Summer by the Sea Read online

  But Sarah refused to be deterred. “The girl brought me her project because she wants me to mentor her. She’s a local girl from the town I grew up in.” Sarah coughed. She needed to lie a little. So what? “Her family knows my family. She knows me. She respects me, Richard.”

  There was a silence on the other end. “Interesting,” he finally conceded. “The thought of you working successfully with a young girl and her family is...”

  “Proof that I am sufficiently rehabilitated and able to return to my capacity in my rightful role at the company,” Sarah finished for him. She half expected Richard to snort in reply, but he didn’t. He was silent, and that was a good sign.

  That meant he was inclined to agree with her proposal.

  “So,” Sarah pressed, “I just checked the timeline for the application deadline.” She’d done so on her phone while Sam had been nattering on back in his kitchen. “As you know, I’m a past winner myself, Richard. I’m the perfect person to mentor the girl. That means we would need to have her video presentation ready for the committee before the July fifth deadline. I will send it directly to you, to submit to the committee yourself. And then after she is accepted for the competition, I will be returning to my office in California where I will be able to mentor her remotely for the remainder of the summer.” This stipulation was extremely important to Sarah—it meant she could return home in two short weeks rather than the ten long ones that Richard had banished her for. “I’m not taking Lucy down this road,” Sarah stressed, “unless I’m able to return early. I need your firm agreement on this point.”

  There was another silence on the line.

  “Her father is a lifeguard,” Sarah said. “He’s Mr. Chill. He teaches meditation on the side, and I’m enrolled in his private sunrise meditation class.” Are you happy now? she wanted to snap.

  “I’m not averse to that idea,” Richard said calmly. “Not at all.”

  Of course he wasn’t. That’s why she’d embellished her pitch to him like she had. “So, is it a go? Are you on board?”

  Another silence. Damn, she’d pushed him too hard. You need to get your head on straight had been his parting shot to her that day in his office. Echoed only moments ago by Sam.

  She held her breath. Do not push it, she told herself. Stay calm...

  “If you can work successfully with an eleven-year-old and her family, if you can keep calm and show compassion to a young adult, while still helping her to succeed, then yes, Sarah, yes, I will welcome you back in two weeks.”

  She let out her breath. She couldn’t help it—she gave a little skip of enthusiasm.

  “I have one requirement,” Richard added. “Before you turn in the signed application to me, along with the video presentation by July fifth, I want the parents to be given my direct office phone number in case they have any questions.”

  She didn’t want to argue with him. She didn’t want to push her advantage. “Yes, Richard,” she said obediently. “I will do that.”

  “Furthermore,” he specified, “I’m delegating future communication between you and me to Gregory.” Gregory was his assistant. “I’ll be on a retreat, and I don’t wish to be disturbed. My electronics will be with Gregory. He will be handling my communication. Which is what I also suggested to you for your sabbatical, if you’ll recall.”

  If Sarah had to deal with that worm Gregory, she would. Gregory knew how important Future Tech Scholars was to Richard. He would be fair about following through with that.

  “Fine. Let Gregory know that he’ll hear from me before the fifth. I’ll send him the video and the completed application for you to view at your leisure. Other than that, I will not be in contact, with you, or anyone else.”

  “Very good,” Richard murmured, appeased. “I’ll certainly look for the video and the application package. Gregory knows when to make an exception to reach me at the retreat.”

  * * *

  WHILE SARAH WAS on the phone, Sam went upstairs to check on Lucy. Her door was closed, and he heard her proud, impassioned voice. Speaking to Colleen, he guessed. He touched the door with his palm, wishing he could let Lucy know he was happy for her, happy she’d found something she loved to do. He ached that she didn’t confide in him or even talk to him much, at all.

  He went back downstairs. Mainly to take his mind off things, Sam set the plates and silverware on the inside table and then added candles, cold beer, warmed-up steak and the green salad he’d already made. He was just sitting down when Sarah hung up her phone and joined him.

