That Summer

by Joan Wolf

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Amy Foster returns to Virginia when her father dies and is soon plunged into the past when the body of a young woman missing for ten years is found and the man she once loved is suspected in her death. Original.

Release date: October 31, 2008

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 372

Sample

CHAPTER 1

I didn't really believe that my father was dead until I saw him lying in a casket. Realization struck, then grief, and for the first time since I'd received the news, I cried. My mother put her arms around me and patted my back.

“I know, Anne. I know.”

“I can't believe that this is happening. I can't believe that I'm never going to see him again.”

“I know, honey. I know.”

It was just my mother and I, alone in the funeral parlor's Room One, alone with Daddy.

“He was the healthiest person,” I said. “He ate well, he exercised, how could he have had such a massive heart attack? He was only sixty-two.”

“I don't know why these things happen, but they do.” My mother's voice quivered and I reached my arms back around her.

We held each other for a long moment and then we knelt in front of the casket to say a prayer. The blanket of pink and white carnations that covered the coffin read BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER.

I looked at the shell of my father that was lying beneath the flowers and shut my eyes. Daddy, help us to get through this.

Finally we stood up and composed ourselves. I had just put a tissue back in my bag when someone came in the back door.

“It's Uncle John,” I said, bracing myself to meet the grief of my father's only brother.

The wake was jammed. My father had worked at Wellington Farm here in Midville for the last twenty years, and during that time he had personally broke every youngster that had come through that well-known thoroughbred breeding operation. Everyone in town knew him, from the lowliest stable boys to the millionaire farm owners.

The room was at its most crowded when Liam finally arrived. I saw him over the heads of others as he stepped into the doorway and looked around.

I stopped breathing.

Across the room our eyes met.

I hadn't seen him in two years, but he looked as arrogant as ever.

“It's Liam,” I heard someone behind me say.

He started across the room and people automatically made room for him as he passed. My heart began to slam. Then he was standing in front of me and holding out his hand.

“Annie. What can I say to you? I'm so sorry about Pete.”

He was the only person I had ever allowed to call me Annie.

I put my hand in his and he bent and kissed my cheek. I recognized the smell of him. “Thank you, Liam,” I said. “It was quite a shock.”

I took my hand away and at that moment my mother came up to us. “Liam. It's good to see you.”

He turned his cobalt blue eyes toward her and said how sorry he was.

“Thank you, Liam. It's going to be hard getting used to living on my own.”

“Annie is staying with you, isn't she?”

I said, “I took a month's leave from my job to help Mom get settled.”

“How did you manage that?” he asked.

“A vet who practices in Florida during the winter is a friend of Dr. Ritchie's and she came north for the summer to work for us. Florida is dead in the summer. So, when I asked about taking an unpaid leave for a month, Dr. Ritchie agreed. The visiting vet can take my spot.”

A faint line appeared between his black brows. “I always thought that when you graduated you would come back here to practice.”

Just what I need, I thought. A chance to see Liam all the time.

“This job in Maryland was a great opportunity,” I said. “I was lucky to get it.”

His frown didn't lift, and he turned to Mom. “Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you, Nancy. And don't worry about having to get out of the house. It's yours for as long as you care to stay.”

Mom gave him a grateful smile. “Thank you, Liam, but you'll need the house for the new man. I'll have somewhere else to stay in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking of moving into town.”

“Don't rush things,” he advised.

“I won't. I just… well, I think it might be easier for me to be in a new place, a place that doesn't have so many memories.”

He put his arm around my mother and gave her a brief hug. “Okay.”

Mom said, “Thank you for the flowers. They're magnificent.”

Wellington Farm had sent a stand of flowers that took up a tenth of the room.

“I'll miss him too,” Liam said. “Not like you, I know, but I'll miss him.”

“I know you will,” Mom said softly.

Liam glanced over his shoulder. “There are people waiting to talk to you. Please remember, if you need anything at all, give me a call.”

“I'll remember,” my mother said.

I was talking to one of Mom's fellow teachers when a frisson of tension ran across the crowded room. I looked at the door and saw Andy Bartholomew come in. Involuntarily, I glanced toward Liam and so did everybody else in the room.

