Home for the Summer Read Online Free Page A

She’d smiled and slid his jacket off and handed it to him. “Thanks,” she’d said, and then she was gone.
    They never did have that one last dance after all.
    When he came out of the kitchen, Clay was surprised to see Grace still in the lobby. She stood on the Bay side of the room, staring out a window, watching Trula’s car disappear down the drive.
    “Did Lucy mention to you if something was bothering her?” Grace asked.
    He hesitated, because he, too, had sensed something in Lucy that hadn’t felt quite right.
    “Would you tell me if she had?”
    “Depends on what it was, I guess.” Clay tried to sound casual.
    “Did she?” Grace turned to him.
    “No, she didn’t. But …” Again, he paused.
    “But …?”
    “But … there were times when … I don’t know, she seemed to be somewhere else.” He thought about what he’d said, and added, “Maybe I misread her. I haven’t seen her in a long time. Maybe I just don’t know her anymore. Besides, I didn’t see that much of her. I’m sure you spent a lot more time with her over the past week than I did.”
    Grace shook her head. “No. That’s part of what’s bothering me. I was hoping to spend some time alone with her, but she was so busy all week. Most nights, she slept at Steffie’s, said she had to help get things ready for the weddings.” Grace sighed. “I miss her. I don’t know what’s going on in her life anymore, and I guess I was looking forward to catching up. She just didn’t seem to have much time.”
    Grace’s disappointment was almost palpable.
    “Well, she was here to do a job.” Clay tried to rationalize on Lucy’s behalf. “And you know it must have taken a lot of work to pull off what she did this past weekend. I’m sure she would have rather spent the time with you, but she was pretty busy.”
    “Do you really think that’s all it was?” Grace looked up at him, her eyes searching his face.
    “Yeah, I’m sure.” He put his arm around her reassuringly even as he questioned his own words. “That’s why she’s so successful, Miz Grace. She takes her business very seriously.” That much, he felt was true.
    “I suppose you’re right.” Grace still looked concerned.
    “She’s the party planner to the stars,” Clay reminded her. “You have to work hard if you want to be the best, and Lucy always did want to be the best at whatever she did.”
    “Well, that much is certainly true.” Grace smiled. “Thank you, dear.”
    She patted his arm and walked toward her office. Clay wanted to say something else reassuring but couldn’t get his thoughts together before she’d closed the door behind her. He left the inn and got back into his Jeep.
    He played the radio as loud as he could on the way back to the farm to keep himself from thinking too much about Lucy, about the things they’d said and the things they hadn’t said. He switched off the eighties station when they started playing a New Kids on the Block song. It reminded him of the decision he’d made back then to form his own boy band because he knew Lucy was enamored of them. He was going to be the lead singer. (So what if he couldn’t carry a tune? A lot of the singers didn’t sound much better.) He would make albums and go on tour with his group and then Lucy would wish she’d never stopped being friends with him. But school—and soccer—started before he could get that idea off the ground, and his dreams of rock stardom were replaced by ones in which he scored the winning goal in the state championship and became a whiz at algebra so he could spend more time on the soccer field and less on his homework.
    He drove around his sister’s old Toyota and parked close to the barn. Brooke was coming down the steps from the back porch as he was walking toward it.
    “Hey,” he called to her. “Where are you off to?”
    She pointed beyond the field next to the barn.
    “I’m meeting Cameron at the tenant house to go over his schedule of the