Luke’s jaw shifted and he took several steps forward, holding out his hand. “Here, let me take your coat, and you can sit down.”
“No!” It came out too sharply as she took a step back, and heat flooded her cheeks. “I mean, I can’t stay.” Air locked in her throat, and she swallowed hard. God, help me . . . She hadn’t expected this – labored breathing, the threat of tears, this awful sinking feeling deep in her chest. Her eyes flitted to the clock on the mantel, the window, the kitchen door – anything but his face.
She heard his weary expulsion of air. “Yes . . . Parker knows I’m here.”
She looked up then, eyes spanned wide. “He knows? That you’re here?” She swallowed again, as if to clear the confusion in her mind. She made a feeble attempt to keep her voice light. “Funny, he didn’t mention it. When did you arrive?”
He looked away, swabbing the back of his neck with his palm before the blue eyes locked on hers. A nerve fluttered in his cheek. “Last month,” he said quietly.
She blinked. “Last month?”
“I couldn’t take Philadelphia anymore without Betty.” Muscles shifted in his throat. “So when Lizzie and Brady offered a place to stay while I looked for a job and help with the baby, I thought I’d take it.”
She was in full gaping mode now, ire heating her cheeks to match the fire in her eyes. “You’ve been staying here . . . in my own sister’s house . . . for a solid month . . . and nobody bothered to let me know?”
“We didn’t want to upset you . . .”
She slapped two hands on her hips. “Oh well, that ship has sailed, now hasn’t it?”
“Katie, we talked about it, and we thought it would be best – ”
She marched up and stabbed a finger into his chest, glaring at him with the full force of her hurt and fury. “Best? Oh, I see – best for the pitiful little girl who got her heart broken, is that it? What, you were all afraid the poor little thing would fall to pieces?”
He quietly disarmed the finger probing his chest and curled his hand over hers, his eyes steeped in sorrow. “No,” he said in a quiet voice that stole the wind from her wrath. “Not best for you, Katie . . . best for me.”
The blood stilled in her veins as she stared, and in a painful heave of her lungs, she saw the truth in his gaze – the hurt, the regret, the love. A chasm of grief over his loss and hers opened up inside and tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Katie . . . ,” he whispered, agony in his face as he caressed her arm. “Please don’t . . .”
She squeezed her eyes shut, the gentle touch of his hand sending shock waves through her. Don’t what? Cry? Feel like death now that he was back? Don’t bleed at the prospect that he would never be hers? Fury rose in her throat like bile. How dare he! How dare he come back and ruin her life!
With a strangled cry, she raised her fists to strike him, only to collapse against his chest when he restrained her with his grip. His arms swallowed her up then, her body quivering while the touch and scent of him taunted her with a cruel reminder of all she had lost. Clarence Luke McGee – the little boy she loved to hate, was now the man she hated to love. But love him she did, to the core of her being, and the reality crushed her. She thought of Parker, so kind and so good, and the pain of ever hurting him was too much to bear. With a pitiful heave, she pushed Luke away, staggering back on her feet.
He reached to steady her, but she flung his hand away. “No! Don’t touch me – ever!”
“Katie, please . . .” His voice bled with pain.
Without a backward glance, she rushed to the door, her tone nasal and her body shaking. All at once, she stopped and put a hand to her eyes, sick with regret. “Forgive me, Luke . . . for losing my temper. It’s not your fault, not really. Will you please tell Lizzie I had to go?”
“Katie . . .” The sound of that one word was an aching plea.
But she wasn’t listening. All she could hear was the door slamming behind her and the ridiculous pounding of her blood in her brain. She fled down the steps and then down the street, acutely aware that her whole world had just radically shifted. Gone was the warm glow of her engagement to Parker. Gone was her hope of happily ever after. And gone was the sun from the sky. Tears blinded her eyes as she ran, her fingers and hands strangely numb. And all at once – for the first time that day – she was painfully aware of the cold.
