This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel)

by Miranda Liasson

  Now more than ever, Sam needed to feel that special connection that—well, that seemed to be missing lately. She’d hoped that a peaceful day on the lake would bring it back, especially now when she needed reassurance that all was well in her world, that she was on the right track to the life she’d always dreamed of.

  She was on the right track. She wasn’t about to let the sudden reappearance of an old flame derail her perfectly planned future. Getting involved with Lukas again would be like jumping from twenty thousand feet with a chute you weren’t fully sure would open. Too risky, too foolish.

  Harris walked up the stairs to the porch, still talking on the phone, but before he could reach the door, she slid in front of him, setting the picnic basket down on the porch. She pressed her back against the door and waited for him to approach.

  “Harris.”

  He tossed her a nod and held up a finger.

  She sighed. “Harris,” she said again.

  On impulse, she snatched his phone, pressed “End” and pitched it onto the porch swing.

  “What was that for?” She finally had his full attention, even if he was just the teensiest bit pissed. “That was a very important call!”

  Okay, maybe a lot pissed.

  “This is also very important. You’ve been on the phone all day and I want to know what’s bothering you.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he hedged.

  “Oh, come on. You’ve been distracted for weeks.”

  “Everything I’ve got is riding on this court case. Surely you can understand that.”

  “I’m trying to understand. I know how stressed you’ve been lately. I know this case has been trial by fire but I’m so proud of you.”

  Harris touched her arm. Rubbed it up and down, more in a friendly than a romantic way. “It has been a difficult case, Sam. I haven’t had much downtime.”

  She took hold of his shirt and tugged him closer to her. “I can help you with that. I was thinking we could take a bottle of wine and a blanket and go out on the hill under the pine trees and . . .”

  “And be attacked by mosquitoes? I don’t think so.” He glanced at his watch. “Besides, it’s getting late and I haven’t even had a chance to pack yet. My meetings in New York start at noon tomorrow and my flight’s at 6:00 a.m. I’ve got to get back to my place.”

  “It’s just that I’m worried about you. You need a break from all this stress.” And I need you to tell me you want me. That you love me.

  She wanted him to hold her, whisper sweet things in her ear, and tell her he simply couldn’t live without her. Because she needed to forget about a certain Greek rock star who reminded her of a time when she’d been more willing to take chances. When she’d been determined to hold out for true love regardless of the consequences.

  Well, there was no perfect love. Everyone was imperfect, right? Love was hard to find, and you had to be forgiving and learn to adapt and compromise.

  Harris stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Yet for some reason, she resisted relaxing into him.

  “I’m really beat. And yeah, the stress has been pretty bad. I hope you can forgive me for this but I’m really exhausted. I promise you, Sam, everything will be back to normal in a couple of weeks when this case is over. I’ll see you next weekend, okay?” He pecked her on the cheek and left.

  Sam felt a little stunned. The moodiness and the irritability she could understand, but was it normal to go so long without sex? She felt pretty sure two months was so not right, even with the stress he was under.

  Harris would never cheat on her. He was too upstanding for that.

  He loved old people. And dogs. He was honest.

  If she was totally honest, she had to admit she was secretly a little relieved he was gone. Who was she to criticize, when she kept replaying in her mind that hot smoking kiss that had tasted of danger and felt like a cavalcade of shooting stars that Lukas had planted on her lips the other night in front of half the school?

  Sam had not told Harris about Lukas and Stevie staying in the guesthouse. Well, he’d be on his trip and then in Boston working on his case and by then Lukas and Stevie would be gone. No need to stress him out any further, right?

  She walked in and flicked on the kitchen lights and headed straight for the freezer. Maybe she couldn’t drive these awful thoughts from her mind alone, but surely Ben and Jerry could help.

  What kind of man would leave his woman for a week without making love to her first? Especially if that woman was Sam. Lukas had been so busy trying not to move, wedged as he was between two boxwoods near the guesthouse, that he’d forgotten to light his cigarette.

