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  “What happened over spring break made me realize how important you are to my life, Summer. And, well…I know this is, like, the corniest thing in the world to pull, but here goes.”

  Seth reached into his jacket pocket and removed a small black velvet box.

  Instantly Summer knew what it was. She stopped breathing. Before she could sort through all her panicky reactions, Seth was down on one knee.

  “God, I feel like such a dork,” he said. “But you gotta do these things right.”

  When Summer opened her mouth to speak, he hushed her, placing a finger over her lips. “Before you go into logic overdrive, hear me out, okay?”

  She nodded. Her heart was sprinting madly in her chest, but she kept her face expressionless.

  Carefully Seth opened the little box. A small diamond on a simple gold band caught the moonlight.

  He took her hand. “Look, I know that it would be absolutely and completely crazy for us to get married now. I know that, I really do. Maybe it’s even crazy to get engaged now, but—” Seth gave a helpless, endearing shrug. “I guess I just don’t care. Sometimes you do the stupid, crazy thing.”

  He caught Summer’s surprised look and laughed. “Okay, so that’s not the first thing you’d expect to hear from a guy who color-codes his sock drawer. But I just know in my gut this is the right thing for us, Summer. It doesn’t mean we’d have to get married right away. I mean, I think we should finish college first, don’t you?”

  Summer moved her head slightly. It was not really a nod, just an acknowledgment of the question.

  “All I want this to be is a private symbol between you and me that says we love each other and we always will.”

  Summer stared at the ring. Her mother’s ring looked just like this one. Small. Simple. Her mother hadn’t really wanted to bother with it, she’d told Summer. She hadn’t needed a symbol, hadn’t wanted to waste the money. Summer’s dad had bought one anyway.

  And now her parents were separated. Her dad lived in an apartment near his office. He used plastic spoons and forks from take-out places. The empty rooms echoed when you walked through them.

  Her mother slept in the guest bedroom now. At dinnertime she kept forgetting not to set a place for Summer’s dad.

  Carefully Seth removed the ring from its little box. “Summer?” His voice was trembling. “Will you marry me?” He looked up at her and smiled. “Someday?”

  Before she could answer, he slipped the ring onto her left ring finger. It was a little tight, and he had to push to get it past her knuckle. But there it was, shiny and important. It felt heavy on her hand.

  The ring glimmered, a seductive promise. It was simple and easy.

  It promised that even though her parents had messed up, and even though she’d messed up with Austin, things didn’t always have to be that way. It promised that it would always be there, a tight gold reminder on her finger, making life easy just as she was heading out into the big, cold world.

  It promised that sometimes it was okay just to do the stupid, crazy thing.

  It promised to make Austin go away.

  “Summer?” Seth whispered. “Will you?”

  She looked at Seth with tears in her eyes. When she tried to say yes, no sound came out, so she had to nod instead.

  4

  Crab Claw Key, Florida. There’s No Place Like Home. Sort Of.

  “Welcome home, engaged person.”

  Summer’s cousin Diana swung the door to the stilt house wide open. It creaked loudly, just as it always had.

  Summer stepped inside, set down her bags, and breathed deeply. The Florida air was thick and hot, like steam from a teapot. It carried a hauntingly familiar scent, part mildew, part salty ocean tang, part rotting wood, part sweet hibiscus. Not a great smell, some people would say. But to Summer, it was CK One and baby powder and Chanel No. 5 all rolled into one. It was her signature scent: Stilt House No. 1.

  She’d spent the previous summer there, sharing the space with Diver, her brother, and a territorial pelican named Frank, and although she didn’t own the place (her aunt Mallory did), Summer thought of it as her own. The little bungalow was a squat and homely affair, but it was a historical landmark of sorts—rum smugglers had used it during Prohibition in the 1920s. The building sat above the water on wooden stilts. A rickety walkway wrapped around the house, then ran a hundred feet back to the grassy shore. Beyond that sat the huge home where Diana and her mother lived.

