The edges of Parker’s lips lifted in a weary smile. “That’s a lie, Luke. But don’t worry – I’ll absolve you after I become a priest.”
“Don’t do this, Parker, don’t give her up for me.” Luke’s heart pounded in his chest as he moved toward the man who was as much of a brother as if they shared the same blood. “I’m not just giving her up for you . . . I’m giving her up for me.” Air billowed into the night as Parker sighed, his shoulders slumped from the effort. He pinched the bridge of his nose with gloved fingers, head bent as if weighted with the task of rallying Luke to his side. “Truth be told, after you and Betty left Boston, I was so depressed I wanted to leave myself.” He glanced up, his eyes filled with longing. “That’s when I started thinking about what I really wanted, all those dreams I had tucked away when my father forced me into law. And I swear, Luke, for the first time in years, I felt glimmers of hope that maybe – just maybe – with you and Betty gone, this could be the time to follow my own path instead of my father’s.”
As if buoyed by a secret strength, his shoulders slowly rose, squaring strong with a peace and purpose that matched the calm in his eyes. “A path ingrained in me since I was a small boy – to devote myself to serving God as I always knew I was born to do.” A faint smile edged his lips. “As a priest.”
Luke gripped Parker’s arm, his tone rife with annoyance. “I don’t believe it, Parker, not for a moment. I know how much you love Katie. I see it in your face, and I read in your letters. You’re grasping at straws here, trying to convince me you’re doing the right thing.”
Parker placed his hand over Luke’s, his tone quiet. “Luke . . . have I ever lied to you before?”
With a shaky draw of air, Luke hesitated before finally shaking his head, the question depleting his hope in a frail release of air. He withdrew his hand. “No.”
“And I’m not lying now.” His throat shifted as he averted his eyes, the bright lights of the bakery illuminating his grief. His voice faded to a whisper, reedy with regret. “Don’t get me wrong, McGee, I’m not saying that I don’t love Katie or that this doesn’t hurt like the devil.” He looked up then, locking gazes with Luke. “But I could never be happy knowing I kept her from the man she really loved. I love her too much to do that, Luke . . . and you.”
“I won’t marry her, Parker, I swear . . .”
“Yes, you will. You were always meant to, not me. Betty knew that when she refused to marry you, and I knew it when Katie called you her ‘soul mate’ after you and Betty left. It about tore my heart out because I ached for all the pain she was going through.” One side of his mouth flicked up into a sheepish smile. “Which is about the time I abandoned my true ‘Soul mate’ to fall in love with her. But she’s a stubborn little thing with more spit and spunk than the law allows. She taught me not to quit when life gets in the way of your dreams, like I did with my father. I let him steer me off course, Luke, and God’s given me a second chance – through you. She’s in love with you, my friend, and you’re still in love with her, and it doesn’t take a genius at chess to figure that out. Don’t blow it, McGee. Few of us get a second chance to go after our dreams.”
For the first time in his life other than at chess, he found himself in a stalemate with the man he would go to the mat for, die for. For the last five years of Luke’s life, Parker Riley had been there for him, supplying him with friendship, truth, and a loyalty so rare, he’d known he was a gift from God. Their commitment to each other was strong, so much so that Luke had always been able to talk Parker into anything . . . anything but this, apparently. But this was the most important thing of all.
With a lift of his chin, Luke felt his iron will harden into every bone in his body. “Then we’re both going to walk away from her, Parker.”
Parker exhaled, his breath drifting away like a ghost in the night. He gripped his suitcase tighter in his hand and smiled. “Then some lucky guy is going to discover the girl of our dreams, McGee, because I guarantee you, she won’t last long.” He glanced at his watch. “I may have to take the next train, but that’s okay. The Seminary of the Immaculate Conception isn’t expecting me till Monday.”
Reality sank in. “That’s where you went? When you went out of town?”
Parker smiled. “Signed, sealed, and delivered, my friend. I knew I’d need everything nailed down or you would try and talk me out of it.”
