Chapter 24
It’s another few days before I see Luke again.
That Saturday, Susan and Pat come over for lunch, and for the first time since I got here, he messages to say he’s joining them. I’m waiting by the upstairs window when I see him leave the house and I rush so fast down the stairs I almost trip.
“If you fall and die, I’m not naming my child after you,” Louise yells.
I open the door before he can ring the bell and he grins when he sees me, startled but pleased.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“Hello!” Tomasz says, appearing behind my shoulder. “Did you bring dessert?”
“I did,” Luke says, handing over a cheesecake from Beth’s. His attention turns back to me. “How are you—”
“Abby!”
Susan edges around Luke, beaming at me. “How did it go? Have you heard anything yet?”
“Leave the child be,” Pat says, coming in after her. “It’s too early to hear back from a place like that.” He turns to me, his voice dropping. “You haven’t, have you?”
“No.”
“Far too early,” he declares. “Louise! Do I smell garlic potatoes?”
“You do,” she calls from the kitchen as Tomasz leads them inside, prying open the lid to the cake.
Luke and I are left alone.
He clears his throat. “Shall we—”
“Yep,” I say, spinning on my heel toward the kitchen.
The hour drags . Even with Luke beside me. Even with Louise’s cooking. Even with Pat and Susan keeping up a steady stream of conversation until the last slice is gone. I’m distracted, irritable even. Surrounded by good food and people who love me and all I want to do is ask them to leave.
The only thing that gets me through it is knowing Luke feels the same way. He fidgets, he barely eats, he smiles a beat too late when someone makes a joke. I know this because I’m so aware of his every movement I swear I know when he blinks.
Finally, all the food is gone but Pat and Susan are still chatting away, about what I don’t even know anymore, and I’m two seconds away from doing something drastic when Luke’s knee nudges mine under the table.
“Do you want to—”
“Okay.” I stand so quickly the chair scrapes against the floor. Everyone’s eyes snap to us.
“Leaving, Abby?” Louise asks as if I’m sneaking out of the house to meet a boy. Which, okay, I guess I’m doing but she doesn’t need to sound so smug about it.
“I thought we might…” I look to Luke.
“Find the heron,” he finishes after a beat.
“You’re going to find the heron,” Louise repeats flatly.
“Yep!” I squeeze around the table before anyone can question us further. “We’ll see you later.”
Susan watches us go, a wide smile on her face.
“I saw a cormorant down there myself the other day,” I hear Pat say as I close the door. “Impressive creatures.”
“The heron?” I ask.
“You put me on the spot,” he mutters as we head down the drive. “And everyone was looking at me.”
We hurry to the car, seat belts on and door closed, only then realizing we have no further plan.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks.
I have no idea. “Out of Clonard?”
“We can do that. The beach?”
“It’s a Saturday in June. It will be packed.”
“Yeah.” He drums his fingers against the steering wheel before seeming to decide, starting the engine.
“Wait,” I say. “Don’t do the thing where you surprise me with the destination. This is not a movie and I might need to change my shoes and/or pee first.”
He laughs. “I was thinking the lake.”
The lake?
There are many lakes in this part of Ireland, but in Clonard only one was known as the lake.
Lough Carra, a calm picturesque body of water northeast of the village.
It isn’t as popular as others in the area, with their salmon fishing and kayaking.
It’s more of a sit-and-contemplate kind of place, but with a forest on one side and marshy wetland on the other, there are plenty of places to disappear to.
Luke raises a brow. “Footwear acceptable?”
“Footwear acceptable,” I confirm, glancing down at my sneaker-clad feet.
“And they have public facilities.”
“Stop, you’re making me swoon.”
It’s a thirty-minute drive. On a sunny day like this, the place is busy, but I was right in thinking most people would head to the coast, and the lake is big enough that the farther we walk along the edge of the forest, the fewer people we see.
For someone who grew up in the countryside, I have never been much of a nature person.
Maybe it’s why I always gravitated toward big cities, more at home surrounded by orderly concrete and masses of people than fields and silence.
Waking to birdsong is all well and good until they’re outside your window at five a.m. and won’t shut up.
But this? Yeah. I’m good with this.
The woods are different than the forest at Easter, when the ground had been wet mud beneath my feet, the world a muted gray and green.
Now the air is warm and smelling of pine.
The earth is soft and dry, with a slight crunch underfoot, and the lake shimmers between the trees, blue and placid.
After about twenty minutes of walking, we find a small clearing by the water.
A makeshift camping spot, there’s nothing but a circle of parched earth where two logs have been pulled together to form a seating area. It’s perfect.
I shrug off my cotton shirt, tying it around my waist as we settle on our separate logs, an appropriate space between us.
“This is nice,” I declare because I feel it needs to be said.
“It is.”
“Very romantic.”
“Very.” Luke smiles. “Not a bad place to spend my day off.”
His day off. My good mood slips a little when I remember how busy he is and I watch from the corner of my eye as he brushes a few sticks and leaves from the log, getting more comfortable.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.” He sounds like he means it.
“How’s your dad doing?”
“You mean in general or…” His confusion clears. “You heard about the accident.”
“Louise mentioned it. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He’s fine. Or as fine as he can be, I guess. His leg still gets a little stiff some days.”
“It sounded awful.”
“Yeah, pretty scary.”
I wait for him to continue. “And you came back for him,” I nudge gently.
He leans forward, resting his arms on his thighs as he realizes what I’m getting it.
