That Summer Place (6 page)

A
t ten the next morning Catherine stood on Michael’s front porch, rocking on her feet, her hands clenched behind her back while she waited for him to answer her knock. She could hear his footsteps clumping toward the door, so she licked her lips, brushed her hair back, and took a deep breath before he opened it.

He stared at her from eyes that looked awake but tired.

“The toilet is plugged and the boiler pilot won’t light.”

He seemed startled, like he didn’t know why she was there. And he didn’t exactly look happy to see her.

“I tried to light the boiler pilot again and again and we used the plunger on the toilet. No matter what I tried I couldn’t get them to work.”

He didn’t say anything.

Perhaps she was speaking too fast. Her ex-husband used to chide her for babbling when she was nervous. And she was nervous. She tilted her head slightly and explained more slowly, “There’s no hot water in the house without the boiler.”

“I know what a boiler is, Catherine.”

What a grump.

He turned without another sarcastic word and took a tool belt off a hook near the door. Besides an annoyed look, he was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans that were worn almost white in spots and that time and wear had molded to his body. He might be a grump in the morning but he sure looked good for fifty.

What would he look like in a suit? Catherine was a sucker for a man in a suit. And if a man wore a tux, well, she got all weak-kneed. Heck, Bill Gates probably looked sexy in a tux.

Life was unfair. Here she had to hike up her bra straps and slather on alpha hydroxy creams with a trowel. Some days she had to lie down on the bed to zip up her pants. He was three years older, wearing a plain old pair of jeans, and he looked stronger and sexier than he had when he was twenty.

The faces of all the men who had aged so well flashed through her mind: Sean Connery, Nick Nolte, Robert Redford, James Garner, James Brolin, Michael Packard.

She watched him strap and buckle the tool belt low on his hips the way Paul Newman had strapped on his guns in
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It seemed like such an earthy, male thing—a man doing up his belt buckle; it was sexy and suggestive and made her mouth a little dry.

He stuck a pair of work gloves into his back pocket and turned back around. She quickly looked away.

“I need to find the toolbox. I’ll be right back.” He grabbed a key and walked past her.

She nodded without looking up, then decided to follow him. She didn’t suppose luck would be on her side and there would be a tux in the shed, but heck, he might undo the belt buckle again.

She smiled a wicked little smile as she crossed over to a small shed he had already unlocked.

Heaven be praised if he didn’t bend down to search through it. His jeans pulled tight over his thighs in a way that made her give thanks to Levi Strauss.

Then he knelt on one knee and leaned inside. If she stepped back just a foot or so she had a great shot of his backside. The work gloves stuck out of one back pocket and looked like fingers waving at her. It was almost as if they were calling to her, “Look here.”

“Here it is.” He stood up with a battered old red toolbox.

She quickly looked up at the sky. After a slight pause she said, “Nice day. No clouds.”

He followed her gaze upward, then frowned. “The radio said it was supposed to rain today.”

There was one thing different about this Michael Packard; he was no Mr. Sunshine in the morning.

She walked ahead of him on the gravel path between his place and hers. The silence just about drove her nuts.

Her mind was going a mile a minute, wondering what he was thinking, wondering if they could go the whole day without bringing up the past.

When they were about halfway there she braved the beast. “I wrote you five letters.”

“I never got any letters from you.”

She stopped, spun around and planted her hands on her hips. She looked him straight in the eye. “Are you saying I’m lying?”

“No. I’m saying I never got any letters.” He paused, looking squarely at her. His expression grew tighter. “What I did get was a promise from your father that he’d press charges of statutory rape if I tried to contact you.”

“Oh God. Michael…” She sagged back against a tree, staring at the ground. “Did he really do that?”

“Yes.”

“He was upset. I don’t think he would have sent you to jail.”

“Yes. He would have, Catherine.”

There was nothing between them but a lapse of tense silence.

