Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (66 page)

“When do you leave?” he asked.

Bo nudged Lucas’s leg, but when he got no response, he crossed the room and settled on the rug with a loud sigh.

Kate checked her watch. She had to leave soon or take the risk of missing the ferry. “Now.”

He was wearing the black T-shirt that stretched across his broad shoulders, and the faded jeans that made his legs look long and solid.
I’ll miss him.
Kate didn’t want to consider how much. She just needed to get out of there. She could deal with the feelings of loss later, when she was a safe distance away.

Lucas watched Kate hitch the leather strap on her shoulder and
turn to him. The moment seemed surreal. It was happening so fast. Last night they’d been closer than ever, and tonight she was leaving.

He wanted to beg her to stay. He swallowed his pride and opened his mouth to do just that. Maybe he could find the words that would change her mind.

But what good would it do to beg? She had to want to stay. She had to want him. He could love her all he wanted, but it had to be her choice.

He closed his mouth, clamping his lips over the words.

“I’m not sure how to say good-bye,” Kate said.

Then don’t. Stay. Stay with me forever.

Kate tucked her silky hair behind her ears. He would miss that simple action.

“Regardless of how this turned out,” she said, “I’m grateful for what you did. I’ve never had anyone go to so much trouble to save my skin.” She tried to smile, but it wobbled on her lips.

It was no trouble. It had been his pleasure. He wished he could save her now, save her career from spiraling out of control. Save their marriage from falling apart.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help your parents,” Kate said. “I hope they’ll work things out.”

Tell her now. Tell her your parents are fine, that it was all a ruse to
conceal the fact that you loved her from the beginning. Tell her you love her
now and that if she stays, you’ll spend every day proving it.

But he had shown his love every day for the past three months. And still she was leaving.

“Say something.” Her brown eyes, warm as melted chocolate, pleaded.

He tried to imagine sleeping in an empty bed, waking to a quiet house, making coffee for one again. The thought hollowed his stomach.

“Is there anything I can say to change your mind?” He would say it, whatever it was.
Do you know how much I love you? I’d give anything
to call you my own.

Kate looked away, clutching her purse strap. “It’s for the best, Lucas. You’ll see. It’s hard right now, but later . . . later we’ll know it was the right thing.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself ?”

She checked the time. Her eyes seemed to catch on her fingers. He watched her touch the wedding band he’d bought her, watched her slide it down her finger with the engagement ring. She closed the distance between them, pocketing the engagement ring, and held out the wedding band.

“Keep it,” he said.

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

When he refused to take it, she sighed softly and set the band on the end table. Lucas wanted to snatch it up and force it back on her finger. She was his wife, even if only for a short while longer.

But what good would it do? He couldn’t force her to wear his ring any more than he could force her to stay.
Any more than I can
force her to love me.

“I have to go.”

Lucas straightened.
Have it your way, Kate.
“I’ll drive you.”

“You won’t have any way back.”

He opened the door and picked up her bags. “I’ll take a cab.” He carried her suitcases to her car.

“There’ll be too many people there,” she said, her voice sounding like it was being pushed through a sieve.

Lucas loaded her bags in the backseat, then faced Kate. Her eyes glistened like the surface of the ocean on a sunny day. She didn’t want to say good-bye in front of an audience.

Neither did he. “All right.” He opened the driver’s side door for her.

“I’ll file papers for the . . . divorce. And cover all the costs.” A breeze blew, and dead leaves scuttled past their feet. There was a nip in the air that warned of winter’s approach. “And I’ll send for my treadmill,” she said. “I think I got everything else.”

Including my heart.
Did she think she could run from these feelings? Did she think mere miles would separate her from his love?

Lucas studied her face, memorizing the way her eyes looked when she squinted against sun, the way her brows puckered when she frowned. He reached out and smoothed the hair the wind had ruffled, wanting to remember the feel of it between his fingers.

She closed her eyes on a sigh. “I hate good-byes.”

He thought of Emily and how sudden her death had been. He’d always regretted that he hadn’t kissed her that morning when he left for work. He was running late and only called good-bye on his way out the door.

Lucas took Kate’s face in his palm, waiting for her to look at him. If she was going to leave him, she was going to do it with her eyes wide open.

He closed the space between them, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. Her hair smelled of lilacs, and her lips tasted like honey. He wanted to remember everything about her. He wanted to close his eyes at night and be able to summon the feel of her lips on his, the sound of her voice.

Kate pulled away. “Good-bye.”

She refused to meet his gaze as she lowered herself into the car and put her keys in the ignition. Refused to look at him as she put the car in Reverse and backed out of the drive. He watched until her car disappeared over the slope in the road, knowing that all that awaited him was a house that would feel empty without her.

His feet felt heavy as he entered the house. Bo, seeming to sense his sadness, nudged his leg, tried to shepherd Lucas toward the couch. But Lucas didn’t want to sit and think. Think about Kate leaving—getting further away by the minute.

The room seemed big. Kate had decluttered every corner of the house, leaving it spick-and-span, but now it felt bare. The treadmill was the only token of her existence, and it stood in the corner like a memorial.

