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“Hey, Uncle Luke! I got a new dump truck. Wanna dig with me?”
“Uncle Luke. We’re makin’ a robot!”
“Uncle Lukas, wanna see him walk?”
“Unca ’Ukas! ’Ick me up!” This last voice came when they’d reached the kitchen and a little dark-haired girl toddled into the mix and wrapped her arms around Lukas’s knees.
Holly imagined he’d be looking for the nearest exit. But his impatience vanished. He scooped up the littlest boy, flipped him up onto his shoulders, then hoisted the little girl up in his arms and gave her a smacking kiss.
“How’s my pretty girl?” He nuzzled her cheek and made her laugh. “Let’s see that robot,” he said to the older boys, and she could see that his eyes were alight with boyish enthusiasm.
Holly found herself oddly charmed as, still carrying the kids, he crossed the room to where a slender, dark-haired woman with a pixie-ish haircut was taking a sheet of cookies out of the oven. “Hey, Tallie.”
Elias’s wife was an adult version of the little girl in Lukas’s arms. She set down the cookie sheet and threw her arms around him and her daughter. “Lukas! Where’ve you been? You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?”
Lukas gave Holly a “what did I tell you?” look over Tallie’s shoulder. “Thanks, no,” he said. “We just came to get a key for the boatyard. This is Holly,” he introduced her casually. “My sister-in-law, Tallie.”
And as Elias’s wife looked her over, Holly had the odd feeling that she was being sized up. Her narrow-eyed assessment was nothing like Elias’s welcome. It felt almost suspicious, certainly measuring.
Instinctively, Holly straightened and stared straight back at her.
Her action made Tallie laugh suddenly and, still beaming, she swept across the room to envelop Holly in a warm hug. “Glad to meet you at last.”
At last?
But before she could ask what that meant, Tallie stepped back and looked her up and down again. “Yes, you look like you can handle him.” Then Tallie had turned her gaze on Lukas. “It’s about time you brought her around.” Her eyes swung back to Holly. “He’s never brought anyone around before.”
“Not—?” Holly began, confused.
But Tallie smiled at Lukas. “Helena says you’re serious at last. About time. And she is beautiful, that’s for sure. But why did I think her name was Grace?”
* * *
“I am not serious about Grace! It’s my damn family,” Lukas said as soon as he had hustled her out of Elias and Tallie’s house. “They meddle. They don’t know when to shut up.” He flicked on the ignition, put the truck in gear and shot away from the curb as if he couldn’t leave fast enough.
Holly, who had watched Lukas’s face turn bright red when Tallie had mentioned Grace, only said, “Oh.” She wasn’t surprised that Lukas wasn’t serious about Grace, whoever she was. Lukas had never been serious about anyone.
“You hit thirty and they think you ought to be married,” Lukas muttered, the color still high along his cheekbones. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. Holly saw his jaw bunch and his brows draw down. “My mother likes Grace,” he went on. “Thinks she’d make a perfect daughter-in-law.”
“Maybe she would.”
“Probably she will,” Lukas agreed. “But she’s not marrying me. I’m not marrying her!”
“No surprise there.” Holly’s tone was dry.
At her words, Lukas slanted her a glance. “What’s that mean?”
“Just what I said.” Holly shrugged. “I mean, how many girls did I watch you date? How many more must you have gone through since?”
Lukas grunted. “That was then.” He seemed to be grinding his teeth.
Holly didn’t see what difference it made. As far as she was concerned, whoever Grace was, she’d caught a lucky break. “Doesn’t matter, does it?” she said. “Not to me, anyway.”
She expected him to drop it, but he went on. “My mother is starry-eyed. And she likes a good story. The guy I worked with in Australia, the one whose foundation I’m working on here—Grace is his long-lost love’s granddaughter. We’ve gone out a few times and now Ma thinks it would be ‘poetic’ if I married her. It’s not going to happen.”
“I believe you.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Ma wants more grandchildren.” His eyes were on the heavy traffic heading out toward Long Island. He sounded aggrieved.
