Luke Read online

  I close my eyes. Tomorrow I have to get that proposal done.

  My phone buzzes with a text. I pick it up and my hand releases it as my eyes see the name. The metal cracks against the rug-covered wood floor.

  I pick it up again and wait for a second before using my thumb to reopen the screen.

  Grace: I’m in our place. If you want to come meet me.

  Our place…

  I stare at the phone.

  I was a mess after Grace left. I kept my pain from my brothers, but I cried myself to sleep a few nights. I felt like a failure as a man. My heart felt ripped from my chest.

  Grace: I’ll understand if you don’t want to, but I want you to. Please, Luke, hear me out?

  I want to go. I want to hear what she has to say, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid of what I’ll feel. I’m afraid of what I’ll say. And I’m afraid of what she’ll tell me.

  I don’t know how long I stare at the screen, but when it buzzes, I jump.

  Grace: I’m going to go. I do hope you’ll let me explain sometime.

  I close my eyes. Letting her walk away didn’t feel right.

  I stand, slip on joggers, tennis shoes, and tug a hoodie over my head. I grab a baseball cap, one from the Rockies that I got when went to a baseball game. A good memory. I still have many and I try to remember them.

  I quietly walk to the front door and out to the barn. Her car is parked in front. I shove my hands into the pocket on my hoodie. Every night, if we don’t get a foot of snow, it’s a couple of inches and it’s just starting tonight.

  I walk in and over to the stairs that lead to the loft. I look up. Ten wooden steps.

  I start up and my jaw locks. I try to soften it. I’m not angry. I’m hurt and I’m upset.

  I’ve always been told that I know my emotions and I give all credit to Gracie. It took a long time for me to understand what being vulnerable was…and then when I really put myself out there, telling my whole family how much I wanted to be with her for the rest of our lives. I was met with silence. She technically didn’t say ‘no’. She said nothing and walked out.

  I’m nearing where I can see the floor of the loft. I’d see her in a few more steps. I stop and take a deep breath.

  “Luke? I know it’s hard. My heart is beating like it’ll jump from my chest. I know…”

  Her voice. It drowns me in what we used to have. How she could calm me immediately, but now, it only makes my heart beat faster.

  I pinch myself. Part of me thought maybe I was sleepwalking.

  I take the last few steps and I see her.

  My Gracie.

  Grace

  I stand perfectly still. He looks like a skittish animal, but damn, he looks so good too. He’s let his hair grow out a little. The dark chocolate strands peeking out from under his baseball cap. He’s got a little thinner, whereas I’ve taken on a few pounds. I was never thin, but I’ve filled out even more. My hips are more generous, my chest bountiful, and my butt voluptuous.

  I open my mouth and he holds up a hand.

  “I just need a minute, Grace. Please give me that.”

  I nod and stand there. His gaze holds to mine, but when he blinks, those dark brown eyes start a path over my body. I don’t feel violated. I feel worshiped. But when he brings them back up, I see the sadness.

  “Grace…why?”

  I have to look up as tears start to form in my lower lashes. “It’s a long explanation. Can we sit down, and I’ll tell you?”

  “Is there a Cliff Notes version?”

  “I’m afraid I won’t do the why justice, if I can’t explain some things.”

  “Are you back for good?”

  I sigh. “I hope so.”

  I can see how my honesty is upsetting and I hate that I’m doing it, but this was part of our problem before.

  He takes a step closer and my skin tingles. How we never had sex is beyond me. We’d skirted the edges of it happening, but it never did. Just more problems to add to the list. Trust and honesty.

  Not that sex is the end-all-be-all of a relationship, but I craved to be closer to him.

  I take a step to meet him.

  He steps closer and now we’re within arm’s length.

  I take a step and we’re inches apart.

  He clears his throat. “I missed you.”

  I buckle my lips inward. I won’t let myself be bowled over with the rush of emotions. I reach out and slip a hand into his. He doesn’t pull back and my hope escalates.

  “Gracie…”

  My name rolls out of him on a huff and part of me deflates.

  He shakes his head and a soft smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “Grace. You look good.”

  I squeeze his hand. “Put on a few pounds, but I feel good and that’s what’s important.”

  “You look like you’re…happy?”

  I let go of his hand and walk over to the small futon that’s been up here in the loft since our high school years. We called it the magic make-out couch. I sit and he stares at me.

  “I’m happier, Luke.”

  “You weren’t happy with me?”

  He sits but it’s not close. It’s not like it used to be and I have to realize that it might never be.

  “I was happy. I just didn’t understand that I also wasn’t happy.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “I know and it’s going to take time to explain it. Maybe more time than we have in the middle of the night.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Denver.”

  “Two hours away?”

  “Did you think I traveled the world without you?”

  Luke blows out a long breath. “Honestly, I had no clue what to think. I asked you to marry me. To spend the rest of our lives together and you ran away without another word. And you were gone within an hour. Had you been planning it?”

  He’d have to get it all out. Relieving the truth was hard. I wasn’t proud of how I’d done it. It wasn’t the right way and I knew that now.

