One Distant Summer Read online

  One Distant Summer

  Serena Clarke

  Free Bird Books

  Contents

  One Distant Summer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Thanks for reading!

  Also by Serena Clarke

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  One summer can change everything.

  * * *

  Jacinda Prescott spent one life-changing summer in Sweet Breeze Bay, New Zealand, and left disaster in her wake. Since then, she’s thrown herself into her music career, and her life in LA. But when the price of fame threatens to become more than she’s willing to pay, the distant bay calls her back.

  * * *

  Liam Ward walked away from everything he knew after the death of his talented brother, the guy Jacinda loved and lost. When he finally returns to the bay, looking for closure, she’s the last person he expects to find—and the last woman he should fall for.

  * * *

  Stuck as neighbors for the summer, their off-limits attraction is hotter than the South Pacific sun. But the secret that ties them together is the one thing that could destroy her career, and break their hearts all over again. As the bay works its magic, they realize that this time, one distant summer might bring them closer than they ever expected…

  For Dee…

  my favorite peninsula girl, wherever you roam.

  Chapter One

  You never know what your last straw will be, until it’s right in front of you.

  Over the years, Jacinda Prescott had put up with enough to send most people running for the exit, or the vodka bottle, or a little plastic bag of something uplifting. She’d avoided all those excesses…mostly. But now, she was literally staring her last straw in the face. He was over-tanned and over-confident, smug with his own power, slick enough to oil a grill. And he had no idea how far he’d pushed her this time.

  She leaned back, resting her butt against the dressing room counter, and looked him in the eye. He was one of a sadly not-dying breed: a record label exec who still believed in the power of the casting couch, and counted on the silence of the female artists who felt dependent on him. Behind her, the bulbs around the mirror framed them in a square of warm light, and flowers sent by her friend Hannah before the show sat on the countertop. He thought he had the better of her, one hand on the curve of her waist in its black sequined bustier, the other hand pushing her cropped jacket aside to grab at her breast.

  “I understand exactly, Greg,” she said, in answer to his question.

  His face lit up as he leaned toward her, but there was uncertainty there too, as if he couldn’t quite believe her change of attitude.

  “You should have done this long ago.” He pulled her closer, grinding his hard-on against her, and murmured, “A tour like this could take you to the next level. A lot of people will be glad to hear it.”

  Did she dare? His beard scratched her skin, and this close she could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes, along with whatever dirty thoughts he was fermenting.

  Yes, apparently she did dare.

  She smiled sweetly. “Will your wife and kids be glad to hear it?”

  As his face changed, she hesitated only for a moment. Her stage heels brought her to just the right height, and she used every inch of it, lifting one knee with violent force. As he crumpled, she turned abruptly and opened the door he’d locked behind him when he came in.

  “I don’t want your tour if it comes packaged up with you, Greg. Go home to your wife. And every time the phone rings, wonder if it’s me calling to tell her what a cheating asshole her husband is.”

  She grabbed up her bag and the flowers and strode out, heart pounding, leaving her last straw doubled over and groaning behind her.

  Out in the corridor, the first thing she saw was her manager, Todd Sheehan, looking determinedly casual.

  “Oh, have you guys finished?” he asked.

  She stared at him, realization dawning. He looked shifty. There was no other word for it.

  “Are you kidding me? Did you send him in?”

  He looked anywhere but at her. “Well, he wanted to talk business, so…”

  “Yeah, the business of me sleeping with him in return for a national tour. I told you he’d still been hitting on me. Isn’t my manager supposed to protect me from all that?”

  At that moment Greg came out of the dressing room, still holding a hand against his groin. When he saw Todd there with her, he stood straighter, pulling his ego around him again.

  “You need to think about what you’re doing,” he told her. “You’re not getting any younger. There are plenty of kids coming through who’d take your place in a heartbeat.”

  He turned and walked away, and she resisted the urge to give his back the finger.

  “I hope you’re not trying to screw them, too,” she called after him, well aware of the other people in the corridor. He didn’t reply, but she had the satisfaction of seeing his back stiffen.

  Not getting any younger. She’d got her start later than most, after years living the cliché of waiting tables by day and playing dives and dead-ends at night. Now, at twenty-seven, she was a good decade older than some of the girls he threatened her with. Girls who found themselves going along with being dressed up and sexed up in the name of marketing and promotion, especially when they were told it was non-negotiable. And guys like Greg—making the most of his job in the artists and repertoire division—were more than ready to trade on that willingness, promising them breaks in return for sexual favors. She’d had plenty of offers herself, but so far, her guitar playing and songwriting had been enough to open doors. She knew the serious boobage she carried right there above her guitar didn’t hurt her appeal any. But she never tried to purposefully shift the attention upward to those assets, despite the increasing pressure from her management team at Altitude Records.

