Unforgettable Summer: Wild Crush, Book 1 (20 page)

At that Rex laughed. If there was anything a man of supreme ego respected in another man, it was a similar sense of self-belief. “You always were a cocky little bastard, Butler.”

The woman who was now Rex’s wife admonished her husband’s comment, but Ty sent her his best smile. “It’s all right. I was a cocky little bastard.” He sent his gaze back to her husband and admitted, “Still am.”

“Nothing wrong with that, I suppose. Attitude breeds success.”

At last Summer gathered her wits enough to stand. Ty felt the tension radiating off her. From his view of her profile, he saw it was set in hard lines. “Dad.”

“Summer, I’m glad we bumped into each other.” Summer held herself rigid as her father leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek. “We haven’t seen you at the house since Christmas.”

“Business has been hectic.”

“A lot of people buying into your brand of health improvement these days,” Rex drawled.

The implication that Summer’s chosen line of work was bogus sparked Ty’s temper. “She fixed my shoulder,” he said. “It gives me trouble occasionally, but she worked some magic and I feel good as new.”

Rex countered, “Pain can always be managed with drugs.”

“I don’t take them.” Ty grinned. “I don’t like anything to slow me down. I think Summer’s way is better. She’s really good at what she does.”

Summer turned to look at him, amazement and appreciation softening her black eyes.
Bugger what her dad thinks.
Ty placed a hand on her waist and pulled her closer to him. So she’d know he supported her. And maybe so her dad could spit a few chips when he realized there was more between them than two old acquaintances catching up.

Rex eyed their embrace for a moment, his expression bland. Then he chuckled, the sound heavy with irony. “You make some valid points, Butler.”

The servers came out of the kitchen approaching the table with plates of the preordered food. Rex and Dianne were forced to take their seats, and Summer and Ty followed suit.

Summer stared down at the plate of fancy vegetable spring roll and bean-sprout salad. She left her fork untouched for so long Ty squeezed her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

At that moment, Ty hated Summer’s tendency to cover her true feelings more than anything in the world. “For once in your life, stop bullshitting me, Summer.”

She turned toward him, her eyes flashing. “All right. To tell the truth, I’m not a huge fan of fusion cuisine.”

“Says the Aussie girl with Filipino eyes, a Scottish surname and a diploma in Chinese medicine.”

His pithy summary of her had the desired effect. The tension was still there in her stiff shoulders, but she offered him a wan smile. “You want to know another truth? My father’s a snob.”

Among other things.
Deciding not to weigh in with his opinion about Summer’s father, he shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“I don’t expect perfect. Reasonable would be nice. He always hated you, Ty. Even now when Dianne’s forcing his best behavior out of him, he’s being rude to you.”

“I’ve heard worse. Don’t worry about it.”

“He called you a beach bum. God, what a jerk.” Summer looked at him. “He’s never going to change. I can’t believe I’ve spent my life trying to…”

“Impress him?” Ty finished when she trailed off.

Her smile was filled with irony. “Yeah. What an idiot I am.”

“No you’re not,” Ty said fiercely. “You’re a daughter who deserved a better dad, that’s all. And you’re a woman who should eat something.” He gave her plate a little shove so it moved closer to her. “You need to keep your strength up.”

A little more of the distress leeched from her expression, to be replaced by impish amusement. “Do I? Whatever for?”

“You know what for.”

Obviously trying her best to get into the spirit of the banter, Summer fluttered her eyelashes and picked up the spring roll on her plate. She stuck it into her mouth and took a slow, deliberate bite.

Ty had to bite back a groan. “If you spend the next couple of hours teasing me like that, you’re really gonna be in for it.”

Summer smiled like his threat of punishment delighted her and continued to eat.

Despite all her initial misgivings and the upset of seeing her father, Summer had a good time at dinner. The gathered group was a friendly crowd who liberally shared amusing anecdotes about Ty’s parents. Ty made a speech that was both funny and poignant about growing up in a house with two health-nut parents who supported him no matter what and made him the man he was. By the time he’d finished, Summer had tears in her eyes.

Not feeling up to talking to her father too much, she kept conversation with him going only through Dianne. Toward the end of the night, she came to the realization it had always been that way. Once upon a time, it had been Summer’s mother acting as the conduit for communication between father and daughters. When she’d died so suddenly, her father had been all at sea trying to understand two teenage girls.

It was the best she could do in terms of forgiving him for the hurts he’d inflicted on her in the past.

“Thank you again for having me, Irene,” Summer said as the party was breaking up and it was time to leave.

“Oh no, thank
you.
I’ve never seen my son looking quite so smitten. It’s a good look for him.”

Smitten?
Summer flushed. “We’re just old acquaintances who ran into each other again. I don’t want you to misinterpret anything.”

Irene smiled and patted Summer’s hand. “I don’t think I have.”

Turning away so as to avoid addressing the assumptions Ty’s mother was making, Summer saw that Ty was still talking to his father. He’d need to say goodbye to his mother yet, and right now Summer needed air.

She touched him on the arm until he looked at her, giving her his full attention as though whatever she needed to say was the most important thing on his agenda. Summer swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

With the glass doors of the restaurant closing behind her, the sound of the surf not a hundred meters away was loud, almost as loud as Summer’s heartbeat. She took the stairs down to the street and breathed in the humid air, loving the familiar smells of the oceanside.

Ty was right. It was a crime that someone who loved living by the beach so much never took a board out and got amongst the waves. He’d taught her to do that long ago, had shown her how exhilarating it could be. When had she lost her desire to live like that? When had she lost her nerve?

