Luke's Daughters

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SARAH HEARD the rumble of the bike’s motor despite the concrete walls of the photo shop. She smiled to herself. The last print was drying.

As she came out of the darkroom, though, she heard Chuck in the front of the shop, giving Luke a hard time.

“We don’t let just anyone into the back.”

“Good idea. If you’ll get Sarah, she’ll explain that I’m not just anyone. We have an appointment.”

“She’s in the darkroom. We’ll have to wait for her to come out.”

“And maybe I can do a fire inspection in the meantime. I’m sure all your permits and extinguishers and wiring are according to code and up to date.”

Sarah laughed and stepped through the curtained doorway. “He’s got you there, Chuck. When is the last time you bought a new extinguisher?”

“At least I bought one.” He brushed past her in the narrow space behind the counter. “If this place had been left to your absentee management, it would have fallen apart years ago!” The curtain swished behind him.

Sarah looked at Luke. “That’s my business partner. He doesn’t—” She registered the despair on his face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He drew a deep breath that shook. “Sure. I’m…great.”

“You went to see your daughters, right? Did something happen?”

His hands went into his back pockets. “No bloodshed, anyway.”

Sarah didn’t insist on an explanation—he’d obviously been through enough today. “Come into the back. I’ve made some tea. We can look at the pictures.”

She lifted the hinged portion of the counter, then pulled the curtain aside as Luke stepped into the back room. In contrast to this morning, he seemed almost unsteady, as if he had to concentrate to keep from falling over.

“So you got the pictures developed?” His deep voice sounded weary.

“I did.” Chuck had disappeared behind the closed door of his office. She and Luke downed the iced tea she poured in a thirsty silence. Then she took his glass away. “Now, come tell me what you think.”

A step into the darkroom, he stopped dead. “Wow.”

Sarah smiled in satisfaction. His reaction was exactly what she’d hoped for.

He moved forward to stand in front of the largest print—an eighteen-by-twenty of Erin and Jennifer bent over the bait bucket. The balance of the shot was perfect, the light on those green-and-rose dresses like something out of a storybook illustration. And just as she’d hit the shutter button, a small breeze had fluffed out the girls’ lacy petticoats.

“This is…amazing. You’re really good.”

“Just lucky to be there when the three of you came out. All I had to do was snap pictures.”

“I don’t know enough about it to argue with you. But…wow.” He moved down the line, studying each print in turn. “I really like that one,” he said, pointing to a shot of the three of them laughing in the wind. “Could I have a copy?”

“I’ll copy them all for you. And for your family.”

“Nah.” He glanced at the photos of himself. “Don’t worry about any of those. Just the ones with the girls in them for the family. And a copy of the one with the three of us for me.” Under the white light, his cheeks looked a little red.

“But your parents—”

Luke shook his head. “Nope.” He went back to the first picture. “I can’t believe how great these are.”

Sarah propped her hip on a stool, letting him have the time he wanted. That gave her a chance to appreciate once again how solid his body was, how balanced. She’d seen models in art classes with less physique to recommend them. She’d certainly never sighed over any of them the way she wanted to sigh over Luke Brennan.

He turned around before she could. “I’m thinking I should pay you for these. Talent like yours doesn’t come cheap.”

“You’re right.” Sarah slipped to her feet. “So I’ll let you buy dinner. Deal?”

He grinned for the first time since he’d come into the shop. “Deal. Let’s go.”

LUKE HAD PARKED the Harley next to Sarah’s Jeep. “Do you want to take yours? You’d be more comfortable. I’ll even let you drive, in case my mind wanders again.”

She laughed. “That’s a good thought. But…” Stepping up to the bike, she ran her fingertips over the leather seat, the handlebar, the dash. “This is a really fine machine.”

He let out a relieved breath. Kristin had never liked his fascination with motorcycles. “Do you ride?”

Sarah nodded. “I used to. Went all the way to California from D.C. on Interstate 40 when I was eighteen.”

“I took a trip like that, on I-10. There was an incredible rainstorm outside New Orleans—I thought I was going to drown.”

“That happened to James and me, too. In Oklahoma City.”

Luke wondered if that meant a more personal relationship than he’d realized. But Sarah continued with her story. “We waited underneath an overpass while the water climbed up our ankles. I was pretty scared. But I got some great lightning shots.”

“I wasn’t exactly calm, myself.”

“Well, there’s no rain in today’s forecast.” She wasn’t wincing as much when she gave him a smile now, even a really wide one. “Could we take your bike?”

Luke pulled the extra helmet out of the saddlebag. “Be my guest.”

In seconds she had her hair tucked neatly into the helmet. He straddled the seat and then Sarah climbed on behind him, easily and smoothly as if she’d done it every day for years. She settled like a feather, barely affecting the weight or tilt of the bike.

Luke wished he could say she didn’t affect his equilibrium. But he felt every inch of her at his back. Her hands—free of bandages, though still scraped up—came to rest at his waist, and the light pressure heated his skin through his shirt like the sun at midday. He wasn’t used to being so close to any woman besides Kristin.

But he could get used to having Sarah on the bike behind him. The engine purred as he pumped the gas and released the brake. “Hang on!”

They wove slowly along the main drag of Myrtle Beach restaurants, through traffic snarled with thousands of tourists out for dinner and maybe a night of playing miniature golf at one of a hundred different parks. Luke pulled in at his favorite sandwich shop to buy dinner, which he stowed with another bag of cookies in a knapsack inside the bike’s right saddlebag.

