Summer Kisses

Becca could have guessed the old man’s profession by looking around the house. Edwin’s good deeds had been acknowledged and rewarded with framed ornate military accommodations and medals. He’d be remembered as an honorable war hero, while she...

Becca’s composure wavered like a flag in a hostile breeze. How would she be remembered? As a compassionate woman who helped the elderly she cared for? Or—as Virginia O’Dell’s family accused—a woman who took advantage?

She never should have given Agnes that ruby ring. But how could she refuse Harold’s dying request to prove he’d never stopped loving Agnes? Becca’s protests to him about amending his will went nowhere.

It was the look on Agnes’s face that made the risk worth it. The delight she’d tried to hide that a former lover had remembered her, tears she couldn’t conceal when emotions overwhelmed her—grief, joy, regret, happiness. She’d hugged Becca as if she’d delivered Harold himself into her arms.

Just for a moment, Becca felt she belonged somewhere again. She’d welcomed the invitation to spend the weekend, hanging out with Agnes and her energetic friends. Baking banana nut muffins and singing show tunes.

A cool breeze coming off the river fluttered through the screen. Becca draped a deep green afghan over Edwin, who was staring at Flynn’s graduation picture. His eyes were hooded, haunted. She rearranged the pillows beneath his feet and stepped back to survey her work, pausing to pat Abby’s head. “Who did you think you saw back there?”

“Someone from the past.” Edwin lisped slightly more than he had yesterday, a sign the morning’s events had taxed his strength.

Abby padded over to the door, circled a spot on the foyer’s black and white linoleum twice and lay down with a contented grunt.

Becca sat on the blue plaid couch. Dust puffed out of the cushions. She knew she shouldn’t pry, but something was bothering Edwin, and she hated when her clients weren’t mentally and physically at ease. “Was it someone from Flynn’s past? Or yours?”

Edwin’s gaze ricocheted to Becca’s. Difficult as it was in the chair, he thrust his chest forward, and his shoulders back. “I didn’t say.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Becca soothed. “It’s none of my business.” But she wondered nonetheless as she stared at the divots in the orange carpet marking where the coffee table had recently been moved. “Have you had breakfast? Do you like scrambled eggs?”

Edwin sighed. “I can make my own breakfast.”

Not hardly, in his weakened state.

“It’s okay to ask for help or accept a little help while you’re on the mend.” Why was independence the hardest thing for seniors to give up? When Becca was eighty, she wouldn’t put up a fuss if someone wanted to cook for her.

“I’ve never asked for help and I’m not starting now.” Edwin glanced toward the remote resting on the end table nearest him, just out of reach. “Could you turn on the television?”

Becca laughed. Edwin quickly realized he’d asked for help and did, too.

As their laughter died away, Edwin stared at Flynn’s picture again. Worry etched a stockpile of wrinkles around his eyes. She’d seen that look before—in the eyes of her mother, her grandmother, and most recently, Harold Epstein.

“Sometimes...” Becca tried to stop herself. She didn’t need any more trouble. But stress hindered recovery, and knowing Edwin had been in military intelligence, he probably had plenty of secrets, perhaps ones he still kept from Flynn, perhaps ones he didn’t really want to take to his grave. She suspected he needed an outlet, a sympathetic ear, a keeper of secrets. Not her, of course. She’d made that mistake before and look where it’d gotten her. “Sometimes you might need help of a different kind. For example, you might want to get something off your chest or need help sorting through a box you stored in the attic.”

There was a wounded quality to Edwin’s gaze that indicated Becca’s words struck a target the old man may not have realized he’d been harboring.

“Mostly, you should ask for a hand when you’re unsteady. The rest of it—” the bucket list, the last wishes, the people he needed to make peace with. There was no hurry except to unburden himself. According to town gossip, he had years left in him “—just know that Flynn can help you if you talk to him.” That was good. She didn’t need to get involved.

Perhaps things would have turned out differently with Harold if he’d had a family member he was willing to confide in, instead of a daughter who considered him an inconvenience.

“Flynn’s too busy to talk now,” Edwin said gruffly. “We’re going on a trip in three months. I’ll talk to him then.”

That seemed a long wait for an old man.

