Flower Girl Bride (5 page)

I sauntered past them barefoot into the kitchen and lifted the cake server from Eleanor's hand. I sliced a few more pieces and placed them on the clear glass dessert plates my aunt had spread out on the counter.

“You're tired,” I told her. “You don't have to show me everything tonight. Just make a list. I'll be able to figure it out.” If I couldn't manage something as simple as a list of cat duties, then my master's degree wasn't worth the parchment it was written on.

“We won't have much time before church, and we have to leave for the Muskegon Airport right after,” Jack pointed out. “You know, it's rush-rush-rush so we can fly to Detroit Metro for that long layover. What is it, four hours?”

Eleanor nodded. “I guess if we hurry in the morning, we'll be able to show you everything. Our sweetie will need her three meals plus snacks.”

As she spoke, she ticked off list items on her fingers. “Her litter box will need regular scooping and fully changing every third day. Then there's playtime with her toys and, of course, her drinks.”

“Drinks?” Luke and I both asked at the same time, and I glanced back at him, surprised to find him behind me. He reached past me to take one of the plates, a fork and a napkin.

Uncle Jack's rumble of laughter filled the room. “It's a funny story, isn't it, Ellie?”

“It's funny, all right.” She gave her husband a warm look before letting the rest of the crowd in on the joke. “When Princess was a kitten, we used to turn the faucet
on to let her bat at the water. Cats like to do that sometimes. Well, as it turns out, she likes to drink from the faucet, too.”

“But she also drinks from a water bowl, right?” Luke asked.

Eleanor shook her head. “No, not really. I mean she might if every faucet in the house were broken and there wasn't a flowing drop to spare, but I've never seen evidence that she even touches her water bowl.”

“And my tenderhearted Ellie thought it would be cruel to dehydrate the little tooters just to break her of the habit when we were always around anyway.” Jack explained.

“Princess is a little…privileged then?” Luke said.

“Spoiled rotten is what she is,” Jack said, laughing again. “She rules the roost around here, but we love her anyway.”

“She's our baby,” Eleanor agreed.

Everybody seemed to think this was hilarious—everyone except me. I was too busy trying to fight off the cloud of doom dangling over me. What had I gotten myself into? Princess turned into a feline chainsaw whenever we crossed paths, and I was expected to give her drinks from the faucet. I would have to feed her and play with her and make sure her kitty potty smelled fresh all while having to avoid the business end of her claws.

While the others continued to laugh, Luke leaned close to me and whispered, “It's not such a plum job after all.”

I shrugged since he had a point.

Yvonne and Marcus Sheridan, who'd been talking to some other guests in the great room, made their way
into the kitchen together, and Yvonne rested an elbow on the bar next to her grandson.

“It looks as if we've done justice to the cake.” Yvonne turned to admire the platter where only crumbs and a thick wedge of decorator icing remained to suggest there'd once been a three-tiered cake.

“It's all gone,” Sam observed, swiping his finger across the platter and popping the frosting in his mouth.

Luke shook his head, probably to discourage his son from double-dipping. “Yes, it is, and it's also time for us to go.”

“But, Daddy.”

But, Luke.
I had to look around to determine whether I'd said it out loud.
Why
I'd almost said it was a whole other matter. A dozen or so wedding guests remained in my aunt and uncle's great room, so it wasn't as if I'd be alone when they left, but I sensed that most of the fun I'd been having all night would leave with Luke and his son.

“But nothing,” Luke told him. “We're out of here.” He lifted his son and spun around until the boy giggled.

When Luke set him on his feet again, Sam turned to me, holding his arms wide to steady himself. “Grammy said you're staying here for three whole weeks.”

“I am. It'll be nice to relax.”

“Grammy said when your aunt and uncle leave that you'll be lonely.”

“Oh, she did, did she?” Luke glared at his mother, who only smiled back at him.

Apparently, Yvonne hadn't given up on her matchmaking scheme, and from the silly expression on my
aunt's face, I guessed she wasn't willing to throw in the towel, either. I should have been mad enough to throw a towel—or something with better aim—at the both of them, but I wasn't. I didn't even want to think about what that might mean.

