Josie Day Is Coming Home (41 page)

She didn’t get it. “Huh?”

“They’re your new dance school students. That’s why
everyone’s here, for a grand opening sign-up party.” Beaming, Luke swerved
his gaze to her face. “What do you think of that?”

Grand opening? Dance school students?

Stunned, Josie could only gape. She looked at the people, at
the running children, at the—holy cow, how had she missed that?—nearby booth
labeled
dance school sign-ups.
She looked at Luke’s proud, happy
expression. His hopeful expression.

“I think they’re all here for you,” she told him.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, there was no
way
her plans were
going AWOL. She just wouldn’t allow it. Stubbornly, she insisted. “They’re
here for your auction. To bid on Blue Moon. Luke, I arranged it all for you.
You’re going to get your mechanic’s shop!”

This time it was Luke’s turn to gawk. Frowning in confusion,
he took in the wine drinkers, the men in business suits, the photocopied
auction flyers being passed from hand to hand. He noticed the arrival of Nancy
Day with a suspiciously official-looking man by her side. He tilted his head
and reexamined Josie.

She bounced on tiptoes on those crazy shoes of hers. Her
hair looked fiery red and loose, her eyes bright with excitement. Her sexed-up
pants lured his attention again.

Resolutely, Luke fought against succumbing. Something
important was going on here. Something almost as big as finding Josie by his
side again.

They’re here for your auction. You’re going to get your
mechanic’s shop.

Still bopping, she nudged him. “Aren’t you happy?”

“Happy?” He looked at her, with her warm smile and
her just-Josie va-va-voom look. He remembered the way she’d felt in his arms,
the way she’d laughed and danced and pushed him to work when he’d almost given
up trying. He thought about loving her…and about losing her.
“Absolutely. I’m happy.”

It was true. With Josie by his side, Luke didn’t need
anything more. He didn’t need to prove anything, didn’t need to rebel, didn’t
need a trust fund or a fancy car or a state-of-the-art mechanic’s shop that
would prove his dad wrong. All he needed, all he wanted, was Josie. Forever.

“Me, too,” she said. “I’m happy. Now.”

“It’s a good thing you came today,” Luke observed,
reaching for her hand again. “You would have missed all…this.”

She grinned. “Whatever ‘this’ is.”

Drawn jointly to the confusion surrounding them, Luke and
Josie both frowned. Clearly they’d somehow planned concurrent events, both at
Blue Moon. An auction
and
a dance school grand opening. But how…?

A nearby titter caught his attention. His suspicions
growing, Luke sought out the source of that sound. He found it almost
instantly. His aunt stood nearby, flanked by Ambrose and Jenna and Nancy, along
with TJ the clown. Tallulah clutched a wineglass, looking fit to burst.

“Gotcha!” she yelled. “This’ll teach you to
break up on
my
watch!”

“Ah.” Josie nodded. “Tallulah. I should have
known.”

“Me, too.”

They looked at each other. Then, simultaneously, he and
Josie shrugged. It didn’t matter how they’d gotten to this place, Luke
reasoned. Only that they had.

“Now go, you two.” Tallulah made pushing motions
with her arms, an enormous grin on her face. “Go and be in love.”

“Wait a minute.” Robert Donovan stepped forward.
Wearing a stern look, he crossed his arms. “I think giving the familial
seal of approval is my job.”

Josie gasped. “That’s your dad!”

Luke couldn’t believe it. “How did you know?”

“Identical machismo. Carbon copy bad attitude.”
She peered closer. “Matching devastating good looks.”

For the first time, his father grinned. “I like her,
son.”

But Josie wasn’t acquiescing so easily. She stepped forward,
spine straight and proud.

“You might want to hold off on forming an opinion, Mr.
Donovan. I have a bone to pick with you.”

Bemused, his father raised his brow. “You do?”

“I do!” Josie announced. “Starting with the
terrible way you’ve treated your son.”

“Josie!” Luke had to stop her. Nobody went up
against Robert “the Crusher” Donovan—not his board members, not his
employees…no one. No one except Luke. And look at the price he’d paid.

But Josie only shook off his restraining hand. “For
your information, Mr. Donovan—”

“Call me Bob-O. Everyone’s doing it.”

Luke gawked. Bob-O? What the…?

TJ chortled. Ah-hah. That explained it.

“For your information, your son is very talented,”
Josie said. “He’s an excellent mechanic. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you. I
don’t know why you can’t be proud of him for that, but you’d better get ready
to change your ways. Because once he auctions off Blue Moon and gets that
mechanic’s shop he wants—”

“Josie—”

“Hang on, Luke. I’m on a roll.” She shot him a
loving glance, then tackled his father again. “He’ll be a huge success. A
huge
success! You just wait and—”

“Josie,” Luke interrupted again. “I’m not
auctioning off Blue Moon.”

She stopped. Wheeled around, mouth agape.

“I decided to keep the estate,” he explained,
needing to make her understand. “So I can give it to you. For your dance
school. It’s yours.”

“Luke, no…” she breathed. “You can’t.”

“I want to,” he said. This wasn’t the way he’d
planned this revelation—with half the town looking on and the other half
dribbling mustard and ‘kraut on his lawn. But if this was what it took to have
Josie in his life, this was what he’d do.

“That’s what this whole day is about,” Luke
explained. “To give you Blue Moon. To give you a chance to become a
Rockette.”

