Beyond Summer Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 2 - Sesay

  Chapter 3 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 4 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 5 - Sesay

  Chapter 6 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 7 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 8 - Sesay

  Chapter 9 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 10 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 11 - Sesay

  Chapter 12 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 13 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 14 - Sesay

  Chapter 15 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 16 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 17 - Sesay

  Chapter 18 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 19 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 20 - Sesay

  Chapter 21 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 22 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 23 - Sesay

  Chapter 24 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 25 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 26 - Sesay

  Chapter 27 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 28 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 29 - Sesay

  Chapter 30 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 31 - Tam Lambert

  Chapter 32 - Sesay

  Chapter 33 - Shasta Reid-Williams

  Chapter 34 - Tam Lambert

  A CONVERSATION WITH LISA WINGATE

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  Praise for Lisa Wingate’s Accent Novels

  Beyond Summer

  “Beyond Summer is beyond good. It’s great! Lisa Wingate’s tale of three women from disparate backgrounds and how they join together to survive corporate greed is a cautionary tale for our times. But it is also a story of women’s love for each other and their families and the consequence of that love. Out of hardship comes growth and out of desperation, friendship, and out of unasked prayers come answers.”

  —Sandra Dallas, author of Prayers for Sale and Whiter Than Snow

  The Summer Kitchen

  “As always, Wingate’s stories are uplifting . . . dealing with matters like friendship, grace, and the power to make a difference in others’ lives.”

  —The Beaumont Enterprise (TX)

  “The consistently engaging and popular Wingate delivers a warmhearted and genuinely inspirational story of tragedy and hope.”

  —Booklist

  “An entertaining inspirational family drama. . . . Fans will enjoy this fine tale of a family bonded by need and love, but also seeking actualization from loved ones and especially their selves.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  A Month of Summer

  “With her signature gentle spiritualism, Wingate sheds light on the toll that aging and disease take on families as she launches a new series with broad appeal.”

  —Booklist

  “A Month of Summer, with characters we love and plot twists that surprise us, teaches us that it’s never too late to open our hearts.”

  —Southern Lady

  Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.

  Visit us online at www.penguin.com.

  A Thousand Voices

  “Wingate paints a riveting picture of the Choctaw Nation as one woman searches for the family she never knew. Heartfelt and revealing, Wingate’s latest proves that she’s a rising star in the world of women’s fiction.”

  —Romantic Times (Top Pick)

  “A delightful, heart-wrenching story written in first person with captivating characters, A Thousand Voices is sensitively told and masterfully written. It will capture the imagination of readers from the first page . . . not to be missed . . . a perfect 10.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Lisa Wingate provides a warm character study of a fully developed individual seeking her roots.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  Drenched in Light

  “Heartfelt and moving, enriched by characters drawn with compassion and warmth.”

  —Jennifer Chiaverini

  “Another winner.”

  —Booklist

  The Language of Sycamores

  “Heartfelt, honest, and entirely entertaining . . . this poignant story will touch your heart from the first page to the last.”

  —Kristin Hannah

  “An excellent storyteller who knows how to draw readers in quickly and keep them turning the pages, laughing one minute and grabbing for a tissue the next.”

  —Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

  “Wingate presents another one of her positive and uplifting books . . . tales in the midst of turmoil that are inspirational without being preachy.”

  —Booklist

  Good Hope Road

  “A novel bursting with joy amidst crisis: small-town life is painted with scope and detail in the capable hands of a writer who understands longing, grief, and the landscape of a woman’s heart.”

  —Adriana Trigiani

  “Wingate has written a genuinely heartwarming story about how a sense of possibility can be awakened in the aftermath of a tragedy to bring a community together and demonstrate the true American spirit.”

  —Booklist

  Tending Roses

  “A story at once gentle and powerful about the very old and the very young, and about the young woman who loves them all. Richly emotional and spiritual, Tending Roses affected me from the first page.”

