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His grin faltered as he fell in beside her. “All caught up.”
They broke through the electronic doors and he pointed to Hallie’s hatchback parked twenty feet down the sidewalk.
“Where’s your car?” she asked.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to ride in the Mustang after… Well, you know.”
Her prickliness evaporated. He’d always been sensitive to her needs. Except one.
“Luke, your car doesn’t scare me.” You do.
He opened the door, folded back the seat, set in the planter basket and her purse, and arranged her crutches on the floor.
“Where are the sunflowers?” he asked.
“They’re making Mrs. Arken smile.”
He blinked. “You gave them away?”
She should have considered her actions. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. “Luke, I’m sorry. I thought it would be nice—”
“Forget it.” Gently, he lifted her from the chair into the passenger seat and helped her with the seat belt. When he finally slid behind the wheel, he asked, “Straight home?”
Ginny clasped her hands in her lap. “Yes.”
Luke started the ignition, pulled toward the exit. “It’s okay, you know. About the flowers.”
“It’s not okay. I should’ve given your gift more thought.”
He shrugged. “You’re right. They’ll make Mrs. Arken happy.”
They rode in silence until they reached the road out of town. Ginny asked, “How are the kids?” How had he reacted to them and they to him?
“Fine. The boy’s a bit of a handful. Baby looks like you.”
Suddenly she wanted to know. “Do you have children?”
“Nope.”
So in twelve years his mind hadn’t changed. Relief, disappointment, regret. Each emotion struck her separately and made her heart ache harder. “Married?” She hadn’t seen a ring.
“Double nope.” A grin flashed strong white teeth. “And no significant other, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” Of course she was.
She stared out the side window. They passed a small farm with lambs hopscotching at their mothers’ sides.
Her property lay south of town. The ride was quick, quiet. Luke signaled and turned into the fir-shaded lane leading to the clearing and the house Orville Franklin had constructed for his family almost eighty-five years ago.
As Luke pulled up beside Ginny’s car in front of the welcoming arms of the porch, Alexei stood in the doorway with Bargain, the six-month-old Lab-pointer cross she’d found at the SPCA before their move to Oregon. Ginny waved.
And just like that boy and dog bounded across the deck and down the steps. He hauled open her door, great grin on his face. “Mama! You’re back! Are you okay? How’s your leg? Where’s it broken? Can I write on your cast?”
She laughed. “Hey, sweetie. Hold the questions until we’re inside. Help your mom out, will you?”
“Hold on a sec.” Luke strode around the hood. “I’ll help your mother.”
Her son’s grin curled into a frown. “I can do it.”
“You don’t have the strength. Watch it, little dog,” he said to Bargain, nosing her way between Ginny and the door. Catching Ginny under the arms, Luke eased her from the seat until she stood gripping the open door of the car.
Alexei glared at Luke. Mouth tight, he ran up the steps and into the house. Whining, Bargain clambered after him.
“Alexei,” Ginny called. To Luke she said, “You should’ve allowed him to help.”
“I couldn’t take the chance you’d fall.” At her stern look, he said, “I’ll apologize to him.”
“Fine. But Luke, Alexei is my son. He takes precedence over anything or anyone outside of our family.” A family that did not include him.
His mouth thinned and he reached inside the car for her crutches. “Right.”
She had hurt him again, she saw. Guilt nudged her heart until she remembered the choice of having no family had been his alone.
“Ma-ma-ma!”
Ginny swung toward her daughter’s voice. Hallie carried the baby down the steps, then set her on the ground. Arms outstretched, Joselyn waddled as fast as her tiny legs would allow toward the car.
“Hey, pookie.” Holding the door, favoring her bulky casted leg, Ginny bent toward her daughter—and found herself dizzy. She set a hand to her forehead.
Luke was instantly at her side. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Hallie lifted the baby out of the way.
“Mam. Daee. Hoe.” Joselyn waved at Ginny and Luke.
“Yes, pooch, Mom’s home.”
Luke slipped an arm around her waist. His warmth nudged aside her vertigo.
“Let’s get you to bed.” Heedful of the porch steps, he slowly guided her toward the lighted doorway where her son had disappeared.
She wanted to see Alexei first. A crutch under each arm, she hobbled down the hallway to her “office” where she’d hooked up a computer within two days of their move. Her boy was a computer nut, pure and simple. She knocked on the door.
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah.”
He sat staring at some homework assignment on the screen. A small banker’s lamp chased off shadows. Bargain, tail windmilling, rose to sniff her cast. “Hey, girl,” she said softly to the dog. Stepping beside Alexei, she stroked his gangly arm braced on the chair. “Luke didn’t mean you couldn’t help me, honey. He was afraid I might be too heavy for you to support.”
Her son’s regard of the screen didn’t waver. “Yeah, I heard.”
Alexei’s snooty tone distressed her. Luke might not have wanted children while he was married to her, but his motives had evolved out of an obsession to overcome failure, not a dislike of kids. In all their years together, she’d never seen him treat a child unkindly. Not his niece, not the children of friends.
She strove for another tactic. “Luke isn’t used to children, Alexei.”
