Chapter Twelve Luke
Twelve
Luke
The touch of Sophie’s hand in his sent a charge straight up Luke’s arm like he’d grabbed a live wire.
He’d reached for her without thinking. It was an instinct, like bracing against a sudden wave.
Now her fingers were wrapped in his as he led her through the crowd toward the water’s edge, and he found himself acutely aware of every damn detail about her.
That blue dress hugged curves his hands itched to trace, flowing around her legs in a way that made his mouth go dry.
She’d done something different with her hair.
Half up, showing off the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder.
Made a man think about tasting the skin there.
The sight of her delicate collarbone peeking above the neckline of her dress didn’t help matters.
Christ. When had collarbones become something that could knock a man sideways?
“So what exactly happens in this lantern launch?” she asked, looking up at him with those big brown eyes.
“You’ll find out,” he grunted, more gruffly than he intended. Had to get a grip on himself. He wasn’t some damn teenager with his first crush.
The townsfolk gathered along the main dock.
Luke guided Sophie to the shoreline where Abe stood barking orders like the ceremony was a military operation.
He was pushing eighty, but still stood ramrod straight, his captain’s hat worn at the exact same angle it had been for all the time Luke had known him.
His white beard was trimmed with the same precision he’d once used navigating destroyers through enemy waters.
He’d run this show since before Luke could walk, and God help anyone who tried to change his system. The man was as permanent a fixture as the lake itself.
He was also Caleb’s pa—a fact that had damn near broken him and Margaret when Caleb came out.
Luke remembered the shouting matches that had echoed across the water from the inn when Caleb was a teen, Abe’s rigid military values colliding with his son’s truth.
Margaret had eventually come around to the idea, but it took a long time for Abe. For years, he didn’t speak to his son.
But something had shifted. Luke never knew exactly what.
Abe wasn’t one for heart-to-hearts. One day, the old captain had shown up at Caleb’s first Pride event, still stiff as a new board with his wife but standing there all the same.
These days, he introduced Mikkel as “my son-in-law” in the same gruff tone he used for everything, but Luke had seen the old man’s eyes when Caleb and Mikkel exchanged vows. Some things ran deeper than traditions.
Abe ran the lantern ceremony with the same unwavering commitment he ran the old inn, refusing to cancel even during the hurricane of 2013 when he’d been the only one crazy enough to show up. “Tradition doesn’t bend to weather,” he’d told Luke afterward. “That’s the whole damn point.”
“Everyone needs a lantern and a partner!” Abe called out in that booming voice that had once ordered ships through storms. His eyes landed on Luke and Sophie. “Come get yourselves a lantern, you two.”
The old man pushed a shallow wooden vessel into Luke’s free hand: one of Luke’s own creations from last winter.
His pa had taught him to work with cedar when he was barely tall enough to see over the workbench, showing him how to follow the grain rather than fight it.
This little boat had emerged from a scrap most people would’ve tossed in the fire, but Luke had seen something in the knots and whorls.
He’d carved it on a night when the lake had frozen over and the silence had pressed in too close, his hands needing something to do while his mind wandered.
The candle sat dead center, anchored in beeswax he’d traded Ethan typewriter parts for.
Nothing fancy about it. Just honest work, something that would serve its purpose and return to the lake when done.
“Soooo pretty,” Sophie murmured, her fingers tracing the curves of the miniature hull. Luke found himself hooked on how she moved those fingers; the way she stroked the wood.
“Made it myself,” he admitted.
“Wait, you made this? Like, with your actual hands and not some enchanted forest creatures?”
“Yep.”
“It’s amazing.”
He squirmed slightly. Never expected anyone to look at his miniatures like that—like they saw more than timber and time. It was…uncomfortable. “Just something to stop me climbing the walls all winter,” he muttered.
“Well, it’s officially adorable.” Then she frowned. “Do they float off to inspire fish after or…?”
“Biodegradable. I round up whatever’s left in the morning.”
“Crafty and eco-conscious?” Her lips curved up, revealing a tiny mole just above the left corner of her mouth that he hadn’t noticed before.
A perfect dark dot. Made him wonder how it would feel under his tongue, if he could taste the sweetness of her smile, trace that small mark with his thumb, his lips.
The thought sent a surge of heat straight to his groin.
Get it together, Rhodes.
The band had shifted to something slow and haunting, the notes carrying across the water as dusk deepened into true evening. Along the shore, people knelt in pairs, working together to light their lanterns.
“Come on,” he said to Sophie, voice rough with barely contained want. “We light it together.”
He led her to the edge of the lake. Without ceremony, he dropped into a crouch. Sophie followed, her dress billowing as she knelt beside him, a little too close for his comfort…or sanity.
She shifted slightly and her thigh bumped his. He didn’t move.
“So? What’s the protocol here?” she asked, glancing at the lantern. “Is this a solemn ceremony or more of a DIY situation?”
Luke reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a battered matchbook. “We light it. Say something. Let it go.”
