sister the night of “the incident.” Spring had called to check in and see how things had gone. And she’d insisted that Cameron was interested in Summer, interested that way, not just as a new city resident.
It had taken a couple of days but Summer had finally stopped thinking about him. And now here he was.
Spring’s words came back to her: He wants to take you out, silly. On a date.
Summer didn’t see it that way. Spring insisted that Summer also hadn’t seen the way the fire chief looked at her Monday afternoon when he thought no one was watching, the way he’d gently cradled her and seemed to take a slightly more than professional interest in her.
Summer had countered that his interest was in making sure one of the small city’s new residents didn’t die on him. Spring just tsk-tsked, and told her to take a chance.
But Summer didn’t date. And she surely wouldn’t start with someone as...well, as male as Cameron Jackson.
He was muscular, not bulked up like a bodybuilder, but he possessed a strength and a sturdiness that said he was used to being a protector. She’d already noticed his dark blond hair, and now she took in his eyes, an easy blue that was comforting in an odd way—odd, because she didn’t need any comforting, at least not now.
“May I call you Summer?”
She noticed his eyes also seemed to light up when he talked.
“Y-yes. Everyone calls me Summer. My sisters are Spring, Autumn and Winter. Our parents had something of a twisted sense of humor. We were teased about it when we were younger. But now...”
Realizing that she was babbling, she closed her mouth, clasped her hands together and stared at the floor.
“I brought something for you,” he said, walking toward one of the long dining tables. The tables were already dressed for the evening meal with linens and functional centerpieces—clear bowls filled with apples, oranges and bananas for their guests to help themselves.
Her heart tripped a bit. He brought her a present?
“Well, for you to use,” he said, clarifying as if she’d spoken the question aloud.
Oh, dear. Had she?
“We’ve been collecting food over at the station houses,” he said. “I’ve tried to set a standard without preaching at the crews. Every time one of the guys uses profanity, he has to pay up with a canned good or non-perishable item that gets donated to Manna. I figured that would be an easy way to get the message across about the language while doing something helpful for the community.”
Summer glanced down at the half-filled brown paper bag.
“Congratulations. Looks like it’s working since you only have a few items.”
Cameron groaned.
“This is just what I carried in,” he said. “There are three big boxes in the truck.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Oh.”
An awkward silence fell between them. Summer didn’t know what to do with her hands. She’d been so long removed from the dating scene that she had no clue about how to act. Plus, Cameron made her nervous, like a filly not yet acquainted with the new trainer at a stable.
But the manners she and her sisters learned at Lovie Darling’s School of Raising the Seasons kicked in when Summer’s feminine wiles deserted her.
“Would you like...”
“I guess I should get...”
They both started at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You go first.”
He put his hands in his jeans pockets and rocked back on his feet. “I was just going to say, I’ll go get the other donations.”
“I was going to ask if you’d like a cup of coffee. I just took cookies out of the oven.”
His face lit up.
“If you think I’m going to pass up that offer, you need to think again,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
As Cameron hauled the boxed items to the kitchen, Summer put on a fresh pot of coffee and plated up a few of the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.
He wants to take you out, silly. On a date.
Her older sister’s words echoed in Summer’s mind. Was that why he’d come himself instead of sending someone to deliver the donations?
* * *
By the time he got everything stowed in the receiving area of the big kitchen, she was waiting with steaming mugs of coffee, a plate of cookies...and a crowd. There with Summer was Mrs. Davidson from the Common Ground office, and a petite woman he didn’t immediately recognize.
Trying to get a few moments alone with Summer Spencer was more difficult than herding cats. If he hadn’t seen a spark of interest in her eyes, he would think she was trying to shield herself from his attention.
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,”
