Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (40 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Her family used to summer here. I met her when she came to the shop for a rocking chair. The business was getting off the ground, and we started dating. The rest was history.”

Kate waited for him to finish. The only sounds were that of the waves crashing the shoreline and the laughter of children playing in the shallows. “Is that when you built your house?”

He crossed his ankles. His legs were long and thick, covered in wiry black hair. “No. We lived in a cottage in Cisco after we married. I didn’t build my house until . . . until after.”

She didn’t have to ask “After what?” It was still painful for him to talk about. Kate wondered why he’d married her. Given the way he obviously still felt about Emily, he had to care a great deal about his parents to be willing to sacrifice a year of his life to save their marriage.

She hated to grill him, but she’d be expected to know. She set the pen on the towel and propped her head on her palm. “How did she . . . die?”

She didn’t think he was going to answer. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her softly spoken question over the seagulls’ cries. But after a moment he sighed.

“It was my fault. Guess that’s why it’s still hard to talk about.”

What did he mean? She wanted to ask, wanted to know the details. Even though Lucas irritated her, he wasn’t the type to harm anyone. In fact, he was always helping people. In his own time, but helping them nonetheless.

“She had allergies—lots of them. The environmental ones like pollens were easily controlled with medication, so it wasn’t a big deal.” He shifted. “She’d tested allergic to peanuts as a teenager, but she’d never had a reaction. She avoided them, though, because her doctor told her to.”

Two teenagers behind them tossed a Frisbee, and it sailed over them and landed a few feet away, flicking up the sand. Lucas waited while they retrieved it.

“The week she died, I’d done the grocery shopping. I bought a bag of chips that were fried in peanut oil.” He shook his head. “Didn’t even think about checking the ingredients. I used to tease her about being overly cautious.”

Kate’s heart went out to him. Couldn’t he see it was an accident?

“I’d been at the shop working on an order I was running behind on, and when I came home . . . it was too late.”

She watched his face, the way his jaw clenched, the way his lips tightened. She wished she could console him somehow. “I’m so sorry.”

His chest rose and fell. “It was a long time ago.”

Five years wasn’t that long. He’d been married to the love of his life and now he was sitting on the beach with his counterfeit bride. She wondered how he felt about that.

He turned and opened his eyes, squinting against the glare of the sun. “So that’s my story. What’s yours?”

She appreciated his desire to change the subject. “What do you want to know?”

Lucas watched Kate turn her head until her cheek rested in her hand. She looked like a little girl, her sun-flushed cheeks bunched up against her palm. He already knew more about her than she was aware. She was twenty-eight, her favorite flowers were daisies, her birthday was November 26, and she color-coded her Day-Timer.

He went for the unknown. “How did you become an advice columnist?”

She smiled. “Friends in high school always came to me for advice, and I was good at giving it.” Kate shrugged. “I started on my life plan my junior year in high—”

“Life plan?”

“A plan detailing my short- and long-term goals.” She said it as if everyone had one. “Anyway, I realized I had a knack for helping people with relationship decisions. Then I took a fabulous writing class in high school and started my first manuscript.” She cocked her head. “It was bad, but I didn’t know it at the time. However, I realized I wanted to combine my love for helping people with my love of writing.”

“You had all this planned out before high school graduation?”

She flipped onto her side. “Sure. I knew I wanted to get a psych degree from Cornell and go into counseling so I could support myself and gain experience while getting my writing career started.”

“You were born on Nantucket, right? Is that why you’re here now?”

“My parents grew up here, and, yes, I was born here. We moved to Maryland when I was five because my dad got relocated. Then, when I was in college, a friend invited me here for a week to stay in her parents’ cottage in ’Sconset. What can I say? It felt like coming back home.”

“So you added Nantucket to your life plan?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

How could he criticize when she’d met all her goals? Except he was sure marrying him hadn’t been on that list of hers. “What about the column?”

She stuck her knee out to the side, and he worked to keep his eyes away from the smooth curve of her hips. “I started it at Cornell for the school newspaper. At first I wrote my own questions; then students began writing me, and it all took off from there.”

Apparently she set her mind to something and made it happen by sheer will. “Ambitious one, aren’t you?”

A wind tousled her fringed bangs. “I like helping people. Initially in my practice I focused on couples with marriage problems.”

“You seemed to build up a decent clientele.” He was in his shop enough to see clients passing up and down the stairs on the hour.

“The more I counseled married people, the more I began to see that people were making poor choices in the spouses they selected. They’d come to me, polar opposites, wanting different things out of life, and wonder why they couldn’t get along. I started putting together a plan to help people make better choices about who they marry.”

She made it sound like it could be boiled down to cold, hard facts. “What about love?”

“Well, of course, there has to be love. But by choosing to date the right people, you limit yourself to those who are best suited to you.”

He turned on his side, mirroring her position. “How do you know if they’re suited to you until you know them? And once you know them that well, aren’t you likely to have fallen in love with them already?”

Her breath huffed out. “What is this, an inquisition?” She rolled onto her back, propping her head on her bag, and closed her eyes. “My plan is detailed and well thought out. If you want to know more, read the stinking book.”

She’d gotten snippy in a hurry. Maybe she felt defensive since her fail-proof plan hadn’t turned out to be so fail proof.

Which reminded him of her ex-fiancé. Lucas wanted to ask if she’d called him, but judging by her set little chin, maybe now wasn’t the time.

Something at the corner of his vision caught his attention. A man in dress clothes sat on the sand down the shore, holding a camera with a zoom lens. He looked as out of place as a diamond in a toolbox.

