It's the perfect feel-good read for a long winter night." -- Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author on How Sweet It Is Sweet Kiss of Summer Nina Stokes's life is far from picture perfect. For years the small-town artist has waited for the day she'd be able to fulfill her late brother's wishes and hand over his rambling house to its new owner. Yet when a sexy stranger arrives on her doorstep, key in hand, Nina realizes she's not ready to let go of the house and all its memories-not until she gets some answers to what really happened to her brother. Mick Rivers may be a hard-as-nails soldier, but throwing a woman out of her house isn't his style. Neither is dredging up memories of the past-a past he is struggling to remember. He desperately needs to sell the house, but he finds the brown-eyed beauty with the open heart and warm smile impossible to resist. So instead of moving on, Mick moves in. As sweet summer days lead to sizzling summer nights, Mick must finally face his fears. But can he tell Nina the secrets haunting his heart, without breaking hers?

Release date: August 1, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 416

Sample

Two years later

Nina Stokes was in her garden searching her tomato cages for the perfect beefsteak when a sporty red car roared halfway up
her driveway and stopped. She spared it half a glance, then went back to her vegetables. It was reunion weekend at Galton
University, the elite college that dominated the tiny town of Galton, New York. This was the third car she’d spotted this
morning using her driveway as a turnaround. It could be annoying having the first driveway on the first road that was clearly
marked as leading out of town.


Nina went back to her tomatoes, ripping out the hairy galinsoga that had crept into the cages. She felt bad that she hadn’t
been taking as good care of her garden as she usually would have, but she was deep into the process of illustrating a cookbook,
The Vegetable Virgin. It was demanding all of her attention. If she nailed it, hopefully she’d get the job for The Meat Menage. Then, if she was lucky, The Soup Slut. So finding the perfect plump tomato to nestle next to the green beans for the Italian Veggie Casserole illustration was
essential. She moved down the row, carefully peering under leaves.


When she spared a second glance, the car was still there, idling in the middle of the long drive that wound up her hill. She
ducked a little lower. She hated giving directions, as she never remembered the names of roads. She might say, Go right at Mrs. Gradon’s amazing cornflower blue hyacinth, surely drawing a blank stare from a person in a car that flashy.


She was inspecting the last tomato plant when the driver floored the gas. The car jumped forward, then braked hard, fishtailing
up a cloud of dust mere feet from her tulip border.


The crazy-loud engine revved a few times, then cut.

She had ducked back into the garden in alarm, but now she dared a peek over the vegetation.

The front door of the car opened.

A man unfolded from the front seat, a flash from his aviator sunglasses momentarily blinding her. Her vision cleared in time
to reveal him stretching his arms above his head, as if he’d just woken up from a truly excellent dream.


Nina put a hand on the nearest tomato cage to steady herself. Good thing she’d staked and caged the bushes for extra support. Talk about the perfect beefsteak.

The man pulled his T-shirt over his head in a swift, one-armed movement. She ducked low, tried to swallow, pulled the brim
of her sun hat low to cover her blush and her ridiculous smile.


The most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on is stripping in my driveway. God, I love this town.

She took a deep breath, the whiff of compost grounding her. I am a serious artist, a respected yoga teacher, and a sporadic, inattentive, but sincere gardener. I am an orphan, an optimist,
a lover of quiet and peace. But I am in no position to be a woman who swoons over a good-looking man, even if he appears like
a god in my driveway and seems determined to disrobe.

Still, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from his tanned, trim physique. She couldn’t quite get the beginning of a wicked smile
off her lips. Be careful of things that look too good to be true.

The man turned to lean through the driver’s window of his car, and she tried again to shake off her response. Obviously, her
boneheaded reaction was due to too little sleep and too much work.


And then everything changed.

She saw it.

His tattoo.

