Flower Girl Bride (8 page)

“You see him?” Luke pointed with the oversize, manly man metal spatula at the junior tornado on the beach. “That's my boy. I bet he'll be a demolition crew foreman when he grows up.”

Sam was still spinning, but there was nothing left of our
village as far I as I could tell. “Only if he gets to be the one operating the wrecking ball or detonating the explosives.”

“You know him well.”

I turned back to him, needing to know if he was being serious or just reminding me of our discussion the other night and how
little
I knew his son. But he was smiling. When he didn't look away immediately, my cheeks warmed, but I couldn't help smiling back at him.

“Just a guess,” I answered.

Glancing away, Luke pushed back the lid of the grill and turned the hot dogs he'd brought for Sam. Why anyone would choose meat by-products and fillers instead of a big slab of steak I would never understand. I'd just come to the conclusion that it had to be a kid thing when Luke spoke again over his shoulder.

“I thought a lot about the things you said the other night.”

“Look, Luke, I really overstepped my boundaries that night, and—”

“And you were right about a lot of things,” he said, interrupting me and finishing my sentence with his own take on the subject. “My spending too much time at work and away from Sam, for instance.”

He patiently turned several more hot dogs. Just how many could one little boy eat? And just how long could the boy's dad pause before finishing what he'd started to say.

Finally, he lowered the spatula and turned back to me. “I'd told myself it was okay because Sam wasn't
with strangers. He had family members around him whenever he wasn't with me.”

“It is good that he has the chance to spend time with Marcus and Yvonne,” I threw in, not certain why I defended him now when the other night I'd been so critical of him.

With nervous hands, I captured my mop in a temporary ponytail at my nape. “Do you know how blessed he is to have grandparents living nearby? Or to have living grandparents at all?”

“He's lucky to have them, especially now that Nicole is gone, but that doesn't take away my responsibility as his dad. He needs me most of all, and I need to make him my priority.”

“Yes, but—”

“Yes but nothing. I dropped the ball here, and I wanted to thank you for reminding me to pick it up.”

He paused long enough to open the grill again and turn the slabs of red meat. “How do you like your steak? Still mooing? Charred to ashes?”

“How about somewhere in between those two, but more toward the ashes side than the mooing one, okay?”

I stepped closer and examined his progress as he sliced into the T-bones with a knife. They were still too pink for my taste. Removing the hot dogs, he placed them on a platter he'd covered in foil, and then he sealed them with a second piece of foil before setting the platter on the grill's counter area. He removed some other food and set it aside, keeping it warm on another foil-covered platter.

I waited until he'd closed the lid and laid aside his
grilling tools before I spoke again. “You're welcome, I guess. About the reminder.” It pleased me more than I cared to admit that he'd valued my advice.

Stepping to the deck's railing and resting his forearms on the expanse of wood, Luke studied his son playing on the sand below us. I settled beside him, letting the wind off the water push my hair back from my face. Neither of us seemed to need conversation for a few minutes as we let the serenity of the place envelop us.

At least that was what I was doing. I wondered what Luke thought when he saw this sun, this sand and this vast pool of water that God had formed with His own hands. A week ago, I remembered Luke mentioning they had to get up for church, so maybe he'd already noticed God's handprints on this place before I'd opened my eyes to see them.

I almost expected him to mention those awesome handprints when he spoke again, but he returned to our earlier subject. “For the last four days, I've picked up Sam by no later than five-fifteen, making sure we got home early enough to sit down together for dinner.”

“That's great.”

“My mother practically went into shock on Tuesday when I showed up. You'd have thought she wasn't used to seeing me in daylight.”

I could tell he was going for self-deprecating humor, but it was revealing more than he probably intended. “How did your boss react to you leaving early?”

That he immediately stiffened suggested that all was not well at Heritage Hill Real Estate Development. “Clyde will just have to get used to it.”

“Sam probably enjoyed having dinners with his dad.” I managed not to mention my sadness for Sam that meals with his dad were the exception rather than the rule. No more unsolicited parenting advice from me. Once bitten, twice shy, and I'd already learned that when cornered, Luke could strike out, and his bites stung.

Luke turned to face me and lifted a quizzical brow. “Were you listening when I told you about all his tantrums this week?”

