Love on a Summer Night

  Contents

  Title Page

  Other Works

  Welcome to Pine Harbour

  About This Book

  Dedication

  One - Thursday

  Two

  Three - Friday

  Four - Sunday

  Five - Monday

  Six - Monday afternoon

  Seven - Tuesday

  Eight - Wednesday

  Nine - Thursday

  Ten - Thursday night

  Eleven - Friday night

  Twelve

  Thirteen - September

  Fourteen - Wedding

  Fifteen - skinny dipping

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Love on a Summer Night

  Acknowledgements

  LOVE ON A

  — SUMMER NIGHT —

  The PINE HARBOUR Series

  a novel

  by

  Zoe York

  www.zoeyork.com

  BOOKS BY

  — ZOE YORK —

  PINE HARBOUR

  Love in a Small Town

  Love in a Snow Storm

  Love on a Spring Morning

  Love on a Summer Night

  THE WARDHAM SERIES

  Between Then and Now

  What Once Was Perfect

  Where Their Hearts Collide

  When They Weren’t Looking

  Beyond Love and Hate

  Perfect No Matter What

  No Time Like Forever

  Beneath These Bright Stars

  Other series

  SEALs Undone - military romance

  Vikings in Space - sci/fi romance

  Visit my website and join my mailing list to be the first to hear about new books!

  WELCOME TO

  — PINE HARBOUR —

  Tucked into a hollow half-way up the Bruce Peninsula, on the eastern shores of Lake Huron, Pine Harbour is where cottage country meets northern living. For generations, the Foster family has been a rock in the community. All the Foster men serve in the local Army reserve unit and the youngest adult generation is no exception.

  Meet the Foster boys: Dean, Jake, Matt and Sean. A cop, a contractor, a paramedic and an adventure racer. All soldiers. None of them looking for love, but it’s coming!

  Their best friends are the Minellis: Zander, Rafe, Tom and Dani. A full-time soldier, a cop, a park ranger and a paramedic. Dani’s the only girl in the entire bunch and she’s not sure how she feels about that. When Rafe got married, she was thrilled to have a sister–and even though he and Olivia have split up, Dani’s not giving up that bond. (And neither is Rafe, for that matter).

  The Books of Pine Harbour

  Love in a Small Town

  Rafe and Olivia

  Six years. Two break-ups. One divorce. They should be over each other…

  Love in a Snow Storm

  Jake and Dani

  Never fall in love with your best friend’s little sister…

  Love on a Spring Morning*

  Ryan and Holly

  Duplicity. Desire. Denial. They were doomed from the start.

  Love on a Summer Night

  Zander and Faith

  Never say never. Especially not to a determined bad boy.

  And coming soon:

  Love on the Run

  Love in a Sandstorm

  Love on the Edge of Reason

  Love on the Outskirts of Town

  * Ryan Howard’s brother, Finn, lives in a town a few hours south of Pine Harbour. If you like this series, you’ll probably love Wardham, too! Finn’s book is #4 in that series, Beyond Love and Hate.

  LOVE ON A

  — SUMMER NIGHT —

  Never say never. Especially not to a determined bad boy.

  Zander Minelli is exactly the wrong kind of man. He’s dark, dangerous, and knows far too much about sawed-off shotguns.

  Faith Davidson finds him irresistible. The widowed single mother knows she should dip her toe back in the dating pool with someone solid and dependable. Definitely no tattoos. But every time she looks up, the brooding soldier is watching her, and she can’t help but wonder what it would be like to let herself have a taste…

  Small town summer nights have never been hotter—and one transplanted city-girl’s heart has never been more fragile.

  — DEDICATION —

  to the life-altering, deeply rewarding,

  immensely challenging reality that is motherhood

  For Kat Townsend, a reader and mother and military wife

  — —

  Kat’s also living with a terminal diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, so let me take this opportunity to say a couple of things that have nothing to do with the book you’re about to read, but important nonetheless:

  My mother died in 2001, two years after her breast cancer diagnosis. I’m now ten years younger than she was when she was diagnosed. For all the advances we’ve made in treating early breast cancer, I’m still terrified. So:

  ~ Never, ever ignore a lump or bump or rash or puckering or new dimple in your breasts: any change in the skin or tissue inside, go to the doctor

  ~ Learn about metastatic breast cancer, and how few research dollars are spent on improving treatment for the women who are living with the disease that will kill them

  You can read more about Kat’s journey with MBC on her blog

  — ONE —

  FAITH would kill to have a Japanese katana in her hands right now.

  Or Barbie dolls that moved like real people and could wield a juice box straw like a sword.

  Even a decent YouTube video that somehow magically gave her the vocabulary to describe the visceral feel of hefting a sword high above her head, ready for the kill.

