Finding Summer (Nightwind Book 3) Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Suzanne Halliday

  FINDING SUMMER

  NIGHTWIND BOOK THREE

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by an means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is meant for mature readers who are 18+.

  It contains explicit language, and graphic sexual content.

  Edited by editing4indies.com

  Cover design by Kari March

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated to me.

  For sticking it out and refusing to give in

  when a raging global pandemic threatened my creative process.

  The eagle-eyed will catch how I cleverly wrote myself into an opening scene

  Hint: Starbucks

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Suzanne Halliday

  1

  “Did you lose a bet?”

  Arnie blinked and put down the menu he was studying when a golden-haired waitress drew his attention with the question and a stifled laugh.

  Looking up from his seat at a corner table, he experienced an extrasensory jolt when their gazes locked. She had sweeping eyelashes and extraordinary smoky blue gray eyes. The charming innocence he saw looking back stopped him dead.

  “A bet?” he stammered. “I’m sorry?”

  The blond beauty’s smile widened as she pointed at the floor. “Those shoes are not your friend.” She chuckled.

  His eyes dropped to his feet. It took a moment for understanding to knock him up the side of the head.

  “Oh, right.” He snorted and made a comical face. “The shoes. There’s an explanation,” he told her.

  “Not that I have room to talk,” she dryly replied while motioning to her footwear.

  He laughed when she shoe-modeled a pair of Vans covered in colorful red chilies and green cacti.

  “They pair well with the atmosphere.” He said with a growing smile.

  “Santa thought the same thing. Christmas gift,” she explained.

  He had a hard time dragging his eyes away from her legs. Studying her shoes was just an excuse to ogle her smooth, bare calves and trim ankles. It was the chain around her ankle that rendered him stupid. And the tiny sunflower tattoo.

  “Etsy,” she announced without prompting. “The butterfly chain,” she explained. “I thought pairing it with the sunflower was cool.”

  “Coming through,” a voice called out as a waiter balancing a large tray moved past followed by a busboy carrying a tray stand.

  The interruption reset their interaction. “Do you know what you want?” she asked. “I recommend everything, but the kitchen hit it out of the park today with the Baja fish tacos. I had two just a little while ago.”

  He ordered the tacos and unashamedly watched her ass when she turned and walked away. The erotically charged filthy thought that followed involved the pretty waitress’s whimpers as he deep stroked her from behind while demanding she keep her head down and ass up.

  The annoying buzz of his phone earned it a malicious glare. He briefly considered standing up and hurling the fucking thing against a mural-painted wall and would have too if he wasn’t positive he’d end up getting arrested for it. The elaborately painted matador seemed to raise his brows at Arnie’s dark thought.

  Pretending he could ignore both the phone call and his family was a way of blowing sunshine up his own ass. Nobody was fooled by the indifferent act he put on, but the charade was necessary for his peace of mind.

  Sighing, he looked at the screen and groaned. Fuck. His father. There was no other choice than to answer.

  “Dad, I’ve only got a minute. What do you need?” He regretted his grumpy tone, but for real, now was not the time.

  “Easy, my boy.” His dad chuckled. “Can’t you see I’m waving a white flag. I just wanted to check in and make sure you haven’t changed your name and gone underground.”

  “It’s tempting, believe me. Being a card-carrying Wanamaker isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Money and power. Not everyone wears privilege the same way.”

  “I’m fine, Dad. I just could not listen to Cousin Carl’s hernia experience again or give a shit about how recuperating made him miss his annual Montana snowmobile adventure.”

  A sigh came through the phone. “Aunt Lou was concerned when you left.”

  Arnie adored Aunt Lou. She was nuts but in a humorously good way. His dad’s sister had a full life and did not coast on her wealth or status. She ran a boutique in West Hollywood, specializing, among other things, in custom-created designer knockoffs. It sounded tacky, but her discreet services were in high demand by half of Beverly Hills and most of Hollywood. Her client list included British royalty and several Middle East princesses.

  Celebrity aside, Lou also collected teapots and displayed them museum-style in an elaborate walk-in display case the size of his large NIGHTWIND office. She knew how to dress up quirkiness to make it socially acceptable, and if that wasn’t a superpower, he didn’t know what was.

  “Tell her I’m taco loading and will be fine once I get the family stench off me.”

  “Good enough. I’ll let you get back to it. Don’t worry about Darnell Senior. I’ll tell him you’re sightseeing. See you in the morning when the lawyers and financial wizards do their annual dog and pony performance.”

