Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish (16 page)

She saw the flash of a dolphin out in the sound, and closed her eyes for a second against her agony.

Gran had been wrong. She wasn't like the first Chloe. She didn't have the strength to save the man she loved.

H
e was doing what he had to do. Luke repeated the words to himself as the small boat chugged up to the dock in Caldwell Cove.
What he had to do.
Even Chloe must recognize that. She hadn't spoken to him all the way across the sound.

Just as well. He was furious at the thought of her betrayal. He should be used to that. It was business. But not Chloe. Chloe didn't do things like that.

She eased the boat into the dock, and he looped the rope around the piling and made it tight. Quickly he climbed out, brushing at the water stains on his slacks.

It wasn't the way he'd choose to appear at an important meeting, but it would have to do.

Do you ever think about what God wants you to do?
Chloe's voice echoed in his mind, and he blocked it out.

He turned to her. “I assume you're going to the attorney's office, too. You may as well ride with me.”

Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she shook her head. “I'll walk.”

A spurt of anger surprised him. “Don't be ridiculous. You've just spent two hours with me. Another five minutes isn't going to compromise you.”

For an instant she just stared at him, and he couldn't read her usually expressive face. Then she jerked a nod and stalked to the car.

He followed, unable to reject the thought that swept through him. He cared about those five minutes. He cared because they could be the last ones he'd ever spend in her company. After today, he'd probably never see her again.

Against his will, he took a quick sideways glance at her as she slid into the seat next to him.
He'd never see her again.
It was like having a piece of himself cut away. Chloe knew him better than anyone else in his life.

And he knew
her
better. The thought stuck. He knew Chloe bone deep. He knew what she could do, and what she couldn't. And she couldn't have connived to strand him on Angel Isle so he'd miss the meeting. She couldn't. His certainty shocked him.

He was still grappling with it when he pulled up in front of the office of Caldwell Cove's only attorney. Chloe jumped out as if she couldn't bear to be in his company any longer.

But he was out and around the car before she could reach the door. “Chloe, wait.”

He grasped her arm, and it was like grasping a live wire. He felt the shock right to his heart. He released her as she swung toward him.

“What I said before—about you plotting with Theo to maroon me on the island.” This was incredibly awkward to say with her looking at him as if he were an insect. “If you didn't, I'm sorry for what I said.”

She just continued to stare at him, and he realized he'd been wrong about her look. She wasn't looking at him as if he were an insect. She was looking at him as if he had a repugnant and possibly contagious illness.

“It really doesn't matter now, does it.” She turned and walked into the office.

He followed, feeling emptier than he had in a long time. She was right. It didn't matter.

 

Preston James was a fussy, probably inefficient elderly man who'd obviously known the Caldwell family forever. Luke was prepared to find him trouble to deal with, but the paperwork had been drawn up as he'd requested. Ten more minutes and this would all be over.

James gestured them to seats around a long mahogany table that looked as if it belonged in someone's dining room. Chloe, her parents, the twins and Miranda lined up in the chairs on one side. Luke took his place across from them, alone.

“Well, I guess we all know why we're here.” James put documents in front of Luke and Clayton. “Take one more look at this, please.” His comment seemed to be directed more at Clayton than at Luke.

Chloe's mother put her hand on her husband's. His children seemed to draw closer to him. They might not agree with what he was doing, but they were there to support him. They'd stand by him, no matter what happened.

The attorney put down a pen in front of Luke, and it clicked against the table, the only sound in the office. No, not the only sound. Luke could hear his own heart beating. A wave of panic swept over him, like a riptide pulling him to the bottom of the ocean.

When was the last time you asked God what He wanted from you?

Images flickered through his mind, so quickly he could barely identify them, as if he were drowning and his life was passing before his eyes—the Rev, beaming with pride when Luke's college scholarship came through; the day he'd received his MBA, with no one there to help him celebrate; his first office, barely bigger than a broom closet.

His pulse pounded in his ears. Was he having a heart attack? He tried to focus on the document, but other pictures blocked it out. Chloe—hugging her grandmother, frowning over her brother's misdeeds, saving the dolphin. Chloe, looking at him with all her generous heart in her gaze, saying she loved the man she thought he was, inside.

What do You want from me, God?

The question he'd avoided all his life thundered in his mind, ripped from his very soul.

What do You want from me?

He was vaguely aware of the lawyer saying something, vaguely realized the others were looking at him strangely.

“Are you ready to sign, Mr. Hunter?” The man held the pen out to him.

The answer he'd tried to escape pooled in his mind, crystal clear.

“No.” He stood, scraping his chair back. He looked at Clayton. “The offer is withdrawn.”

He turned and walked out.

 

Chloe stood on the dock alone, watching the sunset paint the sky with pink and purple. Alone. She'd struggled through the rest of this unbelievable day, trying to get her loving family to leave her alone.

After they'd finished wondering and exclaiming and praising God for the unexpected turn of events in the lawyer's office, the advice had begun.
Go after him, Chloe.
That was the gist of it.
Go after him. He did the right thing, in the end, so go after him.

She couldn't, not now. Her heart ached. Luke was fighting it out with Dalton, and more importantly with God. This part he had to do alone. The only thing she could do now was pray, and she'd been doing that with all her strength for the past hour.

You showed me the truth about myself, Lord. Please be with Luke. Show him the person he was meant to be…. And bring him back to me. I don't want this to be a selfish prayer, Lord. But bring him back to me.

