Luke's Second Chance Family

by Francesca Lane

  For a while, that’s what hurt the most.

  But she had to let it go.

  She put down her fork. After taking a sip of wine, she watched Luke over the rim of her glass. “I’m glad we both came through those years unscathed.” She said this despite the secret, and the truth that she had no job or home to go back to when her time in Colibri was up. But, still.

  “But?” he asked.

  “But nothing.”

  Luke’s forehead flickered with doubt. “You were right when you said that neither of us is unhappy about our outcomes. My daughter is …” He smiled. “Well, she’s taught me how to love. I’d do anything for her.”

  “That’s beautiful. I feel the same way about Eva.”

  “But it’s not true, at least for me, that I’ve come through the years unscathed.”

  “Hmm.”

  Luke rubbed the back of his neck in that old, familiar way, eyeing her. “I’ve missed you, Mags.”

  “We were kids, Luke.”

  “We were young adults.”

  “Technically, maybe. But young adults without a shred of maturity.”

  He gave her a rueful look. “Well, that changed in a hurry, didn’t it?”

  She returned his rueful gaze.

  “So,” he said. “About us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yeah. I miss what we had.”

  What was he saying? That he wanted to return to the way things were before the breakup? To when they were kids hoping for a future yet ill-equipped to make that happen? He couldn’t possibly mean that, not with his marriage in tatters. Nor could she agree to pursing something that had died its rightful death. Not now. Especially not with so much of her life in tangles.

  “You mean our friendship,” she said.

  He seemed to weigh that. “Yes.”

  Her heightened sense of anxiety lowered considerably. He wanted to be friends. She couldn’t fathom that, really. Not in the traditional way. But, for now, while she was still in Colibri for a short while longer, it wouldn’t hurt to be friends.

  “I’m here with you now, Luke, so I suppose it’s possible that we could be … friends again.”

  Luke lifted his glass, his eyes imploring her. “Anything is possible.”

  She smiled.

  “Let’s drink to that,” Luke said.

  She clinked her glass against his. “Cheers.”

  Six

  Friends. It was a start.

  Luke pulled off his goggles and his gloves and placed them on the scarred up old counter in his workroom. He stood back and admired his progress, Carlos’s comments not far from his mind. The emerging board might not be a masterpiece, but the more he refined its shape and smoothed its edges, he could see it taking on a life.

  Kind of like his thoughts. Last night had been a mixed bag of emotions, and he had nearly upended the dinner before it began. But he wouldn’t change it. They had tussled some, and somewhere between holding the door for Maggie as she stepped inside and their first sip of wine, he knew what he had hoped to gain, and that was to reignite what had been snuffed out between them.

  First thing this morning, he made another step toward that end.

  A commotion in the shop caught his attention. He grabbed a towel and wiped his hands with it as he walked out to the front.

  “Hey, Stringbean!”

  “Hey, yourself, Pincher.” Luke laughed at the sight of the burly guy with a buzz cut and a signature scar above his left brow.

  Carlos, who was manning the shop for the day, raised his brows. “The Pincher?”

  Luke nodded. “Yup. Hey, Pinch, I’d like you to meet my right-hand guy here, Carlos.”

  “Hey, man, you’re a legend,” Carlos said, pumping the guy’s hand.

  “Great to meet you, though I don’t know why you’d work for this guy over here.”

  Carlos chuckled. “He’s not so bad.”

  Luke shot his intern a mock scowl.

  “I mean,” Carlos cut in, “he’s a great boss. Totally forgot they called him Stringbean, though.”

  Luke’s gut sank a little. He’d mostly forgotten about that too. He shook off thoughts of the past and instead eyed the infamous semi-pro surfer from their teen years who had entered his shop. “What’s brought you by?”

  “Gotta proposition for ya.”

  “Shoot.”

  Pincher walked over to the window and pointed at a flyer. “One of the sponsors of Ringer fell out. Gonna need someone like yourself to fatten up the pot again. You in?”

