Maybe she could find Tommy and lure him to the wedding, she thought briefly before assessing Luke’s forbidding expression again. Then again, maybe she’d better stay away from that troubled relationship until she understood it. Besides, she had her own family emergency to resolve.
“I guess I’d better go find Peg and face the music,” she said reluctantly.
“It’ll be all right. She loves you. She just wants you to be happy.”
Katie didn’t have the heart to tell him that that was the problem. Peg wouldn’t believe in a million years that Luke Cassidy could make her happy, not after he’d done such a bang-up job of breaking her heart.
* * *
At four-thirty in the afternoon the diner was usually empty. The lunch crowd was long gone. The school kids had finished their soft drinks, milk shakes and ice cream cones and headed home. And the dinner crowd, always light during the week, anyway, wouldn’t show up for a good hour or more.
Peg usually used the time to check the day’s receipts, make lists of supplies to be ordered or simply to put her feet up for a few minutes and catch a quick, refreshing nap before the chaos started all over again.
Today, however, Katie found her aunt pacing from the front door to the kitchen and back again, clearly distracted and upset. Watching her through the window, Katie sighed as she tried to gather the courage to go in. Finally, fearing she was about to be spotted anyway, she opened the door.
When the bell over the door rang, Peg glanced through the pass-through window from the kitchen and saw her. The worry lines in her forehead deepened as she came through the swinging door. Normally an energetic whirlwind, today her aunt looked her age. Her steps had slowed. Her usually tidy, short, gray hair was virtually standing on end from the number of times she’d dragged her fingers through it.
“There you are,” she said quietly. “Where’d you go? To the beach?”
Katie grinned sheepishly. No one, with the possible exception of Luke, knew her better than this woman who had taken her in and loved her for so many years. “Where else?” she said.
“Feeling lousy?”
There was an accusation behind the question that Katie couldn’t mistake. She deserved to feel lousy and they both knew it. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“Are you?”
“You know I am. I would never intentionally do anything to upset you.”
“I always thought that was true,” Peg said, as if she were no longer quite so certain. With her expression far more nonchalant than the situation called for, she inquired, “So, when’s the wedding?”
Katie knew a loaded question when she heard one. If she could say six months from now or even a month from now, Peg might believe that the leaked news truly was fresh and that she hadn’t intentionally been shut out. When she heard the truth, she was going to be hurt all over again.
“Saturday,” Katie said, watching the pain gather in Peg’s eyes. “Justice of the Peace Abernathy is going to perform the ceremony at eleven o’clock.”
Peg simply stared at her, shock written all over her face. “A justice of the peace? This Saturday? When exactly had you planned to get around to letting me know? After the honeymoon?”
As soon as the angry words were out, Peg Jones moved like a whirlwind. With brisk efficiency, she slapped a Closed sign on the door, poured two cups of coffee, plunked them on the counter and ordered Katie to sit.
“Okay. What’s this all about?” the fifty-year-old woman demanded, her gaze pinned on Katie.
Katie winced under that penetrating look. She tried valiantly to put a positive spin on things. “Luke asked me to marry him. I said yes. It’s as simple as that.”
“Nothing’s ever been simple between the two of you,” Peg countered. “Katie, the man broke your heart. I’ve watched you mope around for the past six years, refusing to look at anyone else, shutting yourself off from life. Now he waltzes back into town, says let’s get married and bingo, everything’s just dandy again? I don’t believe it. Has he even explained why he left? Has he apologized?”
“He doesn’t owe me an apology.”
Peg sniffed indignantly, but made no comment.
“Luke and I were...are best friends. I can’t think of a better basis for marriage,” Katie said defensively. “No two people could possibly know each other any better than Luke and I do. We’re well suited. We know exactly what we’re getting into.”
She ignored the coffee her aunt had poured, stood and began cleaning the counter, which had already been polished to a shine. She didn’t care. She needed to stay on her feet. She needed to be able to avoid her aunt’s probing looks and pointed questions.
No matter how much her evasions hurt her aunt, Katie refused to admit out loud that Luke wasn’t marrying her for love. She refused to admit that they had simply made a deal. That was no one’s business, not even her beloved aunt’s. Peg, who’d raised Katie to abide by an old-fashioned set of values and a romantic’s notions of what marriage was supposed to be, would be appalled if she discovered the truth. Her own marriage to Katie’s father’s brother had been cut short by a tragic accident, but Peg’s memories of that time had always brought a sparkle to her eyes.
“Hogwash,” Peg said in response to Katie’s claim. “Friendship has its places, but what about love, Katie? I’ve always dreamed of watching you walk down the aisle with a radiant look on your face. Friendship doesn’t make you radiant. That takes fire and passion.”
Katie thought back to the one night she’d spent in Luke’s arms. There had been fire and passion enough that night. Loving him had been everything she’d