“I did. I was in Dublin working in marketing for this pharma company. It was real bottom-of-the-rung, taking-notes-at-meetings, and getting-people’s-lunches stuff.
But I liked it just fine. I wasn’t too worried about the future.
But then Dad’s crash happened and it became pretty clear that Mam couldn’t handle it.
He couldn’t walk on his own for months, couldn’t get up the stairs.
He needed help getting in and out of the bath, that kind of thing.
So I quit my job and came home. Did the heavy lifting, ran errands…
I thought it would only be for a few months and then I’d leave again, pick up where I left off. ”
“But you stayed.”
“I used to bring Dad into his physio sessions,” he explains. “And then they had me joining in so I could help him at home. I fell in love with it.”
“That’s why you went back to college,” I say, the pieces clicking together.
He nods. “You should have seen them, Abby. I mean, these people are miracle workers. There was this girl who used to be there at the same time as Dad. She had to get her leg amputated after an infection and could barely stand the first time I saw her. She’d have two guys holding her upright and she’d be screaming at them the entire time, just so angry and in pain, but they stayed calm and they stayed with her and by Dad’s last few sessions she could walk by herself. Slowly but still.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Yeah. I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
But I needed twenty-four K to get there and I didn’t have anywhere near that.
So I stayed home and started saving as much as I could.
Dublin rent was no longer an option. Dad owned the coffee shop from years ago but never did anything with it.
I renovated it one winter and leased it out.
When Dad started moving around by himself, I moved into the apartment.
Got a job with the council to earn cash and then two years ago took out a loan to make up the rest. I quit that job, got into the course, and now here I am. ”
Here he is. “You’re scarily impressive, you know that?”
“There was a lot of dragging my feet between each of those steps.”
“That doesn’t matter,” I say. “You’re out in the world doing your own thing and you give it all up for your family.
Then you find something you love and you decide to go for it instead of settling.
Do you know how many people settle? A lot.
But you worked hard, you made sacrifices, and you went for it.
All the while still being there for your parents and helping Beth and me and…
” I stare at him. “How are you not just constantly exhausted? Please. Tell me your secret.”
“Pilates.”
I laugh and he smiles as I do.
“Thank you,” he says. “It’s hard not to worry about whether you made the right choice or not. If I should have gone straight back to Dublin when I had the chance. That means a lot coming from you.”
“Little Miss Had a Freak-out, Lied to Everyone, and Came Home?”
His gaze grows warm. “I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you refer to Clonard as home.”
“It is?”
He nods. “Do you think you’ll come back more now?”
“I do,” I say, careful not to mention the still unshared news of the baby. “I guess this place isn’t as scary as I thought it was.” I frown. “ Scary is the wrong word.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Plus Louise and I are… well, not friends exactly but we’re better. I no longer want to avoid her for the rest of my life.”
“That’s good.”
I trace a circle in the dirt with my foot, squinting out at the lake. “There are other things too,” I add.
“Oh yeah?” He plays innocent. “Like what?”
I shrug, slowly sliding down my log until I’m sitting right next to him.
“Smooth.”
“I’m flirting with you.”
“I know,” he says, and this time he kisses me first.
It’s a quick one. A soft, light “is this okay?” one that I quickly return, twisting my body to face his, giving permission for more. My hands go to the rough stubble of his cheeks, his to my jeans, hooking his fingers through the belt loops as he tugs me gently to him.
I wonder what it would have been like to kiss him at lunch, if I’d still be able to taste the dessert on his lips. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him whenever I wanted to.
Nerves bubble through me at the thought, but before I know what to do with them, Luke moves his head, the slant of his mouth changing against mine, and that’s all it takes for me to forget everything.
He is warmer than the sun, the heat of him almost dangerous as his touch moves to the small of my back, and when his teeth nip my bottom lip, I decide I need more, intending to scoot over fully to his log but I slip off my own instead, landing with a soft thud on the ground.
I don’t have time to be embarrassed because Luke follows me down, propping his fists on either side of my head as he hovers over me.
Unhappy with this lack of contact, I lift my hips as our kiss deepens, pressing myself against him until we both groan.
There’s a tearing sound as I lose my grip on his shirt, but I ignore it. I hear a happy shriek and a splash somewhere in the distance, but I ignore that too. I ignore everything but him, everything but how he makes me feel. And oh, how I feel.
I squirm as his hand slips under my tank top, caressing my stomach, and I’m trying to decide whether I want him to move up or down when he breaks away without warning, leaving a gust of cool air in his wake.
I open my eyes as he pushes himself up, and I go to drag him back down when the hazy, horny fog in my brain clears and I realize what Luke already has.
Public place. Very public place. Very public family place on a Saturday afternoon.
And we’re halfway to…
“Bad idea,” he says, his voice hoarse.
Very bad.
I nod and he helps me sit up, brushing the pine needles from my clothes. My movements are clumsy, my limbs heavy as if I’m moving through water. I don’t even want to think about what my hair looks like.
Luke pulls up the strap of my tank top, his breathing still disjointed.
“Did I seduce you with my brazen display of skin?” I ask, my voice a little shaky.
“You started it,” he reminds me. “In fact…” He pulls the fabric of his T-shirt around, showing me a small tear. “You literally tried to rip my clothes off.”
“That was the log,” I lie. “The bark can be very sharp. You should be more careful.”
“I’ll remember that next time.” He pulls a stick from my hair and then pushes himself off the ground, helping me up until we’re back in our seats. Only this time with no space between us. This time with our arms pressed against each other and his hand holding mine.