Liam totally ignored the man who was advancing into the room. Andy didn't look at anyone either as he crossed the carpet to us. He took Mom's hand in his and said how sorry he was. Then he took my hand as well.

It was a measure of the respect in which Daddy was held that Andy Bartholomew would come into a room where he must have known he would find Liam. He didn't stay and he only looked at Liam once. The bleakness on his face was chilling. Liam did not look back.

Toward the end of the evening I was standing alone when Senator Wellington came up to me. “How's the job going, Anne? Was it worth all those years in vet school? You could have become an M.D. more easily, I suspect.”

I forced a smile and looked up into the face of Liam's father. Laurence Wellington was almost as tall as Liam, but where Liam was black-haired, his father's hair was grayish-blond. He was serving his second term in Washington as Virginia's U.S. Senator and had all the easy charm of the southern aristocrat. I hadn't seen any sign of his wife, so I supposed she was getting cured again at the Betty Ford Clinic.

“I like it a lot,” I said. “It's what I always wanted to do.”

“One of these days you'll have to come and work here in Midville.”

Instead of responding to him, I said, “I hear Wellington's got a Derby horse this year.”

“Someday Soon certainly won the Florida Derby in convincing fashion. But you know Liam—he doesn't want to jinx the colt by talking about him too much.”

The senator sounded a little impatient. They had never gotten along very well. “It will be exciting if he makes it to the Derby,” I said. “It would do the breeding industry in Virginia a world of good to have a Virginia-bred win the Derby. And it would be great for the farm.”

“That it would be.”

A voice said, “Senator, I'd like to talk to you when you get a chance.”

I said, “Go ahead, Senator, I'm going to check on my mother.”

I went to stand at Mom's side and the senator gave his attention to Herbie Lowther, who probably wanted to talk to him about farming subsidies or something like that.

The following morning, Daddy's funeral was even more crowded than his wake had been. Senator Wellington had insisted on having the post-funeral luncheon, so after we left the cemetery we all met at Wellington.

Wellington, or the big house as we Fosters had always called it, stood imposingly behind a stone wall and a sweeping, park-like lawn dotted with large old trees. Long side wings and tall white pillars gave the pale gold house a classic southern colonial look. Personally, I had always thought it was the prettiest house in the world.

I hadn't been inside Wellington since I had left Midville for boarding school ten years ago, but the front hall looked exactly the same: spacious and wide and furnished with a glass-fronted bookcase, a marble-topped table containing a vase of fresh flowers and two Sheraton chairs.

The food was laid out in the dining room, another lofty, spacious room with an eighteenth-century four-pedestal Hepplewhite dining table and a sideboard, which was loaded with antique silver. Porcelain jars that had once belonged to Marie Antoinette adorned the mantel. I looked into the modern kitchen to thank Mary, the Wellington cook and housekeeper who had orchestrated the lavish spread of food.

I took a plate but I couldn't eat. I didn't feel like socializing, but then I didn't want to be left alone to think, either.

I felt a hand close over my elbow. “Come along, “ Liam said. “We'll go out to the porch.”

I dutifully followed him onto the huge front porch, the way I had followed after him for most of my early life. We set our plates on a table and sat down in two of the wicker chairs.

He said, “I thought that Nancy might want to move to Maryland to be near you.”

I shook my head. “She says she wants to stay in Midville. This is where her job and all her friends are. I think she's right. If she moved to Maryland she wouldn't know anybody, and I work long hours.”

“Well, if she won't move to Maryland, I think you should move back to Virginia. It isn't good for her to be alone.”

“Liam, Mom is a grown-up person. She has tons of friends and she's perfectly capable of living by herself. And besides Maryland is not that far away. I can easily come down here for weekends to visit, or she can come up to see me. So stop trying to make me feel guilty because I'm not moving home.”

He sighed. “I've missed you, Annie. I've missed my little sister. I guess I'm not just asking for Nancy, I'm asking for me too.”

I felt pain slice through me. If only he hadn't used the words “little sister, “ how happy I would be. I said flatly, “Well, it isn't going to happen.”

He scowled. “I never thought you'd turn into such a hard-hearted witch.”

