Summer with a Star (Second Chances Book 1) Read online

  SUMMER WITH A STAR

  Copyright ©2015 by Merry Farmer

  Amazon Edition

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill (the miracle-worker)

  Embellishment by © Olgasha | Dreamstime.com

  ASIN: B00TBTC3HO

  Summer with a Star

  By Merry Farmer

  For Cheryl

  For years of lunches and puzzles

  And for keeping me from doing something drastic…

  …well, sooner than I did

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Twenty years. Tasha Pike had been saving her pennies for twenty years to scrape together enough to rent the big Victorian house that stood on the point overlooking Summerbury Beach. She drew in a deep breath as she drove the last mile of the winding road that hugged the sleepy Maine coast. Her heart thumped against her ribs, as though she was on her way to the first day of school instead of a much-needed vacation. Ten bucks here, half a tax refund there—twenty years had taken forever, but she’d done it. Let people try to tell her she was dreaming now. Let them say that teachers couldn’t rent stunning mansions for an entire summer. She’d shown them. After two decades, Sand Dollar Point was hers. At least it was for the next two months.

  Not much had changed about Summerbury since the summers she had spent there as a child. The tiny seaside town was still adorable. She had to inch her way through Main Street to avoid shopping tourists and locals catching up with their seasonal neighbors. Summerbury’s economy was driven by the shops and restaurants along the two main roads that intersected at the town’s only traffic light. One road headed down to the marina. The other wound out of town and around to the shore and the pier, where Summerbury gave way to Summerbury Beach.

  “Twenty years,” Tasha repeated the mantra she’d been chanting since turning off of the Maine Turnpike. An upbeat summer jam blared on her radio, giving her courage. “Piece of cake.”

  She smiled at the tall pines that poked out behind the sandy parking lot of the hotel her family had stayed in summer after summer. It would have felt natural to turn into that lot and find a spot in the shade beside the shed that housed bicycles for rent. But no, not this summer. She let out a giddy laugh as she drove on, around a sharp corner, then on to the wide curve of Beach Avenue.

  There it was, half a mile away at the end of the long stretch of sand-dusted road. Sand Dollar Point. It was as vibrant in reality as it had been in Tasha’s dreams. Its freshly-painted gray siding was off-set by bright white trim and maroon-red shutters. The black shingles on the steeply-slanted roofs sparkled in the morning light. Sand Dollar Point had two stories of balconies, all with lace-like accents that made the house look as though it had been pulled from the pages of a fairy-tale. It even had a widow’s watch at the top of the octagonal tower nestled in the cross-point of the house’s two wings. The house was surrounded by pink and red-blossom sea rose bushes. A wooden staircase leading down to the beach hugged the side of the cliff the house had been built atop.

  “Beautiful.” Tasha hummed, warmth filling her soul. She slowed to five miles below the speed limit so that she could draw out her approach. The white wicker porch swing on the first floor porch swayed in the sea breeze as she drove the last few yards to the driveway. Ten-year-old Tasha had once spied a couple kissing on that swing as the sunset bathed them in orange light, and ever since that had been her gold-standard of romance.

  “Eat your heart out, Brad Jamison,” she muttered with a satisfied grin.

  Brad. He was supposed to come with her on this vacation. They’d met on the very beach she drove past now. He was the boy she’d dug for buried treasure with, the summer crush she’d come back to year after year, her first kiss. He was the man who had made her a woman, the man she’d thought she would marry.

  He was the man who had dumped her three weeks before the end of the school year.

  Forget it, she told herself, fighting that familiar tremor in her gut as she made the turn into Sand Dollar Point’s long drive. Brad was history. She was well rid of the lying, cheating bastard. The time for feeling like a loser over her dead relationship had passed. The best thing that had come out of the twenty years she had known Brad was fact that she had never once let his snide comments discourage her from saving for Sand Dollar Point. He may have mashed her self-esteem to a pulp, but her vacation of a lifetime would be twice as sweet knowing that she’d persevered on this one point. The summer vacation of her dreams started now. It served Brad right.

  The driveway curved halfway out onto the cliff. Its mass of rose bushes hid the parking spots by the front porch from the road, so when Tasha spotted her best friend Jenny’s car already parked, it was a surprise. She pulled into the space beside Jenny and cut her engine. Jenny waved at her from the other car’s driver’s seat as she talked on her phone.

  “Why are you here?” Tasha asked, knowing her friend couldn’t hear through the windows. She climbed out of her car—stretching the stiffness of hours of driving from her back—and circled around to the other side. The breeze blowing in from the ocean was tangy with salt and cool enough to make her wish she’d rolled her windows down instead of driving with the AC on.

  “I don’t care if it’s listed as confidential,” Jenny snapped at whoever was on the other end of her call as she got out of her car. “I need you to find out.”

