Read Online The Summer House by Susan Mallery - Free Book Online Page A

difficult.”
    She nodded. Rick had always been a whiz on a computer.
    She stepped back to allow him in, then closed the door and followed him into the living room. He glanced around. When he motioned to the sofa, she nodded again, taking a seat across from him in an old club chair.
    To her mind, Cassie’s summer home had always been a wonderful place to visit. A block from the ocean, the sunny patio with the BBQ and comfortable furniture had made this pretty darned close to paradise. Right up until she’d seen Rick’s place. By comparison, the beach house was barely an upgraded double-wide.
    Perspective, she thought, trying to find the humor in the situation. Life was all about perspective.
    “I’m sorry about what happened,” Rick said, setting his sunglasses on the worn coffee table between them and resting his forearms on his thighs. “Seeing each other after all these years was enough of a shock without throwing anything else into the mix. I guess the chemistry got the better of us.” He gave her a slight smile. “I was never a fan of chemistry.”
    “It certainly seems to have gotten us into trouble,” she said with a shrug. While she appreciated his apology, she wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by it. Was he sorry they’d made love? Or for what happened afterward? Not that she was feeling brave enough to ask at the moment.
    “I’m sorry, too,” she said, and made a vague gesture.
    He nodded. “I started thinking after you left. About why my mom suggested we get together. You know she doesn’t do anything without a reason. In this case she was right, we do have unfinished business between us.”
    His words were a little too close to what she and Cassie had talked about for comfort. She shifted in her seat. “Is that a surprise? I would think most divorced couples have left a few untrimmed threads. Does that have to be significant?”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Mandy, two hours ago we were making love. I’m going to guess that makes our untrimmed threads damned significant.”
    Well, if he was going to put it like that. “Okay. Maybe.” She rubbed her temples. Trouble was coming; she could feel it all the way down to her bones.
    “I think we need to straighten this out so we can both move on with our lives,” he said.
    She glared at him. “I’ve sort of figured that out for myself.”
    With a little help from Cassie. Not that she wanted to. Let the threads dangle—that was her motto. Except there was every possibility that Rick was the reason she hadn’t once fallen in love in the past eight years.
    “I thought you might,” he said. “So what do we do now?”
    She sighed. Lord but she hated being mature. “Idon’t know. Spend time together, I guess. Talk about stuff.” She narrowed her gaze. “Stay out of bed.”
    A flicker of fire flared to life in his eyes. “You sure about that one?”
    “Absolutely.”
    She was lying, but he didn’t have to know that.
    “I’ll agree to your terms,” he said. “But only on one condition.”
    “Which is?”
    “You won’t tell my mom she was right.”
    Mandy stared at him, then burst out laughing. He had a point. Jo would hold it over them for months.
    “I won’t say a word,” she promised. “I don’t want to hear about it any more than you do.” She leaned forward a little. “This is a real mess. How did we get here?”
    “I don’t know. You’re the woman. Aren’t you supposed to be the relationship expert?”
    He was being funny, but she didn’t smile. “I’m hardly an expert. If I was…a lot of things would have been different.”
    “Like what?”
    Like a thousand things, she thought sadly. “I would have talked to you more. Told you what I was feeling. I wouldn’t have—” Gee, they were going to jump right into this, weren’t they? “I wouldn’t have used sex as a weapon.”
    He winced. “We’re both guilty of using sex to get what we wanted,” he said. “I used it to tell you I cared about you, because