by Anne Brock
Diamonds. It was the lady who wore all the diamonds, the one who had tried to hit on Luke the first night he and Lib had gone out to dinner. Stacey something.
Tonight Stacey wore emeralds. They dripped from her ears and lay shimmering against her perfectly tanned collarbone.
Luke hadn't wanted to talk to Stacey that other night, nearly two months ago. In fact, he'd let her believe there was something going on between him and Lib. So what was he doing with her, now?
Stacey settled herself comfortably in the chair across from Luke's and crossed her shapely legs.
He was obviously having dinner with her, Lib thought. She looked up into the coldness of Luke's eyes and suddenly her friend Joan's words of warning, spoken all those weeks ago, came back to her. 'He's all sugar and spice until the morning after. Then it's icicle time... '
"I thought we were..." Looking into the frozen wasteland of Luke's eyes, Lib couldn't finish. She'd thought what? That he was in love with her?
He smiled, but it never reached his eyes. "Will you excuse me for a minute?" he said to Stacey.
"Of course." The blonde woman leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "By the way, that phone call I made...? Daddy said I could have the money. It's yours, if you want it."
Lib stared at Stacey, unable to make sense of the woman's words at first. But as Luke took her none-too-gently by the arm and started to lead her out of the restaurant, it all clicked into place. Lib yanked her arm free.
"I can't believe you'd do this," she said angrily.
One of the desk clerks looked up at the sound of Lib's raised voice as Luke followed her into the lobby.
"You're getting the money to buy back your damned land from her," she said, whirling toward him and emphasizing her words with a hard jab to Luke's chest. "Aren't you? Aren't you?"
Luke stood his ground, an immovable brick wall. He crossed his arms, his eyes still cold, his handsome face hard.
"God!" Lib said, her violet eyes bright with anger. "How could I have been so stupid? You even warned me. You flat out told me that you loved that land more than anything or anyone else in the world!"
Standing there, looking at this woman that he had once loved so desperately, looking at the anger, the passion in her eyes, Luke felt a hot flash of pain penetrate the numbing cold within him. He was going to ache and hurt and bleed for Liberty for months, years, Lord, maybe for the rest of his life. His breath caught in his throat, and he suddenly wanted to hurt her as badly as she had hurt him.
"I never said that I loved you," he said, his voice remarkably calm despite the whirlwind of emotions that was inside of him.
Lib froze, as if he had cast some evil spell over her. As Luke watched, her beautiful eyes filled with tears, and he knew that he'd hurt her, but it didn't make him feel any better. It only made him feel worse.
"You heartless son of a bitch," she whispered. She couldn't believe she'd sold her house for him, that she'd given herself, heart, soul and body, to him.
Lib couldn't stop her tears as she turned and ran from the lobby, heading for the privacy of her room.
How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have misread the softness, the love, she'd thought she'd seen in his eyes? She was a fool, an idiot. She'd given up everything, everything for a man who was only playing a game with her.
It would take all of three minutes to pack her things, and then she was as good as gone. She'd get in her car and head south, away from the Green Mountains, away from Sterling. Away from Luke Fulton forever, damn him.
But deep inside, she knew that no matter how far she went, no matter how fast she drove, her heart would still be broken in the morning.
* * *
Luke nearly collided with his sister as he was leaving the resort. Brenda was in such a hurry, she wasn't watching where she was going, and only his quick reflexes kept her from falling down the stairs.
"Yowl" she said breathlessly. She glared at him as if he hadn't just rescued her from a twisted ankle. "I was looking for you."
Luke released her after he was sure she'd regained her balance. He straightened his jacket and continued on towards the parking lot, not bothering to say a word. Finding out whatever he'd done to receive her wrath could wait. He'd had enough crap for today, thank you very much.
But Brenda wasn't at all put off. She followed him. "Where's Miss Moneybags?" she asked.
"I've never met anyone with that name," Luke said coolly.
