A Scandal So Sweet

“Not possible! He hates me!” And with good reason.

“Well, he’s never said a word about that scandal or against you. You wouldn’t be so dead set against him, either—if you saw him. The townspeople have changed their narrow minds about him. Well, everybody except Thurman.”

Thurman was Summer’s impossible stepfather.

There was no arguing with Gram. So here Summer was—home in Bonne Terre—to remove Tuck from his job and, by doing so, remove Zach from their lives. She didn’t want to confront Zach, and maybe, if she could get through to Tuck and Gram, she wouldn’t have to. All it had ever taken for Summer to remember the secrets and heartbreak of her past, and the man who’d caused them, was to visit Gram.

Nothing ever changed in Bonne Terre.

Here, under the ancient cypress trees that edged the bayou, as she listened to a chorus of late-summer cicadas and endured the stifling heat, the wounds to her soul felt as fresh and raw as they had fifteen years ago.

Unlike Tuck, Summer had been an ambitious teen, one who’d decided that if she couldn’t have Zach Torr, she had to forget him and follow her dreams. That’s what had been best for everybody.

She’d worked hard in her acting career to get where she was, to prove herself. She was independent. Famous, even. And she was happy. Very happy. So happy she’d braved coming back to Bonne Terre for the first time in two years.

Summer pushed the screen door open and let it bang behind her.

“I’m home!”

Upstairs she heard a stampede of footsteps. “Gram, she’s here!”

Yanking earbuds from his ears, Tuck slid down the banister with the exuberance of an overgrown kid. She was about to cry out in fear that he’d slam into the newel post and kill himself, but he hopped off in the nick of time, landing on his feet as deftly as a cat.

“Come here and give me a hug, stranger,” she whispered.

Looking sheepish, with his long hair falling over his eyes and his baseball cap on backward, Tuck shyly obliged. But then he pulled away quickly.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were even taller,” she said.”

“No, you’re shorter.”

“Am not!” she cried.

“God, this place is quiet without you here to fight with.”

“I do have a career.”

“It must be nice,” he muttered. “My famous sister.”

“I’m doing what I love, and it’s great,” she said much too enthusiastically. “Just great. I’m here to try to teach you about ambition.”

“I got a job. Didn’t Gram tell you?”

Gram walked into the room and took Summer into her arms before Summer could reply.

“I was wondering what it would take to get my Babygirl home.”

“Don’t you dare call me that!” Summer smiled, fondly remembering how she used to be embarrassed by the nickname when she was a teenager.

“Set your bag down and then go sit out on the screened porch. Tuck, you join her. I’ll bring you something you can’t get in that big city of yours, Babygirl—a glass of my delicious, mint-flavored tea.”

Summer sighed. “Gram, I don’t want you wearing yourself out waiting on us. Tuck, we’re going to help her, you hear?”

Tuck, who was lazy by nature, frowned, but since he adored his big sister, he didn’t argue. He trailed behind them into the kitchen where he leaned against a wall and watched them do everything.

“At least you’re going to carry the tray,” Summer ordered as she placed the last tea cup on it.

Tuck grabbed a chocolate-chip cookie instead.

Then the phone rang and he shrugged helplessly before disappearing to answer it.

As Summer took the tray out to the porch and set it on the table, she sank into her favorite rocker, finally taking the time to appreciate the deep solitude of the trees that wrapped around Gram’s big old house. In New York or L.A., Summer’s phones rang constantly with calls from her agent, producers and directors … and, especially of late, reporters.

She was A-list now, sought after by directors on both coasts. She’d worked hard and was living her dream.

She had it all.

Or so she’d believed. Then her costar and sometimes lover, Edward, had walked out on her. The night their hit play closed, he’d declared to the entire cast that he was through with her. That had been a month ago. Ever since, nosy reporters had been hounding her for the full story, which she still didn’t want to share. That night, back in her apartment after the wrap party, she’d tried to tell herself that Edward’s departure hadn’t made her painfully aware of how empty her personal life had become.

No well-known Broadway actress was ever alone, especially when she was under contract for a major Hollywood film. Even when she was between shows and movies, she couldn’t walk out of her apartment without some stranger trying to take her picture or get her autograph. She was always multitasking—juggling workshops, PR events, rehearsals and script readings. Who had time for a personal life?

She was thirty-one. Forty, that age that was the death knell to actresses, didn’t seem quite so far away anymore. And Gram, being old-fashioned and Southern, constantly reminded Summer about her biological clock. Lately, Gram had started emailing pictures of all Summer’s childhood girlfriends’ children and gushing about how cute they were.

“Where would I be without you and Tuck? Mark my words, you’ll be sorry if you end up old and alone.”

Gram’s longings were part of the reason Summer had let Hugh Jones, the hottest young actor on the west coast, rush her into a new relationship not two weeks after Edward had jilted her so publicly. Had she actually felt a little desperate at realizing how alone she was?

Not wanting to think about her personal life a moment longer, Summer picked up her glass and drank some of her iced tea.

Where was Gram? And what was taking Tuck so long on the phone?

Was he talking to Zach?

She took another sip of tea.

Reporters constantly asked her if she was in love with Hugh. But unfortunately for her, it wasn’t Hugh who came to mind at the mention of the word love. No, for her, love and Zach would always be tangled together like an impossible knot. Her chest tightened. She’d only felt that exquisitely painful rush of excitement once.

She never wanted to feel it again.

She’d been sixteen, and he nineteen, when their romance had ended in unbearable heartbreak. For a brief moment she allowed herself to remember New Orleans and the terrible, secret loss she’d suffered there, a loss that had shattered her youthful illusions forever, a loss that had taught her some mistakes could never be made right.

Zach was the reason why she almost never came home. Bonne Terre was a small, gossipy Cajun town. If she hadn’t forgotten her past, the town wouldn’t have forgotten it, either. Even if the town’s citizens didn’t ask her about him, she always felt him everywhere when she was home. She had too many painful memories and … secrets.

Here on this very porch he had kissed her that first time.

Just as she was remembering how her mouth had felt scorched after he’d brushed his lips against hers, her grandmother’s low, gravelly whisper interrupted her thoughts.

“You’re not the only person who loves to sit in that chair.”