She heard a step on the dock. When she turned, Luke was there.

For a moment he just stood, looking at her. She met his eyes, half afraid of what she might find there.

Relief swept through her. Peace. That was what she saw at last in his eyes. Peace.

“You came back.” She couldn't seem to find any other words. “You came back.”

He nodded, stepping closer. But not touching her. “I had some things to take care of.” He grimaced. “With Dalton Resorts.”

“What happened?” Dalton wouldn't have taken it well, she knew that. She knew exactly what Luke had risked by his actions—the vice-presidency, the future he'd planned for himself.

“Let's just say I'm not in the running for vice-president any longer.”

“I'm sorry.”

“I'm not.” He shrugged. “Funny, I never thought I'd say that, but I'm not. Anyway, I finally talked Dalton into considering another site in the area. I'll be staying long enough to find it. Then—well, I've had a lot of thinking to do today about where my life goes next. You know, don't you?”

“Wrestling with God. That's what Gran calls it. Wrestling with God.”

“Exactly.” His face looked relaxed, almost younger. “I'd managed to avoid that all my life, and all of a sudden, thanks to you, I couldn't anymore.”

The last bit of fear she'd been holding onto vanished. Whatever happened between them, Luke had found his way back to his Father. “Not me,” she said. “You did this on your own.”

“Only because you made me face it. ‘Have you asked what God wants of your life?' That's what you said. That's what wouldn't let me go.”

Gran had said Chloe would have to rescue him, and Chloe had thought she couldn't—known she couldn't in her own strength. But she hadn't done it alone.

“If I said the right words, it was because God gave them to me.”

Luke reached out then, touching her cheek gently. “I know. God made a lot of things clear to me, once I started listening—” His voice broke suddenly, and he cleared his throat. “I looked at your father, willing to sacrifice something he loved for the sake of honor. And I knew that's the kind of man God wants me to be.”

Her heart was so full she couldn't speak, and tears filled her eyes. She let them spill over onto her cheeks, and Luke wiped them away, his fingertips warm on her skin.

“That's the man I've always seen, inside,” she whispered. “An honorable man. The man I love.”

Luke spread his hands wide, empty. “This is all I have to offer, Chloe. Just myself, and an uncertain future. Will you have me?”

She stepped into his outstretched arms and felt them close around her.

“That's all I ever wanted,” she said, heart overflowing with love and gratitude. “Just you.”

Two months later

“C
ome away from that door, Chloe Elizabeth Caldwell. Do you want the groom to see you before the ceremony?”

Gran closed the door into the sanctuary, but not before Chloe had seen St. Andrew's filled to capacity with family and friends. They'd cheerfully overflowed to the groom's side, taking the place of the family Luke didn't have.

Even Cousin Matt was there, all the way from Indonesia this time. The faintest shadow clouded her happiness. Something was wrong with Matt. She'd sensed it, and so had Gran. Something aside from the wedding had brought him home.

Keep him in Your hands, Lord. Let him find what he seeks here on Caldwell Island.

“It's all right, Gran.” Chloe squeezed her grandmother's hand. “Theo's keeping Luke safely out of sight.” Theo, having been struck dumb by Luke asking him to be the best man, had recovered to a determination to be the best best man anyone had ever seen.

Miranda, her long skirt flowing about her, knelt to adjust the folds of cream silk around Chloe's ankles, and her mother fastened the last button on the long sleeves of the dress she'd worn for her own wedding.

“Perfect,” she said, smiling through a sheen of tears. “Just perfect.”

Perfect,
Chloe echoed silently. How could it not be perfect, when she was marrying the only man she'd ever love, the man God had chosen for her.

The door opened, and Sammy popped his head in. “The Rev says they're ready when you are.”

Miranda frowned at him, ready to correct him for using Luke's nickname for Reverend Tom, but Chloe shook her head. Reverend Tom had become part of the family in the few days since he'd arrived to assist with the ceremony. Chloe had been prepared to love him on sight, and she had.

It was thanks to his wise counsel that Luke had taken a job with the Sonlight Center, once the new Dalton hotel had been sited on the land they bought from Uncle Jeff, next to the yacht club. Dalton was happy, Caldwell Cove was happy with its new source of income, and Luke had found a job that would let him pay back a little of what had been done for him.

And, as if to round out her happiness, they were living back in Caldwell Cove, where she could use her skills at the inn and be a volunteer at the center. They were both doing things that mattered. They'd both come home.

“There.” Gran opened the box she held and lifted out the creamy lace veil—the one Caldwell brides had worn since the first Chloe. It fluttered over Chloe's hair, light as an angel's wing. “Now you're ready.”

She pushed the door open. Daniel stood ready to escort their mother, and David offered his arm to Gran with a gallant bow. Miranda started Sammy down the aisle with his precious cargo of wedding rings, then blew a kiss to Chloe as she took her place.

Her father held out his arm. “Ready, Chloe-girl?”

She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, feeling his strength. She let her gaze drift across the small sanctuary, treasuring every inch of it. Even the bracket where the dolphin had stood was filled with the arrangement of beach roses and baby's breath that Miranda had put there.

Finally she looked at Luke. His eyes met hers, and she could see his love for her shining across the length of the church.

Thankfulness filled her soul. She squeezed her father's arm. “I'm ready,” she said.