Luke had been causing me problems from day one—all he had to do was breathe.
But I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Chapter Twenty
Luke
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THEY’VE already taken her back?”
Bella rubbed my shoulder. “There was a cancellation in the schedule. Probably somebody on the schedule ended up sick or had some labs off...something like that. Since they couldn’t have their procedure done, they moved Mom up.” She gave me an encouraging smile. “It’s no big deal, Luke. It happens. And she’ll be done sooner.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Leaning over, I kissed her cheek, then got up to pace.
Sabrina was sitting in the corner by herself, and as I drew closer, she gave me an appraising look.
“Are you okay?” she asked, head canting to the side.
Although I’d been restless just seconds ago, I felt the urge to sit with her and just take in the easy calm she radiated. Dropping down next to her, I took her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the soft, delicate skin on the inside of her wrist, staring out the doorway down the hall. I could just barely see the doors that led to surgery.
“I don’t like that I couldn’t talk to her before they took her back.”
She leaned forward and rested her head on my arm. I didn’t have to say or explain anything else. She got it.
“Your mom’s a tough cookie, Luke. She raised all of you hellions, didn’t she?”
I snorted. “Are you implying I was a hellion?”
“You were the spawn of Satan.”
I laughed and looked down just as she lifted her face to mine.
The need to kiss her hit hard and I went to lower my head.
She withdrew just the slightest, but it was enough.
My brothers and sister were far enough away that I didn’t worry about them hearing me. “Why do you do that?”
She didn’t pretend not to understand. Her breath came out in a shaky sigh. “This...it isn’t real, Luke.”
“Are you telling me that what happened last night wasn’t real? This morning?”
Her pupils spiked and her cheeks flushed a dusky shade of rose that spread down over her neck and lower. I wanted to see just how far that flush ran and if we had been alone, I would have done just that.
“You’re talking about two different things,” she said, her tone stilted. “There’s sex...and then there are relationships.”
“I don’t think I need a primer on either,” I told her, reaching up to trace my fingers along the elegant curve of her jawline. Maybe I hadn’t had too many real relationships, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know what they were. A bittersweet tug settled inside, blurred memories of my dad dancing my mom around the kitchen rising up. Some memories were hazy, like looking through a fog. Others were sharp, as if they’d been etched in crystal, frozen forever. I’d spent a lot of time trying not to think about those memories, but now I wasn’t entirely sure why. “I’ve been front and center to some of the ugliest breakups in celebrity history, you know. And I’m pretty sure, after the way the past few years of my life have gone, I don’t need to illustrate my...familiarity with physical relationships.”
Her cheeks flushed as she scowled at me. “Okay, so you’ve seen a bunch of shallow relationships fall apart and we won’t talk about that online gossip that called you a modern-day Casanova. But you just proved my point, Luke. You don’t do relationships. You’ve never even had a serious one.”
“Maybe it’s time I did, then.”
The flush on her cheeks deepened and her body slowly went rigid. “Is that what this is about? You’ve been awful quiet. Well-behaved, even. Especially for you. Ever since Kelly ripped you a new one after that mess at the museum charity event. I guess something finally penetrated that thick skull of yours and you decided you were going to settle down.” Her full mouth flattened into a thin line, her lips all but disappearing. “And I’m the lucky guinea pig.”
Her words hit home hard, but I was so caught off guard by what she meant that I didn’t react in time as she got up and stormed off. She was already out the door by the time I managed to get my leaden legs moving. My siblings all gave me looks ranging from resignation to curiosity as I started out the door after her.
I looked in both directions and lucked out, catching sight of her just as she rounded the corner—actually, what I caught sight of was the full, flippy skirt, the color of fresh-cut watermelon. I jogged after her, catching a reproving glare from one of the nurses. I didn’t slow down. It was a good thing, too, because she was in the elevator, the doors closing by the time I caught up with her.
She gave me a dark look as I forced myself in, causing the doors to slide back open.
“What the hell was that about?” I demanded.
She looked away, crossing her arms over her chest. “Please, Luke. I don’t think it needs an explanation.”
“The fuck it doesn’t,” I snapped. “Hello, I didn’t exactly plan this.”
“But you’re not above enjoying yourself, are you?” She swung her head back around and the dark, snapping light in her eyes cut right through me. I couldn’t quite make out the emotion I saw there.
Anger?
No. That didn’t seem right.
Hurt?
But that didn’t...
You didn’t have a clue, did you?
An uneasy sensation settled in my gut and I rocked back on my heels. Thoughts spun furiously through my head, too fast for me to pick them apart and make sense of them.
“I’m not...” I stopped, words tangling on my tongue as I tried to figure out the right way to say what I needed to say. Except...I didn’t know what I needed to say. I was treading in very uncertain, very cloudy waters and I had no idea which direction to go.
The doors slid open and Sabrina pushed past me.
I turned, ready to trot after her yet again, like a damn puppy. But she stood in the middle of the crowded lobby, looking uncertain. After a few more seconds, she cut to the left and headed for the doors. Matching my pace to hers, I stayed quiet until we managed to clear the crush of people.