  “I was thinking about calling out sick.”

  “Nice try but no sympathy. You can miss the flower-arranging workshop and avoid sitting through Henry Fonda and Charlton Heston in Midway for the twentieth time, but the hard-core business stuff is mandatory.”

  Just for fun, he coughed into the phone. “Nah, Dad. I’m serious. I think I’m coming down with something.”

  “Don’t make me come get you,” his father humorously drawled.

  “Love ya, you tree-hugging, veggie-munching boomer.”

  “Right back atcha, you crystal ball-gazing, telephone psychic.”

  The call ended, and he sat there, chuckling softly. Telephone psychic. Good one!

  Getting away from the family wasn’t Arnie’s only reason for leaving the hotel. He needed distance and a full stomach. Sometimes being around those people made him shrivel from repulsion. The annual family retreats were always a nightmare, but now they resembled episodes of a tacky and embarrassing reality show populated by narcissists, wannabes, and those whose self
-worth came from a plastic surgeon. The Kardashians had nothing on the Wanamakers when it came to this stuff. Old money always won.

  The Mexican restaurant where he ended up drew him in like a magnet. He’d been aimlessly strolling an area of shops and eateries when a sombrero and colorful serape-wearing character held the restaurant door open and waved him in.

  A dinner crowd had the place hopping. There was a wait for a table, so he strolled into the bar and fast-slammed two standard tourist margaritas while putting a serious dent in a basket of tortilla chips and the saucer of fresh salsa the bartender placed next to him

  There was a lot to like about the cantina atmosphere. Decorated in a bright palette of colors and unreservedly proud of their Mexican roots, the place was known for authentic food in a terrific atmosphere. Or that was what the Yelp reviews said that he checked while waiting

  By the time a costumed bandito escorted him to his table, he was relaxed and less likely to get into trouble.

  Trouble, however, was on the menu when the pretty waitress took the unplanned food stop to a new level. She gave off an air that he couldn’t ignore. Something about her reached inside him.

  Not many people got past his boundary lines. His extensive training taught him to keep his unusual abilities on lockdown unless needed. Showing off with martial arts expertise was okay, but his other skills were deemed top secret and highly classified.

  Top secret status aside, it was hard to explain the unexplainable. He felt things and saw energy. Not dead people—he wasn’t a cartoon character, but he was able, once trained, to dial into situations and read people. His approach was immersive—after tuning in, a dimensional image formed. This sentient ability gave him an advantage he was careful not to abuse.

  He was also mindful of the need for secrecy and for keeping his classified life invisible to the casual eye. It wasn’t possible to do what he did if everyone and their mailman’s neighbor knew and had an opinion about it.

  A misinformed opinion.

  Arnie knew all about jumping to ignorant conclusions where extrasensory stuff was concerned. He certainly wasn’t a believer until a fortuitous event in the form of a flyer he picked up on campus not long after the attacks on the World Trade Center changed the trajectory of his overprivileged life.

  Wherever college students gathered, there’d be groups looking for volunteers to help with studies about everything from plastic waste, to sleep apnea, to color sensitivity. He found research projects so interesting that one time he volunteered for a study on fast food. Now that he gave it thought, maybe that was when he became so opinionated about french fries.

  Back to the memory walk. The flyer he picked up was about a study on supernormal input. He didn’t have a clue what those words meant, but his interest was piqued. At the time, he was a young, dumb, bored college student and figured it would be fun.

  The initial screening led to a much more intense test that was followed by a series of even weirder experiments.

  In a scene worthy of an X-Men movie, a literal team of men in black approached him not long after. They descended one day while he was stuffing his face with falafels at a campus eatery. Their first move was to deploy in a ring around him. Before they closed in, Arnie saw them and nearly shit with anxiety.

  The guy in charge was a short-statured low-talker. This mouthpiece introduced himself as Jordan.

  Mr. Jordan? Tom Jordan? King Jordan the First? Arnie never knew.

  The guy spoke in measured words. He offered a business card—a generic white card with a phone number in the bottom right corner. The number was printed so small it was barely visible.

  The gist of the unusual conversation was simple. Jordan spelled out a national security scenario starring special individuals with outside the box talents. Arnie was flabbergasted to learn his scores from the weird tests put him on the upper end of a super-secret curve.

  At no time was he given anything resembling a choice. Whatever it was about him that got their attention had to rank right up there with X-ray vision, and superhuman strength because they were not interested in the word no.

