AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” Lukas said. “We don’t.” And his hands grabbed her upper arms and held her still. His Adam’s apple worked in his throat. “We need to know what you’re doing here, Holly. I need to know.” His eyes bored into hers.
And Holly knew she couldn’t deflect the question. She smiled a little wryly. “Sera told you,” she said softly. “I want to apply for a grant.”
Lukas cocked his head. A tiny line appeared between his brows. “What’re you talking about?”
Holly licked her lips. “Courage,” she said, meeting his gaze, feeling herself drowning in those green depths. “I need some.”
Lukas’s expression seemed to close up. His jaw tightened. He looked away. “For the Peace Corps?” he said tonelessly. He didn’t look at her. He was staring away across the room, as if looking at her would hurt.
Holly knew the feeling. She lifted a hand, wanting to touch him, to draw strength from him, then knew she couldn’t. She had to do this on her own. “No,” she said. “To tell you I love you, too.”
Lukas’s gaze snapped back to lock onto hers. “You—?” There was green fire in his gaze now, and hope in his eyes. “Holly?” His voice seemed to break.
Holly wetted her lips and nodded, then said them again. “I love you, Lukas. I do. I...didn’t want to. I was afraid to.”
“Afraid?” He sounded aghast. “I would never hurt you!” Then he had the grace to look abashed. “Once I did,” he admitted. “Probably more than once, but I swear I won’t anymore. Not ever. Not if I can help it,” he added wryly. “I’m not very good at this.”
Holly shook her head. She took his hands in hers, felt his fingers tighten around them. “You’re very good at it,” she said, and meant it. Once she’d allowed herself to believe what Lukas had told her, she realized how much effort he had made on her behalf. “I’m the one who’s not,” she admitted. “I’m the one who didn’t trust. I told myself it was because you couldn’t be trusted—”
“Imagine that,” Lukas said wryly, but he was smiling now.
“But it wasn’t you. It was me. I didn’t trust myself to believe. I didn’t think I had enough to make you happy. To keep you.”
“For God’s sake, Hol’!” he protested. “You’ve had me from the day you fell out of that damn tree!”
She laughed. “You wanted to throttle me!”
“Because I was eleven. When you’re eleven that’s what you do.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “I think deep down, I’ve loved you for years.”
Holly lowered her eyes, looked at their clasped hands, then raised her gaze again to meet his. “I loved you, too.” She swallowed, then tried to explain. “I loved both of you. You were so different. He was warm, steady, constant, responsible.”
“And I was not,” Lukas said frankly, giving a rough laugh.
“You were...scary.” She loosed one of her hands, lifting it to touch his cheek. “I never knew where I stood with you.”
“In my heart.”
Holly blinked at the prompt certainty of his response. “You had a funny way of showing it. Pulling pigtails. Trying to run off. Teasing.”
“Like I said, I was eleven. I didn’t do hearts and flowers. And by the time I woke up to what I should be doing,” he said ruefully, “Matt already was.”
Holly nodded. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, both of them, she was sure, thinking about Matt. “He kept me safe,” she told Lukas.
“I know. He was the better man.”
“No,” Holly said quickly. “He was no more perfect than you are, than I am. And,” she admitted for the first time, “you might have been right that we were too young to get engaged—”
“I wanted you for myself,” Lukas told her. “I didn’t deliberately mean to hurt you that night. I wanted you to give him up, pick me instead.” He shook his head. “Thank God you didn’t. I wasn’t mature enough to get married then. Matt was.”
“He was the right man for me at that time.”
Lukas nodded. “Yes.” He took her hand. He ran his fingers over it, then clasped it in his, firm and strong. He didn’t say a word, just looked at her. Holly knew what he was asking. She could see his heart in his eyes.
“I don’t need a grant,” she told him. “You’ve given me the courage. I’m still scared—not that you don’t love me, but that I’ll lose you, too.”