“He probably wanted to keep it a secret that he was happy to spend time with you,” I said with a grin.

“That's probably it.”

“Or maybe your cooking stinks.”

“You're about to find out if that's true.”

“Lucky me.” And poor Luke. When he'd been on his best behavior, his son had been on his worst. “I'm sorry Sam's been throwing tantrums.”

“It's not your fault. It's mine for giving in to his demands.” He started for the stairs that led to the beach and motioned for me to follow.

“He's sure been a perfectly behaved sweetheart today,” I said from behind him as we descended the steps.

Turning his head to the side, he answered, “Wouldn't you be sweet if you got your way.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Not all of us can be Dad-of-the-Year.”

“You're a good dad, Luke.”

He stopped so quickly at the bottom of the steps that I had to brace my hand on his back to keep from barreling into him. I tried to ignore the way the muscles in
his shoulder bunched under my touch. My hand fell away as he turned back to me.

“You didn't have to say that.”

His gaze was so intense, as if he was trying to determine if I really meant what I'd said. How could I not? And why would it matter so much to him what I thought?

“I didn't have to, but it's true. You love Sam. Anyone can see that.”

His attention moved to the wavy-haired boy in question, who was using his shovel again to dig a gaping hole in the middle of the beach. Sam appeared too preoccupied with his project to notice us. A father's pride danced in Luke's expression. I wondered if there could ever be anything more attractive than a father's love for his child.

Together we started toward Sam. I caught Luke glancing sidelong at me.

“You probably see a lot of bad dads in your work.”

“That's just it. Most of the time I
don't
see them. We work with a mostly at-risk student population, so many of the children in my caseload don't have a father present in the home.”

We had reached the first pile of sand toys that were spread across the beach, so Luke crouched to collect them, but he tilted his head to the side to let me know he was still listening.

“So often, these dads leave the women in their lives behind to raise their children without even the benefit of child support.” Even Alan hadn't deserted the mother of his child, but that still couldn't prevent him from being a loser in my mind.

“No wonder you were so worried about Sam when
I came late,” he said as he stuffed two pails and a frog-shaped sand mold into a mesh bag.

At first I wondered if Luke had read my thoughts about my ex-husband, and I worried about just how skilled a mind reader he was, but he'd only responded to what I'd said aloud. That was just as well. It wouldn't be fair for him to be great with kids and animals and a mind reader, too. God just wouldn't give one person such an unfair wealth of skills, would he?

“Anybody can be a father,” he said. “It takes a real man to be a dad.”

His comment jerked me back from my journey of envy. I'd heard that saying many times, but it sounded so wise coming from Luke's lips. He was that real man he spoke of, in every way, and it was all I could do not to tell him so. That would be a conversation killer if I ever heard one. The conversation ended there, anyway, but without the strangeness my comment would have caused.

In the pair of beach sandals I'd bought earlier in the week as a gift to my poor, overheated feet, I traipsed over to where Sam was digging for new worlds beneath Mantua's rocky beach. Luke followed me, barefoot.

Sam looked up, for the first time noticing that we'd joined him on the beach. “When do we eat? I'm hungry.”

“You ought to be,” I told him. “The destruction of worlds can sure work up an appetite.”

Sam tilted his head to the side. “What's an appetite?”

“It's your hungry belly,” Luke told him, crouching down to tickle the spot he'd mentioned.

Sam burst into a round of giggles, slipping into his almost Sam-sized hole.

“We'll eat in about five minutes, so you need to shake the sand off and go wash your hands.”

The boy crossed his arms in a stubborn stance. “I want to eat in my hole.”

“Not going to happen, buddy. Food's up there.” Luke pointed to the deck. “But after dinner, we can bury you in your hole if you want.”

“Cool!”

Pout forgotten, Sam sprang from his burrow and scrambled toward the house.

“That went well,” Luke said as he watched him go.

“You could have buried him right now if he threw another tantrum.”

Luke looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown a dunce's cap or something. “Are you kidding? Sam is not getting buried unless he's good.”

“Oh, it's a privilege then to get sand in the most uncomfortable places?”

“It is when you're four.”

“Then I'm glad I'm not four anymore.”

