He accepted the cup of coffee and ignored the rest. He walked directly to the window and stood staring down at the gardens, his expression troubled.
Katie plunged on, trying to sound as if everything were perfectly normal. “Your secretary called. She said she was able to reschedule everything for the first week in July.”
“That’s good,” he said with a distracted air.
“I’m thinking of having my hair dyed purple while we’re here,” she said.
“If that’s what you want.”
“Luke!”
His head snapped around. “What?”
Katie regarded him with dismay. “Talk about it,” she ordered.
He didn’t pretend not to know what it was. “Later.”
“When?”
“Just later. Let it go, Katie.”
She sighed and gave up. Years of experience should have taught her that she couldn’t badger Luke into talking before he was ready. “So, what do you want to do today?”
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath before finally facing her. “I want to go home.”
The last of her illusions that they could salvage this honeymoon dissolved. “You want to go home?” she repeated with dismay. “Today?”
He nodded. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“You’ve been making a lot of promises to me recently,” Katie said, struggling to keep her voice even, trying even harder not to cry. “Any idea when you’ll start keeping a few of them?”
Stormy blue eyes met hers. “As soon as we’re home, we’ll sit down and I’ll explain everything.”
Judging from Luke’s bleak expression, Katie had an awful feeling that she wasn’t going to like the explanation a bit. “Why do I have this terrible hunch that it’s coming about twenty-four hours too late?”
CHAPTER SIX
The second call to Peg Jones to let her know that he and Katie would definitely be returning to Clover had been a terrible mistake, Luke realized as they drove toward the boarding house. A collection of cars stretched for blocks in every direction. He doubted that one of the boarders had invited half the town to drop by.
More likely, the warning he had given Peg had allowed her just enough time to prepare the full-blown wedding reception she’d wanted for the two of them in the first place. He should have known that small gathering at her house the day before wouldn’t satisfy her. Or maybe she was just retaliating for what she considered to be his ill-advised decision to cut the honeymoon short.
“What do you suppose...?” Katie began, then turned to Luke with a horrified expression on her face. “Oh, no, surely she didn’t.”
“Oh, I think it’s a safe bet that we are about to be congratulated by everyone in Clover,” Luke said grimly. He glanced at Katie’s pale face and immediately took pity on her. “We could hide out at the hotel.”
“That would be cowardly,” she said, but she turned a wistful look on the two-story building that was visible a few blocks away.
“I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat.”
Katie buried her face in her hands. “What are they going to think? We’ve been married barely over a day and we cut short our honeymoon.”
Luke honestly hadn’t considered the likelihood of embarrassing Katie when he’d made the impulsive decision to come back to Clover early. He’d been focused entirely on preventing a meeting between his brother and Robby.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of how this might look.” He reached for her hand, which was ice-cold. Impulsively, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “I’m serious, we can turn right around and stay at a motel out on the highway. We don’t even have to stay at the hotel here in town.”
“That’s a little like closing the barn door after the horse has gone,” she observed dryly. “Obviously everyone already knows we cut the honeymoon short. They’ve been invited here to celebrate our return.”
“Maybe they’ll just think Peg got it wrong.”
“Yeah, right,” she said in a voice laden with skepticism. “Peg has been taking orders at the diner for thirty years without making a note. She’s never made a mistake. Do you honestly think anyone will believe she made a little error about something as important as our scheduled return from our honeymoon?” She shook her head. “No way. We’re just going to have to brazen it out.”
Filled with self-loathing for having put her in this position, Luke regarded her worriedly. “Can you do that?”
Katie’s chin rose a determined notch. “I’ll have to, won’t I?” She turned to him, eyes suddenly blazing with fury. “But when this little charade ends, Luke Cassidy, you’d better have some damned good answers ready or this could well be the shortest marriage on record in the entire state of South Carolina. In fact, I might very well go for an annulment.”
Apparently assured that Luke understood the implication of that threat, she flung open the car door and exited with the regal demeanor of a queen going to greet her subjects. Luke was left to trail along in her wake and wonder if she would make good on the threat. He decided he’d better do something damned quick to better the odds against it. Tommy would have a heyday in court with news that his brief marriage had been annulled because it had never been consummated, to say nothing of the blow it would be to Luke’s ego to have the information bandied about.
Just outside the door he captured Katie’s elbow and brought her to a halt. There was only one way he knew to keep Katie from blowing their charade, only one way he’d ever known to silence her—by kissing her senseless. Though he’d refrained from using the tactic thus far, he wasn’t above hauling it out whenever it suited his purposes. It most definitely suited him now.
“Let’s make it look good, darlin’,” he said.
Before she could offer a protest, he scooped her into his arms for the traditional trip across the threshold. While he was at it, he planted a slow, lingering kiss on lips that clearly had been about to shout a vehement protest. He suspected that only the fact