My mouth dropped open. “I can't believe you just said that! Here I am, at my father's funeral, and you call me a hard-hearted witch?”

Color stained his cheeks and his blue eyes glittered. “Christ, Annie, I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. “ He inhaled deeply. “It's just—I'm really upset at losing Pete this way. He was more of a father to me than mine ever was. I should never have said that to you. I'm sorry.”

Impulsively, I reached across the table and put my hand on his. The jolt of electricity was so powerful that my heart jumped. How could he not have felt it too?

I looked at him. He looked a little startled, that was all.

I snatched my hand away. “It's okay, “ I managed to get out. “I forgive you.”

He smiled at me. Whenever Liam smiled all my in-sides turned to goo. He stood up. “We should go back inside. People will be looking for you.”

At that moment Frank Michaelson, the owner of Pine Tree farm, came out. Next to Liam's splendid six foot three, he looked tiny. “There you are, Anne. I have to leave, but I wanted you to know that if there's anything I can do for your mother, please let me know.”

“Thank you, Mr. Michaelson.” I stood up to take his hand.

“Looks like you got yourself a Derby horse,” he said to Liam.

“Oh God, Frank, you know how it is. A horse's route to the Derby is so treacherous that I'm afraid to even think about it,” Liam replied.

“Ford's a good trainer. You have him in good hands.”

“I know.”

“All right. I'll stop talking about it. But I wish you luck.”

“Thanks,” Liam said.

As Frank went down the porch steps I said to Liam, “I'd better be getting back inside.”

“All right.”

As we passed through the door into the house, Liam put a brotherly hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Chin up, brat.”

All I could manage in reply was a nod.

CHAPTER 2

The house that had been home to me from the time I was six had originally been built to house the farm's overseer. It had been renovated in 1890 and then again in 1950, when the kitchen addition was put on. It had a center hall opening to porches on both ends. On the ground floor the parlor was on the left of the center hallway and the dining room was on the right. The kitchen was in the back. Upstairs there were three bedrooms.

It was a small house, but Mom loved it. All of the furnishings, with the exception of a grandfather clock, a painting of a horse and a few tables and chairs, belonged to her, and she had lovingly chosen each piece to go with the house's original woodwork. Daddy used to say she should change professions and become an interior decorator.

I was sitting in the April sunshine on the front porch having a cup of coffee when a dusty Jeep Cherokee stopped in front. As I watched, a blond-haired man got out and walked up to the porch.

“Kevin,” I said. “How good to see you.”

He came up the stairs and stooped to kiss my cheek. “I am so sorry, Anne. I wanted to get here for the funeral, but I got held up.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I'd love coffee.”

“Wait here and I'll get it.”

When I came back with his coffee he asked about Mom.

“She went back to school this morning. She said it was better than just sitting around and thinking.”

He smiled at me. It was a powerful weapon, Kevin's smile. He had made a fortune out of it in the movies. “You look gorgeous. How long are you staying?”

“I've taken off for the month. I didn't want Mom to be alone.” I smiled wryly. “To tell the truth, I didn't want to be alone either.” I sipped my coffee. “Why are you here if you didn't come for Daddy's funeral?”

“I just finished a nonstop run of promoting my new movie—I had a spot on Jay Leno, which is why I couldn't get here for the funeral—and I thought I'd come home for a little break. I miss the peace of Wellington when I'm in L. A.”

Kevin was Liam's cousin, the son of Senator Wellington's brother. He had been brought up at Wellington because his parents had split and neither one of them had wanted custody of him. He and Liam were the same age—twenty-eight. I had known him since I was six, just as long as I had known Liam.

“Will Nancy be moving up to Maryland with you?” he asked.

“No, she says she wants to stay here. She has a lot of friends, and then there's her job at the school.”

He looked doubtful. “Will she be able to stay in this house?”

“No, she's talking about moving into town.”

“That might be better. She'll be less isolated.”

“Yes. There are too many memories of Daddy in this house. I think she'll be better off starting anew.”

His azure eyes looked sympathetic and he nodded. “How is your practice going, Anne? Do you like it?”

“It's long hours but I love it.”

