The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel) (35 page)

Olivia smiled. “Why, Greta, I do think you’re a romantic.”

“Hush, now. You let something like that get around this place and I lose all sorts of credibility.”

Olivia pressed a finger to her lips, but her green eyes danced with merriment. “Mum’s the word.”

“Good. Now I want you to think twice about leaving here, because there are people in this place and in this town who need you.” Greta squeezed Olivia’s fingers. “People like me.”

Olivia nodded, swiping at the tears in her eyes. “Okay, I will. Thank you, Greta.”

“It’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for my own grandchild, and I want you to know that to me, you are part of my family, dear.”

Olivia pressed a tender kiss to Greta’s cheek. “I appreciate it, and I appreciate you.” She got to her feet, and Miss Sadie scrambled to join her. “Now I really have to go or I’m going to be late.”

Oh, it softened Greta’s heart to see Olivia happy again, she thought as Olivia headed down the hall, Miss Sadie trotting by her side. Maybe there was still a way to get this all to work out. Not just so Greta would have a happy ending for the Common Sense Carla column, but so she could give Olivia and Luke the happy ending they so deserved.

Because truth be told, Greta Winslow really
was
a romantic at heart.

Then she spied a familiar bane of her existence wearing a too-thin, too-tight tank top outside the window, waving at her. Exception—a romantic at heart when it came to everyone—

Except for Harold Twohig, the shirtless wonder.

Twenty-one

Luke’s dark mood had driven off Mike, who threw up his hands, read Luke the riot act about running a one-man pity party, then headed next door to take out some frustration on some two-by-fours. Luke could hear the hammering all the way from inside his house and figured Mike would be gone for a while. The two had been friends long enough that he didn’t worry the blowup would damage that bond. Mike had been right and justified in calling Luke out for being an idiot. The problem was transforming from idiot back into human.

The idiot side of him had driven Olivia away—permanently. He couldn’t blame her. He couldn’t have been more brutal and cruel if he’d delivered his message with a sledgehammer.

He missed her. Damn, how he missed her. She’d become a part of his life, and without her, it was as if someone had ripped out a vital organ.

They had. His heart.

He glanced at the answering machine. It blinked red, over and over, reminding him of the message waiting for him. Emma, Joe’s sister, had received the letter Luke sent her and wanted to talk.

Luke had ignored the message. Hadn’t returned the call. What the hell was he supposed to say to her?

His doorbell rang, making him jump. He wanted to ignore it, but he’d done a lot of ignoring of things lately and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere but alone again. He headed down the hall and pulled open the door. It took a moment for the incongruous sight standing on his porch to make sense. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

Edward Winslow hadn’t changed a bit in the six months since Luke had last seen him. He had on the typical lawyer attire he wore every day—dark-blue power suit, crimson tie, crisp white shirt, and polished dress shoes. Not a hair out of place, not a speck of lint on his Brooks Brothers. “I came by to see my son.”

Not
to see you
or
to visit with you
, but the impersonal
to see my son
. “Is it time already for your once-a-year lecture? I’m not in the mood for that.” Luke started to shut the door, but his father stopped him.

“That’s not why I’m here.” Edward’s face pinched. “Can I come in?”

Luke hesitated, then opened the door wider. “Fine.”

Edward stepped into the bungalow, and if he had issues with Luke’s décor, he didn’t show it. He just strode down the hall toward the kitchen, as if he were striding up to the judge’s bench to deliver an objection. Luke followed, already regretting opening the door.

Edward detoured for the table, while Luke took up a station against the counter. He reached for the coffee and realized he could see the pot this time. When had things stopped being all shadows and shapes and begun to shift into clear images? Had he been too caught up in his one-man pity party to notice the changes in his vision? His sight wasn’t perfect, not by any stretch, but a whole lot better.

Luke filled the carafe, dumped some grounds into the basket, then pressed the power button. He put his back to the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. And waited. He knew Edward well, and could see the windup to the lecture in the way his father tensed and knitted his brows in mock concern.

“I stopped by to make sure you were taking care of yourself,” his father said. “Your grandmother said you have been having . . . difficulties since the accident.”

“The accident that killed my best friend and left me partially blind? Yeah, Dad, it’s been tough over the last couple of
months
. But nothing for you to worry about.”

“I realize you may be angry at me for not visiting or coming by to take care of you when you got home. I had the National Bar Association conference in—”

“Frankly, Dad, I don’t give a shit where you were. Thanks for the
Get Well Soon
card and the gift card for the supermarket. It really helped ease the pain.” Luke didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

“I . . .” Edward put up his hands. “You’re right. I should have been here. I didn’t know what to do. And your grandmother seemed to have it all under control. Like she always does.”