  He’d come out to sneak a smoke and instead he’d heard everything Sam and Harris had said. Way more than he’d wanted to hear, but it only confirmed what he already knew. Harris was out for himself. Lukas knew men enough to worry that unless the guy was a eunuch, he was probably getting some on the side. No normal guy with a girlfriend would go two months without sex. No way.

  Lukas lit up but didn’t have time to put the cigarette to his lips because at that moment, Sam opened the sliding doors to the house and walked onto the deck. He quickly tossed his cigarette down and snuffed it out with his shoe.

  “Who’s there?” Sam said in a panicked voice.

  Busted. She must’ve smelled the smoke. Not wanting to frighten her further, he said, “It’s just me—Lukas,” and emerged from the shadows.

  “God, Lukas, you scared the crap out of me,” Sam said, collapsing onto a cushioned chair at the wrought iron table. The pool was lit up, its blue shimmering glow reflecting off Sam’s face on the perfect late spring night. Crickets chirped in the woods. The air was hot and humid, the perfect kind of night to lie on a blanket and stare at the stars and make love on one of the low, gentle hills by the lake under the pine trees.

  Just sayin’.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just came out to grab a cigarette.”

  “How long have you been out here?” She stared at him with no-bullshit eyes.

  He raised his hands up in surrender. “Okay. Long enough. I’m sorry.”

  A long sigh was her answer. She opened the ice cream and chipped away with her spoon at the frozen top.

  He pulled out a chair. “Mind if I join you?”

  She looked like she didn’t want him to. But she also looked miserable and he didn’t want to leave things that way.

  “Harris is a great guy,” Sam said. “He’s just under a lot of stress right now.”

  He could have disputed that but then she’d make him leave. So instead he said, “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

  “He’s trying a big Wall Street fraud case. It’s really stressful but he feels like he’s got to do his time in the prosecutor’s office so he can be known as someone who fights corruption.”

  “That’s honorable,” Lukas said. He mentally patted himself on the back because he’d somehow managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  “And I’m not bingeing out on ice cream because I’m miserable or confused. I’m just really hungry.”

  “Great,” he said. “Ice cream is the perfect food. Lots of calcium and vitamin D and all that.”

  “Exactly. I think my body’s craving calcium.”

  His body was craving something else that he didn’t dare show. So he rubbed his hands around the tub of ice cream to thaw it out quicker.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said.

  “Like what?” Was he looking at her all lusty-like? Like he wanted to ravish her? Because that’s what he felt like doing. And he wasn’t sorry, either. But he tried to be a gentleman. “Like I’m judging you? I’m not. Relationships are complicated.” That sounded smart, but what did he know? He avoided them as fastidiously as he did expired cans of food.

  “No, like—wolfish. Like you’re thinking of sex.”

  Busted again. “I nearly always think of sex.” And how it would be with her. How it was, a very long time ago. Unt
il he ended it. Stupid, stupid him.

  Even in the wash from the pale bluish pool lights, he saw her blush. He said hurriedly, “But don’t take it personally. I’m a guy, that’s what we do.” He’d just insulted his entire sex as Neanderthals to cover up the fact that he was thinking of her. Only her.

  He was startled to realize he wanted to comfort her. Make her smile. Take her beautiful face in his hands and feel the softness of her skin, run his thumb along the soft pillow of her lower lip. Then kiss her. She would taste sweet and cold like the ice cream with a trace of chocolate. Perfect.

  “Trust me, Samantha. I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  “That look is more like you want a fling.”

  Was the Pope Catholic? He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re not a fling kind of woman.” He flicked his eyes up, catching her off guard. “Are you?” He considered the end results of a quick, lusty affair. Getting her out of his system for good. Finally killing the holdover from his youthful fantasy. Reality couldn’t possibly be as good as how he’d built her up in his mind.

  “No.” She dropped the spoon into the ice cream and he picked it up and took a bite.