Luke was desperate. “You talk about dreams, Parker, so what about Katie’s? Her dream is to become a lawyer, and you know I can never give her that.”
Parker smiled. “I know that, McGee, not on your salary. Which is why I opened an account in Katie’s name at First National – tuition for law school or whatever her heart desires. Consider it a wedding present. After all, I’m taking a vow of poverty – what do I need with it?”
“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Luke’s voice was thick with frustration.
“Yeah, Luke, I have,” Parker said with a melancholy smile, head bent. “Everything but how to make Katie fall in love with me like she’s in love with you.” He released a weighty sigh before his eyelids edged up, revealing a hint of tease. He arched a brow. “But if I had, all of us would have missed God’s proverbial boat, so it’s a good thing you’re the lady killer, McGee, and not me.” He shifted his suitcase with a tight smile. “Do me a favor, will you? Tell her family goodbye for me . . . and tell them I’m sorry. Then get your carcass back up there and get her through this. She needs you.” He held out his hand. “I’ll stay in touch.”
Luke stared at Parker’s hand and swallowed hard, water blurring his eyes. With a rush of emotion, he bypassed his hand and embraced him hard. “You better, Riley, because so help me, she’s going to need you when I leave for New York.”
Parker grinned. “You never were a good liar, McGee, not on your worst day.” With a firm grip to Luke’s shoulder, he turned and continued down the street, fading into the shadows as Luke’s gaze followed in a bleak stare.
Luke closed his eyes and suddenly became aware of the bone-chilling cold, feeling more like a failure than he’d ever felt before. God help him . . . why hadn’t he stayed in Philadelphia? He blew out a shaky breath and turned to head back to the office, determined to make this right. He’d stay until Carmichael hired a new man, but then he would leave. And Parker would have no choice but to come back. He would never leave Katie high and dry. Luke halted as a thought struck, and a chill skittered through him that had nothing to do with the weather.
Can I?
“Please, God – I can’t go through another week like this.” Katie’s nasal whisper fell on deaf walls in a lonely office where she’d just spent the most miserable eight days of her life. She sat at her desk, shoulders bent and head buried in her arms, weeping for what must be the hundredth time since the man she was to marry had walked out of her life.
Her jaw hardened with intent. Well, it was time for the tears to end. There had been tears when Parker left, and tears when Luke returned. Tears over the weekend and tears in her bed. Tears in Parker’s office during lunch hours and again on the lonely walks home. The result was red-rimmed eyes and a rusty voice that sounded like she was sick. And she was – heartsick over the pain she’d caused the two men she loved.
She wiped her eyes with a soggy handkerchief – the same handkerchief Luke had given her last week when he’d returned after trying to talk some sense into Parker. Katie had sobbed, and Luke had comforted, but his manner had been cautious and stiff, the steeled grief in his eyes fair warning that he would neither let Parker win . . . nor let Katie in.
“He’s determined to do this,” he’d said, teeth clenched as he hurled the door closed, rattling the bubbled window. “He’s enrolled at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in New York. That’s where he went this week.” He gouged shaky fingers through his hair, his eyes stormy. “But we’re not going to let him do this, Katie.”
He turned away, head in his hands, and then shocked her when he slammed h
is fist to the wall, jarring both her and the few pictures that now hung in the balance. She’d been told he had a temper, but she’d never really seen it until then. On the walk home, he had ranted and raved, obviously venting his keen frustration over “ruining their lives.” And then with no more than a stiff hug at the gate, he had left her, promising to do everything in his power to bring Parker back.
A promise he kept, but nothing more. He had clearly taken great pains to avoid her this week, spending his time behind closed doors or in meetings with Carmichael, approaching only Gladys or Bonnie Sue whenever he needed something done. The few times he did speak to her, his tone was professional and his eyes distant and cool, as if connecting with her in any way would violate some life-and-death vow he had made.
She glanced down at Parker’s ring, still on her left hand, and silently grieved over other vows that would never be taken. Eyes closed, she twisted the diamond on her finger, knowing full well she needed to remove it, but no strength or will at the moment to let the past go.