Too many of those people glanced my way and more than a few started to whisper. Phones came out and instinctively, I ducked my head and hunched my shoulders.
“Fuck.” Sabrina let her bag fall from her shoulder to the crook of her elbow and she rooted around inside. I wasn’t surprised when she pulled out a hat and a pair of sunglasses. I accepted them silently. “Couldn’t you have just stayed in the hospital and let me have some peace?”
The comment hurt more than I would have thought.
“I’m just...”
She stopped abruptly and turned to stare at me. “Never mind. Luke, it’s okay.” She fixed a smile, bright and plastic, on her face. “Look, I’m just stressed. I’ve had more than fifteen thousand people follow me just since this happened and of course, not all of the attention has been positive. My inbox is flooded, and most of it is about the fake engagement and I keep having to dig through all the emails to make sure there’s nothing relevant I need to answer. At this rate, I’m going to have to hire an assistant. I wasn’t exactly prepared for any of this.”
Her tone was level as she spoke.
But that smile was still forced. And that glint was back in her eyes.
Sabrina excelled at many things and was proficient in many more. But acting wasn’t her strong suit. I reached up and cupped her cheek as knowledge bloomed inside me. “I’ve hurt you. What did I do?”
Her lashes fluttered. And her body tensed, like she wanted to pull away, but couldn’t. Or wouldn’t let herself. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I said, shaking my head.
“Luke...” She covered my hand with hers. “You’re a great guy to work for, and you’re a good friend. But I’m entitled to have some level of privacy.”
“If I’ve done something to hurt you, I should know about it.” I could be just as stubborn as she could.
&nb
sp; She lifted a brow. “Not when it stems from something that’s personal. Something that’s mine.”
“Sabrina...”
“Enough.” She turned her face to my palm.
My heart clenched as she pressed a kiss to my skin.
“This is mine, Luke. Maybe when you’re ready to share yourself with me, I’ll consider giving you more of me. But you don’t trust me enough for that. So I don’t have any reason to trust you with this.”
She tugged my hand away and turned back to the hospital. “We should get back. This procedure isn’t supposed to take all that long.”
“I trust you,” I said to her back.
“Yeah. Sure you do.”
BELLA HAD UPDATED ALL of us on the procedure Mom was having. She’d also given me the precise time they’d taken her back.
Going by the timetable I had in my head, she should already be done.
I was jittery inside. It felt like I was the one who’d had an electric charge delivered. Maybe I should have skipped the coffee this morning, although caffeine rarely had the effect on me that it had on somebody who didn’t have the attention issues I had.
For the third time in ten minutes, my gaze strayed to the clock and I bit back a groan of frustration at how slowly the time seemed to be passing. Instinctively, I turned my head to look at Sabrina, but even as I went to say something, I bit it back.
You don’t trust me...
That wasn’t true. And it wasn’t fair. I trusted her more than I trusted most of the people in my own family. She was the one I’d finally listened to—I’d gone and gotten tested for ADD, for her, despite how Mom had tried to talk me into it the last few years of high school. She could have just made me go, and there’d been times when I wondered why she didn’t, but the tests weren’t cheap and I wouldn’t have cooperated, so she probably knew it was a waste of time.
And even though Sabrina didn’t know it, she was also the reason I’d let the doctor convince me into taking those damn antidepressants.
If you want to talk, I’ll listen.
I kept hearing those words.
That was what she was talking about and I knew it.
The psychologist had told me that the medication would only help so much. It was a tool, not a cure. He’d advised that I talk to somebody. I had no desire to do that.
It was only because I’d thought about the misery I’d see in Sabrina’s eyes when she’d talk about her mom that made me even consider the medication.
Sometimes I think she did it to punish herself, not taking the medication. But she never thought about how everybody else around her suffered, too. I guess that sounds selfish, but I grew up in that hell. I’m okay with being a little selfish.
It had gotten to the point that I didn’t even like being around me.
So I’d decided to try the fucking drugs.
It hadn’t helped. Not at first. Not the first day, not the first week, not the first month. But bit by bit, I started sleeping better at night. The nightmares still came, but they weren’t as often. Bit by bit, the sunshine didn’t seem like it was mocking me.
And I realized I wasn’t faking it when I laughed. The smile on my face no longer felt like a lie.
It took a year but I finally realized I felt more like me than I had in too long. So long, in fact, I didn’t even recognize myself. I’d been a kid when everything flipped upside down on me, so my uphill climb had been going on for over a decade.
I still slid back. One nightmare could do it. Seeing a news article could do it. A new scandal about some church leaders out East had set shit off for me most recently. I’d started drinking again—hard. That was just a few weeks before I ended up in that fucking sitting room at the museum.
If you want to talk, I’ll listen.
A headache pounded at the base of my skull.
I didn’t want to talk.
Not about that.
Not about any of it.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t trust her.