“Me and Daddy can come over tomorrow so you won't be lonely. We could go swimming at the beach and make sand castles and—”

“Samuel—”

“Wow,” I said, interrupting another one of Luke's parental warning growls. “That's so nice of you to think of me.”

His gaze focused on me instead of his father, Sam beamed.

“You know better than to invite yourself over to people's houses,” Luke said.

That sweet smile fell, and I found myself grasping for a way to put it back on Sam's little face. A bribe of more cake came to mind, but there weren't enough crumbs on that platter to satisfy a mouse with a sweet tooth.

“Hey, that's all right,” I said.

“No…it's not.”

Luke's words and his tight expression didn't leave room for argument, especially since he was right. I shouldn't have been sticking my nose in when Luke was trying to teach his son good manners. Sam had no business inviting himself over to my house—well, for the next three weeks it was my house, anyway.

“Sorry, Miss Cassie.”

“I forgive you.”

“That's better.” Luke bent slightly so he could rest his hand on his son's shoulder.

As I looked between father and son, I couldn't help smiling. Just because Sam wasn't allowed to invite himself places didn't mean the boy and his father couldn't accept an invitation from me. And I realized with a start that I wanted badly to ask.

There were so many reasons why I should resist the impulse, not the least of which was the baggage I carried inside me, and if mine wasn't enough, Luke probably had a suitcase or a duffel bag to spare.

What was I thinking? Sam had only suggested a day at the beach, not a lifetime commitment. My brain had to be on wedding overload today. Too much wedding music. Too much lace and chiffon. Even too much of that heady scent of flowers. Wedding lag. That and a sunburn, too. And I'd thought I was a real mess before I showed up in Mantua.

Luke hefted Sam up on his hip and turned to his mother. “We'll see you tomorrow at church.”

Yvonne stepped to them, reaching up to kiss her son and grandson.

“I need some sugar, too.” Eleanor shuffled over for her own round of kisses.

“Thanks for everything,” Luke said when he extracted himself from her embrace. With four long strides, he was standing at the door. It must have been as an afterthought that he turned back to face me and waved.

“Hey, Luke, Sam, wait up.”

My outburst surprised me as much as it had Luke.
As nonchalantly as a woman could after she'd just hollered across the room, I made my way over to them. I avoided eye contact with any of the other adults, though I could sense their gazes on me.

“What's up?” Luke asked when I stood in front of them.

“I would like to invite you and Sam to come over tomorrow afternoon for a day at the beach.”

Luke was already shaking his head before I finished. “Cassie, I already said Sam couldn't come over.”

“No, you said he couldn't invite himself here.”

“That's not—” He stopped himself, seeming to think for a minute before he gave an exaggerated shrug. He couldn't argue that I had a point.

“Well?” I pressed while I had an advantage.

I could just imagine the parental wheels turning in Luke's head. Should he give in? Was it really giving in to Sam's begging when they now had a proper invitation? Would it establish a precedent that if Sam begged long enough at those candy traps in the grocery store checkout lanes that his father would fold?

“Please, Daddy. Can we?”

For several seconds, Luke said nothing, but when he did, he spoke to his son instead of me. “I think a day at the beach would be okay, particularly since we were invited.” Once he'd made that point, he glanced back at me. “That'd be great. Thanks for asking.”

I nodded, trying to appear only moderately pleased.

“Are we skipping church?” Sam asked.

“Of course not. We'll come
after
church.”

“But Daddy—”

“No buts about it.”

Sam opened his mouth to protest, but seeing the firm set of his father's jaw, shut it again. I wasn't sure why it impressed me so much that church was nonnegotiable at Luke's house, especially when I'd declined my aunt's invitation to join her and my uncle at services in the morning. Maybe it just comforted me to know someone was where I needed to be.

It had taken them nearly a half hour, but Luke and Sam finally went out the door. I made a point of not staring after them as I sensed I was still being watched. Instead, I busied myself clearing away dessert plates and dishes. I loaded the dishwasher, at first trying my best to keep from smiling, and then, finding little success, at least keeping my back to any prying eyes.

