Luke's Second Chance Family

by Francesca Lane

  And there was that last summer here, the one where she had come full of hope for a future that turned a one-eighty faster than an aerial on a hollow wave. Maggie peeked down the hall. The girls were quiet now, so she padded along the floorboards until catching sight of them beneath that ancient map that hung proudly over the dining room’s forever-scarred table. So far, neither Grace or Jake or Maggie could remove that map—or the table. Too many memories attached to them both.

  Luke hadn’t yet given her details about what happened with CeCe, so she could only guess. Maybe he would even tell her everything tonight—though she still could hardly believe she had agreed to spending time alone with him. This complicated things even more than ever.

  Maggie closed her eyes, thinking. She had never been a fan of CeCe, but desert her child? Even Maggie could not attach something so unthinkable to her past nemesis. Was CeCe around here still? Did Siena ever see her mother? Maggie puttered around the living room, stacking magazines and brushing crumbs off of the coffee table and into her hands. By the sound of their chatter about the beach and the fun things they had been learning, neither girl seemed to be harboring feelings of abandonment. Maggie had worked hard to instill confidence and love in Eva, and by the looks of things, Luke had done the same with Siena.

  Luke.

  She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the sight of him, all sculpted six feet of him. That swath of stubble over his mouth, lips pursed as he considered her, penetrating eyes that watched her, almost thoughtfully. Even that scar intrigued her. Everything about him was familiar and yet new, too. He’d aged, as had she, but he’d done it well. So, so well. His bronze and skinny teenaged layers, earned from years of growing up on the beach and in the water, had filled out now into a more chiseled form.

  Exactly when did she start thinking of the guy who slit her heart in two as more than just that?

  Honestly, Maggie had half-expected to find Luke with a beer gut and untoned arms. If she were honest, she had practically wished that on him, part of her mental skewering of an old boyfriend who had done her wrong. She huffed a laugh.

  “Mom?”

  Maggie jerked a look up. Both girls were watching her from the table, with Eva wearing a particularly concerned expression.

  “You look weird. What were you laughing at?”

  Siena’s round eyes watched her, too, a curious glint in her smile. “You look like my dad when he’s counting his steps.”

  “Counting his steps?”

  “Yeah, he’s obsessed with some app on his phone.”

  “Oh, well”—Maggie glanced at Siena—“I was just thinking of something funny. Like that joke you told me today.”

  Siena smiled but Eva rolled her eyes. “That was hours ago, Mom.”

  Maggie grabbed an empty bowl from the coffee table and headed to the kitchen. “Well, then, don’t mind me,” she sang out. Out of the girls’ sight, she dumped the bowl into the sink and leaned onto the edge, trying to get her bearings. She gave her head a slight shake, a warning filling her head. Yes, Luke’s news that he and CeCe were no longer a happy couple complicated everything.

  She huffed a sigh rather aggressively and spun back toward the sink. Whatever you do, girl, don’t get too attached.

  “Hand me that block planer, will you?” Luke looked through his goggles to his new intern, Carlos. He’d met the kid on the beach after the teen had crushed a bomb of a wave. They’d struck up a conversation and Luke offered him a summer job learning the art of board shaping.

  Behind a mask of his own, Carlos plucked the block off a shelf and planted it in Luke’s gloved hand. He stood back and lifted his mask. “Not gonna use a template?”

  Luke shook his head. “Going old-school on this one.” Board shapers often lay a template over a blank of foam to know where to cut.

  Carlos laughed. “Aw, man, my mom would say you’re like Michelangelo. Only instead of stone, you’re lookin’ at a blank with a surfboard in it somewhere.”

  Luke grinned.

  “My mom’s an art teacher,” Carlos added. “Tells me all kinds of stuff like that.”

  “Keep listening to your mom.”

  Carlos laughed. “Okay if I go on my break now?”

  Luke nodded and dipped his chin down again, intending to focus on the task in front of him. The kid was right, in a way. The blank of foam, if viewed by a creative and focused mind, would become what it was meant to be.

