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“Me?” Pointing to herself, Alyssa stared back at her in astonishment. “I didn’t tell a damned thing. So how did he know?”
Something flickered in Summer’s eyes then. A glint of evasive knowledge Alyssa was all too familiar with.
“You told Margot!” Disbelief vied with pure outrage. “Why would you do something so ridiculous?” Throwing her hands up in complete surrender, Alyssa turned and stalked to the window. “Just how often did you and my mother conspire against me anyway?”
Summer made her crazy. There was no other word for it. She was like a tidal wave. A tornado or something. She swept in, upended everything, then swept back out again.
“Your momma guessed, Alyssa.” Summer’s voice was soft, saddened. “She wasn’t stupid where you were concerned. And she didn’t care. She was so worried about you.”
“And of course you set her mind at ease,” Alyssa snorted, wondering why she hadn’t guessed that one. “What else did she know that I’m unaware of?”
Turning back to the other woman, she caught the odd expression on her friend’s face before it cleared. Just for a second, she glimpsed a loneliness, a hurt, that filled her with a surge of guilt.
“Why now”—holding a hand to her side gracefully, palm up, Summer gave her another of those innocent expressions—“I just aint sure, sweetie. You know how Margot was. Eyes in the back of her head.”
Eyes in the back of her head.
Alyssa had to force back a sudden smile because Summer wasn’t exaggerating. Margot had known things she should have never known. She could look at her daughter and like a sixth sense, knew things she should have never known.
“She always knew what you were up to, too” she told Summer softly.
Summer rolled her eyes, but a flash of grief in her eyes was all Alyssa needed to see.
“She loved you, Summer,” Alyssa assured her, not in the least jealous of the fact that her mother may well have loved Summer as much as she loved her own daughter. “She loved both of us.”
Summer looked away for a long second. “If she loved either of us enough, then she wouldn’t have done something so damned stupid!” she snapped, then inhaled slowly and shook her head. “Look, I’m really tired, and that damned Raeg just wears me down with all his glares. I’m gonna go to my room. My luggage should be here in a little bit.”
Rising to her feet, Summer shot her a little wink. “Tell those bad boys of yours I said night-night.”
“Summer.” Alyssa moved to the other woman quickly, touching her arm lightly. “Are you okay?”
“Sweetie, I’m always fine,” Summer drawled, flashing her a trademark Summer smile.
“I’m your friend too, Summer,” Alyssa assured her. “It goes both ways.”
For a second, just a second, the loneliness she sensed in her friend shadowed her eyes.
“Sweetie, I’m good as a tick on a hound, I promise,” Summer said, giving her a quick hug and a bright smile. “We’ll talk after we make sure you’re nice and safe. A long girls’ night. I promise.” Stepping to the door, Summer glanced back again. “Jet lag has me, darlin’. See you after a quick nap. ’Kay?”
“Definitely,” Alyssa assured her, for the first time feeling a drift in her friendship with the other woman.
Summer had been her lifeline more than once, and Alyssa realized that in the past two years Summer had told her next to nothing about her own life. Or the hurt lurking in her eyes.
24
Summer wasn’t going to leave. She would gung-ho right into whatever danger could be found at any given moment. That was just Summer. The fact that Margot Hampstead had ensured Summer had the skills to do it just pissed Alyssa off. Margot had made certain Summer was CIA trained and well able to protect Alyssa if necessary. What Margot hadn’t taken into consideration was Summer’s personality.
She was crazy. A cyclone. A tidal wave. And a CIA trained one at that.
She drove everyone she came in contact with insane. Alyssa included herself in that category as well. It was one of the reasons Margot had always kept Summer’s visits rather brief. After a month or so, she and Alyssa began squabbling, Margot would say with a resigned little sigh.
It wasn’t squabbling. They were known to actually fight.
A smile tugged at her lips. They were still prone to fight.
Today had been rather mild, actually. That hadn’t even been a good argument, she thought, amused by the confrontation as she usually was once Summer was out of sight.
It usually took Summer being out of sight, though, for Alyssa to see the humor in it.
