“Then by all means, talk to her,” Katie said as she went to the door to admit the waiter with their breakfast order.
As she chatted with the waiter—or tried to—she heard snatches of Luke’s terse phone conversation. His previously lighthearted mood had given way to an unmistakable anger that was evident not just in his tone of voice, but in his tense shoulders and sudden pacing.
“No, absolutely not,” he snapped, then lowered his voice to say something that Katie couldn’t hear.
The waiter, to his credit, never even looked away from the service cart, which he had pushed into a nook overlooking the gardens. He finished removing the silver tops from the serving dishes, then discreetly left them alone without any hint that he’d overheard Luke’s display of temper or that he’d noticed the pile of blankets on the honeymoon suite sofa.
At first, after the waiter had gone, Katie was too caught up in sampling the strawberries and the light, fluffy pancakes to notice Luke’s increasingly murderous expression or to pay much attention to his tersely-worded conversation. She assumed it had something to do with a business deal gone awry. When his sharply raised voice suddenly caught her attention, she paused with her fork halfway to her mouth.
“No, dammit! I don’t want you anywhere near Clover and that’s final,” he said and slammed down the phone with a force that shook the delicate mahogany table on which it was sitting.
Katie regarded him worriedly. She was certain she had never seen Luke so furious. No matter how far he’d ever been pushed—by circumstances or by Tommy or by her, for that matter—he’d never exploded like this. She watched as he visibly tried to compose himself before turning and walking toward her.
“Luke, what on earth was that about?”
“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he said. “How’s the food?”
Katie frowned at the dismissal. “The food is fine. You’re obviously not. Was that your secretary? Did some business deal fall apart?”
“Not everything in my life has to do with business,” he snapped.
“Okay, then,” she said, clinging to her patience by a thread. She recalled his mentioning Clover and tried to guess what that had to do with anything. “Has something happened at home? Is Robby okay?”
“I’m sure Robby’s fine,” he said, his voice suspiciously tight. “Everything’s fine.”
She didn’t believe him for a minute. “If business is fine and Robby is fine, then what’s wrong?” she prodded, determined to make him open up. “It’s obvious you’re still seething about something.”
“It was nothing,” he contradicted heatedly. “I’ll deal with it.”
Katie flinched at his determination to shut her out. That fragile thread on her patience snapped. “Well, pardon me for wanting to help. I guess I don’t have this marriage business down quite yet. Our deal must not have included common courtesy.”
Luke’s reaction to her sarcasm was immediate and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Katie.”
She regarded him doubtfully.
“I am,” he insisted. “I guess I don’t have it down just yet either.”
Because he looked so miserable and distraught, Katie waited until her own temper had cooled before she spoke. “Luke, this is new to both of us. I don’t have all the answers, but I do know one thing. It won’t work if we don’t learn to share what’s going on in our lives. If there’s some business crisis or something, I may not be able to help you solve it, but I can always listen. You know that. You used to talk to me about everything.”
For an instant he seemed to be wavering. She thought for sure he was going to open up, to tell her what had ruined his mood so thoroughly, but then his jaw tightened and he shook his head. “This isn’t the time to get into it.”
“It? What is it?” she asked in exasperation.
He threw down his napkin and got up from the table. “Not now, Katie.” He grabbed a shirt from the back of the chair and tugged it on. He was still buttoning it as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”
With a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, she watched him open the door. She sensed that if he walked out now, it would establish a pattern from which they might never recover. “Luke, don’t go. Please.”
He turned then and gave her a halfhearted ghost of a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long.”
He shut the door before she could protest that running out, when they should be talking, might well have worse consequences than whatever problem he had on his mind.
* * *
Damn Tommy for ruining the morning for him, Luke thought as he walked the hotel grounds in a futile attempt to calm down. Tommy’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Luke had sensed that he and Katie were finally getting closer just before the phone had rung. Now that he’d clearly withheld information from her, they were further apart than ever. He couldn’t blame her for being furious.
At the moment, though, she was no more furious than he was, albeit for far different reasons. How typical of Tommy to wait until he was off on his honeymoon before calling and making more threats. When Tommy had said he was going to Clover to visit Robby while Luke was away, a fierce tide of anger had rolled through him. It was yet more proof that Tommy didn’t give a damn about his son’s feelings. He was only using the boy to taunt Luke, hoping for a big cash settlement, no doubt, in return for backing off.
Luke couldn’t help wondering if his vehement protest would be enough to keep his brother away. He doubted it. Tommy had never listened to a damn thing he had to say. There was no reason to believe that that had changed. The only difference now was that the stakes were higher than they had been when they were kids.
The thought of his brother being alone
