The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel) (26 page)

“Me? You’re the one who got a visit from Miss Manners.” Mike leaned toward Olivia. “That’s a story for another day.”

Luke scowled. “No, it’s not.”

“Just ask Luke about the time he spilled a gravy boat on the admiral’s wife. Damned near got sent to the brig for that one.” Mike gave Luke a playful jab. “Totally uncouth, this one. You can’t take him anywhere.”

“I’ll remember that,” Olivia said.

Mike thrust a hand in Diana’s direction. “I’m Mike Stark, flight mechanic with the Coast Guard and temporary roommate of the Neanderthal.”

“Diana Tuttle. Local vet and mother of a budding Neanderthal.”

The men laughed at that, and Jackson shot his mother a look of annoyance—tempered with a half smile. At their feet, the puppies tumbled and wrestled, using the adults’ feet as staging.

“Thanks for checking on me,” Olivia said to Luke. “It turns out my intruder was Jackson. He’s been checking on some puppies that were born in the shelter.”

Mike’s gaze took in the space. “Not the safest place to have puppies.”

Diana nodded. “We’re hoping to move them in a couple of days. We’re letting Mom recuperate a bit, and then I’ll take them to my office.”

“Just keep an eye on that beam there,” Mike said, pointing at the ceiling. “If you want, I can come by and check the place out later tonight. I was a contractor before I went into the Coast Guard.”

“That’d be great,” Olivia said. “I have no idea what I’m doing, and the problem is there’s so much to do.”

“I can see that.”

Luke cleared his throat. “We better get back next door.”

“Oh yeah. Chicken on the grill.” Mike turned to Diana. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything, why don’t you come, too? You can bring your Neanderthal-in-training, too. Us guys can sit around and grunt while you ladies make up a list of our bad habits.”

Diana laughed. “Now that’s an offer I’ve never had before.”

A grin quirked up one side of Mike’s face, a grin that spelled interest in the pretty blond veterinarian. “Stick with me, and you’ll get plenty of those.”

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy, leave the women alone.” Luke grabbed Mike’s T-shirt and tugged him to the side. “Let me go hose him down.”

Diana and Olivia laughed as the men left, then headed back across the lawns to Luke’s house. When they were gone, Diana and Olivia gathered up the cleaning supplies and headed for the house.

“I didn’t know you knew Luke Winslow,” Diana said. “I haven’t seen him for at least four years, maybe longer.”

“You know Luke?”

“Rescue Bay is a really small town. He’s a couple years older than me, but we went to the same high school. He was quite the athletic star back in those days. All-around best athlete, salutatorian, best smile, all those things. The girls were all gaga over him. Mr. Popularity, that was Luke.”

“Really?” Olivia’s gaze went in the direction Luke had gone. The glimpses she’d had of a different man, one who joked and teased, hinted at the one he had been before. Was that man still the true Luke? “The same guy?”

Diana tipped the bucket of soapy water onto the driveway, then bent to wring out the rags. “I heard he was in an accident when he was in the Coast Guard. I don’t know what happened, but I heard it was bad.”

“His vision was damaged,” Olivia explained. “That’s why he wears sunglasses pretty much all the time. To make it easier to see, and, I think, harder for others to stare.”

“That I can understand. In a small town, gossip can be a contact sport.” Diana fished in her pocket for her keys. “Anyway, I better go get Jackson before that mother dog adopts him as one of her pups.”

“Wait, aren’t you coming to dinner? Mike invited you.”

Diana turned her keys over and over in her palm. “Oh, I don’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t be intruding. You’d be providing backup. I can’t be the token girl with those two self-proclaimed Neanderthals.” Olivia leaned toward Diana and thumbed in the direction of Luke’s yard. “Besides, I think Mike is very interested in you.”

“In me?” She pressed a hand to her hair. A flush filled her cheeks. “Well, maybe he’s the one with vision problems, because I’m a mess and I smell like dog.”