“We used to sit out on the porch every night and talk, weather permitting.” Edwin shook a puffy finger at her. “Traditions are important in this family and in this town. I want traditions to live on. Like celebrating the successes of your neighbors every spring or walking the girl you’re courting home and kissing her good-night on the Harmony River bridge.”

“Did you follow that tradition?” she teased.

The old man had the sweetest blush. She was glad the world and Flynn weren’t losing him just yet. “A good man doesn’t kiss and tell. But I’ll tell you this—I would never replace a good-night kiss on a bridge with a good-night text message or whatever it is young people do nowadays.”

“I used to use Skype with my husband every morning when he was overseas.” Becca’s gaze caught on the picture over the fireplace of a young Edwin and his bride. Edwin wore his army uniform, his chest covered with medals, his stature approachably proud. His wife wore linen and lace, an unusual heart-shaped necklace and a smile Becca recognized—that of a joyous bride on her wedding day.

In his dress blues, Terry had looked just as proud the day they’d married, and Becca just as joyful. They’d taken pictures alone at the base chapel and then more pictures surrounded by Terry’s family and friends.

Edwin noticed her staring at the photo. “Irma died nineteen years ago this July. She was volunteering at the veterans’ hospital in Santa Rosa and had a brain aneurism. They told me she never suffered.”

Suddenly chilly, Becca zipped up her pink hoodie. She knew all too well how quickly love and family could be stolen away.

“Flynn arrived soon after Irma died. If it wasn’t for him, I might not have had the will to go on. I was almost grateful that my daughter, Maggie, thought I could give him a better life.”

Needing a distraction, Becca pointed to a picture of Flynn and a redhead. “Who’s that?”

“Flynn’s half sister, Kathy. They’re my daughter’s children. I took Kathy in a few years after Flynn. She and my great-grandson live in Santa Rose. That’s Truman on the mantle.”

Truman had the ginger coloring of his mother and uncle, but the reserved smile was unexpected for a little boy.

“Becca, you’re going to work for me and move to Harmony Valley permanently,” Edwin proclaimed. “Someday soon we’ll reopen the medical clinic here in town and you can work there. In the meantime, there’s plenty for you to do. All we have around here are old people.”

Becca would be happy with a few weeks of work and an impeccable employment reference.

The phone rang.

Edwin wrested a hand free of the afghan and answered. His face quickly drained of all color. “Thank, God. Keep me updated.” He hung up.

Couch springs creaked as she stood. “What’s wrong?”

“Part of the winery collapsed about half an hour ago.”

“Is...is...” Flynn all right? She couldn’t get the words out, not past the stab of pain in her chest.

She would have thought she’d be unfazed by death after everything she’d been through. But she wasn’t. It slipped in like a knife into a not-quite-healed scar somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

“Everyone is fine, including Flynn.”

Neither one of them spoke for a good minute. Maybe two.

“You should stay,” he said gruffly, staring at the ceiling. “Harmony Valley has everything you’re looking for.”

“Except a job,” she deadpanned, rubbing her hands on her thighs. She still felt shaken.

“Nonsense. I’m hiring you. I can’t wait for Flynn and his background checks. He’ll be busier than ever now with the winery.”

That suited Becca just fine.

* * *

THE HARD MILES prison put on a man were inscribed on Joey Harris more indelibly than the numerous tattoos on his arms. It was apparent in the wrinkles in his sunken cheeks and the way his skin clung to him like a second-hand suit, worn and slightly saggy.

The man who fathered Flynn stood with his hand outstretched.

Flynn felt as if he was falling, jerked back, plunged into memories he’d buried deep enough he should never have been able to find them.

Father’s Day. Eighteen years ago. His dad, looking young, strong and healthy, playing catch with Flynn on the front lawn of their apartment complex. Tall, handsome, those bladed cheekbones he’d given Flynn framing his infectious smile.

Flynn’s dad wasn’t like other dads. Sure, he was gone sometimes. He’d missed Christmas two times in a row. Sure, he had a temper. Flynn had gotten good at hiding behind the couch during his blowups, where everything from hammers to beer bottles might go flying across the room.

But lately his dad had been home every night, lately nothing more than a baseball had flown out of his dad’s hand. He walked Flynn to school and picked him up afterward. His dad knew how to fix things. He was like a magician—starting cars and opening doors without keys. Flynn’s dad was turning out to be the best dad ever.

