Charlie sniffled and cried even harder. “That’s horrible. She doesn’t keep in touch with him at all?”
“Not that I’m aware of. She walked out when he was six and the only correspondence I’ve heard of was the divorce papers. All she wanted was alimony.”
She looked up at him. “How sad. I’ll bet he was a corker when he was six.” She wiped her eyes. “You’re right. I am grateful for my tough old bird. But would it be ungracious to say I want to do a lot of things differently with my own children?”
He smiled at her and wiped at a stray tear with a finger. “Not at all. That’s the goal of every worthy generation isn’t it? To do better than the last. Maybe by the time the Savior returns we’ll be down to fine tuning and the children will all be raised flawlessly. In the mean time, we all have our own set of struggles.” He put a hand back on her hair and let her lean on him again. “Are you going to be okay now?”
She nodded against him. “Yes, I’m fine now. Where are we going?”
“To the coast. We’ll meet Dad and the others. Is that okay with you?”
“It’s great. Thanks for talking me into getting into the car. What are we going to do at the coast?”
“All the things that we can’t do in Montana. Walk on the beach and play in the sand and beach comb and look at the tide pools.” He stopped to smile. “We’re going to let Jamie wade in them this time.”
She laughed and leaned up and wiped her nose. “Sorry about yesterday. My mind has been a bit preoccupied this trip. How far ahead of the others are we?”
He reached and started the car back up and pulled back onto the highway. “Probably a half hour or more. Is there any certain beach we should go to? Or is there something else you’d like to do in the mean time?”
She thought about that and then said, “Yes. Yes, there is. If you truly want to do what you can’t do back in Montana then we need to go find some things for lunch.” She looked around. “Take the next exit here in Derby. I think there’s a market that will have what we need. And let’s call your dad and tell him to head for a place called Silver Sands State Park. It’s just south of Milford. That will be the most kid friendly place nearby that I know of.”
They stopped and she bought a blanket and a pot and corn on the cob and a number of spices and lemons and butter. On the way to the check out she added paper eating ware and a roll of paper towels.
When they got closer to the ocean she had him stop again at one of the little shops on a pier and she bought live lobsters and muscles and shrimp packed in ice, and then when they got to the beach, she parked their gear and walked along gathering up drift wood until the minivan carrying the others showed up only a few minutes behind them.
The little kids thought gathering the firewood was a great game and soon they had all the wood she would need and they spread out to do the things they couldn’t do back home.
Chase laid out a towel and stretched out on it and watched the girls on the beach around them as Luke and Charlie and Tuckett and the little ones played in the surf for a while and then went exploring tide pools and finding ocean treasures. Jamie had so many treasures in the pockets of his shorts that they soon began to sag and he was sporting a plumber’s crack when Luke suggested he park a load of the neato finds near Charlie’s gear.
After climbing around rocks and drift logs and the sea wall with the children, Charlie finally climbed up onto a point of rocks and sat down where she could watch the children and the ocean and the various boats and birds that moved out there. Even as busy as this stretch of Atlantic ocean was, there was always something about the ocean that was eternally intriguing. The power of that huge expanse of water and the unending consistency of the waves that frothed up onto the slick were almost hypnotic. No matter how often she came to the ocean, it never got monotonous to her.
She sat watching the kids and the surf and the muscles in Luke’s thighs as he bent to inspect something the girls were looking at. The way he had rescued her today had put her world back on keel more effectively than even Fo had done it over the years. Not only had he gotten her out of the situation, but then he had comforted her and even talked her into not feeling like such a failure as a daughter. True, she still had to resolve things with her parents, but she no longer felt as if she had done some unpardonable travesty by standing up for herself and refusing to be bullied.
The problem with Luke’s unshakeable strength was that the more Charlie was around him, the more she cared for him and respected him, which wasn’t a bad thing except for the fact she was supposed to be walking away from him in a few weeks to return to Utah and law school. She already felt so strongly about him that leaving Montana was going to kill her.
