Only This Summer

Only This Summer

Synopsis

Dr. Lily Davenport is the poster child for burnout—physically and emotionally. All she wants is a few months of nondemanding work at a summer camp, of all places, so she can figure out what to do with the rest of her life. The last thing she expects is to run into a woman who awakens a passion she hadn’t even realized had died along with all those she’d failed to save.

Forest ranger Chase Fielder is not in the market for a relationship. Counting on people never leaving is for fools. A fling with Lily promises to be exactly what Chase is looking for—short-term, hot as a forest fire, and one Chase can extinguish whenever she wants. Now all she has to do is convince Lily they’re a perfect match.

After all, it’s only one summer.

Acclaim for Radclyffe’s Fiction

“Medical drama, gossipy lesbian romance, and angsty backstory all get equal time in [Unrivaled,] Radclyffe’s fifth PMC Hospital Romance…[F]ans of small community dynamics and workplace romance without ethical complications will find this hits the spot.”—Publishers Weekly

“Dangerous Waters is a bumpy ride through a devastating time with powerful events and resolute characters. Radclyffe gives us the strong, dedicated women we love to read in a story that keeps us turning pages until the end.”—Lambda Literary Review

“Radclyffe’s Dangerous Waters has the feel of a tense television drama, as the narrative interchanges between hurricane trackers and first responders. Sawyer and Dara butt heads in the beginning as each moves for some level of control during the storm’s approach, and the interference of a lovely television reporter adds an engaging love triangle threat to the sexual tension brewing between them.”—RT Book Reviews

“Love After Hours, the fourth in Radclyffe’s Rivers Community series, evokes the sense of a continuing drama as Gina and Carrie’s slow-burning romance intertwines with details of other Rivers residents. They become part of a greater picture where friends and family support each other in personal and recreational endeavors. Vivid settings and characters draw in the reader…”—RT Book Reviews

Secret Hearts “delivers exactly what it says on the tin: poignant story, sweet romance, great characters, chemistry and hot sex scenes. Radclyffe knows how to pen a good lesbian romance.”—LezReviewBooks Blog

Wild Shores “will hook you early. Radclyffe weaves a chance encounter into all-out steamy romance. These strong, dynamic women have great conversations, and fantastic chemistry.”—The Romantic Reader Blog

In 2016 RWA/OCC Book Buyers Best award winner for suspense and mystery with romantic elements Price of Honor “Radclyffe is master of the action-thriller series…The old familiar characters are there, but enough new blood is introduced to give it a fresh feel and open new avenues for intrigue.”—Curve Magazine

In Prescription for Love “Radclyffe populates her small town with colorful characters, among the most memorable being Flann’s little sister, Margie, and Abby’s 15-year-old trans son, Blake…This romantic drama has plenty of heart and soul.”—Publishers Weekly

2013 RWA/New England Bean Pot award winner for contemporary romance Crossroads “will draw the reader in and make her heart ache, willing the two main characters to find love and a life together. It’s a story that lingers long after coming to ‘the end.’”—Lambda Literary

In 2012 RWA/FTHRW Lories and RWA HODRW Aspen Gold award winner Firestorm “Radclyffe brings another hot lesbian romance for her readers.”—The Lesbrary

Foreword Review Book of the Year finalist and IPPY silver medalist Trauma Alert “is hard to put down and it will sizzle in the reader’s hands. The characters are hot, the sex scenes explicit and explosive, and the book is moved along by an interesting plot with well drawn secondary characters. The real star of this show is the attraction between the two characters, both of whom resist and then fall head over heels.”—Lambda Literary Reviews

Lambda Literary Award Finalist Best Lesbian Romance 2010 features “stories [that] are diverse in tone, style, and subject, making for more variety than in many, similar anthologies…well written, each containing a satisfying, surprising twist. Best Lesbian Romance series editor Radclyffe has assembled a respectable crop of 17 authors for this year’s offering.”—Curve Magazine

2010 Prism award winner and ForeWord Review Book of the Year Award finalist Secrets in the Stone is “so powerfully [written] that the worlds of these three women shimmer between reality and dreams…A strong, must read novel that will linger in the minds of readers long after the last page is turned.”—Just About Write

In Benjamin Franklin Award finalist Desire by Starlight “Radclyffe writes romance with such heart and her down-to-earth characters not only come to life but leap off the page until you feel like you know them. What Jenna and Gard feel for each other is not only a spark but an inferno and, as a reader, you will be washed away in this tumultuous romance until you can do nothing but succumb to it.”—Queer Magazine Online

Lambda Literary Award winner Distant Shores, Silent Thunder “weaves an intricate tapestry about passion and commitment between lovers. The story explores the fragile nature of trust and the sanctuary provided by loving relationships.”—Sapphic Reader