The sirens were just background noise. The rhythm of the ball snapping into their gloves countered the volume-increasing announcement that the police were in a hurry. There must have been a car accident somewhere. Or a fire. The closer the sirens came, the more distracted Flynn’s father became.

“Dad, come on.” Flynn struck his eight-year-old fist into new, empty leather. Over the past few days, it’d been like Christmas in June. A new bike, a new video game system, new shoes and clothes for Flynn and his sister.

Instead of throwing the ball, his father turned toward the intersection down the block, watching as three patrol cars cut the corner on the wide turn. “Go up to the apartment,” he commanded without turning around.

The first cold tingle of dread prickled in Flynn’s belly. “Dad?”

His father spun, his scowling features a deadly, chalky white. “Go! Now!”

The jagged edge to his voice. The threat of more than a baseball being thrown.

Flynn fled, fighting back tears.

He got as far as the second-story balcony before the black-and-whites squealed to a halt, spilling booted uniforms and guns onto the sidewalk, aiming at his dad as if he were a criminal.

They couldn’t kill him. He was the best dad in the world.

Flynn hadn’t realized he was screaming until his father turned around, his hands high in the air, saying the words Flynn had assumed would be the last he’d ever exchange with him, “Get your butt inside!”

“Do you two know each other?” Dane asked, frowning when Flynn didn’t reciprocate Joey’s handshake.

The sun warmed Flynn’s face, but his insides were making ice cubes. Now he could name the emotion he’d seen on Becca’s face when they first met and he hadn’t immediately hired her. It was the same look he’d seen years ago on Joey’s face. Captured. Cornered. Trapped.

The question was: Why?

Slade stepped between Flynn and Joey, saving the moment that Flynn had no intention of saving.

Awkward? Who cared? The man had left him—no calls, no letters, no postprison visits. He didn’t deserve the title Father.

Joey—Flynn refused to think of the man as his dad—did a civilized meet-and-greet with Slade, all the while keeping his gaze trained on Flynn.

Presumably, he was still looking at Flynn when Flynn walked away.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOURS LATER, WHEN a long walk along the banks of the Harmony River had drained the resentment over the appearance of Joey Harris out of his system, Flynn’s feet led him home.

He’d stayed away too long. Worry for his grandfather’s condition had resumed its piggy-back position on his shoulders. Until the cell phone tower was completed, no one could get in touch with him if there was an emergency.

He didn’t recognize the car parked in front of the house.

Becca’s dog barked once. Her small nose pressed against the screen.

Flynn removed his muddy work boots, listening with relief to the sound of his grandfather’s I’m-in-command voice. “I see you live in Santa Rosa. We’d want you here by seven every morning.”

It came back in a rush—another candidate for caregiver—shoving his shock and hurt over Joey aside. Grandpa Ed was scaring her off, leaving him no choice but to hire Becca. Despite the town council’s endorsement, he couldn’t hire Becca until he knew what she was running from. If she’d broken the law, there was no way he’d hire her.

Flynn threw open the screen door so hard it banged against the opposite wall.

Everyone in the house paused to stare at him, even the dog.

Becca’s hand was frozen midair, clutching a coffee mug she’d been about to put in the dishwasher. The skin around her eyes was tense.

Definitely cornered, ready to run.

Flynn looked away.

Grandpa Ed pinned him with a stern expression that demanded an apology.

After a moment, Flynn muttered one.

An older woman sat on the couch across from his grandfather. She was as tall as she was wide, dressed in dark blue scrubs decorated with the bodies of pro wrestlers. Her thinning, too-brown hair was helmet-short. And the frown she wore indicated the interview he’d forgotten about wasn’t going well and wouldn’t likely improve with his appearance.

His grandfather performed the introductions. “Miss Caldwell’s come a long, long way for this interview.”

“I’m sorry I’m late.” Flynn came forward to shake Miss Caldwell’s hand. “We had an emergency at the construction site.”

“So I heard.” Miss Caldwell stood, accepting his handshake with a firm one worthy of the professional wrestlers that dotted her attire. She remained standing, as if preparing to leave. “Is the position still open?”

“No,” Grandpa Ed said briskly. “I’ve got Becca.”

Flynn ignored him. “We haven’t made a decision. Becca is a temporary solution.”

