by Maria Luis
In comparison, her complexion looked as milky and as colorless as white chalk. “Porcelain,” the makeup companies called it, which was preferable to the snickering “ghost” comments she’d received back in grammar school.
She gave a light tug to his hand, gathering the full force of his attention under his furrowed brows. “Are you okay?”
His green gaze flitted away, then bounced back. “I’m thinking I’m gonna need to be fitted for a tux.”
He would look utterly delicious in a tuxedo, there was no doubt about that. Luke O’Connor was the type of guy who looked just as lethally handsome in a pair of sweats as he did in worn jeans. Whatever girl he brought with him to the separate weddings would be a lucky date, indeed.
Anna squashed the unfamiliar taste of jealousy.
She and Luke were not a thing, despite the fact that they were still holding hands and he was still caressing her inner wrist, and oh God, she was five minutes away from asking him to teach her all the naughty things he did to a woman he wanted in bed.
She opened her mouth to—
“Ma, can you come here?”
Her attention snapped to Julian, who was still seated at the kitchen table, his blue eyes fixated on her and Luke’s hands. Luke must have sensed her sudden discomfort because he released her hand and sent a questioning glance her way.
Please don’t make this weird.
Or, weirder than it already was.
She swallowed past her nerves and offered him a fake, tremulous smile. As usual, his expression gave nothing away. Whatever warmth had flared in her chest settled into cool disappointment.
“Guess I should go see what the prodigal son wants,” she said, dipping her chin in Julian’s direction.
Luke cocked his head. “Does he know that you call him that?”
“It’s his nickname for himself.”
With a soft chuckle, Luke said, “Somehow I’m not surprised. Go. See if the prince needs anything. Tell him that if he’s too good to be picking up dog crap from now on, he’s gonna have to find me a replacement.”
As she cut around the kitchen island, Anna felt the oddest sensation that Luke wanted to follow. A quick glance over her shoulder proved that his gaze hadn’t left her back, and she mouthed, What?
He offered her a noncommittal two-fingered salute and turned away.
And this, this was the reason why Anna had spent the last fourteen years as single as a slice of Kraft cheese. Men liked to say that women were the more confusing gender, but she had it on good authority that men made absolutely no sense ninety-nine percent of the time.
Sliding onto the empty chair beside Jules, she folded her hands together on the table. And waited. Julian popped a chip into his mouth, crunched away, and waited. He was clearly dying for her to spill her guts, which she had no intention of doing. There were certain things that shouldn’t be discussed between mother and son.
The first: her inconvenient desire to jump Luke O’Connor’s bones.
The second: her son’s secret stash of Playboys that he’d hidden (poorly, she might add) beneath his bed.
“You think Brady might ask you to be his ring bearer?” she asked to break the silence, hiding a quick grin at his exaggerated gasp.
“No way would I be their ring bearer,” Julian muttered into a Red Solo cup filled with red cherry soda. “Best man, maybe.” He cut a glance her way. “If he asked nicely.”
Anna plucked the cup out of her son’s grasp and took a small sip. She’d never been a fan of red cherry soda, but her nerves were getting to her and she wanted something to wash away the anxiety.
Julian decided to swarm in when her guard was down. “You were holding Luke’s hand.” He didn’t sound accusing so much as confused.
Anna drained the rest of the cup, coughing when the liquid slid down the wrong pipe. Good son that he was, Jules pounded a fist against her back and told her to look up at the ceiling.
At the third rap of his fist against her spine, Anna scooted her chair to the right and held up a hand. “I’m good,” she squeaked out. “Just went down the wrong pipe.”
“That’s what she said,” Shaelyn joked with an exaggerated wink as she claimed the final chair at the table.
Anna pointed a finger at her cousin. “Hey, no sex jokes. We’ve got young ears in the vicinity.”
“She’s talking about me, you know, with the youth thing,” Julian put in, “not about herself. How old are you again, Mom?”
Shaelyn’s hazel eyes widened before she erupted into laughter. “Oooh, I felt that burn.”
