Ghost of Summer

by Sally Berneathy

  "Of course I don't mind." Luke stepped off the porch and moved up beside Sheriff. He had a hunch the man was matchmaking again, but he hated to refuse his request. He could handle being thrown together with Katie. If they were going to maintain their friendship, he had to learn to handle it. "You're right. It is a beautiful night. I was thinking about taking a walk, anyway." Actually, he'd been thinking about going down to the cave.

  When they got to Sheriff's house, the older man paused on the steps. "Why don't you kids wait out here and enjoy all these stars and that big Texas sky while I go in and find that book?"

  Katie gave Luke a knowing smile. "All right, Papa."

  Sheriff went inside, and Luke could hear his heavy footsteps going up the stairs.

  "He's doing it again, isn't he?" Luke asked.

  "He means well." Katie leaned against a porch column and looked out at the sky her father had touted. For a few moments, they were both quiet, listening to the sounds of the night. "Do you suppose that story Jeff told about the cave is true, or did he make it up?" she asked, her quiet voice barely making a ripple in the night air.

  "It may not be true, but he didn't make it up. Jeff sticks strictly to the facts as he finds them in books."

  "Well, it's a great story. I don't think the cave was underwater at all when those men came back. I think it was magic that hid the cave until the cowboy and his Indian princess came along."

  Luke blinked, looked at Katie and blinked again. This sounded like the fanciful Katie he'd known all those years ago instead of the practical Kate, the systems analyst who lived in a condo in Dallas.

  "Anything's possible," he said, replying to her question as well as his own thoughts. Both seemed pretty unlikely...but possible.

  "I like Jeff."

  "I do, too. I always have. Whatever problems I have are with me, not him. But didn't you feel a little funny tonight, you and me sitting where my parents used to sit, and the others on the sofa where you and I sat when we were kids?"

  "Maybe a little," she admitted. "But it's not the same chair or the same sofa, Luke. Everything changes. Our parents get old, and we take care of them like they used to take care of us."

  "Ever wonder what it would be like if Sheriff remarried?"

  At that moment strains of a waltz tune came from Papa's bedroom window overhead.

  Katie walked slowly into the middle of the yard and looked up. Luke went with her. Sheriff's window was dark. He didn't seem to be dancing tonight.

  "I don't think Mama would let Papa get remarried."

  For a moment Luke couldn't tell whether she was being facetious, and he suspected she wasn't sure, either.

  Then she smiled.

  And he smiled. "No," he said. "She wouldn't."

  "We've changed, Luke. We've grown up. Your mother has remarried somebody totally different from your father. Everything changes except for one constant." She looked up at the window. "Mama."

  "Ghosts are like that."

  She turned her face to the sky and spun around in a slow circle. "Papa's right. It is beautiful tonight. Look at all those stars. You can't see that many stars in the city. Too much light." She drew in a deep breath. "Honeysuckle. Nothing says, summer's here! like the scent of honeysuckle."

  "I smell lilacs, too. Don't they just bloom in the spring?"

  Katie's eyes shone as if she'd captured some of that starlight just by looking at it. "Lilacs only bloom in the spring in the real world. Briar Creek has magic. Caves that appear and disappear, ghosts...I guess lilacs can bloom here any time they want to."

  Briar Creek must have magic. That was the only explanation for why he pulled Katie into his arms, and together they began to whirl around the yard, waltzing to the music coming from Sheriff's window.

  Either it was magic or he had lost his mind. Maybe both.

  Her body in his arms was soft and warm and real. Her steps matched his as though they'd been dancing together all their lives, and the ground beneath, which he knew for a fact was uneven and stubbled with clumps of grass, seemed smooth as any dance floor.

  Katie's face turned up to his, her gaze holding his as surely as his arms held her body.

  "We never danced before," he said, full of the wonder of it.

  "We did the Hokey Pokey in grade school."

  "We did, didn't we? And you could never remember which was your right foot and which was your left."

  "But I made up for my lack of expertise with my enthusiasm."

  "You did everything with enthusiasm."

  She tossed her head back, and smiled. "I think I had too much wine with dinner."

  "We didn't have wine with dinner."

  "Then why do I feel this way?"

  "What way is that?"

  "Drunk. High. Like we're dancing on air. Like there's magic everywhere."

  "I don't know. What did you put in those brownies?"

  She laughed softly. "Milk and eggs."

  The music ended and they stopped dancing.

  "I've had milk and eggs before," he said, "and they never made me feel like this. I think you may be right about that magic."

  They'd stopped dancing, but he hadn't taken his arms from around her. In fact, he pulled her closer, craving more of the magic of her body against his.

  This really was insane. Katie was becoming his friend again, she was returning to the Katie she used to be. He was going to spoil it all, and he couldn't stop himself.