Then at last they were on the long straightaway of Highway 17. The pure ecstasy of the ride—summer wind roaring around them, sight and sound blended into a blur of colorful noise—filled every need. He hadn’t felt so free, so unconfined, so…so young in months.

Hell, it had been a year and a half since he’d enjoyed anything this much. The year and a half since Matt had come back.

They passed Murrell’s Inlet, going south, and Pawley’s Island, a tourist favorite. Finally, he downshifted and made a swooping turn beside the huge statue of rearing horses at the entrance to Brookgreen Sculpture Gardens.

Sarah’s hands tightened on his waist. She leaned forward, and he felt her slenderness press against his spine. “The gardens are open at night now?” He could just barely hear her above the quiet roar of the engine.

“It’s a fairly new program.” Luke pulled out a membership card at the ticket gate and the attendant waved them through. “I thought this would be a great place for a picnic dinner.”

If she said something, he didn’t hear. But her hands slid up his back to his shoulders, and squeezed.

She couldn’t have any idea what that did to his pulse rate.

He recovered his control during a slow ride down the curving lane lined with azaleas and tall pines. Circling the first fountain and its golden horse and rider, they finally came to a stop in the parking lot outside the visitor center. Luke let Sarah slide off first.

“You’re an easy passenger.” Not easy to ignore, though. “I could barely feel your weight back there.”

“I guess it’s like any other bike. Once you learn how to balance, you don’t forget.” She looked around them and drew in a deep, deep breath. “I was planning to come down here soon. I’m so glad you thought of it.”

He held out a hand for her helmet and stowed it with his in the empty saddlebag, then walked to the other side to get the knapsack with dinner. They bypassed the gift shop, stopped to admire a water garden, and posed on a bench beside the life-size sculpture of a man reading the newspaper.

“I’ve always wanted to turn the page,” Sarah commented. “Do you suppose he gets bored reading the same articles day after day?”

“I’d say so. Where are the comics? And what about the sports section?”

She laughed and led him into one of the glass-walled galleries outside the entrance to the garden. “You might like to see this.”

Luke studied the photograph she’d indicated—a rundown shack in the country, weeds growing too high in front of the porch, junk piled against the steps and the walls, screen door hanging by one hinge. Almost depressing.

But by some magic he didn’t understand, the first impression didn’t stick. Something drew him to look again,to step closer, to get involved in the photograph. He found himself examining the garbage, searching for the stories of the people who’d left it there. The weeds became flowers, telling of a garden and the love that had tended it. The photographer had seen the lives behind the front of that old shack. And, somehow, had captured their essence on film.

“Amazing.” Luke took a deep breath, drawing in a whiff of Sarah’s sweet scent, as well. “Is this one of yours?”

“Oh, no. This is Felix Sawyer’s work. He was my teacher.”

“Wait—the guy in the shop is Charles Sawyer, right?”

“That’s right. Felix’s nephew.”

“The pictures on the wall in the front of the shop look a lot like this. Charles said they were his.”

“Really?” Sarah stared for a minute at the photograph. “I hadn’t noticed the pictures. Charles…Chuck runs the place by himself, really—I usually go in by the back door just to use the darkroom when I’m in town, and that’s not often. I’ve been here twice in the eighteen months since Felix died…until this week. I’ll have to check those prints out.” She seemed troubled by the prospect.

Luke cleared his throat. “So Felix taught you the trade. How did that happen?”

“I met him on the beach the summer I was twelve, while I was visiting my grandmother. He spent the day shooting pictures of the dunes and the sea oats, and I hung around the whole time asking questions.” Her gaze was fixed on the past. “We both came back to the same spot the next afternoon and Felix handed me a camera.” She sighed. “He taught me everything I know.”

“He must have been proud of your career.”

She sighed. “I think so. Though I didn’t see him much, once I started working for Events. I was always out of the country. Even when he died.”

“Felix would have understood that.”

“Probably. But if I had been with him more, I would have more of him to remember. I guess that’s why I came here after…” She swallowed. “I feel closer to Felix when I’m developing in his darkroom. That’s the place most like home.”

Luke asked the next question gently. “Your parents?”

“They died in a car wreck just after I graduated from high school. My dad was Air Force, so we moved a lot. I have pictures and memories, but that’s about all.”

Her wistful voice called up his personal regrets. “There’s more to life than memories, Sarah Rose.” He squeezed her shoulder quickly, then let go. It was time to break the mood. “Do you want to eat in the official picnic area, or kinda snack as we go along?”

“Let’s walk.”

“Which way?”

“The sundial?”

“You got it.”

STROLLING THROUGH the gardens, Sarah realized that this was another place that felt like home. The soft breeze stroked her skin, carrying scents of grass and mist, magnolias and roses. A crescent moon climbed above the trees, turning the sidewalk to silver even before the sun had completely set. Crickets hummed on every side, backed up by frogs in the rhythm section.

At the sight of a familiar sculpture, she thrust her sandwich into Luke’s hand and climbed into the lap of a giant bronze bear. “Goldilocks was always my favorite fairy tale. What about your girls?”

He thought a moment. “Jen loves to pretend she’s Rapunzel. Erin goes for Hansel and Gretel—she likes the part where the witch gets shoved in the oven.”