Josie Day Is Coming Home (23 page)

At the realization, a helpless sigh of near-contentment
overcame her. Shocked, Tallulah glanced quickly at Ambrose to make sure he
hadn’t noticed.

Predictably, he had. But he’d misinterpreted it.

“Try some of my Mylanta. It’ll fix you right up.”

She smiled, her secret safe. The source of that sigh was
true enough, though. She wouldn’t be able to hide it forever. This trip had been
good for her, however much Tallulah hadn’t expected it to be. The cruise ship
was a cocoon of sameness, a reassuring regimen of blue skies, blue ocean waves,
and blue cocktails. After all the changes she’d endured since poor Ernest’s
passing, its constancy had felt like a blessing.

Bobbing around on the
S.S. Extravaganza
had taught
Tallulah a valuable lesson. Things could never really stay the same.

Even if a person wanted them to, they couldn’t. Human beings
required change, or they’d go stark raving mad. How else to explain the insane
dining options offered here? They ranged from early breakfasts to full
breakfasts, mid-morning snacks, light lunches, full lunches, brunches,
afternoon noshes, Grand Victorian teas, multicourse dinners, late-night munchies,
and gala midnight buffets—all in the course of twenty-four hours. There had to
be a master plan involved.

Fortified by the thought, Tallulah ordered another cocktail.
A virgin one. Yes, without
any
kick. She made the cabana boy lean very,
very close so she could order the alcohol-free version without alerting
Ambrose. He didn’t need to know that this constant proximity to his tediously
wholesome habits was beginning to rub off on her.

All the while, her attorney tapped industriously on his
computer. Tallulah found the familiar click-click of the keys ridiculously
reassuring. Things were moving forward now.
Life
was moving forward, and
she was moving right along with it.

“There. Initial contacts made,” Ambrose announced.
He lay one patrician hand atop his notebook’s hinged screen, surveying her with
a strange expression. “This ought to augment your portfolio nicely.”

“Good. I’d suggest you quit looking at me that way,
then. You resemble a lovesick moose. Frankly, it’s not appealing. I don’t know
how the former Mrs. Ambrose put up with it.”

He went on giving her that peculiar look. “This is a
big step. The last acquisition your husband was working on before…”
Ambrose cleared his throat. “Before everything.”

Tallulah frowned. She didn’t want to think about
before
.
Or, quite honestly,
afterward
. Or
everything
. Not yet. The damned
sunshine wasn’t
that
potent.

She grumbled.

“I mean it, Tallulah.” Ambrose’s voice softened.
“Ernest would be proud of you. For all you’ve done, for all your strength,
for all your courage. Very proud.”

A lump rose in her throat. Coughing, Tallulah tried to clear
it away. The ridiculous thing was as stubborn as her attorney. It wouldn’t
leave her alone, either.

“I’m proud of you, too,” Ambrose said.

She
humphed
. “Sentimental mush does not entitle
you to a larger retainer,” she pointed out. “Drink your V-8 juice
before its damned healthfulness starts affecting
my
thinking, too.”

Ambrose only smiled.

“Tonight,” he declared, “we’re celebrating.
I’m ordering a bottle of champagne and a private dinner, and you’re putting on
one of those fancy designer dresses from your stateroom, and we’re
celebrating.”

Considering it, Tallulah glanced at her attorney…her
friend. They’d worked together for a long time. Years. Eons. But he’d never
invited her to put on one of her cherished Chanel gowns just for him. She
wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” she asked.
“You missed your two o’clock application of SPF one billion. You might
need to go lie down instead.”

To her consternation, Ambrose only waited—with the damnable
patience of a man who cheerfully read six newspapers every morning before
breakfast. He shook his head, smiling slightly.

“We’re celebrating.”

“Fine. I insist on wearing my pearls.”

“You’ll look ravishing in them.”

Tallulah gave him a narrow-eyed look. “During your
morning jog around the promenade deck, did you bump your head?”

“No.”

She didn’t believe him. “I knew all that fresh air and
exercise was dangerous.”

