by Patty Blount
“Don’t do that. No. No, please don’t do that! Please, don’t.” Elena clutched him tighter but he firmly held her away.
“You didn’t say no—”
“No!” She took his face in her hands. “You’re sad. Please, please don’t let me make you sad. I make everyone sad and I don’t want to do that to you.”
Luke’s forehead smoothed and his hands came up, cupping her face. “Then don’t,” he said with a shrug and a grin, like it was easy as walking.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tucked her face into the curve of his shoulder and whispered, “I don’t know how.”
He murmured into her hair. “Want lessons?”
She knew he was kidding, but clutched at his words. “Yes! Yes, I need lessons. I want to be like you, Lucas. I want people to be happy around me. I want people to say things like Al said about you—‘Elena’s the best woman I know!’”
“Stop, Elena.” His hands cruised up and down her back in a gesture that soothed and stirred her. “I was teasing. I’m no expert, believe me.”
She straightened her spine, pulled away, trying not to shiver from the lack of contact with him. She backed away, curled herself into the corner of the sofa, pulling up her knees and avoided those intense eyes. “Of course. I—I’m sorry.” Her face burned. She searched for a quick escape. “Oh, I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. I’m sure you have things to do so, um, thank you. For today.” She stood up, waited for him to grasp the hint.
He stretched out on the sofa. “Sit down, Elena.”
Sit down? She couldn’t possibly stay in the same room with him and not die of embarrassment. She jerked around, grabbed the cookie plate, fled to the kitchen to scrub off its pattern. Seconds later, his hands clamped down on her shoulders, tried to tug her back against his chest, but she stood stiffly at the sink.
“I’d apologize, but I don’t fully understand what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
He thrust out a hand to kill the water. “Look at me, Elena.”
Oh, no. No, she couldn’t possibly do that.
He cursed, spun her around and hunched down so they were eye to eye. “I. Wasn’t. Sad.”
She wished she could believe that.
“Elena, I kissed you. You kissed me back. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that—or maybe I should have asked first—but I’m not sorry I did it. I’m only sorry that you are.”
Her jaw dropped. “What? No! No, I’m not sorry we kissed. I promise you, I liked it.” What did a body look like after it died of embarrassment? Did the skin keep the fiery red flush she knew covered her from toe to hair follicles?
His hands loosened on her shoulders and he pulled her closer. “Glad to hear it. I have one more theory.” He kissed her, right under her ear, where her pulse beat so fast and so hard, she was certain he could taste it. “I think you’re out of practice.” He dipped lower, this time, kissing along her jaw, and her bones melted. “Need to try again.” His lips were there, right there, just a whisper away from hers and she swore her tongue tingled in anticipation. “This time, don’t think. Just feel.”
His lips landed, devouring hers like she was his first meal after a fast. Everything about him charged her senses. His scent—evergreen, the clever fingers roving over her body, heating her through her clothes. His hair, all that thick dark hair, was soft and silky under her fingertips. He shifted, moved his hips between her thighs, his hands on her bottom keeping her there—right there, where all that power surged.
He was, she concluded, the penance for her sins. Life, karma, fate—whatever you called it—it obviously had a sick sense of humor. It dropped the perfect man right into her hands—a guy whose smile was almost radioactive, a guy who bought dessert for teenagers and volunteered hours of his time to charities like SFG—and she could never keep him. Didn’t deserve to keep him. And even as he pulled things from her she didn’t know she could give, she knew she’d have to say goodbye to him and add that pain to the list she’d begun the day her mother died.
* * *
Lucas strode through the frigid night air, hands in his pockets, mind still swirling with thoughts of Elena.
The look on her face after he’d kissed her—damn, he’d never get it out of his head. Her eyes—those enormous milk chocolate eyes of hers spilled all her secrets. There’d been fear. Desire. Those he knew. But there was more… something he couldn’t pinpoint—words spoken in a language he hadn’t yet mastered. It was there, right at the front of his brain, but just out of reach. Whatever it was, it was something familiar. Something he knew. More like resignation. And when she started babbling about not being sad, it was all he could do to not jump on top of Kara’s kitchen counter and shout it was the best kiss of his life.