  He tried not to notice how smooth her skin looked in the candlelight, how attractive the light in her eyes was. Or how nice she smelled, sitting so close to him at the small table that her knees bumped his once she’d seated herself.

  With her cheeks rosy red, she lifted her bottle of beer to him. “To the upcoming weeks of working together,” she said. “To meditation classes at dawn and to Lucy’s progress on her beach app.”

  He took a slow sip of beer without clinking his bottle against Sarah’s. “Tell me about this beach app.”

  “I’ll let Lucy do that. Her lifeguard father inspired her, even if it’s difficult for her to articulate that to you right now.”

  He chewed over that information as he cut a piece of steak. Then he remembered he’d forgotten the corn, so he went to the counter and brought back the serving bowl filled with the cobs he’d grilled while Sarah and his daughter were up in the bedroom.

  “That smells very good,” Sarah remarked.

  “Thank you,” he said noncommittally and began to serve himself.

  Sarah put her beer bottle down. “You need me, Sam,” she said softly. “And I need you. Don’t fight this.”

  He glanced up, and in the flickering candlelight, he met her eyes.

  Azure blue. Like liquid pools. With her dark hair and long, dark lashes, the woman was simply stunning. And he felt like he could say anything to her, truthfully, and she wouldn’t shut him down or run away. “Honestly, if you can help Lucy not be so angry with me, then that would be forever appreciated on my part. I think I could overlook your brashness, in that case.”

  “My brashness,” she murmured.

  “Don’t get me wrong—I like your brashness. I’m just wondering if it’ll work with an eleven-year-old.”

  Sarah stopped chewing and stared at him. “She’s a driven child on her own without me, Sam. And she’s highly communicative. She’s got a Skype link to her mom, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I know.” He tried not to be envious of this. It didn’t escape his attention that Lucy wasn’t communicative with him at all. “It’s good for Lucy to have access to her mom when she needs her.”

  “Yes, and it’s also good for Lucy to have access to her dad whenever she needs him, too.”

  “She has my undivided attention,” he insisted.

  “Now she does. But what about all those years when you only saw her two afternoons a month?”

  “I can’t change the past, Sarah. And you’re just mad at me because I called you brash.”

  “Hi. Sam?” Lucy’s small voice interrupted them. Sam’s heart seemed to leap in his chest as he looked up to find his daughter standing there, appearing contrite.

  “Would you like to join us, Luce?” Sam offered, quickly standing to find her a plate, determined to stay calm.

  Lucy glanced at Sarah. It occurred to him that his daughter actually cared and worried about what Sarah thought of her.

  “Please do join us,” Sarah encouraged.

  Thank you, Sam thought as he set Lucy a place at the table. “We have salad and corn,” he said, indicating the bowls. “Do you eat dairy and eggs?”

  Lucy shook her head. “No, but I like tuna.”

  “Okay. There are cans of tuna on the bottom shelf in the top cabinet by the stove. The can opener is on the counter.”

&nbs
p; Lucy paused, but she went into the kitchen, and opened and closed several cabinets. He forced himself to stay still, letting her explore her new surroundings.

  He got Sarah’s point—he had years of neglect to make up for with Lucy. But he was determined that things would be different now. He’d meant everything he’d said to Sarah.

  Sarah stayed uncharacteristically silent. She appeared to be studying Lucy. And him.

  He cleared his throat. “Sarah told me about your project, Luce. I think it’s great. And if you and Sarah want to work here, that’s fine with me.” He glanced at Sarah. “Lucy can give you the Wi-Fi password.”

  Sarah opened her mouth as if she was going to argue with him again. He understood that her first instinct would always be to argue with him. So be it. “If you want to work at the library, that’s fine, too. But you should probably know that I had a run-in with one of the librarians.” He took a bite of his salad.