Everything disappeared in a rush of tunnel vision. Gone were the tomatoes, the vague aroma of car exhaust, the fat robin keeping
an eye trained on her from the maple tree. Only the tattoo on his shoulder was clear in the shining whiteness of her sudden
dizziness: the downward-pointing bowie knife with a flowing white ribbon wrapped around it. She couldn’t read the words on
the ribbon from this distance, but she knew them by heart. After all, they had been inked into her brother’s arm too.


Duty. Honor. Country.

Nina’s body went cold with dread.

He could be anyone from the unit.

He might not be Mick Rivers. Sure, she’d stared at the guy’s picture for two long years, wondering about him and his relationship to Walt. But military men all looked alike from
a distance. The close-cropped haircuts, the square jaws, the wide chests that tapered to narrow waists. This guy could be
any G.I. Joe Shmoe who had just happened to be passing through when he remembered this was Walt’s hometown. It had happened
just five months before. A soldier named Bill had looked her up to drop off a few mementos of Walt he had saved.


Anyway, if this man was Mick Rivers, she had to keep a cool head and hold her ground. She had given him an entire year after Walt’s letter arrived
to respond to her endless correspondence. She had promised herself that after the year had passed, the house was hers. Now
that she was alone in the world, she wouldn’t put herself at the whims of others. Her first duty was to herself, and she was
going to stand by it.


If Mick Rivers was here for his house, he was a year too late.

While she panicked in the garden, trying to hold firm to her resolve, the man had calmly walked around to his trunk, dug around
a bit, then come up with another T-shirt.


He looked around the place, and she ducked lower. His eyes, thankfully, glazed right over the garden.

She sat down, butt in the dirt.

She loved her brother and respected his wishes, but she had to get this guy to leave. She’d just tell him that he was too
late.


The house was all she had left.

Two thousand six hundred and forty-eight miles in five days in a wasted hunk of metal he had won on a dare, and Mick Rivers
felt every one of those miles in his ass.


He looked up at the house in front of him and shuddered.

Not good.

The garden gnome eyed him suspiciously.

Mick tried not to curse—but failed. He threw open the car door and sank into the white pleather passenger seat, rifled through
the glove box for the address he’d scribbled on the back of an old phone bill envelope, then cursed again. He felt like a
green recruit caught in his first firefight.


Rule number one: never assume anything.

He’d assumed he could stomach the ordeal of talking Walt’s sister out of her house. He’d driven across the country, then halfway
up the drive before he’d realized his mistake with a sickening lurch that had stopped him in his tracks. No way he could do
this, no matter how badly he needed this house.


Yes, I can. She is not my concern. Stay on mission. In and out. Get the job done.

Rule number two: assess the facts.

He knew that Walt’s sister still owned the place; he’d checked the public records before he’d set off. So the first question
was, Who lived here now?


The house was lived in. By someone who liked vegetables. And flowers.

The only people Mick knew like that were female.

An ancient but well-cared-for green Subaru wagon sat in the drive. The bumper sticker read Galton Is Gorges. From the look of the hanging-off bumper, no man was involved, unless he was the kind of man who couldn’t fix a car. That
is, the kind of man Mick was pretty sure he could dismiss as a concern.


He reconned the yard. The vast flower garden in front of the house vibrated with every color of flower and at least a hundred
buzzing, happy bees. Hell, there were even frolicking butterflies. Frolicking. He didn’t like the word any more than he liked the insects, but there was no other word for it. All this place needed was
a rainbow to complete the obvious message: if you want the house, you’re gonna have to go in and rip it out of a very happy person’s hands.

Could this place be more picture-perfect? Cat in window—check. Flowered welcome mat—check. Ridiculously lush garden that spilled
over into a sloping yard of perfect green grass—double check. On one side, the grass led to woods that circled behind the
house. On the other, to a meadow that disappeared down the hill. The meadow was dotted with every color of wildflower.


Figured.

Flowers made him edgy. Tidy houses made a sheen of sweat break out on his brow. It was one of the thousands of reasons he loved the army. Barracks, tents, sleeping under the
stars with guys who’d blow off a garden gnome’s head just for the fun of it. Everything in the army was what it was, didn’t
pretend to be anything more. Not like trim, pretty houses, which could shelter any kind of unspoken horror.


