Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Luke
F reya Riley wanted him. His best fucking friend wanted him. Him, Luke Turner, who didn’t have a proper job, who didn’t own the house he lived and who had some savings but not enough to leave Copper Island and set up a home somewhere while he found a job.
There were so many things to love about her he didn’t know where to start, but when he slid inside her, he thought he was home forever. He didn’t know if they’d had sex once or twice because he never left her body between orgasms. Who cared? He wasn’t counting as there would be hundreds more to come. She had said forever. He hoped like fuck Freya meant it because he was all in.
He let her into the cottage and then walked immediately to Jason and Heidi’s place, hoping they were dressed and downstairs. Luke didn’t want to see them getting frisky ever again. Once was enough. Their cottage was in darkness, but he could hear laughter coming from Archer and Erica’s place. He jogged down the well-worn path.
“Hey, Luke,” Erica said, heaving up from her position on the sofa.
She grabbed her stomach as she stood. “You want a beer?”
“Hey guys, um, no to the beer, I’m not staying,” he said, lifting a hand like an awkward teenager.
He thought it was written all over him that he’d had sex with his best friend, but that wasn’t possible.
“I can’t stay long. I’ve left Freya up at my cottage. I was after Jason and his freezer,” Luke said.
“You did not,” Jason shouted.
Heidi jumped next to him and grinned at her husband.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke replied. “Can I have your key, please?”
“No, not until you admit it,” Jason said.
“Can you narrow it down, so I don’t admit something else?” Luke hedged.
“Are you going to marry her?” Jason asked.
“Ohh, Luke, did you and Freya get together? Please say you did and then marry her so she can live next door. I miss my friend being close,” Heidi said.
Archer roared with laughter, and Erica looked between all of them, lost.
“All right,” he said, raising his palms to them.
“Yes,” Heidi whisper shouted.
“Look, something happened. She nearly drowned,” Luke said.
All four faces dropped their smiles, and as a group, they came to the wall asking a barrage of questions, mainly if Freya was okay.
“She’s fine, but for about two minutes, I thought I’d lost her. She thought she was going to die, and I think it polarised how we felt about each other, and then things kinda escalated.”
“I’m so happy for you,” Erica sobbed. “Ignore these,” she said, pointing at her tears. “Pregnancy hormones.”
“You’d cry at a love story without being pregnant, honey,” Archer said.
“True,” she sniffed.
“Help yourself, brother and I’m pleased for you,” Jason said, handing over his key. “There’s plenty of food in the fridge and the freezer. Take some wine. There’s a cooler or the wine rack.”
“Please get her to move in. I worry about her so far away on her own,” Heidi said.
“It’s a quarter of a mile away,” Luke said.
“Still…”
“You have to pass her house to get to work,” he reasoned.
“Still…”
“We’re like an hour old. Moving in and marriage is a little way away, don’t you think?”
Four heads shook left and right, giving their opinion.
“Fine, whatever. I’m going to make sure she hasn’t got any after-effects from falling through a fake floor and probably drinking in five-hundred-year-old sediment.”
“What?” Archer said.
“We found the florins but by accident. But more interestingly, we also found a strange tin at the warehouse.”
“What’s in the tin?” Archer asked.
“Luke won’t tell us until he’s sorted through it. He’s always been the same,” Jason said.
“I need to pick the lock first,” Luke said. “If I find anything interesting, I’ll let you know.”
“I want to come and see what’s in the tin,” Erica said .
“Honey, do you remember the first twelve hours after, you know…?”
Erica cleared her throat and stoked her stomach. “Tell us as soon as you find anything. Should we stop the kids searching the warehouse if there will be stuff belonging to the Turners?”
“Kenny found the tin and didn’t tell the others. I’m not sure they’re interested in old stuff unless it has batteries. I’ll definitely do more walkthroughs when we meet again on Saturday. I love you all, but I need to get back to my girl,” Luke said, raising his hand with the key.
“Bye, Luke,” Heidi cooed.
Archer and Jason laughed as Erica muttered, “He better not fuck up our plans of getting wed and raising babies together.”
Luke chuckled as he walked into Jason’s kitchen, grabbed a basket near the laundry room, and filled it up with the makings for a picnic. He hauled his loot out the back, rested it on the wall, ran back to Jason, and tossed him the key. Luke ran away before Heidi or Erica could quiz him further. Lifting the handle of the basket, he went back to Freya.
Putting the food away in the fridge he raced up the stairs to hear the shower on. He stripped his semi-wet clothes, dumped them in the guest bath, and entered the shower stall with her. Seeing the curve of her bottom sway from side to side as she washed her hair was intoxicating. It wobbled in such an alluring way he dropped to his knees and kissed every inch, moving his hands around to her belly. The soap suds made her the perfect kind of slippery. His fingers searched for her centre, but when he couldn’t get the angle right from where he was kneeling, he pushed his hand between her thighs from behind and played with her that way. Freya’s legs shook as she widened and tilted for him. When he kissed down to the underside of her bottom, she pressed her palms to the tiled wall and dropped her head to watch.
