Chapter Twenty-Eight Luke
Twenty-Eight
Luke
“So,” Ray said, breaking the silence as he took a curve too fast, “that went well.”
Luke shot him a look. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t state the obvious?”
“Just drive, Ray.”
But Ray, being Ray, couldn’t leave well enough alone. Never could. Thirty-plus years of friendship had taught Luke that Ray Wakeman had exactly three settings: electrical genius, food van connoisseur, and pain in the ass. Right now, he was running on full pain-in-the-ass power.
“All I’m saying is, windows ain’t worth that look on your face.” Ray gestured vaguely toward Luke’s expression with one hand, the truck swerving slightly before he grabbed the wheel again. “Fitz’ll take it back. Probably knock a few bucks off, but that’s business.”
It wasn’t about the damn window. Or the money. Luke didn’t give a rat’s ass about either. But trying to explain that to Ray would be like trying to teach him advanced calculus: technically possible, but not worth the effort.
So Luke just grunted and kept his eyes on the shore.
Ray tapped the steering wheel in an off-beat rhythm that matched exactly nothing on the classic rock station playing softly in the background. “Book lady sure knows what she wants.”
“Sophie,” Luke corrected without thinking. “Her name’s Sophie.”
“Right, right. Sophie. Reminds me a bit of Claire, you know? All that talk about vision and plans.”
Luke kept his face neutral. “Sophie’s nothing like Claire.”
“All I’m saying is, Claire was always yapping about her ‘vision’ for Solace Springs, remember?
How she was going to ‘transform’ the lake, bring it into the modern age.
But then she’s a city girl, like your book lady.
Though Sophie’s probably even more citified.
London’s like New York, but with those red phone booths, right? ”
Luke’s jaw clenched. Ray was fishing and Luke wasn’t biting.
But the comparison nagged at him, worming its way in.
Sophie had had the same look in her eye that Claire used to get just a moment ago: that determined set of her jaw, that flash of irritation when she thought someone wasn’t taking her ideas seriously.
That passion that burned hot enough to scorch anyone nearby.
But Sophie wasn’t Claire. Claire had wanted to gut the boathouses, replace weathered wood with chrome and glass, turn the lakeside into some kind of resort. Sophie wanted to preserve the character, work with the history, build something that honored what was already there.
“I can hear the gears grinding from here,” Ray murmured. “You stuck on this chick then?”
“Not open to discussion. Drop it.” Luke’s voice came out sharp enough to cut.
Ray raised one hand in mock surrender. “Consider it dropped. But don’t come crying to me when—”
“The road, Ray,” Luke interrupted, pointing at the deer about to dart across their path.
Ray hit the brakes, the truck skidding to a stop just as the deer bounded across and disappeared into the trees on the other side. The window in the back slid forward along with Ray’s cousin, both thudding against the back of the cab.
“Shit,” Ray muttered as Luke twisted around to check on them. “Window okay?”
“That all you care about?” his cousin said. “Not even checking in on your own blood?”
“You’re not going to cost my friend a lot of money if you’re all banged up,” Ray retorted.
His cousin rolled his eyes, checking over the window. “Looks fine to me…luckily for you.”
They drove in silence for a while until they pulled into the salvage yard. The place looked like a junkyard had a baby with an antique store with piles of weathered wood and rusted metal alongside pristine fixtures saved from old buildings. “Want me to do the talking?” Ray asked.
“When have you ever known me to need help talking to Fitz?” Luke countered.
Ray snorted. “Fair point. But you’ve got that look that makes small children cry, so maybe dial it back a notch before we go in.”
“I don’t have a look.”
“You’ve got several, and this one’s in the top three most terrifying.”
Luke exhaled slowly, consciously relaxing his face. “Better?”
“Marginally. You still look like you’re planning where to hide my body, but at least now it seems like you’d give me a quick death.”
Ray’s cousin let out a chuckle and Luke felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. Ray had that effect—annoying as hell but impossible to stay mad at for long. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The three men unloaded the window carefully, Ray chattering the whole time about nothing important, filling the silence the way he always did. Fitz came shuffling out of his office, an old man with hands as gnarled as driftwood but eyes sharp as tacks.
“Didn’t expect to see this beauty again,” he said, running a hand over the frame. “Buyer’s remorse?”
“Something like that,” Luke replied, not wanting to get into the details. “Any chance you’ll take it back?”
Fitz scratched his stubbled chin. “Might do. For a restocking fee.”
The negotiation that followed was familiar territory, comfortable in its predictability.
This, Luke understood: the back and forth, the dance of value and worth, each side knowing the steps by heart.
When it was done, Luke had lost a hundred bucks but gained a receipt and a promise that Fitz would keep an eye out for other windows that might suit a bookshop.
“Sorry about the window, man,” Ray said as they all climbed back into the truck. “And, you know, about bringing up Claire.”
Luke shrugged. “Forget it.”
“It’s just…” Ray hesitated, starting the engine but not putting the truck in gear yet. “I don’t want to see you get burned again, like your old pa did by your ma.”
