“Mrs. Hornsby?” Kate touched the woman on the shoulder, and she turned. The woman might have been attractive if not for her puffy eyes and tight, bronzed lips.
“Dr. Kate.” Mrs. Hornsby straightened and turned her lips into a semblance of a smile.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked.
Lucas stepped away to give them privacy, inspecting some literature on the desk. He couldn’t help but hear their conversation.
“I’m fine.” The woman said, but her words crumbled like a soggy cookie.
Kate took her arm and pulled her away from the desk. “What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
Lucas heard the woman restrain a sob. “Earl is having an affair. I have proof this time. I just—just couldn’t stay there.”
“I’m so sorry.” Kate’s tone softened. She rubbed the woman’s arm. “Do you want to talk?”
Mrs. Hornsby laughed feebly, wiping her eyes. “Oh, honey, no. It’s your honeymoon. Besides, you’re not even counseling anymore.” She withdrew a tissue from her beige purse and dabbed her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t be silly,” Kate said. “Are you finished checking in?”
The other woman held up a key card. “Yes.”
Kate squeezed her rounded shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
She approached Lucas, and he put the brochure for a whaling tour back into the holder.
“Would you mind having dinner alone?” Kate asked, then lowered her tone. “She’s a former client, and she could use someone to talk to.”
“Of course not,” Lucas said. “Want me to order you something from room service?”
“Thanks, but I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
A moment later, Lucas was alone.
Look very closely at his family.
—Excerpt from
Finding Mr. Right-for-You
by Dr. Kate
“Start slowing down,” Lucas said. “That’s it. The one with the truck out front.”
Kate navigated her car down the street. It ran parallel to the shore and was lined on both sides by cottages, generously separated by wide grassy lots.
Kate braked and eased into the drive, the tires slurping through the thick layer of gravel. Lucas’s house sat off the road about a hundred yards, and behind it, the ocean provided a deep blue backdrop. The nearest house on his side of the street was a couple hundred yards away, the second story barely visible above a rise in the ground.
Kate stopped behind a beater Ford in the drive.
I married a pickup man
.
That thought was barely out before she surveyed the cottage. Instinctively she liked its character. Gray, weathered shingles covered the small cottage. The trim and porch railing sported bright white paint, and orange flowers of some kind lined the front beds.
She put her car into Park and slid out. “It’s nice.” Small, but new. There appeared to be a main part of the house and a small addition of some sort.
She popped the trunk and had just grabbed a bag when she heard a shout.
“Welcome home!”
Four people scampered down the hill from the house next door. She recognized Brody and Jamie. The other two must be Lucas’s parents. A huge, hairy dog led the pack, and Mrs. Wright trailed the others by several yards, her slender body stiff, her arms stagnant at her sides.
Kate waved and smiled for their benefit. “What is your family doing here?” She wanted to get settled in the house. She was tired of being on public display. The photographer had left them alone after that first day at the beach, but even eating out they’d encountered stares and whispers.
“They live next door,” Lucas said. “Didn’t I tell you?”
Next door?
Maintaining her smile was no easy feat. “You neglected to mention that detail.” He was going to get an earful later.
“Hey, guys,” Lucas called as his family approached.
The dog leaped on Lucas. It was the size of a bear.
“Hey, Bo.” He ruffled the animal’s floppy ears.
That is not Bo.
She considered the size of the house and the size of the dog. What was he thinking? She nearly expressed her thoughts, then remembered his family would find it odd she hadn’t seen Bo before. They probably wondered how they hadn’t seen her there before, living right next door like they did.
Roy Wright approached first, wearing jeans, a Nantucket polo, and a genuine smile. “Welcome, welcome.” He hugged Kate first, patting her shoulder as if to burp her. He had a thick head of gray hair and a tan that leathered his skin. His clear green eyes angled downward at the sides.
“Thank you,” Kate said. Her eyes met Susan Wright’s as the woman came to a stop at the edge of the gravel driveway. “Hello.”
Susan nodded, her rose-colored lips pulled back into what didn’t quite pass as a smile. “Kate.” Her mushroom-shaped hairstyle framed her narrow face and high cheekbones.