  “Whoa. Seriously? You’re just going to come in here after how many years and ask me for money?”

  Pincher raised a brow. “Ya want me to take you to dinner first?”

  Carlos cackled. “That’s good, bro.”

  Pincher craned his neck left and right, looking around the shop. “It’ll be good advertising for this dive.”

  Yeah, it would. Luke had long been out of competing, but he’d seen the kind of plug sponsors could get, especially if the waves cooperated. Being with Maggie last night brought some of those memories back.

  Chalk up another reason to pursue the charming Ms. Morelli.

  Luke sighed in mock exasperation. “Why not? Yeah, I’ll help out.”

  Pincher smiled widely. “Excellent.” He plopped a card into Luke’s hand. “Email over your logo and any other graphics you want us to highlight. I’ll have my money people call your money people—”

  “AKA me.”

  “Tryin’ to be all profesh here, dude, but okay. I’ll have the group’s treasurer call you. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Pincher stepped toward the door and stopped. A phone rang in the background. “Hey, Stringbean?”

  “Yup?”

  “Thanks, man. Really appreciate it.”

  As Pincher left, Carlos appeared at Luke’s side. “Phone’s for you.”

  “Thanks.” Luke took it from him. “Hello?”

  “Luke, it’s me.”

  His veins filled with blood that had turned cold at the sound of his estranged wife’s voice. “Hi.”

  “Got your message, and why not. I’m ready to sign the papers.”

  He nodded, a slight rise in his body temperature. “Good news. I’ll send—”

  “Wait. On one condition.”

  Luke shut his eyes. He was tired of this and had hoped, for only a second or two, that there would be no more games. So much for miracles.

  She continued, “I want you to come pick them up.”

  Luke waited. He assumed she would ask to see Siena, perhaps even make a relationship with her a condition of signing the papers. Staying in contact with CeCe had become unbearable to him, and yet, in the long run, he knew doing so would be the best for their daughter.

  He was about to tell CeCe that he could come tomorrow, and that he would bring Siena with him, when she said, “Alone.”

  Luke sucked in a breath.

  “I’ll sign the divorce papers and you can pick them up,” CeCe said. “But I want you to come alone.”

  Maggie had thought about Luke all night long. The way he walked in near silence next to her, yet made her feel anything but alone. How his hand brushed hers more than once. The heat of his gaze whenever he turned to her as they walked along. When they reached the restaurant and he opened the door for her, she stole a glance at the full height of him, his face freshly shorn, the sun’s afterglow in his eyes.

  How in the world would she get anything done today? She was already having a difficult time holding to the concept of “friendship.”

  Still, another week was in the books and she still had a heap of touching up to do. Plus, she had promised to cut and style Brooke Lamont’s hair—the owner of the new bakery in town, sometime this weekend. How would she explain all these loose ends to her siblings tomorrow during their weekly call? She shook off the picture in her head of Lacy, who would probably throw some shade her way—and hold a glass of wine while doing it.

  Maggie put a hand
to her hip, blew out a breath. Time was ticking, more than she wanted to admit. Focus, focus.

  She surveyed the hall, her plans dashed. She had been hoping that cleaning the walls with a sponge eraser would be enough, but nuh-uh. The long hallway was still dingy and pale. With resolve, she retrieved a tarp from the garage and dragged it back inside where she unrolled it and began taping down the edges.

  While Maggie was on her haunches, Eva slid down the hall in her socks, crinkling the tarp as she tumbled along. “What in the world?”

  Eva let loose her high-pitched laugh, the one that had the power to shake the roof.

  Maggie playfully swatted at her daughter’s ankles. “Get off of here right now!”

  As if she had suddenly lost her hearing, Eva plopped onto the tarp that lay across the floor. She looked up at her mom. “So can Siena come over? Her dad has to go somewhere all day and she doesn’t want to stay at her grandma’s. She says it’s super boring over there.”

  Maggie sat back on her heels and her gaze darted to the clock over in the kitchen. Had Luke called her? Her phone was still upstairs, plugged into a charger. And what would she have said if he had asked for this favor? After last night, the weight of her secret had shifted and she no longer felt as if she had the upper hand.

