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“How do I always end up attached to bossy, temperamental types like you?” Andie demanded of her bestie in a good-natured huff as she plopped onto a chair. It sat adjacent to the one Kiki occupied, and Andie nudged her with bare toes. “I just got booted out of my own kitchen and told I can’t come back unless she invites me in.”
Kiki shrugged. “She’s an artist, obviously. Food, sculpting, or whatever. Art is creation, and every artist needs their space. I bet dinner is going to be amazing.”
“I bet dinner is going to be awkward and end with me in a body bag,” Jax stated with an eyebrow cocked at Andie as wine slowly poured from bottle to crystal.
Andie looked at Kiki, and the traitor just shrugged. “I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” Kiki said.
“I know,” Andie agreed. “But I told you—” Then she looked at Jax. “—and now I’m telling you. These two men need to kiss and make up. I’m pregnant, so I get to be selfish, and what I want is for the two of you to make nice and be friends. Jax, you mean a lot to me, and even if we can’t be together, I still refuse to lose your friendship. Luke is the father of my baby. I need you two capable of being in the same room together without committing murder.” She saw he wasn’t happy with her, but he was still here and hadn’t just marched out the door, so she took hope from that.
“I’m not the one who’s going to be the problem here,” Jax said with a glower on his face that belied his claim. “It’s Luke you’ve gotta worry about. Not me.”
“We’ll see in about ten minutes, so until then—” Kiki pushed to her feet and sailed out of the room. “—let’s have some of that wine.”
When Luke arrived right on time, he found the three of them on the sun porch sipping red wine and nibbling on a tray of cheeses and crackers. Andie saw him take in the scene with one glance, and although his eyes squinted when they landed on Jax, he gave no other sign that he was unhappy with the company.
“Glass of wine, Luke?” she offered as she stood and picked up the empty glass that Kierra had thoughtfully provided for him. “I’m having sparkling cider, and it’s a godsend. So far, it is the only thing I can keep down.”
Luke’s eyes cut to her face, his expression softened, showing only concern and, if Andie didn’t miss her guess, affection. “I’ll take a glass, thanks. Glad to hear you found something that works for you.”
“There’s some yummy stuff to nibble on too,” she offered with a wave of her hand, “but dinner should be ready any minute.”
Andie gazed up into his rugged face while he lifted his glass for the first sip, and she was vividly reminded of the first time they met. Looking at him now, it was no wonder to her that she’d fallen for him. He was so classically handsome and masculine that even with all the turmoil they had between them, she still found herself captivated.
“Dinner!” Kiki yelped and bounded off her seat just as Jessica was bringing a large platter to the dining room table.
“Your little artist appears to be starving.” Luke smirked, and Andie nodded with a smirk of her own.
“I’m convinced those legs of hers are actually hollow,” she told him as she followed in her friend’s wake. “There’s no other explanation for the amount of food she can consume without weighing a thousand pounds.”
Both Jax and Luke chuckled then glowered at each other and stopped immediately. Andie wasn’t the least bit surprised when they sat as far from one another as the table would allow.
After dinner was consumed with much deserved praise and exclamations of delight, Luke asked Andie to take a walk with him. Andie hesitated for only a brief moment and looked first at Jax, who was staring a little too hard into his wine glass. She felt a twinge that maybe she was being unfair trying to push them past their old hurts, but she was sure the Jax she knew would give anything to have his childhood best friend back, and she was determined to help him achieve that. She and Kiki talked about it in depth when she first got here, and her bestie agreed; it was time these two buried the hatchet.
So, Andie ignored the twinge, slipped her sandals on her bare feet, and followed Luke out the door. The air smelled of fresh churned soil, fruit blossoms, and sunbaked wood from the pile stacked at the side of the house. It was the aroma of the best of her childhood, and Andie breathed deep, thankful the fertilization was done and over with for now.
“Gorgeous night, huh?” Luke asked as he gazed toward the last dregs of the sunset.
“It is,” she agreed as she took a seat on the porch swing. “I love the sunsets here. I swear the beauty is just unreal.” Pinks, lavenders, oranges, and the deep blue fading to that deeper dark of night took her breath away every evening, and tonight was no exception.
“I don’t stop to enjoy it enough,” he told her as he leaned his elbows on the railing and kept his eyes on the horizon. “Then, times like this when I stop and let it in, I kick myself for getting so caught up in work, life, and bills that I let even one day go by without seeing it.”
Good Lord, did he have to be sensitive as well as handsome? The man was just so rugged that he took her breath away. Andie looked at the father of the child growing within her as he leaned over the railing, and the pure male beauty of him with the sky ablaze in the background simply captivated her. No wonder she leaped at the chance to sleep with him that night. He was everything her heart told her a man should be, in fact so perfectly masculine that she wasn’t the least bit surprised he knocked her up in one try. The man fairly dripped testosterone and virility.
She was so busy daydreaming over all the hotness that was him she almost missed what he said next.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to sit back calmly and let you date that asshole.”
“Excuse me?” she demanded with a half chuckle, sure she’d missed something, considering the way she’d been fantasizing over the curve of his incredible ass.
“I’m not gonna sit back and do nothing.” He looked back at her over his shoulder, and what he saw in her expression must have clued him in on the dangerous line he was walking, because he turned to face her fully and leaned his weight against a beam as he elaborated. “I’ve kept my distance since you moved in, because, to be honest, I was embarrassed at what an asshat I was that night. Then, I was pissed you decided not to sell when I had been promised it was all a done deal.”
Andie opened her mouth to address some of those points, but Luke barreled on without giving her a chance.
“No, let me get this out before the wine wears off.” He barely smiled at his own attempt at humor then went on. “I’m crazy about you. I have been since you walked into the lounge in that mouthwatering dress. You are a beautiful and fascinating woman, and I think I’ve paid my penance for being a dick. I’m not just gonna keep my hands to myself and bow out to that fu—” He stopped whatever he was going to say when he saw her expression tighten. “—guyjust because I made one mistake. I acted out of some knee-jerk fears based on old hurts and my own fucked-up baggage. But that’s over, and I can’t see you as the type of person to hold on to grudges and anger.” The look he sent her told her the type of person he thought she was. In his look, she could tell he saw good in her, and it caused a wonderful sort of warm and fuzzy feeling in her gut that she usually only got when she drank.
“The feelings I had for you the first night… the feelings that had me so hot for you I almost fucked you in an elevator and then in the hallway, they are still there. And before you say what I can see you’re thinking, they aren’t lust. Sure, the wanting you is there. Obviously, but it’s deeper than that, and I’ll be dammed if I don’t do everything I can to make sure we get a chance to see if this could be more. Especially now.” He came forward, dropped to one knee in front of her, and placed a large palm on her leg.
“Oh, Luke.” Andie placed her hand over his strong fingers. “I don’t know—”