“I wanted to get some pictures.” Jamie held up the camera that was around her neck. Her smile revealed braces with purple and pink bands. “Did you have a wonderful week?”
Kate felt like she was trapped in a
Raymond
episode. In real life the situation wasn’t so amusing.
“It was perfect,” she said as Lucas embraced his mom. Brody shook her hand, an apology in his eyes, if not on his lips.
What kind of man built a house next door to his parents? Apparently she’d not only married a pickup man, but a momma’s boy as well.
Lucas and his parents caught up briefly before Lucas asked them inside.
“No, we’re not staying,” Susan said pointedly. “Are we, Roy?” She set a fine-boned hand on her husband’s arm.
“Of course not; we just wanted to welcome you home, welcome Kate to the family.”
“And take a picture of Lucas carrying Kate over the threshold,” Jamie said.
Kate had forgotten about the tradition. A stupid tradition. She didn’t want to be cast into the helpless maiden role. “How thoughtful.” She was tired of smiling. She didn’t want to smile for the next week.
“Don’t pressure them, Jamie.” Susan eyed Kate up and down. “Besides, Lucas might not be up to it.”
Score one for the mother-in-law.
Kate smiled through clenched teeth.
“No doubt,” Brody whispered to Lucas, wearing a sly smile. “Bet you’re exhausted.”
Lucas elbowed his brother. “Far be it from me to deny tradition.”
“Pick her up, Lucas!” Jamie said. “This is so romantic.” She clapped her hands.
“Scrubbing the floor would be romantic to you,” Brody said.
“Shut up.” Jamie whacked him in the gut with the back of her hand while Bo barked loudly and circled around them as if sensing the excitement.
“I’ll get your bags,” Brody said, walking toward the trunk.
Before Kate could move, Lucas swept her off her feet. She grabbed him around the neck, latching onto his shoulders as he walked toward the cottage and up the three steps. The camera clicked several times.
“You could have warned me,” Kate whispered in his ear. First the next-door in-laws, then the big hairy dog, and now another photo op? Who’d started this dumb tradition anyway? She felt like a worthless sack of beans in his arms.
“Just sit back and enjoy, Mrs. Wright.” His breath hit her cheek.
Another photo snapped. “Don’t call me that.”
He shifted her and pulled open the screen door, then twisted the knob on the wooden door. She should probably help, but wasn’t in the mood. She heard yet another click as Bo brushed by, squeezing his enormous mass past them.
Kate clenched her jaw.
Please let this end!
“That’s enough, Jamie,” Susan said. “For heaven’s sake.”
Once inside, Lucas set Kate down and she stepped away, relieved to be on her own feet again. Brody had followed and now handed Lucas their luggage. They stood awkwardly for a moment, Brody looking from one to the other with a grin.
“Well, guess you two love birds want to be alone.”
Lucas looked at Kate. “Guess so.” Kate refrained from responding.
Brody hugged Lucas exuberantly and, after a slight hesitation, did the same for Kate. He clattered down the steps to his waiting family.
“’Bye, kids!” Roy waved.
“I’ll print these out soon and bring them by,” Jamie said, holding up the camera.
Susan merely nodded and turned back toward her house.
“Thanks,” Kate called.
She stood watching her new in-laws through the screen door as they made their way back up the hill, Brody and Jamie arguing the whole time. Then she turned and narrowed her eyes at Lucas. “You are so dead.”
Before he could respond something caught her eye. Her gaze left him to scan the room. “What in the world . . . is all this . . . stuff!”
She stared in horrified amazement at piles and stacks and layers of stuff. Clothes, boxes, magazines . . . The phrase “Early-American Junkyard” came to mind. Was that a shovel leaning against the TV? And what was that smell?
And through it all, Bo wove in and out, his enormous backside wagging. The dog hit a leaning tower of newspapers, and it toppled.
Lucas is a messie
. She’d married a messie.
“Sorry about that.” Lucas kicked a sack aside and closed the front door. “Didn’t have time to clean up before the ceremony.”
There had been clues on the honeymoon. Socks balled up and left lying on the floor, toiletries spread across the marble counter, wet towels left on the couch.
But this . . .