“I'm glad, too.”

I turned to look at him, but Luke had already started toward the deck steps. What did he mean? That he was glad he wasn't a preschooler anymore or that I wasn't? And if he was glad
I
wasn't, then why?

I shouldn't ask; I knew that. Something told me it would be best for all involved—me in particular—if I just forgot about it. But for some reason I had to know what he was saying. What he was thinking. I just couldn't
not
know.

“Luke?”

The guarded look he gave me said more than his words likely would have. He was probably having as many second thoughts about what he'd said as I was over asking him about it.

Someone needed to look away so this awkwardness could pass, but I just couldn't do it. Luke didn't look away, either. Something strange and new fluttered in my chest. I didn't know how much time passed, only that I didn't want this feeling to stop and I wanted to keep looking at Luke.

The sound of pounding feet on wood brought both of us around. Above us, Sam stood at the deck rail, only the top of his head showing above the rail.

“Daddy. Daddy. Something smells like it's burning.”

H
ot dogs weren't so bad after all. At least, they were better than the steaks that looked like the charred contents of a burned-out building. Good thing Luke had the foresight to make extra filler dogs, or we might have been forced to dig into the two steak-shaped lumps of coal.

I still chuckled when I thought of our disappointing steak dinner, though Luke and I had long since cleaned the grill, loaded the dishwasher and buried Sam up to his chin in his hole.

Luke looked up from where he was using the last of the sky's light to build a fire in the beach pit. We'd promised Sam s'mores for dessert, so I balanced boxes of graham crackers and chocolate in my arms, with a bag of marshmallows perched on top.

“Are you laughing at my steaks again?” he asked, looking at me just as the first flames shot up from the newspaper and kindling.

“Maybe.” I didn't bother trying to deny it since I'd been laughing sporadically about it all night.

“Hey, didn't my roasted potatoes and roasted corn make up for that one little mistake? Those turned out perfectly, even if Sam wouldn't eat them.”

“More than made up for it.” In fact, I'd had to restrain myself from eating the last of those crispy potatoes, spiced perfectly with olive oil, garlic and seasoned salt, right off Sam's plate. What had happened to my lack of appetite that had given me a figure like Popeye's Olive Oyl? If Luke cooked those for me every day, I'd probably look more like Brutus. “I was just craving steak.”

“Fine, then. I owe you a steak.” He used a big stick to stoke the fire.

Immediately, an image flicked against my cerebrum of Luke and me, alone across a candlelit table, with starched white napkins, crystal and china—the whole saccharine-sweet deal. I really was pitiful, wasn't I? Even my fantasies were clichéd. I might as well have pictured myself running across a field of daisies toward him or something. Again, a chuckle escaped, but it had nothing to do with grilling tragedies.

“Now quit the laughing or I'm going to start a marshmallow war.”

“That's where you're mistaken.” I paused long enough to set the crackers and chocolate aside and rip open the corner of the plastic bag in my hands. “You have to have artillery to make the first strike.”

I started the battle myself, pelting him with the first two marshmallows.

Sam chose that moment to come running up to the fire pit. “Daddy, can we—” He stopped himself,
looking shocked. “Miss Cassie's throwing marshmallows on the ground.”

“I see that.” Luke tsk-tsked. “She's not being very well behaved, is she?” He waited for Sam to shake his head before he added, “Do you think we should still let her have any s'mores?”

Sam seemed to consider for several seconds. “Maybe just one or two.”

I grinned at him. “Thanks, Sam. How many are you planning to have?”

“Five.”

Luke shook his head as he settled into the middle of the three lawn chairs we'd placed on one side of the fire pit. “Two. Max.”

His son frowned, but he turned back to me. “Two.”

I took the chair to Luke's right and started handing him marshmallows to put on one of the quadruple-pronged roasting tools we'd found in the garage. When our fingers brushed, mine tingled as if they'd been asleep and were just awakened by his touch. I shivered, not from the cold.

Luke misunderstood.

“Here.” He pulled that same Michigan State sweatshirt he'd worn a few days before from the back of his chair, loosely draping it over my shoulders.

“Thanks,” I managed, even though the musky scent of his cologne wafted through my nostrils.