  Sarah smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You had a run-in with a librarian, Sam? I find that not only amusing, but difficult to imagine.”

  “Save your amusement and your imagination for tomorrow morning,” Sam replied, “when you and I have to get up at dawn together.”

  Lucy joined them at the table with her plate of tuna, while giving Sam a funny look.

  “You’re welcome to join us tomorrow morning, too,” he told Lucy. “We’re having a meditation session.”

  “I’m not a big morning person,” Lucy replied, reaching for the salad bowl.

  “Okay. That’s good to know.” If there was one thing he’d learned today, it was to take things slow with Lucy. He had eleven years of rebuilding to work on, and it wasn’t going to happen in a single week or even in a single summer. But Sam had patience.

  Sarah however, was patience-challenged. He shot her a look as she fiddled with her phone.

  Sarah scowled at him. But then she looked at Lucy and tucked her phone into her pocket. “Good idea,” she said to Sam. “We’ll talk about Lucy’s app.” She smiled at his daughter. And when she thought he wasn’t looking, she slipped her phone under the table and glanced at it again.

  He chuckled softly. “You’re just like the kids I work with. You wouldn’t believe how creative they get when it comes to hiding their phones.”

  “You know,” she said pointedly. “If electronics are off-limits at dinner time, then why are lifeguard managers allowed to stop by to visit on their all-terrain vehicles?”

  “Point taken.” He grinned at her. “You both have my undivided attention, Sarah.”

  Sarah looked jarred by that. Lucy stared back and forth between them, fascinated.

  “I don’t know if I’ve told you,” Sam said to his daughter, “but I grew up in a family that went through divorce.” He was aware that Sarah’s eyes widened, while Lucy continued to stare at him, rapt. “I was thirteen at the time, and it was pretty much the worst thing that had ever happened to me. You know your uncle Michael. I’ve invited him to come up next month. He’ll tell you the same thing, if you ask him.”

  “I think I will,” Lucy said.

  Sam nodded. This wasn’t an easy line of discussion for him. He breathed slowly, willing himself to calm. He had a point to make and he didn’t want to lose sight of it, despite all the old emotions flooding back.

  “One of the good things I remember from before all the bad stuff happened was that we regularly ate meals together,” Sam said. “The four of us.” It genuinely was one of the best memories he had. “We talked about our days and what was going on with us. When we stopped doing that was around the time when things seemed to come crashing down.”

  They were just staring at him, unimpressed. He rubbed his head. “All I’m saying, Lucy, is that you and I have a chance to try something different this summer. Having dinner together could be part of that.” He met his daughter’s eyes. “I’d like to hear about what you guys are working on every day. I’m interested in your project.”

  Lucy took a bite of salad. “Why did Nana Bea and my grandfather get divorced?”

  Sam stilled. The pain was still there. It never totally went away, no matter how far removed from thirteen he became.

  But he ignored that and focused on Lucy. He wasn’t going to avoid talking about things with her any longer. The time was long overdue to fix this. He needed to include her more in the details of his life—the big stuff and the small. And it had taken Cassandra’s leaving and Sarah’s arrival for him to see that.

  “Well,” he said slowly. “Nobody really knows what goes on in a relationship except the two people in it. But from what I could see—or what I’ve figured out since—it started because they each wanted something different from their futures. They got job offers in two very different places.” He sucked in a breath. “And Michael and I had to choose who to live with.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened again. He would just bet she understood how hard that had been for him.

  He’d bet Lucy could, too. She’d grown up with two parents who wanted nothing to do with each other. He wasn’t sure how much she knew, but essentially, she was the product of a one-night stand. He wasn’t proud of that fact, but it was the truth.

  He and Colleen had both been so young. And they really had tried to get along for the sake of the coming baby. Sort of.

  But they’d failed miserably, to the point that each had a lawyer to handle their relationship for them. Now that Sam was older and more mature, he saw how idiotic that was. He should have tried harder. No, scratch that. He should have tried smarter.

