Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish

by Marta Perry

  “I didn’t.” She said it again, helpless against his anger. He’d never believe her.

  “On the other hand, maybe not such terrific timing.” His expression was wry. “Because I was about to give in. About to give up everything for you, because…I thought we were in love.”

  I thought we were in love. She did feel her heart break then, she was sure of it.

  “What happened to that loyalty of yours, Chloe? It seems to be a pretty flexible commodity these days.”

  Anger welled up suddenly, and she welcomed it. If she held on to the anger, maybe she could withstand the pain for a bit.

  “Loyalty? You’re a fine one to talk about loyalty. About love.” She had to fight a fresh wave of pain before she could go on. “Don’t even talk about changing for me. You should be making this decision because it’s right, not because of me.”

  She had lost him. No, that wasn’t right. She couldn’t lose what she’d never had. But she could still grieve for what might have been.

  “What’s right is doing the job I came here to do. The job you were supposed to help me do.”

  “What’s right doesn’t have anything to do with business.” Her head throbbed with the need to make him see.

  Oh, Lord, let me get through to him.

  “You talked about Reverend Tom and what he meant to you. How he led you to the Lord. Do you actually remember any of that? Do you ever think about doing anything because it’s God’s will for your life, instead of what you want?”

  He went pale. “Don’t preach to me, Chloe. You don’t have the right.”

  “I love you.” The words she thought she’d never speak had a bitter taste. “I think that gives me the right.” Before he could say anything, she swept on. “You asked me where my loyalty was. I can tell you that. It’s to the man I’ve always thought you were, inside. But if you go through with this, you’re not that man.”

  No use, it was no use. He wasn’t hearing her. She spun on her heel.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Theo had to have come by boat.” She flung the words over her shoulder at him. “I’m going to find it. If you expect to make that meeting, you’d better hurry.”

  Without waiting to see if he was following, she jogged down the sand. She had a pretty good idea where Theo would have beached his boat—same place he’d beached it when he’d run away. And if she concentrated on that and kept moving, maybe she could run away from the pain that threatened to overwhelm her.

  Sure enough, Theo’s boat was pulled up under a sweep of Spanish moss not more than twenty feet from the dock. She tugged it toward the water.

  “We’re going across the sound in that?”

  “It’s the only way.” She resisted the impulse to imply it wasn’t safe. Her father had raised her to act honorably. She wouldn’t disappoint him again. “Theo does it all the time.”

  “All right.” Luke’s jaw set. “Let’s do it.” He grabbed the boat and dragged it to the water.

  Of course he’d do it. Chloe shoved them out into deep water. The word can’t wasn’t in Luke’s vocabulary. He’d sacrifice anything for the rewards this deal would bring. Anything.

  She saw the flash of a dolphin out in the sound, and closed her eyes for a second against her agony.

  Gran had been wrong. She wasn’t like the first Chloe. She didn’t have the strength to save the man she loved.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He was doing what he had to do. Luke repeated the words to himself as the small boat chugged up to the dock in Caldwell Cove. What he had to do. Even Chloe must recognize that. She hadn’t spoken to him all the way across the sound.

  Just as well. He was furious at the thought of her betrayal. He should be used to that. It was business. But not Chloe. Chloe didn’t do things like that.

  She eased the boat into the dock, and he looped the rope around the piling and made it tight. Quickly he climbed out, brushing at the water stains on his slacks.

  It wasn’t the way he’d choose to appear at an important meeting, but it would have to do.

  Do you ever think about what God wants you to do? Chloe’s voice echoed in his mind, and he blocked it out.

  He turned to her. “I assume you’re going to the attorney’s office, too. You may as well ride with me.”

  Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and she shook her head. “I’ll walk.”

  A spurt of anger surprised him. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve just spent two hours with me. Another five minutes isn’t going to compromise you.”

  For an instant she just stared at him, and he couldn’t read her usually expressive face. Then she jerked a nod and stalked to the car.

  He followed, unable to reject the thought that swept through him. He cared about those five minutes. He cared because they could be the last ones he’d ever spend in her company. After today, he’d probably never see her again.

  Against his will, he took a quick sideways glance at her as she slid into the seat next to him. He’d never see her again. It was like having a piece of himself cut away. Chloe knew him better than anyone else in his life.

  And he knew her better. The thought stuck. He knew Chloe bone deep. He knew what she could do, and what she couldn’t. And she couldn’t have connived to strand him on Angel Isle so he’d miss the meeting. She couldn’t. His certainty shocked him.

  He was still grappling with it when he pulled up in front of the office of Caldwell Cove’s only attorney. Chloe jumped out as if she couldn’t bear to be in his company any longer.

  But he was out and around the car before she could reach the door. “Chloe, wait.”

  He grasped her arm, and it was like grasping a live wire. He felt the shock right to his heart. He released her as she swung toward him.

  “What I said before—about you plotting with Theo to maroon me on the island.” This was incredibly awkward to say with her looking at him as if he were an insect. “If you didn’t, I’m sorry for what I said.”