Lucas looked at Kate. “I think we have company.”

She didn’t bother opening her eyes. “Who?”

“One of the photographers from the wedding. Down the shore a ways.”

She opened her eyes.

“Don’t look.”

Kate looked at Lucas instead. “Is he looking this way? Does he have a camera?”

“Yes and yes.”

“Which one is he?”

“I don’t remember. He was at the wedding, though. The one with spiky hair and artsy glasses.”

She sighed. “He’s from
Cosmo
. I guess they wanted some honeymoon shots for the article.”

“They could’ve asked instead of sneaking around like the paparazzi.”

“They can’t. I made it clear to my agent the honeymoon was off limits. Did he see you looking?”

“No. But he has a zoom lens that can probably see the amber flecks in your eyes from a hundred feet.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Great. I guess we haven’t exactly looked like newlyweds, have we?”

He rolled on his stomach next to her, their sides brushing. Her skin was warm, and the feel of her smooth skin against his leg stoked a fire in his belly. “We could consider that our first fight.”

“Wasn’t much of one.” She smiled.

She was probably thinking they made a much better photo now, lying so close and gazing into each other’s eyes. But all Lucas could think about was what her sun-warmed lips would taste like. The wedding kiss seemed like a distant memory and Kate had been shell-shocked. What would a slow, lingering kiss feel like here on the beach, under the sun with the salted breeze stroking their skin?

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Because I want to pull you in my arms and give that man a lensful.
“We’re honeymooners, remember?”

She pulled her lip between her teeth. “Oh. Right. And we just had our first tiff. Maybe we should kiss and make up.”

With the sun shining into her face, her eyes ran more toward rich brown than olive. Like melted caramel. “It’s a thought,” he said.

“Okay, go ahead.” She tilted toward him. Her eyes skimmed his face and fell on his lips.

He grinned, leaning over her until his shadow blocked the sun from her face. “I have permission now, huh?”

She touched his jaw. “What?”

“Are you sure it’s on the list for today?” he teased.

She twitched her eyebrow. “You sure know how to ruin the mood.” Was her voice a little breathy?

“There was a mood?” Before she could answer, he closed the space between them and kissed her slowly, reveling in the way she reciprocated. His hand settled on her side where her silky bathing suit clung to the curve of her waist.

For a moment he let himself forget she was only responding for the camera. He remembered every time he’d seen her leaving her office, every time he watched her walk down the sidewalk, hair swishing with each step. Every time she knocked on his shop door late at night to complain about the noise.

All those times I wanted to grab her and kiss the living daylights out of her.

Kate pulled away from him, breaking his thoughts. “There. He should’ve gotten plenty of good photos.”

The cold wave of her words doused the mood. Trying for nonchalance, he turned onto his back and closed his eyes, hoping she couldn’t see his heart thundering against his chest wall. He’d wanted the kiss to be more than show. He wanted it to be real.

You got yourself into this, man.

“Is he still there?” she asked.

They’d only started playing the game, and already he’d tired of it. “I don’t know.” And he wasn’t going to look.

“I guess we shouldn’t look.”

He felt her hand, delicate against his own.

She’s just pretending. Don’t forget that.

“Let’s talk about your parents. I need to know anything that will help me understand their problems.”

Lucas was tired of the whole thing. Right now he wanted to blurt out that his parents didn’t have a problem, that he’d married her because he loved her. But that would only scare her away.

He swallowed. “I’m not sure what’s wrong between them. They just fuss a lot.”

“You said your mom left for a while. Did they have a fight?”

This was going to be harder than he thought. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what the problem is. That’s why I need your help.”

Her fingers intertwined with his, and he felt the wedding band.

“Don’t you feel you can talk openly with your parents?”

He cringed. He was getting himself in deeper and deeper. “I’m not a talker—you know that much about me.” The seagulls cried out, and another wave hit the shore. “I’m just not good with words, and I don’t think they’d want me interfering anyway.”

He needed to make sure Kate was subtle with his mom. Otherwise Kate would find out it was all a ruse. “You’ll need to get to know my mom before expecting her to open up.”
Good luck with that.
He couldn’t imagine anyone his mom would be less likely open up to.

An instant later panic struck. What if his mom confronted Kate about her mom? No. As soon as the panic hit, it evaporated. His mom didn’t confront people. She killed silently with subtle digs and innuendos, God love her.

“That goes without saying.”

“And leave Jamie and Brody out of it. I don’t want them stressing about our parents.” Or setting Kate straight about their fussing.

“If they live with your parents, they know what’s going on. Even young children pick up on conflict. It affects them more deeply than you realize.”

Her voice held a tone of sadness. He looked at her, but she turned onto her back, withdrawing her hand, and closed her own eyes. Lucas had a feeling there was a load of hurt backing up that statement, and he wondered if Kate would ever trust him enough to share it.

Lucas took Kate’s hand as they climbed the steps of the White Elephant. The week had passed quickly. It was hard to believe tomorrow it would be over. His Spontaneity Day with Kate had proved to be a challenge. She seemed unacquainted with the idea of letting things happen and had spent most of the day trying to figure out what they were doing next.

Now, she looked tired and sun drained, her cheeks reddened from their walk through ’Sconset. Maybe he’d order room service so she wouldn’t have to go back out for dinner.

They entered the lobby floor and passed the registration desk. Kate stopped suddenly by a woman at the desk, withdrawing her hand from his.