With a sodden sniff, she glanced up at the clock, noting that Luke’s meeting with Miss Lillian at the BSCG was running longer than usual. It was half past six and Katie had been working and weeping since they’d left – Gladys and Bonnie Sue for the weekend and Luke for his meeting. Seldom had she felt this awful, her sinuses a mass of congestion and fluid and grief, but it didn’t matter. Not tonight. Because tonight she needed to talk, if only for closure with the two men she loved. She hiked her chin with steel in her jaw. And talk she would . . . whether Luke McGee liked it or not.
Rising to her feet, she moved toward the window as if in a trance, eyes raw as she stared at the glass encrusted with frost. She blew her nose with Luke’s handkerchief and wanted to start crying all over again.
Luke. Parker had suspected – whether she had tipped her hand, or Luke had, or both – somehow he’d known that their love was not finished. Katie thought of the man who had encouraged her, coddled her, saved her from the pain of heartbreak when Luke had left, and her heart squeezed with agony at the hurt he must have felt. She loved him, had been ready to spend her life with him regardless of any feelings she still harbored for Luke. Why, Parker?
But she already knew. It was simple, really. Because he loved her . . . because he loved Luke . . . and because, as Luke had said, that was the caliber of man that Parker Riley was. A sob broke as she put the handkerchief to her mouth and closed her eyes. “God,” she whispered, “please tell me what to do.”
But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before . . .
The air stilled in Katie’s lungs, and the cold slithered her spine. She opened her eyes, staring not at the whorls of ice etched on the pane, but at a passage in her mind, the one from Philippians she’d read that very morning. She blinked, and the breath in her throat parted from her lips in short, shallow gasps as her pulse quickened in her veins. Could Parker be right – could this be God’s will after all?
“As much as I love you, Katie, I’d rather have God’s will than my own . . . for you, for me . . . And for Luke. Because therein lies God’s best.”
A gasp broke from her lips as she swayed on her feet, Parker’s words impacting her for the very first time.
God’s best.
She closed her eyes, and as cleansing as a sigh, the burden of her grief lifted from her shoulders to God’s. Could it be? His will – not Parkers, not Luke’s, and not hers. His – the Lover of their souls? The One who ordained a specific path for each of them – knowing full well that his plan and purpose was not only why they’d been created, but for their ultimate happiness as well. At the thought, the knot unraveled in her stomach and peace drifted through her body like a gentle breeze, as warm and soft as the air that blew from the radiator below, caressing her arms.
Luke. The breeze fluttered in her stomach. Parker’s gift to her . . .
And God’s?
She opened her eyes and rubbed her arms, wondering if in the shadow of her sorrow, she could truly accept this as “God’s will.” And more importantly – could Luke?
“Katie?”
She turned at the window, and her throat tightened at the sag of his shoulders, the tragic look in his eyes. She wanted to run to him, to bury herself in those strong arms and ease their grief together, this man she loved more than life itself. But something stopped her – a stubborn bent to his chin, lips pressed pale with resolution . . . and an air that told her the tragedy in his eyes extended well beyond Parker’s departure. She remained silent. Oh, Luke . . .
He glanced at the clock, his voice almost curt. “What are you still doing here?”
Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she slowly moved toward her desk, her heart surprisingly calm in the midst of Luke’s rejection and her pain over Parker. With eyes focused on Bobbie Sue’s report rather than Luke’s face, she absently fingered the stack of papers, her thumb creasing along the bottom edge. “We need to talk,” she whispered. “We can’t go on like this forever, never speaking, avoiding each other like the plague.” She glanced up, her heart in her throat. “Oh, Luke, what are we going to do?”
She heard his weary sigh and chanced a peek, watching him frown as he plucked his gloves off his hands and shoved them into his pockets. There was an edge of annoyance to the hard line of his mouth as he took his coat off and flung it on the coat rack. “Well, for starters, I told Carmichael I would stay on for a month, maybe two . . .” His eyes flicked up, and he frowned again. “Until he can hire a replacement.”
