Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Luke
“That was fast,” Colleen said with a leer only a big sister could master. “Been so long, you went off like Coke poured over Pop Rocks?”
“Shhhh,” he shushed her, giving her a vicious glare. “Harriet might hear you.”
“She’s asleep.”
“I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Poor kid was tired. So the date was a bomb?”
“Wasn’t a date.”
“You were only there for two hours.”
“So? Who named you my hover sister?”
“Uh, me. I did. Two years ago.”
“You’re fired.”
“WOO HOO! Master gave Dobby a sock!”
“Shut up.”
“Kylie shot you down? Huh. Guess I lose in the betting pool.”
“You placed a bet?” Luke knew all about the stupid betting pool Wolf over at Greta’s had going.
“Sure. Why not?”
“You have insider knowledge?”
“Made it even better odds.”
“My love life isn’t something other people should make money from. That’s skating close to porn.”
“Ew! Gross, Luke!”
He let out a tense laugh and made his way to the fridge for a beer. The sight of the bottle in his hand made Colleen peer at him.
“Of all the people who should understand, sis, you should get it. Your love life is the talk of the town.”
“I have no love life because of all the gossip!”
“Third-Date Colleen isn’t the best nickname, huh?”
“Shut up. It’s just superstition. Is it my fault every guy I’ve dated has ended up in my emergency room after the third date?”
“Yes.”
She threw a kitchen towel at him. Jester jumped up, snatched it in his teeth, and made off for his dog bed like he’d killed a bird in mid-air, eyes cutting over to Luke in triumph.
See? I protected you, a mere human, from certain death, those eyes said. Give me a treat.
“It’s not my fault, but everyone in town thinks it is, so that’s all I get to be. Third-Date Colleen.”
“I’m Poor Luke the Young Widower, shortened to just Poor Luke. I’ll trade you.”
“You changed the subject from your pathetic love life to my pathetic love life, bro. Tell me what happened with Kylie.”
He let out a sigh that rattled his back teeth, opened the beer, and chugged about half in one long sequence of gulps.
Doing something that shocked his body felt good.
His throat ached from the cold, the chill of the bottle against his fingers making him feel alive.
While he’d wanted to engage his limbs in a very different set of activities tonight, all of them naked with Kylie, he hadn’t.
Why?
She’d been ready. Eager. Willing. Choosing to end things before they got out of hand made him look like a gentleman, following his stupid contract.
But the woman wasn’t dumb. She knew he was halting for other reasons.
Reasons he barely understood himself.
As he downed his beer, Colleen looked a bit worried.
“Bad enough to need a drink?”
“Something like that.”
“Did you or did you not sleep with her?”
“No.”
“But something happened.”
“Not talking about this. Thanks for watching Harriet. Sorry you lost your bet.”
“Luke.” Her voice softened, and so did his emotional armor. “Talk to me.”
“Look. I’m a man. A man who spent the last two years pretending not to have needs.
And now Kylie Hood comes into town, full of fairy magic and order and lightness, and I’m being stupid.
I’m just turning toward the familiar. Whatever I’m feeling is all about comfort, about the past. It’s just nostalgia.
None of it’s real. Kylie’s leaving town in two months and she’s my nanny. Nothing can happen between us.”
“Something did happen!”
“Thanks for listening, sis.”
She caught his forearm, the one not holding his beer.
“Luke. Mom and I have spent a lot of time encouraging you to get on with your life. If you think you can find happiness with Kylie, go for it.”
“I’m not going to hurt Harriet by banging the nanny.”
“You sound like Darren.”
“Darren’s a smart guy. A doctor, you know.”
“Darren’s about as qualified to hand out relationship advice as I am to teach a monkey how to skateboard.”
“Pretty sure that’s Mel’s next project.”
“You’re changing the subject again.”
“Sure am.”
“You don’t have to feel guilty for moving on.”
“You’re right, I’ve heard that from you or Mom about a thousand times.”
“Moving on doesn’t mean you love Amber and the baby any less.”
Ka-boom.
There it was.
Rubbing his eye, his fingers moved to his brow, where he had the beginnings of a tension headache. All the good feelings with Kylie, especially with her in his arms and that smoking hot kiss, were tangled up with this festering pool of emotions.