None of those eyes would be around tomorrow. I should have been relieved to finally escape the microscope—really this time—but I couldn't help feeling keyed up at the prospect of spending the day alone with Luke. Or rather as alone as any two adults could be hanging out on the beach with a rambunctious four-year-old.

I didn't know how I felt about tomorrow: excited, nervous, curious, terrified. If I were honest with myself, I would admit it was a mixture of all those things—some more, some less. But one emotion trumped all the others, so clear in my mind: relief. I was relieved that this wouldn't be the last time I saw either of the Sheridan guys.

“G
et over here, you four-footed, prima donna fur ball.” Beside me, the kitchen faucet continued to pour its precious natural resource down the drain while Princess sat in the doorway having a staring contest with me. Winning, too. She probably wouldn't blink if a bottle rocket shot off in the kitchen.

“I said, come here, you little beast, and drink this water or you're going to have to slurp on your own spit until dinner.”

Frustration must have buried my sense of self-preservation because I took two menacing steps toward the cat. The hiss drowned out even the sound of the pouring water. Swallowing, I retraced my steps back to safety on my own side of the room. When I was out of range of any waving claws, I tried my tough-gal role again.

“Well, if that's how you feel about it, then you'll have a thirsty afternoon.” I made a big production of pushing down the handle to shut off the faucet. “See what meanness will get you?”

In the doorway, Princess still hadn't moved. She was watching me as if I was the most interesting thing she'd seen next to the flock of nasty seagulls that hung out on the beach.

Turning away, I filled the cat's bowl with fresh water and set it on her personalized place mat next to the counter. Though I might not have been her favorite person, I wasn't an animal, either. I know my aunt said her pet never drank from the bowl, but these were desperate times and maybe she would lower herself to the indignity of it.

How had I ever thought I could be a good parent? I couldn't even get a ten-pound cat to take a drink. I probably would have been just as much of a failure if I'd tried to convince a whining first grader to go to bed or tried to take the car keys from a belligerent teen. Maybe God had had a plan after all in denying me the thing I'd wanted most.

I popped the top off a single-serving can of gourmet cat food—this one ocean perch with salmon soufflé or some such—poured it into the porcelain bowl and set it next to the water, just as my aunt had demonstrated that morning.

Princess didn't bother to show any curiosity let alone come over and sniff her lunch. Instead, she turned tail and sauntered to parts unknown in the house.

“Fine,” I called after her. “Don't eat anything. But you're going to get hungry if you keep this up until your mommy and daddy get home. Go take a nap, you ungrateful cat. Just go.”

“But we just got here.”

I whirled to see Sam with his face pressed against the slider screen. A baseball cap sat lopsided on his head, a ducky float ringed his waist and a frown pulled like gravity on his face. Next to him, Luke stood with a bag of sand toys hoisted over his shoulder.

Luke had his lips pressed together as if he was trying not to laugh. My face probably looked as though I'd made a fashion faux pas with a whole container of rouge.

“You want us to go?” Sam pressed, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“Not you guys.” I brushed my hand aside in frustration. “It's just—” I gestured toward the place where Princess had last sat. Of course, the spot beneath the door frame was empty now. “Oh, forget it.”

“Ooooh-kay.” Luke stretched out the word to its maximum length.

I shot a look toward the door again. “Oh. Sorry. Why don't you come in?”

Sam glanced back and forth a few times as if checking for danger before he risked opening the door. I understood just how he felt.

Luke followed him through the door. “Having some problems with the lady of the house?”

The look I shot him hit its mark before he even had time to hide his smirk. But I had to admit that the situation was laughable.

“Just a few,” I answered finally.

Instead of poking fun at me as I expected he would, Luke strode past me into the great room. Dressed for the beach in a faded Michigan State T-shirt and a pair
of long, royal-blue swimming trunks that matched his eyes, he started peering over and under things, lifting a pillow here and shifting a chair there. It dawned on me that he was hunting for the cat.

And without a top hat, a whip and a chair?

“Luke, wait—”

He wasn't listening, though. He was making this quick, clucking noise with his mouth.

“Here, kit, kit, kit.”

