One Summer’s Knight Read online

  It was true, though-today was her anniversary. The family was even now gathering for the celebration; tonight the whole Starr clan would be here for barbecue and black-eyed beans and corn bread, and plenty of fresh blackbernes to go with the homemade ice cream. But where in the world had the year gone? It had passed in a moment, a snap of the fingers, the blink of an eye. And yet, so much had happened in that time.

  To begin with, there’d been the amazing and hectic week leading up to the wedding, when Mirabella’s best friend and maid of honor, Charly Phelps, having flown out from Los Angeles a week early, had somehow managed to get herself thrown in jail in the tiny Alabama hill town of Mourning Spring. And when Troy, Jimmy Joe’s oldest brother and best man, had gone to see what he could do about bailing her out, in spite of the fact that Charly had once pledged to loathe and despise all things Southern until her dying day, they’d wound up falling in love. Speaking of miracles! They’d gotten married, themselves, just last fall. Now, to top it all off, Charly was pregnant and, at this very minute, upstairs in the guest bathroom suffering through a horrendous bout of morning sickness.

  As if that hadn’t been enough excitement, just two days before Mirabella’s wedding, her sister Summer had arrived in a U-Haul truck packed with all her worldly goods, including her two kids and a motley assortment of animals, having just filed for a divorce from her husband of ten years, that irresponsible bum, Hal. And that was just the beginning! It seemed that Hal-

  “Hey, Marybell, how’s it goin’?” Jimmy Joe’s whisper in her ear spilled a cascade of shivers down her spine.

  “Fine,” she whispered back. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Ah, that was just my brother Calvin.”

  “Customer problems?”

  “Nothin’ he can’t handle.” He leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take more’n that to pull me away on our anniversary, darlin’.” He straightened and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Got to run over to the house, though. Cal’s needin’ some numbers. Be right back.”

  Mirabella nodded and replied with a brisk “See you later.” But her brow furrowed as she watched her husband squeeze past Troy and Charly’s huge yellow-eyed chocolate Lab, who had parked himself in front of the screen door. Poor Bubba was suffering divided loyalties, what with Charly throwing up in the bathroom and Troy gone off to the store to find her some saltines and cola for her nausea.

  Out on the lawn, Jimmy Joe had paused to swing Amy up in a quick hug before handing her over to J.J. and Sammi June. Mirabella watched him with a familiar lump in her throat until he’d driven away in their silver-gray Lexus. But when she turned back to the panful of dusty blackberries in front of her, her gaze was snared instead by another pair of wise brown eyes with a golden gleam of fire lurking in their depths.

  It’s the fire, Mirabella thought suddenly. That’s what’s missing from Jimmy Joe’s eyes these days.

  “Problems?” Jimmy Joe’s mama, Betty Starr, asked softly.

  Mirabella shook her head. “He just needs to get some information for Cal. He’ll be right back.” Her gaze dropped to her berry-stained fingers as she quirked a wan half smile and muttered, “Paperwork. Always something.” But she knew the evasion was useless; when it came to her kids, Jimmy Joe’s mama didn’t miss much, and it was a pretty safe bet that she hadn’t missed the worry in Mirabella’s eyes.

  Okay, maybe worry was too strong a word, but concern, at least. And she didn’t even know if she was justified in that. After all, in the last eighteen months, her husband’s trucking business had grown beyond anyone’s hopes and dreams, thanks to the hoopla over Amy’s birth. All the major networks had carried the story of the gallant trucker delivering a baby on a snowbound interstate on Christmas Day. Jimmy Joe had been an overnight sensation, a hero, albeit a reluctant one. Job offers had begun pouring in almost immediately and hadn’t slowed down since. As a result, instead of the one Kenworth Jimmy Joe had nicknamed “The Big Blue Star,” Blue Star Transport now owned a fleet of six trucks and counted two of the Starr brothers, Calvin and Roy, among its drivers. Jimmy Joe still had more business than he could handle and was looking for a piece of property on which to build Blue Star Transport’s new terminal. Mirabella just wished she could be certain all this success was making the man she loved happy.

  From over at the sink, where she was up to her elbows in jam jars and soapsuds, Jimmy Joe’s sister Jess, mother of Sammi June, gave a cackle of laughter. “Paperwork-now, there’s something I just can’t picture. I sure never did figure Jimmy Joe for a businessman, did you, Mama?”