His steps faltered. The best kiss of his life… yes. Yes, he decided. It definitely was. Until the second one. A laugh tumbled out of his mouth. Al was always lecturing him about his sexual habits. Thought it was terrible that his encounters were nothing more substantial than casual hookups or friends-with-benefits, blah, blah. Al said when a woman finally came along who Lucas could fall for, it would be like getting kicked between the eyes by a Rockette in tap shoes.
He found a seat on the PATH train and rubbed his forehead. When the significance of that gesture dawned on him, he muttered a curse and slouched low in his seat, thinking about his mother’s snowflake. Part of him wasn’t entirely sure if the reason he kept volunteering at SFG wasn’t to find that girl—some pathetic attempt to use crystal snowflakes as a pair of glass slippers. God knew he was no prince, especially after what he’d done—
He snapped upright.
The look in Elena’s eyes… he finally recognized it. It was the same look he used to wear until Al helped him deal.
Guilt.
* * *
Early Sunday morning, Elena headed off to do the rest of the grocery shopping she’d planned to do the day before. The weather was bright but cold so she burrowed deeper into her coat, tugged her hat low over her ears and started walking, excited to finish her errand so she could see Lucas later. The sun caught the spire on the new One World Trade Center, a spear through the clouds, and for one very long minute, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.
“Elena?”
She whipped around, found Luke’s friend standing behind her.
“Oh, hi, Al.”
A smile and a nod. “You remembered.” He stepped closer, cupped his hands and blew on them. “You okay? You’re not lost or anything, are you?”
She’d been lost for many years now. “No, no. I’m right where I am supposed to be.” On the edge of Hell.
“Me, too!” Al said, his face bright.
She smiled tightly. “Well, great. I should get going. See you at SFG.”
He pulled an old, beat up baseball card out of his pocket. “Look what I just found.” He smiled at it like a proud new father at a baby.
Elena stared at the card. “A baseball card.”
“My dad loved his baseball cards. Kids today don’t care about collecting baseball cards—I sure didn’t. So what are the odds of finding one of these on a street nowadays?”
Elena glanced at the trash that lined the street, awaiting pick up, and figured those odds were pretty damn good. “So you’re saying this is a sign from your dad?”
Al shrugged. “I like to think so. What about you? What kind of signs remind you of your mom?”
The look on her face when I told her I hated her guts. Elena shook her head. “The usual.”
“No, I mean what were the things that made your mom happiest?”
Playing along, Elena thought for a moment. “Well, she loved to play cards. And she had an addiction to Nestle Crunch Bars.”
“There you go. Look for those signs. You’ll be surprised how often you’ll see those signs when you actually look for them. What else?”
“Jeez, I don’t know. Oh! She loved to bake. I used to help her bake Christmas cookies.
And architecture. For some reason, she was always reading books on architecture, even though that wasn’t her field.” Elena turned slightly, looked up at One World Trade Center.
He turned, faced the same direction and stared out at the new building, the one designed to honor the country and its victims. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Her eyes snapped to his. “Beautiful?” How could a structure that was essentially a grave marker be beautiful?
“Well, yes. It’s full of symbolism.”
Impatient, Elena nodded. “It’s 1776 feet tall, yes.” She’d heard all about the tower’s design.
Undaunted, Al continued. “With the spire. Without the spire, it’s 1368 feet tall, the same height as Tower 1 before it collapsed.” He waited, but she said nothing. “And look there, at the top? That’s called a square anti-prism.”
She blinked, waited for him to make his point. “So?”
“You know what a prism does, right? Splits up light into its colors? So maybe, an anti-prism does the opposite.”
Elena thought about that. “It…sucks in color?”