He took the steps two at a time. Knocked. Rang the bell. No answer. He tried the knob. It turned. Unlocked.

“Hello?” he called into the foyer, taking a sneak peek around to assess what he was dealing with. The pin-neat foyer was empty
save for a small, compact table holding a vase of red flowers. Pictures of flowers lined the happy-yellow walls. A red and
yellow braided rug accented the shiny wood floor.


He slammed the door against the rush of déjà vu that assaulted him. Home is where the crazies are.

He went back to his car and back-kicked the door. This house was dead-on for the happy-looking little house he’d grown up
in.


He turtled his head into his shoulders to shelter from the ghosts that were still raising goose bumps across his flesh.

Goddamn Walt.

He leaned against the hot metal of the car, letting the heat soak into his skin, into his tired muscles. Okay, think. If no one was home, it was a chance to take care of what he had thought would be the tough part of his mission but now saw
might be a cakewalk next to getting the house.


He looked to the barnlike garage that was set off to the side, tucked behind the house. He could be in and out in three minutes.
If the front door to the house was unlocked, the garage probably wasn’t locked either. Not that a lock would’ve stopped him.


He extracted the tattered letter from his back pocket and dropped the tiny key folded inside into his palm. He didn’t need
to reread the letter. After two years, he knew it by heart:


Mick,

You still alive? Good for you, buddy. If anyone gets out of this place alive, it’s gonna be you, man. Listen, I’m giving you
my house in upstate New York. It’s not much of a place, but it’s something. Hell, you don’t have to live there or anything.
Sell it if you want. I wrote my sister to let her know that you’ll come as soon as you get out of this hellhole. She’ll make
it happen. She’s okay that way.

These keys are for the place. The first is for the front door. The second is for a box. It’s in the garage, on the top shelf
by the back right corner. It’s small, like a shoe box, red rusted metal. There’s a couple of them, but you’ll know you’ve
got the right one if the key fits.

Destroy it, Mick. I’m counting on you to make it go away. Never let my sister know about it or what’s inside. Can you do that
for me, buddy? After all, you owe me one for Fallujah, right?

Take good care,

Your buddy, Walt

You owe me one…

For months, laid out in an army hospital in Germany, then another in Santa Monica, Mick had no way to do Walt’s bidding. Then,
his body finally healed, he’d ignored Walt’s request and his sister’s letters, her calls, her messages, while he got his head back together. He couldn’t get his
head around Walt’s letter, and frankly, he had enough to deal with without taking on a buddy’s mystery. Why him, after all?
Why hadn’t Walt asked a buddy back home to take care of the box? Why hadn’t Walt asked another guy in the unit, one who actually
liked him? What was in the box that was worth a house? Why did Walt think Mick owed him? Did he? Questions with answers buried
in the muck of war and the haze of a memory that was blown to smithereens.


He really should have answered at least one of Walt’s sister’s letters. But he never thought he’d need to take Walt up on
his offer.


Now here he was, fifty feet from solving at least part of the mystery. By doing this errand for Walt, he’d somehow earn the
house.


But how?

His skin was clammy despite the intense, brutal sunshine.

What the hell was he going to find in that garage?

In the daylight, he’d picture a rusty, faded thing crammed with dirty money, or drugs, weapons, maybe even ammo. But in the
pitch dark of three a.m., he’d imagine it grossly encrusted, as if it had spent time on the bottom of the ocean. Or worse,
he’d see it in his mind’s eye marked by a bloody handprint. On bad days, he’d imagined it big enough for a human skull. On
even worse days, small enough for a single, severed finger.


What had Walt done? Why was he responsible for protecting Walt’s sister from what Walt had done? Was Walt’s sister so delicate, she couldn’t handle Walt’s
secrets? She had sounded delicate in her first letters. But as time passed, her words had toughened, her resolve set, until she finally told him to answer her now or go to hell.