“Do you have a death wish or what?” I blurted before I could stop myself.

Luke heard me that time, but he only lifted an eyebrow when he turned my way. If he thought Princess, reigning monarch of Bluffton Point Lighthouse and beyond, could be so easily tamed, then he had another thing coming.

“Daddy, I can help find the kitty,” Sam announced in a youthful shriek that generally wouldn't attract small animals.

“That's okay, buddy.” The volume of Luke's voice was only about a third of his son's. “Why don't you go out on the deck and scout the shoreline with the binoculars, so you can pick the best spot for us to put the beach umbrella?”

Sam shot through the door, barely taking enough time to open the screen.

“No going near the water without grown-ups, okay?” I called after him.

“Okay.”

Luke nodded his agreement with my comment before returning to his study of places a cat might hide.
He found nothing under the end table, behind the curtains, even underneath the footrest of Uncle Jack's recliner. He had to open the chair to check that one.

Again, he started the clucking noise, following it with another round of
kit-kit-kit.

To my utter shock, Princess reappeared in the kitchen doorway, looking at least a little intrigued. You mean clucking and
kit-kit-kit-ing
had worked better than my
little beasts
and
fur balls?

“What do you need her to do?” he whispered to me though he was looking at the cat instead of me.

“Remember the drinks?”

His gaze drifted to the kitchen sink, and he nodded. With quiet steps in his sporty beach sandals, he moved in front of the sink and turned on the faucet. Backing up a little, he waited by the opposite counter.

Instead of staring at him the way she had me, the cat took a few tentative steps forward, and, seeming to sense there was no danger, padded into the kitchen and hopped on the counter. She batted the water a few times with her paw and then stuck her face under the stream for a long drink. When she was done, she hopped down from the counter, sauntered into the great room and plopped down next to the recliner to begin bathing herself.

I couldn't take my eyes off her. Had that just happened? And more importantly how had Luke made it happen? Not only was he an admirable, organized parent, Luke was also a regular Dr. Doolittle. I couldn't help being a tiny bit jealous of all that.

But I also was curious how Luke had accomplished
his trick with Princess. I was going to need this tidbit of information if the cat and I were going to survive the next twenty-one days together.

Twenty-one days and counting.

I turned my wide-eyed amazement on Luke, who had just shut off the faucet.

He smiled sheepishly. “I'm a cat person.” He said it simply, as if that explained his sleight-of-hand performance to those of us who hadn't learned the art of feline love.

“What else do you need?” he asked.

I pointed to the bowl near his feet, the one still filled with food.

“I wouldn't worry about that. She'll eat when she's hungry. Cats won't starve themselves.”

He walked back into the room where the cat lay, licking her paw and using it to clean her ear. She paused in her toilette to watch his careful approach, but she didn't bolt.

Soon, he'd crouched down beside her and was petting her head—all without the need for stitches. “Yeah, you'll be just fine, won't you girl? Just fine.”

He paused in his crooning to look back at me. “I would be prepared for her not to eat much these first few days. Cats sometimes lose their appetites at first when their owners go away.”

“I guess as long as she doesn't stop drinking, too.”

Luke turned so he could pet his new friend and talk to me at the same time. “She won't. I would keep her water bowl full, though. Eleanor might think she never drinks from it, but Princess is probably just being sneaky.
If you had a good thing going like she does, would you go and mess it up by drinking out of your bowl?”

A chuckle bubbled up in my throat. “I never thought about it,” I admitted, tongue pressed firmly in cheek.

“Well, cats, they think about such things.”

“I'll remember that.” I would have asked him how he had such insider knowledge into the minds of kitties, but the way Princess had closed her eyes and was pressing her nose into Luke's palm hinted that he knew about felines' preferences.

“Did you learn all those skills at MSU?” I pointed to his T-shirt. “It has a great veterinary science program.”

“Me, a vet? Now that's funny. I studied business. For a while anyway.” He glanced up at me again. “Why? Did you go to state?”

I shook my head. “University of Iowa for my bachelor's in speech and hearing sciences. Colorado State for a master's in communication.”

“That's an awful lot of education.”