Since I appeared to be the only one whose senses were being bombarded by our nearness, I busied myself, breaking the graham crackers in half and dividing the chocolate bars into cracker-sized pieces
while he cooked. We became a perfect team with his heating the confections to a golden brown and my trapping the gooey mess between two crackers, with a chocolate squeezed in for good measure. Sam got to eat the first masterpiece.

“As soon as we're done and have this cleaned up, we have to get home,” Luke told him right after he took the first bite.

“But Dad…” His full mouth gave his comment a garbled sound.

Luke shook his head to interrupt. “Tomorrow's Sunday. Church.”

He said it with enough finality to discourage any further argument. Instead of trying right away, Sam took another big bite of his dessert. I wondered if Luke would mind if I interjected an argument of my own. I wanted the day to last a little longer, for the smiles and laughter to stretch through a few more hours and for those hours to slow.

As adorable as Sam was and as much as I enjoyed spending time with him, I realized that the person I wanted to spend those extended hours with was Luke.

Strange, I'd thought my scars were too deep, my wounds too permanent. But here it was before me. I still had the capacity to be interested in another man and to risk more of those wounds.

I didn't even have time to be unsettled by my realization because Sam chose that moment to present his own argument for more time.

“Can Miss Cassie come to church with us?”

Now I hadn't expected that. Nor had I really considered it. I already knew that all the Sheridans and the
Hudsons were members of the same small congregation, Lakeside Community Chapel. Aunt Eleanor had given me that information last week while trying to entice me into services.

A week ago, that had been at least one of my biggest deterrents. Was I ready to admit that Luke's presence anywhere would no longer keep me away, especially when my other excuses were gone now, as well? I opened my mouth to answer, still not sure what I would say, but Luke beat me to it.

“Sorry, buddy, but Miss Cassie doesn't go to church. Remember when I told you that some people don't go?”

“Why not?” Sam was looking at me, expecting me to explain something at a four-year-old level that I didn't know for sure myself.

Why not? I couldn't even say that I'd been mad at God for the destruction of my life. On some level, I'd always recognized that, like Sam and our sand castles, I was a key member of the demolition crew.

Sometimes I felt as if God had deserted me when I'd needed him most, but I understood now that I'd been the one to pull away. Maybe I'd always known that He wouldn't let me play the victim and would demand that I take my share of responsibility for the divorce. I wasn't ready then. Was I ready now?

“She doesn't have to tell us that, Sam. Some things are just private.”

“Oh.”

Just like before during the humiliating scene with the wedding party, Luke was stepping to my defense. His parents must have both passed on to him knight-in-
shining-armor genes because he couldn't help himself. But this time I didn't need it.

I cleared my throat. “I was just about to say that I haven't been to church for a while, but I've been thinking about going back. I'd love to go with the two of you tomorrow.”

Only after I said it did I realize that I hadn't made sure Sam's invitation was okay with Luke. I turned to him with the question in my eyes.

“We'd love you to come with us.” He didn't say more with words, but his gaze seemed to offer a personal invitation:
I'd love you to come with me.

“We'll pick you up at nine.”

“Nine?” I almost backed out right then. I'd spent most of the week not even rolling out of the sheets until nearly ten. Spiritual sustenance would come at the price of Z's. The soul was willing, but the lazy body was weak.

“We go to Sunday school, too,” Sam explained.

“You do?” Apparently, I wasn't going to get the chance to test the water with my toe like I did at the lake's edge before I dived back into the whole church thing. “Of course you do,” I added when Luke grinned.

I took a mental note to set my alarm before I went to bed. “I'll be ready.”

And with a start I realized that when it came to returning to a formal practice of my faith in church, I already was.

 

“Cassie dear, we're so glad you could make it to services,” Yvonne Sheridan told me as she gripped my hand between both of hers.

I'd barely made it out of my pew before she'd hurried over to me. “Did you see anyone you recognized?”

I chuckled at that. “About everyone looked familiar.”

“Including Reverend Lewis?”

“Him most of all, but I kept wanting to peek behind the lectern to see if he was barefoot beneath his pastor's robe.”

Yvonne's musical laughter filtered through the tiny sanctuary. “I assure you he wore shoes. He has a preference for wingtips.”

