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“I have a headlight and stuff. A reflective vest.” It was a mile to her house, and Rufus could use the run (though he was even now flopping down on the floor once again). And at this hour, she’d be there almost as fast as she would if she took Lucas up on his offer.
“What I meant was,” he said, his voice scraping her with sweet, dark yearning, “can I drive you to the opera house, and will you stay over, Colleen, in my bed, and let me make love to you?”
He wasn’t smiling, which made it all the more devastating.
“Okay,” she whispered, and he kissed her then, a gentle, long, tender kiss, and it was all she could do not to cry because she knew the clock had almost run out.
* * *
AFEWNIGHTSLATER, Lucas stood outside O’Rourke’s, hoping to grab a quick dinner and a glimpse of Colleen before returning to Rushing Creek to sit with Joe, who was winding down. Mostly, his uncle slept, but if he was awake, he liked the company...and Bryce had been avoiding him, which Lucas just couldn’t understand.
What the future held for him and Colleen, he didn’t know.
She was trying to be her normal self, cheerful and flirty and wry, but there was something in her eyes that didn’t bode well, and when he asked her about it the other night, she just put on a smile and kissed him, and no amount of coaxing could get her to open up.
That was a problem because he needed to get back to Chicago, finish the Cambria building and leave Forbes Properties behind for good. Not Mr. and Mrs. Forbes, not Ellen, not completely. But he didn’t want to be attached to them in any way other than the occasional visit. He’d been a part of their family once, and he knew that Frank especially would want to keep up with the dinners, the sails on Lake Michigan. They’d invite him for the holidays, same as always, but things were changing. He didn’t belong there anymore.
Steph and the girls had a different relationship with Frank and Grace (and Ellen, for that matter; the two women had become best friends, however unlikely a pairing—Steph the single mom with her tattoos and piercings, Ellen with her WASPy good looks and quiet money). But an ex-husband, an ex-son-in-law...no.
Ellen would be married soon. There’d be another son-in-law, and two babies, and while Lucas knew he’d failed Ellen on some deep, emotional level despite his best efforts, and he couldn’t resent the divorce in any way, there was still a feeling that he was once again on the outside looking in.
Time to do his own thing, with the woman he’d fallen for in one glance. Time to set things right.
But her idea of right and his were very different, and it was becoming apparent just how big a problem this was going to be.
He went inside, and she looked up right away as she made a martini, expertly pouring the vodka, adding a squeeze of lime. A quick smile, the same kind she gave him lately whenever she’d been quiet too long, flashed across her lips. “Hello, Spaniard,” she said as he sat down. “What can I get you?”
He didn’t answer right away, and a faint blush crept into her cheeks. “Whatever the house special is, and a beer.”
“I’m the house special,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Then I’ll have you,” he said.
“I want the house special, then, too,” said the guy sitting one stool down.
“She’s taken,” Lucas said, not looking away from Colleen.
“Cajun crab cake sandwich with Hungarian cucumber salad, coming up,” she said. “And, Greg, I appreciate the sentiment.” She pulled two glasses from the overhead rack and filled them both with beer. “Since you didn’t specify, Spaniard, I gave you what he’s having. The Ithaca Flower Power IPA.”
She went into the kitchen, stopping to admire a baby. Probably one of the Colleens or Colins named for her.
“You guys together?” the guy, Greg, asked.
Lucas gave him a slow look. “Yes.”
He pursed his lips. “Well, good luck. Hope you don’t catch anything.”
Lucas was dragging him across the floor by his shirt before he was even aware that he’d moved. The noise of the bar barely wavered, though Tom Barlow, back from his honeymoon, did hold the door.
“Jesus, man!” Greg yelped. “What the hell are you doing?”
Lucas let him fall on the sidewalk, and Greg scrabbled up, his hands in front of him. “Just calm down, okay? Christ. I figured I’d give you a warning. She’s slept with half the guys in this town. Myself included.”
“Don’t come back here.”
“Who’s gonna stop me?” he asked.
Lucas took a step closer, and the little asshole hesitated, then turned and fled.
