Summers in Galveston

By Kathleen Colton

A sweet romance for the mature mind and young heart...

Amanda Hamilton’s life is in turmoil. Her mother is bordering on senility and her daughter is divorcing her long time husband. But despite the trials of regular life she is returning to the island of Galveston, Texas, three years after the accidental death of her husband of three decades. She knows she can’t move forward without going back to the place that had once been so special to not just her and her husband, but to the entire Hamilton clan.

Amanda is really only looking to move on with her life and certainly not looking for love. But love often times has a strange way of finding you in the most awkward of situations.

The problem is that the man in question, Steven Adams, is the father of the drunken boy who accidentally ran over and killed her husband. He is the man who allowed the underage boy to drink in the first place.
While Amanda can find it in her heart to forgive Steven for the role he played in her husband’s death, her family cannot. Her relationship with the man threatens to tear the already teetering Hamilton family apart at the seams.

Novella – 30000 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Colton
• Release date: Sep 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301426935

Book preview

Summers in Galveston

Kathleen Colton

Copyright © 2013 Kathleen Colton

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Ghosts of the Island

Amanda took a deep breath and tried to calm down. She tried to stop the panic that grew with each passing mile marker.

Her heart pounded in her chest and goosebumps rippled across the skin of arms. She’d actually done it. She’d come back to Galveston Island, come back to the very place her husband of thirty years was taken from her. And despite the weeks of buildup, of convincing herself that it was the right thing to do and that she was strong enough to handle it, she wanted desperately to turn and run the other direction. It’s not going to be okay, she told herself. I’m not strong enough to handle it. I can’t do this.

Her daughter and best friend, Victoria, took her hand and smiled. Are you sure you want to do this mom? We could just turn around and go home. Nobody would think any less of you if we went home.

She barely heard her daughter as they crossed over the ornate bridge separating Galveston from the mainland. The bridge had always signified the end of Interstate 45 and the beginning of Island proper. The temperature gauge in the dashboard read eighty and seagulls coasted on the light breeze from the Gulf. She should be happy and in another time she would have been. It was a perfect day on the Island. This was always the point where the Hamilton family celebrated the start of summer vacation. Crossing the bridge meant they were officially there. It should have been a happy time for her but all she could think about were the bright red and blue lights flashing through blinds and her husband dying in the driveway that horrible night three years back.

Mom?

I’m sorry honey, Amanda said, trying to push the memories out. She was okay, wasn’t she? She’d prepared herself for this. She knew it was going to be hard. She just didn’t know it was going to be this hard. I’m fine. I was just thinking back.

You need to quit thinking about the past and start thinking about the present, her mother, Helen Rider, said from the back seat. What’s done is done. Buck up, young lady.

I know it’s hard, mom, her daughter said from the driver’s seat, trying to ignore her grandmother and griping her hand tightly. We seriously don’t have to do this. We can turn around and go back to Houston. There isn’t any reason to drag yourself through this again. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.

No, Amanda said, trying to sound confident even if she wasn’t. The Hamilton's go to Galveston every summer. This is summer and we’re the Hamilton's. And if I’m not mistaken, this is Galveston. This is right where we need to be.

I’m sorry, Victoria replied and she heard the dejection in her daughter’s voice.

Amanda sighed. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I appreciate your concern and understand it, but it’s been three years since your father passed away. I can’t keep avoiding this place. I have to move on, honey.

You need this, Amanda, her mother said from the back seat, looking up from her knitting needles. You need to move on. When my William passed away you didn’t see me locking myself in my home like some sort of crazy old cat lady and never getting out. You have to live your life.

Living her life after the death of her husband meant something entirely different to Amanda’s mother than it did her. It was an easy enough thing for her mother to say, considering the woman never had actually moved on from her father’s death. Her father had passed away twenty years ago and her mother had thrown herself into the family and church, never dating another man, much less remarrying. And despite what she’d said, she knew that her father’s passing had left a unfixable hole in her mother’s heart that had, over the years, turned her into the bitter woman she was today. Her mother could make all the proclamations she wanted about how strong she’d been since her husband’s death, but when you got right down to it, she was a lonely, angry old woman. Amanda wasn’t so sure she wanted to spend her life alone like that but she was terrified of moving on. She wasn’t ready to let go of Duncan just yet.

It’s okay, mom, Veronica said. I understand how hard it is.

She doubted that, but said nothing. Victoria’s husband, Frank, was back in Houston with her grandkids. There were only miles separating her daughter from her husband. Six feet of earth separated her from her love of thirty years. Six feet of earth and eternity.

Stop it right now, Amanda Hamilton, she ordered herself. You will not resent your daughter for having a husband who is still alive. You will not envy her happiness.

Frank and the kids would travel in the next day, along with the rest of the far flung Hamilton clan. The first day of the annual Hamilton summer vacation was traditionally girls only. Originally it had just been Amanda and her mother, but as Veronica had grown into a woman she came as well. They’d travel south on the pretense of getting the old beach house ready for the family reunion. And while they would do just that, knocking down the cobwebs and wiping away the dust, the night invariably turned to wine and family gossip.

I know, sweetheart. And it is hard, but I’ll be all right. Mom is right. I need this. We, she stressed, need this.

She tried to be strong as they made their way through the city of Galveston, but everywhere she turned something reminded her of Duncan. The Moody Mansion where they’d married was particularly hard and she fought to keep the tears from flowing. It’s just a damned old building, she thought. It doesn’t mean anything. The Italian restaurant where they’d gone for pizza every Friday and the liquor store that carried Duncan’s favorite brand of bear - they all screamed at her that she was in a city she loved without the man who’d most helped cultivate that love.

The Seawall was the worst place to revisit. She and Duncan had spent so much time there going all the way back when they were giddy teenagers in love. They’d practically grown up on the Seawall and though the concrete barriers could hold back the entire Gulf of Mexico, they’d done little to stop her’s and Duncan’s budding love. Galveston Island meant a lot not just to her, but to her entire family going back two generations. It was where they went to relax and unwind and it held almost a magical meaning to the family. But every part of it she saw on the trip through the packed streets reminded her not of the joy and love she’d felt there, but the one night of devastating agony. When they finally headed west, out past Jamaica Beach and the city proper, she was relieved.

Despite hoping to the contrary the old beach house was right where they’d left it. She half expected Duncan to look up from working on the yard or some other tinkering he’d been up to. He wouldn’t, of course. He was gone and with him had gone the soul of the old beach house. Her father had purchased the home back in the fifties when there was nothing on that side of the Island besides sand and seagrass, a time when real estate on the island was still reasonable. The house was not dilapidated, but it was easy to tell no one had used it much in the last three years. The house sat on stilts a good fourteen feet above sea level and the worn struts, once painted bright white, were faded to a sun baked yellow. The blue paint on the house was equally faded and chipped. There were a few shingles missing. The yard, however, was immaculate and looked like someone had just mowed the grass that day. Despite the years of hurricanes and storms the house had stood much stronger than she was right then. As stoic as the house was, though, she was sad to see the place their family had experienced so much joy, through out the decades, in such sad disrepair.

She took a deep breath as Veronica pulled into the gravel driveway and heart pounded in her chest. Reaching across the console she took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

Mom? her daughter asked softly. Are you sure?

I’m fine, she lied. It’s just...

It had happened right here, she thought. The mail box was still at an angle and she imagined Duncan’s body slammed up against