Miss Caldwell didn’t believe Flynn, nor did she sit. She glanced toward the kitchen.

Flynn followed the direction of her gaze.

Becca wore the same black exercise leggings and pink hoodie that she’d had on that morning. Her long, black hair hung in a thick, smooth braid down her back. No scrubs. No disapproving frown, although he knew she had one. Becca looked like someone’s girlfriend, not a caregiver.

Flynn blinked and glanced back at Miss Caldwell, who looked as if she might want to plant at least one of her bright white sneakers on his backside.

“Well.” Miss Caldwell ping-ponged looks at each of them. “Mr. Blonkowski has my résumé. I’d better be going.”

Given the choice between arguing that Miss Caldwell should stay or having his caregiver—at least temporarily—be Becca, Flynn surprised himself. He thanked Miss Caldwell for coming, and escorted her as far as the front door.

Grandpa Ed turned on a rerun of Jeopardy! The well-known theme blared from the television.

Flynn swiped the remote from him and muted the show. “I thought we agreed to be nice.”

“Miss Caldwell wouldn’t have lasted a week driving an hour in good traffic, much less ninety minutes each way in bad traffic. Did you see her chin? It was soft. The first time I lost my temper she’d be out the door. I did her a favor.”

“She looked capable enough to me.” The term battle-ax came to mind.

“She’s very qualified.” Becca scrubbed the sink as if it deserved punishment. “I think she’d do an excellent job. She wouldn’t quit in a week.”

“She might last two,” Grandpa Ed allowed grumpily. He lowered his voice. “Any woman who’d praise the competition is worth hiring.”

Flynn took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his hair. It was long enough to pull into a short ponytail, longer than Joey’s had been the last time he’d seen him, but not as long as Joey’s had been today. “You drove Miss Caldwell away.”

His grandfather huffed. “I did not.”

“Yes, you did.” Becca wiped her hands on a dish towel, sniffed it, made a face and set it aside. “She was confused as to why I was here. We used to work at the same agency.”

“Used to?” Flynn asked.

“Yes.” She drew a deep breath.

Flynn had a feeling he wasn’t going to like whatever she said next.

Thank God.

“We don’t care about your previous employment.” Grandpa Ed gave Flynn the stink eye. His back was to Becca, so she couldn’t see him. “Do we, Flynn?”

“Yes, we do.”

“No, we don’t.”

Flynn’s fingers dug into the crown of his baseball cap.

“I’ll tell you anyway.” Becca raised her chin, as if bracing herself for a punch.

Flynn looked forward to whatever she was about to say. Her confession would most likely convince his grandfather they couldn’t hire her.

“Three years ago I moved to Santa Rosa. I worked for the agency that’s sending candidates out here. I was assigned to care for an elderly woman who rescued Australian shepherds.” Becca walked over and knelt beside Abby, stroking her dark fur. “When Lily passed away, her son wanted to take all the dogs to the kill-shelter. I protested and eventually found homes for them all, including Abby. But I got fired because caregivers aren’t supposed to get involved with their clients.”

The little dog stared at Flynn with dark, accusing eyes, as if to say: find fault with that.

Grandpa Ed scowled at Flynn. “You did the right thing, Becca. No one’s accusing you of anything.”

His grandfather couldn’t see Becca’s features flinch, as if the right hook she’d been waiting for had been struck. Flynn felt a corresponding jab to his gut.

She was guilty. Of what, he had no idea. But if she was the only acceptable option to Grandpa Ed, he was going to find out what she was hiding.

“We’ll be hiring you regardless,” Grandpa Ed said. “Won’t we, Flynn?”

Flynn didn’t answer. He looked at Becca. Deal breakers lined up in his head like dominos—theft, blackmail, murder, angry ex-husbands searching for her. “I need to talk to Becca outside. Alone.”

To her credit, Becca walked out, head high, as if she’d known all along the gallows awaited.

He led her toward the river, stopping to sit on a fallen log overlooking the steep bank that cut away to the slow-flowing water. She settled on the log a few feet away from him, brushing at the bark as if it was a crumb-littered bench seat at a restaurant.

“I’m sure you’ve realized my grandfather wants to hire you,” Flynn began. “But there’s something else you’re not telling me and I won’t hire you until I know what it is.”

* * *

THE TRUTH PRESSED at Becca’s throat.

