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  By the end of her senior year, Bess wanted Andy to love her.

  They’d dated through the mail, infrequent phone calls and even more infrequent school breaks during her senior year. Looking back, she realized it was that distance that had made it all seem so great. The less she saw him, the more important it became to do so.

  She’d looked at half a dozen schools because she knew her parents wanted her to explore all her options, but there was no other choice for Bess than Millersville University, where Andy was entering his junior year.

  The relationship had stepped up quickly after that. Away from home for the first time, she’d found nothing seemed as scary or intimidating as it might have, with Andy there to ease her way. She’d lost her virginity to him within the first week of her freshman year, in the narrow single bed in his dorm room while his roommate studied down the hall.

  Part of her had been afraid things would crumble when they saw each other so often. They’d spent more time together in the first month of school than they had for the entire first year they’d dated. Andy seemed to think nothing of it, though, accepting her into his circle of friends and his routine as easily as if she’d always been part of them. He’d told her he loved her before she said it to him, and had played the part of the doting boyfriend so convincingly she’d never doubted him.

  So what had changed?

  “Bess?” Eddie poked his head out of the back door. “Brian needs some h-help up front.”

  “Be right there.” She spat her gum into the garbage and went back inside with a sigh.

  Brian was getting slammed, but diva that he was, had managed to get the crowd mostly under control. They milled around the small seating area, but nobody was kicking up much of a fuss. Nick still reigned from his corner chair, though the ice cream had vanished. He wasn’t in the way or anything, but seeing him there put a frown on Bess’s face, anyway. He was a distraction she still didn’t have time to deal with.

  She and Brian served the customers as fast as they could, but it was another forty minutes before the last of them left the bell jangling as the door closed behind them. Brian collapsed against the counter with an exaggerated sigh and begged a break, which Bess had no choice but to give him. With Brian gone out the back faster than a frat boy chugging a beer, Bess was once more left alone with Nick.

  “So,” he said with a grin as sweet as the sundae he’d finished. “Party. My place. Tonight.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Now

  “Hi, Kara. Is your dad here?” Bess leaned on the counter to talk to Eddie’s look-alike daughter.

  “Hey.” Kara lifted a hand but barely glanced up from the tabloid paper spread out in front of her. “Nope. I think he ran to the coffee shop or something. You want me to call him?”

  Bess didn’t take the girl’s lack of enthusiasm as an insult. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”

  Kara shot her a grin. “Nah. He told me if you stopped by I had to let him know, like, right away.”

  This scrap of information might have made Bess feel self-conscious, but for the fact that she stood in Sugarland, where years ago Eddie Denver had had a crush on her. There was something comforting in thinking he still might. She laughed and drew a chair up to the counter.

  “Thanks.”

  Kara shrugged, already pulling a bright pink cell phone from her pocket and keying in a number. “No prob. Dad? She’s here. Where are you? Want me to ask her to wait?”

  Kara held the phone away from her face to turn to Bess. “He’s not at the coffee shop, he ran to the office supply store. Can you wait for him? He says it’ll be about half an hour.”

  “Sure.” Half an hour was longer than she’d planned to spend, and Bess’s thoughts went at once to home and Nick waiting for her. But she really needed to talk to Eddie.

  “She’ll wait. Yeah, whatever.” With a roll of her eyes, Kara disconnected the call and shoved the phone back in her pocket. “He says he’s hurrying. Do you want anything while you wait?”

  “Lemonade,” Bess said. She was already salivating at the thought of the tart liquid.

  She looked around the small shop while Kara cut the lemons and used the press to squeeze the juice, adding it to the sugar and water and shaking it. Eddie had changed the decor a little, but not much. The equipment looked newer, the menu a little more extensive, but so much was the same that Bess felt she was sitting on the wrong side of the counter.

  The season hadn’t really begun, which made the sudden swell of customers a surprise. Kara blinked as the bell over the door jangled and a crowd surged inside, all of them lining up at the counter, jostling, to point out what they wanted from the menu board.

  The line was long enough and the customers boisterous enough to fluster anyone, but Kara kept her cool. She took orders and filled them as fast as she could, while the noise and heat level inside the small shop grew to oppressive levels.

  “Bus tour,” explained one of the women to Bess.

  Five minutes passed while Bess sipped her lemonade, with no sign of any decrease in the crowd. Despite the nose ring and blasé attitude, Kara had an easy way with the customers that kept them from getting too rambunctious. Bess saw a lot of Eddie in Kara’s efficiency, but even so, it was clear the girl was getting overwhelmed, after all. Bess recognized the clenched jaw and clumsiness as Kara tried to take orders faster than one person could do alone.

  “You need a hand,” Bess observed when Kara came her way to grab the last soft pretzel from the warmer.

  Kara paused to flash her a grin so much like Eddie’s Bess had to return it. “Think you can handle it?”

  “I think I remember how.” Bess flipped up the hinged counter—God, the same squeak!—and stepped behind the counter.

  “You run the register,” she told Kara, after a glance showed her there was no way she’d figure out how to operate it in the next five minutes. “I’ll take orders.”

  They worked together with only the most minor of mistakes, until the crowd, with food and drink in hand, at last disappeared. As the door jangled behind the last customer, Bess saw Eddie watching them through the front window. Then he ducked inside.

  “How long were you standing out there?” Bess laughed.

  Kara gave a disgusted snort. “Gee, Dad, thanks so much for helping!”

  “You two had it under control.” Eddie grinned. “Not so easy to forget, huh, Bess?”

  She shook her head and gave him a rueful smile. “No, apparently not.”

  “You were doing great.”

  “Dad,” Kara interjected. “Enough with the goggle eyes, okay? It’s creeping me out!”

  Eddie laughed but didn’t duck his head. “Bess, you wanna grab a cup of coffee?”

  “You’re going to leave me here all alone again?” Kara crossed her arms and huffed.

  Eddie looked out the front of the shop, where there were more empty parking spots than full. “We’re just going across the street. If you get swamped, call me.”

  Kara grumbled a little, but sighed. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “It’s why I pay you the big bucks, remember?”

  At this, she burst into laughter that completely unraveled her carefully woven persona of rebellious teenager. “Oh, sure, Dad. Suuure!”

  He blew her a kiss. “Be back in a few. Bess? Ready?”

  He held the door open for her as she came around the counter. On the street, she squinted against the bright sunshine. The breeze tangled her hair across her face and she pushed it back.

  “Summer’s here,” she said as they crossed the dual one-way streets. “I wasn’t sure it was ever going to come, with all the storms we’d been having.”

  “It always gets here, sooner or later.” Eddie held open the coffee-shop door for her and Bess scooted through. “And it always ends, too.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. “That’s pretty deep.”

  Eddie laughed. “Oh, yeah. That’s me. Deep as the ocean.”

  She shook her head a littl