  Dammit. “Then we’re clear on that,” he said. “But that doesn’t make you any safer from me.” Whoa, where had that come from? Maybe Harris’s idiocy had made him bold. Or his own. Or maybe just sitting across from her had stirred him. After all, the heart wants what it wants. His had always wanted her and he expected it always would.

  She snorted. Snorted. Good thing his ego was healthily overinflated. “Oh, come on, Lukas. I’m not nineteen any more. Don’t flatter yourself with having that much power over me.”

  He put down the spoon and looked at her. “It’s not a matter of power. I’ve always thought you were beautiful, Samantha. I’ve always wanted you. That hasn’t changed.”

  “You certainly had a funny way of showing that. You broke up with me right after my brother died.”

  “Sam.” His voice cracked a little. Shit. No, couldn’t allow these old feelings he’d swept under the doormat for so many years to rear up and mess with both their lives again. “I didn’t have much going for me back then, and everyone knew it. Your family knew, if you didn’t. I took the opportunity to cut if off between us permanently so you wouldn’t try and get back together. It was the perfect opportunity to get you to hate me.”

  “That is completely effed up and I do not understand.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I never hated you, Lukas. I hated what you did to us.” He saw her swallow. “Are you telling me after all this time that you didn’t want to break up with me?”

  Of course he hadn’t. But he’d become obsessed with the fact that he was following down the same path as his parents. His greatest fear. Being a nothing, like his father had told him so many times. He had no money, no schooling, and he was out of a job. The only thing he had left was drive, and he swore he would use every drop of that to get himself out. At that time, he couldn’t see any way of doing that with her.

  What if he came clean? Told her everything—that she was the one woman he wasn’t able to keep his feelings from tangling with. Pulling away from her had been the hardest thing he’d done, and he’d paid the price.

  His angst had led to a thousand songs. Fueled all his creative energy. But that was a bitch of a muse to have, and he’d already said way too much.

  “I . . . I’m just saying that I felt I had nothing to offer you. You were out of my league.”

  Things had changed. He’d become something. He’d grown up, become a man, knew who he was. But his career demanded him to be on the road. Even with the house he’d bought, how much time would he really be able to spend there? His plan was to take Stevie with him on tour at summer’s end. He was still trying to figure out how to be what Stevie needed; that was his priority. His life was on the road, while she fit in as snugly to Mirror Lake as Stevie’s omnipresent blanket.

  He’d experienced the fluke of success. But deep down, he was still a man who wasn’t sure he had the capability to love anyone. He didn’t know how to love such a woman and a fling . . . well, he wasn’t about to start that with her boyfriend in the picture. That would just muck up the waters even worse, wouldn’t it? And Stevie didn’t need anything more mucking up his life either.

  Still, the temptation to touch her was strong. He wanted to reach up and smooth those tiny lines between her eyes. Hell, he wanted to drag his hands through all those thick curls and plant his mouth over hers and kiss her and claim her and make love to her right on the concrete, tell her he’d never gotten over her. That he probably never would.

  Lukas forced his facial expression into neutral. He’d always prided himself on being a master of his own emotions. For so many years he’d hidden his feelings. Every time he didn’t get adopted. Every time he had to say good-bye to another family who might have been The Ones. He’d learned to hide his loneliness, his hurt. No reason to stop now, especially since there was still no way for them to be together.

  “By the way,” he said, standing. “The remodelers and I came to a compromise on my art studio. It’s going to have two walls of windows instead of skylights. And the kitchen is almost done. We should be out of the guesthouse by the weekend.”

  “No worries. You’re welcome here for as long as you need.”

  “Thanks. And thanks for the ice cream.” He sucked at deep conversation, but he decided to give it a whirl. “Sam, I hope we can become friends one day. Let the past be the past.”

  “Sure, Lukas. Of course,” she said. But she sounded tired and sad.

  He was just about to walk into the house when a child’s cry pierced the air. Panicked, he slid the glass door open and ran into Stevie’s room, Sam trailing right behind him.