  —Luanne Rice

  “You can’t put it down without . . . taking a good look at your own life and how misplaced priorities might have led to missed opportunities. Tending Roses is an excellent read for any season, a celebration of the power of love.”

  —El Paso Times

  Praise for Lisa Wingate’s

  “Texas Hill Country” Series

  Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner

  “A beautifully crafted and insightfully drawn page-turner . . . this is storytelling at its best.”

  —Julie Cannon

  “A warmhearted tale of love and longing, grits and cowboys, horse psychology and dinosaur tracks.”

  —Claire Cook

  “Wingate lets her magical Texas setting and idiosyncratic supporting characters shine.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Lone Star Café

  “A charmingly nostalgic treat. . . . Wingate handles the book’s strong spiritual element deftly, creating a novel that is sweetly inspirational but not saccharine.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Lisa Wingate is making a national name for herself as an excellent storyteller. Her novels . . . are upbeat and refreshingly wholesome.”

  —Abilene Reporter-News

  “Leaves you feeling like you’ve danced the two-step across Texas.”

  —Jodi Thomas

  Texas Cooking

  “Lisa Wingate writes with depth and warmth, joy and wit.”

  —Debbie Macomber

  “Texas Cooking . . . will have readers drooling for the next installment . . . [a] beautifully written mix of comedy, drama, cooking, and journalism.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “Takes the reader on a delightful journey into the most secret places of every woman’s heart.”

  —Catherine Anderson

  “The story is a treasure. You will be swept along, refre
shed, and amused. . . . Give yourself a treat and read this tender, unusual story.”

  —Dorothy Garlock

  Other Novels by Lisa Wingate

  The Blue Sky Hill Series

  A Month of Summer

  The Summer Kitchen

  The Tending Roses Series

  Tending Roses

  Good Hope Road

  The Language of Sycamores

  Drenched in Light

  A Thousand Voices

  The Texas Hill Country Trilogy

  Texas Cooking

  Lone Star Café

  Over the Moon at the Big Lizard Diner

  NAL ACCENT

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, July 2010

  Copyright © Wingate Media, LLC, 2010

  Conversation Guide copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2010 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCAREGISTRADA LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Wingate, Lisa.

  Beyond summer/Lisa Wingate. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-45616-3

  1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Real estate business—Fiction. 3. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 4. Dallas (Tex.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3573.I53165B49 2010

  813’.54—dc22 2010009216

  Set in Adobe Garamond

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  To Ed for being a friend, an encourager, and an inspiration. And to Teresa for being my head loon and a crazy long-distance gal pal who sees the humor in everything and reminds me to laugh at life.

  Acknowledgments

  As is the case with many stories, Beyond Summer grew from a combination of fact, fiction, a sprinkling of whimsy, and with the help of some generous and wonderful people. For that help, and for the friendships that grew and deepened during the researching and writing of this book, I am truly grateful. First and foremost, my thanks go once again to the amazing volunteers who run the Gospel Café, which inspired the Summer Kitchen in the story. My working with you and spending time at the café has given reality to the people of the Blue Sky Hill neighborhood. In particular, thanks to Sherry for being a supportive writer friend, Marsha for your welcoming smiles and warm hugs during my café visits, the volunteer crews for laughter and chatter in the kitchen, and Paula for helping with research for Sesay’s character. To Daisy, Kathy, and Mandy, thanks for a wonderful lunch in Salado and for patiently answering dozens of real estate questions. An enormous measure of gratitude goes to special friends, Jennifer Magers for eagle-eyed proofreading, Ed Stevens for technical help with book videos on the Lisa Wingate YouTube channel, and Teresa Loman for being the Head Loon of the Lisa Wingate Facebook group and the best online scrapbook designer ever. The three of you are the best friends a writer could ask for.

  On the print and paper side of things, my heartfelt gratitude goes to the smart, talented people at New American Library, and in particular to my editor, Ellen Edwards. Thanks also to my agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, Claudia Cross. As always, my undying gratitude also goes out to all the booksellers and media personnel who have shown such devotion to the previous books in the Blue Sky Hill series, A Month of Summer and The Summer Kitchen.