  He reached his hands over the board and stopped, a niggling of something uncomfortable rising inside him. Keep listening to your mom. He could never deliver those same words to Siena and that fact haunted him. Even today. To strangers in that ice cream shop, everything about today looked so normal. Happy, tired kids getting ice cream with two patient adults on hand to pay the bill and laugh at the banter.

  An ache that had formed in his chest earlier while inside that ice cream parlor began to bellow now. He replayed the moment Maggie finally allowed her eyes to catch with his. They were brown and held flecks of jade and sunlight. She had shown up in cottony sweats that clung to her curves and he’d had to wipe away the sweat from his forehead more than once.

  Hopefully, if she noticed, she hadn’t been grossed out by him.

  Luke glanced down at the shapeless board as it waited for him, knowing it would stay in its current state for another day. Even Michelangelo would find it difficult to find focus through the mess of thoughts that had outdone him today. Maggie had awakened something in him that he figured was dead. He had always considered her cute. Real cute. But the woman who strolled into his heart today had sashayed right past cuteness. He had the suspicion that, given the chance, she could take him down, mind, body, and soul, with a flick of her hair and one well-placed yes.

  Luke’s heart rate accelerated.

  Steady, boy. Another ache, one sharper and more pronounced, poked at him. The one that reminded him that she—and Eva—would be leaving soon. He couldn’t let himself get too attached. Not again. Wouldn’t be good for Siena, nor him. So why had he asked her out tonight? Was that wise?

  Luke rubbed a palm across the back of his neck. He didn’t care to relive the last night he and Maggie had seen each other more than ten years ago, the memory surprisingly clear. Admittedly, he was a jerk that night, but in his defense, it had been his way of dealing with his own troubles.

  If only she knew it had nothing to do with her.

  Of course, it didn’t take her long to run off with Rafael. He curled his hands into fists, thinking of seeing them together the very next morning, not that it was any of his business. Luke removed his gloves. He lay his goggles on the workbench and turned around, leaning his behind against it. He crossed his arms and dropped his chin to his chest, the pull and stretch to his neck bringing relief.

  Siena’s cherub-like face sprang to his mind, erasing his wayward thoughts, and he smiled. His daughter had been his break in the storm, the very reason not to let regrets have their place. Ruefully, he realized that he needed to be careful, not only for his own sake, but for Siena’s as well.

  Luke sighed. Whatever you do, dude, don’t get too attached.

  The air was still, yet brisk. Maggie zipped her puffy jacket to her chin and tucked her hands into her pockets.

  “Are you too cold to walk to the restaurant?” Luke asked. “We can take my car.”

  “No, not at all. I love walking.”

  “You always did.”

  “I still do.” She sighed. “Besides, you’ll get all your steps in this way.”

  Luke sucked in a breath. “What?”

  Maggie wrinkled her nose, smiling. “Siena told me about your obsession with some fitness app on your phone.”

  “Did she now?” He laughed in a surprisingly relaxed way.

  Maggie bit back a laugh of her own and together they walked swiftly along the familiar path to downtown, talking only sparingly, as if not needing to fill the quiet night with chatter. Much of what they passed hadn’t changed. Some of the houses—bung
alows, really—had been cleared to make way for larger, more modern homes made of sustainable materials. But most had stayed the same as they had always been, their yards neat and porches wide, stuck in time.

  They reached Giovanni’s. Though new to her, the restaurant’s brick and vine-covered entry gave it an Old World feel.

  Luke held the door. “After you, Mags.”

  Like the walk over here, much about Luke felt the same as before, too. The way he hopped on and off curbs periodically as they made small talk, the funny pitch of his laugh whenever he found something particularly hilarious. But in some ways, like when he held the door and watched her walk inside the restaurant ahead of him, a smile warming his face, she felt as if she were getting a new and grown-up version of the surfer kid she once knew.

  It stirred something fresh and intriguing within her.