Lambda Literary Award winner Stolen Moments “is a collection of steamy stories about women who just couldn’t wait. It’s sex when desire overrides reason, and it’s incredibly hot!”—On Our Backs

Lambda Literary Award Finalist Justice Served delivers a “crisply written, fast-paced story with twists and turns and keeps us guessing until the final explosive ending.”—Independent Gay Writer

Lambda Literary Award finalist Turn Back Time “is filled with wonderful love scenes, which are both tender and hot.”—MegaScene

Applause for L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters Series

The Midnight Hunt

RWA 2012 VCRW Laurel Wreath winner Blood Hunt

Night Hunt

The Lone Hunt

“Raand has built a complex world inhabited by werewolves, vampires, and other paranormal beings…Raand has given her readers a complex plot filled with wonderful characters as well as insight into the hierarchy of Sylvan’s pack and vampire clans. There are many plot twists and turns, as well as erotic sex scenes in this riveting novel that keep the pages flying until its satisfying conclusion.”—Just About Write

“Once again, I am amazed at the storytelling ability of L.L. Raand aka Radclyffe. In Blood Hunt, she mixes high levels of sheer eroticism that will leave you squirming in your seat with an impeccable multi-character storyline all streaming together to form one great read.”—Queer Magazine Online

“Are you sick of the same old hetero vampire/werewolf story plastered in every bookstore and at every movie theater? Well, I’ve got the cure to your werewolf fever. The Midnight Hunt is first in, what I hope is, a long-running series of fantasy erotica for L.L. Raand (aka Radclyffe).”—Queer Magazine Online

Only This Summer

Brought to you by

eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

By Radclyffe

The Provincetown Tales

Safe Harbor

Beyond the Breakwater

Distant Shores, Silent Thunder

Storms of Change

Winds of Fortune

Returning Tides

Sheltering Dunes

Treacherous Seas

PMC Hospitals Romances

Passion’s Bright Fury (prequel)

Fated Love

Night Call

Crossroads

Passionate Rivals

Unrivaled

Perfect Rivalry

Rivers Community Romances

Against Doctor’s Orders

Prescription for Love

Love on Call

Love After Hours

Love to the Rescue

Love on the Night Shift

Pathway to Love

Honor Series

Above All, Honor

Honor Bound

Love & Honor

Honor Guards

Honor Reclaimed

Honor Under Siege

Word of Honor

Oath of Honor (First Responders)

Code of Honor

Price of Honor

Cost of Honor

Justice Series

A Matter of Trust (prequel)

Shield of Justice

In Pursuit of Justice

Justice in the Shadows

Justice Served

Justice for All

First Responders Novels

Trauma Alert

Firestorm

Taking Fire

Wild Shores

Heart Stop

Dangerous Waters

Romances

Innocent Hearts

Promising Hearts

Love’s Melody Lost

Love’s Tender Warriors

Tomorrow’s Promise

Love’s Masquerade

shadowland

Turn Back Time

When Dreams Tremble

The Lonely Hearts Club

Secrets in the Stone

Desire by Starlight

Homestead

The Color of Love

Secret Hearts

Only This Summer

Short Fiction

Collected Stories by Radclyffe

Erotic Interludes: Change Of Pace

Radical Encounters

Stacia Seaman and Radclyffe, eds.:

Erotic Interludes Vol. 2–5

Romantic Interludes Vol. 1–2

Breathless: Tales of Celebration

Women of the Dark Streets

Amor and More: Love Everafter

Myth & Magic: Queer Fairy Tales

Writing As L.L. Raand

Midnight Hunters

The Midnight Hunt

Blood Hunt

Night Hunt

The Lone Hunt

The Magic Hunt

Shadow Hunt

Only This Summer

© 2022 By Radclyffe. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 13: 978-1-63679-391-7

This Electronic Original Is Published By

Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

P.O. Box 249

Valley Falls, NY 12185

First Edition: December 2022

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

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Credits

Editors: Ruth Sternglantz and Stacia Seaman

Production Design: Stacia Seaman

Cover Design by Tammy Seidick

eBook Design by Toni Whitaker

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank my parents for taking me camping in the Adirondack mountains before most of the state campsites even existed. We camped by the side of a small lake, Putt’s Pond, every summer beginning when I was five years old. The same half dozen families would return every year and we all became friends, although we only saw each other once a year. We got water from a hand pump down the road and carried it to our tent site. The sanitary facilities were primitive, and we bathed in the lake. I did not understand then how lucky I was to have had those three weeks of careless abandon every year. A forest ranger came to check on us once a week or so, and one of my greatest treasures was a NY State forest ranger emblem he gave me and that my mother sewed on my sweatshirt. I never went to a summer camp like the one in this book, but I have been to the mountains.

Thank you to my editors, Ruth and Stacia, for taking such care with my work. Thanks Eva and Paula for beta reading. And thank you, Sandy, for looking after me and the biz in countless ways, and making the space for me to write.

