Lost Down Deep by Sara Davison

Author:Sara Davison [Davison, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781777064600
Published: 2020-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Summer set the novel she’d been reading on the arm of the chair. A fire crackled in the woodstove and she breathed in the fragrant scent of maple and sighed. She and Nancy had come into the living room after dinner and Summer had been curled up in the chair for almost two hours, absorbed in her reading. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so relaxed.

Nancy looked up from her knitting. “Everything okay, darlin’?”

“It’s pretty much perfect. I’m not sure I’ve ever spent an evening like this in my life.” Summer yawned and stretched her arms above her head. Charles Dickens, sitting on her lap, lifted his head and meowed in protest at the movement. “Sorry, kitty.” She scratched the big calico cat behind its ears and he lowered his head again, purring loudly.

Nancy rested the knitting needles and wool across her knees. “You didn’t have nights like this in your home growing up?”

If the question didn’t hurt so much, Summer might have laughed. “Not like this, no.”

“What was it like for you?” The words were gentle, as though Nancy understood they might cut a little and was trying to make them as painless as possible.

Summer exhaled. “In Mexico, and then again in Toronto, my parents and I lived in a big, cold house, kind of like a castle, only nothing like a Disney one or anything. Much more cold and sterile. And my parents didn’t spend a lot of time with me—if they spoke to me at all, it was usually to tell me not to make so much noise when I was playing or to turn down my music. Mostly, when I think about it, the word that comes to mind when I think about my childhood is quiet.”

“Funny, the first word that came to my mind was lonely.”

Summer winced. “Yeah, I guess it was that too.”

Nancy tilted her head and contemplated her. “How did you manage it, then?”

“Manage what?”

“To grow up to be such a sweet, loving person?”

She shook her head slightly. “I don’t see myself that way.”

“Well, I do. And when I was in the Taste of Heaven Café the other day, Daphne certainly gave me the impression that’s how she sees you. And from what she said, so does a certain handsome writer who’s taken to hanging out there whenever you’re working. So there you go, you’re outnumbered.”

Summer’s cheeks warmed at the mention of Ryan. What else had Daphne and Nancy talked about? “Of course, if you count my parents, it would be a tie.”

“Then we’ll let Charles Dickens be the tie-breaker. What do you think, Charlie, is our Ana a sweet and loving person or not?”

The old cat stretched a little before settling himself a little more comfortably on Summer’s lap. Nancy laughed. “There you go. You can’t argue with a cat. They have impeccable instincts about people. They’re much more reliable than humans are at judging one another. Or ourselves.”

“I’m sure that’s true.” Summer gently shifted the cat to the side of the chair.

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