AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He deliberately worked with power tools all evening so he wouldn’t hear the phone when it rang. But when he checked his voice mail before he went to bed that night, there was no message from Holly.
There were seven others, including one from Jenn, the office manager who was supposed to be arriving Monday.
“Ah, Luke,” she’d said, her normal Aussie drawl powered by excitement. “Really sorry, but I can’t come! Bryan’s popped the question! Who knew?”
Lukas ground his teeth. Who indeed? And where the hell was he going to find a gallery manager at this late date? He wanted to tear his hair out.
The other six messages were from various family members, all inviting him to come out to his parents’ place in the Hamptons the weekend after next.
“I miss you,” his grandmother had said. “Why did you come back to New York if you don’t come out here?”
“Theo and the kids and I will be at the folks’ this weekend,” Martha had said. “You know you want to see us.”
“Week from Saturday, Mom and Dad’s. Be there,” Cristina had commanded.
Only his mother had been unable to conceal the real agenda. “The Panathakoses will be here all week,” she’d said. “You remember their beautiful daughter, Angelika? She’s looking forward to seeing you again.”
Lukas had groaned. But he’d taken heart, too. At least none of the messages was from Holly.
Still, that left Friday—and all day Saturday—for her to change her mind, to come up with some excuse that he would have to argue with before he got to see her again. She didn’t call on Friday—and he was in the office all day, trying to round up a new gallery manager and finishing a preliminary run-through of the final group of potential grant recipients.
It felt like the longest day in history as he kept himself almost tied to his chair, sensing Skeet gazing down the back of his neck. But at the end of the day he had a stack of twenty finalists from which to make his three choices. He also had a list of half a dozen possible gallery manager candidates that Sera must have pulled out of a hat—and he knew for a fact that Holly hadn’t tried to reach him. There was no message on his phone, and Sera hadn’t heard from her, either.
He was whistling when he went to the boatyard Saturday morning. The kids were delighted to see him, and he had to admit Holly was right: they had been counting on him being there.
That time passed quickly, but the afternoon dragged. He needed to talk to both his cousin Alex and to the contractor before he did more on the apartment where he was working. He’d done enough grant proposals to fry his brain permanently. And he still had four hours until he could legitimately appear on Holly’s doorstep.
So he went over to Elias and Tallie’s place for distraction.
“I thought you were supposed to choose the winners yourself,” Tallie chided when he appeared in her kitchen and dropped into a chair and tossed a pile of grant proposals on the table in front of him.
“Yes. And I will. But I don’t entirely trust myself,” he admitted. He poked a finger at the stack of applications. “These are, in my estimation, the most promising of the lot. But I still want to bang some heads against the wall and say, ‘Get on with it. You don’t need a grant to get off your butt and make a change.’”
Tallie laughed. “Probably not what your friend had in mind.”
“He should have,” Lukas muttered. “But—” he raked a hand through his hair “—you’re right. He expected me to be supportive.” And if his lips twisted on the last word, well, there was just so far he could make himself go. “Anyway, I thought maybe you could give me your opinion. I promise I’ll make the final decision,” he added quickly.
Sounds of boys shouting and scuffling their way down the stairs interrupted them. Tallie glanced toward the stairs and winced at Digger’s sudden bellow. “Not sure when I’ll have time. Elias took a prospective client out for a sail today. So it’s just me and the heathens.”
“I’ll take ’em to the park,” Lukas said.
“You must be desperate. Be my guest.” Tallie made shooing movements toward the door with her hands.
“Thea, too?” Lukas looked warily at his niece, who was banging her spoon on the kitchen table. She was somewhere on the not-quite-civilized side of three, but a force in her own right—as only a girl with three older brothers could be.
“No. She still needs a nap. And she might even get one with the boys gone. Can you keep them away until four?” she asked hopefully.