  She glanced at Tasha walking up between the two cars. The frustrated, anxious frown Jenny wore put a sharp dent in Tasha’s euphoria. Jenny was upbeat. She was the kind of smart chick who made you understand why blondes had more fun. Of all Tasha’s friends, she was the one that could always be counted on to put a smile on Tasha’s face and make things better. She’d brought wine and picked up the pieces at the end of the Age of Brad. She’d given Tasha a pep-talk a week since then. If Jenny wasn’t happy, it wasn’t good.

  “What?” Tasha asked as Jenny tapped her phone to end the call and lowered her arm.

  “Don’t freak out,” she said.

  “Why would I freak out?” Prickles of dread ran down Tasha’s spine.

  Jenny let out a breath, then drew in a steadying one. “There’s a problem with the booking.”

  Every ounce of elation that Tasha had felt during the drive, every happy memory, and every shred of relief at being able to get away from the last couple of miserable months of her life fell f
lat at her feet. The loser vibe began to creep up her spine to replace it.

  “No.” She shook her head and took a step closer to Jenny. “No, no problems. Swear on your life, Jenny, swear on twenty-five years of friendship that there are no problems with the booking.” Her throat threatened to close up.

  “I wish I could, babe. All I know is that they wouldn’t give me the keys at the office because they’ve given them to someone else.”

  “The keys?” Tasha’s heart twisted in knots. “Someone else?”

  Jenny chewed her lip. “Yeah.”

  “No.” Tasha gulped. “This is my house. You know how long I saved for it.”

  “I know.” Jenny pivoted to stare up at Sand Dollar Point’s front porch, long ponytail swinging down her back. Even with perfect make-up and a cute, pink linen suit that would make any real estate agency proud, Jenny was still the girl who Tasha spilled apple juice on during their first day of school. She’d laughed it off then—she would laugh this off now.

  She wasn’t laughing.

  “The office said that someone else has booked the house for the entire summer,” Jenny said with a frown.

  “They can’t have,” Tasha answered. She rubbed a hand over her breastbone as if she had heartburn. Heart-break was more like it. “I booked this house three years ago. I had to book it that far in advance to get it for the full two months. I confirmed last year and I confirmed again just last month after Brad—” She stopped before she broke down in tears, and took a deep breath. “There has to be some sort of misunderstanding.”

  “I’m sure there is,” Jenny said. She motioned for Tasha to follow her up the flower-lined path to the front porch steps. “The office won’t tell me what’s going on, but maybe there’s someone else I can call.”

  As they climbed the steps, Tasha sucked in the sea air, and with it the faint scent of fresh paint. This was her dream. She deserved this after all she’d been through. There had to be something she could do that amounted to more than letting herself be run over yet again.

  Jenny fiddled with her phone, then held it to her ear and clipped, “Hey Dana, it’s Jenny. I’ve got a top secret question for you about Sand Dollar Point.”

  Tasha walked down to the end of the porch as Jenny dealt with her coworker. Everything about Sand Dollar Point was perfect. A dark pewter eight and five were fixed to the side of the maroon front door, marking the street number. All of the white curtains in the clean and sparkling windows looked freshly laundered. The porch was crisp and white, its white wicker furniture arranged with a view of the beach behind it that would make any decorating magazine drool with envy. The house hadn’t even looked that good in her memory. The owners must have put extra effort into sprucing it up for their season-long renter. No one had ever bothered to go to that kind of effort for Tasha. Even she wouldn’t have put in that much work for her.

  She reached the end of the porch and leaned on the rail, peering out over the beach. The cliff-side garden had recently been replanted. The stairs leading down to the beach had been replaced since the last time she had been there as well. The porch swing she’d spotted from the road—still swaying in the breeze off to her right where the porch wrapped around to the ocean side—looked new. A blue-striped towel was draped across its back and a pair of sunglasses lay abandoned on the seat.

  Tasha pushed away from the rail and went to investigate. The windows on the ocean side of the house were open, their curtains billowing in the breeze. Somewhere inside the house, a radio played indie rock. Tasha frowned and bit her lip as she reached the swing and picked up the sunglasses. Men’s sunglasses. Tom Ford. She didn’t know much about brand names, but they certainly didn’t sell Tom Fords at the local five-and-dime.

  “Someone is in my house,” she whispered to herself, frown growing. How could someone waltz into her house, someone with money by the look of it, when she had worked so hard to have it?

  “Tash!” Jenny called to her from the front of the house. The sound of her heels clicking around the corner signaled that her call was over, and that she hadn’t liked the outcome. She came stomping into Tasha’s view. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “Don’t tell me someone swiped this place right out from under me.” Tasha tossed the sunglasses back on the swing and strode to meet Jenny, chest squeezing. This was the last thing she needed. “Don’t tell me that after the spring I had, this place isn’t mine.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to, babe.” There was as much distress in Jenny’s voice and in her face as Tasha felt welling up in her gut.