The music and conversation became louder again as someone else opened the doors. The heavy footsteps on the stairs were so familiar that Summer closed her eyes, steeling herself to face the newcomer.

“Great place, Munroe’s,” her father remarked. “Best wine list on the north coast.”

Her father cared about things like that. If there was a two-hundred-dollar bottle of plonk to be found on the menu, he’d be the one to order it. “I’ve never been a big fan of wine. It goes to my head and I do silly things.”

“Behavior can’t be changed by alcohol, only exacerbated.”

Summer let out a mirthless laugh. “Are you saying I’m silly, Dad?”

“Of course not. But you’ve always had trouble dealing with emotion. It overwhelms you.”

“It’s funny you think you know me so well.”

Her father let out a put-upon sigh. “When your mother died, you wouldn’t stop crying. Even weeks afterward you’d crumble at the slightest thing and sob for hours. How was I supposed to deal with that?”

“I was
fourteen,
Dad. I’d lost my mum. It would have been nice if I’d had another parent to help me through it.”

He shot her a look. For a moment Summer thought she saw an ounce, just a glimmer of shame in his brown eyes. “I did the best I could.”

And it wasn’t enough.
But that was a truth she would have to accept. You couldn’t go back and change the past. Summer sighed. “I know.”

They stood together looking out at the ocean across the street, the moonlight shining on the white water. A car passed, a group of teenagers hanging out the four windows and hollering like they were having the time of their life. Summer smiled wistfully, allowing herself a moment’s melancholy over her squandered adolescence.

“So what’s the story with Butler?”

Her father’s abrupt question made her start. “There’s no story.” At least none that she wanted to share with him.

“Is it serious? Dianne says it looks serious.”

“Maybe you and Dianne should mind your own business.”

“My daughters’ lives are always my concern.”

“No they’re not. Mine’s not—not anymore.” Summer’s heart galloped, adrenaline pumping it hard against her rib cage. Once she’d started, she couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out. “I let it be your business once, and I shouldn’t have. I should never have cared that you disapproved of Ty. I should never have married Duncan.”

“You had to marry Duncan, if I recall the circumstances.”

“It wasn’t nineteen fifty-five. There were other options besides marrying the man who accidentally got me pregnant, if only you’d let me explore them.”

“What options? Have an abortion? Run off to some foreign country to look for a surf bum who’d probably already forgotten who you were?”

“He didn’t forget, and he wasn’t a
surf bum
then any more than he is now. He became a world champion, Dad. He’s the
best.
He was the best ten years ago, he just hadn’t won the trophies yet. But you refused to see that. You didn’t trust my judgment and eventually I stopped trusting it too. I don’t know who I resent more for that—you or me.”

“Now wait a minute, girl.” Her father turned on her, his cheeks flushing red with indignation. “Everything I’ve done—”

“That’s enough.”

It was Ty who intervened, Ty who strode toward her, slipped an arm around her and pulled her close. Summer sank against him, not even being aware of needing support until he was there, providing it. His voice next to her ear was so achingly gentle Summer almost cried. “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll take you home.”

Her father blustered. “My daughter doesn’t need protection from me.”

“You’re upsetting her.” Ty took a step forward, using his body to shield hers. His tone was low and dangerous. “I don’t like to see Summer upset.”

“How long are you in town for this time, Butler? A week? Two? Summer’s not your responsibility.”

“I’m not yours either,” Summer told her father. “I’m twenty-eight years old. I’ll take care of myself from here on in, thanks very much. I’ll make all my own decisions as well. I’ve been doing it for a while now. Have you bothered to notice that, Dad?”

“Of course I’ve noticed.”

“But you still act like I’m a little girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing. Why didn’t you tell me Ty called?” Summer voiced the question that had been niggling all week. “Before I married Duncan, he called wanting to talk to me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Her father glanced between her and Ty, obviously working out where the information had come from. “It wouldn’t have done you any good.”

“That was my decision to make. It was my
life
. I would have wanted to know.”

But in truth, what good
would
it have done? Right now she was loath to agree with her father on any subject, but the fact was she had been pregnant with another man’s baby. Hearing from Ty would only have made her feel worse about the future that had been mapped out by her father and her own rashness.
You can’t change the past.

She said wearily, “I’m leaving—with Ty. Goodnight, Dad.”

Turning on her heel, Summer walked down the street, away from the man whose love she’d yearned her whole life for. Her heart was heavy with the realization that the scant affection her father had doled out over the years, the attempts to control rather than accept, was the only kind of love he might be capable of giving.

Without a word, Ty helped her into the car and got behind the wheel. They were out of the town of Byron Bay and on the two-lane road that led back to Leyton’s Headland before the first tear fell. Once they started she couldn’t seem to stem their flow. Ty rummaged in his glove compartment and came up with a packet of tissues. With a squeaked thank-you, she took them and went through three in quick succession.

“He’s right you know,” she sniffed after a while. “Emotions overwhelm me. I can’t seem to stop crying now.”

“That sanctimonious ass isn’t right about anything.” Ty put his hand on her leg. “You’re smart and beautiful and capable. Don’t let him make you feel different.”

Ty’s kind words only made new tears well, and Summer spent the rest of the drive to her flat doing her best to mop up the constant spillage. By the time they pulled up in her driveway, her face felt sticky and hot. She pressed her hand to her cheeks. “Sorry about all that. I must have panda eyes now.”

Ty opened his door, activating the vehicle’s internal light. He peered at her face. “Yep. Definitely panda-like.”

“Oh.” Summer brought her hands away from her cheeks. They were spotted with blotches of mascara. “Eww. So much for my sexy eye makeup.”