Deserving of Luke

by Tracy Wolff

  Luke groaned, but agreed, “Sounds fair.”

  After signing the credit card slip and handing it to the girl, Paige let Luke push the basket to the car. Watching him carefully maneuver around the other vehicles made her smile, despite the worry that lingered in the corners of her mind. What was she going to do if Luke clued in to what kind of reputation his mother had had when she’d run away from this old-fashioned bastion of bigotry?

  And how was she going to explain her reasons for doing what she’d done to him? He was already the only kid in his private-school class who didn’t at least know who his dad was—something he seemed to be taking reasonably well. But she wasn’t sure what old gossip could do to him—and she didn’t want to find out.

  One thing was for sure, she vowed as she slid into the driver’s seat. After today, she was going to do her damnedest to keep him away from this place and the people who wanted nothing more than to hurt him, simply because he was hers.

  Whoever had said ignorance was bliss definitely knew what he was talking about.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY, the kind that made Logan Powell grateful he’d returned to Prospect after his big-city marriage had failed. Oh, he’d liked Seattle well enough—if you didn’t mind the fact that it rained something like eighty-seven percent of the time. But after Melissa had left him he’d been ready for a change. And the fact that he’d been shot, had nearly bled to death in a drug bust gone bad, hadn’t hurt his desire to return home, either. Prospect was the epitome of a sleepy coastal town and he liked it that way.

  After parking his cruiser in the first available spot, Logan stepped into the street. He took a deep breath, held it in his lungs as long as he could before letting it out. In that breath was everything he loved about Prospect—sunshine, salt water and an abundance of greenery.

  A glance at his watch told him he had plenty of time before he was supposed to meet his date at Prospector’s, the local sixties diner, so he decided to take the long way around. There might not be much crime in Prospect, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take his job as sheriff seriously. These people depended on him and he wasn’t going to let them down.

  Today was a perfect time to weave his way through the tree-lined streets and check on the local businesses. It was a little early in the season for tourists to be descending, so he could enjoy this duty that would soon become a chore. He would still patrol the streets once they were packed with people in shorts and sundresses, haggling for antiques and beach shells, but the camaraderie he experienced now would be swallowed by strangers’ demands.

  Completely content with his lot in life, Logan took his time strolling the heavily shaded streets. The sun was shining, a nice breeze wound its way between the buildings and, in the background, the ocean crashed soothingly onto the sand. Yes, it really was a beautiful day.

  As he made his way down Sycamore to Main, he whistled a little tune, something happy he remembered from his childhood. Perhaps he’d stop by the clinic to see if Jake was on call tonight. If he wasn’t, maybe his old friend would be up for a few hands of poker. Logan was feeling lucky, and since the bastard had scalped him in their regular first Thursday of the month game, he owed him a chance to recoup his losses.

  He’d barely stepped onto Main Street before realizing the streets—and the people walking down them—were abuzz about something. Of course, it didn’t take much to get the residents up in arms.

  He wondered if Mr. Walker’s Rottweiler had escaped again, plowing into God-only-knew whom. Or if the Harbinger brothers had gotten into another fight in the middle of Town Square. The last time it had happened they’d nearly killed themselves and he’d been stuck hauling both of them to jail. Before all was said and done he’d ended up with a black eye and his own assault case against the two of them. He’d let the charges drop on the understanding that they kept their differences non-violent in the future. But if they’d been fighting again—

  “Morning, Sheriff.” Marge Hutchinson’s brusque voice pulled him from his reverie.

  “Morning, Mrs. Hutchinson.” He smiled at the boutique owner who had been slipping him a piece of red licorice behind his mother’s back since he was three years old. “How are you this morning?”

  “I’m doing just fine. Gearing up for the tourist rush.”

  “Glad to hear it. They should be here before you know it.”

  “Another week or two at the most. Bob’s talked me into carrying some fancy soaps and perfumes. You should stop by and check them out,” she said with a wink. “Maybe pick up something for your new girl.”

  He laughed. “Maybe I’ll do that.” Today’s lunch was only his second date with Joni—the first had been a cup of coffee a few days ago—but already the town had the two of them paired up. It didn’t annoy him the way it did some. Instead, it amused him. Where else but Prospect would his love life be a public service project?

  “Good. I’ll set some of the gardenia products aside. They’ll smell real good on Joni. And you’ll be needing them after she finds out—” She looked away, her crimson painted lips pressed tightly together.