She watched him laugh with Jamie as they ran from the waves and then lean down to pick him up when the wave washed him off his feet. He was so gentle and sweet with the kids that she couldn’t help but wish she didn’t have to leave at the end of the summer at all. It would have been incredibly nice to just stay working for the Langstons indefinitely. Nice enough that she’d probably do it if she thought there was any chance that something could develop between her and Luke. But there were so many things to preclude that.
In the first place, he was a rancher through and through and would certainly want a wife who had been born and raised to that kind of life, and would understand what he needed in a help mate. Not only that, but he had just barely been given back his freedom. The relief that had brought him had been obvious. As willing as he’d been to help Lindie out of a bad situation, there was no doubt about how much happier he was to be free of that commitment. You could see it in his face almost as soon as the engagement had been called off.
Those two things were enough to make Charlie know her chances with Luke were relatively nil, even without the fact that he was intimidatingly wealthy and heart stoppingly gorgeous. It was no wonder that women usually reacted to him exactly the way Summer Harmon did every time she showed up.
Charlie tried not to think about how he had made her feel this morning when he‘d hugged her, or yesterday when he’d touched her lip on the ferry. She had to admit she had it bad for a tall, dark and handsome Montana rancher and as good as he made her feel, she also felt slightly panicky about falling so foolishly.
She was just thinking she had better get a handle on her feelings when Luke himself climbed up onto her rock and sat down next to her close enough his shoulder brushed hers. For a minute or two he only sat and looked out over the expanse of the sound before them and the striking skyline of Long Island across the way. She glanced down to double check that Richard and Angela were with the little kids before she turned to study Luke’s profile against the blue of the summer sky.
Maybe it was a good thing she was leaving soon. Time spent with him never failed to make her more conscious of him and how he made her feel. She turned back to look out at the ocean and wondered again about what he had said that morning concerning being grateful for our own particular circumstances. Her parents had made her a bit miserable this last day or two, but at least she hadn’t come here for the entire summer and been up against this for months. And she would always be grateful for the wonderful experiences she was having this summer. Even if she ended up with a shattered heart out of the deal, this had been the time of her life. She had to be honest about that. Dealing with her mother for a short time only made Montana all the sweeter.
Earlier Luke had spoken about losing his own mother in an almost matter-of-fact way, but it had to have been devastating to him at the time. She glanced up at him again and wondered at the man he had become in spite of such a traumatic loss. It was no wonder Chase had developed some negative attributes and it was just as much of a wonder that Luke had become such a rock.
She leaned against his shoulder and hesitantly broke the silence, “Tell me about your mom.”
He was quiet for so long she worried she had offended him and she looked up at him again wondering how to undue the damage. He glanced down and into her eyes and she could see the pain that still haunted him. She hurried to take back her request. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business. Please forgive me.”
He simply reached over and took her hand and held on to it firmly as he turned to look back at the sea. “It’s okay, Charlie. I miss her, but the memories are good. I almost hate to admit this to you, but she was the best mother I could have ever asked for. I loved her dearly and always knew she felt the same way about me.”
His thumb unconsciously stroked the back of her hand. “It’s not like she never had to discipline us or anything. She definitely wasn’t a pushover. But she was gentle and kind and Chase and I and Dad were her life. She was as solid and dependable and honest as Angela isn’t, and I was blessed to have her until I was eight.”
Charlie leaned her head against his shoulder again and said, “I’m sorry you lost her, Luke. It must make it all the harder to have known the best and then had to lose her. What did she die of?”
“She had pancreatic cancer. She died within three months of when they found it.”
“I’m sorry.” That was all she knew to say, but she knew he didn’t doubt she meant it.
There was deep sadness in his voice when he said, “Me too. I miss her.”
Again they sat in silence, broken only by the cries of the gulls and the sounds of the boats out in the sound. The kids had settled into the sand and were beginning to build a sand castle with Richard while Angela lounged beside them on a blanket. Tuckett was helping them construct a moat around their structure.
