by Linz, Cathie
Without further ado, Luke took Julia’s hand in his and dropped to one knee, right there in the middle of the cracked sidewalk, in front of everyone.
“I’ve been carrying this around for days, waiting for the right moment,” Luke said, pulling a ring box out of his jeans pocket.
“And for some reason, he thought the pavement outside Angelo’s was the most romantic spot possible,” Skye teased.
Luke ignored her and held out the box to Julia before opening it with a flourish. The box . . . was empty.
“Shit!” Luke muttered, reaching back into his pocket to pull out the ring. “I’m not good at this romantic stuff. So I’ll be brief. Julia, I love you. Baby or no baby. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She pulled him to his feet. “Yes, I will marry you, Luke Maguire.”
“You may now kiss the pregnant bride,” Skye said in a solemn voice.
The crowd applauded as Luke gladly complied.
Nathan didn’t have time to think about his personal life or his sleeping arrangements with Skye because his day was filled with one incident after another. They were short-staffed: One of their three part-time deputy sheriffs was getting an emergency appendectomy.
So it was Nathan who had to check out a landlord-tenant dispute in a rental house, followed by a crime-prevention speech at the middle school, followed by a noise complaint at the Broken Creek Trailer Park. Meanwhile, Deputy Sheriff Timmy Johnson caught two speeders and then managed traffic when one of the traffic lights leading out to the interstate went off-line.
It was evening before things settled down enough for Nathan to leave the office, although his cell phone and pager were always on should he be needed.
He’d barely made it out of the building when he was called back because of a major pileup on the interstate. A semi had jackknifed, involving five other vehicles in an accident. Every available officer was requested.
The EMTs, ambulance, and fire truck were already en route. Nathan jumped into the squad car and turned on the siren and flashing lights, all the while willing his rabid sense of déjà vu to stay under control. But when he arrived at the crash site and found the pile of badly crumpled cars, he almost lost it.
“A baby,” Luke was saying in awe for about the fiftieth time. The family had all gathered in Skye’s apartment for a celebration dinner of veggie quesadillas and mango-cucumber salad. Violet brought Owen, who had been hesitant to intrude and was so apologetic about the trouble Milton had caused.
Skye had stopped him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You made my dream for the Tivoli Theater a reality. There’s no way I can thank you. Not even with that lifetime pass that I promised you.” She gave him a huge hug.
He seemed to be more comfortable now, as he sat beside Violet on one of the kitchen chairs.
Momma-to-be Julia was enthroned on the regal round couch, Luke glued to her side. “A baby,” he repeated again, placing his hand on her still-flat stomach.
“I know,” Julia said. “It’s awesome, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. And terrifying.”
She smiled. “Yeah, that, too.”
“Are you okay with all this?” Luke asked.
Julia nodded. “Are you? I know we didn’t plan—”
“Since when do I plan?” Luke countered. “You’re the one who makes notes to yourself.”
“She still does that?” Skye shook her head in mock disappointment. “I thought maybe she’d outgrow that.”
Julia tossed a small embroidered pillow at her.
Toni leapt into the air and caught it before running away down the hallway, the pillow clutched in her arms.
“Soon Toni will have a little cousin to play with,” Angel said fondly.
“She’ll have grown out of her biting stage by then, right?” Julia’s face reflected her concern.
“Probably,” Angel said. “I should start crocheting a toy for the baby.”
“You won’t have much time, with all those orders pouring in on your website,” Violet said.
Angel fingered her amethyst pendant. “I can’t get used to that concept. I haven’t made a final decision about it yet.”
“Well, it’s been quite an evening,” Luke suddenly announced, tugging Julia to her feet. “But my fiancée and I are going to head out now over to my old apartment above Maguire’s for a little alone time.”
“Congratulations,” Tyler told him with a pat on his back.
“Thanks, man.”
Angel’s face was beaming as she watched Julia and Skye hug. “Is it my imagination, or are things more serene between the two of you?”
“Our relationship is in a better place now, I think,” Julia admitted.
“I no longer always want to kick her butt,” Skye agreed.
“I’m so glad.” Angel hugged both her daughters.
“You think you can cope with both me and Lucy the Llama being pregnant at the same time?” Julia teased her.
“Yes. Dr. Flannigan is helping out with Lucy. He’s the local vet. You’ll want a natural home-birth yourself, of course,” Angel said.
“No, I want lots of drugs to make the pain go away,” Julia stated firmly. “And Pop-Tarts.”
“Their baby, their choices,” Tyler reminded Angel.
“Always. With input and information from women like me who have walked that path before.”
“There’s plenty of time to talk about all that stuff later,” Luke declared, quickly heading for the nearest exit. “Come on, Julia, time to go.”
Skye was in the theater’s private office, doing some work on a grant Owen had suggested she apply for. She hated paperwork. But if it could help her get the theater restored, then it was worth it. She supposed.
She’d missed the football game tonight but heard the Trojans had won anyway. Good. Lesson well learned, grasshoppers.