His Peaches was a voyeur.
“Luke, I can’t come again, but you feel so good.”
“Let’s finish washing, and we can get under the covers and get warm.”
Luke wanted to fuck her again, but he didn’t think he had the reserves either. Their ordeal at the caves was hitting him, and he started to feel the loss of Freya, even with her standing in front of him. She left the shower first after she gave him a sultry kiss.
“Help yourself to a t-shirt,” Luke called out.
He heard drawers opening and closing as he washed his hair and then his body. When he towelled off and joined Freya in the bedroom, he found her crossed-legged in a pair of his black boxers and a white t-shirt. Her nipples were hard, poking the material to get his attention. He became hyper-aware of Freya, more than his wet dreams could ever muster.
“Have you broken into it yet?” Luke asked, nodding to the tin in her lap.
“No. Have you got your laptop here? I think my phone is on the seabed. It wasn’t on the ground when we left the cave.”
“Oh shit. We’ll need to get you another one ordered.”
“I can do it from your laptop, should get here in a few days.”
“Sure, I’ll go grab it.”
“Can you get snacks too? I think I’m going to crash from shock. ”
“Are you talking about us?” Luke said, stepping towards her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she said, laughing. “I’m talking about holding my breath for so long and thinking I was going to die, and I’d never kissed you.”
“Well, we sorted that out,” he said and gave her a salacious grin.
“That we did. Now go, snacks and technology.”
“Freya,” Luke said softly.
When she looked up from the tin, she gave him a wide smile.
“We didn’t talk about birth control.”
The smile slid right off her face, and then she mouthed oh shit .
“No more sex today because I don’t have condoms, and I’m not going to my brothers for those. It’s bad enough they guessed we’d got together when I went to get provisions.”
“They know? How do they know?”
“Jason,” Luke said.
“Might’ve known it was him. He is too astute for his own good.”
Freya dropped her head and then brought it up, looking pained. “How did they take it?”
“In no particular order, Heidi wants me to propose and for you to move in before we’re married. Erica wants you to have a baby and for me to not fuck this up. Jason and Archer basically agreed with the women. But I should warn you, I might be a little lost now we’ve crossed a line.”
“Do you have any regrets?” Freya asked quietly.
“None. Do you?”
Freya shook her head and then put her hand flat on her belly. “Do you want to marry me? ”
“Yeah, Peaches, I want to marry you. But I’m gonna propose properly. You better say yes.”
“Let it be a surprise,” she said, raising both eyebrows and looking disinterested at the tin.
Luke lunged for her and brought her up on her knees at the edge of the mattress, his thighs pressed against her. He kissed her so deeply she went boneless in his arms.
“You’re a cheeky one, Peaches. If you don’t say yes, we’re still living together and having my babies.”
“If you’re so set on babies, we won’t need condoms, will we?”
Luke couldn’t be happier, but he couldn’t forget the baggage that came with him. She was happy, relaxed and open to marrying him and raising a family like they’d planned it for years. It seemed too easy.
Leaning back to bring her entire face into focus, he looked deep into her eyes.
“Don’t fuck with me, Freya. Are you serious right now?”
“Luke, if you don’t want a future with me, then I would seriously consider leaving the island, as I couldn’t bear to watch you fall in love and marry another woman. I’m not that strong.”
“Maybe you know how I felt when I saw that ring, and you said you had a fiancé.”
“No, not even slightly. I’d be devastated. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate being in the same room as you. You stayed friends with me. You gotta know I couldn’t do that. I’d have to walk away.”
Luke gave her a grin. Over the fucking moon, she was into him as much as he was and that the friends line they’d crossed wasn’t a mistake.
“It’s a moot point, Peaches. What kind of ring do you want? ”
“The one at the bottom of the ocean. If you can’t get that, then something gorgeous and over the top.”
“I’ll see what I can rustle up. Now get under the covers because I can feel you shaking, and I don’t think it’s me this time.”
She nodded and stood up next to the bed. She pulled back the covers and slipped under, getting comfortable on his side. She took the tin from the other side and placed it on the bedside table. Luke wasn’t sure if she was okay with what happened, but he didn’t want to be away from her for too long. It was the middle of the afternoon, but he still went downstairs, locked up, and brought up a basket of food they could nibble on. He put it just inside the bedroom door and saw that Freya was asleep. Luke went back downstairs and grabbed his phone and laptop. Carefully slipping in on the other side of the bed, he propped himself up and opened up his laptop. The screen was already set to the ancestry site, and he was floored to see so many green leaves for a family that didn’t have descendants that lived long passed the firstborn.
He clicked through to another web page and searched for the type of tin found in the warehouse, and then when he found the name of it, he searched how to unpick it. He’d wait for Freya to wake up to open it together. Going back to the ancestry leaves, he clicked through the leaves, and his heart stalled when he saw the potential family link.
“That bitch,” he hissed quietly, not wanting to wake Freya.
Instead, he messaged his siblings.
Did you know Aunt Cynthia had children?