“Exactly.” Al’s grin widened and then he turned back to face the building. “Our new tower is a nexus of color and light. I think that’s a fitting tribute to all those we lost—and maybe to someone who loved architecture?”
“Come on. It’s just the by-product of all those politicians debating,” she argued.
“Probably,” Al admitted. “But so what? It doesn’t matter how you explain it. It only matters because it matters to you.”
She blinked, thought about that for a moment and gave up. She’d already spent a ton of money on therapy and she really didn’t need more even if it was free. “Thanks, Al, but I think I’ll just stick to not thinking about it.”
Al laughed. “Jeez, you sound just like Lucas. No faith. You two are hand-picked for each other. Where is he anyway? Are you meeting him?”
She shook her head. “Not until later. He had to do a breakfast thing this morning.”
Al’s eyebrows shot up. “He told you about the soup kitchen? Whoa, he really does like you.”
Elena’s heart fell. All Lucas had told her was he had a breakfast thing. Soup kitchen? Of course. He was probably up at dawn, serving breakfast to dozens of homeless people while she—oh! She shut her eyes and let go of the dream she was hardly aware she’d been nurturing. She was a fool. She’d known all along that Lucas was simply too good for her. What the hell was she doing?
“Uh oh. He didn’t tell you about the soup kitchen, did he?” Al turned.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I really have to go.” She walked briskly away.
“Elena. Elena, wait!”
She walked faster, dodging the lighter-than-usual pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and tore the stupid hat with its stupid wreath off her head after a third person wished her a Merry Christmas. It wasn’t merry. It hadn’t been merry since she was fourteen. Her eyes blurred and she blinked furiously, annoyed with herself. It was that kiss, that soul-touching, toe-curling, life-changing kiss. Just thinking about it put a hitch in her stride.
It was her own fault. She’d been enthralled by his smile from the second she’d seen it. She kept telling herself she was leaving soon, so stay uninvolved, keep things casual but did she listen? No, she kissed this man with the beautiful smile, beautiful eyes, and beautiful heart like she actually deserved some of that beauty for herself.
It was so ludicrous, it was laughable.
She unzipped her purse, found her phone, tapped out a quick message.
L., thanks for all your help yesterday but I think I need to focus on Kara right now. I’m leaving soon and don’t want to start something with you I can’t finish. Thanks for understanding. Merry Christmas. E.
Yes, laughable.
She tugged a tissue from her coat pocket, and wiped her eyes.
* * *
Lucas shoved his phone back in his pocket with a curse.
“Careful, man. You might scare away the customers.” Chuck Garrison crossed his arms over his barrel chest and studied Lucas carefully. “Woman trouble?”
Luke pulled the candy cane from his mouth and snorted out half a laugh. “Yeah.”
Chuck blew out a loud sigh, tore the paper hat off his head. “Man, that is discouraging. Guys like you have trouble with a woman, there is no hope for short and pudgy guys with an adorable sense of humor like me.”
“Come off it, Chuck.” Luke rolled his eyes. “You’re the married deacon of a church with three kids.”
“Oh. Right. All hope was lost years ago.” He tugged off his formerly white apron, balled it up. “Wanna talk about it?”
Luke shot him a yeah-right look. “No. I want to hit something. Hard. You okay by yourself? I’m going to the gym.”
“Yeah, sure. Go. And good luck with your lady.”
His lady. Outside Trinity Church, with the frigid air hitting him like a bucket of cold water, Lucas couldn’t stop thinking about Deacon Chuck’s words. Lucas didn’t do relationship—no girlfriends, no involvements, no relationships.
No meaning.
His lady. Damn it, no. He had no claim on Elena Larsen. Okay, so they’d shared a kiss or two. And yes, it had damn near stopped his heart. That didn’t mean—
Ah, hell.
Yes, it did.
Without the fury pushing him, his restless mind kept replaying everything that had happened the day before. He hadn’t said anything rude—though there were a few opportunities he’d let fly by. And she hadn’t pissed him off.