“That's good. You look great. If you ever get tired of being a vet, I'm sure I could get you a job in the movies.”

I laughed. “I love being a vet, but thanks anyway.”

“You get that horse-whisperer thing from your father. He had a magic touch with them.”

“That's true.”

“It's going to be hard to replace him.”

I nodded. It was going to be impossible to replace him. “Do you get to do any riding?” he asked.

“Very little. I work too long hours to have my own horse.”

“I don't get much riding either. How about we go for a ride tomorrow morning? There are still a couple of hunters in the stable.”

“Clear it with Liam and I'd love to.”

He got to his feet and I followed. He was two inches shorter than Liam, but I still had to look up at him. With his blue eyes, blond hair and golden tan, he looked like a Viking. He was currently one of the hottest properties in Hollywood.

“I'll meet you at the barn at seven,” he said.

“Great,” I said.

He took my hand. “Give Nancy my condolences.”

“I will.”

He bent and this time he kissed my mouth. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Kevin,” I said, and took the coffee cups back into the empty house.

After I had washed the dishes, I decided to take a walk around the property and go to visit Thunderhead, Wellington Farm's premiere stallion, the sire of Derby hopeful, Someday Soon.

The graveled path took me through acres and acres of black oak-fenced grassy paddocks, populated mostly by horses.

It was one of the most beautiful sights on all the earth. There were the paddocks that belonged to the mares and their foals; the paddocks that were inhabited by the yearlings; those that held the two-year-olds; and finally the stallion paddocks. Close to the stallion paddocks was a large and airy shed which hosted “the most expensive thirty seconds in sports. ” It was the breeding shed.

Thunderhead was on the far side of his pasture, and I stood at the fence and watched as he assessed my arrival. He was a big boy, a grandson of Mr. Prospector, a perfectly balanced animal with a lovely head, a giant stride, long-sloping shoulders and powerful hindquarters. At the moment his glossy gray coat was somewhat spoiled by the dirt he had rolled in.

I watched him watching me, then I called his name. His ears flicked. Who was this stranger that knew his name?

He trotted toward me, stopped when he was about forty feet away, and glared. “Thunderhead,” I said. Liam had named him after the horse in Mary O'Hara's eponymous novel. He came a little closer, nostrils flaring. He was a little put out with me. This was his paddock, after all, and his farm, and who was I to intrude where I wasn't invited?

As a two-year-old Thunderhead had won three stakes races before an injury had caused Liam to retire him to stud. Last year his first crop of foals had been two-year-olds and they had done well at the races. Now his son, Someday Soon, was one of the favorites for the Derby. If he won, Thunderhead's reputation as a sire would be made. The stallion would be worth a fortune.

I watched him approach me, careful to keep my hands outside the fence. Stallions have a nasty habit of biting.

“You're gorgeous,” I told him in the soft, melodious voice I always used for horses.

His ears flicked back and forth.

I stood there talking to him and he listened. In the distance, a cloud of dust appeared on the road and both Thunderhead and I watched as the pickup truck went by the mare's pastures and headed in our direction. The truck pulled up and Liam got out, wearing jeans and a collared navy blue knit shirt.

“Visiting with Number-one Stud?” he asked.

“Yes. He looks marvelous, Liam.”

“One of his won the Fountain of Youth last year. And now Someday Soon is having this terrific season.”

“Storm Cat move over,” I said. At the moment, Storm Cat was the most popular and most expensive stallion standing at stud.

Liam leaned against the fence next to me. My heart beat a little faster. “I'll never get the money Storm Cat commands, not in Virginia, but if I could get even half it would be a salvation.”

I looked at Liam's profile and he turned and looked back at me. The sun shone on his black hair and his long black lashes made his eyes look deeply blue. “Salvation?” I said. “That's a strange word for you to use.”

His eyes looked bleak. “Things have changed around here since you left, Annie. For one thing, the stock market has crashed. Dad had a lot of money in bad stocks. For its entire existence, almost a century, the horse operation here at Wellington never had to worry about running at a profit. It was a gentlemen's avocation, propped up by private money—a small farm standing a few stallions and keeping a smallish number of quality mares. Since I've taken over, the horses have carried themselves, but Dad has always paid for the insurance and the upkeep of the farm buildings. Now it seems the money isn't there anymore.”

