“Is he cute?” Autumn asked.
Summer blushed.
“Oh, he is! Look at her! What does he look like, Spring?”
“I would guess he’s about your age, Winter. Mid-thirties. Dark blond hair. Blue eyes. He has that boy-next-door look about him, but a boy next door who had responsibility thrust on him at an early age.”
Three sets of arched eyebrows turned in Spring’s direction.
“What an astute observation,” Summer murmured before taking a sip of tea.
“Did you change specialties to psychology?” Autumn asked.
“No,” Summer said aloud. “She’s right. That’s it. He has an air of responsibility, like he’s used to taking care of people.”
“Cameron?” Autumn said coughing, as the coffee she was drinking went down the wrong way.
“Should I call an ambulance?” Spring asked dryly.
“Ha, ha,” Autumn said. “Cameron? Cameron Jackson?”
“You know him?” Winter and Summer asked at the same time.
“Of course,” Autumn said.
Summer’s tummy did a little tumble. If Autumn knew Cameron, her chances with him were suddenly diminished.
“I just didn’t put that whole chief thing in place until now. You’re dating Chief Cam? Way to go, Summer. He’s a really good guy. God, country and firefighting.”
She went back to forking up cheesecake.
Winter huffed. “Well, don’t just leave it hanging there. Spill!”
“Spill what?” Autumn said around bites. She shrugged. “Like I said, he’s a stand-up kind of guy. He plays basketball with the kids at the rec center every couple of weeks. The kids really like him.”
“Is he cute?” Winter said.
Autumn said, “Yeah, he looks like he means business.”
Summer frowned. “What kind of description is that?”
“Focus, please,” Winter demanded. “He came here to check Summer’s smoke alarm batteries and then what?”
Summer and Spring shared a glance.
And in that moment, Summer knew that her older sister would keep her secret. The fewer people who knew about her fainting, the better—and the less likely it would get back to their mother, who would fuss and probably set up temporary residence in the guest room.
“She was baking and gave the crew cheesecake and cookies,” Spring reported.
“You go, sis,” Autumn said. “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. With your baking and cooking, you’ll have him literally eating out of your hands in no time.”
Summer had a question burning in her. If she failed to ask it now, she knew she might regret it.
“So, you and he aren’t...you know...?”
Autumn’s eyes widened. “Me and Chief Cam? Goodness, no. He’s like the big brother I didn’t have. Chief Cam, he’s like everybody’s big brother. The kids love it when he plays ball with them. And, like I said, he’s the all-American kind of guy.”
“Apparently, he’s not everybody’s big brother,” Winter observed with a grin. “He clearly doesn’t see our Summer as a little sister.”
The blush that she thought had dissipated bloomed again on Summer’s cheeks.
“So, where are you guys going?”
“I don’t know,” Summer said. “And I don’t know what to wear.”
“No twinsets!” Autumn and Winter yelled at the same time.
Summer glared at them.
“And nothing starched,” Spring added. “Like those shorts you’re wearing.”
“What’s wrong with neat and pressed clothing?” Summer asked.
“It’s a date, not a committee meeting at the library,” Autumn said.
“I would not wear shorts to any meeting,” Summer declared. “And you three are not helping. What to wear is the least of my problems.”
Winter reached over and snatched the last forkful of Autumn’s raspberry cheesecake.
“Hey! Foul. Flag on the play!”
Laughing at her sisters, Summer rose and headed to the kitchen.
“The good thing about stress is that I make good use of it,” she said.
She returned with a tray bearing four dessert plates, forks and a double chocolate cheesecake.
“How is it you can bake all these sweets and not ever gain an ounce?” Winter asked.
As the curviest of the Darling sisters, every bite she put in her mouth landed on her hips. And unlike Autumn, who lived for every sport ever invented, Winter didn’t work off the calories with physical activity.
“That’s because I make sure that other people eat it all. So eat up, ladies.”
Summer and her sisters spent the next hour talking, laughing and teasing each other.
When she finally closed the door and turned off the downstairs lights to head to bed, Summer realized that not one of her sisters had expressed concern about her dating.
She smiled.
Maybe it was because of the man she had decided to see: a blond-haired, blue-eyed, stand-up kind of guy by the name of Cameron Jackson. Both Spring and Autumn had given him the A-OK. Now all Summer had to do was make it through the date without embarrassing herself.
Chapter Six
It had taken Cameron less than ten minutes on Google and the Cedar Springs Gazette’s website to find that Summer Darling Spencer and her sisters were indeed the trust-fund debutantes of Cedar Springs society. The ordeal that had been his two-year marriage to a trust-fund daddy’s girl had left him with no illusions about what it meant to be in an economically lopsided relationship. The melding of working class and upper class was the stuff of oil and water, and Cameron had the emotional scars to prove it.
Summer was pretty and he’d been drawn to her vulnerability. But self-preservation trumped those assets.
Cameron’s first instinct was to text Summer and tell her something had come up and he wouldn’t be able to make it Friday night. But a text message was the coward’s way out. He’d all but chased her to get her to agree to go out with him, practically cornering her while she did her volunteer work at Manna at Common Ground.
His mother had raised him to be a gentleman. And a gentleman didn’t run away from tough situations. So approaching the business entrance to Manna at Common Ground the next day, the irony didn’t escape him that the way his social life was at the moment, he considered breaking a date with a beautiful woman as a tough situation.
Cameron didn’t know if she was at the soup kitchen on Thursday, but it was an easy visit for him to make from the public safety building.
As he pulled open the door to the Common Ground business office, he had one goal: extricate himself from the date with Summer Spencer.
“Chief Cam,” Mrs. Davidson trilled from her desk. “What a surprise. Two days in a row. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Doris Davidson was one of a handful of full-time employees for the Common Ground ministries. She was the central receptionist, point person and general bookkeeper for the soup kitchen, recreation center, homeless shelter and free clinic.
“Hi,