  Betty said, “Oh, I think he can be anything he sets his mind to.” And she smiled at Mirabella and winked as if to say, Don’t worry about that one, hon-he knows what he’s doing. Life is always goin’ to have its little ups and downs…

  Mirabella nodded as the sounds of running water and banging doors came once again from overhead. All four women-Betty and Jess, Granny Calhoun and Mirabella-glanced upward and exchanged empathetic glances and sighs. They’d all been through it before.

  When it got quiet upstairs again, Granny Calhoun, her twiglike fingers nimbly stemming blackberries, aimed a sly, sideways look at Mirabella and croaked, “You’re lookin’ broody, y’sef. Got those dark circles und’neath your eyes. You keepin’ secrets, baby girl?”

  “Secrets?” Mirabella frowned. “No, I just haven’t been sleeping very well the last few days for some reason, that’s all.” Suddenly aware of the listening stillness, she looked up and encountered three pairs of avid eyes. Heat flooded her cheeks. She laughed. “What? Oh, no-not me. I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you’re thinking. No way.” At least, I hope not. Please, God. Jimmy Joe sure doesn’t need anything else to worry about. Please God, not now… She brushed back her hair with a careless hand, leaving smears of purple juice. “I think I’ve just been worried about Summer and Evie.”

  “Your sisters?” Betty lifted a kettle off of a burner before she turned, eyebrows raised in concern. “What’s the trouble, hon? Summer doin’ okay? I know she’s had a pretty tough time, startin’ all over and all.”

  “She’s doing okay, as far as I know.” Inspired, Mirabella gave another laugh and embellished it with a touch of embarrassment, hoping it would be enough to account for the blush. “I’ve just been…well, I’ve been dreaming about her lately. Evie, too. A lot.”

  Granny Calhoun cried, “Hah!” Betty smiled and picked up a wooden spoon and went back to skimming.

  Relieved at the success of her diversion, Mirabella let out a breath and muttered, “Not that I’m superstitious.” Well, she never had been in her life, before. Since coming to live in the South, and the way things had worked out with her and Jimmy Joe, and then Troy and Charly, she’d had to rethink some of her former convictions.

  Granny Calhoun gave a little jerk and laughed suddenly, a sound like a twig scratching on a windowpane. She pointed a crooked finger at Jess and said, “My sister Effie-that’s your great-aunt Eufemia-thought she had the second sight, you know. You ask me, she just liked the attention it got her. All that stuff is just a bunch of hooey, anyway.” She gave a snort and went back to stemming berries. After a moment she peered up at Mirabella, turtlelike, from her osteoporotic crouch. “Dreams, now. Just means you can be expectin’ a visit sometime soon. That’s all that is.”

  Over at the sink, Jess nudged her mother with an elbow and said slyly, “Hey, Granny, I thought all that was just a bunch of hooey.” Mirabella hid her smile.

  Granny Calhoun said nothing, taking her time picking out a particularly nice ripe berry and putting it in her mouth. She ate it with soft, sucking noises, then delicately spat out the husk into her hand. “There’s hooey,” she said, “and then there’s fact. You dream about somebody, they’ll be a’visitin’ soon, and that’s a fact.”

  “Summer’s coming for the party,” said Mirabella. “Does that count?”

  But Granny Calhoun had lost interest and was searching through the berries for another that l
ooked good enough to eat.

  “You ever get ahold of Evie?” Betty asked as she tossed the wooden spoon into the sink and reached for a clean, scalded jar.

  Mirabella shook her head. “I’ve left messages on her machine. She’ll get around to me when she gets back from wherever she’s gone off to, I guess.”

  “She’ll be comin’,” Granny Calhoun croaked suddenly. “You can bet on it. Mark my words.”

  “Who’s comin’?” Troy asked as he and Jimmy Joe clomped into the kitchen, leaving a disappointed Bubba whining outside the screen door. Jimmy Joe came to lean on the back of Mirabella’s chair and drop a kiss onto the top of her head while Troy carried his plastic grocery sack over to the counter.

  Granny Calhoun lifted one frail arm to point at Troy and instructed, “Pour some’a that cola in a bowl and let it go flat. You want it flat to settle the stomach.”