She looked at him again. “Did you really think I could just walk away after that summer together and never have any contact with you again? Didn’t you know me better than that?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“How do you figure that?”

“You thought I would ignore your letters.”

“Give me a break, here,” she snapped. “I was seventeen.” She straightened and started to walk away.

He dropped the toolbox and touched her shoulder. “I know. And I was twenty, just drafted, and in love with a seventeen-year-old girl.”

She stopped, but she didn’t turn around. He had truly loved her then, all those years ago. Many times over the years she had wondered about that, if he had cared or if she had just wished he had.

His hand was still on her shoulder. She bit her lip because she thought she might do something silly like cry. “I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath and turned around.

His hand fell away.

“When time passes by and you can’t understand why something happened, I guess you make up excuses. You blame others.” She looked at him then. “I was hurt and scared. I blamed you. After a while, when I didn’t hear from you, I believed you were just lying to me about how you had felt so you could—” She stopped because she didn’t need to say anything more.

“Get into your pants?”

“Thank you for sugar-coating it so nicely.” She gave a laugh that wasn’t amused. “But you’re right. That was what I thought.”

He only stared at her, not saying anything.

So she did. “It’s stupid to stand here in the middle of the woods and argue over something that happened so long ago. We’re different people now. It’s 1997 not 1967.” She looked back up into those blue eyes of his and stuck out her hand. “How about a truce?”

His gaze dropped to her outstretched hand.

“Friends,” she said emphatically.

A moment later his hand closed over hers and she almost melted into the ground. It was like she was seventeen all over again. She stared at their hands so she could hide her eyes from him.

Just for good measure she gave his hand a firm shake.

When she looked up he was staring at her face not at their clasped hands.

He pulled her against him, clamped his free hand to the back of her head, and kissed her.

Oh God…She felt like Silly Putty. Her hand fell away from his and moved to his shoulder.

His other hand grabbed her and pulled her against him in one of those hot, eating kind of kisses you see in the movies, all wildness and heat, where an instant later they’ve unbuttoned half their clothes and they’re doing it against a wall.

His hands ran over her back, pressed her closer. There were tools pressed against her belly. A hammer, a flashlight, screwdriver—lots of long, hard things.

One second his tongue was deep inside her mouth.

The next…the damn idiot let her go.

She stood there seeing stars and trying to keep her balance.

“Friends.” He whacked her on the backside with one hand, picked up his toolbox and sauntered on down the path toward her place.

S
he caught him from behind, which surprised the hell out of him. The toolbox slipped from his hand and she shoved him back up against a tree with both hands.

“Catherine?”

One palm was flat against his chest; the other slid up to grip the back of his head.

“What the hell are you doing?”

A second later she was kissing him the way he’d just kissed her. Hard and fast and wild.

He bent his knees, hooked his arms under her butt and picked her up. Her hands drove through his hair, gripped his head and tilted it, then she thrust her small tongue into his mouth the same way he had done to her.

He pushed away from the tree, turned and pinned her against it, holding her there with his body so his hands were free. He slid one hand across her shoulder, pushed her sweater aside and tried to pull down her bra strap.

He couldn’t get his finger under it. Damn. It was so tight you’d think it was made of iron.

He slid both hands to her waist and up under her sweater to cup her from beneath. She moaned against his mouth and their tongues switched places.

God, but she tasted so good. She felt so good. Her nipples grew hard from his fingers and her breasts were heavy and soft and felt just about as good as a woman could feel.

He slid his hands around and grabbed the back of her bra to unhook it.

“Harold!”

They both froze.

“Ohmygod! It’s Aly!” Catherine wiggled out from between him and the tree trunk, jerking at her clothes and taking big gulps of air. She looked up at him. “Bend down. Quick!”

He did and she used her fingers to comb back his hair.

“Harrr-old!”

“Hurry!” she whispered, still straightening her clothes which looked fine. “Get your toolbox!”