“He must like that.” Olivia nodded toward the break in the fence. “Check it out.”

Mike and Luke were standing by the grill. Mike had his back to the grill, and his attention on Olivia’s house. When he saw Diana looking his way, he raised his beer and tossed her a grin.

The pink in Diana’s cheeks deepened to crimson. “I’m not looking for a relationship right now. I have enough on my plate. But you, you should go for Luke. He’s definitely interested in you.”

Olivia laughed. Did her sister realize how parallel their lives were, even though the two had grown up miles and years apart?

“What?” Diana asked.

“I said the exact same thing when I moved here and met Luke. And let’s just say that despite my vow not to get involved, Luke and I haven’t exactly kept things . . . platonic.”

“Really?”

Now it was Olivia’s turn to blush. “Really. There’s strength in numbers, sis, so let’s go over there and show those guys how very
uninterested
we are.”

Diana glanced at Mike one more time. A smile curved across her face. “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

Luke didn’t know whether to punch Mike or hug him for the barbecue idea. He figured he’d wait until the night was over, then decide.

Being around Olivia was pure torture. His body remembered being naked with her. Kissing her. Tasting her. Running his hands down her sweet, soft skin. How close, so, so damned close he’d come to being inside her.

Every time she laughed or moved or the breeze sent a tantalizing snippet of her perfume his way, he wanted her all over again. She had changed from shorts and a tee into a butter-yellow dress that skimmed over her curves and belled around her knees. She had on simple white flip-flops that kept it all simple, casual. As if she could kick off the shoes at any second and run through a meadow.

“For God’s sake, I’m turning into a damned Hallmark commercial,” Luke muttered to Mike. The two of them were tending to the chicken over a hot fire, like the he-men they’d purported to be. Really, Mike was cooking and Luke was staring at Olivia. “What is it with that woman?”

“Who? Olivia?”

“Of course, Olivia.” Luke scowled. “Are you listening to a word I say?”

“Only the curse words.”

That made Luke laugh. Damn, he was glad Mike was here. Mike had a way of making even the worst situation seem like a minor setback, and always had. Luke tipped his beer Mike’s way, then headed over to the women. Olivia and Diana were busy setting up the picnic table on the patio—an old, wooden thing that had been here since he’d bought the house and that he had sat at maybe once since he’d moved in. They were draping a checked piece of cloth over the wooden surface, then laying out silverware and dishes he hadn’t even realized he owned. Olivia’s dogs sat on the grass and watched the entire process.

Luke followed Olivia into the house, where she started spooning store-bought potato salad into a serving bowl. A platter of her homemade brownies sat on the countertop. Mike and Luke hadn’t actually made anything for their impromptu barbecue, letting Winn-Dixie do all the heavy lifting. Turned out Mike’s supersecret barbecue sauce consisted of mixing two different flavors of Sweet Baby Ray’s.

Now the women were turning the men’s pathetic attempts at a meal from a bachelor mishmash into something almost . . . civil. “Where did you find all this stuff?”

“In your hutch,” Olivia said.

“My . . . what?”

Olivia laughed. “The big glass-and-wood thing in the dining room. There was a tablecloth in one of the drawers, and these dishes in the cabinet.”

“I didn’t . . .” Luke chuckled and shook his head as he put the pieces together. When he’d been recuperating in Alaska, Greta had offered to put the house together for him. He’d sent her a check and she’d done the rest, picking up furniture and dishes and food. She’d even filled the salt and pepper shakers and made sure he had napkins tucked in a little holder on the counter. Taking care of him, just as she had when he’d been a little boy and his father had broken yet another promise to be home in time for dinner. Back then, Greta had eased Luke’s disappointment and loneliness with macaroni and cheese. Today, she’d done it with tablecloths and dishes. “My grandma. Trying to make me domesticated.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Oh, I’m a regular Martha Stewart now,” he said, his tone dry. “Stick around for the homemade ornaments and tree-decorating class later.”

