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"Maybe he thought it was good, that it would help." I suggested weakly.

He stopped again and smiled at me, but a wry smile.

"C'mon, Summer. You're smarter than I am, even though I'm a year older. You know Roy idolizes your mother. He doesn't just treat her like a stepsister. She just has to look at something she wants done and he's leaping to do it." I looked away quickly.

"I'm not saying your mother doesn't deserve his devotion. She's done a lot for him. but I know there was a time when he thought he could be her husband.'"

"What?" I said spinning back to face him. "How do you know that?" I asked. astounded. He had never so much as suggested such a thing to me.

"I heard a conversation between them once when she was at the house visiting my mother. My mother was in the kitchen, and he thought I was upstairs.

"Your mother didn't encourage him or anything, but I never heard him whine like he did that day, moaning about cruel fate playing a dirty trick on them, making them think they were real brother and sister."

"I know." I admitted. "Mommy's told me about that, but that's over. That's long over."

"It's never over," Harley said. "When you fall so deeply in love with someone, it's like your heart's been scarred forever. Summer. You can do all sorts of things to distract yourself and try to forget, but every time you have an unoccupied moment in your thoughts, she'll come rushing back in like the tide."

"How do you know that?" I asked. impressed.

"I know because it happens to me with you," he confessed. "You're always asking me about other girls I've been with.

Well, that's why it's never worked for me. I see you when I kiss them. You asked. so I'm telling you." he concluded.

I didn't know what to say. I just stared at him. He looked at me and then out at the lake.

"I've got to get home. See you tomorrow," he said and hurried off.

"Harley," I called.

He turned.

"What?"

"I hope you have a good night." He laughed.

"Keep Alison out of the lake and we'll all get some rest," he said.

I watched him walk through the shadows toward his house, toward the deeper shadows that waited within. It filled me with such pangs of sadness: my awn tears, hot and heavy, came flowing down my cheeks. As soon as I entered the house. I ran up to my room and closed my door.

When I looked at my bed. I was suddenly afraid to go to sleep, afraid of my own dreams.

I heard a peal of laughter coming from Aunt Alison's room so I went back to my door and peered out. She was dressed in her shorts and halter. She and Harper were headed for the stairway. I opened my door farther.

"Where are you going. Aunt Alison? Why aren't you resting. like Daddy told you?"

"Resting is for old people. We're heading for the beach. Harper has an uncle who owns a small hotel, and we called ahead and made arrangements to occupy the honeymoon suite."

"Honeymoon suite?"

She laughed and touched my cheek,

"Summer, honey, you don't have to be married to have a honeymoon."

Harper laughed harder.

"Does Mommy know you're leaving?" I asked,

"We're just going down to tell her. I know she'll be heartbroken," she said. Then she leaned closer to me. "Don't let that stupid incident at the music school ruin your sex life, and don't let my little escapade prevent you from going skinny- dipping with Harley. If I was your age. I'd go with him," she added, then laughed and started down the stairs.