  Todd shifted into placating mode. “Listen, I know that guy’s an ass. Everyone knows it. But they just want you to be successful. And I think you deserve a bigger audience than you have, too.”

  “I don’t want a bigger audience if I have to be half naked to get it, no matter what some A&R guy dangles in front of me.”

  He sighed. “Jesus, Cin, loosen up, why don’t you? You’re a beautiful woman, what’s the problem? You should make the most of it.”

  His eyes fell to her chest, where her double Ds—her blessing, her curse—swelled from the bustier.

  She looked down at them herself, then back at him, pointedly. “Seriously?”

  He had the grace to look sheepish, but only slightly. “I’m only human.”

 
“You’re married to my best friend.”

  Hannah McBride—now Hannah Sheehan—wasn’t just Jacinda’s friend. She was also her assistant, and her sanity in a crazy world. They’d met when Jacinda arrived in Pleasanton in sophomore year, the start of her longest stint anywhere since her dad left. Hannah had seen her through some tough times, so if anyone commented that Hannah was lucky to go along on this ride, she set them straight—Jacinda was the lucky one.

  “Yeah, well…” Todd shrugged. “You wouldn’t have me.”

  His tone was joking, but she hated that he’d even go there, because she knew there was truth behind the lightly spoken words.

  “Todd, stop.” She pulled the little jacket closed, but it wouldn’t fasten across the front. Damn.

  He grinned. “It’s a selling point, is all I’m saying. Use what God gave you. Hourglass Reverb got its name for a reason.” He made an hourglass shape in the air with both hands, raising an eyebrow.

  She put her hands on her hips, where the curves angled in to her waist. “There’s a difference between a selling point and selling out. The music is the selling point.”

  Hourglass Reverb. It was one of the first songs she’d ever written, and the title had seemed so perfect that it became the name of her band. Except the band was her—or her alter ego, Cin Scott, a name she’d agreed to when she was more pliable than she was now—with an occasionally changing lineup of musicians. When it was finally released, Hourglass Reverb had been her breakout song, hitting the Billboard Hot 100, and now they were trying to build on that success. Her brand of feisty, melodic rock, studded with poignant moments, had brought her a core base of loyal fans, even if she hadn’t gone stratospheric.

  But she wasn’t about stratospheric—for her, there was more to it than fame and money. As a teenager, she’d learned that her own strength was the only thing she should expect to rely on (apart from Hannah). With her father gone, and her mother battling depression and anxiety as they moved from town to town, music was her refuge—her safe place from the world. When a high school music teacher recognized her passion, and gave her an old electric guitar and a cheap amp, she knew she was holding something that would never let her down. And it hadn’t…unlike some of the people it had led her to.

  Todd persisted with his cause. “Music and sexiness aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, hello.”

  “Go find Hannah, and go home,” she told him. “God only knows how she puts up with you.”

  “It’s your fault,” he said. “You introduced us.”

  “Yeah, I really should apologize to her again for that.”

  He laughed, good-natured. “There’s a car waiting for you.” After a pause, he added, “Just think about it, okay? I hate to say it, but Greg’s right. The new kids are upping the ante. You’re hot, Cin—shit, you and that guitar would give a monk a hard-on. But there’s no harm in dialing up your image. Sexy sells.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Go.”

  If other women wanted to take that path, and they did it knowingly and willingly and in control, good luck to them. She wished them giant royalty checks, and Grammys, and their own perfumes, and platinum records, and whatever else. She and her double Ds had other plans.

  * * *

  Back home, she kicked off her boots, put Hannah’s flowers in a vase, and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. The rambling loft, on the top floor of a character building tucked into a Los Feliz hillside, had a killer view. But she couldn’t settle in her usual spot on the deck, where the city lights sparkled below. On top of the performance buzz—a natural high she still loved—the extra adrenaline rush of her encounter with Greg had left her antsy, edgy, pent up.

  She went into the bathroom and had a hot shower, scrubbing the stage makeup off her face and washing all the product out of her long hair. Wet, it reached all the way to the small of her back, a pale blonde testimony to the talent of her very expensive hairdresser. Sometimes she got tired of all the work involved in keeping it from breaking off in bleached pieces, but it was her signature look. Cutting it would probably buy her even more drama with Altitude.

