This Loving Feeling (A Mirror Lake Novel) (10 page)

“I thought it was because of that stupid spiky hair of his.”

“I’m just asking you to be nice to him.”

“I can’t be nice to a guy who’s going nowhere, Sam. I honestly don’t know what you see in him. I thought we raised you better.”

She was crying. Because of
him.
He’d never be good enough, just as he hadn’t been good enough for every family looking to adopt who had passed him by. He was too old, too dark, too rebellious. And underneath it all, he was just too alone.

He tossed the flowers into the bushes and left. Her family was never going to accept him. She could do a lot better. He’d always known it was only a matter of time.

The next week, Mr. Clinker had a heart attack and decided to close the business. And Martha Ellis was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, his world was in a tailspin.

And then Sam’s brother died.

A cold, terrible idea came to him. If he broke up with her, she’d hate him, but she’d heal. She’d have her family. She needed them, and he was only creating tension there. Someday he would leave town and figure out his life. Figure out how to become someone. But right now he would be there for Martha Ellis.

So he let Sam go. And he hadn’t had a day of peace since.

The next summer, Martha died and he had the near miss with the chicken truck. Sam had sat by his side until he was out of danger. The year had done nothing to stop his longing for her, but by then she’d met Harris. There was no way Lukas could compete with a guy like that, who was educated and rich—everything he wasn’t. He became consumed with the feeling that he had to get out, had to find his own life. Become something better than what his parents had become. In his heart, he knew that doing that in Mirror Lake was impossible. So he did what he did best: he left Sam behind for good.

CHAPTER 8

If not cigarettes, then coffee
. That was Lukas’s motto for the day. He’d just downed his third cup and was sitting on the patio talking to his agent, Tony. Stevie and Mrs. Panagakos had gone for a walk down the road to the lakeside park.

“. . . a sold out venue in L.A. next month . . . the last album’s just gone platinum . . .
Rolling Stone
wants an interview and
GQ
’s offering a photo op for the cover and a feature article.”
Blah, blah, blah
. Lukas drowned out the business talk. Bored, he watched the fine tremor in his hands with a strange sense of awe. He’d never been much for tripping out on too much caffeine and now he knew why. He punched
nicotine patch
into the reminder notes on his phone. Right next to
more milk
and
Lucky Charms
, which Stevie had just informed him was his favorite cereal. Turns out there was a way to get him to drink milk after all.

“This is a lot of attention for an up-and-coming artist, so we’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity . . .” Tony was still rambling on. Lukas didn’t mind working hard. In fact, he
loved
working hard. He loved writing songs and appreciated that he was lucky enough to be able to perform them. He just hated that he was a brand, a commodity that everyone seemed to want a piece of. At the risk of having no pieces left for himself, no privacy, and no life.

A boat approached the dock, a shiny twenty-five-foot white-and-blue speedboat with blue stripes and a cabin. The guy behind the wheel tossed two ropes to the dock, then jumped out and tied them to the dock cleats.

Lukas didn’t have to guess who the guy was. Harris looked eerily the same as when they’d met six years ago—the same thick head of wavy light brown hair, the same hawkish nose. He pushed his aviators high on his head and put his tanned hands on his hips, his pristine white shorts and white polo reflecting in the sunshine. “Samantha!” he called from the dock, looking around. “Sam! I’m here!”

Sam walked out of the main house’s front door, carrying a picnic basket and a towel, wearing a bright pink swim cover-up and flip-flops, clearly ready for a day on the water. She jogged down to the dock and flung her arms around him in that one-hundred-and-one-percent way of hers, making Lukas’s gut twist a little. He shouldn’t watch, but he simply couldn’t turn away. Harris kissed her but then backed himself up to arm’s length, smoothing his mussed hair carefully back into place.

A strange feeling churned in the pit of Lukas’s stomach. Acidy distaste, mixed with dislike and a big stab of jealousy. He added
Tums
to his grocery list.

This thing with Sam was all his own fault. She’d turned into an obsession because he’d picked the wrong damn time to develop a conscience. Or to be stupid. He’d let thoughts of being a nobody consume him. He’d been desperate not to end up like his parents.

That nauseous feeling was back that told him he’d screwed up, bad. The thought of Harris with her . . . he couldn’t even go there, because every cell in his body believed back then that Harris was a complete idiot and she could do a lot better. Maybe Harris had changed, but people usually didn’t.

