Cat didn’t know what to say. It sounded cliché in her head, yet coming from Luke it sounded so sincere. It was the kind of response she would have laughed at months ago; yet now, in the wake of everything that had happened to her, she wanted to understand it. The assurance, the peace he seemed to have--she couldn’t help but want that, too.
“Wow,” Cat finally spoke. “That’s … well, that’s pretty awesome, Luke.”
“So, you won’t even do the things with me that you did with Clarissa?” Cat finally asked. “I hate the thought that she saw more of you and touched more of you than me. I know that sounds stupid,” she shook her head.
Embarrassed, she retreated under the covers until he pulled her out and onto his lap. It only served to make her feel more ridiculous — like a child. She closed her eyes and buried her head into his shoulder.
“No, it doesn’t sound stupid,” he lifted her chin and kissed her. “It sounds normal to me.”
“But,” Cat urged him to answer her.
“But, no. Not yet, anyway,” he kissed her cheek. “Someday I want to do all those things and more, but we’ll just have to wait.”
Cat felt as though she was having an out-of-body experience. Had he just said that they would be married one day?
“Did you just ask me to marry you, Luke?” she felt her heart pounding louder and harder than ever before.
“Not officially,” he watched her response carefully.
Cat felt her head swimming. She knew her answer before she would let herself admit it. She swallowed and looked up to see him smiling at her.
Cat smiled back, “Well, I un-officially accept.”
His kiss was gentle this time. Sweet, but still with passion underneath it all.
“I really don’t know if I can wait ten years or so to be with you,” Cat sighed deeply, “but I’ll try.”
“Ten years!” Luke sat up. “Cat, there’s no way I’d want to wait that long. I was thinking more like four years, five at most.”
“Luke, I’d be 21 or 22!” Cat exclaimed.
“So?” Luke stared at her. “Oh, that’s right, people don’t get married that young in New York.”
“Uh, no!” Cat couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. She could just picture telling her parents, or worse, her friends. They would think she’d completely lost it.
“So, when do New Yorkers get married?” Luke teased.
“I’d guess around thirty-five is average, twenty-seven would be really young,” Cat informed.
“Why?” Luke asked pointedly.
“Why what?” Cat shot back.
“Why do they wait so late?” Luke looked genuinely interested.
“Well, because, well they,” Cat realized she didn’t have an answer. “Honestly, I have no idea,” she laughed.
“Well,” Luke pulled her to him once more, “I believe in marrying when you’ve found the person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with.”
“In that case, I would be getting married now,” Cat watched his response.
Luke smiled, “Me too, but I don’t think our parents would be too keen on it.”
Cat laughed, “Maybe not.”
“That’s why being un-officially engaged will have to do for now,” Luke said while getting up and walking over to the nearest box of art supplies. He pulled out a bronze colored wire that was wrapped around a group of brushes and began twisting it. His artful eye quickly fashioned it into a rope-like bronze ring.
“Let’s see how it fits,” Luke took her left hand and slipped it on her ring finger. “Perfect,” he commented, lifting her hand to his lips.
Cat’s eyes filled with tears.
“Do you like it?” Luke looked up at her hopefully.
“I do,” Cat closed her hand in his, never wanting to let go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next morning came with birdsong and summer breezes flowing through her open window. Cat couldn’t recall a time when she felt more content. Gently, she touched her fingers to the twisted wire that rested on the ring finger of her left hand. Luke was sleeping behind her. She could feel the even rhythm of his breath against her neck and she closed her eyes. Contentment.
Like a gentleman, he had insisted on sleeping above the covers. She smiled to herself. Sometimes, she found his old-fashioned charm frustrating, but at this moment it was sweet. Slowly, as not to wake him, she shifted her body and rolled towards him. The goal was to watch him sleeping, but he was already beginning to open his eyes. She smiled.
“Good morning,” Cat leaned in to kiss him; and then, thinking suddenly of how terrible her breath must smell, she held the sheet up over her mouth and rolled away.