  Inside, the host picked up two menus. “Right this way.”

  They sat across from each other, the place a caricature of every Italian movie she’d ever seen. Red-and-white checkered tablecloth, a fiasco—a fat Chianti bottle—overflowing with wax from a taper candle, and accordion music playing in the background. Her father would have loved this place.

  “What sounds good to you?” he asked.

  She glanced up at him, the flicker of candlelight dancing across his handsome face, but she dared not answer his question truthfully. Instead, she shut her menu. “Why don’t you order for us?”

  “Sure about that? I might order the snails.”

  “This isn’t a French place.”

  “Italy has snails too.”

  “In their gardens, maybe.”

  He laughed and shut his menu. When their waiter brought waters, Luke handed him both menus. “We’ll have a pizza formaggi, spaghetti with meatballs, a couple of Caesar salads, and a bottle of your house red.”

  “Wow,” Maggie said when the waiter had gone, “are we expecting anyone else to join us?”

  He hunched forward and gazed at her through thick lashes. “I’d chase them away if they showed up.”

  Quietly, a server brought over a bottle of wine and two glasses and filled them both before padding away.

  Luke lifted a glass. “Cheers.”

  She sipped her wine, fruit forward but drier on the finish, and determined not to let it go to her head. But he had ordered a bottle, and by the looks of it, they still had a long way to go.

  Good thing they had walked here.

  Their salads arrived. Luke took a bite, savoring it. He looked earnestly into Maggie’s eyes, as if readying himself, and said, “CeCe has a drug addiction and she has for most of our marriage.”

  “Oh. That’s … terrible.”

  He shrugged. “I rarely talk about it anymore. You know that stuff—pot, pills, cigs—it was all over the place when we were teens.”

  “No, I really didn’t know that.” She shrugged. “Was never interested.”

  He nodded, assessing her, his mouth grim. “Yeah, I remember that you didn’t care about any of that stuff. Your mom and dad obviously instilled a healthy fear of drugs in you and your siblings.”

  “Actually, they instilled a healthy fear of them in us.”

  Luke grinned. “Knowing your father, I have no doubt. I assure you, though, that buying your drug of choice on the beach in summer was as easy as digging up a sand crab.”

  She took another sip of wine, as did he. They sat in silence a moment, Luke watching her, as if waiting for some kind of reaction.

  “So what now, Luke?” she finally asked. “I know you say your marriage is done, but I can’t believe CeCe would turn in her Mom card.”

  “Truth is, Mags, she’s not interested in being a mother or being married to me. It’s one sad chapter that’ll never go away because …”

  He sat back and looked into the distance, as if his appetite had gone.

  “Because you have Siena.”

  Luke swung a gaze back to Maggie. “Exactly. If not for Siena being in my life, I wouldn’t know half of what I’ve learned about addiction and its effect on a family.” He held that gaze on her. “Of course …”

  “You don’t have to say it.”

  “I know that, but it’s what you’re thinking.”

  Maggie gave him a pointed look. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

  Luke raised his brows at her, as if to say Oh, really?

  Maggie continued to stare at him, refusing to cave.

  He leaned forward again, sadness drawing on his features. “You win. I’ll confess: If CeCe and I, well, if she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant, none of this mess would have happened and maybe you and—”

  “Stop.” Maggie put down her glass of wine, shaking her head. “I don’t want to think about those days, Luke.”

  “This coming from the girl who never liked to put an issue to rest until she had turned it inside out and examined every angle.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t remember how you used to ask a million questions about surfing? How do you know what size board to get? How hard is it to stand up? Where’s the best place to surf?” He gave her a half-smile. “You were the one who talked me into all of that, you know.”

  She knew. He’d had a fear of the water when they were young. Maggie had almost forgotten about that. But one day, after watching him mentally trying to talk himself into getting into the ocean, she encouraged him to face his fear. If only she’d stopped there. It pained her to think about how often she had pushed him to give competing a try.