  “Please don’t tell me that I’m about to spend the next two months booked into some third-rate motel, or worse, at home, because a real estate big-wig thinks I’m too much of a loser to live a dream for just two months.”

  Jenny blinked. “It’s not that. Of course you’re not a loser. It’s—”

  “Can I help you?” a resonant male voice asked from the back door.

  Tasha turned, fairly certain she would burst into tears in about three seconds.

  Her eyes popped wide at what—or rather who—she saw. Suddenly everything made sense, and she fell apart.

  Spence heard women’s voices from the second floor porch where he’d stretched out with a script and an iced tea, but he figured they came from the beach. He did his best to tune them out and concentrate on work. The problem was, work was about as boring as sitting in rush hour traffic. He thumbed ahead a few pages in his script. Explosions, chases, dialog that could have been written by his eight-year-old cousin. He’d read the same story in five different scripts now, all of them pale imitations of the film he’d wrapped last summer—a film that was finishing up a solid run in theaters now. If he had to play another emotionally ambiguous FBI agent or cop or investigator, he’d punch something.

  The two female voices grew louder, far too loud to be down on the beach. No, they were right underneath him, on the porch, and they didn’t sound happy. Glad to be rid of it, he tossed his script aside, took one last sip of his tea, and hopped up to investigate. Just like a cop in one of these horrible scripts. He grinned to himself as he crossed the upstairs hallway and circled down the big, open staircase in the center of the house.

  Yvonne had struck pay dirt with this rental. It was exactly what he’d been looking for, the perfect place to hide away from the rat race for a few months while he figured out what he wanted to do next. With a hat-trick of blockbusters behind him over the past year, a pile of scripts that reached the ceiling, and more money than he’d ever dreamed he would see, it should have been a no-brainer to pick his next project. Yvonne was already breathing down his neck about not having the next three years of his life scheduled. But nothing he looked at seemed right.

  Except this house, he thought as he strode across the elegant dining room and through the cozy living room with its huge fireplace. It’d been ages since he’d taken a real summer vacation, since he’d felt like a real human being and not a series of roles and accolades. He’d only been there for a few days, but already every bone in his body wanted to sink into the place and never leave. It was quiet. It was gorgeous. It was remote. No one knew he was there.

  “…some third-rate motel, or worse, at home, because a real estate big-wig thinks I’m too much of a loser to live a dream for just two months,” one of the women on the back porch was saying. Spence winced at her distress. It made him want to fix something.

  “It’s not that,” the other woman said as he stepped through the screen door and onto the porch. She was blonde and pretty, the kind of woman that turned guys into blabbering idiots at first sight. “Of course you’re not a loser. It’s—”

  “Can I help you?” he interrupted.

  Both women pivoted to face him. Both sets of eyes went round. The blonde’s mouth dropped open, but it was the brunette who stopped his heart in his chest. She was petite, with short, pixie-cut hair, bangs slanting across her forehead. Her t-shirt and jeans were faded and comfortable and fit her curves well
. Her cheeks were rosy in her round face and her brown eyes sparkled. No, not sparkled, she was on the verge of tears. She took one look at him and sobbed.

  “Spencer Ellis?” The blonde gaped as she threw an arm around her friend.

  So much for no one knowing he was there.

  “Yes.” He nodded, stepping closer to the weeping brunette. As badly as he wanted to help, he wasn’t sure what to do. “Is something the matter? What can I do?”

  “Spencer Ellis,” the blonde said again.

  “You’re the person in my house?” The brunette sniffled. She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and made a valiant effort to pull herself together with short, gasping breaths. Her watery eyes stayed fixed on him, as though she didn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  An awkward itch spread across his back. “I’m staying here for the summer,” he answered as simply as he could.

  Apparently, it was the wrong answer. The brunette’s bottom lip quivered. “No,” she spoke in a strained voice, “I’m staying here for the summer.” She buried her face in her hands and moaned. “Of course. Of course they would give my house away to somebody famous and perfect instead of letting me catch just one tiny break.”

  The way she drew out the last three words shot straight to Spence’s heart. He hummed and ran a hand through his hair, glancing around the porch and off across the beach as though an explanation would appear or a director would shout “Cut!”

  “There must be a mix-up somewhere,” he said, stepping closer to her, arms itching to hug her and make things better. “My agent took care of all the arrangements and booked this place last month.”

  “Last month?” the brunette asked. She was tense from the top of her head to her flip-flops, as if battling to keep anger at bay and hold herself together. “I’ve had this house reserved for the last three years. How could anyone walk in just last month and swipe it out from under me?”