He walked to the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The spaces where her alarm clock and jewelry box had been were empty. He saw something on her nightstand and went closer. A small blue-velvet box. He opened it and looked at the earrings he’d given her for their first-month anniversary. It was as if she’d wanted to leave everything behind, to have no reminder of her time with him.

A scrap of paper on the clean hardwood floor caught his eye, and he retrieved it. It was a list of things she’d done in her preparation to leave. A laugh caught in his throat. Kate and her lists. Someday she would learn that life is what happens when you’re busy making plans.

He threw the paper in the wastebasket and left the room. It felt as if the walls of the house were closing in on him. He realized for the first time that the house smelled like Kate. He wanted to get away from this place, occupy his mind with something else. If it weren’t so late, he’d go sailing.

Bo barked from the back of the house. Lucas followed the sound to where the dog sat by the back door. Bo craned his massive head around, looking at him with inquisitive brown eyes.

“Wanna go for a walk, boy?”

Bo wagged his tail.

At least it would get Lucas out of the house.

They walked westward down the beach, Lucas occasionally tossing a piece of driftwood for Bo to fetch. The sun lowered in the sky, casting a pinkish hue over the beach. Bo trotted beside him, sometimes wading into the incoming surf or chasing a seagull that landed nearby. The dog had just returned from such a chase when Lucas heard it: the haunting sound of the ferry’s horn in the distance.

He stopped, a catch in his breath, a stutter in his heart. The sound was the period at the end of a sentence, the whisper of good-bye from a lover, the clock striking midnight
for Cinderella.

When your heart is broken and you’re
ready
to settle for anything in jeans,
repeat these words to yourself: “I do not
need a man to be happy.”

—Excerpt from
Finding Mr. Right-for-You
by Dr. Kate.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Kate opened the
Columbia Flier
on the picnic table and perused the apartment rentals section. The savory smell of grilled sirloin wafted by on the breeze. Her dad, draped in a red canvas apron, checked the meat, then closed the grill lid.

Kate noticed a new apartment listing and marked the ad with a yellow highlighter.

“See anything interesting?” Her dad sat across from her and brushed a red leaf from the wooden table with the side of his hand.

“There are a couple new ones I’ll check on tomorrow. I’m still considering the one on Green Meadow Drive.” Kate didn’t want to overstay her welcome. She’d planned on staying at a hotel, but her dad had insisted she take his spare room. And she had to admit it had been a relief to hide away the past three weeks.

“How much longer on the steaks?” she asked.

“Oh, seven or eight minutes,” he said.

“I’ll put the salad together.” Kate entered the house through the sliding door, careful not to fingerprint the glass. She found the head of lettuce and chopped it, then sliced a ripe tomato and placed the knife in the dishwasher.

Her cell rang as she was getting the dressing. Every time it rang, her thoughts turned to mush. She hadn’t heard from Lucas since she left, but Jamie had e-mailed her twice.

It’s not Lucas, Kate. For heaven’s sake. Get on with your life.

Bryan had called the day she arrived in Columbia. She’d told him not to call again, and so far, he’d respected her wishes.

She pulled her cell from her purse’s side pocket and answered.

“Kate. How are you?” Her agent’s voice greeted her.

Kate squelched the inevitable disappointment. “Hi, Ronald. I’m okay. Getting settled in, looking for an apartment, avoiding the media. You know, the usual.” It had been easier than she’d hoped to avoid the press since only a few people knew her whereabouts.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Ronald said. “It looks like they’ve run out of things to say about you.”

“That’s what we were hoping.” A flurry of papers had covered the story initially, and several tabloids had joined the fray, but the scandal seemed to have died down already.

“That part’s working for us.” The caution in his tone warned of a negative flip side.

“What’s wrong? Have you heard from Chloe or Paul?” Her editor had been quiet. In fact, Kate hadn’t heard from Chloe since their conference call over three weeks earlier.

“I called her this morning just to check in,” Ronald said. “I’m afraid sales have dropped off quite dramatically. She mentioned the ugly ‘R’ word.”

“Returns?” It was every author’s worst fear—that the stores would be unable to sell their stock of books and would return them to the publisher, unsold.

Kate set the plastic tongs in the salad bowl and faced the sliding door. “I don’t understand. I’ve done what they asked. I’ve avoided the spotlight, and everything has died down. I thought that’s what they wanted.”

“Yeah, I know. I called Pam after I talked to Chloe to get her take. The public is impossible to predict. They’d been hoping that with no new information, the story would die and the public would forget it.”

“But that hasn’t happened?”

“Pam said it’s too early to say for sure. But the numbers aren’t looking good.”

Kate ran her hand through her hair. All this for nothing? The public apparently believed the reports and had decided she was a fraud. They were voting with their dollars, and she’d lost.

“Is it too late to fix it?”

“If you mean going to the press with your side of the story, Pam didn’t recommend it. She thinks coming this late, it would feel phony. The public would be suspicious of all the time you were quiet.”

Kate slapped the counter. “I was quiet because they told me to be.”

“I know, kiddo, I know.”

Kate dragged her hand down her hair and anchored the ends in her fist, pulling until her scalp stung.