Chapter Thirty-Six Luke
Thirty-Six
Luke
The world turned to chaos in the space of a heartbeat.
One second Luke was fighting to keep the boat steady, the next he was underwater, the lake rushing into his mouth and nose like it was trying to claim him for good.
The wave had hit sideways, catching the boat at the worst possible angle, and now he was tumbling through black water with no sense of up or down.
His grandfather’s voice echoed through the rushing water: When the lake speaks, best listen. Well, Solace Lake was speaking now and what it was saying was: You should’ve stayed home, you stubborn bastard.
Luke kicked hard, lungs burning, following what he hoped was the direction of the surface.
When his head finally broke through, he gasped air that tasted like freedom and fear.
Rain drove down on him so hard it felt like being pelted with gravel.
Lightning split the sky, illuminating the chaos around him for brief, terrifying moments.
Mainly, it was dark. So dark from the storm it might as well be night.
The boat was gone, too. Just…gone. Probably sitting on the bottom of the lake with his grandfather’s compass and twenty years of tour memories. He felt an overbearing sense of loss and in the same moment, realized that was the same way he felt about losing Sophie.
Another wave rolled over him and Luke fought to stay afloat, his clothes dragging at him like anchors.
The water was cold enough to steal his breath and he could already feel his muscles starting to seize up.
He’d seen enough near drownings—real drownings, too—to know how this went.
First the panic then the exhaustion, then the quiet slide under the surface.
But not today. Not when Sophie might still need him. Might still want him.
He forced himself to float, conserving energy, trying to get his bearings in the chaos. Lightning flashed again and for a split second he saw it—a pinprick of light in the distance. Maple Island. Had to be. The inn’s windows catching the storm light…or maybe someone had a fire going?
Luke started swimming, each stroke a battle against the waves trying to drag him under. His boots felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each but kicking them off meant losing momentum. The current pulled him sideways, but he kept the light in sight and pushed forward.
Come on, Rhodes. You’ve been swimming these waters since you could walk. Lake’s not gonna beat you now.
But the lake had other ideas. A wave caught him from behind, rolling him under again and this time he stayed down longer. When he surfaced, choking and gasping, the light seemed farther away.
His arms were getting heavy. Each stroke took more effort than the last and the cold was creeping into his bones, making his thoughts sluggish. He could feel the hypothermia starting to set in: the same creeping numbness that must have taken Ethan’s dad all of those years back.
Not like this. Not when I never got to tell Sophie I was sorry.
The thought of Sophie gave him another burst of energy, enough to close the distance to the island. But as the rocky shore came into view, Luke realized he had a new problem. The waves were driving him straight into the rocks with enough force to crack his skull like an egg.
He tried to angle himself toward what looked like a small beach, but the current was too strong. A wave picked him up and hurled him forward and Luke threw his arms up to protect his head as he slammed into the rocks.
Pain exploded through his shoulder, and suddenly there was water in his mouth again, filling his throat. The rocks scraped against him as the wave pulled back, dragging him toward deeper water. He tried to grab onto something, anything, but his fingers were too numb and the rocks too slick.
Another wave rolled in, bigger than the last, and Luke felt it lift him up and drive him down again. This time his head struck stone and stars exploded behind his eyes. Water rushed into his lungs, and suddenly he couldn’t tell which way was up.
This is it. This is how it ends.
He thought of his father, drinking himself to death after his mother left. Thought of his grandfather, who’d spent his whole life on this lake and died peacefully in his sleep. Thought of his mother, who he’d never see again, and the brother or sister he’d never get to meet.
He thought of Sophie, probably warm and safe in her boathouse, wondering why the hell she’d ever gotten mixed up with a stubborn ass like him.
But then hands were grabbing him, pulling him up and out of the water with surprising strength. Luke found himself being dragged onto a narrow strip of rocky beach, coughing up what felt like half the lake.
“Jesus, man, you nearly drowned,” a voice said above him. Young, male, with an accent that wasn’t quite local.
Luke rolled onto his side, retching lake water and trying to get his bearings. The storm was still raging overhead, but they were sheltered here by an overhang of rock. A small fire flickered nearby and in its light Luke could make out his rescuer.
Twenty-something, lean build, curly brown hair plastered to his head by the rain.
“You okay?” the man asked, crouching beside him. “That was some swim you just took.”
Luke managed to sit up, his head still spinning. As his vision cleared, he took in his surroundings properly for the first time. A small tent tucked against the rocks. Empty bottles of whiskey scattered around the fire. A makeshift camp.
Son of a bitch.
“You,” Luke growled, adrenaline cutting through his exhaustion. “You’re the bastard who’s been terrorizing my town.”
The man’s eyes went wide. “What? No, I—”
Luke forced himself to his feet, swaying but determined. Sophie’s face flashed through his mind—her fear after the break-in, the way she’d jumped at every sound for days afterward. This piece of shit had violated her home, her safety.
“Starting fires,” Luke snarled, lurching forward. “Breaking into houses. Breaking into Sophie’s place.” He grabbed the man by the collar, using momentum and rage to slam him back against the rock face. “You son of a bitch.”
The man’s hands came up defensively. “It’s not—it’s not like you think,” he stammered, rain streaming down his face. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I was just looking for information.”
“Information?” Luke pressed harder, his forearm across the man’s throat. The storm swirled around them, whipping Luke’s wet hair across his face. “What kind of information requires breaking into people’s homes?”
“About my family,” the man gasped—or more like, slurred. He was drunk. “I’ve been searching through old records, town documents. Anything that might tell me where I came from.”
“You couldn’t just ask someone?”