  With her makeup off and her hair hanging damp down her back, she looked like a completely different person. She slathered her face with moisturizer, noticing the tiredness in her blue eyes. Without makeup, she looked way younger, but she always went out fully made up. It was a small protection from the critical gaze of the world, a little bit of preservation. Sometimes it seemed like for every fan, there was a hater—which was why she held her distance a little. No Instagram bathroom selfies, no attention-seeking tweets, no are-they-aren’t-they paparazzi shots with basketball players.

  No wonder her management were tearing their hair out—she was terrible at playing the game.

  Although…she sometimes thought that a little more are-they-aren’t-they with someone would be nice. Specifically, the are-they. For all the propositions from dodgy record label execs, and the eager (and sometimes disturbing) messages from fans, she was sadly under-served in that department. But she just hadn’t met anyone she wanted to get involved with lately—not even on a temporary, horizontal basis. She turned sideways, and then front on again, considering herself in the mirror. Yep, still the hourglass. Not getting any younger, maybe, but not going to seed yet either.

  She finished moisturizing the rest of her body, then pulled on yoga pants and a loose sweatshirt. Sitting cross-legged on the sofa, she turned on the TV and flicked through a few channels. On MTV, a lineup of girls who looked like they should still be in high school were shaking their booties behind some guy in a hoodie and chains. Okay, compared to them, she probably was old. She switched the TV off and threw the remote on the sofa, sighing.

  How many more times would she have to fend Greg off? Supposedly, one of the perks of being in the entertainment biz was being surrounded by yes men—so where were hers? She’d gotten tough over the years, by necessity, but sometimes, keeping on her toes was exhausting.

  Tonight’s show was the last one for a while, but earlier in the year she’d signed a publishing contract to contribute to a book, and the deadline was drawing near. The book was supposed to be a guide for girls who wanted to break into the music industry. Her brief had been to write two chapters, drawing on her own personal experience—one on developing your skills and being prepared, one on what to expect once you’re in the door. Both with an uplifting tone. Italics not hers. Knowing what she did now, what the hell would she say? The antsy feeling grew, and she got up and headed for the one place she knew would settle her.

  Her music room was soundproofed and plushly carpeted, the walls were lined with guitars, and there was a piano in one corner. She didn’t play it very well, but it was nice to pick out a tune sometimes, especially when she was composing. Now she walked along the wall, letting her fingers trail across the guitars as she went: Fender, Gretsch, Gibson…she didn’t make enough to invest in tech startups or restaurant chains, but she did believe in the value of a great guitar.

  Eventually she lifted down her favorite, a slightly scuffed black Gibson, and took it to the sofa. Felt the peace settle on her as she held the instrument, as curvy as herself, and picked out a few notes. She leaned her head back for a moment and closed her eyes, letting the weight of the guitar anchor her. Then she opened her eyes again. Above the piano, a stylized silver fern hung on the wall, the elegant swoop of the frond a memory of a different time and place in her life.

  For a while, an idea had been hovering in the back of her mind. And now, it was suddenly more than a vague maybe—it felt like a certainty. Before she had time to second-guess herself, without stopping to figure out the time difference, she pulled out her phone.

  Within a few rings, a faraway voice answered, bringing a rush of familiarity and longing to Jacinda’s heart.

  “Nana Mac, it’s me. Can I come back?”

  Chapter Two

  Sweet Breeze Bay, New Zealand. In the ten years since she’d been there, it h
ad reverted to a mythical place in her mind. The gentle sweetness of the air, the beautiful light, the beaches and hills and sky…sometimes she wasn’t even sure that it was a real place at all.

  Except for the memories that lingered. All these years later, recollections still woke her in the night sometimes, breaking into her dreams even though she should be free of them by now. At least she wouldn’t have to be face to face with the guy at their center—Nana Mac had said his whole family moved to Australia. An ocean between them should be enough, even if she still didn’t have that much emotional distance. She’d made herself so tough in other ways, but that tiny chink in her armor seemed to always be there. Maybe, as well as giving her a desperately needed break, going back to the bay would finally clear away the last remnants of the past.

  With her newly cut and colored hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing oversized sunglasses and a baseball cap pulled down low, she took a taxi to LAX, hoping to slip out of the country undetected. It wasn’t a long drive, but crossing the city with only a single suitcase in the trunk felt like a rite of transition—shucking off her old life, clearing the way for something new. It didn’t seem to matter that she had no idea what the new might be.