This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel)

by Miranda Liasson

  “After all this hard work,” Effie said solemnly. Her compadres nodded.

  “Besides,” Jess said, “you two go way back and with him being the hometown son and all, he’d certainly attract a crowd.”

  “Um, no. I’m not asking him.” Sam looked down at her stupid folder then back up at everyone. She’d never seen so many I’m-so-disappointed-in-you looks in her life.

  “There’s always Victor Irving,” Effie said.

  Oh, God. Never!

  “Isn’t he, like, ninety?” Jess said exactly what Sam was thinking, but Sam shot her a poignant look that signaled senior alert until she got the hint. “I mean, um, not that there’s anything wrong with being ninety or anything, but—”

  “He’s not ninety. May I remind you, young lady,” Alethea said, “Tony Bennett did that CD with Lady Gaga, who positively worships him. Age has nothing to do with talent.”

  In this case, it definitely did. Victor was a one-hit wonder from the seventies who never turned down an opportunity to perform.

  Sam pinched her nose. “Okay, I’ll ask.”

  “Bravo!” Alethea said.

  “Brilliant!” Gloria chimed in.

  “Okay. Are there any other orders of business?”

  Jess slid another folder in front of Sam. “We have one homeowner who bought a lakefront bungalow. The architectural review committee vetoed his addition because it violates the roofline restrictions. It’s your turn to deliver the bad news.”

  Every month, the committee reviewed the plans of all the new builds and remodels on the hundred-year-old-plus houses around the lake and turned in the violations to the Historical Society. They were all committed to preserving the historic community, and the guidelines on remodeling were strict.

  “Here’s the file, the address, and the contact information.”

  The table suddenly became very quiet. Sam looked around. Alethea was drinking coffee, Effie was drumming her fingers on the table, and Gloria was humming “God Save the Queen.”

  “What is it?” Sam asked. No answer. She looked down at the file. Lukas’s name was printed on the little tab.

  “You all are out for blood today, aren’t you?” Sam said. “I’m not doing it.”

  “But you’re on this month,” Alethea said.

  “Trade me. Please.” She stared at Jess, her ex-former-way-in-the-past best friend.

  “I’ve got a date this afternoon. Sorry.”

  Sam eyeballed the three other women, who suddenly got very busy rummaging through their purses for tips. “Ladies? Please.” She didn’t want to beg, but she was desperate. After the lip-lock photo, there was no way in hell she wanted another run-in with Lukas. Especially alone.

  “Just do your job, Samantha, dear,” Effie said in her pragmatic tone.

  “My doctor says I should avoid uneven surfaces in construction areas because of my bunions,” Alethea said.

  “I’m terribly sorry, dear,” Gloria said, “but there’s a Downton Abbey marathon on TV this afternoon and Maurice and I have invited friends over to watch with us.”

  “Fine.” How hard could it be? Knock on the door, explain the violations, and tell the rock star he’s got thirty days to comply or he’s in big trouble.

  Too bad she had the sinking feeling that she was the one in big trouble.

  CHAPTER 5

  Lukas should never have sent his road crew away for the weekend. The house he’d bought without seeing it for the past eight years was an epic disaster, despite the professionals he’d hired to make it livable by the time he brought Stevie here.

  “We’ve found accommodations, sir,” Charles said, slipping his phone into his suit pocket, “but they’re a full hour out of town. The SUV you ordered just arrived so we’re ready anytime.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Lukas saw the vehicle parked in the gravel driveway. James was standing talking to the driver.

  In theory, taking Mom and Pop Ellis’s old Craftsman-style bungalow, with its breathtaking lakefront view, and turning it into the home it was always meant to be sounded romantic and comforting. After all, it was the only place that had ever felt like home.

  The fact was, all the workmen had up and left a half hour ago in a haze of saw- and drywall dust. Lukas was sneezing and his nose was running but Stevie was doing all that plus coughing like crazy. Lukas had finally brought both of them out on the back porch for some fresh air and a regroup for Plan B.