Ironic. That Lukas had stepped away because he thought he wasn’t good enough. Only to have
him
get her. It was wrong. Bone-marrow-deep wrong.

Lukas squeezed his eyes shut. Dammit to hell anyway, he should’ve handled things so much differently. All these years of messed-up feelings, ones that had poured over into his very best songs. This inability to move on would never have happened if he hadn’t pushed her away.
That
was why she’d stuck to the corners in his brain like spiderwebs that wouldn’t wipe away for all these years.

Oh, Samantha
.

She’d dated Harris for the past six years. Why hadn’t she married him?

Thank God she
hadn’t.

Wait. There’d been no vows, no church ceremony, no noisy Rushford family celebration with all the big, burly brothers rallying around their little sis, all the town old ladies and the cousins and . . .

She wasn’t married.

Not that Lukas thought he still had a chance with her.

Did he?

Out in the water, Harris pulled the front rope onto the boat and took the wheel, Sam settling in behind him, stretching out her lovely legs on one of the side seats. Harris kicked the boat into reverse and moved away from the dock.

Except the
putt-putt
of the motor suddenly sputtered out. From the patio, Lukas saw Harris’s startled expression as his steering became ineffective and the boat began to drift. Sam walked to the back of the boat and pointed, and Harris got up and followed her.

A normal guy would have realized he’d forgotten to pull the rear rope in, which had gotten wrapped around the propeller and seized up the engine. A normal guy would’ve also jumped overboard and pulled the hell out of the front rope to get the boat back to the dock. Guess Harris didn’t want to risk ruining that bright white outfit.

Lukas found himself running down the grassy yard to the dock before he could think his decision through. The opportunity to watch Harris flounder a bit more was too good to pass up. And, oh yeah, he was not going to miss a chance to save the day. Show Sam his special skills. For a guy who’d spent years making engines work, a seized propeller was not a big deal.

As Lukas approached the dock, Harris said, “Gosh darn it, Sam, get out of my way. I can get it.” He didn’t push her, but his tone was prickly and condescending enough, making the hair on the back of Lukas’s neck stand up. Once an idiot, always an idiot.

“Hey, there, Harris,” Lukas called from the dock. “Why don’t you pass me that rope and we’ll see if we can’t pull you back to the dock?”

“The prop seized. Pulling me back in isn’t going to help that.”

Lukas suppressed an eye roll. “Um, you’re right, but it will help me to be able to help you.” Lukas grinned at Sam, who tossed the rope to him. It landed with a soft splash about six feet from the dock. Lukas jumped into the water from the dock with his pajama pants on and grabbed the rope.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Harris said as Lukas used the rope to haul the boat back to the dock. Then he pulled himself up and out of the water and tied the boat back to the dock cleats.

“I just wasn’t thinking,” Harris said, a bit flustered. “Sam was chattering on about the weather or something and I was a little distracted.”

What did she see in this guy, a guy who treated her like an abused employee instead of a girlfriend? Sam’s face had turned red. She bent her head low to examine the problem with the engine, but Lukas could sense her embarrassment.

“I’d be a little distracted, too,” Lukas said, “if I had a beautiful woman on my boat.” He winked at Sam, who did roll her eyes—but there may have been just a trace of a smile turning up her pretty lips. Any guy who didn’t own up to his own mistakes was no man at all in his book.

Lukas jumped back into the water and swam to the rear of the boat near where Sam sat. “Tell your boyfriend not to have any funny ideas about starting the engine until I’m done with this.” He reached underwater to unwrap the rope, which had coiled around the propeller at least twenty times. When he was done, he brought the end of the rope back to the dock.

“Lukas, thanks so much,” Sam said. Lukas sat on the dock, wiping the wet hair out of his eyes.

Harris reached over the boat and shook his hand. “I appreciate your help. Nice to see you again, buddy.” Lukas knew Harris well enough to know he was only being nice for Sam’s sake. He wondered what he
really
thought, especially after Lukas had kissed her at the kids’ prom. Harris draped an arm around Sam and kissed her on the forehead. “Okay, honey, let’s try to get our day started again, shall we?”

“Well, thanks again.” Sam smiled and glanced at Lukas, but a sense of awkwardness came with the gaze. She quickly looked away as Harris started the motor.

Lukas gave a wave as they puttered away from the dock, and he headed back up to the house.