  His lips touched hers lightly as the night air touched his face. She responded, her lips clinging to his, and he was hopelessly lost, all common sense scattered to those stars millions of miles overhead. For the first time in his life, he understood the meaning of crazy in love...and he was too filled with the wonder of it all to think about how crazy it was.

  We shouldn't be doing this, Kate thought as Luke's kiss sent her senses reeling, as if she were flying so high she could touch those stars she'd just been admiring. They shouldn't be doing this, but right now she couldn't remember just why. Right now nothing mattered but the feel of his hard body against hers, his mouth on hers...soft and firm, giving and taking, and the magic of the night surged through her. She'd never wanted anyone or anything so much in her life.

  The music started again, a slower tune this time, and she and Luke moved with it, their bodies swaying together as one, his lips hovering above hers, dipping for light, fairy kisses while his arms held her tightly, securely against him.

  After all these years, she'd come home, reclaimed her soul mate. The world had shifted back to upright.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, an alarm bell was clanging loudly, but the music surrounding them, coming from Papa's window and from inside their hearts, muffled the noise. She didn't want to hear it. She just wanted to go on forever, dancing in Luke's arms.

  He pulled her closer, deepening the kiss, and she knew that wasn't all she wanted. Their dance should include the final, ultimate merging of their souls and bodies.

  That alarm bell clanged more loudly, finally getting her attention.

  She couldn't be doing this!

  Reluctantly, her mind straining against her heart, she pushed away from Luke.

  For a moment, he stood looking at her, his eyelids heavy with passion, his eyes clouded with the spell they'd both been under. Then his eyes cleared, and he stepped back and drew a shaky hand across his forehead. "Oh, God, Katie, I'm sorry." He sucked in a deep breath and faced her. "I know you're marrying Spencer. I know we can't be anything but friends. I swear it'll never happen again."

  Marrying Spencer?

  She'd forgotten again.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and backed farther away from Luke, from the magnetic pull that he still had over her. "I don't know if I can marry Spencer."

  "You don't know?"

  She hadn't meant to say it aloud. "I'm very confused. I don't know what I'm saying or doing right now."

  "Are you in love with him?" His dark eyes bored into her, and she knew she would have to t
ell him the truth...whatever the truth was.

  "I don't know. I don't know what love is. I thought I had everything all figured out, but I don't know anymore." She spun away from him and walked toward the house.

  "Katie, I want to be your friend. I need you in my life. I love you." She froze with one foot on the top step of the porch.

  "I've loved you since we wore matching diapers," he continued, completely changing the meaning of what he'd just said. "Whatever I have to do or not do, I don't want to ever lose you again."

  Spencer wasn't the only one who had her confused.

  A few minutes ago she'd wanted nothing more than to waltz off into the sunset with Luke, to be happy in his arms forevermore. Sure, that was a fantasy, part of the magic the night had somehow woven about them. But it had been a beautiful fantasy.

  Then Luke had apologized and cancelled out everything.

  Even if she decided she couldn't marry Spencer, that wasn't why she had to pull away from Luke. Luke wasn't safe. He'd let her down once and he'd do it again...and he'd just proved it. How could he apologize for the most wonderful experience she'd ever had in her life?

  ***

  Watching from the window, Emma shook her head. "Jerome, those two are absolutely the most stubborn people I've ever met in my life."

  "They are that, Emma." He didn't remind her that this wasn't exactly in her life. That was a technicality, after all. "But they're on the right track. Katie's starting to realize that Spencer is wrong for her. If we're patient, they'll get there."

  "You be patient, and I'll guide them a bit more."

  Jerome chuckled. "There are those that might call what you and I are doing meddling rather than guiding."

  "Oh, no. Meddling is...well, it's different. Remember, I was granted a special dispensation to come back and help raise our daughter. Whatever I have to do is officially sanctioned."

  "Your methods are a little unusual, but they does seem to be working." Jerome smiled and pulled his wife into his arms. "Let's don't waste the music."

  As they danced across the floor of his bedroom, Jerome had to resist the urge to pull Emma against him more tightly. He couldn't do that, of course. His arms would slip right through her.

  But he wanted to. He wanted to hold her as close as possible and dance until dawn.

  The time was getting closer when Katie and Luke would realize their destiny lay with each other. And when that time came, Emma's special dispensation would be up.

  Jerome couldn't complain. The bonus years with her had been wonderful. He was the most grateful man on earth and he'd never complain.

  But he sure hated to think about her leaving.

  Chapter Twenty

  When Luke got back to his house, Jeff was sitting on the top step of the porch.

  The book Sheriff had wanted Jeff to have. Luke had forgotten about it. Sheriff had been so busy playing music to weave a spell about Katie and him that he hadn't brought it out to them...and Luke had been so enthralled by that spell, the reason he was at Sheriff's house had completely slipped his mind.