  “A plant!” Summer exclaimed, noting the big philodendron on the middle of the wobbly kitchen table.

  “From Mallory,” Diana explained. She never called her mother Mom. “She had some other stuff done, too. New comforter on the bed, new silverware and glasses.”

  Summer opened the cupboard above the sink. “Matching glasses! No more Lion King and Slurpee cups. This is excellent.”

  “Well, you’re practically a married woman now,” Diana said, sitting on the bed in the far corner of the room. “Married women have utensils, Summer.”

  Diana kicked off her sandals and sat cross-legged on the bed. She looked as stunning as ever. Long dark hair, gray, unsettling eyes the color of the ocean on an overcast day. Although they were cousins, Diana had been adopted, a fact that always seemed embarrassingly obvious to Summer when they were together. Diana, who was a year older, exuded confidence like a character who’d walked off the set of Gossip Girl. Which was not to say she hadn’t had her share of troubles. Diana’s confidence masked a tendency toward deep and dangerous depression.

  “For the record, Diana,” Summer said, “I am not practically married. Jeez, I just graduated from high school a few days ago.”

  “But you’re wearing a rock on your left hand.” Diana grinned. “Or should I say pebble?”

  “I already told you.” Summer plopped her suitcase onto the bed. “Seth and I are not engaged, exactly. We’re more like…engaged to be engaged. Semiengaged.”

  “I don’t think you can be semiengaged. It’s like being semipregnant or a semivirgin.” Diana eyed Summer up and down. “Hey, that isn’t what’s going on here, is—”

  “Give me a break!” Summer groaned. “I am definitely not pregnant and definitely still virginal, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Maybe that was the idea, though.” Diana wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Think maybe Sethie had ulterior motives? Figured if you’re practically married, you’d say what the heck…”

  “You’ve known Seth since he was a little kid.” Summer unzipped her suitcase. “What do you think?”

  “No,” Diana conceded, “that doesn’t sound like Seth. He’s the most wholesome, all-American guy I’ve ever met.”

  “You don’t have to make him sound so boring.”

  “I don’t think Seth is boring, Summer,” Diana said. Her voice took on a strange, wistful tone. “I think he’s pretty great, actually.” She stood and went to the window. The drone of a motorboat filled the air. “That’s why,” Diana added, “I thought it was so odd, the call I got a couple of days ago.”

  Summer looked up, a bunch of T-shirts in her arms. “What phone call?”

  Diana opened the little window over the kitchen sink, taking her time. She turned, shaking her head sorrowfully. “The phone call from Austin Reed. The one telling me to pass along the message that he’d see you soon.”

  Summer dropped her shirts on the bed and closed her eyes.

  “Summer, Summer, Summer.” Diana clucked her tongue. “If we’re going to be roommates soon, you have to keep me updated on your romantic escapades. How am I ever going to cover for you?”

  “You don’t need to cover for me.”

  “I did during spring break,” Diana pointed out. “After Seth found you and Austin in, shall we say, a compromising position, wasn’t I the one who had to go around pretending Austin and I were hot for each other?” She sat on the bed and began carefully refolding one of Summer’s T-shirts. “Not that it was such a terrible sacrifice, given that he bears
a striking resemblance to Ethan Hawke. But it was kind of a waste of time, since Seth figured it all out anyway.”

  Summer looked at her cousin. “Diana, that is over,” she said firmly. “Seth understands what happened. He forgave me.” She shrugged. “And if Austin wants to try to get in touch with me, I can’t exactly do anything about it, can I? What do you want me to do, get an unlisted phone number? Maybe I could go into the witness protection program, get a whole new identity.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t bite my head off.”

  “Sorry. I guess I’m just tired, after flying down and everything. I had graduation a few days ago, and then yesterday I saw Seth off to California. I feel like my entire life is changing, and I can’t keep up with it.”

  “Have you talked to Seth since then?” Diana asked with interest.

  “Last night. He said Newport Beach is great and he’s really psyched about the boat building internship. But he wishes he were here.”

