Finding Summer - Suzanne Halliday Page 0,75

we managed to talk about a lot of stuff in the process.”

“You’ve given hanging out new meaning, Summer. I like talking to you.”

“It feels completely natural,” she agreed with wide eyes. “Illuminating.”

She handed him her empty wine glass, and said, “When I think about it, I can’t recall a time when getting to know someone took on this kind of depth. It’s easy to tell you stuff.”

“Two-way street,” he replied.

Reaching around her to put their glasses on the coffee table, he almost dumped her off his lap in the process. She squealed and threw both arms around his neck. When he sat back, it was easy to turn her neck-clutching response into a passionate kiss.

He wanted to do nothing more than be with this girl. She didn’t just excite—Summer lit up the world with her joy for life. Seeing things through her eyes was changing him.

“I have another question.”

Of course she did. “Go for it,” he replied.

“You said you were here on business, yet you seem to be spending your time with family even though you live on the other side of the country. There’s a lot of whiplash. What’s that all about?”

“Family business,” he said in a jeering tone. “For legal reasons, we have to gather in person for shit to get done. My grandfather lives here, and since patriarch trumps everything else, we go wherever he wants.”

“Trust fund kid.” She snickered. “I knew it.”

When she stuck her nose in his neck and inhaled, his skin prickled with goose bumps.

“You reek of money.”

She was joking, but he wasn’t. “Believe it or not, I try not to. Privilege has a dark side, Summer. You can’t buy the things that matter.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged, but his feelings on the matter were far from indifferent. “Family comes to mind. So do morals and ethics.”

“I hear you,” she murmured as a look of sadness passed over her features. “My mother cared more for all the wrong things—money included. Still does. She had the balls to put out her hand when Dad died. Her behavior was disgusting.”

“I care about my blood family but not about the money. It makes me somewhat of an outlier. These family get-togethers are bullshit marathons, and I’d take a hard pass if not for my father and granddad.”

“I’m glad it’s just my brother and me. We’ve got distant relatives, but aside from the occasional Facebook post, there’s no contact. It makes me wonder if some people just aren’t meant to have a family.”

He thought about the countless men and women he’d worked with since his time at the DOJ through now. They talked a lot about family. It was what you did during long stretches out of the country, usually in a danger zone, when normal living was a memory. But had any of them found the happy rainbow?

“I have a tribe,” he murmured as the unformed thought landed on his tongue. “Like-minded people with similar life experiences. They fill the void, I suppose.”

“Friends are what get us through.”

Oh, no doubt, he thought. “I’d like to be your friend, sunshine girl.”

He felt her mood shift. It happened in a flash and quickly vanished, but his senses caught the change. Worry roiled in his gut. She was thinking about the temporary nature of their relationship. He didn’t know what to do. A big part of him wanted to claim her as his including a change in time zones and a new zip code for her.

Was he jumping the gun? Oh god, yes but he’d known from virtually the second they connected she wasn’t just special. Summer was extraordinary, and her appearance in his life at this moment was part of a bigger picture—whatever it turned out to be.

But how was he supposed to articulate how he felt? Three days wasn’t a lot to base a lifetime upon, but when he thought about his mom and dad and how an unforeseen tragedy derailed their happiness, he knew how critical timing was.

Reaching for her hand, he twined their fingers. She was experiencing a bit of an emotional wobble—he sensed it in her touch.

“Oh, my god,” she suddenly exclaimed. “I get it now. What this feeling is.”

His brows bumped down as he tried to figure out what she was getting at.

“You’re doing it now, aren’t you? Reading me or whatever you call it.”

Was he? “Not consciously,” he assured her.

“It explains the Italian. You sensed it was my favorite, didn’t you?”

The Italian? What did she mean?

“I thought it was weird when our entire