Looking confused, Josie tilted her head.

Nearby, Nancy Day grinned.

“The estate is yours,” Luke said, cutting to the
chase. “And so are these students.”

He wanted to smile, to deliver the news with a flourish. But
as he gazed into Josie’s eyes, as he prepared to make the final part of his
offer, Luke discovered this felt too important for that. Too crucial to his
future. Swallowing hard, he went on.

“The only question now is…. Will you stay to teach
them?”

“Oh! Oh, Luke….”

“Will you stay,” he continued doggedly, “to
be with me?”

She brought her hands to her mouth, looking stunned. Her
eyes glimmered with unshed tears. As far as Luke was concerned, that was a bad
sign. A sign that needed to be dealt with and eradicated.

“I love you,” he said. “Pretty much, I’ve
loved you since the moment you sashayed onto my lawn and took over my house. I
love your smile and your courage and your jokes. I love the way you dance when
you think I’m not looking. I love your crazy shoes and your false eyelashes and
I love the way you feel in my arms. I know I can never be happy again unless
you’re beside me.”

Josie gave a small cry. Luke stopped.
Oh, crap.
Now
she wept openly, gulping for air like the goldfish Luke had owned when he was
ten. The one he’d killed with kindness by feeding it too many stinky fish
flakes.

“I love you. I love you, and I’ll never lie to you
again,” he blurted, desperate to make her understand. Casting around for
proof, he said, “I’ll tell you if your pants make your butt look too big.
I’ll tell you if I don’t want you to eat my French fries after you order a
salad for lunch. I’ll—”

“Shhh.” Blinking away her tears, Josie put her
palm against his lips. “Quit it before you promise something really
radical, like giving up Monday Night Football.”

“Mmmmph,” he protested against her hand.

She smiled. “I take that to mean you’d do that,
too.”

“Whoa,” TJ said. “That’s what I call true
love.”

There were murmurs of agreement from everyone else. But
Josie only went on gazing into Luke’s eyes, looking beautiful and beloved and
exactly like everything he’d always wanted. She drew in a breath and blinked
again.

“Well. I’ve only got one thing to say to that.”

Luke pulled away her hand. “What?”

“It goes like this.” Josie smiled. “Knock,
knock.”

This time, he smiled, too. “Who’s there?”

“I love.”

“I love who?”

“I love
you
and no one else!” Jubilantly,
she flung her arms around him and kissed him. “I love you more than
anything, Luke. More than dancing. More than Ding Dongs. More”—she paused
for emphasis, her eyes sparkling—“than my Swiffer Duster.”

“Now
that’s
saying something.”

“You bet your life, it is.”

Tallulah whooped. Ambrose hollered right beside her.
Everyone else looked on and smiled. Warren Day hugged Nancy close. He
volunteered the opinion that he’d known all along “the kids” were
perfect for each other. TJ agreed.

But Luke didn’t care who was watching, and he didn’t care
who took credit. Because an instant later Josie kissed him again, and he could
feel her love in every sigh, in every glance, in every brush of her lips
against his. That was all he needed.

That, and a few good knock-knock jokes.

For the rest of his life.

“There’s only one more thing,” Josie announced.

Luke raised his brows in question.

“We have to share everything,” she specified.
“Everything, like Blue Moon. We can live in the main house together. You
can expand the carriage house for your mechanic’s shop, right? I mean, your
Harley-riding friends already said you’d have all the business you could
handle.”

She gazed at him in all seriousness. In that moment, Luke
loved her more than ever—just for believing in him.

Before he could agree, though, his father butted in.

“That shop of yours is a fine setup,” Robert
Donovan said. “It’d be a shame to waste it.”

He stepped forward, an unfamiliar caring in his expression.
He looked straight at Luke. In his eyes, Luke glimpsed all the pride, all the
respect, all the
love
he’d ever hoped to receive from his father. The
realization left him too shook up to speak. Naturally, the same couldn’t be
said of Robert Donovan.

“I was never opposed to your having a mechanic’s shop,
son. TJ will tell you that. I only wanted to make sure it was really what you
wanted to do. Not a knee-jerk rebellious decision you’d regret later on.”

Nudged by that comment, Luke flashed on what TJ had said.

Make sure Luke’s okay.
Damn. His dad really did care.

Saving Luke from speaking around the sudden knot in his
throat, Josie stepped forward. She regarded Robert Donovan solemnly, shaking
her head with sham regret.

“Oh, Bob-O,” she said. “We
never
make
knee-jerk rebellious decisions around here.”

At that, half the crowd guffawed.

Luke laughed, too. Now that he had the woman he loved, his
family and friends,
and
his father by his side, he felt unstoppable.

“No knee-jerk rebellious decisions, huh?” He gazed
into Josie’s upturned face, unable to hold back an answering smile. “What
do you call all this, then?”

Securely and dazzlingly herself, she studied the expectant
crowd.

“I call it a party!” she yelled.
“Woo-hoo!”

Grabbing his arm, she tangoed them both across the lawn.

Just as Luke might have predicted, Donovan’s Corner fell in
step right behind them. Because when it came to dancing—just like when it came
to true love—all anybody really needed was the courage to get started…and a
really good partner to try out the moves with. After that, it was mostly a
matter of keeping the rhythm.

From
the Author

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