  But Plan B, finding a nearby hotel, also failed on all levels. It was Boat Festival weekend and every B and B in a twenty-mile radius and every room in the Grand Victorian Hotel were booked solid.

  He didn’t want to take Stevie out of Mirror Lake. When the world found out Lukas had a kid with him, the paparazzi would swarm like a horde of angry bees. That kiss caught on film last night would be nothing compared to the speculation a child would bring. Here in the boonies, at least for now, there was some protection. Being on his own property meant he could control his borders. He needed to keep Stevie private for at least a little while anyway.

  Oh, hell. Even Charles and James looked miserable, with drywall dust scattered like a coating of powdered sugar on their nice black suits.

  Lukas signaled to Charles that he was going to walk around to the back of the house and sneak a smoke. He tried hard not to smoke in front of the boy, but in the past hour he’d held in every curse word he knew, forced himself not to raise his voice, and signed autographs for all the construction crew’s wives.

  Funny that he could summon any kind of help at the crook of a finger yet he felt very alone. But then, he always had. Lukas didn’t lean on people because there was no one he could trust. No one before the Ellises and no one since.

  He could have trusted Sam, a voice inside his head chided. She’d begged him to, but he’d pushed her away.

  With a pang, he remembered feeling this same helplessness, and Martha Ellis leading him into this very house by the shoulders, sitting him down at the kitchen table, and feeding him homemade chicken soup and apple pie. She’d filled his belly and overfilled his heart. For a brief time, he’d had a family, and it was taken away from him all too soon. He ached for her kind reassurance now. Everything’s going to be just fine, son, was her go-to phrase.

  The Ellises had made him feel like he was somebody, not a label—not the persona of a no-good, sassy kid with bad attitude that he’d slid into so well, because it was what everyone had expected. Somehow, they taught him that he could be somebody. Too bad they hadn’t lived to see him now.

  They’d made him go to church and they taught him to pray. He didn’t do that so often anymore, but he found that lately he’d been trying it for Stevie’s sake. Please, God, help me to take care of this kid. He didn’t want Stevie to ever sense his fear and unease, and okay, his complete terror at being the one in charge—the one to give comfort, to reassure, when he didn’t have a clue what the hell he was doing.

  Suddenly he heard the crunch of tires up the winding gravel drive, past the apple trees and up to the front of the old bungalow.

  Then she got out. The sun hit the red-gold highlights in her hair, and her pale skin looked perfect in the midday light. If he were a painter he’d stop everything and paint her, get every peachy-creamy detail down on canvas for posterity. The white gauzy sweater she’d put on over her dress flapped in the breeze like angel wings. That’s when he knew he’d about lost it. She was no angel, just a beautiful woman who’d always made his mouth go dry.

  He squashed his cigarette under his heel. For some reason she made him wish he was better and stronger, and being caught with a cigarette was a sign of weakness he didn’t want her to see. That and the fact he was standing outside of his own damn home with Stevie coloring with sidewalk chalk on the patio bricks, oblivious that they were essentially homeless.

  Sam carried a manila folder. “Hi again, Spike.”

  He winced at the stupid nickname. He wanted to tell her to stop calling him that but he had more important things on his mind.
Like where he and Stevie were going to spend the night.

  “Nice place,” she said, looking at the old house with the peeling paint and the dilapidated red barn in the distance.

  While she studied the house, Lukas flicked his gaze over her. Untamable hair pulled back in a ponytail. Shapely legs. She smelled fresh as the breeze off the lake. Lord, but she was breathtaking, yet she was still the kind of woman who had no idea how gorgeous she was.

  What he couldn’t or wouldn’t express, Stevie did instead. “Sam! You’re here!” Stevie dropped his chalk and came up to her, coughing. “Come see my dragons I drew.”

  Sam didn’t just walk over and praise the child. She stooped and picked up a piece of chalk and asked if she could add flames coming out of the dragon’s mouth and steam out of his nostrils, which she sketched in quickly.

  “I have to talk to your uncle for a little while, then I’ll come back, okay?” Sam said. Then she stood and leveled those jade-green eyes on Lukas. “I’m here on business. Can we talk for a few minutes?”