As her son and grandson had followed me out of the pew and were standing next to me now, she stopped to greet both of them with kisses before turning back to me.

“So how did you happen to end up at Lakeside on this fine June morning?”

“Sam invited me.”

Yvonne reached down and ruffled her grandson's hair. “Well, aren't you just a one-boy outreach program.”

Luke leaned toward me and said conspiratorially, “Missionary and a demolition expert. What a combination.”

Yvonne lifted a delicate brow in her son's direction, but he waved away her curiosity with a brush of his hand.

“You had to be there.”

She nodded but wore the strange expression of someone trying not to smile. “So what do the three of you have planned today?” The grin did appear this time.

“Hadn't made any.” Luke was regarding his mother with a cautious look.

“That's good. Neither have we.”

Immediately, Luke's hand went up as if to ward off his mother's newest scheme, but Yvonne only laughed.

“Don't worry, sweetheart. I wasn't going to suggest an all-day board game marathon or anything.”

Luke visibly relaxed, and I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

“It's such a lovely day that I thought Marcus and I could have a picnic with our grandson.”

“A picnic!” Sam said it as though it might well be the first picnic in the history of civilization. “Can I go, Daddy?”

“I suppose.”

“I'm going to go tell Papa,” Sam said before hurrying out to the vestibule.

When he was gone, Luke turned his suspicious gaze back on his mother.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“Mother, what do you have up your sleeve now?”

“Nothing.” She even looked offended. “I just thought it might also be a good day for you and Cassie to take Jack and Eleanor's boat out on the lake. The water's supposed to be really calm this afternoon. Waves are only one to three feet.”

Luke nodded, not giving away anything he was thinking. This felt like a big dose of déjà vu, and the first match-up scene and rejection had been enough of a humiliation for one lifetime. I would have preferred to avoid seconds.

“No small-craft warnings?” he asked.

Small-craft warnings? Somehow I managed not to ask it out loud, but nothing could have prevented me
from turning my head to look at him. Luke, though, kept his focus on his mother.

“Not unless something has changed since before Sunday school,” she said.

“How big's the boat?”

“Just a twenty-four-footer. Big enough for an afternoon on the water but too small for travel.”

“Where do they dock it?”

“There's an inlet about a half mile down the beach with a few slips in it.”

What was going on? These two seemed to be talking from some parallel universe in which people discussed watercraft details rather than the matter at hand: Luke and I had just been set up on a date. I didn't care how big or where the boat was—as long as it was seaworthy of course. All I wanted to know was whether Luke wanted to go.

And then he turned to me. “Well, whatdya say, Cassie? Want to bob around in the water for a few hours?”

Thoughts of a forty-pound salmon returned with a vengeance. “When you say bob, you mean inside the boat, right?”

His grin made something tickle inside my belly. “If you insist.”

“Then okay.”

“Okay.”

“Oh, good.” Yvonne nearly rubbed her hands together in glee. She probably couldn't wait to get a call off to Europe. I could just imagine her running into the ladies' room and holding her cell phone above the stall door to get a signal.

After a few minutes of planning and directions regarding my aunt and uncle's boat, Luke and I headed out the church doors, minus Sam. Luke walked me to his car and opened and closed the door for me before crossing to the driver's side. It shouldn't have felt any different since he'd done the same thing that morning when they'd picked me up for church, but it was different. This was officially a date—my first real one since the divorce was final.

“Well, that was interesting,” I said, once he was in the car.

“What do you mean?”

Although I'd spent enough time with Luke the last several days to be at ease in his presence, I started fidgeting, not certain what to do with my hands. Finally, I clasped them together on my knee. “If that wasn't a setup, then I don't know what one is.”

“Mom sure thinks she's sly, doesn't she?”

I turned to look at him. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Why did you let your mother coerce you into this…boat trip?” For the life of me, I couldn't bring myself to say
date
. At least by not doing so, I wouldn't have to graduate to the more telling term: charity date.

Luke's lips lifted. “You might not know me well enough to realize this about me, but I never do anything I don't want to do.”

My breath caught. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

But then he turned to face me and placed his hand atop my clasped ones. For a few seconds, I glanced down at our hands, my pulse racing.