Luke tensed.
“You’ve been holed up in that boathouse of yours for years,” he continued, “barely speaking to anyone who wasn’t paying for a tour, and now suddenly you’re all in with this London girl.
I worry, that’s all. Outsiders have a habit of tearing families apart in these parts; you know that more than most.”
The concern in Ray’s voice was genuine enough to stop Luke’s automatic dismissal. Instead, he stared out at the salvage yard, at the pieces of the past waiting to be repurposed or forgotten.
“Sophie doesn’t feel like an outsider anymore,” he said for what felt like the hundredth time, the words feeling important somehow, like saying them aloud made them more true. “She’s not looking to change the lake. She’s looking to be part of it.”
The thought brought comfort, although it was comfort with a “but” hanging at the end, unspoken yet felt.
Luke shoved the thought away, focusing instead on the lake as it came back into view, blue and steady and reliable as ever.
The water didn’t change, even when everything around it did. That was something to hold on to.
“What next?” Ray asked after they’d dropped his cousin off and approached the turn toward the boathouse. “Back to the renovation?”
Luke nodded. “Looks like I’ve got some floor-to-ceiling shelves to build.”
“To her exact specifications, I’m guessing,” Ray added with a smirk.
“Shut up and drive, Ray.”
When the boathouse came into view a few moments later, Sophie was visible through the window with a pencil tucked behind her ear and a determined expression as she measured something.
Luke felt that knot in his gut loosen slightly.
She looked up, spotted the truck, and her face broke into a smile that hit him right in the chest. Damn, he needed to touch her, smell her, feel her right in that moment.
Luke hopped out of Ray’s truck and strode to the boathouse.
Sophie met him at the door before he could even knock, that damn pencil still stuck behind her ear. “How’d it go?” she asked, a pensive look on her face that made him feel about as bad as a bear that had stolen a cub’s dinner. “I can pay you back any—”
“Nope. My mistake, my money. I screwed up. Your shop, your call. Won’t happen again.” He found her waist, pulling her close until she was flush against him. Then he leaned down until his lips brushed her ear.
“Stop being so distracting,” she breathed, her head tilting back as he pressed a kiss to the spot just below her ear. “We have work to do.”
“Want me to stop?” Luke asked, though his hands were already sliding under the hem of her T-shirt, finding warm skin beneath.
“God, no,” Sophie gasped, her fingers threading through his hair, pulling his mouth to hers.
The kiss was hungry, urgent, both of them pouring their lingering tension into it. Luke backed her against the drafting table, lifting her up onto it without breaking the kiss. Blueprints crinkled beneath her. Wood shavings dusted the floor. A hammer lay forgotten near his foot.
None of it mattered. Nothing mattered but Sophie’s hands yanking at his shirt, his palms skating up her thighs, the little sounds she made when he nipped at her throat.
“Here?” she panted, gesturing vaguely at their surroundings.
“Here,” he confirmed, tugging her shirt over her head.
The sawhorse table wobbled dangerously beneath them. Luke steadied it with one hand, his other already undoing her bra. “Not stable enough.”
“Then find something that is.”
Luke glanced around the space, his brain only half-working. The floor was covered in dust and tools. The new countertop wasn’t secured yet. The walls were…
“Wall,” he decided, scooping her up in one motion. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her to the nearest stud-reinforced wall, pinning her against it with his body.
“Structural integrity,” Sophie gasped between kisses. “Very important in renovations.”
“Essential,” Luke agreed.
What followed was hot, messy, perfect. Clothes shoved aside rather than removed. Sophie’s nails digging into his shoulders. His hand braced against the wall for leverage. Her leg hooked around his hip, urging him deeper.
It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t slow. It was reconciliation and reassurance and something that felt dangerously close to need.
When they finally collapsed against each other, breathing hard, Sophie’s face tucked against his neck, Luke felt himself relax, too. This—her in his arms, her trust in him restored—was what mattered. Not windows or reading nooks or the past.
“I think,” Sophie said when she could speak again, her voice muffled against his shoulder, “that we’ve just christened yet another part of the boathouse. At this rate, we’ll run out of surfaces.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he teased. “We can get creative.”
Later, after some semblance of actual renovation work was completed, Sophie disappeared upstairs to change. Luke gathered the scattered blueprints from the floor, trying to smooth out the crumples they’d left during their enthusiastic reunion.
Her phone buzzed on the workbench, the screen lighting up with a new message. The preview caught his eye.
@BookishAdventures: As a top-tier backer, I’m so excited to see how you transform that old boathouse into something fresh and modern! When can we expect—
The rest of the message was cut off, but what he’d seen was enough to make him pause.
Top-tier backer? What the hell was that about? Some kind of business partner? A business partner expecting “fresh and modern” changes?
Sophie had mentioned her mother’s inheritance helping fund the bookshop. Never said anything about partners or backers or whatever this person was.
Then again, he hadn’t asked. Too busy getting lost in her.
Still, it needled at him.
Why hadn’t she said anything about a backer?