Seaview Inn (5 page)

“Don’t ask. How about you?”

“Don’t ask.”

“You’re not still living in Seaview Key, are you?”

“No. I haven’t been back in years.”

“Well, what on earth are you doing here now?” She heard how that sounded and quickly amended, “Not that I’m not glad to see you.”

“I just came back for a visit.”

“Well, isn’t that an amazing coincidence?” Amazing and a whole lot more, frankly. It was troubling to discover that Luke still had the same ability to rattle her and make her tongue-tied. Forcing herself to remember the way things had been—Luke and her best friend madly in love, rather than Luke at least noticing her—she deliberately asked, “Do you ever hear from Abby?”

He shook his head. “You?”

“Not since college. So, where are you staying?”

“Here, actually. I moved in about an hour ago.”

Hannah, who’d been about to lean down and give him a friendly peck on the cheek, backed up so fast, it was only luck—and a sturdy railing—that kept her from sailing right off the edge of the porch.

“Here?” she said incredulously. “You moved in
here?
”

He chuckled and raised his glass of lemonade again. “Surprise!”

“But we’re closed. Who said you could stay?” she asked, though the answer was obvious. Grandma Jenny wasn’t taking any chances. Obviously she figured frugal Hannah wouldn’t turn away a paying guest.

“I made the reservation with your grandmother a couple of weeks ago.”

Hannah directed a sour look toward the house. No doubt her grandmother was sitting right beside a window to get a perfect view of this encounter. “Really. For how long?”

Luke shrugged. “Hard to say. I have some things to figure out. I told your grandmother I’d help the two of you get this place spruced up a bit.”

“Really,” she said again. This must be the help Gran had said was on the way. “She never mentioned you. Did you and my grandmother make any other plans without sharing them with me?”

“Not me,” he claimed. “I can’t speak for her.”

Hannah bounced up. “I think my grandmother and I need to have a talk.” She was about to walk away, when her intrinsic manners kicked in. She turned around. “It really is good to see you again, Luke, but one word of caution.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t get too comfortable. In less than two weeks, this place will be closed, I’ll be back in New York and my grandmother will be…” She faltered on that. “Well, she’ll be somewhere. Right this second a psychiatric facility sounds like just the place.”

She was about to storm inside and have it out with her grandmother when Luke stopped her.

“Hold it, Hannah. If me being here is going to be a problem, I’m sure I can find somewhere else to stay. I noticed a couple of new motels when I drove off the ferry.”

She was about to take him up on the offer when she realized she was being absurd. There was no reason he couldn’t stay in one of the guest rooms, even if having him underfoot was going to dredge up a whole lot of old memories of unrequited longing. It was only the fact that her grandmother had done this behind her back that grated.

She sighed and sat down in the rocker next to his. To buy herself a couple of minutes so that she didn’t sound totally irrational, she poured herself a glass of the ice-cold lemonade and took a sip.

“Sorry about sounding so inhospitable,” she said eventually. “You just caught me off guard. We’ve been closed since before my mother died a month ago. I had no idea that my grandmother had started taking reservations again.”

Luke looked genuinely shocked. “Your mother died? I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Hannah. She was a wonderful woman. I always enjoyed talking to her. She really listened to all us kids.”

Hannah blinked back a fresh batch of tears. For a woman who’d always prided herself on keeping her emotions in check, since coming back here, she was turning into a regular waterworks.

“She was a good listener, wasn’t she?” she said, a catch in her voice. “I remember how often you or one of the other kids would sneak off to the kitchen to spill some secret to her. I swear she always knew stuff about my friends before I did. I was halfway jealous of that.”

“Your grandmother didn’t say anything about her dying when I called. I thought your mom must just be away on a trip or something.”

“Don’t feel bad. I know she’s dead and I feel the same way. I can’t quite believe I won’t turn a corner and bump into her.”

He hesitated, then studied her with a gaze filled with compassion. “Do you want to talk about it or should we move on to another topic?”

“To be honest, I’m not ready to talk about it yet. She had cancer and things didn’t go well, practically from the beginning, and…” She couldn’t bring herself to say the rest, that she was terrified her own future was destined to follow the same path.

“It’s an awful disease,” he said quietly. “And it’s really difficult to watch a loved one suffer.”

“You have no idea,” she said softly, then stood up abruptly. “Look, I have to catch the four-thirty ferry to the mainland and I really do need to talk to my grandmother about you staying before I go. Not that you being here is a problem, because it’s not, Luke. Really. I just have to be sure you’re not the tip of the iceberg and that hordes of other guests aren’t descending without warning. There’s a lot going on around here right now and, believe me, more unexpected visitors are not a complication I can handle.”

