A Hope Undaunted (22 page)

She heard Luke’s laughter and knew he was talking on the phone. She closed her eyes and listened intently, then heard it again. Her thoughts suddenly strayed to the night one week ago when he had kissed her not once, but twice. She opened her eyes to stare at the wall where he had pinned her, and the memory unleashed a flood of heat. With a catch of her breath, she jumped up. “I’m going home,” she whispered, more to convince herself than the will to go. Truth be told, she didn’t want to leave. At least not yet. She was desperate to clear the air with Luke.

Not that he hadn’t made his own sad attempts at easing the tension between them. No, he had apologized on Monday first thing, strong-armed by Parker, no doubt. Called her in his office right after she’d arrived and asked her to close the door. His manner had been distant and cool, and as flat and professional as those prissy letters Bobbie Sue complained about typing. He told her he’d been out of line and it wouldn’t happen again. And to make sure, she’d report solely to Parker. He’d avoided looking at her throughout the whole awkward conversation until the very end, when he’d stared her straight in the eyes. It was then that she saw his regret and his shame.

She had been heated up until that point, ready to rip a piece of his heart out and stomp on it for good measure. But something about the humility in his eyes disarmed her, stealing her thunder and leaving the ache behind. The ache to be in his arms again. To feel his lips on hers. To be a part of his life. In the end, she’d simply nodded and walked out of his office, numbed by the shock of her feelings. The week had progressed with no contact or communication whatsoever, as if cold, hard glass had been erected between them. He was the same Luke, laughing, teasing, joking – just not with her, casually avoiding her gaze and keeping his distance whenever they were in the same room. And for pity’s sake, she was Katie O’Connor – when it came to friends, she wasn’t used to being on the outside looking in . . . at least, not anymore.

A chill shivered her arms, and she rubbed them with her palms, gaze lighting on his door. She couldn’t bear another week of this, shut out as if she didn’t even exist. She rose and moved toward his office, desperate for a truce. With sweaty hands, she knocked.

“Come in.”

She opened it a crack and peeked in.

“Hold on.” He paused, hand over the phone and his smile polite. “You heading out?”

She shook her head and eased inside the door.

He stared, the whites of his eyes widening enough for her to notice. “Do you need something, Katie?”

She worried her lip and nodded. “I need to talk to you.”

A muscle worked in his throat. “It can’t wait till Monday?”

She shook her head, and a loose strand from her Dutch boy bob quivered against her cheek. She shoved it behind her ear and took a step forward, her eyes conciliatory. “Please?”

His gaze never left her face as he put the phone to his ear. “Look, something’s come up. Can I call you later?” He glanced away and grinned. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll call this time, I promise,” he said in a husky voice he’d obviously intended as a whisper.

Jealousy stabbed within, and Katie turned to study an array of sports awards and plaques adorning his wall. A click of the phone in the cradle signaled he was through, and she looked back. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

He straightened and nodded, rolling away, as if to distance himself.

Sucking in a deep breath, she slipped into a chair and tucked her arms to her waist, gaze pinned to the antique clock that sat front center on his desk. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“What’s this all about, Katie?”

She looked up then, and the guarded look in his eyes bolstered her intent. “Luke, you apologized to me about last week, but I . . .” She swallowed hard, pride clogging her throat. “Well, I didn’t get the chance to do the same, so I’d like to apologize now.”

He blinked and said nothing, the blue eyes as remote as they’d been all week.

She squared her back and clasped her hands in her lap. “I said some things that were really unkind and . . . provoked you, I know.” Her gaze diverted to the window, unable to bear the coolness of his manner. “But you took me by surprise, you see, and I reacted badly. Both in my words and in my . . . well, my response to your – ”

He shot to his feet. “Katie, it’s over and done. We’ve both apologized, so let it go. It’s time to go home.”

She rose to her feet and leaned forward, palms pressed to the front of his desk. “No, it’s not over and done, Luke. You treat me like a leper around here.”

He cuffed the back of his neck and exhaled. “What do you want from me, Katie?”

“I want you to talk to me and not through me, I want you to joke with me like you joke with the others, and I want you to treat me like you treat Parker and Betty – as a friend.”

He slacked a hip and crossed his arms. “No.”

“No?” She straightened, disbelief arching her brows. “I can’t be a friend?”

“That’s right.” He shifted, and a muscle twittered along the hard line of his jaw.

“But, why?”

He leaned palms on the desk like she had, rolled sleeves revealing two muscled arms corded with strain. “Because it’s no good, Katie. Too much butting heads, too much bad history.” He rose to his full height and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it slowly. His eyes burned into hers as his voice lowered to a whisper. “Too much chemistry.”

She swallowed hard. “We can be friends, Luke. I have no designs on you, I promise. For pity’s sake, I’m practically engaged to Jack. He’s the man I have every intention of marrying.”

He gave her a thin look, sarcasm curling his lip. “Yeah, I can see he was on your mind last week.”

Heat stung her cheeks. “I missed him, all right? I hadn’t seen him in over a month.”

He snatched a stack of papers from his desk and shoved them in a drawer, then slammed it hard. “Well, cheer up, Katydid, you only have a month and a half to go.”

She clutched her arms to her sides, avoiding his eyes. “A month and a half that I refuse to be ignored by someone that I – ” She hesitated, shocked at the words hovering on her tongue.

“Someone you what?” he asked in a clipped tone.

Her eyes lifted to his in the first honest show of sincerity she had ever given Cluny McGee. She sucked in a deep breath. “Have come to . . . respect and admire,” she finished quietly, the whispered admission a startling revelation in her brain.