“You . . . don’t plan . . . to stay, then?” Her heart stopped, awaiting his answer.
The frown melted into compassion as he stripped off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his pinstripe shirt. He jerked his tie loose as if in frustration, but his voice was quiet and calm. “No, Katie, I don’t. Once Parker realizes that, he’ll be back – I promise.”
“I see.” Her fingers made another nervous sweep along the edge of the papers. “Oh!”
“What’s wrong?” He took a step forward.
She sucked on her finger while water blurred in her eyes. “Paper cut,” she said with a sudden heave, unable to stop tears from trickling her face.
“Oh, Katie,” he whispered, “please don’t – this is hard enough for me as it is.”
The taste of blood soured her tongue, merging with her frustration. “It’s hard for all of us, Luke McGee,” she said with a snap of her chin. “For Parker, who gave up our marriage, for you who said goodbye to a friend, and for me who not only lost a dear fiancé but has to work here day in and day out, wracked with guilt because I’m still in love with his best friend.” She rose to her feet, obstinence and anger strengthening her bones. “Parker’s not coming back, and we both know it. Take the job, Luke . . .”
Regret shadowed his eyes. “I can’t, Katie. We have to give him the chance.”
She rounded the desk slowly, heart racing as she walked toward him. “I know, and I feel the same way, truly. But I also know that for the first time in his life, Parker Riley is being a brick wall that neither of us will scale.”
Alarm flickered in his eyes as she approached. “No, Katie, don’t. My mind’s made up.”
Ignoring the sharpness of his tone, she moved in close, suddenly never surer of anything more in her life. Her gaze fused with his as she slowly took his hand in hers, his pale lips parted to emit tenuous breaths. She swallowed hard and caressed his palm. “Parker has given us a remarkable gift, Luke – a second chance to get it right. Take the job – please . . .”
“Katie, I can’t . . .” His chest rose and fell with labored breathing, as if he had just run a mile, and maybe he had. She stared at those blue eyes now etched with pain. It took a lot of energy to run away from your dreams.
Despite the pounding of her heart, a rare peace prevailed as she lifted his hand to her mouth and placed a gentle kiss in his palm. Her gaze never left his as she curled his fingers close
d with the embrace of her hand. “I love Parker Riley, Luke, and you know that. But God knows – and Parker knows – that I’m in love with you. And maybe . . . just maybe . . . it’s what God had in mind all along.”
He eased his hand away with a nervous shift of his throat. “I love you, Katie, you know that. But I’m not ready . . . for this . . . for us . . .”
“I’ll wait,” she said quietly. She lifted on tiptoe to cup his face with her hand while her thumb gently stroked the edge of his lip. “Take the job, Luke,” she whispered.
He groaned and swallowed her up in his arms, squeezing her so tightly that the breath left her lungs. “We don’t work well together,” he rasped. “We butt heads, Katie, and heaven knows you don’t take orders.”
“I can, and I will,” she gasped against the rough plane of his jaw. “Whatever you say.”
Shock cooled the blood in her veins when he suddenly pushed her away, his fingers gouging her arms as he held her at arm’s length. His hard, rapid breaths ticked away the seconds as he stared wild-eyed, a man caught in the crosshairs of guilt. “God, forgive me, what am I doing?”
Leaving her stunned and breathless, he quickly distanced himself, and all at once the stubbled jaw steeled again, along with the flinty blue of his eyes. “Don’t tempt me like this, Katie, it’s not right. Not with Parker’s ring on your finger and the memory of his kiss still warm on your lips.”
She swallowed hard and stared at Parker’s engagement ring, shocked at the calm she felt. As if the innate calm of the man who’d given this ring had infused into her soul somehow, giving her his peace as well. God’s peace. Closing her eyes, she drew in a quiet breath and slowly took the ring off. She looked up with a gentle gaze. “It was Parker’s decision to end it, Luke, not mine. Because he knew – knew that you and I belong together.” Longing misted in her eyes. “He wants you to marry me, Luke,” she whispered, “and so do I.”