Luke Page 6

  “Thanks, Zi,” I finally said after a few more slow breaths to completely clear away the nerves and tension. Now that that was out of the way, I could enjoy being excited about spending time with her again. I could relax and enjoy the anticipation of not knowing what was coming next.

  I looked over at the pink bear coloring in my passenger seat and smiled. Whatever hoops I had to jump through, whatever ribbing I had to endure, whatever anxiety plagued me and nervousness taunted me, it was all going to be worth it to see those two girls again. Already in my mind I started thinking of them as my girls. Claire and Ella. Even their names filled me with this swell of happiness and hope. Thinking of that little girl watching me stitch up her bear made me ache with a longing I never knew I had. A longing to be a father, a provider, someone that was there to mend scraped knees and soothe tears. Someone that could make her giggle and feel safe.

  She deserved it. She definitely deserved better than whatever piece of shit father she had now. And Claire deserved better too. She deserved the very best. I didn’t know if I was really it. I didn’t know if I could live up to what I thought she deserved, but I was damn well going to try.

  “No worries,” Zion said, his tone a little more serious now. “Try not to worry too much. If she really is your mate, it’ll go best if you’re just yourself. Trust me.”

  “Right,” I said. Easier said than done with your whole family surrounding you and watching your first date. But that was my own fault and it was something I’d have to deal with come Saturday.

  Right now, I refused to worry. I felt a bubble of giddiness rising up inside of me and I wasn’t going to shove it down anymore. I was going to see Claire again on Saturday and nothing and no one was going to wipe this grin off my face until then.

  Ten

  Claire

  As much as I was looking forward to Saturday all week long, by the time it actually arrived, I felt like it had gotten here too soon. Suddenly, it wasn’t just the promise of seeing Luke again, or having a nice relaxing day outside with my daughter and her super attractive doctor. Suddenly, it was real. He was really going to be at my house to pick us up soon and then he’d see how uninteresting I was. All my little fantasies about Luke would just go out the window after whatever disaster was bound to happen happened.

  Because, let’s be honest, my first date in four years — the one where I was bringing my kid along with me — seemed doomed to be a disaster. As much as I wanted to think it could actually go well, I knew how my life went. I knew every time I got my hopes up for something like this, terrible things happened.

  So I wasn’t getting my hopes up. I was preparing myself for the worst. For never hearing from Luke again, for having to change my name and move off the mountain and go into hiding from my embarrassment.

  Okay, so that was probably pushing it. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that bad.

  And I wasn’t letting my expectations of a disaster stop me from looking my best. Both Ella and I were dressed in our nicest sundresses. Ella’s was green with yellow and white flowers. The skirt swished around her knees when she twirled, which she loved. My dress was a bright sunny yellow with a lace overlay dyed to match. I paired it with my grandma’s pearls and even tried to curl my hair on purpose instead of letting it do its normal crazy thing.

  Ella was hanging around in the bathroom with me while I applied my make-up

  “Can I have some?” she asked as I swiped lipstick across my lower lip. I’d braided her hair into pigtails and in her little dress she somehow looked so young and innocent, and so grown up all at the same time. Normally, I wouldn’t encourage her trying to be older with make-up and the like, but it was a special occasion.

  “How about this one?” I asked, offering her a mostly neutral pink gloss. She grinned, then tried to force the smile away to purse her lips out like a fish.

  “Hold still,” I said, brushing the sticky gloss over her mouth. I told myself I should remember to take pictures before she got herself dirty or crumpled. When would the next time we did something like this be? We’d never really done it before, so in another four years maybe? Longer? I’d want to remember this moment.

  “How about some blush, too?” I asked, swiping the big fluffy brush over her cheeks until she was giggling from how it tickled.

  The doorbell rang and I nearly dropped the brush. I looked at Ella, eyes wide and her jaw dropped along with mine. “Wonder who that is,” I said in a whisper.

