The Sweetheart Bargain (A Sweetheart Sisters Novel) (39 page)

“Goddammit, Olivia, I am so interested in you, I can’t think of anything else. Wanting you is not the problem. It never was. It’s this.” He waved at his face, at eyes that would never be perfect.

“You think I should stay away because of this?” She reached up, and touched his scar, light, gentle. “Because I don’t care about what this did to your sight or your face, Luke.”

He caught her hand and pulled it away. “It’s not what this did to my vision. It’s what getting this did to
me
.”

“It didn’t change who you are deep down inside,” she said.

Did he know that for sure? Did he know, without a single doubt, that in the end, in a pinch, he could be the man others relied on again? Or would he someday let Olivia down, too, and break her heart—or worse?
That
was the war that waged inside Luke, even now, when what he wanted so badly was standing right before him, forcing him to confront those fears. “I killed my best friend, Olivia. That kind of thing changes someone in fundamental ways.”

“Maybe it did, but in good ways, too.”

He watched the sea wash in, wash out, erasing their footprints and turning the beach smooth and new again. The storm was carving new curves into the sand, then erasing and carving again. Maybe that was what the accident had done to him. Maybe it had erased part of him but replaced those parts with something in a different mold.

Olivia reached for his hands and clasped them tight, her fingers warm against the gusting wind. Every time she touched him, it was like medicine for his soul.

“Tell me, Luke,” she said softly.

He hesitated, not wanting those tender feelings he read in her eyes to fade. But if he didn’t tell her the whole story, he’d be doing exactly the same thing he’d done for the past few weeks—letting the past control his future.

Telling Emma had been the first step in the right direction out of the darkness, even though it had been the hardest damned thing Luke had ever done.
If I had known that would be the last time, I’d have given Joe a bigger hug.

He couldn’t give Emma back her brother and all the hugs she would miss, but he could give Joe the honor he deserved. His best friend had earned the right to be remembered, to be talked about, to have his spirit live on in jokes and war stories. Luke had tried to stuff all those things into the dark recesses of his mind, but it hadn’t worked.

He watched the power of Mother Nature, pushing water in, out, and realized Joe wouldn’t have wanted to be relegated to a corner of Luke’s mind. He would have wanted to live on, still just as vivid and strong.

“Let’s take a seat, and I’ll tell you about Joe,” Luke said. He waved to a rocky outcropping that anchored the base of the lighthouse. The storm brewing off the Gulf Coast ushered in a cold ocean wind and stirred the sea into an angry froth. It seemed an apt setting.

“When I was a kid, I used to come to this beach all the time, mostly with my grandmother,” Luke began as they settled on the rocks and faced the ocean. “I’d swim and look for shells and get sunburned and generally have a great time. Every time we came to the lighthouse, I’d make Greta tell me about the pirates. My favorite story was about The Three Who Were Saved. That’s always how she said it, with capital letters, like it was a fairy tale or something.”

Olivia tucked her chin into her knees, wrapped her arms around her shins, and listened.

“I don’t remember all the details, but way back in the late seventeen hundreds, there was a hell of a hurricane up the coast. Every ship in the waters of the Gulf wrecked, except for three that made their way to Rescue Bay. The lighthouse guided them out of the storm and into the safety of the bay. Several of the crew opted to stay here and settle down. The town was just incorporating then, and that’s when they voted to be called Rescue Bay.”

“Because people who come here are rescued.” She glanced out at the ocean, her voice filled with a faraway, almost melancholy tone.

“That’s the legend anyway. When I met Joe, he told me he was descended from pirates, like ten generations back. He was probably pulling my leg, but if you’d met Joe, you’d have believed it. He was hell on wheels.” Luke chuckled. “He had this charm about him that made almost anything forgivable, which is probably what saved him from being thrown in the brig a few times. Plus he was damned good at his job, and had great instincts for when to take a chance, when to pull back. When he found out I lived here, he vowed to visit someday and take a look for the rumored buried treasure. He said his pirate blood would point him in the right direction.”

“Did he?”

Luke shook his head. “We never got a chance.”

The surf crashed against the rocks, rising up to spray them with a saltwater kiss. Gulls patrolled the shore, looking for a meal, while terns danced in and out of the incoming tide on the beach. With the storm rolling in, no one was on the beach right now, and Chance took his time exploring the coast.

Luke propped his arms on his knees, then closed his eyes and finally opened the gate in his mind, releasing the tide of memories. The darkened cockpit, the radio chatter, the brewing storm lashing at the helo, tossing them in the air like a child’s plaything.

“I should have turned around that night. We’d gotten called out to rescue some fishermen who had run aground in the storm. Their vessel was going down fast, and the water at that time of year is already so damned cold we knew we didn’t have much time to get them out. We got to the ship with no problem, but as we were lowering the swimmer, I got that feeling in my gut that said things were on the verge of heading south fast, but I wanted to get one more rescue in, one more success on the charts.” He let out a breath. “I joined the Coast Guard because I wanted to save people, not jump out of planes and shoot them. But then the saving became its own kind of drug. Joe and I would pluck a fisherman out of the water or get a man with a burst appendix to the hospital just in time, and we’d feel like heroes. We got to the point where we almost felt . . . invincible, smarter and stronger than anything Alaska could throw at us. I got cocky, and because of that, I let my confidence overpower my better judgment. I took a risk I shouldn’t have. Stayed out in a storm when I should have turned back.”

“But if you’d turned back, the people on the boat would have died.”

