AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” Katie said, relieved that her son seemed to be jollying out of his bad mood. “I’ll see you both later.”
She packed the Jeep with boxes, coats from the front closet and a few sacks from the kitchen, then drove to the old Victorian house she would soon call home. It felt odd, somehow; she and Josh had lived in the cottage for all of his life. But it was time for a change.
She parked in an open spot by the garage, noticed that Luke’s pickup was missing and kicked herself when she felt a pang of disappointment. “Forget him,” she whispered under her breath as she started unloading boxes and carrying them into the old house. It seemed empty and cold. Fresh paint, a soft gold color that Tiffany had let Katie pick out, covered the walls, and the wood floors gleamed, but the furniture was missing, the hanging pots, the dried herbs and the children’s artwork stripped from what had been Tiffany’s once-cozy kitchen. No black cat slunk through the shadows, and without the wail of Stephen’s guitar, the patter of Christina’s bus
y feet or Tiffany’s soft laughter, the house was little more than a tomb.
“Cut it out,” she reprimanded and busied herself by carrying box after box into the house and leaving it in the appropriate room. She’d finished her last trip and was actually hanging coats in the front hall when she heard the back door open.
Her heart nearly stopped.
“Hello?” Luke’s voice filled the empty space.
“In here.” Her pulse jumped a bit as he came into view—tall and rangy, in jeans and a faded denim shirt with its sleeves shoved to the elbows, his hair windblown. He brought with him the scents of rainwater and horses.
“Movin’ in?” he asked, his blue eyes intense.
“The first load.” She shut the closet door and suddenly felt tongue-tied. “I, uh, I’ll move the big stuff in a couple of days. My brothers have offered to help with the furniture and appliances.”
He glanced around the empty rooms. “Your boy here?”
“At home with Grandma.” A pang of regret sliced through her heart at the thought of Josh and his reaction to the news that the father he’d never known was dead.
As if he read the pain in her expression, Luke said, “Wait here, I’ve got an idea.”
“For what—?” she asked, but he’d already turned on his heel and was striding toward the kitchen. A second later the screen door banged shut behind him. Curious, she couldn’t help but follow the sound and walk into the kitchen where she looked through the window and watched as he dashed through the raindrops to the carriage house, then took the stairs to the upper floor two at a time. A few seconds later he reappeared carrying a bottle of wine and two glasses. She watched as he jogged across the yard and entered the house with the smell of fresh rain clinging to him.
“I think we should christen the place,” he said, removing a corkscrew from his pocket and piercing the foil over the cork with the tool’s sharp tip. “Come on,” he encouraged, as if witnessing skepticism on her face. “Let’s do it right. In here.” As he started uncorking the bottle he led her into the parlor where bay windows, draped in gauzy curtains, overlooked the front yard, and a marble fireplace loomed against the opposite wall. The cork popped. “Here, you pour. I’ll be right back.”
“What now?” she asked, but watched him leave again and didn’t argue. There was something enchanting about spending some time alone with him here.
Careful, you’ll only get yourself into trouble, her mind warned as she tipped the bottle, and the rich, dark Merlot streamed into the two stemmed glasses.
“I wouldn’t have thought of you as having anything like these,” she observed, holding up one of the goblets and twisting its stem between her fingers as he returned carrying chunks of firewood and kindling. He leaned over the grate and cast a glance in her direction. Over his shoulder he muttered, “Castoffs from the divorce.”
“Oh.” She didn’t want to be reminded that he’d been married once. Not tonight. “I just meant that you seem more like a guy who drinks beer.”
“Sometimes. Whatever suits the mood.” He looked over his shoulder again, his eyes a deep, glittering blue. “I think it’s good to mix things up, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” He turned his attention back to the fire, and she noticed the darker streaks of blond where rainwater had run from the top of his head and the way his neck, at its base, spread into strong shoulder muscles that disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.
She remembered seeing his bare chest and muscular back, and at the thought her pulse elevated, and she fought the urge to run. This was too close, too intimate. He was squatting, the worn heels of his boots above the carpet as he leaned forward. His jeans were low on his hips, his waistband gaping at his spine, but, unfortunately, the tail of his shirt never moved, remained tucked while he struck a match against the sole of one boot and lit the fire. She realized that being alone with him was darned close to emotional suicide, that her fascination for him was running far too deep, and yet she couldn’t resist staying with him.
With a spark and a crackle, flames began to devour the dry kindling and wood. Smoke billowed into the room. “Dammit,” he said, reaching quickly above the hungry, snapping flames to open the flue. “I forget some people close these things.” The chimney began to draw. “You didn’t know that my plan was to asphyxiate you, did you?”
She laughed as he straightened, dusted his hands together, then cracked one of the windows. “Better?”
“Much.”
“So much for being suave and debonair.” He sat on the floor next to her and accepted a glass.
“That’s okay. I’m not into the sleek-and-sophisticated type.”
“Lucky for me.” He offered her a crooked smile that drilled right to the core of her. “How about a toast?”
“A toast? I can’t wait to hear this.”