“Be quiet.” He appeared to be attempting a stern
look. A smile kept intruding, and it was very unusual. “I have work to do.
Memos to write. E-mails to read. Look, here’s one from—”

“I don’t care who it’s from.” Flummoxed by this
bizarre change in his behavior, Tallulah frowned. Ambrose seemed positively
lighthearted. That wasn’t like him at all. “We were in the middle of
discussing our celebration plans.”

“That’s not strictly true. You agreed to our
plans—indirectly, I’ll admit, but I’m accustomed to that—by saying you planned
to wear your pearls. In reply, I stated the obvious—that you would look
ravishing in them. After which you attempted to divert my attention by
insulting my fitness routine. You never could accept a compliment.”

Tallulah stared. What was happening between them? It was
true that sealing the cruise line deal was a breakthrough of sorts for her. She
hadn’t been able to face the thought of finalizing Ernest’s unresolved
interests until now.

But this, with Ambrose….

Unable to cope with all the changes at once, she resorted to
the time-tested tactic of women everywhere—picking an argument. It was
childish, but she didn’t care. “None of this matters. I can see you’d
rather work than talk with me.”

Ambrose—dear, crotchety Ambrose—gave her an uncommonly
astute look. “You don’t believe that.”

Tallulah swept her gaze to his humming laptop computer.

“I see.” He snapped it shut, lifted it in his
arms, and carried it to the
Extravaganza
‘s railing. He hurled it
overboard.

“There.” He dusted off his palms. “Now about
our celebration—”

Oh, Ambrose
. He really meant it.

“Our celebration’s already begun.” Giving up her
first real smile of the past year, Tallulah eased sideways and patted her deck
chair. “Come into the sunshine, you old fart. We’ve got plans to
make.”

Oh, no. No way. Nobody ditched Josie like that and got away
with it.

I don’t talk about the future
.

Ha. As if
that
was going to hold water. No woman
alive would have accepted such a lame excuse for dodging a conversation.
Determined to get a straight answer—now that she’d recovered from her initial
shock—Josie bolted after Luke. They had a connection, damn it. He wasn’t
avoiding it with some cheesy exit line.

I don’t talk about the future
.

“You do now, buddy.”

Head held high, Josie veered for the front door. Luke owed
her an answer—one that made sense.

Outside, her bare feet struck the front porch floorboards.
At the same time a loud, familiar rumble hit the air, reverberating through her
body. Luke’s Harley. After riding on it with her arms clasped tight around him,
Josie recognized that dangerous rumble—and what it meant. She hurried down the
steps.

Too late. Luke roared past, grim-faced and headed in the
other direction.

She stared, disbelieving. It couldn’t be true, but it was.
Luke. Leaving.
Really
leaving. His T-shirt fluttered against his broad
back, buffeted by the wind. His shoulders tensed, his thighs gripped the
motorcycle’s seat, his whole body leaned toward escape. Without looking her
way, he revved the engine, then raced around the curve of the drive.

I don’t talk about the future
.

He couldn’t be gone, just like that. Like a bad boy out of a
movie, like a heartbreaker on a Harley. Gripping the porch post, Josie waited.
She listened to the motorcycle engine, poised to meet Luke halfway if he
decided to turn around.

Gradually that rumble faded.

Next it disappeared altogether…just like Luke.

Gawking at the empty drive, Josie realized the truth. Luke
wasn’t coming back. Not now, and maybe not for some time. She might be attached
to him, but if he felt the same way about her—and she’d have bet her last
sequined showgirl’s halter top he did—he wasn’t giving in.

But why? What in the world was in his future that could send
him roaring away like that? Stymied, Josie drummed her nails on the porch post.
She’d known men who couldn’t commit. Men who refused to share, who wouldn’t
open up, who hid things such as a wife and twin daughters in Topeka. But Luke
wasn’t like them. He’d told her lots of things about himself. They’d laughed,
they’d talked…they’d started falling in love.

Or at least she had.

Now Josie felt like a fool. She’d bared her hopes to Luke,
and for what? For a choking waft of exhaust and a prime view of his motorcycle
prowess in action, that’s what. At the moment, she wasn’t in the mood to admire
his form, finesse, or expert cornering, either.

Frustrated, she smacked her palm against the porch post. The
resulting sting restored a little of her clearheadedness—as did the sound of
male laughter carrying across the lawn from the carriage house.