“He’s just pulling my leg,” Anna muttered, wishing she didn’t seem so old in her son’s eyes. At the age of twenty-three, she’d discovered her first white hair in the tangle of blonde on her head. It’d been relatively easy to forget about, though, considering that her hair was so fair anyway. But just last year, she’d made a horrifying find.
A gray hair . . . down there.
There was a moment in every woman’s life when she realized that she was no longer young and lush, but rather that she was already one revolving door on the way out. Finding a gray pubic hair had been that moment for Anna, most especially because finding that hair had signaled something else: Anna had accepted her sexless lifestyle and hadn’t bothered to trim or wax between her legs.
For a woman who owned the hottest lingerie boutique in town, it was a bit of a rub that she sold sexy thongs all day long and yet never wore them herself.
For a woman who didn’t know what a man-made orgasm felt like, her un-manicured girl parts had been a clear sign that she was mere years away from living the Cat Lady life.
“I’m not old,” she added, feeling the unreasonable urge to remind herself that she was a woman with needs. Needs that included a man between her legs and proving that, like anyone else, Anna deserved to feel good.
Instinctively her gaze sought out Luke. Surprise jolted her spine straight when blue eyes met green. He’d been watching her . . . maybe even waiting for her to make eye contact with him?
His full mouth lifted from its usual flat line to form a hollow O when he mouthed, You good?
Anna cut their connection. Was she good? She felt . . . feverish. Not quite steady. Hot.
Wasn’t she too young to start menopause?
Good Lord, girl, pull yourself together.
“Is there any more of that cherry soda?” she asked, turning her attention to her cousin and son. “I’m feeling parched.”
Julian grabbed the soda bottle from the table and filled the red plastic cup halfway. “Shaelyn,” he said as he handed the Solo cup back to Anna, “did you see that my mom and Luke were holding hands?”
Anna squeezed her eyes shut. “We weren’t holding hands.”
“It looked that way.”
She sent a beseeching glance toward Shae. “It wasn’t that way. I was feeling—”
Julian turned to Shaelyn. “I think my mom has a crush.”
Could this conversation become any more embarrassing? “I don’t have a crush. There’s no crush.”
Shaelyn eyed Anna speculatively. “You were holding hands with him?”
“She was.”
“It was just our pinkies,” she lied, running her sweaty left palm over the fabric of her shirt. If she concentrated hard enough, she could still recall the strength of his hand wrapped around hers.
“Totally not just your pinkies.” Julian’s blue eyes narrowed. “You have a date with Mr. Ajax this weekend.”
Since the moment that she’d approached her next-door neighbor with a proposition that they hit up the new cocktail bar in town, Anna had been suffering an acute sense of guilt. She wasn’t particularly interested in the vet next door, not in the way that standing in the same room as Luke O’Connor lit her up like fireworks on New Year’s Eve.
Even now, seated at least fifteen feet from him, there was a giddy anticipation sending her fingers into a rapid tap-tap-tap against the plastic shell of the soda cup.
“Who’s Mr. Ajax?” Shaelyn asked, sipping from her glass of champagne. “He sounds hot.”
Anna lifted a finger. “He’s—”
“He’s a vet,” Jules cut in.
“Ooh.” Shae leaned forward, planting her chin on an upturned hand. “Lucky you, Anna. Think of all the gorgeous guy-meets-cute-animal calendars that are published every year. This is your chance to get in on the real deal. I’m voting for a photo shoot with this Mr. Ajax fella and a baby goat. Just let that adorable image sink in, please.”
Anna couldn’t be bothered with images of Mr. Ajax and a kid, but she couldn’t help but wonder how cute Luke and Sassy might look plastered together as Mr. December in a calendar catalogue. She was hopeless. Shaking the image from her mind, she rolled her shoulders. “It’s just a date.”
“Me and Toby—that’s Mr. Ajax’s son—think that Mom and Mr. Ajax would be great together.” Julian slid a searching glance her way. “Do you like Luke, Mom?”
“What?” Anna’s hands came up, and she stared at her palms helplessly. “No. No way. Luke just . . . he needed a friend, you know like how Toby might need a friend after he hears something that upsets him?”
“I don’t hold Toby’s hand, Mom.”