“My offer to find another place is still good,” he said. “I don’t want to add to whatever stress you’re under. I get what it’s like when things start piling up. Big or little, it doesn’t matter. Sooner or later, it’s just too much.”

Hearing the real sympathy in his voice, she fought back tears again. She shook her head, this time with more certainty. “No, stay. Please. Just be prepared for anything to happen. Once my daughter, Kelsey, gets here in a few hours, we may give new meaning to the phrase ‘dysfunctional family.’”

He smiled at that. “You’re not scaring me, if that’s what you’re trying to do. As it happens, I know quite a lot about dysfunctional families. I’ve recently taken a crash course.”

She studied him curiously. “Do you want to talk about
that?
”

“Nope. I want to forget about it, at least for a little while.”

“You realize we might not have much to say if we keep putting topics off limits,” she said.

“Oh, I suspect we’ll think of something. The weather’s always safe enough.”

She grinned. “At this time of year? The Chamber of Commerce brochures claim it’s always sunny and mild.”

“Except when it’s wet and chilly,” he countered.

“I’m pretty sure they never mention that.”

“But you and I don’t work for the Chamber of Commerce. We can be candid.” His expression sobered. “You can be honest with me, Hannah. You’re sure this is okay, me staying here?”

“I’m sure,” she said, this time without hesitation.

The truth was that the more she thought about it, the more she wanted him to stay. She had a feeling that having another rational adult around might be the only thing that would keep her from going off the deep end before all these family crises were resolved. All she had to do was make sure her already prancing hormones didn’t get any crazy ideas. Falling for Luke Stevens for the second time in her life—especially right now—would be so far beyond stupid there wasn’t even an adequate word to describe it.

I
nstead of peace and serenity, Luke concluded he was smack in the middle of some Matthews family drama. He’d heard Hannah’s raised voice not two minutes after she’d left him on the porch. Whatever she’d said, though, hadn’t especially daunted her grandmother. Jenny Matthews had held her own. He couldn’t hear the words, but they’d matched each other in heat and determination. He had to admire the feistiness in both of them, but especially in Grandma Jenny. Too many of his senior patients were cowed by family members. Clearly that wasn’t the case here.

Ten minutes after the battle had died down, Hannah had stormed out of the house looking like a thundercloud, gotten behind the wheel of
his
rental car, which was almost an exact duplicate of
her
rental car, and tried to start the engine. Naturally the key hadn’t worked. She’d gotten out, kicked a tire, then glanced at the car beside it and apparently grasped her mistake. A minute later she’d squealed out of the driveway at a speed that had him wincing. She hadn’t acknowledged his existence with so much as a wave. He gathered things hadn’t gone her way with her grandmother.

As soon as she was out of sight, the screen door opened and Jenny slipped outside. “That girl’s going to
get a ticket or run into a ditch if she keeps on driving like that,” she said disapprovingly.

“She seems upset,” he noted as the woman settled into the rocker beside his and poured herself a glass of lemonade, then grabbed the last cookie. Luke barely contained a sigh at the loss. He’d had plans for that cookie, even after all the others he’d eaten.

“I think her mood has something to do with her daughter,” she said, glancing sideways at him.

Luke chuckled. “And
I
think it might have something to do with you. You trying to put something over on her, Mrs. Matthews?”

“I told you to call me Grandma Jenny,” she said testily, then slanted a look at him. “Why would I be trying to put anything over on her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. So far, here’s what I’ve got. You want Hannah to come back here and take over the inn. She doesn’t want to. You figured having a paying guest—me—would force her to stick it out here for a while, maybe start getting used to the idea.”

Jenny didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Think you’re smart, don’t you?”

“Far from it, but I know a con artist when I meet one. Is this just about you not wanting to sell this place because it’s been your home for all these years?”

She gave him a scathing look. “It is not,” she said emphatically. “I know that’s what Hannah thinks, too, but this is about her. She’s been living in New York for twenty years now, but she’s not happy.”

Luke bit back a comment. Hannah had seemed happy enough to him until she’d found out he was staying here. Then, again, they hadn’t done a lot of catching up before that.

“Oh, she thinks she is,” Grandma Jenny continued, “because she’s busy every second of every day, dealing with all sorts of powerful clients and going out to fancy dinners and the theater and hosting elegant parties in the hottest clubs. She sends the clippings from the newspaper down here, so I’ll be impressed with how successful she is, and I am. I’m real proud of her, but career success isn’t all there is to life.”

“Maybe not, but it doesn’t sound like a bad life to me,” he remarked. “Especially if it’s the one she wants.”