  "I forgot your book," Luke said, anxious to get past Jeff to the safety of his room so he could try to figure out just what the hell had happened and what he was going to do about it. "I'm sorry. We can get it tomorrow."

  "That's not why I waited up for you. I wanted the chance to talk to you alone."

  "Can we do this tomorrow? I've got a lot on my mind."

  "I know you do. Please sit down."

  Luke scowled...fiercely, he thought. "You know I do? What do you think you know?"

  Jeff was not intimidated by his fierce scowl. "It would be hard to miss the fact that something's going on with Katie and you, and you aren't certain what to do about it."

  "Katie and I are...friends. She's engaged to some guy from Dallas. That's all there is to that story." Luke started across the porch to the door.

  "All right. Then we'll talk about something else. Do you want to tell me why you and I can't be friends anymore since your mother and I got married?"

  Luke backed up. This was inevitable. He might as well get it over with. He sat down next to Jeff.

  "As far as I'm concerned, we are still friends," he said.

  "Not like before."

  "Of course not. Nothing's like it was before. Everything's changed."

  "Not everything," Jeff replied calmly. He was using his professor voice now. "The way I feel about your mother, the way I feel about being your friend, none of that has changed."

  Luke reached down for a dead leaf that had fallen from the tree overhead, crumpled it into a wad and tossed it into the darkness. What the hell. He might as well tell Jeff how totally deranged he'd become, dancing in the yard with Katie, kissing her, worrying about his mother and her new husband getting a divorce when they'd only recently got married. He and Jeff had always been able to talk about anything.

  "I worry about Mom. She's a strong lady, but it hit her hard when Dad died. She put up a good front, but even when I was a kid, I knew she was having a tough time. Not that it stopped her from being a great mother. She took care of me. Now it's my turn to take care of her. I guess I feel pretty protective."

  "You want to protect her from me?"

  Luke stared into the night. "No, of course not. I guess I just want to protect her from ever being hurt again."

  "You think I'm going to hurt her?"

  "All right, this may not make a lot of sense, but the way I figure it, as long as you and Mom were friends, she was married to Dad, sort of."

  "And you think I'm trying to take your Dad's place."

  "Damn it, don't put words in my mouth. As long as she was still married to Dad, in spirit, so to speak, we had a link to him. Then she married you, and that link disappeared. Now, I know what you're going to say. Dad died a long time ago, and Mom's still alive and entitled to a life of her own. I agree. And she had one. She had you and she had me and we all had each other, and everything was fine. But then it changed, and now it's not that anything's wrong, it's just that everything's unstable."

  Even in the dark, he could see that Jeff was mystified. Luke blew out a long breath. Hell, he didn't completely understand it all himself. "The way I see it, friends are forever, but married people get divorced. You can climb the ladder from friendship to marriage, but going back and being friends after a divorce doesn't happen very often. So if you and Mom get a divorce—" He spread his hands. "It's all gone...you, Dad, everything. Mom's at ground zero." Luke rested his elbows on his knees. "I don't guess I realized how crazy it sounds until I put it into words."

  "It's a good thing I'm your friend because friends stand by each other even when one of them goes nuts."

  Luke laughed, and the sound that went out on the quiet summer night bordered somewhere between amusement and hysteria. "You think I'm nuts?"

  "Could be. Did you just do something really dumb with your Katie?"

  "Could be. I kissed her. Told her I loved her."

  "That doesn't sound so dumb."

  "As a friend."

  "That was dumb."

  "She's engaged."

  "That could be a problem."

  "She said she didn't know if she could marry the guy. So you see, that proves it. You fall in love, you fall out of love. You become friends, you're stuck with each other, crazy or not."

  "At one time you loved Cindy."

  "I remember."

  "How did it feel tonight when you kissed Katie?"

  A thrill darted through Luke at the memory. "I don't know if I can describe it. It was like stepping out of an airplane and actually being able to walk on the clouds."

  "You feel that way when you kissed Cindy?"

  "Not exactly. To be honest, it wasn't even close. It was more like..." He hesitated, suddenly reluctant to talk to his mother's husband.

  "Desire?"

  "Sure."

  "Lust?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  "You liked her."

  "Of course."

&nbs
p; "But no walking on clouds?"

  "Nope."

  "Then it wasn't enough for marriage."

  For a few moments the two men sat on the porch steps. He hated to admit it, but Jeff might have a point. He hadn't thought about it that way. He'd questioned whether he'd ever loved Cindy, something that would have made their entire marriage a sham and a waste. He hadn't considered that there were different kinds of love, and that not all kinds were the stuff of which marriages were made.