  Troy said, “I will, Granny,” and then asked his mother in a soft aside, “Where is she? Still throwin’ up?”

  “Umm-hmm.” Her hands full, Betty used her head to point the way. Troy gave a worried sigh and headed for the stairs.

  “Who’s comin’?” Jimmy Joe softly inquired of the back of Mirabella’s neck.

  Breathless and prickly, she had opened her mouth to reply when Granny’s gnarled, blue-veined hand suddenly clamped onto her forearm. “Don’t you fret,” the old lady chirped, berry-stained lips curving in a smile of innocence belied by the crafty gleam in her sharp old eyes. “I’m gon’ keep your secret for you, don’t you worry.”

  Mirabella’s breath exploded in a gust. Jimmy Joe straightened up and said, “What secret?”

  Over at the sink, Jess sang out, “Hah-I knew it Granny’s never been wrong yet.”

  Betty made an exasperated noise and muttered, “Mama, for Lord’s sake.”

  Jimmy Joe said, “What secret’s she talkin’ about?”

  Granny Calhoun cast her eyes demurely downward and turned her fingers at her lips, pantomiming turning a key in a lock.

  “Marybell?” Jimmy Joe’s hands were gentle but insistent on her shoulders.

  Trapped.

  But fate must have been on her side, because at that moment, Bubba rose up from his post beside the screen door and launched himself down the porch steps in full cry. Out on the lawn, the excited yells of children blended with the clatter and thump of a badly tuned engine. The unmistakable smell of burning petroleum products drifted into the kitchen.

  Mirabella gulped out a laugh and sprang to her feet “Summer’s here!” she cried, and brushing a kiss across her husband’s perplexed half smile, she went out to greet her youngest sister, her heart pounding with relief and a certain guilty excitement.

  Chapter 2

  “Happy anniversary!” Summer sang as Mirabella hugged her. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  “Yeah, I know, I was just thinking the same thing. Mmm, it’s good to see you. I’m glad you were able to get away.”

  “Me, too.” Summer broke the hug and held her older sister, tinier by at least a head, at arm’s length. “You look great.” She looks tired, she thought. I hope everything’s all right.

  “And how are the little darlings?”

  Summer winced and bit back a defensive retort. Sure, the kids had been a bit difficult, and with everything they’d gone through, who could blame them? But-she took a deep bream-Bella was Bella. Yes, she could be judgmental at times, especially when it came to other people’s kids, and Summer couldn’t deny the twinges of hurt. But it was her sister’s anniversary, and the last thing she wanted was to quarrel. She owed Bella and her family so much, and not just the money for the judgment, either. Without their help and acceptance…

  She took a breath and said evenly, “They’re doing okay. David intemalizes, Helen vents-that’s about normal for them.”

  Her sister made a little grimace, using her fingers to rake a wave of hair back from her face. “Sumz, I’m sorry.”

  So easily the pain was erased. Summer laughed and touched the smear of purple on her sister’s temple. “Hey, look-I know they’re monsters, okay? Forget it-help me bring stuff in from the car.”

  “Car? That’s using the term loosely,” Mirabella muttered as they approached the old clunker. Already back in form, she had her nose wrinkled up and was looking alarmed, as if she thought the oxidation and blotches of rust on the Oldsmobile’s greemsh-blue paint job was some sort of disease that might be caught by her shiny silver Lexus.

  “Hey, I’m just glad it runs.” Summer had wrenched open the back door and was gathering up the detritus of a three hour car trip with a nine-year-old and a five-year-old-coloring books and broken crayons, David’s tattered gray “bunny” blankie, Helen’s fearsome-looking rubber lizard, and assorted pillows, Gameboy cartridges, shoes and socks.

  She reached between the front seat backs and took a paper grocery sack from the passenger seat and peered anxiously into it The African violet had survived the trip, she saw with relief. She handed it to Mirabella with a careless “Here, this is for you and Jimmy Joe. Happy anniversary.” But her chest was tight and her cheeks burned with shame. Her sister’s first wedding anniversary, and all she had to give her was a two-dollar plant from the flower department at Winn Dixie.

  But Bella was cradling the paper bag as if it contained the crown jewels. “Oh, Sumz, you didn’t have to do this.”