For all anyone knew, he was just another pedestrian milling in the rush-hour crowd, bundled in a black woolen coat with cheeks ruddy from the cold. But inside, Luke was a million miles away – or wished he were. All around him horns honked and police whistles blew while gasoline fumes and snowflakes drifted in the air, blanketing crowds who pushed and bumped, anxious to be home. Somewhere a bell was ringing, obviously a starving St. Nick hoping for a few pennies in his pot. But to Luke the peal of Christmas bells seemed more of a death knell, signaling the expiration of his hope the minute he had seen Katie’s face.
There was no way he could stay and no way he would. Loneliness and mourning had driven him home, but it had followed him to Boston, it seemed, and would drive him away once again. He absently turned his coat collar up while he and the crowds waited at an intersection, eyes focused on the traffic cop as he waved burly arms in the air. The officer jerked a hand, and the crowd streamed forward, leading Luke like a lamb to its slaughter. He pinched a gloved hand to the bridge of his nose, wondering what in the world had possessed him to come home again. He had a great job in Philadelphia, and he and Betty had made some good friends. But then, everything had changed when Betty had taken her last breath. His best friend was dead, and suddenly so were all of his hopes, his dreams, and his passion for life. And he couldn’t risk that, not with a daughter to raise. So when Brady had called and offered his home . . .
Someone dropped a set of keys, and Luke bent to retrieve them while the crowd swarmed around him like so many ants scurrying home.
Home. Boston. Just the sound had quickened his spirit, and Luke had felt Brady’s invitation calling him back to the city that was more of a home than he’d ever had. And so he said yes, partially because Aunt Ruth was too old to care for an infant and Luke needed to work, and partially because he needed the comfort of family. Moisture blurred his view as he and the crowd surged forward, “home” foremost in everyone’s mind. He hunched into his coat with hands buried in his pockets and blinked to clear the wetness from his eyes, knowing deep in his soul that it was “family” – Parker and Brady . . . and Katie – that had drawn him back.
And God? He sighed, parting from the crowd as he turned down Franklin Street to make his way to the Boston Children’s Aid Society. He had certainly thought so at the time – that is, when he was finally speaking with God once again. Luke jogged across the street, waving at a vehicle that had slowed to let him pass. After Betty had died, he had railed at God, wanting nothing to do with him. Until John Brady had paid him a visit. And then, once again, the man who emulated Jesus Christ more than anyone Luke knew had picked him up and dusted him off for the umpteenth time in his life, leading him back to his Savior. Melancholy struck as Luke spied a group of boys shooting a ball into a hoop. He swallowed hard. A Savior who – he had believed at the time – had also led him home.
Wishful thinking. Obviously that’s all it had been, not Divine Providence as he assumed. Parker had begged him not to take the job offered by the tiny pro bono law firm he’d found but to return to work with him at the BCAS instead. Katie would be in law school, he argued, and he needed Luke in the office. They could all be good friends again, he’d said, just like old times.
Yeah, old times.
Luke paused at the steps of the BCAS, craning his neck to study the second-floor offices where he knew she would be waiting . . . for Parker, not him.
“Come to dinner with us tonight,” Parker had pleaded when he’d met him for lunch. “I’m supposed to pick Katie up at the office after my meeting across town, but I have a feeling it’s going to run late. Do me a favor and pick her up
and I’ll meet you both somewhere.”
“I can’t,” Luke had said, but Parker wouldn’t back down. He pulled out the big guns and laid a hand on Luke’s arm, his voice that of a skilled attorney going in for the kill. “I’m getting married, Luke, and I need you and Katie to be friends.”
Luke stared up at his old office window, and a bitter laugh grunted from his throat. Yeah, pie-in-the-sky ideas that he and Katie could be friends. That he and Parker could work side by side, day in and day out, knowing full well that it was Katie’s lips Parker would kiss each day and Katie’s bed he would warm each night.
Well, maybe Parker believed it was possible, but Luke knew better. From the moment Parker had asked for his blessing regarding his growing feelings for Katie, Luke had done everything in his power to cheer Parker on. He was determined that his best friend would have the happiness he deserved, and so Luke convinced him that his feelings for Katie were part of the past. An Academy Award performance, apparently, that could have earned him Best Actor.
