The Fireman Finds a Wife. Felicia Mason
To Cameron, her attempt at self-deprecating humor fell a little flat. He’d seen her mouth tremble as she’d fought back the urge to cry after the undeserved dressing down by that woman.
Before he could answer, a horn tooted and they both turned toward the sound.
“Summer Darling! I thought that was you. I heard you were back in town. We still do doubles at the club Saturday mornings. You know you have an open invitation. We’d love to see you.”
“I’ll call you,” she called out to the man who tooted his horn again and waved.
Doubles at the club. Cameron didn’t know if they were talking about tennis, golf or something else. But whatever it was, he knew he didn’t have an open invitation or even a membership at the exclusive country club.
When she turned back to him, Summer looked troubled.
“Cameron, about tomorrow....”
“That’s what I came to see you about.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’ve been very kind. But I’m going to have to back out. I’m sorry.”
Her words couldn’t have been any more shocking. She’d dumped him before he could dump her!
But the snub had the opposite affect on him. Instead of being relieved to have escaped another potential situation like the one with his ex-wife, he suddenly had something to prove—to himself and to Summer.
* * *
“I got cold feet,” Summer told her sister. “One minute, I was anticipating a date with him and in the next, it was like, ‘I can’t do this.’”
Spring was finishing up her own volunteer shift at the free clinic run by the Common Ground ministries. Summer had left Cameron standing in front of Manna and gone straight to the clinic. Spring had always been her sounding board, and tonight was no exception.
“And I hate coming across as the damsel in distress,” Summer said. “He probably thinks I’m some sort of flake.”
“You don’t,” Spring assured her as she slipped off her stethoscope then shrugged out of the white lab jacket she wore at the clinic. She hung it in her locker, scooped up her bag and faced her little sister. “This is an occasion that begs for ice cream. Let’s go.”
Ice cream must have been the solution of the evening. When they reached the Main Street shop, Two Scoops & More was packed with people.
And right in the middle of it all stood Cameron Jackson.
Chapter Seven
“Uh, let’s go somewhere else,” Summer said.
But Spring had spotted the fire chief, as well, and nudged Summer into the crowded ice cream shop.
“Face your fears, little sis.”
Cameron had clearly spotted them and was making his way toward the sisters.
As if sensing his urgency, the throng seemed to open a path for him. Summer turned to retreat, but Spring stopped her.
Summer took a deep breath and braced herself.
Cameron wasted no time getting to the point. “Can you at least tell me why you changed your mind?”
“I just did,” she said, knowing the answer was lame.
Telling her sister the truth was one thing. She couldn’t admit to this man that the reason she didn’t want to go out with him was because he made her nervous. Because even though her husband was dead, going on a date with another man felt like cheating.
It all sounded crazy, even to her own ears.
He’d been kind and considerate at Manna, but her gut was twisted in knots, much like the hot pretzels offered in the ice cream parlor.
“I hope you’ll reconsider,” Cameron said. “Tomorrow is the downtown merchants’ Street Stroll. The Main Street stores are all open late. I thought you might enjoy seeing the new downtown.”
Summer bit her lower lip. She’d seen an ad about the Street Stroll in the newspaper and was planning to come anyway. It sounded like fun. She turned to get Spring’s assessment, but the physician was nowhere in sight. Spring had pulled a disappearing act on her.
“Are you looking for someone?” Cameron asked.
“My sister Spring.”
“She left a moment ago. She waved as I was making my way over to you.”
“Of course she did,” Summer muttered to herself.
It wouldn’t be like a date date, she told herself. They would be outside and around lots of other people. Sort of like right now. She could handle that much better than the prospect of an intimate dinner date.
The other day when she’d told Spring that she didn’t like confrontation, it had been true. She knew the situation with Ilsa Keller was getting out of control. She needed to do something. And then, before she could take the first step in making things better at Manna, Cameron had witnessed her humiliation. There really was no other way to describe that scene in the kitchen. She’d wanted the floor to open up and swallow her when she realized Cameron was standing there seeing the way Ilsa ran the place.
She’d considered leaving, like so many of the other Manna volunteers. But she believed in the soup kitchen’s mission and truly enjoyed the work. The only thing that marred it from being a perfect experience was Ilsa...and Cameron seeing her as someone who needed rescuing.
Summer had spent her entire life being cloistered, first by her parents and then by her husband.
“The stroll only comes around once a month,” Cameron said, “so the timing couldn’t be better. Say you’ll come. Please.”
Summer’s gaze connected with the blue of Cameron’s eyes.
Suddenly all of the East Coast’s butterflies were having a convention in her stomach.
She dipped a toe into the water and gave a small shiver.
“All right.”
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