Before Skye had come down here to the theater, Angel and Tyler had offered to stay with Toni until she returned. Tyler was crunching numbers about possible farmhouses on the market, while Angel was consulting the runes. Owen had driven Violet back to Serenity Falls.
Skye had given Toni a bath and listened to her daughter recite Kitten’s First Full Moon twice before Toni had finally settled down. “When is Nathan coming back?” she asked sleepily.
“I don’t know.” His sleeping bag was still in her living room.
“I like his laugh,” Toni murmured. “Nice laugh.”
Gravity purred in agreement as she cuddled against Toni’s legs.
Skye had to agree. She liked Nathan’s laugh too. She also liked the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled. And the way his dimple flashed. She was still surprised by how long it had taken for her to discover that dimple. Probably because he hadn’t smiled much in her presence.
The reward of his smile and his laughter was worth the effort. She’d tickle him senseless if it meant seeing his eyes crinkle and that dimple flash.
Oh, yeah, she had it bad.
As if conjured up by her thoughts, Nathan walked into her office. She hadn’t seen him since he’d dragged Milton off hours and hours ago. He’d changed from his uniform into a black T-shirt and jeans.
“So the loon’s wife was behind the sabotage all along, huh? Except for that incident with the hammer. Luke told me that appears to have been an accident.” She noticed Nathan’s face pale at the word accident. “Hey, are you okay?” She got up and moved closer, putting her hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said curtly.
“Then why aren’t you happy? The crime is solved. Your job is done. I thought you’d be on top of the world. Geez, talk about a buzz killer—”
“So you’re looking for a buzz, are you?”
Two seconds later he had her up against the wall, pinning her between the vintage Cary Grant posters for Suspicion and Indiscreet as his mouth consumed hers. The kiss wasn’t sweet or cute, but raw and shameless. He drew her up until she was on tippy-toes. She kicked off her sandals when
they got in the way.
Nathan was no suave and debonair Cary. He was a man possessed, reaching under her short, swirly skirt with his big, hot hands and tearing off her skimpy underwear. She responded by undoing the zipper on his jeans and shoving them and his tighty-whities out of the way.
Her Peruvian tote bag was on the desk beside her. She blindly reached inside and by some miracle was able to immediately locate the pack of condoms. He ripped open the box and removed one. She helped him roll it on.
Nathan immediately backed her against the wall again, pressing intimately against her. She reached down and guided him in. Once he was deep inside her, he lifted her until she wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands gripping his shoulders as she held on for dear life.
This new position created an erotic angle, so that each of his powerful thrusts generated increasingly intense shards of savage pleasure.
His eyes were closed, his face etched with some emotion she couldn’t name.
She gasped his name as her orgasm gripped her and she gripped him.
And then it was over. He lowered her until her feet touched the floor and then he stepped away, turning his back as he took care of removing the condom and returning his clothes to their regular positions.
The hem of Skye’s skirt fell from her waist to cover her private parts, still tingling from his possession of her.
This time, instead of guilt, regret was written all over Nathan’s face when he finally turned to face her. “I shouldn’t have come here. This was a mistake.”
Words like daggers into her soul.
“Do not apologize,” Skye said fiercely, “or, I swear, I will hurt you badly.” She paused to take a deep breath, shoving the pain into the back of her mind. He hadn’t hurt her physically, but he’d struck a deathblow to her heart. “It ends here.” She took another ragged breath. “You’re always going to compare me with your perfect wife, and that’s a race I can never win. You’ve cast me in the role of a wicked Eve, tempting you off the straight and narrow path. Well, forget it. I’m not playing that game anymore. It ends here.” She turned her back on him and walked out—her feet bare, her dignity shredded, her inner diva on the verge of annihilation.
Chapter Eighteen
Skye refused to cry. She refused to give in to the tears that threatened to pour down her face. Instead, she returned to her apartment and greeted Angel and Tyler as if nothing had changed.
Tyler bought it.
Angel didn’t.
“What’s happened? Something terrible has happened, I can tell. Your auras . . .” Angel shook her head in concern and hurried to Skye’s side.
Damn auras, Skye thought. Always giving her away. She pinned a happy smile on her face. “I’m fine.”
Tyler wisely decided it was time for him to get a little fresh air and left the two women alone.
“Talk to me,” Angel said.
Skye curled up on the couch, hugging a soft silk pillow to her chest. “You’ve heard that saying—Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go wherever they want?”
Angel shook her head. “No.”
“Well, maybe I made it up. I can’t remember. The thing is, I can go wherever I want. Except into Nathan’s heart.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because he won’t let me in. I thought he would, but . . .”
“What happened? Did he come to the theater tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And the sex was so good it scared you?”
Angel had never been shy about discussing sex with her daughters. Which was fine by Skye, although it freaked Julia out.
“Since when would great sex scare me?” Skye countered.
“Since you’ve fallen in love with the guy you’re having great sex with.”
“Did Julia tell you?”
“Julia knows about this?”
“She knows I might be in love with Nathan. But I’ll get over him,” Skye vowed fiercely.
“Well, the answer is no, Julia didn’t tell me you were in love with Nathan. Your face when you walked in the door told me. Actually, I knew long before that. You two were meant to be together, but were bound to hit some rocky patches. The tarot cards indicated as much.”