It was almost eleven and Charlie knew she probably ought to get down there and start building her fire to make their shore lunch, but she was loathe to leave Luke and the companionship she was feeling here beside him right now. She never failed to be surprised that she was as comfortable with Luke after only a couple of months as she was with Fo after nearly twenty years. Her and Luke’s easy friendship was almost uncanny.
****
Luke sat there on the rocks beside her wishing they had all day to bask there in the mild New England sunshine holding hands. He knew she had been troubled about this trip and after hearing her mother’s raised voice on her phone this morning he could understand, but he was enjoying this mini vacation immensely. It was great to have the time to spend beside her without a million other responsibilities demanding his attention. Even saving her had been enjoyable, both last night dancing and this morning. It was awful to see her cry, but it had been heavenly to hug her. And just now holding her hand was ridiculously pleasant.
At length, he let go of it, stood up, brushed the sand off of his shorts and reached again for her hand to pull her up beside him. “Come on, we’d better get started on your seafood. If we don’t get Jamie fed soon, he’ll go down for a nap hungry. You can tell me what to do to help you.”
He kept hold of her hand as they climbed down from the rocks and he almost wished they had to climb over more stuff to get back to her gear so he wouldn’t have to let it go.
He helped her get her fire going and then shucked the corn while she seasoned the water and sliced lemons into it. Once the pot of water was boiling, the lunch only took a few minutes to finish and then they all sat around on drift logs and enjoyed authentic Connecticut seafood, as fresh as you could get it without pulling it out of the water yourself. It was heavenly and the little kids had tiny rivulets of butter running down their chins before they were satisfied and ready to crash on their towels for a nap.
Richard volunteered to clean it all up and Luke and Charlie and Tuckett had a game of Frisbee at the edge of the surf while he did. Madge was thoroughly enjoying the down time with a thick novel, a lounge chair and a beach umbrella for shade and Luke wasn’t surprised when a few minutes later she too had gone to sleep.
Tuckett threw the Frisbee and bounced it off the slick and Charlie and Luke both went after it, but just when he thought he had it, she put on a burst of speed and snagged it cleanly out of the air right in front of his hand. She laughed as she bumped into him and the curls that always framed her face fell out of their clip. She tossed him the Frisbee as she twisted the mass of blonde waves back up and secured them once again and then kicked water at him as she lunged for the disc again.
He laughed at her in return when they collided. She went down with a squeal into a sneaker wave that soaked the knit shirt she wore over her long shorts, and he reached down to help her back up as the wave receded. “That had to be refreshing, even as warm as it is today.”
As she stood up, he swallowed hard. She’d looked good dry, but holy cow! His world rocked on its axis. Now the wet clothes hugged every curve, and she looked more desirable than if she’d been wearing a scanty bikini.
Man… He had to get a handle on this attraction issue.
They hadn’t been running that much, really, but… Her femininity made him literally struggle to breathe. It must be the exercise. Except that the urge to kiss her was almost overwhelming again.
A stray tendril of her hair escaped and blew across her cheek and he thought about how much he had wanted to kiss her yesterday on the ferry. It had taken all of his self control to turn away. He started to reach up and brush the tendril back, but then before he actually touched her, he stopped himself. They were playing with fire here this afternoon. As he dropped his hand back to his side, she looked up at him and he could see the smile stall on her face.
For a second her emotions were exposed and he could see the questioning deep in those incredible eyes that matched the sky over the ocean. It made him want to kiss her again, just to let her know how he felt about her, but he couldn’t. She was feeling so bullied already. The last thing she needed on her plate was someone else trying to manipulate how she felt.
He thought again about her leaving to go to school and it made him heartsick. He’d never in his life enjoyed being around a person the way he did with her and it made him want to beg her not to go when fall semester started. He’d have done it too, even if only for his family’s sake if he didn’t know she was pulled so by her own family’s expectations for her.