“But if you were to hold his hand, just for comfort.”
“We don’t hold hands.”
“Okay, fine.” With a burst of frustration, Anna threw her own hands up in the air. “Holdings hands or not, I was just being nice.”
“So, you don’t like Luke like . . . ya know. Like that?”
If Anna had caught Shaelyn’s finger-slicing act across her neck, maybe Anna would have saved herself from pure humiliation. But she hadn’t, and so she opened her big mouth and lied, “Jules, you don’t have to worry. Luke’s a good guy, but he’s the last person I’d ever want to date.”
At the sound of a masculine throat clearing, Anna lurched around, her heart in her throat. No, no, no.
To no one’s surprise, Luke stood there. His cane was once again holding him up, and in his right hand he held a small gift-wrapped box. She could barely stand to meet his gaze, there was so much embarrassment clogging her throat.
“I, uh—” she croaked out, not at all sounding like the smooth entrepreneur that she usually was.
His knuckles turned white around the cane’s rubber handle, and he thrust the small box in her direction. “Merry Thanksgiving.”
Her mouth parted on a grin, but Julian beat her to it: “Merry Thanksgiving, Luke? Pretty sure you can’t make up new holiday slogans. Christmas already has the ‘merry’ copyrighted.”
“When you finally get hair on your chest, kid, you can do whatever you want,” Luke replied.
“Um, excuse me,” Shae interjected, pointing at her chest, “but what about us non-hairy folk?”
Given little provocation the group would descend into a full-on debate. Heart lodged somewhere between its rightful place in her chest and in her throat, Anna accepted the gift and peered down at the red bow. She lifted her gaze to the man standing before here. “I didn’t realize we were exchanging gifts.”
His big shoulders lifted. “Consider it a token of congratulations for making that TV deal. Don’t read into it, Bryce.”
Bryce, not Blondie.
Her hands folded over the sharp edges of the box, her fingers itching to tear at the wrapping paper and uncover the treasure within. “Well, thank you then. It means a lot to me, you know, that you would get something for me—”
“Anna,” he said firmly, “you’re thinking too much into it.”
Oh. “Right.”
“What’s the gift?” Shaelyn poked the box’s side, even as Julian’s eyes narrowed on his boss. “You crushin’ on my Mom, Luke?”
Luke’s hard gaze found Anna’s face. “What did you say, Bryce?” He snapped his fingers, as though suddenly recalling something. “Oh, yeah, she’d be the last woman I’d ever want to date.”
Both Shaelyn and Julian laughed, not the least bit aware of Anna’s heart splintering at the cool indifference in Luke’s tone. She might deserve that biting comment, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.
As Luke strode off toward Brady, his cane quietly echoing on the tile floor, Anna’s fingers tore at the wrapper and lifted up the lid of the box. She peered inside, and—she blinked back sudden tears.
Damn him.
Damn Luke O’Connor and his ability to render her speechless, flustered, and hopeful in one fell swoop.
Anna carefully replaced the box’s lid and set the gift on the table. She wouldn’t let him have the last word, even if she had to pull out all the stops to top him.
22
“Honey, is that Sassy outside?”
“It better not be Sassy.” Luke pulled a glass jar off the shelf and dumped more dried lavender inside. Twisting the copper top back on, he replaced the jar and moved onto the next. Elderflower. Passionflower. So many goddamn flowers. After six hours of filling out back orders at Herbal Heaven, he was honestly surprised he hadn’t spontaneously combusted into a bouquet of roses and Baby’s Breath by now.
“It looks just like Sassy,” Moira said, coming around the counter to stand at his side. “And that boy from Thanksgiving dinner—Julian, was it?—he’s there, too.”
Luke froze, his eyes narrowing as he turned to follow his mother’s line of sight to the front of the shop. And, shit, sure enough, there was Julian with Sassy. At the realization that he’d come under scrutiny, Julian’s mouth broke into a wide grin and he waved enthusiastically from the other side of the glass.