  “Yes.”

  His head turns quickly to me. “You’d planned it?”

  “Yes…but…”

  “But what?” Pain coated his words.

  “But I thought you’d be coming with me.”

  LUKE

  I never would’ve left. She knew that. I knew that. Especially after I proposed to her.

  “Why did you want us to leave Peacock Ridge?”

  “You got away from here, Luke. You had your time to explore, but I was always here. Dependable. Working. Making the smart choices. I needed to know what was out there.”

  I want to listen, but my heart is trying to hear her. It’s wants to hear she’s back, really back so everything else is a struggle to listen to.

  “When did I get away?” I ask.

  “High school, all those camps your parents sent you to, college, when you got to go to Washington D.C. to talk to the Colorado senators, when you went with Cole and Breck to Tijuana for Cole’s bachelor party, when you went to—”

  “Fine. I get it. I’ve traveled, but I never said you couldn’t.” I close my eyes. It’s not really about me. It’s about her. I know that, but I feel attacked.

  “That’s not fair.”

  It wasn’t. Her parents were disabled and had lived on a fixed income for years. Her mother had Multiple Sclerosis and her father had been injured working for the railroad when he was in his late thirties. Grace worked from fourteen on for hours a week, starting as a babysitter and moving into waiting tables and working at the Robert’s Veterinary Clinic. It was one of the things that attracted me to her. She was so passionate about her family.

  I did and do have it differently than Grace. I work the ranch, but if I have something to do, someone else is there to step up, always has been that way. She didn’t have the same.

  She wrings her hands in her lap. “I needed to get away from all of the responsibilities and let people depend on themselves. My parents did g
reat while I was gone. They even found out that they didn’t need me. That’s a good thing. And I found out I didn’t need them, too.”

  She reaches over and slips her hand under mine. “But there is one thing I found out that I need more than anything.”

  I bring my gaze to hers. “What’s that?”

  “Us.”

  I want to give her back the trust she once had effortlessly, but I can’t.

  I stand and step away, almost unable to breathe. “And I needed to hear from you. To know you were okay, Grace. I worried. I…I thought I’d done something wrong.”

  “You didn’t. I should have texted you back, but I was afraid that you would find me. You have to believe me, Luke, I… I cried leaving you. I cracked my heart, too.”

  I see the pain in her and it matches the pain in me, but can our love be the same?

  She stands and walks to me. “I want a chance to try again.” Her hand cups my jaw and her glossy eyes make me feel like I’m drowning. “Can we?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She steps back, but I take a step forward meeting her. Having her close makes me feel better. I reach out and catch a single silver tear that rolls down her face. She’s always been resilient and strong, and I can’t remember a time when I saw her cry.

  The back of my knuckles trail along her jawline and I feed my fingers into that dark wavy hair, the strands silkier than I remember.

  I touch our foreheads together. “I missed you, Grace.”

  “I missed you, too, Luke,” she whispers.

  The cool barn tingles against my skin as I heat, my body pulsing with need for her, like always.

  We’d taken a vow to not have sex until we were married. Not that we didn’t get close to tumbling over the edge. I flash back to Thanksgiving last year and how we’d slept in the same bed together. I’d held her close, every inch of me reaching out to her. It was torture in the best way.

  “Luke, I don’t expect you to take me back and I’m not sure if we should be back together, but I want to try.”

  “You’re working at the new Featherbone place?”

  She clears her throat and looks up at me. “I own Featherbone.”

  “You own?” That’s not something that’s usually kept quiet in our small town.

  “I took some classes at the Johnson & Wales University in culinary arts and business.”

  “I didn’t know you wanted to—”

  “I didn’t either. I never asked myself what I wanted because it just seemed like everything was falling into place the way it was. And in reality, it wasn’t really that it fell into place, it’s that I fell into a routine.”

  That makees sense. And I’d never asked…

  “What do you want to be when you grow up, Grace Quinn?”

  She giggles. “Well, thank you for asking Luke Reeves. I want to own and operate several restaurants, feeding lots of people for a reasonable price.”

  “I never knew.”

  Our over ten inches in height difference makes her strain her neck. “You never asked.”

  She was right. I never asked. That would have to change.

  I press my lips to her forehead. “It’s late.” I was tired and I’d need to be up early.

  She nods and my lips brush her skin. Her breath hitches in her chest. I see that spark in her eyes that I can’t resist.

  Can I?

  “Grace…”

  “Just one kiss, please, Luke.”

  “I don’t think I can stop at one, baby and if I can’t stop, I shouldn’t start. We’ve got a lot to work out first.”

  Her face drops. “I want you to know that I didn’t stop loving you. I just had to start loving me.”

  I sigh. “And I know we’ll do everything in our power to see if we can come back to each other, but right now, we need to make sure this is really what we want. You want to get breakfast in the morning?”

  “I have to work.”

  “Oh, right…” I stare at those perfect baby pink lips. They always tasted like cupcake icing. I lean down. Closer to tasting her and ignoring my broken heart.

  She pushes back at the last second, separating our bodies. “You can come by the restaurant. Breakfast on me.”

