Free Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 by Allie Boniface Page A

away for good.
    “Hey, you okay? You look a little—”
    “I’m fine.” Summer reached for the car to steady herself. “I just…”
    Gabe nodded. “I know. Been working as an EMT for close to five years. Never gets any easier.”
    “You—you do this? All the time?” She stared at him. “How?” In God’s name, after everything they’d been through, how?
    He studied the man with the flares and didn’t answer. “I heard you were coming back.” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “Scared the shit out of me, you want to know the truth.”
    She could have asked why, but she already knew the answer. Seeing you again makes it real. Reminds me of what happened. Makes my heart ache all over again.
    “You look good,” he said after a minute. “Not so scary after all.”
    She laughed and lifted a hand to her hair. Strands had fallen and stuck to her cheeks. “So do you.”
    He shrugged.
    “I sort of own a house here now,” she went on.
    “The McCready place.”
    “Heard that too?”
    “You know how people talk.” Kind eyes met hers and held them. “How long are you staying?”
    “Only another few days. Long enough to list the place with Sadie Rogers. Then I’m heading back to San Francisco.”
    “Ah.” The rescue truck roared to life. A lanky arm waved from the driver’s side window, and the horn beeped. Gabe raised a hand in acknowledgement. “Guess I’d better go.”
    Summer nodded, not sure if relief or disappointment kept her from speaking.
    “Do you…” His expression sobered. “Do you want to get together? Maybe have a drink or lunch or something?”
    Her chest tightened. Peel back the layers of ten years? Make conversation about the present while the past sat on the table between them and waited for attention? The hazy flashbacks swarming her waking hours were one thing. Facing the one person who could bring them all to life was something else altogether.
    Gabe spoke again before she could answer. “Never mind. Probably better we don’t. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do before you go back anyway.”
    Summer nodded as he walked away and thought that was the smartest thing anyone had said to her in a long time.

Chapter Seven
    “Can I help?” Dinah perched on the curb as Damian unloaded bags of supplies from the trunk of the car. She jumped on first one foot and then the other, across the sidewalk and back.
    “Not with this, ladybug.” He juggled two bags of supplies and set them on the ground. Reaching inside the front door of the Camaro, he pulled out a smaller paper bag. “But you can carry lunch.”
    The girl wrapped both arms around it. “What is it?”
    “Sandwiches from the deli. Turkey and tomato, your favorite.”
    Dinah grinned.
    “And salami with lots of peppers and onions for Mac,” Damian added.
    “’Bout time too,” a gruff voice called from the front lawn. “I’m starving.” Mac stuck his head through the hedgerow and winked at Dinah. “So you’re the one with the food, little lady?”
    She nodded, her face aglow. “Right here.”
    “You get pickles?”
    “And soda and chips.” Carrying the supplies, Damian followed his boss and Dinah around to the back porch.
    The three sat in their usual spot on the steps. Mac dug into the bag and passed around cellophane-wrapped sandwiches, and Damian broke open the bottles of soda and handed Dinah a stack of napkins. Within a minute, a moustache of mustard spread across her freckled face.
    “Is that mine?” He pretended to reach for the sandwich she held, but Dinah jumped to her feet and dashed down the steps and around the side of the house. At the corner she stopped, one eye on her brother, and ate the rest of her sandwich through giggles.
    “Damn, she’s cute,” Mac said around a mouthful of pickle.
    Damian nodded.
    “How’s your mom?”
    “Pretty good.”
    “She working?”
    “She did the books for a place in Silver Valley, few months back. Didn’t work out.”
    Mac stood, one hand massaging his left