Secrets in Summer(71)

“I know!” Missy agreed. She shot an evil grin at Darcy. “You just wait, when you have toddlers, you won’t have time or brain power to read a book. You’ll live for the tabloids at the grocery store.”

“I’m much more intellectual than that,” Jordan joked. “I read People.”

“Ice cream,” Dee-Dee said. “We need ice cream.”

“Yes!” Angelica rose. “Darcy, I’ll dish out the ice cream if you’ll take the plates of brownies and cookies in to the guys.”

“Don’t they get ice cream?”

“I don’t know. Depends on how much we women eat.” Laughing, Angelica led the way into the kitchen.

Darcy headed toward the den with plates of cookies and brownies. She paused in the doorway to keep one plate from tilting, and in that moment, she overheard Nash’s voice.

“Yeah, the house is kind of crummy, but I’m tired of throwing my money away on rent. This way I’ll have my own place and a kind of investment.”

“Smart move, Nash,” Lyle said. “Anything on this island is worth gold.”

Darcy froze. Nash was buying a house?

Why did that make her feel so—anxious? Because he hadn’t told her first? Because he was buying his own place?

Because he didn’t foresee a future with Darcy, living in her gorgeous old home?

“What are you doing? Hurry up!” Dee-Dee appeared behind Darcy, carrying bowls of ice cream. “Let’s give the guys their treats and go back to enjoy our own!” She nudged Darcy with her elbow.

Darcy forced a smile on her face and entered the den. Dee-Dee followed with the ice cream, and Jordan showed up with spoons and forks.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a fog for Darcy. She was curious and hurt and impatient. She wanted to be alone with Nash, to hear him talk about his plan for the future.

“What’s up, Buttercup?” Jordan asked as people began to leave.

Darcy shook her head. No way would she tell Jordan how upset she was, not when the men were so near. “I’m just tired,” she explained, shrugging. “I think it’s the heat.”

“I’ll jack up the air-conditioning in my truck,” Nash said, coming up behind Darcy.

Darcy hugged Jordan and walked with Nash to his truck. As they drove toward her house, he was unusually quiet. Darcy didn’t want to ride in silence—that would seem as if she were pouting and, from his point of view, for no reason at all.

“How are the Red Sox doing?” she asked, for the sake of making conversation.

“Lost. I’ll get the postgame report.” Nash punched the radio on and spun the dial until he got to the broadcast.

Okay, Darcy thought. The man doesn’t want to talk to me.

Fine.

When they arrived at her house, she opened the door before the truck came to a complete stop. “Thanks, Nash,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the sportscaster’s.

Nash slammed his foot on the brake and gave her a questioning look.

“I’ve got so much to do,” Darcy told him. She carefully shut the truck door, did an abrupt about-face, and strode to her front door. She didn’t look back to see his reaction.

The moment she was inside, she reached into her pocket for her phone and hit Jordan’s number. Then she canceled the call. Jordan would be dealing with Kiks now. She’d be carrying glasses, bottles, and plates into the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, savoring some quiet moments with Lyle. They might be trading news they’d heard that day, Jordan from the women, Lyle from his buddies.

Lyle might tell Jordan that Nash was buying a property, and Jordan might call Darcy. Or Lyle might not even think to mention Nash to Jordan. Nash wasn’t the center of the world.

Another woman, braver, stronger in self-confidence, might call Nash right now. She might say, pleasantly, rationally, that she’d overheard Nash telling the men he was buying a house on the island.

He might say something sensible, even affectionate, about buying the house.

But Darcy was starting her period, and she felt crampy and bloated and irritable, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to prevent her Most Unperfect Darcy from exploding into a whining, complaining, irrational geyser of accusations— Why did he tell the men first, before telling Darcy? Was Darcy so low on his list of friends— Was that all she was to him, a friend?

She paced the house, talking out loud, trying to offload her anger and hurt into the air, to use up her emotional craziness now, not on the phone with Nash. Muffler, who’d seen her in this state before, slunk away to hide behind the sofa.

Was Nash sleeping with her, just hanging with her, until he found a woman he wanted to spend his life with? Did no one under the age of eighty want to be with her? Her mother and father didn’t want her, her relatives in Illinois were too busy with their own lives to do more than send a Christmas card. Boyz had loved her—she believed he truly had, at first, and never mind the reasons. If it had been simply infatuation, it had been sweet. But it had not lasted. He had chosen Autumn.