  His radar went on red alert. “After she finds out what, Mrs. Hutchinson?”

  “I suppose I should just tell you. It’s better than you hearing it from one of those old busybodies down the street.”

  He barely bit back a smile. She was one of the busiest bodies in town. Despite her feigned reluctance, she was probably rejoicing in the fact that she’d beaten Ruth Oberly to the punch.

  “Well, I was in the grocery store earlier today and you’ll never guess who’s back in town.”

  She glanced at him, as if waiting for him to guess despite her words, but he didn’t have a clue. He rarely kept track of the tourists who came and went, even the ones who returned year after year.

  Leaning forward, as if she had a particularly juicy secret to impart, Mrs. Hutchinson took her time drawing out the suspense. “I might not have even noticed her, except for the fact that she’d lost her son. Lost her son, can you believe it? On her first day back in town.”

  He felt a premonition that he wasn’t going to like whatever came out of her mouth next. “Did they find the boy?” he demanded. “The sheriff’s department hasn’t been notified—”

  “Oh, yes, they found him after only a couple of minutes, hiding in the back with the comic books. But not before she made a total spectacle of herself running around screaming for him.” She sniffed. “He didn’t answer. Not that I blame him, I guess. If I had her for a mother, I’d probably be hiding, too. It probably looked like a good place to stay lost, as not many people make it back there.”

  Patience wearing thin after her salacious account—it wasn’t like Mrs. Hutchinson to be so malicious and it made him uncomfortable to be a part of it, even if in a peripheral way—Logan asked, “So who is it? Who’s back in town?”

  She grinned. “Paige Matthews. And from the amount of food she picked up at the grocery store, she’s planning on staying a while.”

  Her words sent him reeling, the way she’d intended them to. She kept talking, telling him more—he was sure—about Paige’s ill-fated trip to the market, but he didn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear her over the buzzing in his ears and the shock that was ricocheting through him.

  Paige Matthews was back in town.

  Paige was back.

  In town.

  Paige Matthews was back in town.

  The words looped in his mind as he tried to figure out what they meant when strung together in that order.

  Trying to get them to make sense.

  And more than anything, trying to decide how he felt about them.

  Fumbling an excuse he knew didn’t make much sense, he headed up the street in a kind of daze. He knew Mrs. Hutchinson—and plenty of other people—were watching him, but in those first few moments, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Couldn’t bring himself to fake his way through this bombshell.

  It had been so long since he’d heard
anything about Paige, so long since he’d even allowed himself to think her name.

  He didn’t get far before someone else stopped him to report the same news. Again and again, people stepped forward to tell him about Paige, each one adding a new little detail about her—and her son—until he felt as though he’d run the gauntlet.

  Had he seen what kind of car she was driving? one person asked.

  A ninety-thousand-dollar BMW, someone else imparted. Of course, she’d gotten it illegally. Hadn’t they always known she was going to turn out to be a drug dealer’s girlfriend? He’d tried to put that rumor to rest by mentioning the latest movie she’d been involved with, but he’d known his protests had fallen on deaf ears when the same person asked if he thought Paige was on the run from her drug-dealing boyfriend.

  Did he know why she was back?

  Logan’s simple morning walk through town had turned into a nightmare. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he cared.

  Yes, he and Paige had been an item a million years ago. And, yeah, she’d screwed him over totally and completely. But that didn’t mean he wished her ill, didn’t mean he wanted any of the things the towns-people were speculating about to be true. Any more than it meant he wanted to see her.

  Sure, he might be curious about what she’d been up to. And why she had chosen now—when he’d been in Prospect a little over eighteen months and was finally getting comfortable with his new life—to come back to town. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he would be asking her any of those questions any time soon.

  If they met up, when they met up—this was Prospect after all, and there were only so many places to frequent—he would be polite, courteous. Treat her the way he did any of the other people under his protection. Because that’s what she was to him—all she would ever be to him. Maybe she’d meant something to him in the past, but that was a long time ago. The present and future were a whole different story.

  He was the first to admit he’d made a lot of mistakes in his life. But from the time he was a kid, he’d made a point of not making the same mistake twice.

  And Paige had been more than a youthful mistake. She’d been a goddamned natural disaster that had ripped apart the very fabric of his life. And it had taken him too long to get over her to ever let her back in again.