He exhaled hard, his breath curling into the frigid air in a cloud of resignation. And from what he had seen at Lizzie’s between Katie and him, it appeared Katie would have nabbed Best Actress as well. Steeling his jaw, Luke mounted the steps, determined to do what he needed to do. Survive until the wedding, and then get out of town.
The door was ajar, and so he peeked in. She was all alone, of course, bent over an open file cabinet against the far wall. He took a moment to study her as she worked, admiring shapely legs with perfectly straight seams and a petite body small enough to belong to a young girl, but curved enough to ensure she was a woman. She was such a little thing, a pistol whose courage and spunk was way taller than she, this frail little girl he’d always wanted to protect. A nerve pulsed in his jaw. Yeah, well, here was his chance.
He knocked on the door and she whirled around, hand and papers splayed to her chest. Her shock was obvious from the gape of her mouth, and when her brain registered who it was at the door, a pretty shade of rose invaded her cheeks. Her throat worked several times before she was able to speak, and when she did, it was with a faint stutter. “P-Parker’s n-not here.”
He would have laughed at the way he could rattle her if it wasn’t so tragic for them both, but he took no joy in her discomfort now, nor his. He cleared his throat and opened the door wide, careful not to close it again. “Parker sent me to pick you up. Said his meeting will probably run late. Wants us to meet him for dinner, The Union Oyster House, six o’clock.”
Her throat bobbed again. “He didn’t mention you coming to dinner.” The papers clutched to her chest were bent from her white-knuckled grip, coaxing a half smile to his lips.
“Yeah, well, he pretty much strong-armed me at lunch today when I told him I saw you at Lizzie’s.” The smile faded on his lips. “He says he wants us to be friends.”
“You didn’t tell him . . . ?” she said, her face as white as the expanse of her eyes.
He mauled the back of his neck with his hand, offering her a bleak smile. “No . . . no, I lied actually – to both Parker and Lizzie, something I usually try to avoid. I told them you were thrilled to see me and everything was fine.”
Her body seemed to sag in relief, the papers in hand finally fluttering to her side. She looked up with moisture in her eyes, and it took everything in him to stay where he was.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t . . . wouldn’t . . . do that to him.”
“I know, Katie,” he said quietly. “I wouldn’t ask you to.” He exhaled and massaged his temple. “Nor would I. Parker is one of the finest human beings I’ve ever met, and the best friend I’ve ever had. The very last thing I would ever want to do is hurt him.”
She nodded and slowly shut the file drawer. It closed with an ominous click of finality . . . like their relationship was about to do.
“So . . . what do we do?” she asked weakly.
“Well, for starters . . .” He stared beyond her as he absently rubbed his fingers against his mouth, thinking about the deception he’d planned. He drew in a deep breath and met her gaze once again, and the vulnerability in those blue eyes almost undid him. He looked away. Focus, McGee – people you love are at stake here. He strolled over to sit on the edge of Betty’s desk, which he now assumed was hers, and a stab of grief revisited him all over again. He forced his thoughts to the present and unbuttoned his coat. “I think we need to go to dinner tonight and show Parker we can be friends – ”
Her head was shaking before the last word ever crossed his lips. “No . . .” She clutched arms to her waist, crumpled papers fanned at her side, looking like the scared little girl he so wanted to protect. “I can’t.”
His jaw tightened. “You can and you will, Katie Rose. One night, that’s all I’m asking for. If one of us doesn’t show tonight, he’ll know something is up, and we can’t afford that.”
With a shiver of her body, she walked to the desk and threw the papers in the basket. Her hand shook as she put it to her eyes. “I can’t, Luke . . . please.”
Desperation arose, and he grabbed her arm, fisting it tightly, coldly. “Yes, you can! We both love this man, Katie, and he’s too important to let our feelings get in the way. I know what you’re made of – tough mettle that tells me you can do this. I’ve seen you do it. You fooled me – convinced me you didn’t care – you can fool him.”