“There are rocky patches, and then there are boulders the size of Colorado. The man is still in love with his dead wife.”
“He told you this?”
Skye nodded. “He said he loved her and that she was his everything. And that she was nothing like me.”
“So?”
“So, she was golden. I’m not. I’m a rebel. I may be able to tempt him into having sex with me, but not into falling in love with me.”
“Why shouldn’t he fall in love with you?”
“There are tons of reasons.”
“Give them to me.” Angel curled up on the couch beside her. “Starting with the one that scares you the most.”
Leave it to Angel to get right to the heart of the matter. There was no bullshitting her.
The bottom line was that Skye had never had a man love her the way she needed to be loved . . . but was afraid she didn’t deserve to be loved.
Yes, Skye believed she deserved to be happy. She deserved to follow her own rules. But real love? Maybe that required a goodness she didn’t possess. Maybe that was reserved for people who colored inside the lines. Golden people, like Nathan’s dead wife, Annie. And do-gooders like Nathan.
“Talk to me,” Angel urged, squeezing Skye’s shoulders in a universal maternal sign.
“What scares me the most is that I—” Skye shook her head, unable to continue for a moment. “What if I’m not meant to find real love? What if I never do?”
“Then fate would have something bigger in mind for you. But I don’t think that’s the case.”
“The tarot cards aren’t always right. They indicated Milton was the saboteur. And remember, they also said that garlic gelato would be a big hit at your gelato store, and instead it totally bombed. Like I’m totally bombing in the love department. The sex is great. It’s the other stuff that gets messed up.”
“So what happened tonight?”
“I told Nathan that it ended here. That he couldn’t just show up and have hot, wall-banging sex in my private office and then say he was sorry or that it shouldn’t have happened.”
“Hot, wall-banging sex, huh? Maybe Nathan was concerned that he might have hurt you?”
“He hurt me by saying the things that he did. It’s over. I’ve learned enough from my past mistakes to know when it’s time to cut my losses and end it.”
“But in the past, you weren’t in love with the man.”
“Sometimes I thought I was.”
“The same way you’re in love with Nathan?”
“No.” Skye slowly shook her head. “There’s never been anyone like Nathan.”
“Exactly. And that’s why you don’t have a manual to fall back on here. A way to read him.”
“Even getting a fix on his auras is difficult,” Skye said.
“Yes, I’ve noticed that myself. In some ways he’s like Tyler. Not just regarding the wall-banging sex,” Angel said with a grin. “But also in that Nathan is a man of few words. Not someone who opens up easily.”
“Not someone who opens up at all.”
“I wish there were something I could do to make the pain go away.”
Skye leaned her head on Angel’s shoulder. “Thanks for always being here for me. I don’t tell you that enough, I know.”
“Of course I’m here for you. That’s what parents do. Love unconditionally.”
“What about men? Do they ever do that with the women in their lives? Love unconditionally?”
“I believe so. It can happen. And you certainly deserve to have it happen to you. Because that kind of love is the kind that you are capable of giving, and therefore are very deserving of receiving.” Angel hugged her tightly. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
Early the next morning, Angel insisted that Skye go off w
ith Sue Ellen and Lulu to a nearby farmer’s market, as planned. The only change was that Angel took Toni to visit the llamas instead of letting the little girl go with Skye.
Skye suspected it was so that she could talk to her friends about Nathan if she needed to.
It was a perfect Saturday morning, and the market was in full swing. A crisp September breeze had set the fall leaves dancing in the air. Some of the trees were beginning to get a golden glow about them. Blue tarps tied to supporting poles covered the various stalls selling organic produce from local family farms. Other stalls offered fall flowers as well as homemade baked goods and jams. Dried corn and assorted gourds were also set out in artistic displays.
By mid-October, the hardwood trees on the surrounding hillsides would begin boasting magnificent hues of red, yellow, and gold. Skye knew because she’d arrived in Pennsylvania in late October, missing the peak colors of fall. She’d been looking forward to seeing them this year.
Having grown up and lived mostly on the West Coast, the concept of four seasons with different vibes for the various times of the year was one that appealed to Skye.
The vegetable stand in front of them did not appear to have a similar appeal for Sue Ellen, who was eyeing the produce suspiciously.
“Do you want to try some of the eggplant?” Skye asked.
“I don’t eat anything purple,” Sue Ellen stated firmly.
“You don’t eat anything that doesn’t come out of a can or a box,” Lulu scoffed. She’d exchanged her skull earrings for skeleton ones, and was wearing her baggy black pants with the metal studs. Her goth look caused some curious looks from passersby. So did the saying on her T-shirt. EARTH FIRST! WE’LL STRIP-MINE THE OTHER PLANETS LATER.
Since Pennsylvania had long been coal-mining country, the sentiment conveyed was one that hit home.
Also hitting home for Skye was the fact that it really was over between her and Nathan.
“What is that?” Sue Ellen pointed to a basket filled with odd-shaped tan-colored things.
“Ginger.”
“It looks obscene.”