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