The words seemed to dismantle the barriers he’d erected, and she felt the slow breath he released as if it were her own. Something glinted in those remarkably clear, blue eyes, but she couldn’t discern if it was shock or some deeper emotion buried deep down inside. Either way, it prompted the barest of smiles at the edges of his lips. “Thank you, Katie,” he whispered, head bowed as he stared at the floor. “You have no idea what that means to me.”

She released a slow breath of her own. “So we can be friends?”

He looked up beneath hooded eyes and gave her a smile that caused her stomach to flutter. “I don’t know, Katie Rose. Sounds like a risky proposition to me.”

Her grin was shaky. “That’s the problem with you, Luke McGee. No adventure. What’s the matter? Afraid of being bested by a girl?”

His grin challenged hers. “Nope, I’m game.” He lifted his jacket off the back of the chair and slung it over his shoulder, his eyes searing hers with both warning and tease. “That is, as long as it isn’t a contact sport.”

She quickly held out her hand to deflect the heat in her cheeks. “No contact whatsoever, except a handshake to seal the deal, okay?”

He paused, then slowly reached across to put his hand in hers. “Okay, but I can tell you right now that Parker’s not gonna like us being on friendly terms.”

They shook, and the warmth of his palm swallowed her hand whole. She pulled away, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach. “Since when does Parker affect what you say or do?”

He strolled toward the door and opened it, waiting for her to go ahead before he flipped the light switch. A cocky grin tilted the corners of his mouth as he ambled toward the time clock. He gave her his customary smirk. “Good point.”

Heaven help her, her stomach hadn’t rolled like this since she’d been pregnant with Abby. Faith paused on the sidewalk of Tremont Street to press a shaky hand to her queasy abdomen, wishing that the source of her nausea were due to pregnancy. But she knew better.

She clutched the sack lunch tighter in her hands and straightened her shoulders, her eyes honing in on a small blue and white sign at the end of the block where her husband was working a rare Saturday. Her jaw tightened at the same time that her stomach did another flip, and she forged on, determined to get a good look at the new trainee.

From the moment Lizzie had dropped the bomb last week, Faith had been in a fog. Too angry at Collin to confront him, too angry at herself for not trusting him. She’d promised her mother she’d talk to him, and she would. Just not yet. Too many emotions had kept her roiling in indecision for a week, fearful of making a fool of herself if she were wrong . . . fearful of losing her temper if she were not. And so she had prayed, over and over, determined to be rational and clear-thinking in this whole situation. Cool and calm to avoid going off half-cocked.

Until this morning. The man had bolted out the door as if his feet were on fire, leaving his lunch behind – something Collin McGuire would
never
do. Her stomach did another roll and her lips flattened as she marched down the street. She slowed as she neared the shop window and then eased to the side to peek in. Her heart caught in her throat . . . and then in a whoosh of hot air, it drop-kicked back into her chest with a blast of fury. She fisted the knob of the door and heaved it open with an angry clash of bells, slamming it hard against the wall.

So much for calm.

Her husband lunged from the woman in his arms as if he’d been shot. He gaped at Faith, blood leeching from his face. “Faith! What are you doing here?”

She hurled the door closed again with a shriek of bells and a shudder of the wall. Her eyes singed him with green fire, and then shifted to char the woman beside him, whose face was as white as Collin’s. “You forgot your lunch,” she said in an icy tone as she strode toward his desk. She held the sack in the air and then dropped it in his in-basket with a noisy splat. “But I guess you weren’t hungry.” She crossed her arms and cauterized him with a look that pronounced him guilty on the spot. Her eyes flitted to the pretty woman beside him, back pressed to the counter and hand to her chest, then flitted back. She cocked her head. “At least not for food.”

Blood gorged his cheeks, and she had never seen Collin McGuire flush that shade of scarlet before. He took a dangerous step forward with hands fisted tight, and the gray of his eyes could have been frosted pewter. He latched a steel grip to her arm with a tone as low and deadly as a whispered curse. “How dare you accuse me or that woman of anything sordid. It was nothing more than a simple hug, and we’ll talk about this at home.”

She flung his hand away, her eyes blazing. “No, we’ll talk about it here!”

“Collin, I think it’s best if I leave . . .” The woman’s voice fairly wavered with fear as she snatched her purse from behind the counter, but Faith didn’t care. She stared her down, all the more incensed that the woman’s green eyes and auburn hair matched hers to a T.
Obviously my husband’s coloring
of choice
, she thought with renewed fury.

“No, Evelyn!” he ordered. “You stay. My wife and I can discuss this in the back room.”

He clamped a tight hand to her wrist in a near-death grip and all but dragged her through the door, slamming it hard. He flung her hand away and then clenched his fists at his sides, the thick muscles of his arms ridged with tension. In all of their ten years of marriage, she had never seen him display such anger, and the very thought served to temper hers. His face was still flushed and his lips clamped white, silent for several seconds as if not trusting himself to speak. She sensed he teetered on the edge, his glare hard and unblinking. His muscular body stood stiff, no movement but the rise and fall of his chest and a tic at the base of his temple.

She swallowed hard, her anger giving way to his. “I’m sorry for losing my temper, but you have no idea how that looked . . .”

He stared her down, his words little more than a hiss delivered through clenched teeth. “It was a simple hug, Faith. To thank me for the job, and nothing more.”

She folded her arms and jutted her chin to fight the tremble in her lips. “You should have told me, Collin, told me that you knew her before.”

“I did.” He bit out the words.

Her anger resurfaced. “You led me to believe she was an old family friend.” She took a step forward and jabbed a finger in the air, aimed at the door. “That woman in there is anything but old!” Fury burned in her eyes. “And from what Lizzie says . . .
and
your base inclinations before we were married, I’m betting she was way more than a friend.”

A rare curse hissed from his lips and he gouged the back of his neck in obvious frustration. “Blast your sister,” he muttered. “For pity’s sake, why did she tell you?”