“Vague. Mysterious. Very you.”
He didn’t rise to it. Just struck the match, the flare of it briefly lighting the curve of her cheek.
She leaned in, hands cupped around his without hesitation to protect the flame from the breeze.
Her fingers brushed his—just a quick touch—but his pulse jumped anyway. Damn thing never listened to reason.
They got the wick lit on the second try. Warm light flickered over her face, catching the gold in her eyes. She smelled like lake air and something citrusy, and it was making it hard to think in straight lines.
He cleared his throat.
“Now you make a wish,” he said. “You tell it to the flame. Supposedly, the lake listens.”
“Supposedly?” she asked, brows raised.
He shrugged. “Abe swears it works. Who am I to argue with the old man?”
She stared at the lantern for a long moment, then leaned forward, lips close to the flickering light.
Her whisper was too soft for him to hear.
Probably for the best. If she’d said his name, he wasn’t sure what he’d have done.
Then it was his turn. He hesitated, a man unaccustomed to wishes and wants beyond the simple rhythms of lake life.
But with Sophie kneeling beside him, the curve of her neck bathed in golden light, her dress slipping slightly off one shoulder, he found himself leaning toward the flame.
Let me be what she needs, what she wants.
The thought blindsided him. It felt too raw, too desperate. So he pushed it away, like shoving something back underwater before it could surface again.
They lowered the lantern to the water together, their hands touching again. The gentle current caught the small vessel immediately, drawing it away from shore to join the growing constellation of flames now drifting across the lake’s surface.
“It’s beautiful,” Sophie said quietly. Luke glanced at her.
She looked—hell, he didn’t even know how to describe it.
Lit up. Skin soft in the lantern glow, eyes wide like she’d never seen anything quite like this.
A couple of cherry blossoms still clung to her hair, defiant despite the breeze, like they were making some kind of point.
The contrast between her city-girl polish and those wild petals made something raw shift inside him.
He wanted to mess that polish up. See what she looked like when she wasn’t trying so hard. See if she’d still look at him like that when her lipstick was smudged and her voice was saying his name for entirely different reasons.
Luke cleared his throat, grateful for the shadows. His body had decided to jump a mile ahead of him and it took everything he had not to move with it.
The music picked up in the distance with couples laughing, dancing. But he stayed right there, caught in the quiet between them.
“Thank you,” Sophie said, turning toward him. “For sharing this.”
Luke didn’t think. The words just came. “You’re becoming part of it now.” He met her gaze. “The lake. This place. You fit.”
Her mouth parted, just slightly, and now he was looking at her lips, really looking, and every rational thought fled his brain. It would take just one small movement to reach her. To lean in. To see if she tasted as sharp and soft as she looked.
Control yourself, he ordered silently. She wasn’t some tourist passing through. She was his neighbor. Someone he’d have to face every damn day across the docks. Someone who now trusted him to help with her renovations, who looked at his simple woodwork with genuine appreciation.
He stood abruptly, offering her his hand again. She took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet. The mud clung to her dress, to her knees and he had to fight the urge to brush it away, to let his hands linger on the curves of her legs.
“Wanna dance?” The question surprised him as much as it seemed to surprise her.
“I’d love to,” she said, “but I should warn you, I dance like a newborn foal. All limbs, no coordination.”
A laugh rumbled up from his chest. “That’s fine,” he said, his thumb ghosting over her knuckles, unwilling to let go of her hand. “I’ll keep you steady.”
As they crossed back toward the wooden dance platform, Luke was acutely aware of the eyes of the townspeople on them.
Townspeople who’d known him his whole life, who’d watched him retreat into himself after his ma left, then again when his grandparents and pa died…
and even further still after Claire left.
He could practically feel the weight of their expectations, their hopes.
Normally, that kind of attention would have him heading for his boat, eager to escape to the solitude of open water. But tonight, with Sophie’s hand in his, Luke found he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.
Because when they reached that dance floor and he pulled her into his arms, he knew with absolute certainty he was exactly where he was supposed to be. Her body fit against his like she’d been made for him, soft where he was hard, yielding where he was firm.
The hunger building in him was unrelenting now, a bone-deep need that had nothing to do with simple attraction and everything to do with the way she challenged him, surprised him, made him want to be worthy of those admiring looks she gave his work.
Easy, he warned himself as Sophie’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, her body swaying with his to the music. She’s not yours to take.
But as her head tipped back to look up at him, moonlight catching in her dark curls, Luke knew he was fighting a losing battle.
Solace Lake had carved its path through these hills over countless years, shaping everything in its path to its will.
What was happening between him and Sophie felt just as unstoppable, just as elemental.
The thought he’d had earlier came back to him: Let me be what she needs, what she wants.
This time, he couldn’t fight it. Hell, he didn’t want to anymore. He just needed to be real with himself. He wanted Sophie. He needed her. No matter the past, now was what mattered.
For the first time in years, Luke Rhodes didn’t want to fight the current. He wanted to surrender to it completely.