  “Dr. Luke!” she laughed, shaking her head at me for being silly. Then she ran out of the bathroom toward the front door, leaving me with only enough time to quickly look over my make-up and fluff my hair one last time before I heard the door open.

  I winced. I should really teach Ella not to open the door until I’m there, but I guess she already knew who it was going to be.

  I could already hear Luke’s voice trickling down my hall and I hustled out to the front door, a smile plastered on my face.

  “I’m not early, am I?” he asked, eyes darting around for a clock. But he wouldn’t find one unless he went looking at the microwave — which I seriously hope he didn’t decide to do. I’d cleaned up a little bit knowing he was coming to pick us up, but I didn’t go that far.

  “Nope, we’re ready,” I said brightly.

  He grinned and pulled a hand from behind his back, a veritable bushel of flowers in hand.

  “These are for you,” he said, handing me the lion’s share of the bouquet. Then he knelt down to Ella’s level and handed her a miniature version of the bouquet in my hands, daisies and chrysanthemums, daffodils and sunflowers, it was the perfect spring bouquet and somehow, he’d managed to match our dresses.

  “You shouldn’t have—”

  “Thank you!” Ella squealed, throwing her arms around him and practically crushing her flowers in the process.

  “Ella, honey, be careful. Why don’t we put these in a vase so they don’t wilt?” Then, turning to Luke, I asked, “You don’t mind, do you? It’ll only take a minute.”

  He shrugged and shook his head. “No hurry. It’s just my family and they’re not waiting up for us or anything.”

  I nodded and dashed off into the kitchen, hoping he wouldn’t follow and find the chaos on my countertops. My hidden shame. But even as I was pulling out a vase for each of our bouquets, it wasn’t hiding my dirty kitchen that was making me anxious. It was the reminder that we were off to meet Luke’s family. That I hadn’t even really spent much time alone with him, but already I was going to meet brothers and in-laws. I’d been trying pretty hard all week to forget that part because it seemed too fast, too serious for a casual, first maybe-it’s-a-date. Though, with the flowers, I’m more convinced this is supposed to be a date than I was before.

  “This one’s Tubby, my Uncle Aaron gave it to me. He calls me Ella elephant,” Ella said from the other room, and I could just imagine the parade of animals Luke was getting right now. From the sounds of it, she was introducing every last stuffed animal to him and telling him the backstory of how it came into her possession. I squeezed my eyes tight and prayed that he’d be charmed instead of annoyed. He was the one that said I could bring her along. Four year-olds were cute, but they never shut up, and they didn’t really have a lot of interesting stuff to say, but they expected you to think everything they said was the most amazing fact ever presented to you. Not a lot of guys knew how to deal with that. Chuck certainly didn’t have a clue. But I could hear Luke in the other room ‘mhm’ing and ‘ahh’ing and even asking her questions which she gleefully answered with enough enthusiasm to down a rhino.

  I trimmed the flowers, got them in the vases, and fluffed the arrangements back up before taking them back out to sit in prominently displayed locations — Ella’s obviously on a low table that was her height.

  “Ella, honey, I don’t think Dr. Luke wants to hear about the internal politics of your stuffed animals.”

  “It’s fine, I don’t mind,” Luke said, turning to me with sparkling eyes th
at made my breath catch in my chest.

  Somehow, in all my fantasies and imaginings and daydreams, I’d managed to undersell Dr. Bradford. He was sexier than I remembered, especially while he was enraptured with the inane stories of my daughter.

  “Well, we can go if you’re ready,” I said, hoping he hadn’t had too much of a chance to look around too closely. He was on the couch, surrounded by stuffed animals, and Ella was still yammering away like she hadn’t heard me at all because Dr. Luke immediately said it was okay.

  “It was nice meeting you all,” he said, standing and waving at the gathered crowd. Ella snickered, snatching up Tubby.

  “Can he come, Mom?”

  “He’s just going to get dirty.”

  “Pleeeeease?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t care if you bring him, but you need to keep a good eye on him and not lose him.”