“It’s bad, if at the end of the day she goes home to an empty apartment and a cold bed. Her daughter’s clear across the country at Stanford. Her husband, who wasn’t worth much to begin with, is long gone, every bit as irresponsible as her daddy. She’s alone and she’s forgotten who she is and what’s important. She’s chasing the almighty dollar, is what she’s doing, and in the end, that’s never enough to make a person truly happy.”

Luke wondered what her assessment would be of
his
life. His view of success had matched Hannah’s for a time. Money had certainly been high on his ex-wife’s measure of success, as well. Now he saw Grandma Jenny’s point. He’d made a lot of money, but he’d never been entirely happy, though he hadn’t been able to say why. That was another part of the reason he’d come to Seaview Key. He wanted to believe he’d get his priorities in order while he was here, maybe get back to the values he’d been taught by his parents, to the love of medicine he’d had when he first went into practice.

“Do you think Hannah will rediscover herself here?” he asked.

“I’m hoping,” she said. “I love this shabby old inn, no question about it. My parents built it and my husband and
I had a good life running it and raising our kids here. Hannah had a good life here, too, though she’s chosen to forget that. She was surrounded by family and a tightknit community, not millions of strangers who are scared to even look each other in the eye on the street. You must know what I mean. It brought you back here, didn’t it?”

“Not to stay,” Luke said softly. “Just to get my bearings.”

She gave him a sly look. “Seems to me like the place you go to get your bearings ought to be home.” She tapped her glass to his. “Something to think about, don’t you agree?”

“You could have a point,” he conceded. “And maybe I did come here because this was once home. I wanted to recapture a simpler time in my life.” He met her gaze. “I’m not really sure it’s possible to do that, though. Maybe all I’m doing is postponing dealing with reality.”

“If you’d care to explain what you’re talking about, maybe I could help you figure it out,” she said. “Lots of folks think with age comes a little wisdom.”

“I don’t question that for a minute, and maybe one of these days we will talk more about what’s going on in my life,” he said.

She patted his hand. “Whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen. Now I need to start thinking about dinner. Kelsey—that’s Hannah’s daughter—will be hungry after eating nothing but airline food today. I’m thinking fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, good comfort food. How does that sound?”

“Like it’ll clog all our arteries,” he said. “And better than anything I’ve had in months.” He watched as she struggled to her feet. “You want some help?”

Her expression turned indignant. “The day I can’t get into this house on my own two feet is the day I’ll walk
away from it and check into that retirement home Hannah’s so anxious for me to move into.”

The show of spunk made Luke chuckle. “I meant with dinner.”

“Now, that I can use. You know anything about cutting up a chicken?”

“I’m a surgeon. I think I can manage.”

She gave him a startled look. “Well, I’ll be. I hadn’t heard that.”

“My folks moved away before I went into medical school, much less chose a specialty,” he said.

Luke waited with dread for her to ask him a thousand and one questions about why he was hiding out in Seaview Key, instead of back home performing surgery.

Surprisingly, though, she just gave him a knowing glance and another pat on the hand. “Like I said, this is a good place for figuring things out.”

Luke was counting on that. It was a far cry from the hospital in D.C., its hallways crowded with wounded soldiers whose souls were as shattered as their limbs. Compared to that or the hell that had been his life in Baghdad or the complications waiting for him in Atlanta, Seaview Key was pure heaven.

Iraq, a few months earlier

The calendar on the wall in Luke’s quarters had big, bold
X
’s marked through the days. Practically from the minute he’d arrived in Baghdad, he’d begun counting down the time until he could go home again. He’d signed up for one year of active duty, partly out of patriotism and partly out of a sense of obligation. The army had paid for his medical degree, and though he’d already served the
required amount of time in return, he still felt a moral duty to sign up for another tour when guys he’d served with were sent to Iraq.

He and Lisa had had a blowup of monumental proportions when he’d told her about his plan to volunteer for reenlistment.

“You got out of the military, Luke,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “How can you even consider this? You’ve paid your dues. You have a family now. You have kids. Your medical practice is growing. We’re finally financially stable. If you walk away from it now, what will that do to our income? Do you expect us to live on a soldier’s pay?”

He’d lost patience with her then. “Plenty of other military families are forced to do exactly that,” he’d told her. “Fortunately, we have a significant amount of money in savings and I’ll work it out with Brad that a percentage of the money from the practice will continue to provide for you and the kids while I’m gone. Come on, Lisa. You’re hardly going to starve and you know it. This is something I have to do. I have medical skill that’s badly needed over there.”