To Lee, as always, amo te.

Radclyffe

For Lee, for all seasons

Chapter One

With a teeth-jarring thud, the left front wheel of Lily Davenport’s BMW coupe dropped into a pothole the size of the Grand Canyon. Emitting an ominous groan that sounded unsettlingly human, the little two-seater convertible bounced out the other side of the chasm and promptly stalled.

“Damn it,” Lily muttered, shifting into park to restart the engine. She pushed the ignition button and, in the heart-stopping second of silence, feared her vehicle might refuse to go, in protest over its recent maltreatment. Not that she could blame it. If she was a car, she’d refuse to go any farther on this hellacious path—it could hardly be called a road, considering it was barely wider than the BMW—too. When the engine turned over, she whispered a thank-you and eased forward a few feet, trying to avoid the tree branches that jutted out over the rutted trail, and waited to see if anything vital fell off the undercarriage or exploded beneath the hood.

Despite her open windows, the bit of breeze managing to make its way through the dense underbrush and towering pines offered no match for the early June sunshine, and the inside of the car already resembled an oven. Lily powered down the roof—that was still working—and stared at the hood, waiting for steam or smoke or something equally menacing to seep out.

Why hadn’t she listened when Sarah had suggested she might want to lease a Jeep or some other four-wheel-drive vehicle for the summer? Better question—why hadn’t Sarah told her that the way up to the lodge, described as a three-season access road—maybe in retrospect she should have asked Sarah what that meant—was really little more than a goat path? Or maybe that should be deer path or…some other creature’s path. Road was being overly generous.

When the engine continued ticking and nothing appeared to be burning or leaking or otherwise malfunctioning, Lily pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and squinted at the nav screen. She loved the little car for its easy maneuverability in the city and speed on the rare occasions she had a chance to get out of the city, but the dash was a bit cramped, and reading the map function on the small screen was a challenge at the best of times. At the moment, the monitor showed only a generic regional geographic overview. Thank you, Google, but not helpful when surrounded by forest. Apparently uninhabited forest.

She must be on the wrong nonroad.

Mentally reviewing her drive, Lily determined that, at least five miles and what felt like five hours before, she’d been on the right route. She must have turned off the twisting road circling the shore of Lake George too soon. Turning around was presently out of the question. Literally. She wasn’t about to risk a ten-point turn and end up putting the rear of her Z4 into a ditch and walking back to civilization.

All she needed to do was slow down and try to avoid any more unexpected road hazards until she found a place to around-turn. Or if she was incredibly lucky—which would be an anomaly—she might actually find the lodge. She hadn’t passed a building or another vehicle or any sign of life, human or otherwise, since she’d left the highway and headed off into the Adirondacks.

When all her gauges remained blessedly in the midzone, suggesting she hadn’t done irreparable damage to her automobile, she set off once again. Sweat trickled at her temples and misted the back of her neck. She settled her sunglasses into place and squinted into the early morning glare. She’d made excellent time driving north from the city, but that had been open Thruway driving, and at five in the morning, she’d been able to avoid speed traps with the aid of her radar. What should have been the shortest part of her journey was turning out to be the most arduous. Hopefully not a portent for what was to come. Giving up on the GPS, she trusted to fate and continued deeper into the densely packed evergreens.

She swung around a blind corner, hoping the camp would come into sight any moment or she would at least see a sign saying Turn Around Here You Idiot, and slammed on her brakes.

“Oh!” Heart pounding, arms braced against the wheel, she stared at the front end of the vehicle she’d nearly hit. And blinked. Not a mirage. An army-green Jeep with the roof removed and a single occupant in olive-green fatigues sat a foot off her front bumper.

Wonderful. She was alone in the mountains faced with a survivalist, or worse, some private militia playing soldier. She didn’t even have cell service. She ordered herself to take a breath. Panic was not her usual response to a crisis—at least it hadn’t been, before…

The faint haze that curtained Lily’s vision cleared as her pulse slowed, and she got a clearer look at the figure climbing down from the Jeep. The sun was behind them, and in the glare, Lily had a hard time distinguishing the fine details. She could make out that the person striding around the front of her car, headed for the driver’s side, was a woman. From her lower vantage point and limited vision, Lily registered tall-ish, lean-ish, in a short-sleeved uniform shirt—nicely defined arms—and matching pants, and yes indeed, a utility belt with a holstered pistol or whatever they were called, along with other paraphernalia.

“Morning,” the woman said as she halted by the side of Lily’s car, a question in her voice. She wore aviator-style sunglasses…how appropriate, which hid most of her face. Her mouth was sculpted and full above a squared-off chin and angular jaw. Imposing was a good word for the impression she created.

A yellow patch on her sleeve indicated she was a member of some kind of organization, but with the sun in Lily’s face and her perception still reeling, Lily couldn’t identify what branch.