  “So do I,” Diana said. She paused. “I mean, for your sake, it would have been great.”

  Summer sighed. “Come on.” She pointed to the door. “I want to check out the view.”

  “Nothing’s changed. Except I think that pelican of yours is actually fatter, if that’s possible.”

  They stood on the weathered deck, leaning gently on the ancient railing. The small island was shaped much like a crab’s claw, with the two “pincers” enclosing a sparkling expanse of turquoise water. Motorboats vied with sailboats and gulls for space on the little bay, and postcard-perfect palm trees hugged the shoreline.

  Frank was perched on the railing. “Hey, Frank, remember me?” Summer asked.

  He responded by pooping on the walkway, then eyeing both girls with obvious disdain.

  “You two really have a rapport going,” Diana commented.

  “Frank was mostly Diver’s friend.”

  “I guess you…haven’t heard from Diver or anything?”

  Summer shook her head.

  “He and Marquez are pretty hot and heavy these days. You’re bound to see him, you know.”

  “I know,” Summer said softly.

  Diana kicked at a loose railing. “You really could come stay up in the main house, Summer. Mallory’s in and out on book tours, and we have, like, a hundred extra rooms.”

  Summer glanced back at her aunt’s ornate pastel house—the perfect dwelling for a successful romance novelist. “I like it here,” she said.

  Diana shuddered. “Roughing it. I just don’t get it.”

  “It’s not just that. This place has lots of memories.”

  “Well, pretty soon we’ll find something cool for ourselves. I can’t wait to move out of Mallory’s.” She nudged Summer. “Maybe you and I should scope stuff out, then let Marquez in on it. She has no taste.”

  “She just has wild, out-there taste.”

  “Like I said.”

  For a few moments they didn’t speak. The waves lapped at the slick wooden stilts with gentle insistence. Summer hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that soothing sound.

  “Summer,” Diana said, breaking the spell, “are you sure about Seth? Really sure?”

  Summer looked out at the familiar, endless vista of blue-green waves. “I’m sure.”

  “How do you know?” Diana asked. “I mean, I’m not sure I’ve ever really been sure.” The uncertainty in her voice was unnerving. Diana usually radiated confidence like a force field. “Sure enough to wear a ring like that one, anyway.”

  Summer hesitated. She and Diana, despite being cousins, were not that close. But it would be nice to confide in someone, and why not Diana? They were going to be roommates for the next three months. It wasn’t as though Summer was going to have any secrets for long.

  “The truth is,” Summer said, choosing her words with care, “I don’t know what ‘sure’ means, exactly. I just know that when I saw this ring, it made sense. I was feeling overwhelmed, I guess. You know, with graduation and college and my parents splitting up, it felt like the whole world had been turned upside down. And then I saw Seth holding this ring in the moonlight, and bam, everything was right-side-up again.” She touched the little diamond. “It made all the pieces fit together. I could see my life, college and being with Seth and everything else, and it felt good, you know?”

  Diana frowned. “So you got engaged because you were feeling confused? I’m not sure that qualifies as the best reason on earth, Summer.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” Summer protested, so loudly that Frank took off in a huff. “I love Seth. Totally.”

  Diana watched Frank resettle in a palm tree farther down the shore. “Sorry. I guess I just don’t understand. But if you’re happy, then I’m happy for you.”

  “I’m definitely happy.”

  “Then I am also definitely happy, once removed.” Diana gave her a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re here, you know that?”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’ll let you get unpacked. We’re going to the beach with Marquez this afternoon, okay?” Diana started down the walkway. “Oh, by the way, Austin mentioned a letter he sent to you. He wondered if you got it.”

  “Um, yeah. Prom day.”

  “Prom?” Diana paused. “Isn’t that when you and Seth got engaged?”

  “So?”

  “So nothing. I was just noting the coincidence, that’s all.” Diana smiled. “Well, anyway, welcome back to paradise.”