  He continued. “You never got the credit you deserved.”

  “Not that I mattered much once you started winning …”

  Luke reacted like she’d sucker punched him. He sat back and folded his arms. “You held your own.”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “C’mon, Mags.” His smile was careful, broaching. “I know I was a jerk, but it didn’t take long for you to fill my shoes with some … lowlife.”

  Maggie set her jaw. Really? She narrowed her eyes. Did Luke blame her for marrying soon after he announced that he would be marrying CeCe—who was pregnant with his child, by the way?

  Luke sighed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean that.”

  Maggie bit her lip. Part of her wanted to stand up and walk out the door and never talk to him again. She’d managed to stay away before and she could do it again.

  But the other part wanted to stand her ground and fight. “You invited me to dinner so you could blame me for what you did a decade ago? I won’t let you turn the tables on this.”

  Luke’s eyes widened, as if stricken. “Wait.” He reached out and grasped Maggie’s hand. No doubt he felt it stiffen in his grip. “I did not mean to bring up any of that. I’m sorry. I-I got caught up in the past.” He huffed a sigh. “Forgive me.”

  She stuck her tongue in her cheek and flicked a look at him. A tug-of-war had been going on inside her heart all day, and she didn’t know what to make of it. It’s not as if they could go back and change anything that had happened. They needed to bury all of this, once and for all.

  Maggie slowly pulled her hand away from Luke’s. She flashed him a look. “Let’s be honest—neither of us is unhappy about the way things turned out.”

  Luke was silent a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

  “You have Siena. And I have Eva.” She paused, suddenly having a very difficult time making eye contact with him. But she forced herself. “Is that a better way of putting it?”

  He lowered his gaze to his wine glass before looking up again. “When you say it like that, you’re right. I wouldn’t put it any other way either.”

  Their server appeared with a steaming pizza and set it on a wire rack between them. Another server brought two plates of spaghetti and meatballs. The tense moment lessened with the arrival of food, but more than that had occurred, Maggie thought. Time had blurred the details of their past. She determined to focus on the here—and the now—while also pushing away warning bells
of regret and second-guessing.

  Maggie turned her attention to the vast amounts of food, unsure if she would be able to consume a noticeable portion of any of it. Still, the timing was perfect. The arrival of dinner had helped derail anymore discussion about the night she and Luke had split up for good. Truthfully, she didn’t care to think—or talk—about that time in their lives ever again.

  Luke gestured to the pizza. “Dig in.”

  She bit into a slice of pizza and closed her eyes.

  “That good, eh?”

  Maggie opened her eyes to find Luke staring back at her, a teasing smile on his face. “It’s amazing.”

  “Wait’ll you try the meatballs. Really glad you aren’t a vegetarian anymore.”

  “Me too.” She twirled her fork in the spaghetti. “Despite all that’s happened with CeCe, Siena is a really great kid, Luke.” Maggie continued to twirl her fork, thinking. She didn’t add that the bond Eva and Siena shared had begun to stir up additional stress and worry in her plans. Perhaps she could find a way to keep their friendship alive. And then when they were older—

  “I think so, too,” he said, interrupting her musings. “Fortunately, Siena doesn’t remember the terrible times much at all, as they happened when she was a baby. I’ve done my best to shield her from issues that crop up sometimes, to give her a happy home, despite the hole her mother’s absence has created.”

  The hole her mother’s absence has created …

  Inwardly, Maggie berated herself. She hadn’t considered that Luke might have changed, that he was no longer the selfish up-and-coming surf champ who had taken advantage of her only to run off with someone else. She realized, with chest-tightening clarity, that he had grown up, just as she had. And that the secret she held so close to her heart was actually a much larger problem than she realized.

  Truly, the last person she had wanted to run into when she got to Colibri was Luke. So much time had lapsed since the night they had ended it, or rather, he had ended it. After that night, they saw each other once, only briefly, and then? It was as if their longtime, often long-distance, love affair had never even existed.