“If I’d turned back, Joe would be alive today.” He tossed a pebble into the water. It sank and disappeared into the frothy green ocean. Like the boat had that night. The helo. Joe. “That’s what I told Joe’s sister when I called her today. I expected her to hate me. To scream at me for being such an idiot.”

“But instead she understood?”

He nodded. The forgiveness in Emma’s voice had taken Luke by surprise. “She said Joe knew the risks when he got to AIRSTA Kodiak. He knew he could die. His attitude was that if he was going to go out, better to go out trying to do the right thing than with regrets.” Luke watched an ocean growing angrier by the moment. They’d need to head in soon to avoid the storm, but he had to get this out now, or he might never say it. “We went down, but got out a Mayday in time, and another helo came in, saving the fishermen, me, my crew. Most of the crew anyway.” Luke shook his head and cursed the memories, even as they filled his mind and lanced his heart. “It was already too late for Joe. The helo hit the edge of the boat on his side, and Joe was gone before he hit the water. I was powerless, completely powerless, to save someone who never should have died. I think that’s been the hardest part for me to live with. I know Joe wouldn’t blame me, and if he were here, he’d tell me he was doing his job, and he knew that job came with risks, and I needed to quit feeling bad about him dying.”

Olivia’s gaze assessed him. She laid a hand on his arm. “You’re afraid if you let go of that feeling, you’ll have to let another one take its place.”

That made sense, and he could see it now. If he let go of the guilt, would the overwhelming pain of losing his best friend be the replacement? Or would he find peace? “Yeah. Exactly.”

“I know the feeling.” She retracted her touch, then huddled inside her sweatshirt, her knees tucked inside the fleece. “For years, I harbored this anger against Bridget. For leaving me, for not keeping in touch with me, but most of all, for not wanting me. It was easier to do that than to understand her and the difficult choices she had to make. And now that I know she loved me, that she was only doing what was best for me, I have to let go of that anger and replace it with compassion, understanding. And love.”

He scoffed. “Look at the two of us, scared to do anything that takes us down a new path.”

“We’re both afraid of falling in the dark.”

“Something I am very familiar with.” He chuckled. “You know, I used to be the first one into the fray. The one who was never afraid of anything. And now I am afraid of loss, and that is what has kept me in that damned house day after day, instead of really living. I lost my best friend, I lost my sight, I lost my career.” He shifted on the rock until he was facing her. “Until you came along, I didn’t realize how much I’d lose if I stayed there, in that dark place.”

She cocked her head, studied him. “What did I do?”

“You marched into my yard with your sassy smile and determined attitude, and you
demanded
that I get out of my little self-imposed prison and help you.”

She grinned. “You refused, if I remember right.”

“And you didn’t listen. You came back, and so did the dog, and before I knew it, I was doing the very things I said I would never do again. Getting involved. Taking care. Then doing the one thing I thought I would never do at all.”

“What’s that?”

He met her gaze, those incredible green eyes, as dark as a forest at dusk. “I fell in love.”

The words carried on the wind, which had increased in strength and was whirling around them like a dervish. Dark angry clouds filled the sky, blotted out the sun, and the sea began to churn and rise, splashing their bare feet.

She shook her head and rose, hands up, warding him off. “Don’t do this, Luke. Don’t tell me that now. I’m leaving. I’m going back—”

“You’re running.” He stood too, the wind buffeting their bodies like a jealous lover trying to push them apart.

“No, I’m just moving back to Boston and—”

“Olivia, I love you, and I want to be with you.” As he said the words, the fear that had kept him from opening his heart loosened its grip. “Hell, I want to get married and fix that silly house of yours and take care of those dogs. I have no idea what I’ll do for a job, but I don’t care. All I want is you. The rest, we’ll figure out.”

“Luke . . . I can’t.” She backed up a step. “I’m leaving.”

“You keep telling me I’m the one that’s running. I’ve stopped, Olivia, and it’s all because of you.” He had stopped running, right here, in this storm, under the protective arm of the lighthouse, because he’d stopped letting his regrets control his future. When it was all on the line, Luke had made the riskiest move of all—he’d filleted his heart and given it to Olivia. “I want to be with you, to love you, more than I want to run.”

She shook her head, backed up another step. Heavy rain began to fall, pelting the beach and the rocks with hard, wet drops. “I don’t do settling down, Luke. I screwed up my first marriage. I screwed up my life here. If we get married—”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” he said. “We have a fight? We disagree on who takes out the trash? We argue over what’s for dinner on Saturday night?” He grinned. “If that’s the case, I’ll tell you that I don’t care what we eat for dinner on Saturday or any other day, or whether we cook or we order out, as long as I’m with you.”

She was shaking her head and backing up again and the rain was coming, the storm was seething. “No. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” He had to shout to be heard above the rage of the storm. She remained mute. “Olivia, what the hell is it?”

“I’m afraid . . .” She shook her head, shifted her weight to the right. The wind whipped her blond locks into her face, then away again, fast and hard. Chance barked at them from his place far below on the beach.

Luke closed the distance between them, not just so he could hear her answer, but so she knew he wasn’t going anywhere. Not now, not ever. Finally telling her the truth had lifted a burden, pulled back a heavy curtain, and he refused to waste one more minute of his life when happiness was within his reach. “Afraid of what?” he said again, softer.

“I’m afraid you’ll leave me!” The words exploded from her in a shout, and she moved again, another step, the wind blinding her with her own hair. “And I just can’t—”

Then she was gone. Olivia disappeared over the side of the cliff.

Twenty-four