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goner.” Lifting a shoulder, she tried to sound cheerier than she felt. “I guess I’m in the market for new wheels.”
“Humph.” He yanked off his gloves and stuffed them into a back pocket. “Somethin’ I can do for you?”
Her heart pounded, and her throat went dry. She remembered his hands on either side of her face as he’d kissed her, the desire that had burned through her body. Clearing her throat, she looked away. “Thank you again for helping with the car…it’s been acting up a lot. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”
“It was nothing. Really. Don’t think anything of it.”
She managed a smile and glanced around the outbuildings. “So this ranch was the Sorensons’.”
“That’s right.”
“And you said you knew Dave.”
Luke nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing. “Since I was about twenty when I went to work for his old man. I was hell on wheels, in trouble all the time, and Ralph took a chance on me. Gave me a job. That’s how I met Dave.”
“You became friends?”
“For the most part, when he was around,” Luke said as he walked toward the ranch house. Katie fell into step with him. “He joined the army a little while after high school, became career military.”
“What happened to him?” Katie asked as they reached the shade of the wide front porch.
Luke frowned. “I’m not sure anyone knows all the details, but he was killed this past year in a freak accident. Helicopter crash during routine maneuvers.”
Katie’s blood turned to ice. She closed her eyes and held on to the rail by the steps to steady herself.
“Ralph and Loretta took it pretty hard,” Luke said.
“I don’t blame them.” She ran a trembling hand over her forehead. “Lord, what a blow.”
“I’m sorry.”
She swallowed hard and sagged against the rail. Dozens of memories, yellowed with age, their edges softened as the years had passed, swam through her mind. “So am I,” she said roughly, then cleared her throat.
“You knew him well?”
Better than anyone, she thought, then realized that wasn’t the truth, either. Dave had kept to himself, for the most part. As naive as she’d been all those years ago, she’d sensed that he was holding back, that even during their lovemaking there had been a part of him he’d kept hidden and remote, a part she would never understand. “I’m not sure anyone really knew Dave,” she admitted. “As I said, he didn’t live here all that long.”
“A year or two, the way Ralph talks about it.”
“Yeah, about eighteen months, I think.”
“He involved with any girls back then?” Luke asked, and she stiffened.
“I, uh, I don’t think he dated much. Why?” She couldn’t help but ask. There were questions in his eyes she didn’t understand, didn’t want to trust.
“Ralph seemed to think he might’ve had a girlfriend.”
“He could have,” she hedged. Though tempted, she wasn’t about to tell this sexy stranger that she’d been involved with Dave Sorenson. Not until she’d spoken with her son. Josh deserved the truth. All of it. “So…tell me about your plans.”
She needed to change the subject. She’d dwelled enough on the subject of Dave Sorenson. She’d mourn her first and only lover in private and then confide in her son. Josh might hate her for keeping the truth from him, might never forgive her for not allowing him the privilege of knowing his father, but she couldn’t keep Dave’s death from him.
Luke hesitated for a second, as if he had more questions, but he eyed her, tugged on his lip and lifted a shoulder. “Let me show you around.”
He opened the door and led her into the main house, a building she’d been inside only twice before, long ago, and both times in the middle of the night, with Dave holding her hand and leading her through the darkened rooms.
It hadn’t changed much. From the looks of the curtains, she imagined that they were at least twenty years old; the furniture, too, felt as if it had been in the house for two decades. A couch with wooden arms and feet, tables nicked and scarred, a leather recliner that was worn in the arms and where a man’s head had rested.
“The entire place will be remodeled,” he said as they walked through a small eating area and into the kitchen. He showed her how he planned to push out walls and connect the main house with what had once been the detached garage and bunkhouse. That area would be more rustic, with bunk beds and shared baths, while in the existing house the attic would be expanded into bedrooms with private baths and back stairs that led to the main hall that could be used for dining or dancing or general recreation.