  But this was the side-effect of hiding away at the tip of an isolated peninsula, surrounded by glittering water and soaring pine trees and not much else. Research had to be done remotely—and when she got writer’s block, figuring out the logistics of a specific action sequence was that much harder. It all felt mechanical, when she wanted to really get the visceral feel of the movements.

  With a strangled cry, she shoved away from her desk and prowled around her office, looking for something that would provide the right weight in her hands so she could properly describe the curved sword being ripped from her heroine’s grasp by a soul-sucking demon.

  The imaginary lives she crafted were the only excitement she’d allowed herself in the four years since Greg had died, so she had to make them spectacular.

  As she lifted a golf club—never used for actual golfing—and gave it a tentative downward slash, she heard the front door swing open.

  “Mommy!” Eric called out, his voice full of breathless enthusiasm and the tell-tale edge of a sugar high.

  “Up here,” she hollered back, tucking the club away and leaning over her desk to save her book. She’d figure out the katana problem after his bedtime. “Did you have a good time—ooof!”

  She twisted her body and looked down at her almost five-year-old son, now hanging on her right leg like a spider monkey. She ran her hand over his wavy dark-blond hair and as she had been for months now, silently mourned the loss of his paler, softer, straighter baby hair. It had happened one night when she wasn’t looking, another vestige of toddlerhood falling away. He was small for his age, though, and sometimes it was hard for her to believe he was going back to school in a few short weeks for kindergarten.

  “Got you.” He gave her an angelic smile complete with a
glint in his eye he’d inherited from his father. She loved that Eric looked so much like Greg, that she’d always have the best of her husband right in front of her. And he was so cute it almost excused the fact that he’d barged into her office—a no-go space for many reasons, including the fact that she often precariously balanced stacks of paper on all available surfaces, manuscript chunks so she could grab a chapter and read on the fly.

  Plus the regular weapons testing that happened, even if it was just with makeshift stand-in props.

  “You’ve got me good.” She winked. “But you remember the rule…”

  “Out?” He made a face.

  “I’m coming with you. Work time is over for now. Tell me about the ferry ride.”

  He slid his hand into hers as they left her office overlooking the front garden and the harbour in the distance and headed down the stairs. From the kitchen, she heard pots clanging a little too loudly. She winced.

  “Did I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer?” she asked gingerly as they stepped into the large sunny room at the back of the main floor. It overlooked a terraced back yard, shaded and sunny in all the right spots. This kitchen and the backyard were the reasons she’d bought the house. Their life was far from perfect, and she couldn’t do anything about the jagged parts of their hearts that would never mend, but with her first big royalty check she’d been able to put a down payment on a gorgeous house on a safe street, and she’d never regretted the impulsive decision.

  That it had a granny suite for her mother to live in and her mother happily cooked for them were nice bonuses.

  Except Faith had forgotten to take out the chicken, so dinner would be something other than the plan stuck to the fridge.

  Her mother really liked the meal plan.

  They all coped differently with how their lives had gone sideways, and Faith tried to remember that Miriam needed order and routine.

  Lists were king.

  “It’s fine,” her mother sighed, clearly not believing herself. She kept chopping as she talked, efficient as always. “I can use tomorrow’s steak that I started marinating last night.”

  “I’m sure whatever you make will be awesome,” Faith said brightly. Her mother was ninety-nine percent awesome. The one percent that drifted toward melodrama when things like meal plans got flubbed…that was best ignored. And maybe fed some chocolate from the good-stuff stash after dinner.

  “Did you get a lot of writing done?”

  “Some.” Faith opened the upper cupboards and got down three plates. In the last two years, they’d fallen into a comfortable routine, and forgetful-writer’s syndrome aside, they were all as happy as they could be with their adopted roles.

  Miriam was the nurturer. She cooked and tidied and listened proudly to Eric’s endless stream of imagined stories.

  Faith was the provider. She worked her ass off to put a roof over their heads—and keep it there. And, slowly but surely, she was putting the broken pieces of her soul mostly back together.

  Eric was their inspiration. Only one when he lost his father and barely two when he lost his grandfather, he was their little man, and they’d do anything to protect him from the ravages of the world.

  Together they were a small but mighty family, and Faith never wanted to take her mother or her son for granted. After setting the plates on the table, she went back to the counter and gave her mom a tight, bone-crushing hug from behind. They were the same height and size, and other than a bit of grey sprinkled in Miriam’s hair and some adorable laugh lines and delicate crinkles at the corners of her eyes, they looked like two peas in a pod.

  “I’m sorry about the chicken,” she whispered.

