That Summer Place by Susan Wiggs, Debbie Macomber, Jill Barnett - That Summer Place Page B

openly because that was how she always dealt with her failed marriage, honestly. But it was a chink in her pride to admit that she had failed at something so very important.
    She straightened, squared her shoulders back and held out her hand. “Thank you.”
    He tossed the gadget into his shirt pocket, wiped his hand on his jeans and took her hand. “Catherine.”
    It took every ounce of her pride and control to act natural. “Michael.” Her voice came out in a raspy whisper, as if it knew this was the last time she would say his name, knew that there wouldn’t be a bittersweet meeting in another thirty years.
    She shook his hand, then quickly pulled hers away. She turned around, trying to hold on to a slim thread of dignity, and walked up the porch steps.
    She could feel him watching her. His eyes could still do that, hold on to her as surely as if he’d used his hands to grip her shoulders.
    She stopped and turned.
    He hadn’t moved. His hands were shoved into his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them. She remembered that about him. The way he would hide his hands. She loved his hands.
    He was still looking at her.
    She gripped the porch railing because sometimes you just had to hold on to something to get through a certain kind of moment. “It was great to see you again.”
    She gave him a forced smile, one that covered up how she was really feeling.
    It was great to have you look at me that way again. It was great to hear your voice again. It was great to kiss you again and feel your hands on me again.
    It was great, but it wasn’t enough.
    And she walked into the old house.
     
    “No, I haven’t lost my mind. Have them bring it to the slip this afternoon. And make sure there’s a towline.” Michael crossed the cabin, his cellular phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder.
    “They’ll do it. Gladly. I spend enough money with them.” Michael grabbed his running shoes and moved over to the chair.
    “Then call Valiant Supply and have them deliver that part.” He sat down and stuck his feet into his shoes, then tied the laces while his assistant wrote down the part number. “I’ll be there by four. Meet me at the slip.”
    Michael flipped the phone closed and shrugged into his jacket, then slipped on a Mariners baseball cap. He went to the kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled out a bag.
    A minute later he left the cabin at a half trot. He moved down to the dock, her words running over and over in his mind.
    I wanted the island to be special to them, too.
    All those years ago he had clung to the idea that she had run from him as fast as she could, young and scared and overwhelmed by that last summer. By him. Caught between him and her father’s iron hand and all-too-real threats.
    A month later boot camp had been a welcome escape. There, he’d been too tired to think for all those months. But it had been different when he got to Nam.
    He saw her face on every tree in the jungle. In every muddy river or rice paddy. It was her face he saw whenever he closed his eyes, haunting him as surely as if her image had been tattooed there.
    This time he wasn’t going to let her go so easily. Not again.
    Some fifteen minutes later he had the plugs and points back into his boat engine. He turned the key and fired it up, then he sped toward the mainland.

Thirteen
    C atherine was standing on the dock the next morning when Michael sailed into the cove on a sleek white sailboat with wicked red sails.
    He waved and called out her name.
    She walked to the edge of the dock as he sailed toward her. Suddenly it was that last summer all over again, as if thirty years hadn’t passed by, but time and life had just frozen in this one instant of déjà vu.
    “Hey!”
    She smiled.
    He tossed her the line, which she tied onto one of the cleats.
    “Thanks.” He stood, then stepped on the dock, and the air around her grew thick and warm.
    He was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a white cotton shirt with the sleeves