  “Are you going to the Snow Ball?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Can I change your mind?” I ask walking toward her, doing anything to close the distance between us.

  “I have to work.”

  “Same old Grace.”

  Her jaw tightens. “I’m not the same, Luke, and maybe that’s what’s going to keep us apart.”

  I take a step back. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to understand all of this. I really do want to understand.”

  She sighs. “I know you do and like I said, a couple of conversations and we’ll be there.”

  “I still love you, Grace.”

  “I still love you, too, Luke.”

  But will we ever be back in love?

  We don’t move. It’s too easy to imagine she’s just my imagination.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I say when I hear the pregnant heifer moving in her pen.

  She nods and in seconds she’s on the stairs heading down and out of my view. My heart hurts. I don’t want her to leave. I want to tell her it’s all okay. That I’ll forget the last year happened.

  “Luke?”

  The way she calls me makes my body respond. I shiver and shake my head.

  “Coming, baby.”

  She’s smiling as I climb down from the loft.

  And I realize…I forgot. She’s not my baby.

  Yet.

  GRACE

  I drove home last night with a smile on my face. He was hurt. I understood that.

  But he called me “baby.”

  I was at the Featherbone at 5 a.m. I loved that I’d taken a chance on me. And thus far, people seemed to like the restaurant. The doorbell jingled right after I unlocked it at six.

  I yawned, then said with my back to the door, “Take a seat anywhere. I’ll be right with you.”

  “I like it, Grace. It’s you.”

  His voice makes me close my eyes just to feel how he affects me. Every molecule says good morning and I’m suddenly not tired at all.

  “’Morning. Coffee?” I ask him as I turn.

  Luke takes a stool at the counter. “Stopped drinking the stuff in May.”

  “Oh, okay.” I feel like my head is going to explode now. He’s also not the same Luke. We’ve both changed and we have to learn each other again. I slip the handwritten copy of the menu onto the counter. “Here’s our breakfast menu.”

  He lifts the simple menu. “Specials?”

  “I’m getting it figured out,” Samson calls out from the kitchen. “But I think blueberry French toast, two eggs any style, and two bacon or sausage.”

  “I’ll take it!” he yells back. “Scrambled and sausage.”

  I slip a glass of water to him. “It’s sausage from Hollister’s farm. Same with the bacon. I’m trying to source locally for about fifty percent of what I use.”

  “Sounds like a great idea.”

  “I got the idea from you.”

  “Figured.”

  The Peacock Ridge B&B is famous for buying from local businesses or finding a way to make their own. I loved the concept and decided to try it myself. It is a challenge, but the cook adapts easily and being in cow country, I had the BBQ part pretty set. It was the fruits and vegetables that were a little rougher, especially during the winter. Shipping them in was costly, but my chef was doing a good job of managing costs. My few classes at the university, specially picked so I could maximize my time and knowledge, really helped. It’s not the way it’s normally done, but I decided to do it my way.

  I wipe the counter and the whole time I have one eye on him. I know it’s not possible, but my body’s definitely doing it. And his eyes are always on me.

  “Order up!”

  I’m nervous. I want him to like it.

  I ha
nd it over with a bottle of warm maple syrup. He eyes the meal up, his face showing no emotion, digs in and takes a bite.

  He sets his fork down. “Damn, Gracie. This is good. Like really good.” He leans toward me. “Like better than my mom’s cooking.”

  I bite my bottom lip and smile. “Wow.” Betty Reeves was a great cook, every recipe a treasured treat. Her oatmeal cookies, one of my favorites.

  “It’s your recipe?” He shovels more into his mouth.

  “Yeah, I did a lot of experimenting while I was gone.”

  He pauses with the fork to his face. “With food or…”

  “Just food, Luke.”

  I know what he’s thinking and no, I didn’t have sex while I was gone. I didn’t date anyone. I just concentrated on learning who I was without him so hopefully I could be me with him.

  A couple enter and take a booth in the back. I take their order and hand it off to the kitchen.

  He wipes his lips, those dark red puffy lips. “Grace, this was delicious. I’m really impressed with this place and what you’ve accomplished.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Does my family know you’re back?”

  “No.” I shake my head.

  His shoulders rise as he leans forward. “If you see them could you not tell them that I know.”

  I tip my head in confusion. “Why?”

  “I need time to figure this out…with you and you know my family. They want to be in everyone’s business. Hell, I could barely think and get over…”

  “Get over me?”

  “I didn’t. But I think we need to be careful. If we give them hope…”

  God, he is so smart as well as hot. My nipples harden just thinking about having a little secret with him. We’d never done that before. We’ve never done a lot of things.

  “You’re right.”

  He reaches for my hand. “I’d love to see you later.”

  I rest my elbows on the counter and close the space between us. “We close at seven tonight and then I’m off for three days for the holiday.”

  “I’ve already told my brothers that I’ll go to the Snow Ball.”

  “Maybe after Christmas?” I ask, not wanting to wait that long, but I have to remember that the Reeves basically make Christmas a multi-day affair.