"You know who I mean," Brenda said. "Bleached blonde, big bucks, bigger boobs, has more jewelry than the royal family...? Ring any bells? I couldn't believe it when Penelope Green called me and said she saw you having dinner with her."
"Her name is Stacey Harrington," Luke said, fishing the keys to his pick-up truck from his pants pocket. "And I said good night to her in the bar. She wanted a nightcap, I didn't. Not that that's any business of yours."
He unlocked the cab door and opened it, intending to climb quickly inside, but Brenda was quicker. She leaned forward and slammed the door shut before he could get in. Luke barely had enough time to pull his fingers out of die, way.
"You're wrong," Brenda said dangerously. "This time, baby brother, it is my business. And you're not going anywhere until you tell me why the hell you were having an intimate dinner with some rich bimbette when you told me not more than a week ago that you were in love with Liberty Jones?"
Luke crossed his arms. "I never said that I was in love with her."
"You sure as hell implied it," Brenda said, her eyes shooting sparks. "Damnit, Luke! You tell me just what it is that you think you're doing!"
"I'm arranging a loan," Luke said. His voice was as cold as his eyes. "Stacey's dear old dad is going to lend me the rest of the money I need to buy back the farm from Ken Avery."
"You're what?" Brenda was floored, staring up at him.
"You heard me," Luke said, the muscles working in his jaw. "Now if you don't mind, I'm tired...?"
He reached for the handle to the truck's door, but Brenda blocked his way with her body. "Let me get this straight," she said. "You were willing to put your chance for a future with Liberty on the line, in order to sweet-talk some rich society girl into lending you money?" Her voice rose with every word she spoke, until she was shouting at him. "You idiot! God! And I was starting to think that maybe you hadn't inherited the Fulton stupidity gene after all. Obviously I was seriously wrong!"
"And you obviously inherited the Fulton trait of jumping to conclusions before you've heard all of the facts," Luke returned. "If you must know the truth, Lib was the one who walked out on me. She sold her goddamned house yesterday."
As he heard himself say those words, white hot pain ripped through him again and he had to brace himself on the side of his truck.
"Jesus, Bren," he said hoarsely, "she promised me she wouldn't leave—" Savagely, he turned, nearly pushing his sister away from the truck door. "Get out of my way, damnit!"
But Brenda blocked him again. "My God, Luke, you don't really think—"
"Move!"
"You poor, stupid fool!" Brenda said, refusing to budge an inch. As she looked up at her brother, she was tempted to laugh. It was almost comical. Almost. If it weren't for the flash of utter misery she'd seen in Luke's eyes... "Liberty hasn't left you! She isn't going anywhere! She sold her house for you, birdbrain, so that you'd have the money to buy back the farm."
Luke was staring at her with such an expression of shock on his face, Brenda couldn't keep from laughing. "Talk about jumping to conclusions," she said. "Looks like you're the one who took a giant leap. Look, it was my brilliant idea to sell the Harlowe house. I had clients who were seriously looking and..."
Luke's head was spinning. Lib had sold her house for... him? She hadn't sold it because she wanted the money, because it was time to move on?
"I talked Lib into selling," Brenda was saying. "I told her you were going to ask her to marry you, and that you guys wouldn't need two houses."
Lib had sol
d her house for him. She'd sacrificed the one symbol of stability she'd ever had in her life for him. And how did he thank her? He could still see her violet eyes filled with tears from the sting of his cruel words.
"Barbados," Luke said suddenly. "The Wiltshire's said Lib was going to Barbados."
"God!" Brenda laughed in exasperation. "This is like one giant game of telephone, where the message gets amazingly mangled. I was teasing Lib about finding a place to go on your honeymoon, and Barbados came up as a good pick." She shook her head in disbelief. "You are so lucky Lib didn't see you wining and dining that—"
Luke turned and ran back into the Inn's lobby. The desk clerk looked up at him in alarm as he skidded to a stop on the polished hardwood floor.
"Liberty Jones," Luke said, pushing his hair out of his eyes with one hand. "What's her room number?"