  Summer couldn’t look at her. “The kids have something for you, too. Refrigerator magnets with their pictures on them They made a card.” Keeping her back turned. Keeping her distance. Don’t hug me, Bella, please don’t hug me. If you make me cry, I’ll never forgive you.

  From behind her she heard a huffed-out breath, a small laugh, quivery with unexpected emotion. Bella? Sentimental? Oh, God, what did that mean?

  But all her sister said was “Well. This is so nice. My very first anniversary present. Thank you.” And after a moment she added, “You didn’t bring the beasts?”

  Blinking away the tickle of tears, Summer straightened with her arms full and said lightly, “I assume you mean the furred and-feathered kind? The vet I work for was kind enough to keep them for the weekend.”

  “Nice of him,” said Mirabella, her voice carefully neutral. There was a pause, filled with the hum of a June afternoon, punctuated with the nearby yips and cries of romping children. And then her voice came softly, oddly tentative for Bella. “Sumz? You okay?”

  Caught off guard, Summer threw her a look of genuine surprise. The Bella she knew from childhood had never been so sensitive to the moods of others. “Yeah, sure. Why?”

  “You sure? This is your sister talking-The Sisters Waskowitz, remember?”

  Just for a heartbeat, Summer’s resolve wavered. The old childhood nickname along with her sister’s tone of unwonted concern had almost thrown her for a minute; it was going to take a while to get used to this kinder, gentler Mirabella.

  She felt a sudden wave of emotion-nostalgia, but with sadness in it, and regret, too. The Sisters Waskowitz. That was how they’d been known in the small California desert town where they’d spent their growing-up years. The police chiefs kids-two tall blondes and one short, spunky redhead. Evie, with her venturesome spirit and flair for the dramatic, always into something new and outrageous, like as not making the local papers, setting the standard of infamy for her sisters to live up to and the town on its ear in the bargain. Mirabella, the redhead, the brain, the feisty, pint-size dynamo with the king-size chip on her shoulder. And finally, Summer, quieter than her sisters, the one everyone depended on, the one people came to with their troubles. Summer, who could fix things- and animals. Summer, who would always find a way to make it better.

  The Sisters Waskowitz. The three of them, so different, and yet so close. As children, anyway. What had happened to them? How was it that as adults they’d grown so far apart? Until Bella’s wedding last summer, it had been years since they’d been in close and frequent touch.

  Suddenly, as if her thoughts had
been wandering along similar paths, Mirabella said, “Have you heard from Evie?”

  “Not for a while.” Summer nudged the car door closed with her hip. “Last I heard, I think she was in Vegas.”

  “Here, let me take something… Vegas? That’s not so bad.”

  Summer gave a short laugh as she relinquished a pillow and a plastic grocery sack full of fast-food trash; compared to some of the places their sister’s career as a documentary filmmaker had taken her, Las Vegas did seem reasonably tame.

  They were walking slowly toward the house when Mirabella frowned and added, “So, you’d think she’d call.”

  This time, Summer’s one-note laugh said, Evie? Our Evie? You’ve got to be kidding’ “Oh, you know,” she said, smiling at the ground, “Evie immerses herself in her work.” Neither would ever think to call their sister selfish-it was just her way She let a beat or two go by, then slanted a look at her sister. “Are Charly and Troy here?” It was the right timing and she kept it casual, but under her ribs she could feel her heart quicken as she waited for the answer. If anyone could help her now, Troy and Charly could. Not only was Charly a lawyer, but Troy was a private investigator. And hadn’t she heard someone say that he’d once been a navy SEAL?

  Mirabella’s smile tilted wryly. “They’re upstairs. Charly’s lying down. She hasn’t been feeling too well.”

  Summer’s heart gave a lurch. She could feel it now, tap-tapping away at the base of her throat. “Oh? What’s the matter? She’s not sick, is she?” Please don’t let her be sick. Not now. Not when I need her so badly.

  Mirabella gave a little gasp of chagrin. “Oh, God, that’s right, I haven’t told you the news-Charly’s pregnant!”

  “Pregnant…” Summer’s heart sank into her stomach, where it continued to pulse away, now a dismal little drumbeat. “That’s… wonderful.”