“And that’s more important than your family?” she’d demanded angrily.

“Not
more
important,” he’d said. “But sometimes you just have to do what you know in your heart is the right thing. If I can help to save just one kid’s leg so he’ll be able to walk again, then I have to do this.”

He’d seen in her eyes that she just didn’t get it. Maybe no wife would, especially when he was volunteering to put himself in harm’s way. He’d only known that it was where he needed to be, what he had to do.

Though she’d eventually resigned herself to his
decision, she’d been no happier about it by the time he left. She’d pulled out every stop, heaped on every bit of guilt she could think of, and when the day of departure had come, she’d refused to see him off. He’d said goodbye to her and his kids at home. There’d been no one waving a flag or blowing him kisses when he’d finally taken off. He’d tried not to let it hurt, but it had.

Once he was in Iraq, though, he hadn’t had time for regret. He’d barely had time to sleep. The days flew by in a haze of misery and pain, too many soldiers, too many hours standing over an operating table, his back aching, his eyes blurring from exhaustion.

It was the successes that kept him going, and the e-mails from home. Lisa was good about that, at least, and so were the kids. As young as they were—Nate barely in kindergarten, Gracie only in second grade—they still managed to write, “I miss you, Daddy.” And every so often a package would arrive with home-baked cookies, photos of the birthday party he’d missed and drawings in crayon. The drawings went on the wall by the calendar on which he was marking off the days until he saw them all again.

“Doc, there’s another chopper setting down,” Kenny Franklin told him. “The OR’s set up. You ready?”

Luke tore his gaze away from the latest picture of his kids. “I’m on my way,” he told the young medic, already on his feet. He cast one last look at the snapshot, grinning at Nate’s gap-toothed smile. He’d gotten a whole dollar from the tooth fairy, he’d told Luke in an e-mail.

He thought about that a few minutes later when he was examining the soldier whose face had been sliced to ribbons by the same mine that had ripped off part of his leg. Nate’s smile would be whole in no time at all, the missing tooth replaced by another one. The boy on the
table in front of him, not yet nineteen, according to his records, wouldn’t be that lucky. He’d be lucky to live. Only a decade or so older than Luke’s little girl, and this boy had put his life on the line for his country.

Luke had to steel himself against the tide of dismay washing over him as he snapped out orders and made his first incision. An hour later, it was over. The kid was dead. He’d lost too much blood and they hadn’t been able to seal off all the bleeders fast enough.

“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, Doc,” Kenny said.

“Yeah, I know,” Luke responded. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

On days like this it was hard to remember that he’d come here to save lives. It was hard, in fact, to remember why he’d left his home, his family, his life for
this.
If he thought about the devastation waiting for some family back home, if he thought about any of it, he wouldn’t be able to function. All he could do was head back to his quarters and try to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before the next transport came in.

“Luke!”

The sound of Grandma Jenny’s voice snapped him back to the present.

“Luke, are you okay? You’re pale as a ghost. Sit down for a minute and I’ll get you something to drink.”

“I’m fine,” he said, then realized he was standing over a chicken with a knife in his hand. “I’ll just finish cutting this chicken up for you.”

“I can do that,” she said, nudging him aside. “Sit.”

Suddenly too exhausted to argue, he sat.

“You want to tell me where you went just then?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Something tells me you ought to be talking to somebody about it. Bottling up the things that upset you isn’t good.”

“No, it’s not,” Luke agreed. But he’d talked this particular subject to death while he was in rehab and it hadn’t made the memories fade. If anything, they were clearer and more deeply embedded in his mind than ever.

“So, talk. You said you’re a surgeon. Where?”

“In Atlanta. At least, that’s where my practice is.”

“You have a family there?”

He got to his feet. “No offense, Grandma Jenny, but I can’t talk about any of this right now. I’m going for a walk, if you don’t mind.”

She gave him a hard look. “You’re not going to keel over the second you walk out the door, are you?”

He managed a faint smile. “I hope not.”

“Then go.” She shook a finger under his nose. “But don’t think I won’t still have the same questions tomorrow or the day after.”

“I never doubted it,” he said. “Right now, though, I need some fresh air.”

“You’ll be back for dinner, though, right?”

“I’ll be back,” he assured her.

He felt her concerned gaze on him as he left. There was something sweet about that. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had cared about his comings and goings. His ex-wife had stopped caring months ago, by his calculations. His kids, well, right now they were mostly confused. Very soon, when he felt more centered and sure of himself, he needed to fix that. They needed to know that he still loved them, that he was going to be there for them. To do that, though, to make that commit
ment, he had to figure out who the hell he was now…or who he wanted to be.