When Aly came down the path a few seconds later, they were both walking casually with no signs of the passion that had burned between them just moments before. No outward signs.

“Mom!” Aly ran toward her mother with tears in her eyes. “Harold got out. I can’t find him anywhere.”

Catherine opened her arms and hugged her daughter to her. “Hey, sweetie, we’ll find him. He won’t go far. It’s Harold. Remember? He never strays far from where we are.”

“But this is a new place and remember when we moved that time and how the vet said animals can get lost because the smells are new and they get confused and can’t find their way back.”

Catherine pulled Aly away from her shoulder and held her head in two hands. “We’ll find him. I promise you.”

Aly sobbed.

“Tell you what. I’ll cook some bacon. That ought to bring him running back home.”

“You will?” Aly looked a little brighter.

“Of course I will.” Catherine wiped the long strips of blond hair out of her daughter’s eyes and smiled. “We’ll look for Harold while Michael fixes the plumbing. Okay?”

Aly nodded, then cast a quick glance at him. “Hi, Mr. Packard.”

“The island’s small,” he reassured her. “Your cat won’t go far.”

“Thanks.” She sniffed again.

He walked past them and stopped. He wiped a tear from Aly’s chin with one finger. “Don’t worry there, Little Squirt. We’ll find your cat.”

Then before she could say anything about what he’d called her, he walked on down the pathway.

“Little Squirt?” he heard her whisper to her mother.

“I’ll explain later,” Catherine said.

He didn’t look back but from behind him he could hear the two of them following at a slower pace, beating the ferns and woods and calling out for the cat.

He kept walking. He might make over a half a million dollars a year in salary and another mil in stock options, but hell, he had a toilet to fix.

He walked out of the woods and into the clearing near the house. Dana was walking from the front door along the crooked porch.

She turned the corner to the side of the house and froze.

A second later she screamed so loud it sounded as if she had cracked the sky.

He ran toward her.

Harold was back, proudly sitting on the porch. He had a two foot long garter snake hanging from his mouth.

“D
ana!” Catherine came running toward the house just as she saw Michael hop over the porch railing and put his arm around Dana. She was huddled into a frightened stance, looking too scared to move.

Aly was about to run past her toward the porch, so Catherine grabbed her arm. “Stop.”

“What’s going on?” Aly frowned at her.

“I don’t know, but don’t move.” Catherine looked up. “Michael?”

He was still talking to Dana, then he turned to her.

At that same moment Aly called out, “Is it Harold?” She already sounded like she was crying.

“It’s Harold and he’s fine so don’t start crying. He brought home a present.”

“Stay here,” Catherine ordered Aly and she walked to the porch. It had been years, but she could smell the snake before she got there. She stopped where she was and peered over the porch railing, then up at him. “I forgot how much those things stink.”

Aly was suddenly right next to her. “Oh, yuk! Harold! Get away from it!”

Catherine looked at her. “I told you to stay put.”

“Is it poisonous?” Aly asked.

“No.” Michael pulled his gloves out of his back pocket. “It’s only a garter snake.”

“Oh.” She watched it a second. “Why do they smell?”

“Oh, who cares!” Dana snapped from around the corner. “Just get rid of it! Hurry! Please!”

The whole time Harold just sat there with the black snake hanging out of his mouth. He was waiting for praise.

Michael put on the work gloves, then he squatted down in front of Harold, who immediately dropped the snake.

Dana screamed again.

The snake slithered a few inches.

Harold ran off the porch.

Aly ran after him.

Michael picked up the snake.

So Catherine backed away into the middle of the yard. A good twenty feet away.

Michael walked down the porch stairs with the snake in his hands just as Aly came back to Catherine’s side with Harold in her arms.

She stood by Catherine while she stroked Harold’s purring head. After a second she started to follow Michael, but Catherine had a tight hold on her arm, so Aly stretched her neck toward them and asked, “Where are you taking it?”

“Away,” he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the woods.