  My thanks also go to the many readers who shared the books with friends, took time to send letters of encouragement, and asked for a sequel to the final book in the Tending Roses series, A Thousand Voices. While Beyond Summer isn’t exactly a sequel, you will discover a few old friends living on Blue Sky Hill, and you’ll finally find out what happened to Dell and Jace. Lastly, thanks to all the readers and friends far and near, who have encouraged me along the way. There are no words to express how much your letters, notes, and e-mails mean to me. You inspire me, you encourage me, you make me believe in the power of story. What a gift I’ve been given in each of you. I hope this story repays that gift in some small measure.

  Chapter 1

  Tam Lambert

  It’s strange, what you look past in a normal day—the big picture you don’t see, while you’re busy focusing on all the little things that seem to matter in the moment. Good hair, an outfit that looks just right, a green light ahead when you’re in a hurry to make an appointment, a short line at Starbucks, a straight shot down the fairway in a game of golf, a smile from a cute guy in the parking lot. You rub your life like Aladdin’s lamp, and magic floats out in little clouds. It works time after time after time. You never stop to consider that there could be a day when a charmed life isn’t charmed anymore. At that point, the wishes become prayers, and you hope against hope that God will take up where the wishing lamp left off.

  The summer I turned eighteen became the summer of unanswered prayers. I was hoping that, since the lease was up on the hand-me-down MINI Cooper I’d been driving, there was a new car in the works for my birthday—a combination getting-ready-for-college and welcome-to-adulthood present. And maybe a surprise party—something Hawaiian themed, out on the patio, with floating tiki torches in the pool, grass skirts and coconut bras, and a caterer filling the cabana with fruit baskets carved out of watermelons, perfect for early July. Instead, I got a phone call letting me know that my stepmother had rammed her Escalade into the front doors of the Baby Bundles upscale resale shop while delivering a load of gently worn or still-had-tags-on-them kiddie clothes. The accident wasn’t her fault. It was the stilettos that did it.

  Such things are to be expected from a thirty-four-year-old woman who takes the kids to playgroup in high heels, studies future plastic surgery options, and shortens her name to Barbie, because she looks like a life-size version of the doll. If the nickname fits, then wear designer shoes with it, was generally Barbie’s theory.

&
nbsp; The emergency phone call was from the nanny. She wanted me to know she was off work in fifteen minutes, and if someone didn’t show up at home before then, she’d be leaving los niños with la tía loca—the crazy aunt.

  The crazy aunt, Aunt Lute, was part of my summer of unanswered prayers, which made sense, considering that Aunt Lute claimed not one prayer in her life had ever been answered the way she wanted. She’d pause after she said that, and contemplate the deeper meanings, her eyes the violet-gray of an iris bloom drying in the sun. Then she’d punctuate the sentence in one of two ways. Either, The best things in life hide around the blind corners, or, Watch out for small favors, Tamara Lee. The first was an invitation, the second a warning. One ended with a wild laugh, the other with tears pooling in the corners of her eyes and fanning into the wrinkles, like twin rivers flowing into estuaries before being lost in the ocean.

  It was impossible to know which one of those assessments of life she really subscribed to. But then, that was Aunt Lute. Crazy as a March hare, which was how she ended up living above our garage after being evicted from a house stacked floor to ceiling with stuff that was fit only for the trash. In a family prone to burning the candle at both ends and dying young, Aunt Lute was a record setter at seventy, and the only old person I’d ever been around for any amount of time. Not that Aunt Lute was your typical old person. She didn’t bake cookies, or tell family stories, or knit afghans. After having spent her life working a mindless factory job and caring for a now-deceased handicapped brother, she seemed to have traded her real past for several dozen fantasy lives she made up as she went along. My father, fifteen years her junior, was her only financially stable relative, and probably the one person with a place big enough to put the crazy aunt at one end and still stand to live in the other.