Much.
The kiss—she’d assured him it wasn’t the kiss. So what the hell happened?
His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out, tugged off his gloves, and checked the ID. “Hey, Al.”
“Luke, I’m sorry, but I think I messed things up for you with Elena. Have you talked to her today?”
Lucas came to a screeching halt in the middle of the sidewalk. “You spoke to her? When? What did you say?”
“I saw her about an hour ago. Down near Fulton. She said she had to buy groceries.”
Lucas shut his eyes, prayed for patience. “I mean what did you say to upset her?”
“Nothing! We were standing on the street, looking up at the new trade center. I mentioned some of the symbolism—”
“Oh, please. Not more signs.”
“I know, I know. But she seemed interested in all of that. It wasn’t until I mentioned the soup kitchen that she got weird.”
“Why the hell did you tell her?”
“That was an accident. She said you had a breakfast thing, so I thought you’d told her you served breakfast over at Trinity. I misunderstood.”
“Okay, forget it. What did she say?”
“That’s just it. She didn’t say anything. She just took off. Looked like a kid who just found out the truth about Santa.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good luck.”
It made sense. An hour ago was about the time he’d gotten her text message. Lucas shoved the phone back in his pocket and took off at a run. Woman thinks she can just kiss him to within an inch of his life one day and walk away the next? They’d just see about that. If she thought he’d hit the streets just because she sent him off with a text message—
He skidded to a stop, pulled off his hat, dragged both hands through his hair. At a slow walk, Lucas pondered his options. Walk away. Confront her. Move on. He could call Jill or—or what was that redhead’s name? Alison. He could put Elena firmly out of his head. Yes. Yes, that was a good plan. This way, there’d be no drama.
He hated drama.
He turned away, took one step and found Elena standing there, watching him, with that same haunted look in her eyes, the same look that used to be in his and sometimes, still was.
She turned and ran.
Chapter Eight
‡
Her jaw fell open.
She turned a corner and there he was.
&n
bsp; Saint Luke.
Her heart tore down the center. She couldn’t—she simply couldn’t deal with any more of this—this taunting. She was sorry! Deeply, irrevocably sorry. But it did no good. Her mother was gone now—there could be no forgiveness, no forgetting.
Her sin had festered—a dark spot on her soul—for over a dozen years and it had gotten worse, not better. Here she was, back in New York where she swore she’d never go again, falling for an angel with a glowing smile instead of wings who helped people in distress. Slowly, she put down the grocery bag in her arms and watched Lucas.
Suddenly, his gaze snapped to hers and for a brief moment, she wondered why he looked so sad. Then she ran—left the bag of groceries where she’d plopped it—and ran. Ran to Kara’s building, grateful that the elevator was waiting when she reached it.
It was one small thing that went in her favor.
She let herself into Kara’s apartment, fell back against the door and tried to still her racing heart. When she could move without shaking, she searched for her sister, found the apartment empty.
Kara still wasn’t home.
Elena sighed, stared at the baby’s crib, all ready for baby’s first nap. There would be a little life form inside that crib in a few weeks. A life its grandmother would never get to see because she’d been stolen from them, and its father would not see by choice. Her hands curled into tight fists and she breathed through the pain in her chest.
Abruptly weary of the signs and the guilt and the pain—of damn near everything, Elena nearly crawled into her air mattress, wishing Kara were home so they could just lie next to each other the way they used to when they were little and scared of thunderstorms. But the buzzer sounded.
Slowly, she headed to the wall buzzer and pressed it. She knew it was Lucas and accepted her fate.
Her earlier text message was a crappy way to say goodbye to somebody. She owed him an honest conversation. She opened the apartment door, waited for the elevator. She could hear it, the ding it made as it passed each floor sounding like the fall of a gavel in her sentence. When the doors slid open, she straightened her spine, and prepared to tell the most incredible guy in the world she couldn’t see him again directly to his face.
