“Or her,” she retorted, smiling. She stood and started to clear the table.
“Let me do that,” James insisted.
“I’m not helpless, you know,” Walter added.
Both men leapt from their chairs.
“Go have your coffee,” Summer told them. “It’ll only take me a few minutes to deal with the dishes.”
Walter shrugged, then looked at his son. “There are a few things I need to discuss with James,” he said.
“Then off with you.” She shooed them out of the kitchen.
James poured two cups of coffee and took them into the living room. He paused in the doorway and looked over his shoulder. “You’re sure?”
“James, honestly! Go talk to your father.”
Although she didn’t know Walter well, she sensed that something was on his mind. Throughout the meal she’d noticed the way he watched his son. James was acting odd, too.
Walter wanted to discuss the campaign, but every time he’d introduced the subject, James expertly changed it. He did it cleverly, but Walter had noticed, and after a while Summer had, too.
She ran tap water to rinse off the dinner plates before putting them in the dishwasher, and when she turned off the faucet she heard the end of James’s comment.
“...Summer doesn’t know.”
She hesitated. Apparently the two men didn’t realize how well their voices carried. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it did seem only fair to listen, since she was the topic of conversation.
“What do you plan to do about it?” his father asked.
It took James a long time to answer. “I haven’t decided.”
“Have you tried reasoning with him?”
“No,” James answered bitterly. “The man said he has doubts about my judgment. He’s insulted me, insulted my wife. I don’t need Southworth if he’s got an attitude like that.”
“But you will need a campaign manager.”
“Yes,” James admitted reluctantly.
So that was what this was about. Summer leaned against the kitchen counter and closed her eyes. Ralph had resigned, and from the evidence she’d seen, James had, too. Resigned himself to losing, even before the election. It didn’t sound like him.
“What’s the problem?” Walter asked as if reading Summer’s mind.
James lowered his voice substantially, and Summer had to strain to hear him. “He disapproves of Summer.”
“What?” Walter had no such compunction about keeping quiet. “The man’s crazy!”
“I’ve made a series of mistakes,” James said.
“Mistakes?”
“With Summer.”
The world collapsed, like a house falling in on itself. Summer struggled toward a chair and literally fell into it.
“I should never have married her the way I did,” James elaborated. “I cheated her out of the wedding she deserved. I don’t know if her mother’s forgiven me yet. The last I heard, her family’s planning a reception in November. By then the baby will be here and, well, it seems a little after the fact.”
“You can’t blame Summer for that.”
“I don’t,” James remarked tartly. “I blame myself. In retrospect I realize I was afraid of losing her. So I insisted on the marriage before she could change her mind.”
“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with Ralph,” Walter muttered.
“Ralph thinks Summer’s too young for me.”
“Nonsense.”
“He also seems to think I’ve done myself harm by not letting everyone know immediately that I was married. Bringing Summer here to live with me now, pregnant, and saying we’ve been married all along, is apparently too convenient to believe.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You and I know that, but there’s already speculation.”
“So? People will always talk. Let them. But you’ve got to do something about getting this campaign organized. There are worse things you could be accused of than marrying in secret or getting Summer pregnant before your wedding day. As far as I’m concerned, Southworth’s looking for excuses.”
“I refuse to subject Summer to that kind of speculation,” James said stubbornly.
“Have you talked this over with her?”
“Not yet...”
“You haven’t?”
“I know, I know.” The defeatist attitude was back in James’s voice. “I’ve put it off longer than I should have.”
After that, Summer didn’t hear much more of the conversation between father and son. Their marriage had hurt her husband; it might have robbed him of his dreams, cheated him out of his goals.
The phone rang long before she had time to gather her thoughts. “I’ll get it,” she called out to James, and reached for the extension in the kitchen. Her hand trembled as she lifted the receiver.
“Hello,” she said, her voice weak.
“Hello,” came the soft feminine reply. “You don’t know me. My name’s Christy Manning Franklin.”
“Christy... Manning?” Summer said, stunned. She hadn’t recovered from one shock before she was hit with another. “Just a moment. I’ll get James.”
“No, please. It’s you I want to talk to.”
“Me?”
“From your reaction, I’d guess James has mentioned me.”
“Yes.” Summer slumped down in a chair and closed her eyes. “You and James were engaged at one time.”
“That’s right. I understand you and James recently got married.”
“Three months ago,” Summer said, embarrassed by how weak her voice still was. “In Las Vegas,” she added a little more loudly.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for being so forward. I talked it over with Cody—he’s my husband—and he said since I felt so strongly about it I should call you.”
“So strongly about what?”
“About you...and James. I’ll always regret the way I treated James. He deserved a lot better, but I was younger then. Immature in some ways. At one time I thought I was in love with him. I knew he loved me, and my family thought the world of him. Then I met Cody.” She hesitated. “I didn’t phone to tell you all this. I’m sure James filled in the details.”