  On the contrary, at the moment, Maggie felt very, very small.

  She returned her gaze to Eva, moving herself back into mom mode. “You sure? I’m pretty much stuck here all day painting and won’t be able to take you anywhere.”

  Eva scrambled to her feet. “Yeah. We’re fine.”

  “Okay, then. If her dad can drop her off, I’m okay with it.”

  “Cool!”

  As Eva took off down the hall, Maggie began to plot out her next few hours while using a rag to dry off some of her attempts at erasing years of dirt. Still, Luke would be here soon. Maybe she should run upstairs and put some makeup on, just in case he came inside when he dropped off Siena. So much for her inner warning not to get too attached.

  How dense was she? She would be gone from Colibri in less than two weeks. Besides, there was no doubt in her mind that what she currently felt for Luke was a resurrected childhood crush—one that had ended very badly the first time.

  What they had last night felt … good. A friendship reborn. Why mess that up with thoughts of anything more? Maybe CeCe would get better and they would rekindle what they once had? For Siena’s sake, she hoped that could come to pass.

  Maggie inhaled and shut her eyes. Did she really want to see a repeat of the heartache she had once endured?

  She pitched a rag onto the ground. If Luke didn’t like what he saw, why did she care? Besides, she was doing that man a favor by babysitting his, well, his pre-teen. He’d have to live with seeing her in her current state. Case closed.

  Maggie twisted her hair into a knot and clipped it to the top of her head. She began the tedious job of cutting in the paint around the edges of the walls and ceiling. By the time the bell rang and Eva skidded into the living room to answer the door, Maggie was elbows deep into her project. Luke would probably drop off Siena and leave right away anyway.

  “Wow. You’ve done some serious work on this place.” Luke’s voice floated smoothly into the room. He had an appraising smile on his face and she wanted to die. To pound out a hole in the wall, slither inside, and pull the busted drywall in with her. Why again had she decided not to at least dab on some powder or gloss her lips?

  Abruptly, she stood, her hand cramping from her tight grip on a paintbrush handle. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey, yourself.” Luke’s dark brown hair curved away from his face, like it had been blown by the wind, his skin golden. Last night he had worn dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and a smoke-colored blazer. Today he was in blue jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his body and held on for dear life.

  Not that she noticed all that.

  She turned away, keeping her eyes focused on the partially painted wall in front of her. Maybe if she couldn’t see him, he could not see her. Worked for cats.

  He cleared his voice. “So, thanks for keeping Siena today.” He paused. “Sure you don’t mind?”

  Of course she didn’t mind. She wasn’t some … ogre. Maggie swallowed a sigh and turned her chin enough to let him know she could hear him. “Not at all. Siena’s a sweetheart. I did tell Eva, though, that I wouldn’t be able to take them anywhere today. Hopefully they won’t get too bored hanging around the house.”

  He smiled back at her. “I can’t imagine that.”

  She wanted to ask where he was going, but was it any of her business? Sadly, no. Unless he was just planning to shape boards in the shop today and wanted to do so without any interruptions, but wouldn’t he say so? Maybe he had a girlfriend somewhere and was taking her wine tasting or something. Gah. Now she was babysitting so Luke could go on a date. Perfect.

  “Maggie?”

  Luke’s voice, thick and low, startled her out of her thoughts. “Hmm?”

  “I really appreciate this.”

  She put down the paintbrush and looked him in the eye. He looked back. That same sadness she had noticed in recent days shone in his gaze like a dimly lit vessel. She had no idea what to make of it but inexplicably wanted desperately to make it go away.

  “It’s no trouble, Luke,” she whispered. “Truly.”

  After he had gone, Maggie continued to think about Luke. Though he looked and smelled amazing, and she feared he was off to meet up with one of his many admirers, she could not shake off the sense that something was off with him today.

  The girls showed up at the end of the hall and pulled her out of her thoughts. Eva held her boogie board in front of her. “Mom, can we—”

  “No.”