“Dad, she’s
eighty-three years old
. When are you going to stop dumping the parental role in her lap? It’s about fucking time you started being a dad, don’t you agree?” He snorted, then reined in years of anger. “Not that I need one now anyway.”

For the first time that Luke could remember, Edward was speechless. He sat at the kitchen table, his mouth pursed like he’d eaten a lemon. “Is the coffee done?”

Of course. Change the subject, ignore the tough stuff. Why had Luke hoped for anything else? He glanced back at the pot. “Almost.”

“Good.”

Silence hung over the kitchen, a brick wall between two stubborn bulls. Luke willed the timer to beep the end of the brewing cycle so he could dispense with this whole charade of a friendly, paternal visit.

Then his mind went to Olivia. To their moonlit walk, and what she’d said when he’d told her he was afraid he’d fall on his face if he tried walking with her.

Yeah, you probably will. But then you’ll get back up and try again because you have to. Besides, you can’t stay on the damned porch all night.

She hadn’t just been talking about the porch or the walk, and he knew it. She was telling him it was okay to take those steps forward in the dark, to try, and maybe fail, because it was time to get off the porch he’d built out of grief and regret.

Damn, that could almost be poetry. But it was true, and another way that Olivia had touched his life when he hadn’t been looking.

She could read him, pretty damned well. From the minute she’d met him, Olivia had always seemed to say just what he needed to hear. Whether he listened was another story.

What better place to take those first steps, Luke decided, than here, with his father? Someone had to take the lead or they’d be stuck in this impasse forever.

Hell, he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t had this mountain between them. When Luke had been little, his father would come home at the end of the day, say hello to Greta, then head down the hall to his son’s room. Luke would lie in his bed, the covers up to his nose, aware that his father was standing in the light of the hall. He would wait for his father to enter the room, but Edward never did. So Luke would pretend to be asleep and eventually Edward would walk away.

Now, as an adult, Luke realized he’d been lying there, desperate for his father to notice he was only pretending to sleep, while Edward was standing there, probably desperate for his son to notice he was home, and to run into his arms. Luke had been waiting for his distant father to thaw, and Edward had been at a loss as to how to connect with his daredevil son, so like the wife he had lost.

The impasse between them had started on those nights when they’d both so lonely, each needing the other to help them get through this new life devoid of the woman they had both loved, and yet both of them terrified to take those first steps toward the other.

“How was the conference?” As first steps went, that one was pretty damned small.

“Good. Same old boring people talking about the same old boring stuff. Lawyers can be pretty tough to be around all day.”

Luke arched a brow. “You don’t say.”

Edward sighed. “I get it. I’m a terrible father.”

“You
were
a terrible father. You don’t have to keep being one.” He could have recited a long list of Edward’s faults, the times Edward had let him down or broken a promise, but he didn’t. It was a new day and Luke was a new person, whether he liked that fact or not. Time to stop living in a past he couldn’t change.

“So let’s start over,” he said to his father, and worked a smile to his face. “Hi, Dad. Nice to see you. You want some coffee?”

“I’d love some.”

The coffeepot beeped. Luke filled two mugs, then brought them to the table. When he set the white mug in front of Edward, his father reached out and covered his son’s hand with his own.

“Thank you, Luke,” Edward said.

Luke held his father’s gaze for a long moment. “You’re welcome.”

Then the two men sat and talked about sports and the weather and the rising price of gas, avoiding the big topics in the room, the ones they’d avoided for so long, it seemed easier to leave them to the side than tackle them. That was okay, Luke decided. He didn’t need to change the entire world in one afternoon, just make a couple steps in the right direction.

Twenty-two

A small half oval, simple, plain, seated on a grassy hill and flanked by two metal vases filled with fresh yellow roses. Etched in the dark-gray granite was an image of a butterfly, eternally flying above a few simple words.

BRIDGET TUTTLE

BELOVED MOTHER

1966–2013

Olivia stared at the gravestone, but felt . . . nothing. Even after all these miles, all this time in the house, she had no more connection to the woman who had given birth to her than she had the day Bridget had left her in the hospital. In those years, Olivia had had a thousand questions, but really, they all boiled down to one.

“Why?”

The word echoed in the still, quiet air of the Rescue Bay Cemetery. A bird squawked and flew off, and somewhere in the distance a siren sounded. No answer came back. No sense of peace. Nothing.