  On the big-screen TV in the Olans’ sunken living room, a yoga instructor was breathing deeply.

  Diana’s mother lay on the plush cream carpeting, trying to maneuver an ankle into position. When she saw Diana, she grabbed the remote and muted the TV.

  “If I had Ted Turner’s money, I’d have inner peace, too.” Her mother sat up with a groan. The back of her puffy, lacquered hair was flat. “Summer settled in?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hey, the Institute called. It’s on the machine. They want you to sub for one of the other volunteers.”

  “Thanks. I’ll call them.” Diana hesitated. “You don’t need to, um, bring that up with Summer or anything.”

  “What? Your volunteering with the kids? How come?”

  Diana shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just not anyone’s business, okay?”

  “If you and Marquez and Summer get a place together for the summer, you’re not going to have any secrets. When I was in the dorm at college, the girls on my floor even started getting our periods at the same time. Isn’t that wild?”

  “Well, gross, anyway.”

  Her mother sighed. “I wish you girls would just stay here this summer instead of renting some seedy dive.”

  “Mallory, we have to get some seedy dive so we can feel like we’re properly suffering. It’s a rite of passage.”

  “If you suffered here, you’d have a Jet Ski and an espresso maker. Besides, I’m hardly ever here.”

  “When is your next book tour, anyway?”

  “Pretty soon. West Coast, plus some of those other states. What’s that one that’s shaped like a square?”

  “Wyoming? Colorado?”

  “Yeah, one of those.”

  “You’re not going anywhere near Newport Beach, are you?”

  “There’s a schedule Kara sent me on the table over there.”

  “Mind if I look?”

  “Why? Are you and Summer planning a big party in my absence?”

  Diana rifled through the mass of papers on the table. “Actually, I was thinking I might go with you.” She located the itinerary. “Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles. Excellent. Mallory, how about a little quality mother-daughter time?”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because we are mother and daughter. You wound me.”

  “Uh-huh. What gives?”

  Diana patted her mother on the head. “You’re going to the land of Rodeo Drive armed with credit cards, and you wonder why I want to come along?”

  And if Diana just happened to stop
by and say hello to Seth while she was in the neighborhood, so much the better. There was nothing wrong with a simple hello, was there? It would be an innocent get-together, nothing more.

  Nothing at all like their not-so-innocent get-together last New Year’s.

  “Call Kara and she’ll arrange the tickets.”

  “I’m not exactly sure yet,” Diana said. “I have to wait and see how things go. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  Diana shrugged. “Well, for one thing, I want to get things settled here with Summer. The apartment hunting and all that. I just want to make sure everything’s definite.”

  Like which guy Summer’s decided on, Diana added silently. Summer could deny it all she wanted, but Diana could tell she wasn’t over Austin, not by a long shot.

  It wasn’t fair—not to Austin, not to Seth, and not to Diana.

  A shudder ran through her as she remembered the way Seth had held her that New Year’s night. Long months had passed since then, but she could still hear his whispered, hypnotic voice and feel his lips on hers.

  She’d tried to let it go. She’d written him long, passionate, embarrassing letters, but she kept every one in a little cardboard box. She’d dialed his number on lonely nights, but she’d always hung up at the sound of his voice. Out of a sense of loyalty and guilt, she’d even done her best to help get Seth and Summer back together.

  But what exactly had her honorable intentions gotten her? Summer was halfheartedly engaged to Seth while still infatuated with Austin. And Diana was left out in the cold.

  She headed off to the kitchen. “Want some chocolate-chip cookies? It’s a much more direct route to inner peace.”

  5

  Ex-boyfriends and Ex-brothers

  “Sunscreen, Dr Pepper, beach towel, romance novel, sunglasses, Blistex, brush.”

  Summer surveyed her beach bag with satisfaction. After nine long months of Minnesota weather, it was nice to get back to the basics. She consulted the mirror in her bathroom. The two-piece bathing suit she’d bought to wear over spring break still fit, more or less.