  “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

  Maggie raised a brow toward her daughter. “Oh, really? You’re holding a boogie board.”

  Eva smiled guiltily. “So …?”

  Maggie wagged her head, looking pointedly at each girl. “I need you both to promise me that if you go outside, you’ll stay together and always stay in view of the house. Okay?”

  Eva pouted, but Siena piped up, “Oh, we will, Maggie. We promise.”

  “Good,” Maggie said, glancing at Eva. “Now put the boogie board back. Maybe we can figure out a time to use it after camp one day next week.”

  Eva began to roll her eyes, but Maggie stopped her with a quick “look.”

  “Fine,” Eva said, and headed back to her bedroom with the boogie board, Siena following closely behind her.

  Satisfied that she had made herself clear, Maggie returned to her DIY painting project, determined to roll out the entire hall as quickly as possible. Soon enough she would need to hand over the keys to Lacy and she had yet to determine where she and Eva would go when the time came. With Eva’s pre-teen attitude showing signs of rebellion, Maggie wanted to replant their roots as soon as possible.

  The thought should have lifted Maggie’s spirits, but instead brought a slight ache to her heart. Arizona suddenly felt like a long way from Colibri Beach.

  “Did you really turn the guest bath into a salon?”

  Maggie scoffed. Sunday night had come and Lacy peered at Maggie through the screen, her usual glass of red wine in one hand and a smirk of a smile on her face. The rest of the clan looked impatient as they waited for a virtual update about the house, but all Maggie could think about was how she was suddenly not ready for her time in Colibri Beach to end.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Maggie retorted. “Just trying to be resourceful while I’m here.”

  She was getting tired of Lacy’s needling comments, some of them quite cryptic. Week after week Lacy had managed to drop in some kind of dig at one or all of her siblings. Well. Her turn at the beach house was coming soon, and she would find out firsthand how it felt to relive one’s childhood while dodging no-so-favorite memories, all while doing the grunt work that came with the inheritance.

  Grace cut in, her voice
kind, but probing. “How is the hunt for a new salon coming? Have you found a spot? And an apartment too?”

  “Working on it,” she said, deflecting.

  “How so?” Lacy inquired.

  Maggie touched her forehead with her hand and rubbed a spot of sharp pain. “How so what?”

  “How are you working on it? Because all I’ve seen so far is you splashing a little paint on the wall and hanging out at the beach.” Lacy looked pointedly into the webcam. “By the way, see anything you like?”

  Maggie frowned.

  Bella piped up. “I think Maggie’s doing a great job. Be nice, Lacy.”

  Lacy shook her head and muttered something difficult to hear.

  “What’s up, Lacy?” Grace asked. “If there’s something bothering you, you should say what it is. Be specific.”

  Leave it to a lawyer to press for the facts.

  One of Lacy’s eyebrows shot up. “Fine. I’ll say what we all know: Maggie broke our parents’ hearts.”

  The call erupted into a spattering of gasps and protests.

  Jake said, “I don’t recall anything like that. And frankly—”

  “And frankly what?” Lacy said. “You don’t have time for the drama? Too many important meetings to attend to protect all your billions?”

  “Stop it,” Grace said. “You’re being dumb. You know that?”

  “Dumb? Is that what you say to witnesses when they’re on the stand? Or your clients when you don’t agree with them?”

  Maggie quietly got up, stepped down the hall to Eva’s door, and shut it before returning to the call. Her siblings continued to squabble as if Maggie wasn’t hearing all of it. She sat down, took a deep breath before speaking. “I think that, whatever this is, it’s between Lacy and me. I will say, to all of you, that I made some mistakes when I was young. We all know it. But”—her voice caught and she momentarily put a hand to her mouth—“despite my ill-fated marriage, Mom and Dad absolutely doted on Eva. Your niece’s life is the … well, it’s the very example of grace. I didn’t deserve that kid, but she’s mine anyway. I’m forever grateful for that favor in my life.”