TJ
. He’d know what the story was on Luke.

Josie grabbed the wrought iron pull on the carriage house’s
old-fashioned entrance. She slid open the heavy door with superhuman strength,
powered by indignation and determination. Inside, a pungent whiff of motor oil,
cold engine parts, and burned Pop-Tarts greeted her.

This was where Luke and TJ spent much of their time when not
working on the rest of the estate. Josie didn’t get the appeal of disassembled
motorcycles, hydraulic lifts, and grimy engine parts. But she knew Luke loved
it, so she didn’t mind leaving things as they were for now.

Spotting TJ with a shop rag in hand, she headed toward him.
She maneuvered past two motorcycles and a battered car being worked on—her
trusty Chevy convertible, with its hood up and the engine exposed. The sight
stopped her. She’d thought Luke had been repairing the starter, but now it
looked as though TJ was…never mind. She had more important things to deal
with.

“TJ, I need some answers,” she announced.

TJ angled his head from beneath the hood, looking surprised
but prototypically cheerful. “Hey, Josie! How’s it going?”

“Not very well. Luke’s gone. He peeled out on his
Harley and drove toward the highway.”

With a shrug, TJ wiped his face with the shop rag.
“Don’t worry about it. Luke does that all the time. It just means he’s
thinking.”

Thinking. Hmmm
. “Good thinking or bad
thinking?”

“Just thinking.” TJ scratched his head, then shot
a glance toward the staircase leading to the upstairs apartment portion of the
carriage house. “He’s always done that.”

“You’ve known Luke a long time, then?”

“I guess so. Five or six years, maybe. Since we started
working together for the first time.”

Excellent. That meant TJ was the perfect informant. Settling
in, determined to get some answers about Luke’s mysterious future, Josie leaned
one hip on her car’s driver’s-side door. She watched TJ as he examined the
engine.

“So, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.” He pointed one greasy finger toward the
workbench. “But first hand me that socket wrench, would you?”

She did.

He stared at the tool in his hand. “You actually did
it. How’d you know which one was the socket wrench?”

“I helped my dad fix stuff sometimes when I was a kid.
It was kind of fun, actually.” She missed those days. Glancing up, she
caught his skeptical look. “What’s the matter? Did you think all showgirls
were born wearing a G-string and a headdress?”

“Nah. But I kinda hoped they sprouted that stuff when
they turned nineteen and never wiggled out of it.”

She couldn’t help but grin. “
You
try having a
permanent wedgie. You’d ‘wiggle out of it’ sometimes, too.”

“I guess so.” TJ tightened something with the
wrench, then leaned back to examine the engine. He glanced sideways at
something Josie couldn’t see. He frowned.

“So, about Luke,” she began.

“Right. What do you want to know?”

“We were talking about the future a little while ago,
and—”

A clatter near the stairs stopped her in mid-sentence.
Surprised, she looked up to see a man galumph from the upstairs apartment
carrying two cans of Pepsi. He stopped cold at the sight of Josie.

“Dad! What are you doing here?”

Obviously caught off guard, Warren Day only stared at her.
Then he started to smile. Josie’s spirits rose. An instant later, an uncertain
look flashed across his weathered face, then a mulish one. She plummeted back
to earth again.

“Did you come out here to fix the cable? Luke and TJ
said you installed it,” she said, striving to sound normal—to sound as
though her heart
hadn’t
suddenly started pounding like crazy. “I
guess the SuperCable wiring always was a little touchy, right?”

She gave an awkward titter—all the laughter she could manage
to lighten the situation. Her father hesitated.

Josie held her breath. This felt completely ridiculous. She
was treating her own father as though he were a shy wildebeest at the local
zoo. But maybe that was what he needed, she reasoned. That and a nice bribe of
his favorite episodes of
M*A*S*H
on DVD.

He cleared his throat, then glanced at TJ. “I didn’t
know you had company, TJ. I’ll just take off, then. We can always watch that
game some other time. See you later.”

Josie hadn’t heard so many words from him all strung
together since she’d come back to town. But, she couldn’t help but notice, none
of those words had been directed at her.