“I guess.” Because it seemed like overkill, I didn't mention that I'd also completed two internships in my field and then had to take a national exam to earn my certificate of clinical competence.

“You must like school a lot.”

“I still work in one, don't I?”

The subject at its end, Luke returned his attention to the cat and started rubbing her ears. “You like that, don't you, Princess?”

As he spoke, he continued petting the fur on the cat's head in slow, mesmerizing circles that had her purring
loudly. Who was I kidding? It nearly had
me
purring. I could just feel those massaging circles on my scalp. Would he brush his fingers through my hair, finding the strands soft from the new, leave-in conditioner I'd been using?

Plunk.
I felt the rough landing in my thoughts. I really had reached rock bottom if I was jealous of a cat's head massage.

“Daddy and Miss Cassie, aren't you coming?”

Again, Sam was standing at the door, his face pressed against the screen, his bent hands forming a shade above his eyes.

Immediately, Princess shot up off the floor and scrambled out of the room. A tuft of short, white fur drifted to the hardwood floor where she'd been resting.

Luke plucked the hair off the floor as he stood and looked out the door at his son. “Did you find the perfect place for us to make camp?”

“Yeah. We'd better get it before someone takes it.”

“Okay, let's hurry.” Luke smiled over at me. Only the adults here understood that the exclusive beachfront real estate in this area included a private beach. The only public beach was farther down in the state park area surrounding the lighthouse. Sure, Lake Michigan was one of the Great Lakes and definitely public, but in some areas the only way to get access to the water was by sky-diving in it.

“You two go ahead. I need to change.” I'd been so focused on doing my kitty chores that I hadn't even gotten dressed for the beach. In my bedroom, I pulled on my simple teal-colored one-piece, regretting that I hadn't bothered to try it on before I left Toledo. The
material hung a bit at my waist and hips, but it would have to do. The suit wouldn't matter because I intended to remain well covered all day. No more sunburns for me.

Zipping on my white cotton cover-up, I looked into the mirror to smooth down the hood. I topped off the getup with a floppy straw hat and movie-star sunglasses. I looked more like an ailing star, hiding from the paparazzi during recovery from a little nip and tuck.

I grabbed a paperback from the stack I'd brought for the trip and headed downstairs. Luke and Sam would probably want to swim. I hoped they wouldn't mind if I watched them play from beneath a beach umbrella. They would probably think I was a wallflower, but I couldn't help it. It wouldn't be wise for me to be frolicking in the water with that handsome father and his sweet little boy. It might make me wish for a life I could never have.

 

I brushed my fingers through my still-damp hair and shivered. Though the last golden shards of another sunset still lit the sky, it was already cold again. The air smelled clean instead of like other people's cooking, the way it always did in my third-floor apartment.

Because my teeth were chattering, I zipped my cover-up over my swimsuit. So much for my best-laid plans. I hadn't
planned
on going into the water, but then I couldn't have ordered a better day than the one I'd spent with Luke and Sam. My book and the umbrella had spent a lonely afternoon while I swam, chased, threw a football and, yes, even frolicked with the Sheridan guys.

Slipping my flip-flops on, I climbed the steps to the deck. I couldn't help smiling at the memory of Luke, who had looked all buff and tan from his outdoor work as he stood in the waist-high chilly water. Suddenly, Sam had leaped on his back causing Luke's knees to buckle, and they'd both disappeared into the water. I'd had a good laugh when they'd come up sputtering until Luke had grabbed Sam and had swum my way, giving me my own close-up view of the lake bottom.

“Is he up there?” Luke called now from beneath the deck.

“I'm checking inside.”

Sam had gone up to the bathroom fifteen minutes before and hadn't returned, so I'd decided to investigate whether he was a victim of a Princess mauling.

“Sam, are you in here?” I called out as I entered the back door.

Silence. Now that was something I wasn't used to hearing when Sam was around. Anxiety balling in my stomach, I started hunting around for places a four-year-old boy might get into trouble. I didn't have to look long. On one of my aunt and uncle's cozy couches Sam was sacked out, a brightly colored beach towel still draped over his shoulders.