Emotions he avoided for a reason.
“I told Kylie about the baby.”
“Wow. I mean… wow. You really are falling for her if you’re getting that intimate.”
“I told you we didn’t sleep together.”
“I said intimate. Not physical. You showed her a piece of your heart only the close family knows about.”
“Yeah.”
“Which means you want her to be close to you, too.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a grown-up, Luke. You’re a leader. A protector. You’re a strong man with a good heart. Harriet couldn’t have a better father. But you deserve something for yourself, too. Maybe that’s Kylie.”
“She works for me.”
“Then fire her.”
“Harriet would kill me in my sleep with a single LEGO.”
His sister burst into giggles. “That’s true.”
The beer was taking the slightest edge off, blurring a few harsh lines, which allowed him to let a small wall down. “Colleen, I don’t know what to do. I went to her apartment with takeout to apologize for yelling at her and ended up kissing her.”
Colleen’s grin stretched wide. Luke was pretty sure he saw betting grid dollar signs in them.
“Then I freaked out and left. I told her I can’t bang the nanny.”
“You did not say that!”
He leveled her with a flat look.
“You did say that. Geez, Luke, you need lessons on how to woo a woman.”
“I need lessons on how not to be attracted to her.”
Raucous laughter poured out of her. “Hah! Good luck with that.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he confessed, plopping into his recliner. Jester came up to him, nuzzling his elbow, demanding head scratches.
“You know what you want to do.”
“Yeah, sure, but being an adult means you don’t run off half cocked and do whatever your impulses tell you to do.”
She snickered. He rolled his eyes.
“No one can tell you what to do, but Luke–the fact that you’re conflicted is a sign.”
“How so?”
“When Mindy Maasten came on to you like a bulldozer, you weren’t conflicted. Your answer was a clear no.”
“Right.”
“And when Annabeth Kouri decided to stop by every Sunday before church for ten weeks in a row, you weren’t conflicted.”
“She kept inviting me to Mass. I’m not Catholic.”
“That’s not the point!”
“You’re saying the fact that I don’t know how to handle my feelings for Kylie is a sign that I should go for it, because I have any feelings at all?”
Colleen touched the tip of her nose with one finger and pointed at him with another.
“Bingo.”
“This is complicated.”
“Nah. Banging your nanny is pretty simple.”
He grabbed a throw pillow and tossed it at her. Before it hit, Jester leaped into the air and caught it with his teeth.
“Good boy,” she said as Jester loped over to Luke, dropped the pillow in his lap, and panted as if to say, More playing catch, please!
“Get out of my house, you evil sister,” he said, pointing to the door.
She blew him a kiss.
“Just wait another week before you sleep with her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Another week. Mama wants that $450 prize pot. I need new tires for my car.”
He tossed the pillow again, pleasing the dog. Colleen’s laughter mocked him, fading away as she went out the door.
Leaving him alone with his own thoughts, a light buzz, a dog eager for more pillow catch, and a raging hard-on.
Tossing the pillow a few times for Jester was something he could do, so he did, until the dog dropped the game and settled down in his bed.
What the hell had he just done at Kylie’s? Dumped his heart out on her lap, talked about his dead wife, told her about the pregnancy–something only his close family knew–and then…
Kissed her?
“Regular Romeo, aren’t you? Kiss a woman after talking about your wife and baby dying,” he muttered, eyeing his empty beer bottle, tempted to have a second but knowing he’d regret it in the morning.
Besides, he was the only responsible adult in the house, no matter how much he wished Jester could fill that role sometimes.
One drink limit.
Replaying that kiss didn’t help matters, scrambling his brain and blood until he was throbbing so hard, he felt like an electric bass. What on earth had made him lose his restraint and cross that line?
Kylie.
That's what.
That’s who.
Now he had overshared, kissed her, and she was coming tomorrow morning as usual to take care of Harriet.
Could he have made a bigger mess of things?
Oh. Right.
His last words to her were, “Don’t bang your nanny.”
So yes. Yes, he could.
“Ah, geez,” he groaned, body itching to do something, hit something, smash something–anything to get the antsy sense of unsettled feelings out of his system.