Welcome to hell.

Mick hoped she didn’t live in the house. In a perfect world, she’d have rented it to a happy-flower-butterfly lady, who’d
turn out to be eighty-seven, deaf, half blind, and ready to move on to the nursing home anyway.


No more procrastinating. He started toward the barn.

Then stopped.

Something rustled in the vegetable garden, about thirty feet southwest.

He froze, the already-cold sweat on his skin icing over. There are no snipers in upstate Nowheresville. He knew better than to react with a combat response to a noncombat situation. He quickly tried to talk himself off that familiar
ledge.


But it didn’t work. The hairs standing up on the back of his neck told him that was no bunny in the lettuce. Someone was watching
him. Someone besides a clay-bearded statue in the daisies or an army of ghosts reminding him of the domestic horrors neat
little houses could hold.


You know better than to sit out in the open, waiting for a bullet to the brain.

He took a deep breath. He’d spent a good year getting his head together after agonizing months of getting his body together.
He knew what losing his shit felt like, and he knew how to hold it together. He was past this.


He strode across the lawn, toward the vegetable garden.

A ridiculous pink straw hat poked up, then disappeared.

He stopped at the edge of a row of green beans clinging to a web of string tied to poles. The beans hung like a modesty screen between him and a small woman crouching behind the tomatoes.


He cleared his throat. “Hello.”

“Oh! Hello.” The woman stood, nervously wiping her hands on her denim shorts as if she had just now noticed him. She took
off her hat, and an explosion of red hair jolted him backward.


Mick was trying to play it cool, but he didn’t feel it.

He was face-to-face with Walt.

Not Walt. Walt is gone. But the redheaded woman looked just like Walt, if Walt had had the body of a knockout. She had the same glowing-ember-colored
hair. She had the same button nose, buried in a sea of freckles. Just like Walt, her freckles matched the coppery brown of
her eyes so exactly, it was as if hundreds of the things had slid off her tiny nose and flooded her irises.


“Are you lost? Need directions?” she asked, a little too eager to sound normal. Her voice cracked despite her effort. She
held a green tomato in one hand and a basket lined with an orange bandana in the other.


Fact one: she was obviously Walt’s sister—maybe even his twin.

Fact two: she was picking the veggies, which meant she lived here.

Fact three: she must have been watching him for a while, which meant she was avoiding him.

Fact four: she was sexy as hell.

He ignored fact four. Not at all relevant. In and out. A surgical strike.

He took a deep breath.

“Hi.” He held out his hand. “I’m Mick Rivers. Sorry I’m late.”

She stared at him from behind her green-bean veil, struggling to keep a bewildering play of emotions off her face that kept
circling back to mad. Where have you been all these years? Don’t you know how to pick up a phone?

Then—You’re finally here. I can get on with my life. I can learn the truth about what happened to Walt.

Then—But what kind of man ignores pleas for contact for an entire year, then shows up out of the blue on a beautiful summer day
like it’s no big deal? Get rid of him. Quick!

She stepped out from behind the beans, not sure where to start. A rush of panic welled inside her, like the blinding whiteness
of the day those two army guys in full dress uniform had rung her bell.


Everything is about to change.

She felt as if she might faint.

She had to get ahold of herself. She’d known that despite his two-year silence, this day might come.

She managed a choked, “Come inside,” accompanied by an indefinite hand wave that felt as foolish as she was sure it looked.


She had to sit down somewhere cool.

She moved in a haze toward her house—

Walt’s house.

Mick Rivers’ house.

Whose house was this? Where would she go if she gave it to this man?

No, she would not give it to him. It was her house now. First, because he’d missed his chance. Second, because even if she wanted to hand it
over to him, which she didn’t, how would she ever know for sure if he was honest or if he was another con man who had written
the letter himself? Or worse, how would she know if he had bullied Walt into writing it on his deathbed?