She swallowed it back.

Took a breath.

Risked looking toward Flynn.

Beneath his black ball cap, his reddish-brown hair glinted in the afternoon sunlight, almost as blinding as the rippling river. His jaw was a hard line. She couldn’t look him in the eye.

The truth pressed on her once more.

Becca swallowed it again.

She and the truth had an odd track record. Like the time her father had walked out after learning Becca’s mother had stage-four cancer. Or the first time Terry had asked her to marry him. He’d walked out when she’d said she was scared and needed time to think.

Abby pranced across Becca’s toes and looked down the steep, crumbling bank toward the river, her nose quivering.

“You have two choices if you want the job.” Flynn’s voice was as unflappable as his jaw line. “You can tell me what you’re hiding or I can do a background check.”

Tell him the truth? Which version? No one ever really wanted to hear the unvarnished truth. They wanted a massaged answer tailored to their expectations. Telling Flynn about the lawsuit placed her odds of landing the job near zero. But it was a definite zero if she walked away without saying anything.

“I want this job.” She swallowed and rephrased. “I need this job.” To repair her reputation before it fell from somewhere near barely employable to no-way-in-Hades employable.

“I need someone I can trust taking care of my grandfather.”

Untrustworthy. Becca stiffened. She glanced over her shoulder at the driveway, even as Abby picked her way daintily to the shoreline.

“Agnes trusts you,” he said softly. “And I trust Agnes. But I need a reason to believe in you.”

His words drew her gaze back toward his. Gone were the hard lines, the guardedness, the at-a-distance cool. In their place was compassion. A white-flagged truce.

If there was a chance, she had to take it. She had to speak up, without varnish or angles. On a big gust of forced air, she told him the truth. “After leaving the agency I went to work for a wonderful woman who was estranged from her son. Gary had decided twenty-some years prior that his mother didn’t respect him enough, so he didn’t visit. He didn’t call. The most he could be troubled with was a generic card on holidays.” Virginia had been heartbroken every Christmas, every birthday. “I worked for Virginia for two years, and while I was with her, she learned that I had a tremendous amount of debt.”

At the mention of her money woes, Flynn’s expression seemed to close off.

It seemed pointless to say more, but Becca hadn’t told a soul other than her lawyer, and the story continued to bubble out. “My husband and I had bought a house in San Diego and when he died, I couldn’t make the payments. Terry had life insurance, but we’d only been married a few months when he died. He hadn’t changed his policy to include me.” She twisted her wedding ring. “The money went to his mom. The debts went to me. I sold his truck. I sold our furniture. I traded my car for the motorhome and let the house slide into foreclosure, but we still had credit card debt.” It was amazing how quickly the interest on a few purchases multiplied. “When Virginia’s kidneys started to fail, she insisted on paying off the last ten thousand dollars I owed. I knew it went against the caregiver code, but by then she was more like a grandmother than a client, so I accepted.”

“Ten thousand dollars.” Flynn’s voice was so flat. Him being a millionaire and all, ten thousand dollars was probably nothing.

To her, it’d been a fortune. “I’d been struggling for so long, I didn’t want to struggle anymore. I shouldn’t have taken that check.” Becca rubbed her palms up and down her thighs. “I didn’t ask for the money. I’ve never asked my clients for anything.”

“I bet Virginia’s son was livid.”

“There’s an understatement.” Becca wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite work up the energy. “Although he inherited close to half a million dollars, he’s trying to bring a lawsuit against me.”

“Trying?”

“There’s a pretrial hearing in a few weeks.” She rubbed her hands over her legs again. “I know accepting that money wasn’t one hundred percent right, but it wasn’t one hundred percent wrong, either.”

He studied her face, intent blue gaze checking for any clue that she was less than truthful. “The legal system moves slowly. What’ve you been doing since Virginia died?”

“I spent the past nine months working for a wonderful man who passed away from heart failure a few weeks ago.” She’d told Harold she couldn’t deliver the ring. He’d argued, in a twiglike voice staked with death-is-coming urgency, that his daughter would think he’d had an affair if he left the ring to Agnes in his will. It’d taken Becca a week after his death to work up the courage to contact Agnes. And a week more to show her face.

Regrets? She had too many.

“And you didn’t accept any money from him?”