  Jordan and the black suits had all sorts of rules about secrecy. Right from the start, he was ordered not to say anything to anybody. He told them rather bluntly where to go, and they didn’t act surprised when he pushed back. In the end, he shared what the hell was going on with just one person. He told his dad.

  In the time it took to blink, the university fast-tracked his studies and handed him a specialized psychology degree in sensory forensics. Then the government stashed him in a secure compound for nine months with a hundred other patriots possessing eyebrow-raising skills. Under the direction of Dr. Hadley Ortoma, they were each put through an intensive, supersensory boot camp. When it was over, Arnie saw the world differently.

  On paper, his government assignment was intelligence research. They stashed him at the Department of Justice because there was no Department of the Weird and Unusual. He was given a top secret clearance and had special access to everyone except the president. His expertise was infiltration under deep cover. To employ his unique skills, he had to be inside where it was happening. The government called what he did immersive psyops. As time went on, his assignments got more and more intense. He had serious resources at his disposal, and at the end of the day, he knew far too many secrets.

  He stuck with it as long as he could—until his soul was nearly sucked out. In those days, Dorothea Anders was his DOJ handler. Arnie had a lot of handlers, all of whom he told to fuck off at one time or another, but Dottie Anders was special. They became friends and grew close. Was she a mother substitute? Abso-fucking-lutely. She knew it and was fine with the role.

  When she threw a fuck it, suddenly retired, ditched Washington, and surfaced in New York as Dottie Quick, he didn’t know what to do with himself. Luckily, she had a plan.

  She took a management role with a security startup called NIGHTWIND, and after tirelessly promoting him for a position to the CEOs, former Navy SEAL Kingsley Maddison and Delta Force vet Jon Weston, they agreed to an interview without much understanding whatsoever of what he did. They hired him on the spot once he explained his unconventional talents.

  In many ways, NIGHTWIND saved his sanity. He was close to King and Jon. They were great guys with no hesitation whatsoever about the “What does Arnie do?” farce.

  Sixteen years lay between the present and the fateful moment he called a number on a flyer. He’d been involved in a lot of shit over the years and knew the location of several graveyards filled with the skeletons of some crazy secrets.

  Though the present was calmer, he was still cautious about boundaries and was careful to keep his personal relationships deliberately superficial. This chance encounter with a young, vivacious girl shouldn’t make him wobble, but it did.

  The whole restaurant applauded when strolling mariachis celebrated a guest’s birthday with lively music. Arnie raised his glass and added his best wishes.

  As the excitement died down, he spied the golden-haired beauty walking his way carrying two platters. She was framed by a halo of pink light. A trail of rose gold sparkles followed in her wake.

  He took a sharp, deep breath. What was going on? It wasn’t normal for him to see a stranger like that. Someone he hadn’t had time to get to know. Ignoring her was impossible.

  The closer she got, the bigger her smile was. She looked straight at him and didn’t break their eye contact.

  There were no warning bells. No sense of caution held him back. The freedom took him by surprise.

  “One grandioso Baja taco platter with a tower of sides,” she drawled. “Off the big kid’s menu.” Her stifled giggle did strange things to the area around his heart.

  He eyed the food and poked around on the platter.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t see any ketchup.”

  Her mouth opened, and with each blink of her eyelashes, he fell deeper into her spell.

 
“Ketchup?” she asked in a horrified tone. “You want ketchup for Mexican fish tacos?”

  A flash of precognition jolted Arnie. It was this lovely, enchanting girl far in the future, giggling as he messed with her to get a reaction.

  Heat shot up his spine and into his neck until it felt like he was on fire.

  He tried to keep a straight face, but she was too adorable, and he cracked. “I’m just messing with you.”

  She reacted with a delightful giggle. “And I can’t believe I fell for it.”

  Arnie grinned. He noticed her name tag and took the opening. “Summer?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  He extended his hand. “Hi. I’m Arnie.”

  Something happened when she slotted her smaller hand into his. A vibration tingled along his nerves. He couldn’t tell if she felt it too because her eyes shuttered, and she snatched her hand away.

  “What is Arnie short for?”

  “Have a drink with me when you get off, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” He gestured at his feet. “Even about the fugly shoes.”

  “I don’t drink,” she stammered. He’d caught her in a lie. A tiny white lie that he supposed was second nature for a modern female who didn’t want to end up in a situation she couldn’t handle.

  Interesting.

  Brushing her cautious tendency aside, he teased, “How do you live? I mean, don’t we all need light, food, and water to survive?”

  Her eyes shone with merriment. “Are you asking me to have water with you?”