What Happens At The End Of 'The Summer My Father Was Ten'?

His large hand wraps around my throat just enough to make my pulse race, pinning me to the rain-slicked cabin wall as thunder rolls outside. “We can’t keep doing this,” he growls, but his hips grind against mine, hard and insistent, while his free hand slips under my skirt to find me already soaked. I whimper, arching into his touch, craving the sharp sting of his palm across my ass, the way he commands me to come for him like I’m his dirty little secret. My father’s best friend, the man who’s been in my life forever finally breaking every rule to claim me roughly, deeply, until I’m trembling and marked by him. What begins as one reckless, forbidden night spirals into an addiction of heated stolen moments, whispered dominance, and raw need… until the truth crashes down, pregnancies and betrayals threaten to shatter us, and everyone we love demands we end it. But how do you walk away when the only person who owns your body and heart refuses to let go?

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” his raspy voice dripped with lust and uncertainty as his eyes scanned my exposed cleavages, “your father…” “Shhh.” I stopped him mid-way, placing my finger on his soft lips, “We both want this. I have seen the way you look at me, Mr. Richard. Do not hold back now.” I whispered sultrily. He swallowed hard and I saw him clench his well-chiseled jaws. I opened my mouth to continue my protest when all of a sudden, he grabbed me by the waist, pulled me closer and covered my lips with his in the hungriest manner ever. My body melted, succumbing to his burning desire. *** He was my father’s childhood best friend. He was always there for me since I lost my mother at the age of four. My father grieved hard and found it difficult to recover for many years, so Mr Richard was the father figure I had. However, he left the country after my thirteenth birthday and I almost forgot about him until he returned. I had turned twenty-one and when I laid my eyes on him, all my childhood memories came rushing back. But that wasn’t all there was. I noticed how hot and sexy he looked for that age and how his gaze lingered way too long on my mature body. And then, fate kept bringing us together, all I had to do was call on him. He was just being nice, right? Nothing more should have happened but my body refused to listen to my brain. I wanted him! I wanted him around me all the time, I wanted him to whisper in my ears and punish me accordingly if I did something wrong… I wanted him INSIDE ME.

Twenty-year old Harper hasn't had much luck in life so far. Her mother is a drunk and a junkie and a serial dater, her father left them when she was five years old. Harper has never had a father figure, she only has her mother's boyfriends to go by. When her relationship with Dylan comes to an end, she is left devastated, lonely and filled with a longing to have someone who can make her feel whole, loved and protected. Dylan's father, Levi has been divorced for two years, he's hurting badly and wants a woman in his bed to take away the pain and loneliness. Harper is always at his house, the kid that was dating his only son and he can't help looking at her in a way he shouldn't. He knows she is way too young for him, he's thirty-seven and knows better but he can't resist her infectious smile, the way she laughs not to mention the way she looks. Can there be happiness between two people who are nineteen years apart, what will people think, what will his only son think? He must stay away from her at all costs, it could spell trouble for him. Only, Harper can't stay away from Levi he's everything she has dreamt off. He's powerful, strong and protective. He calls her Sunflower and takes care of her. He cooks for her, drives her to college and even buys her clothes. He's gorgeous, handsome, rugged and rides a motorbike. He's dangerous in so many ways but the hand of temptation is too much to resist.

My mother was my father’s sugar baby. Every year, he would hold her in his arms and promise, “Wait for me. Next year, I’ll marry you.” He said it for five years. In the end, he married a woman from his own social circle instead. My mother never got the wedding she dreamed of. After that, she became unstable and cruel. She used me as a way to get my father’s attention. “Go. Call your father and tell him you’re sick. Tell him to come see you.” But my father only frowned and yelled at me. “You’re already learning to lie from your mother at such a young age? Always haunting me like this. Disgusting.” They blamed all the anger they had for each other on me. Later, my father’s wife gave birth to a son. He became the perfect husband and father in everyone’s eyes. My mother only grew worse. She hit me harder and harder, all just to make my father come look at her once. When I was seven, I fell down the stairs and broke my leg. I begged my mother to take me to the hospital. She slapped me hard across the face. “What are you pretending for? You fall once and suddenly your leg is broken? You’re just like your irresponsible father. You were born to make me suffer.” My father rushed over, but he only shoved my mother to the floor in irritation. “If you use this little bastard to fake being sick and trick me again, don’t expect another cent from me.” Their screams and sobs tangled together. I lay on the cold floor, slowly losing consciousness. This time, could they finally stop fighting?

My husband, a military colonel with whom I’d been married for ten years, was barred from entering our son’s funeral wake. Because before our son died, he made three final wishes. The first wish was not to tell his father about his death just yet, as he was afraid the news would upset him. Secondly, to cook his father’s favorite meal and let his father be there for his final birthday. Lastly, if his father were to miss his birthday, then under no circumstances—no matter what—never allow that man to appear before his grave. Even though the man’s eyes were bloodshot and his body was shaking as he cried his heart out in the torrential rain lashing outside the funeral home, I never let the man take a single step toward my son after his death. Three days earlier, after spending a whole night setting fireworks with my childhood friend and her son, Logan Pearce came home with a brand-new schoolbag. That was his idea of making up for missing our son’s birthday. The man frowned, puzzled by the tears in my eyes. “Isn’t it just one birthday? I’ll make it up to him next time, won’t I? Little did he know that our five-year-old son had already died from an asthma attack. The little boy would never live to see the first day of school.

When fiercely independent Aiden Matthews makes a spontaneous decision to visit home after a long absence, what she intended to be a day-long trip turns into an entire summer filled with old friends, new acquaintances... and a rekindled old flame. But after stumbling upon a seventy year old secret and the ghosts it stirs up, Aiden must navigate the sudden challenges to everything she thought she knew about her family history while confronting her deepest fears in order to chase her most fervently held dreams.