  Starting today, he was trying smarter with Lucy. And since Sarah was part of the deal, she was part of the discussion, too.

  “I hated it,” Sam said to Lucy. “It affected me permanently, I guess.”

  Sarah made a soft snort. She seemed like she wanted to say something, but was restraining herself.

  Lucy noticed, too. She was so attuned to emotional nuances. She didn’t miss much between them all. “Were your parents divorced, too, Sarah?”

  Sarah pressed her lips together. She looked angry.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Lucy said quickly, covering her mouth in self-censure. “That’s right. Your parents died in an accident when you were twelve. I apologize. I knew that.”

  Sarah reached for her phone and pressed the button so the screen lit up. Then she stood.

  “Where are you going?” Sam asked.

  “To make another phone call.”

  “Please don’t back out on us,” he said quietly.

  Lucy stared at him with big eyes.

  Sarah gazed from Lucy to Sam. She balanced her fingers on the table and leaned toward him. “You two are the family. I’m not part of this.”

  He wasn’t surprised by her reaction. To go on the attack was a very Sarah-like thing to do. He was starting to understand her. She seemed to keep control by dominating others, and that made her feel better. She’d lost her family young, and that must have been horribly traumatizing. Sam further supposed, as long as he was psychoanalyzing them all, that his family background made him want to avoid attachments, especially emotional ones.

  But that just wasn’t possible anymore. Not with Lucy, at least. And if Sarah was going to work with his daughter this summer, then he needed to fight more on Lucy’s behalf. His daughter’s well-being was at stake.

  “Yeah, Sarah,” he said calmly. “Family is too strong a word for it, but you are part of this discussion. You’ll be with my daughter during the day, and you’ll need to get used to seeing me, too.”

  “Do I have any say in this?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes,” he said turning back to her. “Please. What’re you thinking?”

  Lucy squinted, as if choosing her words. “First, I think you should keep your lifeguard job. Don’t quit it just for me.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’ll consider it. What else?”

 
“Um...” Lucy glanced at Sarah. “Can I bring Becker and Simmonds into my bedroom? I’ve always wanted pets, but Mom won’t let me have them.”

  “Oh, hell, yes, please take them with you!” Sarah exclaimed.

  “Don’t you like cats?” Lucy asked Sarah, confused.

  Sarah hesitated “Well, no. I am not an animal person.”

  “They’re not animals. They’re pets.”

  Sam was biting his lip to keep from laughing. “Um, maybe Sarah is allergic to their fur, Lucy.”

  “Are you allergic?” Lucy asked Sarah.

  “No.”

  “Then what’s wrong with them?”

  “I’m emotionally allergic to them, on principle.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Sarah appealed to Sam. “Did you know that my aunt trained the little yacky one to get in the shower with her? It’s creepy. I’m a private person. Tell me, would you put up with that?”

  Sam smiled at the image. “Yeah, I can see your point.”

  “Becker loves to play in water!” Lucy exclaimed. “It’s his bonding time with you to do that! That’s what Cassandra says. You two are so weird.”

  “Well, I’m just saying.” Sarah shrugged. “If you want to take the two cats, Lucy, I won’t stand in your way.”

  “How about this,” Sam suggested. “What if Lucy went over every morning and afternoon to feed them?” He glanced at Sarah. “Would that work for you?”

  “Yes. Actually, it would.”

  “Great,” Lucy said. “So, Sam, you’ll go to work. I’ll take care of Becker and Simmonds. And Sarah will come here, to our house with the Wi-Fi and the air-conditioning, to help me with my app.” She smiled at Sam. “And you and I will turn off our electronics every night for dinner. Which I get to cook sometimes.”

  “You cook?” Sam asked, surprised.

  “Yes. It’s my job at home.” Lucy wrinkled her nose.

  He hadn’t known that. “You cook every night?”

  “No. Just when I’m left alone.”