Jester stood and nosed the back door, Luke obliging him by sliding the glass door open. A glint of moonlight in the back yard fell on a pile of large rounds from a tree job his dad and Kell had performed. They were seasoned and would be easy to split, then stack. That gave him an option:
Chop wood.
Like everyone in their area, he had a wood stove, and chopping wood was in his blood. If he grabbed gloves and an ax, could he divert enough blood into his arms and away from his other wood?
But laziness won, and he turned to the kitchen instead to drink a huge glass of water and think while Jester systematically defiled each one of the paths he’d plowed outside. The dog seemed determined to turn every inch of snow yellow.
He decided to check email.
Deleting all the spam was easy, if annoying. Then he had an email from Harriet’s kindergarten teacher, asking for a standard conference. Email from Mom and Dad, chronicling their time in Germany. Something from the real estate agent about the purchase of Camp Wannacanhopa.
A notice that the closing had been scheduled for Thursday, and asking him to confirm.
Joy filled him, along with a healthy dose of pride.
The old camp had been empty for two years, needing too much work to be of interest to folks who wanted it operational quickly, and too remote to be of interest to most developers.
Other than a close call earlier in the year when the huge chocolatier Kell’s now-girlfriend worked for wanted to buy it and turn it into a theme park, a deal that had gone south, thankfully, buying the camp had been relatively easy.
With some careful work and help from his family, he’d been able to swing the mortgage.
In four days, he’d be the proud owner of 151 acres, a lodge with a dining hall, a director’s house, an office, and numerous smaller outbuildings. His very own sanctuary.
Of course, it would be shared with his family, but he was the one who technically bought it, because he’d used Amber’s lump-sum life insurance policy as part of the enormous down payment.
Life was about to change. But this time, it would change because he initiated it. Not because life threw him a curveball.
And speaking of curveballs–an email from Amber’s mom.
Dear Luke, it read. Tally and I won’t be up north for the holidays, as you know, but we’d love to have you and Harriet come here for February break.
I know we talked about it last time we were on the phone, but I wanted to confirm so you could ask for the time off.
Fortunately, it’s after Valentine’s Day.
Tally’s legs are getting weaker and it’s harder to travel.
Tallman McFarland, aka Tally, was his father-in-law.
Amber’s dad was a late-in-life father, but still only in his early seventies.
Amber was their only child. An autoimmune disorder was progressively eating away at him, and Luke took great pains to make sure Harriet saw Amber’s parents as much as possible, which meant flying to Florida twice a year.
Marilyn and Tally had already moved away before Amber’s accident, drawn to warmer weather and easier winters for Tally’s condition.
Calling them on Thanksgiving two years ago had been one of the hardest tasks of his life, second only to telling Harriet her mommy wasn’t coming back.
The beer made his fingers fly on the keyboard, answering Marilyn with a strong affirmative.
Luke genuinely enjoyed his visits with them, and their joy in Harriet was infectious.
Tally played a mean game of pool when his legs worked all right.
When they didn’t, Luke sat with the two of them on the beach by their condo, filling them in on Luview town gossip as they sipped Tally’s newest whisky.
Harriet loved collecting shells and running after the seabirds at the water’s edge.
A dull dread shot through him.
Right now, he was the main subject of Luview town gossip. His love life.
Oh, geez.
Whining outside the door told him Jester was done spraying his territory, so he let the beast in. More whining as Jester made it clear the king demanded to be fed.
For a guy who was supposed to be in charge, Luke was doing everyone else’s bidding more often than not. And now he was fodder for the crowd at Greta’s, his every move being scrutinized by people with nothing better to do than gawk.
Another layer of moving on from Amber would be telling Marilyn and Tally he had a new romantic interest.
“But I don’t,” he said firmly, spooking Jester, who looked at him like he was nuts.
Which was about right.
A yawn surprised him, but then again, it had been a long, hard–but good–day. A flash of that kiss slammed through him, like the crack of a baseball against a bat in that split second when you knew you’d hit a home run.
Luke turned out the lights, crawled into bed, and prepared for a crappy night’s sleep.
Which was entirely his fault.
Sheet tent and all.