“Far away,” Catherine added.

Michael was lying on his back on the bathroom floor with his head under the john. If his friends could see him now….

As Michael worked on the main pipe, he tried to decide how to go about telling Catherine he wasn’t the island handyman. Sprawled underneath the toilet didn’t feel like the right time for confessions. “Hand me the crescent wrench.”

“Which one is the crescent wrench?” Catherine asked him.

“The one with the blue handle.”

She handed it to him, then stepped back. After a stretch of silence she said, “You know all the tools by color.” She made it sound like he was a kindergartner who had just picked the right crayon from the Crayola box.

Keep digging the hole deeper there, Squirt.

With narrowed eyes he watched her through the small space between the pipe and the bowl.

She was staring at his belt buckle.

He shot a quick glance to his fly, which wasn’t open. He turned over on his side, then squirmed farther under the pipe and tried to get better leverage to loosen it. He kept cranking at it.

How the hell long were the threads on this pipe joint?

She shifted places, shoved the shower curtain back, and sat down on the rim of the tub. “So.”

He cast her a quick glance over a shoulder.

She had her hands clasped in her lap and stared at his butt. “Do you get a lot of work on the island?”

He turned back to the pipes and didn’t answer her. Instead, he kept on turning the wrench as hard as he could.

“I mean…” She paused. “…there are so many old houses on the island…”

He gripped the wrench harder and pulled.

“So I expect you keep busy.” She stopped as if she were searching for the right words, then explained, “I mean, with you doing plumbing and all.”

He twisted the wrench. “I make a good living.”

“It must be a fascinating business.”

Crissake, Catherine. That’s stretching it.

“I mean working on old houses, watching them come to life again. It’s like that TV show. What is the name of that show?” she muttered.

“’This Old House.’” He pulled so hard that the pipe almost came loose with one turn.

“That’s it!” she said brightly.

“Yep, just fascinating.” He adjusted the pipe. “Clogged drains rate right up there with snake catching and curing cancer.”

She laughed. “That’s funny, Michael. I bet you watch ‘Home Improvement.’”

That hole she was digging herself into just got two feet deeper.

“My office in San Francisco is in a restored Victorian.”

He grunted some kind of response and slid out from under the toilet, put a bucket under the pipe, then snaked it.

A balled up pair of white athletic socks fell into the bucket with a plop.

“There’s your problem,” he said.

“Good God, what moron would flush a pair of socks down the toilet?”

He shrugged, fixed the pipe, and checked the flushing mechanism. He finished up, put the tools back in the box, then washed his hands at the sink. He turned off the faucet and looked around for a hand towel.

“Oh, here.” Catherine stood up and handed him a towel.

While he dried his hands they both stood in the small area of the bathroom between the pedestal sink and the high old tub. They were so close he could almost taste her breath in the air between them.

He looked at her.

She was staring at his mouth. It was an invitation if he ever saw one.

He started to lower his head.

She drew in a breath and ducked suddenly, as if she had been in a stupor, then grabbed the bucket and held it between them like a shield. “I’ll just take this outside.”

“Okay, that’s it.” He threw the towel down on the sink.

She blinked up at him.

“What the hell is going on in that head of yours?”

She frowned. “My head? Me?”

“Yes. You.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

He waited for her to say more.

She didn’t. She just hugged the bucket to her chest and gave him that same stubborn look she’d had when he’d pulled her from the water. “May I get by, please?”

He gave up and stepped aside.

She was gone an instant later.

He looked at the empty doorway in disbelief, then wondered if his instincts were off that much. All morning she had been giving him mixed signals.

Hell, with Catherine his instincts had always been screwed up. Thirty years later and it was the same thing—an overpowering attraction and complete confusion.

He ran a hand through his hair and sat down on the john. He stared at his grandfather’s battered old toolbox like he was waiting for it to explain to him the workings of the female mind.

He shook his head.

He was fifty years old and he still didn’t understand women.