It hurt just to think about. But she had to think about it. She couldn’t let herself be conned again.

She should get rid of him fast. Except there was something she wanted from him first. What if he knew how Walt had died? He
could be her last link to Walt, to knowing. She’d waited two years for the truth, and now she didn’t want to hear it on such
a beautiful day, from such a beautiful man. Face-to-face with him she realized what she’d always known but had somehow ignored
in order to keep her heart full of hope: she wanted answers, details, stories. But this man could lie about everything for
his own gain and she’d never know.


Her mind was numb. Keep your head. She floated, somehow, into the house and down the hall, and she found herself in her kitchen. She sat down at the kitchen
table. He came. Years of waiting, and he shows up today like it’s no big deal.

Her fingers tingled against the cool, smooth wood of the table.


She looked around her.

What was she doing in her kitchen?

Walt’s kitchen…

Mick’s kitchen…

She tried to fight the icy ball of doubt that was building inside her. Give the man the house. Walt wanted it that way—

No. Two years was too long for him to ignore her.

Walt was an impetuous, reckless fool sometimes. He’d left her a mess. He always left a mess behind.

Doesn’t matter. This is his last wish.

Unless the letter was a con put on by this beautiful man.

Lemonade. There was something to do as if this visit were normal. She’d serve him lemonade. Pitcher. Glasses. Ice. She went
through the motions, determined to remain calm, to ignore the sweat forming on her brow. Tell me about Walt. I want to know. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

Reckless Walt, spontaneous Walt, unpredictable Walt.

Roe, the shy cat, jumped onto the kitchen table. Nina gave him a gentle stroke, but he felt her anxiety and leapt away from
her trembling hands to a safer spot just out of her reach.


What was she going to do about this man?

She looked around her.

Where was this man?

She peered out the window to see him right where she’d left him, talking on his cell phone.

While Mick waited for Sandy to pick up his call, he scooped up the basket Nina had dropped in the grass on her dazed trip across the lawn. He put the lone tomato carefully inside.


Now what? He should follow her inside, but too much time in war-torn Islamic countries still made him edgy around an open
invitation from a lone woman. Especially a lone distracted, obviously shaken woman. And it was clear that he’d shaken her.
Badly.


Nice job, Rivers.

She had left the front door open behind her, and it swung back and forth ominously in the gentle wind.

Sandy finally picked up her phone. “Mick? Are you there? Do you have the house yet?”

He sucked on his cheek. “Can’t do it, Sandy,” he told his sister. “She’s here. And, Sandy, this house is just like our old place. I feel like Dad’s gonna jump out any minute with a belt and start
whaling on me ’cause there’s a speck of dust on the couch. I feel like Mom’s gonna be upstairs, yelling for us to get ready
’cause he’s in the driveway.”


“Mick, grow up, would you? Bella is leaving the country tomorrow with Baily for her operation. We need the money. Stop being
morbid and get the house.”


“Right. I know. I will. I just needed a kick in the butt.”

“Consider yourself kicked, Mick. Bella is going to die if we don’t get the money. That house is our last hope, baby.”

“Well, that sure makes me feel better. Good-bye, sweetness and light,” he said.

“Good-bye, Mick. Do it. We’re counting on you. Call me tomorrow. And, Mick—”

“What?” He looked to the picture-perfect house.

“Don’t you dare fall in love with her.”

“What? I won’t. Jesus, Sandy.”

“You might. So don’t. Your duty is to us, Mick. Don’t muck it up. You’re a soldier. Get in there and fight.”


Mick clicked his phone shut and looked up at the open door. He didn’t want to go inside, but she’d left him no choice.

Smart woman.

Now he had to enter the heart of her territory.

He knew better than anyone that once you set foot on enemy terrain, you had better start watching where you stepped.

The instant he crossed the threshold, the oppressive perfection of the clean, dusted foyer pressed in on him. He winced as
if his kid sisters were there, scrubbing, sweeping, steadily ignoring as best they could the calls of their mother upstairs,
mired in bed, in cigarettes, in pills. Daddy’s coming. I hear the car. Why isn’t dinner on the table? Mick, hurry!

