“Then invite me,” he said calmly. He could get to the bottom of why Summer was so afraid of him if he could just get her to spend a little time with him.
“Did you know I was here?” she asked suspiciously.
“Umm …” He had of course. He’d asked his brother where he might be able to find Summer. Nick had refused to tell him, insisting that Summer wouldn’t appreciate him intruding in her life, but Aggie had offered up that Summer was having dinner with one of their friends at a local restaurant. He wasn't sure how angry it would make Summer to know that.
“Aggie told you I was here,” Summer answered her own question. “She shouldn’t have done that.”
“She thought we might like to get to know each other since I'm staying in town. She said you were having dinner with a friend, and I thought I'd stop by and say hi. I'm Luke, by the way, Nick’s younger brother.” He turned to Summer and Aggie’s friend and held out his hand.
“Hope,” the woman said, shaking his hand, a bemused smile on her pretty face. “I'm going to go and leave you two to it.” She looked intrigued by the obvious tension between him and Summer.
“No, you can't leave,” Summer protested, sounding borderline panicked at the prospect of being left alone with him.
“Chance is going to be wondering where I am.” Hope scooped up her bag and stood. “You’ll be fine. It’s Nick’s brother. How much trouble could he be?” She grinned at him and then kissed Summer’s cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow at work. Nice to meet you, Luke.”
Hope breezed off and Summer stared after her.
“Dessert? Coffee?” he asked, trying to gauge just how mad Summer was and what his chances were of making any progress with her tonight.
She ignored him. Her gaze fixed firmly on where Hope had walked off.
“Tea? Hot chocolate?” he persisted. Maybe he should have listened to his brother and not come here tonight. He was anxious to get to know Summer, to let her know that she didn’t need to be afraid of him, but maybe taking things slow and just hanging out with her at Nick and Aggie’s house where they were part of a group, and he was less threatening might have been the better option. Still, he was here now, and he had to make the most of it. There was no backing out so he may as well make whatever minimal progress he could. “Cake? Ice cream?”
“Stop.” She whirled around to face him, her large brown eyes alight with anger. “I don’t appreciate you asking my friends where I’d be and then following me here. What are you, some sort of stalker?”
Luke tried not to laugh at her indignation. “I'm not a stalker. I'm Nick’s brother.”
“Yeah, and I remember how he and Aggie met,” she grumbled.
He’d meant that as reassurance, but his curiosity was piqued. Something bad had obviously happened when Nick had met his future wife.
“I take it you don’t know the story,” Summer said a little triumphantly like she had somehow gained the upper hand and felt more comfortable with her newfound position of power. He was happy to give it to her. If she felt more comfortable then she’d be more open to spending time with him.
“No, I don’t. Nick and I haven't been close in years. Decades. You know my brother so I'm guessing you know about our childhoods.”
Her face softened. “Yes. I'm sorry. It must have been hard losing your parents when you were so young.”
“I don’t even remember them.”
“But you had two foster families that became your family and you lost both of them.”
He nodded. “I was lucky. The third family I lived with became my family. They’re still my family. They were a young couple who thought they couldn’t have kids, so they decided to foster. I was lucky, most people want babies, I was twelve, I’d already had two chances at a foster family, and both had fallen through. I didn’t think anyone would want me anymore. But they did. They chose me. They gave me a home. They gave me love. They ended up having two biological children, so they even gave me siblings. They gave me a family.”
“I'm glad you had them,” Summer said softly.
“Me too. I just wish that Nick had come too. I begged him to. They wanted both of us. But Nick was so stubborn, he refused, said he’d run away if the foster system tried to force him.”
“He was just scared.”
“I was too, but I wanted a family. I didn’t want to be alone. Nick seemed to relish being solitary. He’d changed so much over the years until I barely recognized him. He rebuffed all my attempts to stay close and eventually I just gave up.”
“Sometimes it’s just easier to be alone,” Summer murmured. From the look on her face, he suspected she was talking more about herself than his brother.
“Only being alone wasn't what Nick really needed. What he needed was someone who understood him, loved him, and would be there for him through the good and the bad no matter what. I've never seen him this happy. Having Aggie changed him. Being with someone changed his life,” he said because he thought she needed to hear it.
“Yeah, I guess,” Summer agreed uncertainly. Her eyes grew distant and troubled as though she were having an internal debate about something.
If he had to guess her internal debate was about him.