  “I promise,” she said, holding him extra close.

  “Shall we?” Luke asked, an eyebrow raised. I nodded and grabbed my purse and keys, heading toward the front door. When my hand touched the knob, something brushed against my lower back and I jumped, only realizing after he’d pulled away that it had been Luke’s hand settling there. Then I was sad that it was gone and I hadn’t gotten to enjoy it before my instinctive reaction ruined it. But hopefully that wouldn’t be the last time he tried. I wanted to tell him that it was fine, that I was just skittish because it had been a while for me, but I also didn’t want to sound sad and desperate, like I hadn’t been on a date in half a decade because no one was interested and I didn’t have any time… Even if that was exactly how my life had gone. I didn’t want it to be obvious that I was that woman.

  I locked the door behind us and instinctively started to head toward my car until the headlights on Luke’s truck flashed and I remembered he was driving us. He opened the half doors to the back of the cab and I froze as Ella started to climb in.

  I knew I should probably just let it go. We weren’t going far and I trusted him to be a safe driver, but I just couldn’t.

  “Can we get her booster seat into the back?” I asked.

  Luke’s brows went up, his eyes darted to the backseat of his truck, and he shrugged. “I think we should be able to, yeah.”

  “Sorry,” I said, jogging to my car. I got it out of there as fast as I could, feeling like there was a game show clock ticking down, drowning out everything else around me.

  “I just… I couldn’t not…” I said, breathing heavily as I squished it in the cramped back of the truck cab and patted the seat for Ella to climb on.

  “No, it’s fine. I should have thought about it. It’s the right call,” Luke answered, waiting patient as could be while I strapped Ella in and made sure the belt was hitting her in all the right spots. I couldn’t help but think about how annoyed Chuck was when I insisted he use the booster seat in his own car and when I took extra time getting her ready to go because I wanted to make sure she was strapped in right.

  But Luke wasn’t huffing and puffing over on his side of the truck. He was helping where he could, but mostly just waiting for me to do my thing without pressuring me to hurry up.

  Not only that, but he didn’t think I was being ridiculous or paranoid or overly-protective. He wasn’t telling me how when he was a kid they slid around in the backseat without a seatbelt of any kind and look, he’s still alive, isn’t that good enough for kids these days?

  I needed to remind myself, over and over again, that Luke wasn’t Chuck. That I wouldn’t be agreeing to spend time with him if he was. And I needed to stop expecting the worst out of him just because my experience with my shitty ex. Luke didn’t deserve to be lumped into the same category as Chuck.

  “All good?” he asked as I closed the back door and climbed into the front. I nodded.

  “All good. Thanks for not making a big deal about it.”

  He got in with me and the space between us didn’t feel very far at all. Something about the bench seating instead of two separate seats made us feel closer, more intimate, like our legs could bump together at any time even though there were feet between us. I had to suppress a shiver and stop looking at him.

  “Don’t mention it. Safety first, always. Right Ella?”

  “Right!” she said, happy to jump to Dr. Luke’s side. Normally I got unending grief about insisting on the booster seat, but it seemed that my little elephant wanted to make a good impression too. That was something in my favor at least.

  “And we’re off!” Luke said, putting the truck in gear and heading off down my driveway, totally unaware of the manic swarm of butterflies flapping around in my stomach.

  The truck’s ride was even bumpier than my car’s as we went further up the mountain. He didn’t have the radio on and neither of us was really talking, so it was just Ella’s muttering to Tubby that filled the cab.

  “Sorry the ride’s so rough… I kind of stopped noticing it a while back.”

  I shook my head, forcing a smile. “That’s okay. I’m from this mountain, remember? I’m used to it.”

  He frowned, his hands tightening on the wheel.

  “So that’s not it, then.”

  “Not what?” I asked.

  “Whatever’s got you looking like you’re gritting your teeth and white knuckling my door handle.”