He had to get this place, sell it, and get out before it consumed him. Mick moved carefully into the living room, hoping for
Walt-like chaos but finding more domestic perfection. He put the discarded basket on the wooden coffee table, then picked
it up again.


Water ran in the kitchen, then stopped. Ice clinked. Footsteps down the hall.

“Mr. Rivers.” She carried a tray, but her hands were shaking so hard, the ice rattled in the glasses.

“Call me Mick.”

“I’m Nina. I’m Walt’s sister.” She put down the tray and handed him a glass that was as frosty as her tone. “The one who tried
to contact you nonstop for over a year.”


“Right. Sorry about that. Unavoidable.”

She moved around the room carefully, the ice in her glass still clinking, her eyes on him. She set her glass on an artsy cork-and-wood
coaster on the coffee table and slid a coaster toward him. Then she sat down on the couch, crossing her legs under her. Her
posture was so upright and compact, her movements so economical and spare, he felt absurdly rubbery and enormous as he sank
into the chair across from her. A sleek black cat jumped up behind her and settled on the back of the couch. A fluffy orange
cat watched from the windowsill.


“So,” he began. Then ended. I’m here to make you homeless and steal a mysterious box from your garage. Thanks for the lemonade.

“So,” she said.

“Right,” he responded, unable to begin. Mint leaves nestled in the ice. Pulp floated on the surface. She’d hand-squeezed lemonade,
and he’d never felt like a bigger asshole. This was why he’d never come for the house: he knew it was a fool’s errand to think
he could take a house from Walt’s sister without hating himself forever.


She inhaled. “Mr. Rivers, two years ago I got a letter written by a stranger that might have been from Walt or might not.
It arrived three weeks after he was killed. It said I should give you his house. I tried to find you. You didn’t answer any
of my calls, my letters, my texts, my e-mails. You didn’t accept a single one of the certified affidavits from my lawyer.”


He was relieved that there wouldn’t be any small talk. He had to get out of this living room before the walls caved in around
him. His nerves were shot. He’d gotten up at six this morning and driven almost straight from Ohio, stopping only for gas
and the head. He was dying of thirst, but he felt like an intruder and he wanted to hold on to that feeling so that he wouldn’t let down his guard. He
had to leave with what he came for—a mysterious box and enough cash from selling the house to get his sister the operation
she needed. It didn’t matter how beautiful Nina was, how fragile and sad and confused she looked despite her best efforts
to appear invincible. “Yeah, well, the letter was for real. Walt gave me the house. I’m sorry for ignoring you for so long,
but now I need to have it.”


Her eyes flashed annoyance, for which he didn’t blame her one bit. “When you didn’t answer my letters, I got desperate to
understand Walt’s request. It was his last wish, you know, and it was a mystery. I don’t like mysteries.”


“You’re not the only one. Believe me.”

Her voice rose. “No, Mr. Rivers, I don’t believe you. Why should I believe you?”

“You probably shouldn’t,” he admitted.

She looked ready to spring off the couch and wring his neck. “You ignored me,” she went on. “So I tried to find the nurse
who transcribed the letter for Walt, so she could tell me what had happened. Maybe he’d said something to her that wasn’t
in the letter, right? At least she could have told me that Walt had asked her to write the letter without duress. I hoped
she could explain to me who you were and why you were ignoring me. I needed someone to help me figure out what was going on,
what this was all about, since you felt no need to contact me or to return my contacts with even an e-mail.”


The nurse with the gray eyes. The one who had slipped him Walt’s letter with the keys and the address folded inside, his sole memory after the blast and
before he woke up in a hospital bed in Germany. The image always surfaced accompanied by a slashing pain in his gut. He grasped to remember the nurse’s name. Susie? Sally? It was gone, like
the rest of his memories. That was reason number six hundred and twelve why he should. . .