“Why does he have your dog?” Moira crossed her arms over her chest, her expression tugging into a frown. “Don’t tell me you’re tired of the pup already. This is exactly the reason why we never had a pet while you were a kid, you know. There I was, fearing that one day you’d wake up and realize that you preferred cats, and the poor dog would be out the door.”
“The kid is my dog walker.” Shoving the glass jar on the shelf, Luke brushed his hands across his jean-clad knees and grabbed his cane from where it rested against a stack of cardboard boxes. He leaned over, bussing a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “And don’t lie to yourself, Ma,” he said, already moving towards the front door, “we never had a dog because you were half-terrified that it would pee on the furniture.”
“Now, you wait just a minute, Lucas Michael O’Connor. That isn’t true.”
Luke half turned, briefly pausing when he noticed her happy smile, and then deadpanned, “I mentioned the dog and you went out and bought plastic covers for all the couches the very next day.”
“Not because of the dog.”
“No?”
Moira gave a delicate shrug. “You were a very messy boy, son.”
Chuckling under his breath, Luke shook his head and then pressed the front door open with a flat palm. The minute Sassy caught wind of him, he hit paws running and dragged poor Julian so that he could greet his master. Tail thwapping back and forth, Sassy shoved his head into Luke’s groin.
“Jesus, man,” Luke grunted, hooking a finger in the dog’s collar and inching him back, “watch out for the goods.”
“He tried to dismember me today too,” Julian said, patting Sassy on top of his behemoth-sized head. “You gotta have fast reflexes. One, two, duck—that sort of thing.”
With a wry grin, Luke chucked Sass under the chin. “Yeah, I’m thinking that my ducking days haven’t quite returned yet.”
“Because of your hip?”
“Because I’m old and decaying.”
Julian gave him a considering glance. “Are you older than my mom?”
Your mom couldn’t look like she was old and decaying even if she’d dressed up as a zombie for Halloween. The thought crossed Luke’s mind before he could squelch it. It’d been five days since Thanksgiving dinner, three since she’d gone on a date with her hot vet next-door neighbor.
He grimaced. Hell, even just thinking about Anna on a date with another man made him feel fifty sha
des of pissed off—something he had no right to feel in the first place. He’d been the one to initially reject her, idiot that he was.
Even now, with the unfamiliar sting of jealousy keeping him company throughout the day, Luke internally understood that Anna was better off with a guy who earned a spot on a twelve-month calendar spread. She was better off without him, and all of his idiosyncrasies and injuries and other issues that would never become a “non-issue” for a woman like Anna Bryce.
He dragged a hand over his jawline, wishing that hope—which was already a bitch in the real world—would for once take a back seat to a realistic viewpoint on things.
Anna wanted a husband.
Luke wasn’t fit to be a husband to anyone.
Anna wanted the love of her life.
Luke and “romance” went together about as well as peanut butter and ketchup. In short, she was better off looking for her grape jelly somewhere else, with someone who had the relationship fundamentals to provide the necessary two sandwich halves.
You did give her a gift.
Yeah, Luke thought with a snort, a gift that she hadn’t even seemed to enjoy. The fact that he’d put thought into the present . . . Well, it’d been a much-needed rude awakening to hear her say that he was the last person she’d ever consider dating.
Apparently drunk Anna could get down with the crippled veteran, but a sober Anna realized what a terrible mistake that would be.
“I’m younger,” he said, finally answering the kid’s question. Luke nodded his head to where Sassy had decided to dribble all over the storefront glass he’d just scrubbed down before lunch. “I’m guessing you didn’t feel like doing the regular walk today?”
“Not really.” Julian kicked at a stray rock. “Thought me and Sassy could enjoy some nice, clean air.”
“Clean air, in the French Quarter?” Luke propped his cane up against his hip and folded his arms over his chest. “How many times did you practice that line before you showed up here? You know that your mom is specific about which blocks you can walk and which ones are off limits.”
“Yeah, I know, I know.” With a quick tug of the leash, Julian wrangled in a wandering Sassy. “But I’m thinking to myself, I’ve got an hour to kill before she comes and picks me up, and she didn’t realize that you were working this evening. So, instead of sitting on your couch and eating popcorn with Sass like last night, I thought we’d come down for a visit.”