After she’d fainted in his arms and he’d taken some good-natured teasing at the station house about beautiful blondes falling down at the mere sight of him, he’d discreetly asked around and found out that she had just recently moved home to North Carolina from somewhere farther south, in Georgia. Instead of settling in at what was known as the Darling Compound, she’d purchased her own home.
The part he hadn’t bargained on was that Summer Spencer, the delicate blonde with the sad eyes and the killer baking skills, was a Darling, of the Darlings of Cedar Springs. The very wealthy, very cultured, pillars of town society Darlings.
“Chief Jackson, this is Doris Davidson and Samantha Burns, one of our volunteers.”
“Oh, the chief and I know each other,” Mrs. Davidson said. “How are you today?” she asked before taking a sampling of a cookie.
“Just fine, Mrs. D.”
The woman named Samantha wore an apron that had the Common Ground logo on the front. “Hello, there. Are you the chief of police or something?”
“Fire chief,” Cameron said.
“Oh, my goodness, Summer. These are excellent,” exclaimed Mrs. Davidson. “Would you be willing to make a couple dozen for me for my book group? I host next week and I was just going to get something from Sweetings. These are so much better.”
“You know I will, Mrs. Davidson,” Summer said. “Just tell me when you need them.”
She offered a small paper plate with two cookies to Cameron. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Black,” he said.
Vanessa Gerard joined them a moment later. “I got the pans in the oven,” she said. “It was easy. I may try that at home.”
“Told you,” Summer said. “We’re taking a little break,” she said, serving up another plate with cookies to Vanessa. “Would you like coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Vanessa said. “Trying to cut back. Howzit going, Chief Cam?”
“Well, Vanessa. What about with you?”
She lifted a brow, gave a slight shrug and said, “It’s going.”
“You’ll let me know?” he asked.
Vanessa gave an exasperated sigh. “I always do, chief.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Cameron said.
Summer noted the easy familiarity between them and the nickname Vanessa used. A stab of jealousy or possibly disappointment shot through her. She had no claim on Cameron Jackson so she wasn’t at all sure from whence it sprang.
Mrs. Davidson, not recognizing the bit of tension that seemed to suddenly envelop the room, piped up. “I declare, Summer, the best thing that ever happened to Manna at Common Ground was you showing up when you did.”
Not willing to acknowledge her private reaction to Cameron and Vanessa, Summer gave Mrs. Davidson a sunny smile.
“Yes,” Vanessa said. “Mrs. D is right. Because if you hadn’t walked in here, they were going to dragoon me and that would have truly been a disaster in the making.”
Cameron glanced at his watch, then put down his coffee cup. “Summer, may I have a word with you?”
She glanced at the other three women as if looking for validation. “Uh, sure.”
Vanessa took in the boxes neatly stacked on the receiving bench. “Did you bring those, Chief Cam?”
When he nodded, Vanessa snagged another cookie from the cooling rack then reached for a clipboard dangling under the counter on an unseen hook. “That’s something I can do—log in donations.”
“Come along, dear,” Mrs. Davidson told Samantha Burns. “Break’s over. We have quite a bit to do before our guests arrive.”
With thanks to Summer for the cookies and their goodbyes to the fire chief, the two hustled off. Vanessa went to tend to the donations from the fire department and Cameron steered Summer back toward the dining hall for a few words in private.
His arm brushed hers as he held the door open and Summer’s breath caught at the unexpected contact. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. He was probably just happy she didn’t pass out on him again.
She told herself to stop acting like a ninny. She was twenty-eight years old, not sixteen.
In the dining hall, he pulled out a chair at one of the tables and held it out for her to be seated. Appreciating the small gesture, Summer murmured a “thank you” as he settled in the seat next to her.
“I wanted to see how you were doing,” he said.
Oh, great, she thought. He thinks I’m an invalid. Inexplicably, she wanted to explain.
“Thank you again,” she said, “for what you did the other day. It was a reflex, I think. I thought something was wrong. You all caught me by surprise.”
Cameron smiled. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“I beg your pardon?”
The abrupt change of topic more than startled her.
“Dinner? Us. Together.”
She shook her head slightly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why?”
She wanted to explain. Dinner meant they would be out together. On a date. But Summer couldn’t date. Didn’t date. And the explanation she’d been all ready to give him fled from her brain, right along with her courage.
“I’m...” she swallowed and got a hold of her tongue if not her suddenly racing heart. “My husband might not approve.”
Chapter Three
The stricken look on his face convicted her.
“You’re married?”
His gaze dipped to her left hand resting on the table. Self-conscious, she put both ringless hands in her lap.
Taking a deep breath, Summer decided that being open and honest about her situation was her best course of action.
“Chief Jackson, I want to explain something to you.”
He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. But a moment later, he sighed and released the defensive gesture.
Offering a tremulous smile, Summer got her thoughts together. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to open up on this, she needed to. Enough time had passed, and moving home to Cedar Springs was her big step toward reclaiming her life.
“Seeing you and your men on my doorstep,” she began, “was a shock. A bad shock to my system. I’d truly forgotten about the new resident’s home safety check I’d requested.”
She swallowed, took a ragged breath and then offered up a little prayer for strength.
“The last time men in uniform came to my front door, it was to tell me that my husband had been killed.”
His eyes widened and he reached for her hands in a comforting gesture. But before he could offer the obligatory, “I’m sorry” condolences, she rushed on.
“It’s coming on two years,” she said. “I moved home to start a new chapter in my life. I sold our place in Macon and bought the house here, a house where I could make new memories instead of dwelling on the past. Seeing you, the three of you,” she quickly clarified, “standing there looking official, well, it just derailed me a bit.”
She took a deep breath, hoping that he understood, even while she acknowledged to herself that dumping baggage at his feet was not a good way to win friends and influence