  She just continued to stare at him, and he realized he’d been wrong about her look. She wasn’t looking at him as if he were an insect. She was looking at him as if he had a repugnant and possibly contagious illness.

  “It really doesn’t matter now, does it.” She turned and walked into the office.

  He followed, feeling emptier than he had in a long time. She was right. It didn’t matter.

  Preston James was a fussy, probably inefficient elderly man who’d obviously known the Caldwell family forever. Luke was prepared to find him trouble to deal with, but the paperwork had been drawn up as he’d requested. Ten more minutes and this would all be over.

  James gestured them to seats around a long mahogany table that looked as if it belonged in someone’s dining room. Chloe, her parents, the twins and Miranda lined up in the chairs on one side. Luke took his place across from them, alone.

  “Well, I guess we all know why we’re here.” James put documents in front of Luke and Clayton. “Take one more look at this, please.” His comment seemed to be directed more at Clayton than at Luke.

  Chloe’s mother put her hand on her husband’s. His children seemed to draw closer to him. They might not agree with what he was doing, but they were there to support him. They’d stand by him, no matter what happened.

  The attorney put down a pen in front of Luke, and it clicked against the table, the only sound in the office. No, not the only sound. Luke could hear his own heart beating. A wave of panic swept over him, like a riptide pulling him to the bottom of the ocean.

  When was the last time you asked God what He wanted from you?

  Images flickered through his mind, so quickly he could barely identify them, as if he were drowning and his life was passing before his eyes—the Rev, beaming with pride when Luke’s college scholarship came through; the day he’d received his MBA, with no one there to help him celebrate; his first office, barely bigger than a broom closet.

  His pulse pounded in his ears. Was he having a heart attack? He
tried to focus on the document, but other pictures blocked it out. Chloe—hugging her grandmother, frowning over her brother’s misdeeds, saving the dolphin. Chloe, looking at him with all her generous heart in her gaze, saying she loved the man she thought he was, inside.

  What do You want from me, God?

  The question he’d avoided all his life thundered in his mind, ripped from his very soul.

  What do You want from me?

  He was vaguely aware of the lawyer saying something, vaguely realized the others were looking at him strangely.

  “Are you ready to sign, Mr. Hunter?” The man held the pen out to him.

  The answer he’d tried to escape pooled in his mind, crystal clear.

  “No.” He stood, scraping his chair back. He looked at Clayton. “The offer is withdrawn.”

  He turned and walked out.

  Chloe stood on the dock alone, watching the sunset paint the sky with pink and purple. Alone. She’d struggled through the rest of this unbelievable day, trying to get her loving family to leave her alone.

  After they’d finished wondering and exclaiming and praising God for the unexpected turn of events in the lawyer’s office, the advice had begun. Go after him, Chloe. That was the gist of it. Go after him. He did the right thing, in the end, so go after him.

  She couldn’t, not now. Her heart ached. Luke was fighting it out with Dalton, and more importantly with God. This part he had to do alone. The only thing she could do now was pray, and she’d been doing that with all her strength for the past hour.

  You showed me the truth about myself, Lord. Please be with Luke. Show him the person he was meant to be…. And bring him back to me. I don’t want this to be a selfish prayer, Lord. But bring him back to me.

  She heard a step on the dock. When she turned, Luke was there.

  For a moment he just stood, looking at her. She met his eyes, half afraid of what she might find there.

  Relief swept through her. Peace. That was what she saw at last in his eyes. Peace.

  “You came back.” She couldn’t seem to find any other words. “You came back.”

  He nodded, stepping closer. But not touching her. “I had some things to take care of.” He grimaced. “With Dalton Resorts.”

  “What happened?” Dalton wouldn’t have taken it well, she knew that. She knew exactly what Luke had risked by his actions—the vice-presidency, the future he’d planned for himself.

  “Let’s just say I’m not in the running for vice-president any longer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” He shrugged. “Funny, I never thought I’d say that, but I’m not. Anyway, I finally talked Dalton into considering another site in the area. I’ll be staying long enough to find it. Then—well, I’ve had a lot of thinking to do today about where my life goes next. You know, don’t you?”

  “Wrestling with God. That’s what Gran calls it. Wrestling with God.”

  “Exactly.” His face looked relaxed, almost younger. “I’d managed to avoid that all my life, and all of a sudden, thanks to you, I couldn’t anymore.”

  The last bit of fear she’d been holding onto vanished. Whatever happened between them, Luke had found his way back to his Father. “Not me,” she said. “You did this on your own.”

  “Only because you made me face it. ‘Have you asked what God wants of your life?’ That’s what you said. That’s what wouldn’t let me go.”

  Gran had said Chloe would have to rescue him, and Chloe had thought she couldn’t—known she couldn’t in her own strength. But she hadn’t done it alone.

  “If I said the right words, it was because God gave them to me.”

  Luke reached out then, touching her cheek gently. “I know. God made a lot of things clear to me, once I started listening—” His voice broke suddenly, and he cleared his throat. “I looked at your father, willing to sacrifice something he loved for the sake of honor. And I knew that’s the kind of man God wants me to be.”

