One Summer With Autumn by Julie Reece

Author:Julie Reece [Reece, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: teen, summer, internship., jobs, YA, romance, seasons, employment
ISBN: 9781944816841
Publisher: Swoon Romance
Published: 2016-10-18T04:00:00+00:00

***

Autumn sits on the end of the dock with a ruler and pile of Ziploc bags. A tackle box stands open on her right. Hundreds of brightly colored lures and rubber worms cover her crossed legs.

“Let me get this straight. You need them all measured, catalogued, and color-coded, right?” she asks, tone incredulous.

Not even a little bit. No one at Behr Mountain gives a crap whether we measure to see if each purple, floating trout worm is really three inches long, but Autumn’s measuring her little heart out anyway. Unbeknownst to her, the ten, seven, and four-inch green power worms originally came in separate bags. Before I dumped all three thousand worms into the same bin and asked her to separate and catalogue them.

I’m on the fence as to whether I feel bad about this. When in doubt, I chant her Duck Dynasty wannabe quote to myself until it passes. Or, at least, that’s what I used to do.

Now, I’d like to forget these chores. Erase all the extra crap I came up with in addition to the real product testing she was to do for our company. The trouble is I gave her the task list when she’d first arrived. When I was still angry. There’s no way to undo part of the deception without undoing all of it. She’d never understand, and we’re that close to getting what we need. For both our sakes, I keep to the plan.

“Yep.” I cough. The lies don’t come as easily as they used to, but I won’t have to do it much longer. “It’s important that we keep careful records. Best to stay as organized as possible. You’re doing great work.”

“Okay, thanks.” A pause. “Hey, Silas?”

I stop fooling with the tangled line in my reel and look up. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” My intern chomps her gum with a vengeance. She sets a bag of worms aside, the line between her brows so deep it might become permanent. “Do you think Caden will show up this summer?”

My heartbeat sprints. Has she caught on? Does she know he’s me? I’m silent only because I can’t think how to answer, or dislodge the golf ball sized knot in my throat. She must think I’m waiting for her to continue because she does.

“I only ask because when I met Dex last week, I thought he was Caden, and I almost had a heart attack. Jesse mentioned he’s the one who came to our school.” She picks up a neon green worm; stretching it to the point, she almost yanks its head off.

My muscles relax as I take a calming breath. She’s having a hard time with whatever she wants to say. Her body language is flustered, almost guilty, but I don’t believe it’s about my identity anymore. “Okay. Is that a problem?”

“Not really. Maybe. Actually, yes. See, I’ve already met Caden—once—at the job fair. I’m not sure if he told his family about what happened. It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with the details, but through a misunderstanding with my sister, I mistook Caden for someone else.

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