He hoped they had a nice day. He also hoped Harris figured out that Lukas was staying in the guesthouse and that it made him jealous as hell. Lukas wasn’t a man with a normal job, a house with a white picket fence, and tons of experience with a loving family that left him capable of sustaining a real relationship. But he knew how to treat a woman with respect, to never demean or condescend or embarrass her in front of others.

Maybe Lukas wasn’t the kind of guy Sam deserved. No, he would never be that traditional, upstanding type. But he’d be damned if dickbrain Harris was either.

The fiery remnants of a salmon-and-pink sunset streaked across the sky as Sam dragged a picnic basket back up the hill. “Look, we haven’t got much time to seal the deal,” Harris said into his cell phone, trailing behind her. “I’ll meet you first thing in the morning and we can go over things, okay?” He’d seemed to spend half the day on his phone, always multitasking, often distracted by business or staring out into the distance at the pristine blue of the lake, lost in his own thoughts.

Harris loved her. She was sure of it. She just had to give him space, understand the demands of his job and his career. Understand his stress. That’s what love did.

Now more than ever, Sam needed to feel that special connection that—well, that seemed to be missing lately. She’d hoped that a peaceful day on the lake would bring it back, especially now when she needed reassurance that all was well in her world, that she was on the right track to the life she’d always dreamed of.

She
was
on the right track. She wasn’t about to let the sudden reappearance of an old flame derail her perfectly planned future. Getting involved with Lukas again would be like jumping from twenty thousand feet with a chute you weren’t fully sure would open. Too risky, too foolish.

Harris walked up the stairs to the porch, still talking on the phone, but before he could reach the door, she slid in front of him, setting the picnic basket down on the porch. She pressed her back against the door and waited for him to approach.

“Harris.”

He tossed her a nod and held up a finger.

She sighed. “Harris,” she said again.

On impulse, she snatched his phone, pressed “End” and pitched it onto the porch swing.

“What was that for?” She finally had his full attention, even if he was just the teensiest bit pissed. “That was a very important call!”

Okay, maybe a lot pissed.

“This is also very important. You’ve been on the phone all day and I want to know what’s bothering you.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he hedged.

“Oh, come on. You’ve been distracted for weeks.”

“Everything I’ve got is riding on this court case. Surely you can understand that.”

“I’m trying to understand. I know how stressed you’ve been lately. I know this case has been trial by fire but I’m so proud of you.”

Harris touched her arm. Rubbed it up and down, more in a friendly than a romantic way. “It has been a difficult case, Sam. I haven’t had much downtime.”

She took hold of his shirt and tugged him closer to her. “I can help you with that. I was thinking we could take a bottle of wine and a blanket and go out on the hill under the pine trees and . . .”

“And be attacked by mosquitoes? I don’t think so.” He glanced at his watch. “Besides, it’s getting late and I haven’t even had a chance to pack yet. My meetings in New York start at noon tomorrow and my flight’s at 6:00 a.m. I’ve got to get back to my place.”

“It’s just that I’m worried about you. You need a break from all this stress.”
And I need you to tell me you want me. That you love me.

She wanted him to hold her, whisper sweet things in her ear, and tell her he simply couldn’t live without her. Because she needed to forget about a certain Greek rock star who reminded her of a time when she’d been more willing to take chances. When she’d been determined to hold out for true love regardless of the consequences.

Well, there was no perfect love. Everyone was imperfect, right? Love was hard to find, and you had to be forgiving and learn to adapt and compromise.

Harris stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. Yet for some reason, she resisted relaxing into him.

“I’m really beat. And yeah, the stress has been pretty bad. I hope you can forgive me for this but I’m really exhausted. I promise you, Sam, everything will be back to normal in a couple of weeks when this case is over. I’ll see you next weekend, okay?” He pecked her on the cheek and left.

Sam felt a little stunned. The moodiness and the irritability she could understand, but was it normal to go so long without sex? She felt pretty sure two months was so not right, even with the stress he was under.

Harris would never cheat on her. He was too upstanding for that.

He loved old people. And dogs. He was honest.

If she was totally honest, she had to admit she was secretly a little relieved he was gone. Who was she to criticize, when she kept replaying in her mind that hot smoking kiss that had tasted of danger and felt like a cavalcade of shooting stars that Lukas had planted on her lips the other night in front of half the school?