  Stevie was standing by the bed rubbing his eyes and crying. Instinctively, Lukas knelt down beside him and held him by the shoulders. “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?”

  Stevie looked up. His eyes were wet with tears and full of fear. He catapulted into Lukas’s arms and wrapped his hands in a death grip around his neck.

  Startled, Lukas was at a loss. Was he sick? Afraid of the dark? Or something else he had no clue about anticipating?

  He stroked the little boy’s back. Wrapped his arms around him tightly so he’d know he was safe. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay,” he said softly.

  “I—I couldn’t find you,” Stevie said between gasping sobs. “It was dark and you—you weren’t in your room.”

  He was still holding him in a vice grip. “I went out by the pool for a—for some air. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  It took Lukas a minute to realize Sam was kneeling beside him at Stevie’s bedside, brushing the little boy’s sweaty hair out of his eyes. Stevie looked up at her. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Oh, honey,” Sam said. Lukas didn’t know how Stevie felt but her voice turned his insides to maple syrup. She was soft and kind. The type of woman who would be a great mother one day.

  “What was your dream about?” Sam asked gently. Lukas looked over at her in a panic, as if to say, do you really think we should go there? But she seemed unconcerned. “Sometimes it helps to talk about it so you can scare it away for good.”

  “I was in Daddy’s room. It was smoky, and there were lots of people there playing cards. And the smoke got thicker and thicker and I couldn’t see anybody and it was just me and I was lost.”

  Oh shit, oh shit. The kid was probably describing some kind of poker party with drugs and alcohol or God only knows what Nico had been up to.

  Lukas had no clue what to do. The kid was still clinging to him for dear life. Sam wiped his tears with her fingers and smoothed her hand down his cheek. “I’m sorry you had a scary dream, sweetie. But we’d never leave you. How about I get you a drink of water and Uncle Lukas will lay down with you until you fall asleep again?”

  Stevie nodded. “Want both of you to lay down with me.”

  God, no. He could not be in a bed horizontal next to Sam with only
a five-year-old between them for a buffer. That was too much. Smoking all the cigarettes in the world would not take that tension away. “Tell you what, bud,” he said, standing and lifting Stevie onto the bed, “I’ll get you a drink of water. You lie back down in bed, okay?”

  “Where’s Bobby?” Stevie asked, looking around in a panic.

  Lukas did a quick scan around the room before exchanging a puzzled glance with Sam. “Bobby?” he asked.

  “Oh, there you are.” Stevie climbed off the bed and grabbed his blanket from the floor, pressing it to his nose and giving it a good long inhale. “Bobby. I thought I lost you.”

  Great, the dust rag had a name. “Um, why is your blanket named Bobby?”

  “My mom said when I was a baby I called him baba, then one day I just started saying Bobby.”

  Lukas would have called it garbage, but what did he know? At least the kid had calmed down.

  When Lukas came back with the water, Stevie was lying down with . . . um, Bobby. Sam had kicked off her flip-flops and was lying on her side, facing Stevie, smoothing his forehead. Stevie took a few gulps of water and lay back down. “Uncle Lukas, will you sing me a song?” Lukas set the glass of water down and stretched out on the kid’s other side, resting his head against the headboard.

  His catalogue of children’s songs was . . . nonexistent. He could have messed around and made some shit up but he was a little self-conscious doing that in front of Sam. So he sang the first song that popped into his head.

  As soon as he sang the first few bars, Sam’s expression changed from one of concern for Stevie to disbelief. One delicate brow rose and she shot him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look.

  “‘Edelweiss,’” she whispered. A la Christopher Plummer, when he sings it for the kids in The Sound of Music. Lukas couldn’t help grinning. He’d surprised her, all right. Well, maybe it was more like he’d shocked the hell out of her. He loved this song—it was sweet and sad and nostalgic and beautiful. All the things he felt about Sam and couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t help meeting her eyes as he sang the full, soft notes. He could tell she was feeling the music, too—and maybe something a whole lot more.