  He guided her over into an area of lawn between the house and the detached garage, which was next to the barn, and they stood in the shade of an old oak tree. He couldn’t help noticing how the dapples of light filtering through the branches caught her hair, turning it to strands of flame.

  “You’re doing a lot of work to the place,” Sam said, eyeing the Dumpster full of construction debris, the roof half shingled and partly covered with plastic.

  “Do me a favor,” he said. “Just tell me why you’re here. You’re with the Historical Society, right? My crew already told me the gist of it before they left for the weekend. I’m violating some rule or something.”

  “Your addition doesn’t meet the architectural review board’s guidelines. You can’t make the roofline that high in a house over a hundred years old. It blocks the surrounding view.”

  “The back room is perfect for a studio. I just need more natural light. Can I appeal?”

  “You need more natural light for a recording studio?”

  “No. For an art studio.”

  Her eyes widened. Ha, she was surprised he was still doing his art. Well, since he’d taken to the road he hadn’t, but that was going to change. Stevie might have been his reason for picking a permanent place to settle but doing art relaxed him and he’d always dreamed of having a studio.

  Stevie coughed again, on and on. Charles went into the house to get him some water.

  “What’s going on with Stevie?” Sam asked.

  Lukas shook his head. “He’s been doing that since we walked into the house. There’s dust everywhere.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  He leveled his gaze at her.

  “Oh, sorry. You already know that.”

  “I’ve made other arrangements. Down Route Nine a ways. The whole town’s booked.”

  Charles left the patio and began walking toward them. “Excuse me, sir, but the boy is having some trouble catching his breath.”

  Lukas ran toward Stevie before he even registered the panic that tightened his own chest. Or Sam’s own gasp of surprise. Stevie was sitting forward on the patio stone, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing. Not normal.

  Lukas turned to Sam, who was right behind him. “I’m taking him to the ER.” He was usually calm by nature, but now he felt completely helpless.

  “I’ll drive, sir,” Charles said.

  “I’m coming with you.” Sam was already heading toward the car and thrusting open the doors.

  He gave a quick nod of thanks and bent to scoop up his child.

  Lukas carried Stevie into the too-familiar ER. The boy’s shoulders were lifting unnaturally with every breath. It made Lukas feel short of breath too, which was why he could barely talk to the triage nurse. Fortunately, Sam could. She’d placed a hand calmly on his arm and sent him a look that said I got this. She proceeded to tell the story—as much as she knew, anyway—and he managed to add a few more details. The nurse led them immediately into a room, slapped a breathing mask over Stevie’s face, and started an aerosol.

  Stevie shifted panic-filled eyes onto Lukas, making Lukas’s stomach instantly slide down to his feet. Somehow he planted what he hoped was a reassuring expression on his face and forced his mouth upward into a semblance of a smile. Sort of like he did after he’d signed his hundredth autograph of the day for somebody’s Aunt Edith back in Kalamazoo. “Hey, buddy, it’s like you’re an astronaut,” Lukas said. “Just breathe deep and get ready for takeoff, okay?”

  Stevie wasn’t buying it. “Don’t—like—needles,” came out in muffled sobs from behind the plastic of the mask and above the hiss of the oxygen. Tears leaked down the kid’s face. He’d held up so well despite everything that had happened to him the last couple of months—maybe too well. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

  Sam stood on the other side of the gurney, clutching Stevie’s hand and gently stroking his back. The kid practically had a death grip on her. Relief washed through Lukas that she was here—that she’d insisted on staying with Stevie. Yet it stung that Stevie so obviously preferred her over him, confirming what Lukas already knew: that he was clueless about being a parent.

  “Is there going to be a needle—oops, I mean an IV?” Lukas asked the nurse who listened to Stevie’s lungs and began to pull things out of her pocket—a roll of tape, a few syringes, and rectangular plastic-wrapped packages of what looked to be IV needles.

  The nurse patted Stevie on the hand and began to rip pieces of tape. “Dr. Rushford will be right in but he told me to start one so we can give you medicine right into your veins,” she said.