“What are you doing?” Luke laughed and pulled her back in.
“Don’t smell my breath!” Cat giggled uncontrollably as he fought the covers away for a kiss. “Ahh! I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.” The tousle led to a wrestling match in which Cat was determined to keep her mouth covered. Before she knew it, she had wrapped herself up like a mummy and was somehow dangling head first off the foot of the bed, breathless from laughing and exhausted from playing this game.
She let Luke win, but kept her lips tightly closed when he gave her a “good morning” peck on the lips.
Leaving him sprawled out on the bed, she scurried to go brush her teeth. I hope we will always be like this, Cat thought to herself. Playful. Silly. Fun. That’s what I want in a relationship, as she ran through a list in her head of qualities that she valued in a partner. Of course, they had to be intelligent and hold a conversation. Check. Honest, Kind. Check, check. Cat continued down her list as she rinsed with mouthwash.
“How do you like your eggs?” Luke interrupted her thoughts from outside the bathroom door.
She spit in the sink.
“Scrambled, please. Lots of pepper,” she suddenly felt so grown up. Is this how you feel when someone makes eggs for you? Of course, they hadn’t actually slept together. However, Cat knew this would be as good as it would get for a while and she wanted to soak it all in.
Dressing quickly and running a brush through her hair before plaiting it in a quick braid to the side, she ran down the steps, skipped the last two at the bottom, and bounced into the kitchen where Luke was already busying himself with breakfast.
“What can I do?” she asked. He had bacon frying in one pan, eggs in the other, and had just laid out ingredients from the pantry onto the kitchen table.
“I thought I’d make you biscuits,” he smiled up at her. “Surprised that I know how to cook?”
“A little,” Cat was embarrassed to admit but pleasantly surprised. “I know how to make Kraft macaroni and cheese and microwave popcorn and that’s about it.”
“I’ll teach you,” Luke took one of the vintage aprons off the hook on the wall and tossed it to her. “Put this on. You can be my sous chef.”
“You are full of surprises, Luke Presnell,” Cat shook her head as she tied her apron and watched as he slipped a bright yellow one over his head.
“Is it my color?” he winked.
“Well, the yellow looks good with your tan … but I’m not so sure about the daisy print,” Cat walked slowly around Luke in mock examination of his ensemble.
“Only real men can pull off flowers,” he pulled her in close. “Now, are you ready to learn?”
“I’ll let you teach me anything,” Cat leaned in suggestively before erupting in laughter.
“Lord, Cat,” Luke tossed a handful of flour at her. “That’s what you get for being such a tease.”
Within an hour, breakfast was on the table and flour covered nearly every surface. Cat and Luke sat opposite each other with their bare-feet touching under the table. Cat’s braid had come mostly undone in the flour fight. Luke’s hair looked white. The jar of apple butter they had discovered in the pant
ry made the perfect accompaniment to the buttery biscuits. She felt so grown up, but at the same time, like a child playing house. This moment was perfect. She felt her heart just fluttering out of her body, like she might need a giant butterfly net to catch it and put it back in place. The exhilaration of it all made her positively giddy. It felt so innocent and just a little bit sneaky, all at the same time. Cat rubbed one foot up Luke’s leg, until it rested on his chair.
“This is amazing,” Cat said with a mouthful of biscuit. “I know I said you should be an artist but I lied … you should be a chef.”
Luke shook his head, “I don’t know about that.”
“What else can you make?”
“Well, let’s see,” Luke smeared another spoonful of apple butter on his piece before taking a bite. “I can make biscuits and biscuits. Oh, and I’m also pretty good at making biscuits.”
Cat laughed before popping the last bite into her mouth, sliding her plate aside and leaning forward towards Luke.
“If you had a biscuit restaurant and served only biscuits, I still think you would be a success,” she joked, half-seriously. “They are just that good. Who taught you how to make them?”