She jerked her arm free, and her eyes all but scalded him, relieving some of the tension in his chest. Finally . . . a spark of anger!
“That’s because I fooled myself,” she cried, fists clenched white at her sides. But then all at once, the fury died on her face as her body crumpled and her eyes swam with tears. A hand quivered to her mouth. “Oh, Luke, forgive me, please – I was too blind to know that I loved you . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Too stubborn to know that I needed you . . .”
The urge to hold her was so strong, his teeth clenched in his jaw. He couldn’t let her do this to him, unravel him with what might have been. He drew in a deep breath and eased back on the desk, keeping his tone firm. “That’s over and done with, Katie, and our lives are headed in different directions now. We need to focus on Parker, join forces in our allegiance to him.”
She finally nodded. Squaring her shoulders, she wiped the wetness from her face with the back of her hand. “So . . . ,” she said with a shift in her throat, her voice as frail as the air that quivered from her lips. “Our hearts are to be joined after all . . . through our mutual love for Parker.”
Her words lighted upon him like a gentle mist beneath a scorching sun, cool and comforting. A common bond . . . to seal their love forever. He sighed and folded his arms, a final barrier to ensure their decision was made. “I guess so, Katie.”
Moving toward her chair, she sat down and crossed her legs, arms clutched to her waist. Her expression shifted into nonchalance as she focused on her desk. “So, what’s the plan?” Exhaling his relief, he put his head in his hand to knead the stress from his brow. “We go to dinner tonight, we talk, we laugh, we act like the best of friends.” He looked up, a faint smile on his lips. “Because we are, Katie, and will be in the future.” He rolled his neck to get rid of a kink. “Then I tell Parker I can’t take the job here because I’ve got a better one in New York.”
She blinked. “You’re leaving Boston?”
He hiked a brow, shooting her that annoying smirk that always got under her skin. “Would you rather I stay?”
“No . . .” Blood gorged her cheeks, and she swallowed hard.
“I didn’t think so,” he said with a grin.
She squinted up at him. “You’re going to lie again? About the job in New York?”
“I beg your pardon,” he said with an indignant air. “I lied the first time because I had to save you, Little Miss Sass, but I don’t generally make a habit of it. It just so happens that Parker’s father sees me as a second son, and when I called yesterday to tell him I needed a reference, he offered a job instead – a
t the Children’s Aid Society office on Staten Island.” His lips quirked. “Lucky for me the director’s pay is lousy – the turnover is terrible.”
Her shaky smile only made the wetness in her eyes all the more painful.
“And Lizzie has been kind enough to offer to keep Kat while I go and settle in and look for someone to watch her while I’m at work. So rest assured, Katie Rose, after tonight, you will be well rid of me.” He stood to his feet. “Are you ready to go?”
She pulled her purse from the bottom drawer, then rose and walked to the time clock. He watched her punch out, and the memory of her first day in the office washed over him like a wave of want, stinging his eyes. Dear God, what a brat she was. Dear God, how he loved her.
She tugged her coat from the rack, and he strode over to help her put it on, his hands trembling as he slipped it over her shoulders. She turned and looked up at him then, her eyes as soft and full of love as they were whenever she haunted his dreams. “Just for the record, Luke McGee, I love you. And I will love you until the day I die.”
He swallowed hard and bit back the words he wanted to say, cloaking them with a sad smile instead. “No, you won’t, Katie, at least not this way. Not with the caliber of man that Parker Riley is . . . and not with the power of prayer.” He lifted her scarf up to cover her head, then carefully tucked it around her neck. “We have to go, it’s almost six.” With a tight press of his lips, he moved to the door and flipped the lights off, then put his hand to the knob. “Ready?”
For several paralyzing moments, Parker stood pressed against the wall in the shadowed entryway of the next office, the sound of Luke and Katie’s voices fading down the stairs. He finally moved toward the elevator like a zombie, oblivious to the cool touch of the steel button as it lay beneath his hand. And then with a slash of grief, he stumbled back from the doors with a hand to his eyes. The elevator opened, and Carmichael blinked.