  Stevie pulled off the mask. “My veins don’t want medicine. My mouth does.”

  Before Stevie could make another comment, the door opened and a tall, good-looking guy in green scrubs with a close-shaved beard walked in.

  Ben Rushford. Samantha’s brother.

  To Ben’s credit, he took in the scene pretty quickly. His sister fumbling to replace Stevie’s askew mask. Lukas, who hoped he didn’t look as panicked as he felt. The child, still breathing heavily. He went right to Stevie and told him in a calm, soothing voice who he was and that he was going to have a listen. That everything was going to be okay, that his lungs didn’t like the dust in the house and were having a reaction but the medicine was going to make it all better.

  Lukas had to admit, the guy could relate to children. He felt his own anxiety unwind a notch.

  “Let’s get another albuterol going, Tracey,” Ben instructed the nurse.

  Then came the questions, all rapid-fire and professional. What happened, did Stevie have a history of asthma? Lukas felt clueless. He had to ask Stevie himself if he’d had any trouble like this before.

  Allergic reaction, he heard dimly. From something in the house, the drywall dust or some old stuff that got stirred up from all the mucking around that was being done.

  This was all his fault. He hadn’t had Stevie a whole month yet and look where he’d ended up. It reminded him of the last time he’d run into Ben Rushford in this same ER—Lukas himself lay on a gurney, strapped to a backboard and angry at the whole world. Without a single person to care for him.

  Except Samantha. She’d stepped up to the plate despite the cruel way he’d cut her out of his life the summer before.

  “Does he have any allergies?” Ben asked.

  “I—I don’t think so. But I’m allergic to penicillin. Does that matter?”

  Ben spoke kindly and professionally. Lukas had to give the man credit. Whatever personal feelings he harbored toward Lukas (and Lukas felt pretty confident they were not warm and fuzzy ones), he managed to disguise them pretty well. Lukas had to remind himself he wasn’t that same lost kid, with the piercings and the bad haircut and the awful attitude. He’d come a long way since then. Had made something of himself that he was proud of. Not that Ben would be impressed. It was likely he still wanted him to stay the hell away from his sister.

  Ben left, prom
ising to check back in. It wasn’t until after the third aerosol, when Stevie had begun to breathe normally again, that Lukas felt the tightness in his own chest ease up a little. Stevie sat sleeping on his lap, IV snaking from his arm, skinny legs with Minion tennies dangling against Lukas’s calves. There was something about the boy, the sleeping weight of him, warm and smelling of sunshine and sweat and having cherry Popsicle drips on his shirt, that tugged at some raw place in Lukas’s chest. He’d put this child in danger without even knowing it. The hiss of the aerosol machine seemed to incriminate him.

  That thought superseded everything else. His fault. He should have known better. Like the countless things he’d done wrong that had earned him the belt when he was younger. Unpredictable things that a young child couldn’t possibly know, like how to iron a man’s shirt perfectly or how to make coffee when your father was rip-roaring drunk and ready to beat the shit out of your mother.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting in hospitals like this,” Sam said, breaking into his morose thoughts.

  He looked up and saw her smiling, her bright yellow dress a warm contrast to the sterile-looking room. Had she sensed his struggle and was trying to pull him out of that dark place? Nah, he doubted it.

  Or maybe so. She’d always sensed his moods in an uncanny way.

  “Yeah, the bright fluorescent lighting and all this white tile really sets my blood to pumping,” he said. Actually, she was the one who set his blood to pumping. Like someone humming a song quietly in the background, his awareness of her was always present, even amid his worry over Stevie. This hospital—hell, any hospital—only brought back bad memories but frankly, he could be in the middle of a snowstorm in Antarctica and still want her.

  “Remember the first time?” she asked. He could swear she’d said it teasingly, like she was remembering an entirely other kind of first time.

  That brought back images of his tiny one-room apartment over the garage, the two of them tangled up together on his futon, doing things to one another in the glow of the solitary streetlamp as darkness wrapped around them like a soft warm blanket.