Luke decided to let him have his illusions. One of them might as well get some pleasure from anticipating the evening’s prospects. He, unfortunately, knew better than to expect that a welcome mat was being tossed down for him.
As he walked home, he realized his timing in writing that memo to the boarding house residents might have been just a little off. Katie was putting a lot of energy into this campaign to salvage his relationship with his brother and to stave off a court battle for custody of Robby. She hadn’t yet adapted to being married, though she seemed to be getting into the spirit of being a mother. She definitely wasn’t quite ready to adjust to the idea that now she had someone to look out for her best interests.
Nor had she accepted that their bargain gave him some measure of control over the operation of the boarding house. Luke was willing to admit that maybe he’d been a little heavy-handed about trying to take over the financial end of things. But Katie needed to learn that she couldn’t keep letting the boarding house residents pay her if and when they got around to it. He had to stop all the other ways the boarders took advantage of her as well.
Yes, indeed, he knew in his gut that he’d made the right decision in drawing up those rules. His biggest mistake had probably been talking to the tenants directly and posting the notices before mentioning them to Katie. He already knew how testy she could get about anyone trying to usurp her power around the place. She hadn’t exactly welcomed his past efforts.
He found her waiting for him on the front porch, a glass of lemonade in hand that was probably only slightly more sour than her apparent mood. She did not smile when she saw him. She continued to push herself lazily back and forth in the swing as if she were trying to stir up a breeze. Her hair had been scooped up and tied with a scarf. She was wearing an old pair of cutoff jeans and a tank top. Her feet were bare. She hadn’t even bothered with lipstick. She looked...entrancing.
And very, very angry, he decided with some dismay, but no surprise.
Sucking in a deep breath, Luke brazenly plunked himself into the swing next to her. She was apparently too tired to protest or to move.
“Just how mad are you?” he asked eventually.
“Mad enough.”
He decided to go straight to the heart of the situation. “Do you want out of our deal?” he asked. Even as the words came out of his mouth, he realized that that thought had been behind his precipitous actions. In some weird way, he’d been testing her, hoping to discover if she would choose him over the boarding house.
His blunt question drew a startled look. “Do you?”
“No,” he admitted, though he was unwilling to elaborate on just what he did want. He wasn’t even sure he could put it into words or, more precisely, that he was willing to.
Katie sighed. “Neither do I.” She was quiet for a long time. When she finally spoke up, she surprised him by saying, “It’s not the way I imagined it would be.”
“What?”
“Marriage.”
“In general or to me?” It was the first time he’d even considered the possibility that she had ever cared for him enough to marry him for all the traditional reasons, rather than the trumped up business deal they’d settled for instead.
“Both, I suppose.”
“That’s because we’re not sleeping together,” he suggested, seizing the most obvious explanation he could think of—and the most convenient, given his own increasingly demanding goal. He would have seduced her right here, right now, if he weren’t certain he’d get a fist in his solar plexus for his efforts.
Katie shook her head. Something in her eyes told him she pitied him.
“You really don’t have a clue, do you?” she asked.
“About what?”
She sighed again. “Never mind.”
Luke dared for the first time to touch the strand of hair that had escaped from her saucy ponytail. He brushed it back from her cheek, his knuckles skimming along skin that felt like satin. A thousand memories stole through him, a thousand sensations from the one night they had made love so long ago.
Was it possible that those were the memories that had drawn him back to Clover? Was it the promised joy of loving Katie that had lured him home, rather than the practical need to solve some legal dilemma that had turned his life upside down? Tommy certainly seemed to think so. He’d even begun to suspect it himself. But how would he ever know for sure? And would it even matter, if he could figure it out?
* * *
What had happened to her life? Katie wondered with a sense of desperation as she struggled to ignore the sensations Luke’s casual, but persistent touch was stirring inside her. A few months ago, she had been leading a quiet, peaceful existence. She had successfully—well, almost successfully—driven Luke Cassidy from her mind. She was operating a business she loved, surrounded by people she cared about. Life hadn’t been perfect, but she’d been content.
She hadn’t even minded so very much that it seemed she was destined to be always a bridesmaid, but never a bride. All those couples—Hannah and Matthew, Emma and Michael, Sophie and Ford and especially Lucy and Max—were family. There would be lots of babies for her to love. Lots of people were not nearly so blessed.
Now her entire household was in an uproar because of the endless regulations Luke had instituted. And on Friday Henrietta Myers would be moving in, which gave Katie plenty to complain about herself.
Where was she supposed to put Luke? She knew perfectly well that he intended to make himself at home in her room. She also knew that her resistance was just about taxed to the limit as it was. If the man climbed into her bed, if he so