Lost in thought, I didn’t look up at the clock and time just swept on by. Another family came in. They were quiet and although I could tell they recognized me, none of them approached, not even the teenaged girl who’d pointed me out to her mom and whispered—too loudly—I think that’s Luke Cochran, Mom...
The nurse came to talk to them, followed ten minutes later by a doctor.
I finally looked up at the clock and realized almost two hours had passed.
Softly, I said, “Something’s wrong.”
“You don’t know that.” Sabrina’s voice was calm, but I heard the note of tension underscoring it.
“Yeah, I do. Look at Bella.”
Bella’s face was tight, pale with strain. And because Devin noticed everything about his twin, his face was tight, too.
Chris and Chase had also cued in on their tension. Either that, or they’d followed the slow passage of time. Only Liam looked unaffected, but Liam had that way about him—always had. When we’d been kids, a summer storm had caused a series of tornadoes and one had touched down close enough that we could see it from our backyard. Mom hadn’t been home. As Chase herded us all into the basement, Liam took London’s hand and told her everything was going to be fine. We just had to listen to Chase. He was the oldest and the one in charge.
He’d been eight.
He glanced my way and he tipped his head in my direction. Yeah, he was worrying, too. He just...did it in a different kind of way. Maybe that was why he was studying to be a preacher.
I managed a faint smile, then shifted my attention to Bella.
As if she’d been waiting for just that, she lifted her head. Her mouth drew tight and she took a deep, shuddering breath. Then, slowly, she got to her feet.
Chris reached out and took her hand, squeezing. She gave him a weak smile.
The sound of the doors squeaking open had all of us shooting to our feet.
A nurse stood there. She looked exhausted. The neck of her scrub top was damp and her cheeks were flushed. “Cochran family?” Her eyes flicked to me, then away, searching.
Bella stepped forward. “That’s us.”
The nurse gave a short nod. “If you’ll follow me, I’m going to take you to a consultation room. The cardiologist will be out to speak with you in a moment.”
“How’s our mom?” I asked.
Sabrina took my hand and squeezed.
“She’s in recovery now.” The nurse’s eyes met mine and they were quiet, somber.
THE ROOM WAS TOO QUIET.
Bella sat with her arms folded across her chest, staring at nothing. Twice, I started to go talk to her, only to have Sabrina squeeze my hand and shake her head.
If it had been anybody else, I wouldn’t have paid it any attention. But Sabrina had always been able to get to me, even when nobody else could.
“You know you’re the reason I started going back to visit,” I said softly, pitching my voice low enough so that only she could hear.
She swung her head around and stared at me.
“What?”
Self-conscious, I hitched up a shoulder. “You are. I mean, I’d wanted to go back and see them for a long time. But there were a lot of years between us, and things that I couldn’t talk about.”
Devin glanced my way. That self-consciousness flared and sharpened. After he looked away, I slumped farther down in my seat. Sabrina was still watching me, but I wasn’t certain this was the time or place for this.
Then why did you bring it up, dumb-ass?
But I already knew the reason. She thought I didn’t trust her. She had no idea how wrong she was. I trusted her more than I’d ever trusted anybody. Even my brothers and sisters, even my mom.
“You said once that you would have loved it if you had a big family,” I said, staring hard at the door. “Somehow, you’d gotten me to talk about something or other that had happened when I was a kid and you got to laughing so hard. A little later, you were sitting there, all quiet, then you looked up at me. I’d
already known about your parents. Your mom had been dead for a while. You only had Kelly. And you just told me, simple as that, You should go see your family, Luke. I can tell you love them. I would have loved it if I had a big family, a bunch of people I loved, who loved me. You shouldn’t take it for granted.”
She sniffed. “So you can listen to reason.”
“I made you go with me for a couple of reasons,” I said, the ground under me uncertain, even though I was sitting down. I rubbed my thumb over the back of her hand, focusing on how soft her skin felt.
“Yeah?”
I made myself look at her. “You wanted a family. I wanted to share mine.”
The door opened then and the doctor stepped in.
The grim look on his face made me go numb and without even realizing it, I stood up and started toward him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sabrina
CONCENTRATE! Part of my brain kept shrieking at me.
The other part of me was too dazed to focus on anything but what Luke had just told me.
You wanted a family. I wanted to share mine.
Tears blurred my eyes.
The Cochrans were all talking and I used their general distraction to grab a handkerchief from my bag, dabbing at the few tears that had slipped free. Sniffing, I balled the small square of cotton in my hand and stood up just as Chase raised his voice and called out, “Guys, be quiet so the man can talk.”
“Thank you,” the doctor said, tugging his glasses off and cleaning them with a cloth he pulled from the pocket of his lab coat. He wore the coat over a pair of scrubs as wrinkled and worn as those of the nurse who’d led us in here.
Luke was very much a student in the art of observation. People didn’t always realize how much he took in, because he could be so easily distracted. But when he focused, his attention was like a laser. Now all that intensity was centered on the doctor and he was taking in everything, from the way his face was still slightly flushed to the wrinkled scrubs to the lines of strain tightening his features.
Cocksure (The Cochrans of Cocker County) Page 15