  Her heart was so full she couldn’t speak, and tears filled her eyes. She let them spill over onto her cheeks, and Luke wiped them away, his fingertips warm on her skin.

  “That’s the man I’ve always seen, inside,” she whispered. “An honorable man. The man I love.”

  Luke spread his hands wide, empty. “This is all I have to offer, Chloe. Just myself, and an uncertain future. Will you have me?”

  She stepped into his outstretched arms and felt them close around her.

  “That’s all I ever wanted,” she said, heart overflowing with love and gratitude. “Just you.”

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  “Come away from that door, Chloe Elizabeth Caldwell. Do you want the groom to see you before the ceremony?”

  Gran closed the door into the sanctuary, but not before Chloe had seen St. Andrew’s filled to capacity with family and friends. They’d cheerfully overflowed to the groom’s side, taking the place of the family Luke didn’t have.

  Even Cousin Matt was there, all the way from Indonesia this time. The faintest shadow clouded her happiness. Something was wrong with Matt. She’d sensed it, and so had Gran. Something aside from the wedding had brought him home.

  Keep him in Your hands, Lord. Let him find what he seeks here on Caldwell Island.

  “It’s all right, Gran.” Chloe squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “Theo’s keeping Luke safely out of sight.” Theo, having been struck dumb by Luke asking him to be the best man, had recovered to a determination to be the best best man anyone had ever seen.

  Miranda, her long skirt flowing about her, knelt to adjust the folds of cream silk around Chloe’s ankles, and her mother fastened the last button on the long sleeves of the dress she’d worn for her own wedding.

  “Perfect,” she said, smiling through a sheen of tears. “Just perfect.”

  Perfect, Chloe echoed silently. How could it not be perfect, when she was marrying the only man she’d ever love, the man God had chosen for her.

  The door opened, and Sammy popped his head in. “The Rev says they’re ready when you are.”

  Miranda frowned at him, ready to correct him for using Luke’s nickname for Reverend Tom, but Chloe shook her head. Reverend Tom had become part of the family in the few days since he’d arrived to assist with the ceremony. Chloe had been prepared to love him on sight, and she had.

  It was thanks to his wise counsel that Luke had taken a job with the Sonlight Center, once the new Dalton hotel had been sited on the land they bought from Uncle Jeff, next to the yacht club. Dalton was happy, Caldwell Cove was happy with its new source of income, and Luke had found a job that would let him pay back a little of what had been done for him.

  And, as if to round out her happiness, they were living back in Caldwell Cove, where she could use her skills at the inn and be a volunteer at the center. They were both doing things that mattered. They’d both come home.

  “There.” Gran opened the box she held and lifted out the creamy lace veil—the one Caldwell brides had worn since the first Chloe. It fluttered over Chloe’s hair, light as an angel’s wing. “Now you’re ready.”

  She pushed the door open. Daniel stood ready to escort their mother, and David offered his arm to Gran with a gallant bow. Miranda started Sammy down the aisle with his precious cargo of wedding rings, then blew a kiss to Chloe as she took her place.

  Her father held out his arm. “Ready, Chloe-girl?”

  She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, feeling his strength. She let her gaze drift across the small sanctuary, treasuring every inch of it. Even the bracket where the dolphin had stood was filled with the arrangement of beach roses and baby’s breath that Miranda had put there.

  Finally she looked at Luke. His eyes met hers, and she could see his love for her shining across the length of the church.

  Thankfulness filled her soul. She squeezed her father’s arm. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Dear Reader,

  I’m so glad you decided to
pick up this book. I’ve been longing to return to the Carolina coast that I love, so I’m especially happy to be writing the stories of the Caldwell kin—an extended family whose members learn the truth of the Scripture passages Gran Caldwell chose for each of them when they were baptized. I love stories about big families, and I hope you do, too.

  Chloe Caldwell, the heroine of Hunter’s Bride, has let Gran believe she’s dating her boss, corporate executive Luke Hunter. Her charade explodes in her face when Gran invites Luke to Caldwell Cove for her eightieth birthday celebration. To her horror, Luke announces he’ll attend as the beau Gran believes him to be. Luke and Chloe are convinced that their romance is just an act, but there are surprises in store for them when Chloe’s loving, interfering family decides she should be the next Caldwell bride.

  I’d love to hear from you and send you a signed bookplate or bookmark. Please write to me: Marta Perry, c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279. Or visit me on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

  A MOTHER’S WISH

  And we know that in all things,

  God works for the good of those who love Him,

  who have been called according to His purpose.

  —Romans 8:28

  This book is dedicated to my daughter Susan

  and her husband, David, with love and thanks.

  And, as always, to Brian.

  Chapter One

  If he had to go into exile for the next six months, he couldn’t pick a better place than this. Matt Caldwell paused outside the office of the Caldwell Cove Gazette and took a deep breath, inhaling a mixture of sea, salt and the rich musky aroma of the marshes. Home—Caldwell Island, South Carolina. He’d know that distinctive smell in an instant no matter where he was on the globe. Quiet, peaceful…