As soon as the words left Cat’s mouth, she wished she could take them back. Luke’s smile dropped and he started gathering the plates on the table. He moved her foot from where it was resting on his lap and stood from the table.
“My mom,” he said quietly. Then, looking up to Cat, he smiled tenderly, “She made the best biscuits.”
“And now you do too,” Cat smiled back. “I think it’s wonderful that she taught you things and supported you, encouraged your art and everything. She sounds like an amazing lady, Luke.”
“She was,” Luke agreed. He carried their plates to the sink and Cat began to gather the pans on the stove to be washed. “But, didn’t your parents teach you things? You lived on the Upper West Side and attended private schools. Didn’t you feel supported?”
Cat paused. She had never thought too much about it until this past year. But when she reflected on it all, and really thought about it, she wasn’t sure what she had learned from her parents. What a sad reality to recognize. A nanny had been employed throughout her childhood and well into middle school, when Cat and Lilienne could be trusted to come home alone together on the bus and get started on their homework. Her father was a proud, self-proclaimed workaholic. Cat rarely saw him, save a family dinner here and there on the weekends. Her mother, always the socialite, spent so much of her time serving on committees and flitting to and fro, that Cat wasn’t sure she really knew her at all. Cooking lessons never happened in their home with a chef to cater meals. She was certain her mom had imparted fashion advice, but other than that, nada. Cat searched her brain for a memory akin to what Luke experienced with his mom.
“They’ve always provided very well,” Cat decided this was an appropriate response, but her eyes didn’t meet Luke’s.
“That’s not what I asked,” Luke said knowingly.
“What do you want me to say, Luke?” Cat startled herself with the harshness of her response. She felt this overpowering anger rising up in her. Not towards Luke, but towards the parents who had refused to listen to her, refused to believe her, or even care. The parents who had a plane ticket with her name on it no matter what she wanted. She felt so deceived; and even though things in Boone had turned out better than she could have ever imagined, she was still hurt by their actions.
“They provided everything Lili and I could want,” Cat continued, unable to steady herself or lower her voice. “We had every opportunity, activities, over-the-top birthday parties, the latest-greatest-whatever, we had everything a kid could want,” she threw her hands up in exasperation.
“What is it you’re wanting to say, Cat?” Luke turned off the water in the sink where he was washing dishes and held her shoulders.
“We had everything,” Cat took a breath. “Except the things that matter most.” A lump rose in her throat. “I don’t even know who they are. They are the puppeteers of my life. They have it all planned out. I just — I just.” She broke down. “I just hate them for what they did to me.”
Luke pulled her close as she cried on his shoulder for longer than Cat had intended. She let the tears go. All of that anger and frustration that had built up inside her broke loose. There was no reeling it back in.
“Now your shirt is gross,” she sobbed harder when she pulled away and saw his tear-stained shirt.
“It’s not gross,” Luke shrugged. “You just needed a good cry.”
“It’s gross,” Cat corrected him. “This part is snot.” She pointed to a greenish smear on the shirt.
Luke examined it closer. “Yeah, okay,” he stepped back. “That is gross.” He pulled the shirt off and tossed it to the floor. “Better?”
“Mmmm,” Cat raised an eyebrow, “Much.”
“Uh-huh,” Luke nodded. “Now I see what you’re doing. Let’s cry and cover his shirt in snot so he has to take it off.”
“Yep,” Cat wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned on her tip-toes to kiss him. “You got me.”
Luke tilted her chin up with his hand to kiss her again. Cat ran her hands up and down his back. Secretly, she hoped Mimi would make these out of town adventures more regular. She could get used to morning cuddles, homemade biscuits, and a half-dressed Luke in her kitchen.
Still tangled together, Luke managed to sit down in the closest chair so that Cat could sit facing him. This is getting dangerous, her mind told her, but her mouth just said more. More kisses. More of Luke.
