“Maybe I’m just anxious to get to the cake before you do.”
“We have to cut that together,” he reminded her. “It’s a tradition.”
He glanced into her eyes and saw at once that she recognized as well as he did the irony of worrying about a wedding cake tradition when they’d already turned the entire concept of marrying for love on its head.
* * *
The minute they walked through the door of Peg’s familiar house, Luke felt as if he’d finally come home. As a boy he had spent more hours in this small, comfortable house with its sagging front porch and cheerful, haphazardly decorated rooms than he had at home.
And in more recent years, when the interior of his own house in Atlanta had been designed by some outrageously expensive decorator who was all the rage according to Betty Sue, he still hadn’t felt as at ease as he did right here amid the hodgepodge of antiques and junk that Peg had lovingly assembled from past generations of her own family and her husband’s.
Katie’s own ancestors, he thought now, smiling at a memory. She had once taken him through the house and pointed out exactly which pieces had come from which relative. The furniture seemed to provide necessary and more tangible ties to her past than even the old photo album that Peg kept in a drawer of an antique, hand-carved, oak buffet.
But as familiar as everything was, today there was a distinct difference. Despite all the pleas he and Katie had made to keep things simple, the living room had been decorated with crepe paper streamers and glitter-encrusted wedding bells. A buffet table groaned under the weight of all the food Peg and the others had contributed for the occasion. In the middle sat a three-tiered wedding cake, lovingly iced and decorated with pink roses by Peg herself, he suspected. The miniature bride and groom on top were tilted slightly, as if they were as out of kilter as he felt.
The room had been filled with roses, which probably meant that every garden in Clover had been plundered for the occasion. Luke drew in a deep breath, inhaling that sweet scent, and wondered if he’d ever look at Katie and not imagine the tantalizing aroma of roses.
He glanced at her, and for the second time that day he caught the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. Guilt sliced through him. How could he have robbed her of the wedding—no, the marriage—that she deserved? He had to believe that given time he could make it up to her, that he could prove that she hadn’t made a terrible bargain the day she’d agreed to marry him.
Don’t forget the ten thousand dollars, a cynical little voice reminded him. It wasn’t as if Katie was getting nothing from their deal. She had snapped up his offer of a financial bailout for the boarding house with only a token protest. Protest? Hell, she’d bargained with him for more. On balance, maybe they really did deserve each other and whatever misery today brought to each of them.
Still, he couldn’t help responding to her threatened tears. He took her hand in his and squeezed it. Katie immediately turned a grateful smile on him.
“Ready?” She mouthed the single word silently.
He leaned down and whispered, “Whenever you are.”
To hear the two of them bracing themselves to enter that living room and join the small celebration Peg had prepared, Luke swore anyone would have thought they were going into a battle they had no chance of winning.
Katie nodded, plastered a smile on her face that would have fooled ninety-nine percent of the population of Clover and drew him into the living room. Immediately, congratulatory cheers were called out by the gathering. Champagne toasts followed, led by Peg and echoed by all the women for whom Katie had served as bridesmaid. With each toast, Luke found himself wondering exactly what Katie had told her aunt about their relationship. Whatever she knew or suspected, Peg had clearly decided to put on a front for Katie’s sake.
That front lasted until everyone was absorbed with piled-high plates of country ham, potato salad, homemade biscuits and coleslaw. Then Peg clamped a hand around Luke’s elbow and steered him from the room. She had a grip that had been strengthened by years of carrying trays of food and heavy coffeepots. He doubted he could have pried her loose with a crowbar. She didn’t say a word until they were alone in the backyard. She settled onto one end of an old metal glider and waved him into the spot next to her.
“I’ll be good to her,” he vowed before Peg could say anything. He figured this was one of those situations that called for a preemptive strike. For an instant Peg indeed did look nonplussed, perhaps even a little relieved by his adamant declaration. Then her expression turned serious.
“Do you love her?” she asked.
“Peg, you know how I feel about Katie,” he said evasively.
The vague statement had her expression clouding over. “There was a time when that was true, a time when I thought the two of you were destined to be married,” she agreed slowly. “Then you ran off.”
“There were circumstances...”
“Robby,” she said bluntly.
He saw no point in lying. “Robby was a big part of it. I had a responsibility to him and to his mother.”
“What about your responsibility to Katie?”
Luke sighed. He had never, never thought of Katie as a responsibility. She had been a gift, a treasure, the one constant in his life.
But because he had believed in honor and duty, he had walked away from her and done the only thing he could do. He had married his brother’s lover, had accepted their child as his own. And because he loved Robby with all his heart, had loved him from the first instant he had set eyes on him, he had always thought of the blessings of that choice and not the sacrifices.
“The past is over