The clerk accessed the computer with an excruciating lack of speed. "I'm sorry, sir," the man finally said. "Ms. Jones has checked out."
Luke swore.
Brenda came up behind him. "Luke, what are you—"
"When?" he asked the clerk. His knuckles were white from gripping the edge of the counter. "How long ago did she leave?"
"What?" Brenda said. "When did who leave?"
"Eight o'clock," the clerk said primly. "Two and a half hours ago."
"Did she say where she was going?" Luke asked desperately. "Did she leave a forwarding address?"
"I'm sorry, sir, she did not."
"My God," Brenda said. "Did Lib leave?"
Luke turned to his sister, anguish in his eyes. "Oh, Brenda," he said. "You won't believe what I've done."
* * *
He was going to find her.
Luke unlocked his front door and went right to the phone. His answering machine flashed three calls. Luke played them back, fast-forwarding through a long message from the manager of the ski shop. The second message was from Brenda, wondering if he'd found Lib yet. The last call was from Rich Lowell.
"Call me. I'm working at home today," the lawyer's recorded voice said. "I think I might've figured out a way to track down Lib."
Quickly, Luke dialed Rich's home number. Lowell picked up the phone after the first ring.
"Rich, it's Luke," Luke said.
"The bank," Rich said without ceremony. "It suddenly occurred to me that Lib left town, but all of her money is still here — at the Sterling Savings and Loan. She couldn't have had more than a few hundred dollars on her when she left—"
"You're kidding, right?" Luke interrupted. "Lib doesn't carry around that kind of money."
"Well, apparently she had enough to get where she was going," Rich said. "Because it seems as if she's arrived. She contacted the bank and told them to wire her money to—"
"Florida," Luke finished the lawyer's sentence. A long-ago conversation with Lib had just come back to him. "How did you know that?" Rich asked.
"Lucky guess," Luke said. "One of her brothers lives down there. His last name is Rodriguez. Complicated family. She explained it to me once."
"Well, obviously you don't need my help—"
"Whoa!" Luke said. "Florida's a big state. You could help me narrow it down. I'm assuming you got her current address?"
"I would have if I could, pal," Rich said with a sigh. "But the bank wasn't going to hand out that information to any old average axe murderer like you or me. I did manage to scrounge up the location of her new bank, though. It's out on Sanibel Island, in the Gulf, you know, off Ft. Myers."
"I owe you one," Luke said.
"Actually, you owe me about fifteen," Rich said before he realized he was talking to the dial tone.
* * *
Sanibel Island was sweltering. September was still hot as hell in Florida, hot and damp and oppressive. Cumulonimbus clouds were gathering ominously in the southwest, lurking at the edges of an already hazy and humid morning. By late afternoon, the weather would break, and it would cool off — for maybe twenty minutes. Then the heat and humidity would start building back up in preparation for the next day's thunderstorms.
Luke stood at a pay phone, scribbling in a little notebook as the operator gave him the phone numbers of all the Rodriguezes in the Ft. Myers area.
There were twenty-three of them.
He wiped a trickle of sweat from his face and started dialing.
* * *
Lib walked around the edge of the property, stopping to take a deep breath of the salty ocean air.
This service station was two blocks from the Gulf, and seabirds glided overhead, calling and shrieking to each other, occasionally landing on a rooftop or telephone pole. The pelicans were very cool, Lib thought, shading her eyes to look up at the peeling paint on the outside of the building. Pelicans usually flew in formation — three or four or even more huge, pre-historic-looking birds with their large beaks and enormous wingspans.
The real estate agent watched as Lib made another circuit of the building, this time looking at the foundation. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad, either.
Sanibel Island was nice. It was a kind of funky, artistic community. A large amount of the island belonged to the J.D. "Ding" Darling wildlife preserve where her brother Cal worked. "Alligator Crossing" signs were scattered throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. The first time Lib had seen them, she'd thought they were nothing more than cute jokes. It wasn't too long before she realized that those signs really did mark the places where the enormous reptiles crawled across the road going from swamp to swamp.