She tossed him a grin. “I’d pay good money to see you making Christmas ornaments.”

“Does that mean you’ll be here at Christmas?” he asked, then wanted to kick himself. What the hell? Why had he asked that? What was he doing? Making plans for ten months from now? Hell, he didn’t even know what
he
would be doing by then.

He almost snorted. What he’d be doing? He’d be doing the same damned thing ten months from now, ten years from now. His vision would never be a hundred percent again and any man who held on to the thought that he could return to the life he’d had would be a fool.

“I’m not planning on going anywhere, Luke. You’re stuck with me.” She hefted the bowl into the crook of her arm, then grabbed the ketchup and relish in the other hand, with the mustard dangling between two fingers. “Can you get the door, please?”

“Here. Let me take that.” He reached for the dish, but the dim light made it hard to judge the distance and just as he took the bowl from her, the patterned vessel slipped through his fingers and crashed to the floor, spraying stoneware chips and mayonnaise-coated chunks. Luke cursed and bent to pick up the worst of it, but the mess blurred in and out of his vision, melting into the tile’s pattern.

Olivia grabbed his hand. “Wait. You’ll cut yourself.”

“Goddammit, I’m not an invalid! I can do it!”

She recoiled, and a wave of regret hit him hard. When did he become this person who barked at people? A man who let a broken bowl make him so angry he couldn’t see straight? He rocked back on his heels and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

But it was too late. The screen door slammed behind Olivia. Luke sighed, then got the dustpan out of the closet and began scooping up what he could see, then tossing it into the nearby trash can. He heard the door open again and he turned, but instead of Olivia’s lithe figure, he saw the hulking shadow of Mike standing in the doorway.

“Can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?” Mike said.

Luke scowled. Because Mike had found him like this, weak and covered in potatoes, and because Mike wasn’t Olivia. “I don’t need your help. I’m cleaning up the mess.”

“Are you? Because it seems to me, both messes are out of control. Outside I see a woman who looks ready to either cry or rip you a new one. And you’re in here, on your hands and knees, with your kitchen covered in potato salad. Did you two have a food fight?”

“Very funny. No, we didn’t have a food fight.” Luke waved at the stoneware shards. “I dropped the fucking bowl.”

Mike grabbed the roll of paper towels on the counter, then bent down beside Luke and began swiping up the potato salad.

“I said I don’t need your help.”

“No, you don’t. But you’re getting it anyway. You can growl at me all you want, butterfingers, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m tougher than that. Just remember, not everyone will take your crap and keep coming back for more.” Mike laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “So get that through your thick skull and quit biting the hands that help you.”

Luke rested his arms on his bent knees. “You’re right. I’m an idiot.”

“Yup. You are.”

“Hey!”

Mike shrugged. “You said it. I’m just agreeing. Now let’s get this cleaned up. There’s barbecue chicken, cold beers, and beautiful women waiting for us outside. The trifecta of perfection.”

The two men worked together, and a few minutes later they had the mess cleared and the kitchen set to rights. Luke changed his clothes, then headed outside with Mike. Olivia and Diana were talking, joined now by the lanky figure of Diana’s son, Jackson.

It looked like a Kodak shot of a family reunion, and for a man who had been doing a damned good impression of a hermit for the last few weeks, the crowd took a bit to get used to. Mike gave Luke a nudge. “Don’t forget to wear your nice mask. Don’t want to give people indigestion, you know.”

“Then maybe you better stay out of sight.”

Mike chuckled, then headed for the grill and began loading the meat onto a platter. Luke adjusted his sunglasses against the glare of the setting sun. Olivia watched him, her expression unreadable. Cold, almost. He couldn’t blame her, especially after he’d transformed into King Kong back in the kitchen.

“Uh, dinner’s done,” Luke said. “Extra stuff is on the table, except for the potato salad, which met with an unfortunate accident earlier. There’s beer in the cooler for everyone. Except those who are too young to shave.”

“That’s you, buddy,” Diana said to her son.