“Figures. He didn’t know how to carry Joselyn when she wanted him to pick her up. He held her like she was a wet, smelly dog or something.”
“Maybe she was—wet and smelly, that is.”
A small smile threatened. “Would’ve served him right.”
Ginny toyed with her wedding ring and decided to go with honesty. “A long time ago I was married to him.”
Eyes round as CDs, Alexei stared. “You were?”
“We used to live on the same street when I was growing up.” And I fell in love with him then. “But we didn’t really get to know each other until my sophomore year. Then we started dating and when we were in college we…got married.”
Puzzlement rushed her son’s brow. “How come you got a divorce?”
“A lot of reasons.” She traced his hairline with her thumb. “Which I will not go into, so don’t ask.”
She shifted her crutches to leave. Alexei scrambled out of the chair to assist. “Does that mean you still…you know, like him?”
Already he stood taller than her five-five. The moment she’d seen Alexei she’d loved his classic Russian features: thin, straight nose, high cheekbones, delft-blue eyes. And long dark eyelashes that paid homage to the sky.
“Yes,” she said cautiously. “I like Luke. But as a friend, no more.” Which was as truthful as she’d allow. Luke held a sorrow in her heart no one could touch. “Now, come read Joselyn a story before she goes to bed.” She hobbled toward the door.
Alexei rushed forward and stamped a hand against the wood. The pup barked excitedly. “Shush, Bargain,” the boy whispered. He looked at Ginny. “Is he, you know, gonna be around a lot?”
She considered. Between her and Luke lay an expanse of unresolved history, most of which Alexei had no inkling of, however, it was something she was ethically obligated to disclose if she meant to make Misty River home.
And her lost baby, Luke’s child, was not her son’s affair. Or even Boone’s, when he lived.
She tried another angle. “Son, we’ve barely been here two weeks. And then I break my leg by running into Luke’s car. Right now, he’s feeling very guilty about that.” And so am I.
“He should’ve watched where he was driving.”
“Honey, I shouldn’t have jaywalked.”
“He thinks he knows everything and everybody.”
She pushed the hair out of her son’s eyes. “In a town the size of Misty River, it’s not unusual for everyone to know everyone else. Most have grown up together. Some families have lived here for several generations.”
“Great, now they’ll all know our business. I don’t want people knowing our business.”
People, as in Luke. She studied Alexei’s frown. “When we lived in Charleston, our whole block knew each other, son. Remember the parties we used to have at Thanksgiving and Christmas?”
“That was different. People were friendly there.”
More so than Luke, she imagined, usurping Alexei’s right to assist her into the house. “Give him time,” she said gently. “He’s not a bad man.” She glanced at her casted leg. “So far, he’s the only one who’s come to our aid, driving the car home with the groceries and helping Hallie. And—” she gave Alexei a stern eye “—helping you and Joselyn.”
The boy’s mouth turned down. “I don’t like him. Or this town or the school. Stinks.”
Ginny’s internal antennae rose. “What’s going on at school, honey?” Was he being teased about his handwriting? It had happened in Charleston. Another reason she’d been glad to leave.
“Nuthin’.”
“Kids not friendly?”
“Some are. Some are snots. Why’d Dad want us to live here, anyway? Why can’t we move back to Charleston?”
“Are you saying we should let folks scare us off?”
As she anticipated, his eyes flinted. “No way.”
Leaning in, she kissed his ear. “Thought so.”
On Ginny’s porch, Luke stared up at the night and its spangle of ten trillion stars.
He’d survived bath time with Miss Josie-Lyn.
Large wet spots mottled his shirt and chinos, soap had caught in his eye and his hands smelled of baby. She’d damned near drowned him, and scared the bejesus out of him with her water-wing fish antics in that slick tub.
When he’d left the bathroom thirty minutes later—a giggling Joselyn running naked ahead of him, the pup ahead of her—he’d nearly slipped and cracked his nose on the door. Next time, dumb ass, don’t forget to mop up the floor with the bathmat after drying the squirming, shrieking mite.
Next time. Right.
It hadn’t endeared him to Alexei when he’d growled at the boy to do the mopping while Luke chased the kid’s streaking sister through the house.
Huh. And Ginny figured she could care for the kids alone, on crutches. Hell, with two legs—which endured a daily six-mile run—he’d discovered a man had to exert ten times the effort bathing a slippery, squiggly baby over catching a greased piglet at the local August fair.
Tomorrow he’d find Ginny a nanny. No way was he going through another of Miss Jo’s waterworks.
He looked back at the living room window. The drapes hung open. A small reading lamp beside the cushiony sofa called to him. He pictured himself seated there, looking over files. Ginny beside him, head on his shoulder. Like years ago.
Jeez, what was he thinking? Shaking his head, he turned back to the stars. Night air chilled his skin under the damp fabric of his clothes. He enjoyed his life. He enjoyed the liberty it allowed, when he wanted, with whom he wanted.
Right. And what had it gotten him? An empty house, empty friends and a lot of empty years.
Again, he glanced over his shoulder at the window.
You owe Ginny, man.
Busting up her leg like that.
Busting up their marriage.
