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Lukas felt a tingle at the back of his neck and faint buzzing inside his head. He dropped into his chair and realized he wasn’t breathing.
“Yours?” Sera queried.
“Half.” Lukas dragged the word up from the depth of his being. It sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t said it in years.
Sera smiled. “Which half?”
There was no answer to that. He shook his head.
“I thought you must know her,” Sera said gently. “Holly?” Because, of course, Sera had read the letter.
“Yes.”
Sera waited, but when he didn’t say more, she nodded. “Right. Well, then,” she said more briskly. “Well, you deal with Holly and the boat. I’m off.”
Lukas didn’t look up. He waited until he heard the door shut. Then he picked up the letter, not seeing anything but the signature. Then he shut his eyes.
He didn’t need them to see Holly as clear as day.
He had a kaleidoscope of memories to choose from: Holly at nine, all elbows and skinned knees and attitude; Holly at thirteen, still coltish but suddenly curvy, running down the beach; Holly at fifteen, her swingy dark hair with auburn highlights, loose and luxuriant, her breasts a handful; Holly at seventeen, blue eyes soft with love as she’d looked adoringly at Matt; Holly at eighteen, blue eyes hard, accusing Lukas when Matt had broken his leg; and then, two weeks later, Holly on the night of her senior prom—beautiful and nervy, edgy and defiant. Then gentler, softer, laughing, smiling—at him for once.
And then Holly in the night, on his father’s boat, her eyes doubtful, then apprehensive, then wondering, and finally—
Lukas made a strangled sound deep in his throat.
He dropped the photo on the desk and, with unsteady fingers, picked up the letter—to read the first words he’d had from Holly Halloran in a dozen years.
CHAPTER TWO
WHERE THE HELL was she?
Lukas stood on the marina dock, hands on hips, squinting as he scanned the water, trying to pick Holly out of the Saturday-morning crowd of canoes and kayaks and pedal boats that were maneuvering in a sheltered basin on the banks of the Brooklyn side of the East River.
He should have been hanging drywall in one of the lofts above the gallery or helping set up the display cases in one of the artisans’ workshops. He should have, God save him, been reading more of the apparently endless supply of MacClintock grant applications.
Instead, he was here.
Because Holly was here.
Or so the principal of St. Brendan’s School had promised him.
Three days ago, as he’d read her stilted, determinedly impersonal letter requesting that he join her in making a gift to St. Brendan’s School of the sailboat he and Matt had intended to restore while they were in college, because she was “tying up loose ends before she left,” a tidal wave of long-suppressed memories and emotions had washed over him.
He could, of course, keep right on suppressing them. He’d had plenty of practice. So for all of thirty-six hours he’d tried to push Holly back in the box he’d deliberately shut a dozen years ago.
It was over, he’d told himself, which wasn’t quite the truth. The truth was, it had never really begun. And he should damned well leave it that way.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t just sign the deed of gift she’d attached to the letter. He couldn’t just walk away. Truth to tell, the mere thought of Holly was the first thing to really energize him since he’d come home.
So on impulse, he had called St. Brendan’s and asked to speak to her.
Of course it had been the middle of the school day. Holly was teaching. The secretary offered to take a message.
Lukas said no. He could leave a message, but she wouldn’t call him back. He knew Holly. If she had wanted to talk to him, she would have given him her number in the letter. She’d have written to him on her own notepaper, not printed out an impersonal little message on a St. Brendan’s official letterhead.
He got the message: Holly still didn’t want anything to do with him.
But it didn’t mean she was going to get her way. He called back and spoke to the principal.
Father Morrison was pleasant and polite and had known instantly who Lukas was. “Matt spoke very highly of you.”
“Matt?” That was a surprise.
“He volunteered here. He and Holly taught extracurricular kayaking and canoeing. Matt wanted to teach the kids to sail. Right before he died, he told me he had a boat they could use. After... Well, I didn’t want to mention it to Holly. But she brought it up a few days ago, said she had written to you hoping you’d agree to make it a gift to the school.” The statement had been as much question as explanation.