The stranger frowned. “Didn’t think people would be up for talkin’ to someone like me.”
Luke eyed his ragged clothes, the empty bottles. If this kid was a drinker, he wouldn’t be thinking straight either. He’d seen it with his dad, how the logical route wasn’t the one an alcoholic usually chose.
“You don’t get it, man; I’m trying to track down my birth mother,” the man continued.
Luke’s grip loosened slightly. “Birth mother?”
“Beth Flores. You know her?”
The name hit Luke like another wave, knocking the breath from his lungs so hard he couldn’t answer.
The man gestured to Luke’s arm, still on his throat. “If you let me go, I have a photo.”
Luke swallowed, stepping away, staring at the man in front of him.
The stranger reached into his jacket with shaking hands, pulling out something small and weathered. He handed it to Luke, who turned it over to see an image that made his world tilt sideways.
A woman in a hospital bed, young and tired-looking, holding a newborn baby. The woman’s face was gaunt, her blue eyes hollow with exhaustion, and something that looked like grief. But Luke would know that face anywhere.
His mother. Beth Flores Rhodes. Looking like she was holding the most precious thing in the world and the heaviest burden she’d ever carried all at the same time.
“That’s my mom. My-my name’s Finn.”
Luke looked at the young man—at Finn—and suddenly saw it clear as day. The eyes were different, brown instead of blue, but the shape was the same. The jawline, the way he held his shoulders when he was nervous. Like looking at a ghost of himself.
“When were you born?” Luke asked, though he already knew the answer was going to break something inside him.
“March sixteenth, two thousand and three.”
The year his mother left.
Luke closed his eyes, Abbey’s words from that afternoon echoing in his head. She was pregnant…She tried to start over with your dad, but she couldn’t live with herself.
“Hey.” Finn’s voice seemed to come from very far away. “You okay, man?”
Luke opened his eyes and looked at the young man. His brother. Because that was what Finn was, wasn’t it? The baby his mother had given up, the secret that had driven her away from everything she’d ever known.
“I know this woman,” Luke said, voice rough, hardly able to get the words out.
Finn’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah.” A pause as he looked at Finn dead in the eye. “She’s my mom, too.”
Finn’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re fucking kidding me?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“So that means…you’re my brother?” Luke nodded and Finn was quiet for a moment, tears filling his eyes. “Jesus. I have a brother,” he finally said, shaking his head in disbelief. He went to hug Luke but Luke stepped away, not quite ready for that, still trying to compute what was happening.
Finn smiled, pacing up and down. “I knew this was the right place, I knew it! I saw those boathouses,” he said, pointing across the lake, “all lined up like little houses on stilts in the background of the photo, a long way in the distance, through the window. Took me weeks of searching online, comparing photos, but I finally figured it out…” He paused and looked up at Luke.
“Where is she? Your mom, I mean? My…mom?”
“Vancouver,” Luke said, voice rough. “Haven’t seen her in years. She walked out on us a few months after she had you…if you are the kid she had.”
“I have a family,” Finn said, still pacing, almost talking to himself.
“Honestly thought I’d end up a bitter old man, dying alone because I was too scared to let anyone close.
” He paused, peering at Luke. “Even had a fiancée last year, but I screwed that up, too. Convinced myself she’d leave eventually, like my dad did, like my birth mom did.
So I made sure I made her leave, best to get in first.”
Luke opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the words died in his throat. Because Finn could’ve been describing Luke’s own life. The same fears, the same self-sabotage, the same bone-deep certainty that people always left.
Then he stared at his brother—his brother, Christ—seeing his own wounds reflected back at him.
“Yeah, well,” Luke said roughly, “that’s a hell of a way to live.
Trust me, I know.” He dragged a hand through his hair.
“Spent years doing the same damn thing. But maybe…” He thought of Sophie.
“Maybe repeating history and running scared isn’t the answer. Maybe some people are worth the risk.”
Then through the driving rain and wind, Luke caught sight of a figure running toward them along the rocky shore. Small, determined, stumbling slightly on the uneven ground but pressing forward with that stubborn persistence that had driven him crazy from day one.
Sophie.
When he’d been underwater, when the lake had been trying to drag him down for good, her face had been the last thing he’d seen.
Not his regrets, not his fears—just Sophie.
All those weeks of being a stubborn ass, of pushing her away because he was too scared to trust what they had, it had all seemed so damn petty when he thought he was about to die.
She was everything. The woman who’d fallen in his lake and somehow made it feel like home again.
The woman who saw possibilities where he saw problems, who brought light to places that had been dark too long.
She spotted him and her face cracked open with relief. But then she slowed down, and Luke could see the hesitation there too, like she wasn’t sure if he wanted her there.
Like hell.
Luke was moving before his brain caught up, crossing the rocky ground in long strides. He reached her just as she opened her mouth to say something and hauled her against him with enough force to lift her clean off the ground.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered as her hands found his face, her eyes searching his. “I thought I’d never get to tell you that I’m sorry, that I—”
“No.” Luke’s voice was fierce, desperate. “I’m sorry. For being an ass, for not trusting you, for wasting weeks being scared when I should’ve been holding on to you.” He kissed her, hard and hungry, tasting rain and tears. “I’m never letting you go again. You hear me? Never.”
Sophie kissed him back like she was drowning and he was air, her hands fisted in his wet shirt, anchoring him to her.
Lightning split the sky above them, but Luke barely noticed.
Nothing existed except Sophie in his arms, Sophie kissing him like she meant it, Sophie choosing him despite every reason she had to walk away.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
“I love you,” he said roughly, his hands framing her face, rain streaming down between his fingers. “I love you, Sophie Bennett.”