She felt trapped, and she wasn’t even a claustrophobic. What was the floor even made of? She could hardly see it through the stuff. Anna could have warned her, for heaven’s sake.
Bo bumped up against her, knocking her sideways. Lucas steadied her. “No, Bo. Come here.” He rubbed the dog’s head and Bo sat. “Settle down, boy.”
Kate picked up her bag. Maybe the whole house wasn’t like this. “Where can I put my things?”
Lucas grabbed a few articles of clothing from the back of the sofa and draped them over his shoulder. “Let me show you around.”
Bo was up again, circling them, panting happily. Kate glared at him and then at Lucas. Lucas appeared to get the idea.
“Come on, buddy.” He let Bo out the front door, where the dog sat facing the screen and barking. “He’s just a little excited.”
Scooping up a Pepsi can and an empty bowl with a sticky-looking spoon, Lucas led the way down a short hall.
“This is the bedroom.”
Bed unmade, clothes heaped on the dresser.
“Yours?”
He opened a dresser drawer, shoved the clothes from the living room inside, and pushed it closed. “Uh, yeah. You can put your bag here.” He pushed the heap of clothes to the other side of the dresser, having the grace to look sheepish. “I’ll make room in the drawers and closet for your things.”
“I was planning on taking another bedroom.”
Hopefully a cleaner one.
He set down the can and bowl and took her suitcase, setting it on the dresser. “I’m afraid this is it.”
Kate let this sink in as she watched him attempt to make the bed. He pulled the blue quilt up over the pillows, leaving the sheets in a wad underneath. “‘This is it’? What do you mean?”
He pocketed his hands. “There is no other bedroom.”
This was getting worse by the minute. “You built a house with one bedroom?”
He lifted his shoulders. “There’s only one of me.”
How could he be so casual? So indifferent? Wasn’t he at all concerned about his space? “Well, now there’s two of us, in case you haven’t noticed.”
One side of his mouth turned up. “I noticed.”
“Who builds a home with one bedroom?” And who was going to sleep on the couch? For a whole year.
“I was planning to add on later.”
Well, there you go. The answer to their dilemma. How long could it take to build a bedroom? He could add a room on the other side of the house by the living room.
“Uh-uh,” he said, watching her face. “Do you know what my family will think if I add another bedroom?”
That they were sleeping separately? Or no—that they were planning to start a family. Why else would they need another bedroom? Jamie would probably start knitting baby blankets and booties. Strike that idea.
“Look. We’re grown adults,” Lucas said. “The bed’s a double, plenty big enough for both of us.”
She looked him over. He was easily six feet, maybe an inch or two more, and he was broad. He’d make the bed feel like a twin. The thought of sleeping so close to him left her feeling hot and itchy.
She cleared her throat. “I’ll just take the couch.” She took the handle of her luggage.
He set his palm flat on the suitcase. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t sleep on the couch for twelve months.”
“Sure I can.” Especially if he wasn’t going to offer. She pulled at the suitcase, but it went nowhere under his grip. “Let go.”
“What’ll my family think?”
“They won’t think anything. They won’t even know.” She would put her blanket and pillow away first thing every morning. She supposed she’d have to keep her clothing in the bedroom, though.
“You turn in early, Kate. I’m a night owl.”
She hadn’t thought of that. How could she fall asleep on the sofa if he was watching TV until midnight? She checked the bed out, wavering.
Lucas leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms over his chest, looking smug. “You afraid or something?”
Kate crossed her own arms. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not the one getting all hot and bothered about sharing a bed.”
“I’m not—” She ground her teeth and smothered a growl. Why did he have to say things like that? It was like he took pleasure in getting under her skin.
It’s just a sleeping arrangement, nothing more. What am I so afraid of ? It’ll be like sharing a bed with a friend on a girls’ outing.
Her eyes swept over Lucas’s solid frame, down to his hairy legs and sandal-clad feet. She swallowed hard.
Okay, not quite like that.
I don’t have to . . . do anything in that bed except sleep. In fact, I’ll be asleep by the time he comes to bed anyway. And he rises before me. I’ll hardly notice he’s there.
Resolved, she met his eyes square on. “Fine. We’ll share the room.”