I blinked. “Is your father going to sell the farm, Liam?” I asked in a hushed voice.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “It's not as bad as that. But he's told me that I'm going to have to lease the land from him to run my business. And I'm going to have to shoulder the entire expense of the horse business as well. So there's a lot riding on Someday Soon's success. If he wins the Derby, it should enable me to generate enough income in stud fees to pay Dad the lease money he needs. Otherwise, it's going to be tight.”

In the pasture, Thunderhead lowered his head and began to graze, all the while keeping one eye turned in our direction.

Liam looked out over the rolling hills, the large green fields with their run-in sheds, the graceful old trees. He said fiercely, “One day this place will be mine, and I'm not giving up the horses. I've worked too hard to build what I've got here.”

“You'll make it succeed, Liam. I know you will.”

His mouth softened and he smiled. “I've missed you, Annie. Your visits home from school were always so short.”

Liam's smile made Kevin's look dull. I didn't reply.

“How old are you now anyway?”

“I am twenty-six, Liam.”

He looked surprised. “Twenty-six. You mean little Annie is twenty-six already?”

“Little Annie is twenty-six, and you are twenty-eight. We're not children anymore, Liam.”

“Believe me, sweetie, I know that.” He looked at me. “But you don't look twenty-six. You still have those big brown eyes and that shiny brown ponytail that makes a guy just yearn to pull it.”

You look your age, I thought. He didn't from a distance, but close up I could see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth. Well, Liam had known some hard times in his life, that was for sure.

I said, “I just saw Kevin.”

His face didn't change. “He must have gotten in after I left the house. Is he staying long?”

“I don't know. He said he was taking a break from promoting his new film. If it does as well as the last, he'll be in clover.”

“I wish I had some of his money.”

Deciding that we were boring, Thunderhead turned his back on us and continued to graze.

Liam reached out to tug my ponytail gently. Then he grinned. “I couldn't resist it. “ He straightened away from the fence. “We have a breeding session in an hour. I have to go see if the lady is ready. Can I give you a lift?”

“No, I'll walk. I'm reacquainting myself with the farm.”

“Okay.”

He got in his truck and drove away down the gravel road in a cloud of dust. I turned to look back at Thunder-head. Had I made a mistake in taking a month off from work so I could be here for Mom? After so many years of avoiding Wellington, of avoiding Liam, why would I do something so drastically different?

I knew the answer before I even asked the question. I had been in love with Liam since I was six years old. For ten years I had stayed away from him, hoping my feelings would run their course, like a virus eventually did. But it hadn't happened. I had dated other men, I had even come close to an engagement once, but in the end my feelings for Liam had always won out.

Absence hadn't worked; perhaps propinquity would. I had hero-worshipped Liam when I was a child. As an adult I would see him more clearly and, I was hoping, more objectively. I wanted, finally, to break the hold he had over me. I wanted to be free.

Or so I told myself as I leaned on the fence and watched Thunderhead pull up the green grass with his strong thoroughbred teeth.

That afternoon I took the car into town to pick up some supplies. Midville is in the heart of Virginia hunt country—there are nine separate hunts in the vicinity— and horses are everywhere on the landscape: in pastures; in horse trailers on the highway and back roads; on roadside signs. There are the restaurants with horsey-sounding names like the Coach Stop, the Jockey Club and the Horse and Hound. There's the tack shop right smack in the middle of Washington Street, the main street in town. There is a statue of a horse at the post office and horseshoes on the bathroom doors in the two local bars. There's an auto repair place called Auto Jockey. If you couldn't tell that Midville was horse country, you had to be blind.

I was in the Safeway, trying to decide if I wanted Tide or Cheer when a voice from behind me said, “Anne—is that you?”

I turned to find myself facing a red-haired young man in a suit. It was the hair that clued me in. “Justin,” I said. “How are you?”

Justin Summers smiled at me. “You look great. I heard you went to vet school.”

“I did. I'm working in Maryland now, but I'm home because of my father.”

“I was so sorry about your . . .