Lib liked Sanibel Island. Cal had been living there for about three years, and she'd been to visit him at least as many times. Sanibel was less built up, less commercial than many of the other islands on the west coast of Florida. Of course, because of that, property values were sky-high.
This service station that she was looking at, that she was considering buying, was going to cost her all of her profit from the sale of Great-Aunt Harriet's house. And then some.
Lib went into the large two-bay garage, trying not to think about Luke. But it was impossible. Everything she did was because of him. There was no denying it. She was standing here, now, in Florida, inside this empty building because of Luke Fulton. So it was hard not to think about the man.
She stared at the splotches of oil on the concrete floor, wondering how he could have fooled her so totally, 'so absolutely. No matter which way she looked at it, she couldn't figure it out. She couldn't reconcile the warm, passionate man she'd come to know over the past few months of summer with the cold stranger she'd talked to up at the resort. The two seemed so different. It was as if when he'd gone to Boston, his body had been invaded by aliens.
She missed him. She didn't miss the cold, mean Luke who had hurt her so badly. In fact, she wouldn't care if she never saw him again for the rest of her life. But she did miss the Luke who had been her friend, her confidant, her lover...
Lib closed her eyes, remembering the morning Luke had come into her house, that morning he'd left for Boston. He'd looked at her as if he loved her. He'd kissed her, touched her, made love to her, awakening within her a passion she'd never felt before.
It was Friday, Lib realized suddenly. It was Luke's day of reckoning. It was the day he had the opportunity to buy back his precious ancestral land. She could picture him, dressed to the nines for the occasion, wearing one of his hand-tailored suits that fit him so perfectly. His dark hair would be carefully combed, perfectly in place. He would walk into Ken Avery's office with Rich Lowell his side. His dark eyes would gleam with satisfaction as he opened his briefcase and placed a certified check for one million dollars on Avery's desk —
On the other side of the garage, the real estate agent cleared his throat. "This really is a remarkable deal," he said. "It's only on the market because the owner passed away, and his heirs don't want the bother of leasing the property. They priced it to sell, and it's going to go fast. If you're interested, don't wait to make an offer. I'm telling you, a service station combined wi
th that apartment upstairs — this place will be sold by the beginning of next week."
"I don't know," a familiar voice said quietly. "I don't think the location's right."
Luke.
He was leaning against the wall by the door that led into the front office. Lib's heart nearly stopped beating as she stared at him.
"Oh, no," the real estate agent said. "The location's terrific. This is one of our main drags. In fact, this intersection is the busiest on the island."
Lib couldn't take her eyes off of Luke. He was wearing his favorite pair of khaki shorts and an old Sterling Athletic Club T-shirt. His hair was curling around his ears from the humidity, and his lean face looked tired. But his gaze was sharp — sharp and very warm.
Lib turned away, suddenly aware that the real estate agent was watching them. "Will you excuse us for a minute, please?" she said.
The agent shrugged. "I'll be outside."
"What are you doing here?" she said, looking back at Luke.
He didn't hesitate. "I made a terrible mistake," he said. "I didn't trust you. I'm here to apologize. And I'm here to bring you back home."
Lib nodded slowly. "I'm supposed to forgive you," she said. "Just like that?"
Luke smiled. "Ideally, yes."
She started for the door. "Go to hell."
"Liberty, Lord help me, I'm already there."
His words stopped her, but she didn't turn around. "Did you sleep with her?" she asked, her back still to him. She closed her eyes, bracing herself for his answer.
"No."
It wasn't the answer she was expecting, and in surprise, she turned to face him. "Why not?"
The answer seemed so obvious to him, but he said the words anyway. "Because I'm in love with you.
"That's not what you told me—"
"I was angry," he said, starting toward her. But she backed away, and he stopped. He took a deep breath, exhaling loudly as he raked back his hair with his fingers. "I didn't know you sold your house to give me the money. I thought you wanted to leave, hell, I thought you were already gone. I lost it, Lib. I was totally nuts."
"And that's supposed to excuse what you did?" Lib asked.