Page 12 of Once Upon a Summer Night

Frustrated, she turned to face him. “Sheisfamily, and she needs my help. I’m not letting her go alone.”

“Fine. If you stay, we’ll get her whatever help she needs. Is it Beth? I’ll just call her parents and—”

“No!” Her shout had echoed off the side of the house and out over the still, dark pond. “They’re the reason she’s leaving. We’ll come back eventually, but right now she has to go. We have to go, before it’s too late.”

The chief had folded his arms across his chest. “I refuse to let you.”

“I’m eighteen now, Daddy. It’s not up to you anymore.” She’d turned with her head held high and started for the road once more. Pride fueled her courage. Young, naïve pride.

“Do not leave this yard, Hannah Marie. Don’t you dare.”

“Good-bye, Daddy. I’ll call when we—”

“If you leave tonight, don’t bother calling.”

She’d paused to look back. Saw the rage brewing in his eyes. Rage that only added to her own. “Fine.”

“I mean it, Hannah. If you go through with this, there’s no coming back. Do you understand me? You will be cut off from this family forever.”

She hung her head and forced the rest of the memory away, her father’s threat a dagger to her heart even after all this time.

“The roof,” Chase said softly from somewhere behind her, slightly out of breath. “Only you would ask to meet up here.”

She turned to watch him hoist himself up and over the rooftop ledge. The streetlamps weren’t needed up here, the night sky clear and the moon nearly full. “It was that or come walking in the front door. I figured there would be less heckling for the both of us up here.”

“You got that right.” He motioned toward a pair of lawn chairs, folded flat near where he stood. “Care for a seat?”

Whoa, were those the same chairs from when they were kids?

“I’d love one, thank you.” Hannah watched him set them in place, then took the one closest to her. That cool, clean scent of his teased her senses anew. “You still come up here on occasion, huh?”

“Eh, someone’s gotta keep the pigeons from roosting.”

Chase leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out long and hands crossed behind his head. He was comfortable, a man in his element. This had been her element, too, long ago. Heck, there wasn’t a place in this town that they hadn’t explored or gotten chased from together. While the other kids their age were playing video games or inside with their toys, Hannah and Chase were out riding their bikes, climbing trees, and going on as many grand adventures as time and weather would allow.

“You’ve turned anti-pigeon?” she teased.

“I’m anti anything that poops on our shiny red engines.” He shrugged. “More work for us.”

“Truth. Though, I gotta admit—I didn’t picture you sticking around to follow in my old man’s footsteps.”

With a twitch of his lips, Chase’s gaze shifted from hers. “It wasn’t in my original plans. But one taste of chasing fires and I was hooked.”

Hannah smirked. It’d been the same way for her, too. “I’m sure you’re amazing at it.”

“That a guess, or what your sisters told you?”

“Both,” she admitted. “But can you blame me? I mean, when we were kids, everything you touched for my father turned to gold.”

That twitch found his lips again. Someone was working really hard to mind his p’s and q’s tonight. Fair, but not the Chase she remembered.

“Not everything,” he murmured, gaze shifting to the horizon. “So, you finally gonna spill on what happened after you two took off without me or just keep dancing around the elephant here with us on the roof?”

Okay, that was more like the Chase she remembered. “Well, since you know I’ve always sucked at dancing, I best get to explaining. Though, in all fairness, we’d all agreed that when the clock struck twelve, no matter who was missing, it was time to fly.”

“I was never mad that you left. What hurt was that you never circled back.”

“Why would I, when you never responded to my letters?”

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