She was unaware of everything else except him. His hands in her hair, his lips on her neck, his … oh my God, Mimi! Cat’s eyes had shot open to see her grandmother standing at the screen door with her mouth hanging ajar. Her “friend” Jim Buchanan was only a few feet behind her and had his hand over his mouth, eyes wide. He looked to be hiding laughter though, and not the shock that Mimi wore. Cat didn’t know which was worse.
Cat bolted off of Luke’s lap, landing on the flour covered floor. Luke turned and leapt up so quickly you would’ve thought he’d been shot out of a cannon.
Mimi, Mr. Buchanan,” Luke began, while looking frantically about on the floor for his shirt. “I — I — this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” Mimi had no laughter in her eyes. In fact, she wasn’t looking towards Cat at all. Her daggers were aimed at Luke Presnell whom, ten minutes ago, she would’ve trusted with her life. Now, this teenage boy had the nerve to ….
“Mimi!” Cat stepped in front of Luke, taking on the full glare of her grandmother. Mimi was intimidating, the epitome of a strong mountain woman, and not afraid to speak her mind. Cat knew she had to intercept, before anything else was said. “Mimi,” Cat began again, “I know what this looks like.” She glanced around the disaster of a kitchen — the flour-coated floor, the breakfast plates on the table, not to mention the fact that Mimi had just caught them in a full-blown make-out session, with Luke topless at that. Cat glanced at Luke for assistance, but he looked like a helpless puppy with his head down.
Without a word, Mimi stepped into the kitchen, letting the screen door slam behind her. She was formidable. Slowly, she ran her hand along the flour covered table, looked at it, and walked to the sink to rinse it off. She lifted the pan in the sink that the eggs had been scrambled in and glanced at them both with pursed lips.
Cat was certain her heart had stopped. This was it. She was dead. Surely a person cannot be more mortified than in this very moment.
“Did you spend the night here, Luke?” Mimi remained calm.
“Well, what happened …”
“Yes or no,” Mimi held up her hand.
“If I could …”
“Yes or no,” Mimi’s voice raised slightly.
“Yes, ma’am.” Luke’s face was turning pink.
&
nbsp; Mimi swallowed and nodded, “And where exactly did you sleep?”
“In a bed,” Luke answered directly this time.
“With Catie?” Mimi added.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cat looked past Mimi to see Jim on the porch, barely able to contain his laughter. She glanced at the kitchen table and wondered if she could duck and roll underneath it, just to be out of sight. That seemed like a good place to hide.
“Cathleen,” Mimi’s soft voice interrupted Cat’s thoughts. “We are going on a drive.”
“Oh, um, okay …” Cat looked nervously towards Luke before moving cautiously towards the door.
“Jim,” Mimi called. “Would you mind staying here with Luke? I’d like to speak to him when I return. You boys can clean up this mess.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jim saluted her with a wink as she passed.
Cat followed dutifully towards the jeep. She thought she heard Jim’s voice teasing Luke in the kitchen, “So, how does she like her eggs?” Cat flushed a new shade of pink.
“Let’s take the truck,” Mimi motioned towards the farm truck that was parked out back.
Cat climbed into the cab of the truck and searched for the words to begin, but nothing came. She watched as her grandmother put the truck in drive instead of in reverse — meaning they were driving up into the Christmas tree fields and not turning around to go down the driveway, as she had expected. Cat manually rolled down the window. She loved the smell of Fraser Fir trees more than anything else in the world. She could never understand how her mother could have left this place so easily.
“Catie,” Mimi said softly. “I know it sounds impossible, but I really do remember being your age. I know what it feels like to be young and in love.”
Cat had been wrong. A person could feel more mortified than she had felt in the kitchen. Here she was, riding through a tree field, about to tell her grandmother that she was a virgin … even if she didn’t want to be. She would leave that part out, for her grandmother’s sake.
What Cat Lost (The Last Life of Cat Book 1) Page 20