Seeing Red Read online

  Diana smiled as she took over pouring the champagne. “Of course you do.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you always run. That’s what I heard your mom say to my mom once. She was crying when she said it.”

  Summer’s chest caved in as if she’d been sucker punched. “Maybe no one ever told you it’s not nice to repeat things people say.”

  Diana lifted a shoulder. “Maybe not.”

  Summer stared at her, then let out a careful breath. “You know what? The hell with this.” She moved away from her and Madeline, and toward the front door. People were swarming now, pressing close. Her breathing quickened again. Damn it. She pushed her way through and was nearly there when her wrist was snagged.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Aunt Tina.

  Summer stared at her aunt’s stubborn face, her chest cinching down. The bell over the door tinkled noisily. Two more people entered, laughing and talking. Summer swallowed hard as the room, so large only moments ago, began to close in on her. “I’ve really got to—”

  “Stay. Eat. Talk. Be merry.” Tina thrust a flute of champagne into her hand and smiled. “Just look at your mom, darling. She looks so happy tonight, doesn’t she?”

  Somehow Summer forced herself to turn and look. Indeed Camille was smiling as she greeted some of their guests. She wore a beautiful flowing gown in a pale silver that seemed to make her skin glow. She caught Summer’s eye and waved.

  Waved. Summer’s throat tightened a little as she waved back. Impossibly, the crowd grew again, pouring in now, pressing against her to get by. With the front door open, she caught a whiff of the smoke from the fire she’d seen earlier. Spots appeared in her vision.

  Too close. Too tight.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Tina murmured.

  Kenny was handing her mother a flute of champagne. He wore khaki trousers and a crisp, white button-down. If he was armed, the gun was hidden. The tall, handsome fire marshal pushed up his glasses and smiled at Camille, who smiled back. An open, sweet smile.

  Summer hadn’t seen many of those. Probably because she hadn’t been around to see them.

  You always run.

  Summer closed her eyes. “I really have to go.”

  “He’s awfully handsome,” Tina said. “I think he’s attracted to her.”

  Summer opened her eyes. Camille had put her hand on Kenny’s arm, leaning in to listen to him.

  “She does seem happy,” Summer allowed.

  “Yes.” Tina hugged Summer. “And darling, you being here is part of the reason.”

  “Then why does she keep trying to get me to leave?”

  “It’s what she expects from you.” Tina tugged lightly on a strand of Summer’s hair. “So prove her wrong. Now go on, go join the fray.” She nudged Summer forward to mingle. “And for God’s sake, smile!”

  There had to be a hundred people here already. Surely that was against the code. In fact, Kenny should be kicking people out. Summer craned her neck to find him but he just kept talking to her mother…

  Damn it. She tossed back her champagne and waited for the kick. Nothing but her chest tightening further. All around her was talking and laughter, and yet suddenly there wasn’t enough air for her lungs. Each new person sucked even more oxygen from the room. She knew that it was just in her head but that didn’t make it any less real. The walls continued to close in, until she couldn’t draw a full breath at all, but she was good at pretending nothing was wrong. She even managed to keep a smile on her face despite the line of sweat trickling down her spine as she pressed her back to a wall and wished for another drink.

  Braden walked past her without a word, then stopped and turned back. “You okay?”

  “I need a drink.”

  He shot her an odd look but grabbed a flute of champagne from a tray and handed it over.

  She gulped it down, but her throat remained parched. “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” He wore his usual black, though his standard cynical smile was gone. “You might want to wait a few before your next one.”

  “I already need another one.”

  “Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his mouth and looked longingly at a tray of champagne. “I hear that.”

  Madeline, and what looked like an entire gaggle of her friends, passed by giggling and teetering and smelling like cigarettes as they eyed the champagne. When she caught Summer watching her, she stuck out her tongue and moved on.

  “So, is it being home again?” Braden asked. “Or the crowds?”

  When Summer’s gaze whipped to his, he lifted a brow. “A shot in the dark.”

  “A good one.” She set down the empty flute. “And for the record, it’s both.” She took a deeper look and saw the stress in his eyes even though he’d done a damn good job at keeping it to himself. He was just as unhappy at this party as she was. “How about you?”

  “I’m perfectly fine.”

  He was lying, but who was she to press? Besides, at that moment, she caught Chloe’s baleful stare from across the room. Oops. She was talking to Chloe’s property, wasn’t she. She lifted her hands and wriggled her fingers, showing her territorial cousin she was still hands off.

  But when she turned back to Braden, he was gone. Without him standing in front of her, buffering her view of everyone milling around her, her breathing hitched again. It seemed as if the number of people had doubled in the past few minutes. Tripled. Her chest hurt, the spots were back, and she again staggered for the door. Fairy lights decorated the entire front façade, and the helium balloons she’d tied to the canopy were floating in the light breeze. She saw all this in her peripheral vision as she finally burst out.

  And crashed directly into a hard chest.

  Joe’s hands came up to grip her shoulders, probably because she’d just about knocked him flat on his ass. He stood there holding her upright, a faint five o’clock shadow shading his jaw, hair weeks past needing a haircut, smelling like soap and man. An involuntary pained sound escaped her and she slapped a hand to her mouth to keep the next one in.

  Hands still on her shoulders, he bent and peered into her face. “What’s the matter, Red?”

  Oh, God. His eyes. The haunting sadness was back in the swirling whiskey depths tonight, and it reached her. He’d always been able to reach her with a look. “N-n-nothing.”

  He lifted her chin with a finger. “Don’t add lying to your sins. You okay?”

  His voice was low, and somehow devastatingly sexy. And the way he asked her what was wrong, as if he really cared, as if maybe, at least for a moment, he’d forgotten to hold back with her. Her throat simply closed up, and all she could do was shake her head. No. No, she wasn’t okay. She might never be again.

  His hand, big and warm, came up, tracing her hairline with a long finger, pushing her hair behind her ear. The gesture was an old one, and she nearly lost it right then. She was holding on by a thread here, and if anyone could break her, he could. But she knew that while she needed a connection tonight, any connection, he did not. At least not from her.

  Pushing free, she ran across the street, heading for the beach. She needed the cool night air, the clarity the pounding surf would give her, the wide open space.

  “Red?”

  She kept going. It wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done, racing away from one of the very people she wanted to prove herself to, but the minute her feet hit the sand she kicked off her sandals and kept running, hard and fast, not looking back, trying desperately not to look back.

  Chapter 6

  Joe stared after Summer, not so far gone in his own miserable evening that he hadn’t seen the shine of tears in her eyes, or the hitch of panic in her breathing.

  It was none of his business. She was none of his business. And so telling himself, he took another step toward the front door of Creative Interiors II, then stopped. “Ah, hell.” Turning around, he caught a fleeting glance of her racing into the night as if the devil himself were on her he