  “That’s okay, dear,” Miriam said, setting down her chef’s knife to pat Faith’s arm. “I don’t expect you to remember.”

  “No, I should have. I could’ve set a reminder on my computer or something.”

  Her mother shook her head. “You’re just like your father. He’d disappear into his office for hours, working on one equation or another. I’d bring him tea at midnight and he’d look at me, surprised that the night had slipped by.”

  “Are you saying I’m the husband in this dynamic?” Faith scrunched up her face, but her mother just laughed.

  “Exactly. One of these days we’ll find you a nice wife and I can retire to the Caribbean.”

  “I don’t need a wife,” she grumbled. “I just take advantage of your generosity because I can. One of these days you’ll grow a backbone and fly south like all of your friends. And I’ll find a way to feed my son just fine.” A pang stabbed through her chest at the thought of her mother leaving them, but Faith knew she couldn’t selfishly cling forever.

  “I know you will. You’re not as hopeless as your father—you’re not hopeless at all. You’re strong and capable, it’s just…” Miriam trailed off.

  She didn’t need to finish that thought. Faith knew that she was leaning too much on her mother. In the last few months, that had changed, bit by bit, though. She was working on sliding back into the world, building connections beyond blood, but it was challenging. “I can only do one thing at a time.”

  “Honey, you do more than you think. Give yourself credit.”

  She didn’t want to. If she thought she had this all under control, then it would be time to address all that she didn’t have a handle on. All that she’d cut out of her life four years earlier. “I’m happy with my life just the way it is now, Mom.”

  And any time she thought otherwise, she quashed the doubt like a bug. No room for loneliness or self-pity in a widow’s life. There was too much at stake. She had to embrace what she had and make the best of it.

  “I’m just saying, one of these days you’re going to want to do something just for yourself. And you should do it.”

  “Stop. I don’t need a social life.” She sighed and rubbed her thumb against the lines forming between her eyebrows. “I have a social life. I have friends.” Well, she had three best friends, all other writers who lived a plane ride away in different directions. And she had a number of solid acquaintances on the peninsula.

  Okay, now she was sounding defensive, even in her own head.

  “I wasn’t talking about that, exactly, but since you brought it up…don’t you want someone who will rub your shoulders and ask you how your writing went?”

  Unbidden, the memory of firm hands and a rough, low voice rattled through her mind. The unsettling reminder that her life was missing a certain masculine presence wasn’t easily pushed away, either.

  She sighed.

  Her mother lowered her voice. “I’m not saying reconnect with your inner wild child or anything.”

  Sometimes being the daughter of hippies was a challenge. Faith cleared her throat and gave Miriam a bland look. They never talked about how she used to be in front of Eric and they weren’t about to start. Not that she tried to hide her personality, but she’d matured beyond that young woman who wanted the next thrill to be bigger and brighter than the one before.

  “I’m just saying it’s been a long time,” her mother whispered. Eric was lost in a bin of Lego at the far end of the room, but his little ears still managed to hear everything. “Don’t worry. One day soon, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome is going to zoom into your life and you’re not going to know what hit you.”

  “Oh no,” Faith said quickly. “Stop. I don’t need or want anyone to zoom anywhere. Right now, I just want your stir fry in my belly, a bedtime story with my kid, then I’m going to the bakery to get some extra words in for the night.”

  “Don’t go crazy,” Miriam mocked lovingly.

  Faith snorted. There were barely a thousand people in their tiny little town at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. Wilderness and water surrounded them on all sides, and other than a few restaurants that mostly catered to tourists getting on and off the ferry and the hoity-toity cottagers that briefly visited the area in the summer, there was absolutely no trouble to get into.

  They didn�
�t even have a Starbucks. The bakery on the edge of town was the only place that served coffee and had decent WiFi service, so she went there to write when she needed a change of pace.

  Banana nut muffins were as crazy as Faith Davidson got these days.

  And most of the time, that was just how she liked it.

  — —

  Dusk was falling as Zander Minelli rolled his Harley off the last ferry of the day from Manitoulin Island to Tobermory.

  Thirty minutes from home. Twenty if he didn’t care about his best friend Dean or his brother Rafe, both local police officers, maybe giving him a ticket.

  Even though this wasn’t his official homecoming—he wouldn’t retire from the army for another six months—it was the first time since transferring out West that he’d ridden his bike back for a visit. Since he’d be moving at the ass-end of winter with all his earthly possessions, riding out now and leaving the bike behind in his brother Tom’s garage made the most sense.

  It even checked off the cross-country bike ride from his That Would Be Awesome list.

  So why did he feel so weary?

  It was good to be home…he guessed. It wasn’t bad.

  Good to have some leads lined up for potential security clients.

  In theory, his post-retirement plan was great.