  I looked down at my hand and realized he was right about my hand. And then I moved my jaw and realized it was sore and tight, too. I hadn’t even realized I was so tense, but he did.

  “Oh… I guess I’m just… nervous,” I sighed. I didn’t really want to admit that out loud, but there it was. It seemed silly to not tell him.

  “Nervous?”

  “Yeah.” I blew out a breath. “Because you’re taking me to this thing where I don’t know anybody and I don’t even really know you all that well, but also they’re your family so that comes with a whole ‘nother layer of awkward anxiety…”

  I clamped my mouth shut, heat blooming across my cheeks, but Luke just chuckled.

  “Okay, fair enough. But they’re nothing to be nervous about. For the most part, it’s my two knucklehead brothers, Aiden and Zion. You’ve already met Aiden. And then their wives Molly and Alexis. And then their siblings and their spouses… To be honest, I don’t know all their names and I don’t know who exactly is showing up, but they’ve got a bunch of kids for Ella to play with, around her age even. But there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a barbeque.”

  “Yeah,” I said nodding. But Luke didn’t seem to realize what a make it or break it situation these types of family gatherings could be. Not that I knew why I was so worried about it. We weren’t even dating and I was worried about his family liking and accepting me. That was crazy. If anything, I should be worried about him liking me, but even that was silly. I couldn’t control whether someone liked me or not. That was something Aaron told me over and over again when it came to Chuck, or customers, or whatever. Whether someone liked me or not was up to them, I just needed to decide if I liked them. Especially when it came to thinking about dating. I couldn’t just try to impress and please a man. I had myself to think about. And my little girl.

  If anything, Luke was the one that should be nervous. A man’s family could reveal a lot about him.

  I looked over and saw how he was wringing the steering wheel, his knee bouncing anxiously.

  Okay, so maybe he was nervous.

  “Hey, it’s just a barbeque,” I said, teasing him with a grin.

  He looked over and a slow smile spread across his face. And like dawn’s light breaking through the mist, his smile spread warmth through me and helped me relax. Just being near him was somehow calming. Even when it was me, trying to reassure him.

  “My family can be kind of… overbearing,” he said, the last word coming out with a mirthless chuckle. “If they get overwhelming or too pushy or anything, just find me and I’ll tell them to back off.”

  “But then how will I learn all your juicy secrets?” I teased. His eyes w
ent wide, his face paling.

  “Ha! Hadn’t thought about that, had you?”

  He shook his head. “No I had not. A critical oversight on my part.”

  I giggled, reaching over to put my hand on his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to judge you too harshly when they tell me all your embarrassing stories.”

  I was teasing him when I put my hand there, but then when it was there, it was like the heat of the connection welded my fingers to his arm. Tight corded muscle rested firm and hot under his warm tan skin. His eyes darted over to where my hand was and the way they darkened, the way he looked up to my eyes, something burning deep in those depths, something intense and animalistic, made me shiver and my hand dropped away, my whole body ringing with a new awareness.

  That look from him was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It shot straight to the very center of who I was, it felt like lightning buzzing through me, electricity in my veins, and every charge was grounded straight to the space between my legs. That look from him made me throb in places that had been ignored far too much in the last four years.

  It was only Ella’s playful chatter that snapped me out of the moment, but then suddenly my mouth was dry, my breath short, and I couldn’t really come up with any words. That playful moment was gone and replaced by burning hot tension sizzling through the cab.

  Every additional second of silence between us seemed to make it worse until I thought I might explode from the force of not mentioning it out loud, but then Luke saved me from the trouble.

  “Hey Ella, do you see that up there?” He pointed through the windshield, further down the road where there was a turn-off flanked by huge wood carvings. They had to be twelve-feet tall, carved from a single piece of wood that must’ve been a centuries-old tree as some point.

  “Bears!” she cried, kicking her feet excitedly.

  “Yep. They’re kind of our family animal,” he said. “And those two mark the beginning of the road up to our family property. We call it the den.”

  Eleven