  Pasting a wide—and hopefully not glazed—smile on his lips, Logan continued toward the diner in as straight a line as he could manage. He didn’t know much about Paige anymore, but he knew he was going to lose it if he had to hear one more ridiculous rumor about her. Or her son.

  Then Ruth Oberly stepped into his path and asked if he’d had a chance to see Paige Matthews’s son yet. When he’d told her he hadn’t, she’d looked at him blandly and said that she thought the boy looked just like his father.

  Logan’s back went ramrod straight at this new piece of information, and he had to force himself to relax. Normally, he didn’t mind the gossip that was part and parcel of living in a small town—it was relatively harmless, after all—but Paige’s child was still a raw spot for him.

  The knowledge came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one. In fact, he was so busy trying to wrap his mind around the implication that one look at the kid had given Ruth a good idea of who his father was, that he nearly missed the diner. Logan had spent a lot of hours trying to convince Paige to tell him the truth about which of his high-school classmates had gotten her pregnant and the thought that he might finally be able to find out, after all these years, had him reeling.

  Which was perfectly normal, he assured himself. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have history together. After Paige had left Prospect, he’d spent weeks—months—lying awake wondering about her. Wondering if she was okay. Wondering if the father of her kid was helping her out. Every time one of the guys from Paige’s side of the river had left town, Logan had wondered if he was the one. If he was sneaking off to be with Paige, wherever she was.

  Eventually he’d left himself, gone to college, and memories of her had faded to bittersweet regret. Sure, she’d creep up on him sometimes, but he figured that was normal, when all was said and done.

  First love was a bitch, after all. Sure, he’d gotten over her, moved on with his life, even gotten married to a woman he’d loved. But that didn’t mean memories of Paige—memories of them—didn’t catch him off guard every once in a while. They’d sneak in when he least expected it—a glimpse of the swings at the park, the teasing scent of lilac in the woods, a stray word about her sister and the crazy house Penny had bought with the hope of turning it into a bed and breakfast—and suddenly he’d be right back there, crazy in love with a girl his parents wouldn’t let in the front door.

  But that’s all they were, he assured himself. Just memories. And if hearing about her son was a kick in the ass, the sting would quickly fade. After all, her betrayal had happened a long time and a lot of women ago. He had more important things to worry about these days than ancient history.

  And yet, he found himself thinking about her. The idea that Paige was here now, that the answers to all those old questions were suddenly within his reach, had him thinking about things that were better laid to rest.

  Frustrated, out-of-sorts, his earlier enjoyment of the day completely gone, Logan pushed open the door to the diner. And got a hell of a start when nearly every face turned toward him, the low buzz of conversation coming to an abrupt halt.

  Okay. Never comfortable being the obvious topic of conversation he reminded himself of all the positive reasons to living in a town where he knew well over half the population. There was always someone to talk to, always someone around to lend a hand.

  Even with the good points outweighing the bad, it didn’t mean it was always easy. Especially not when people were interested to see what his reaction would be to the knowledge that Paige, and her son, were back in town. Well, they’d learn soon enough it was no big deal. He and Paige were nothing to each other anymore.

  Glancing around the diner with a friendly smile, he breathed a small sigh of relief when his gaze landed on Joni. There was nothing like a date with one woman to lay old gossip about another to rest.

  Grinning for real this time, he started toward her table. There was nothing wrong with him, a hamburger, a piece of peach pie and some time with Joni wouldn’t fix.

  Focused on his target, Logan didn’t see Paige until he was almost on top of her. And when it finally registered on him that the pretty woman at the next table was the grown-up version of his high-school sweetheart, it was too late to do anything but stare.

  And stare he did, his mind cataloguing all the differences between this woman and the girl he remembered. Her platinum-blond hair was a lot shorter, cut into a sassy style that suited the woman, but not the vulnerable young girl who’d once confided to him that she liked him because she didn’t have to play a part for him.

  Her heart-shaped face was thinner, her cheekbones more prominent, her green eyes darker and more wary than they had ever been. Only her lips were the same—lush and a little lopsided, their raspberry color as tempting as ever.

  She was wearing a violet tank top that showed off curves much more lush than he remembered and, though he told himself to move on, to pull out a chair at Joni’s table, he didn’t move. Instead, he stood there, willing Paige to look at him.

  At first, he didn’t think she was going to, thought she was going to pretend to be oblivious to his presence. But as he contemplated doing something stupid to get her attention, she met his gaze with her own unflinching stare. For one long, indefinable second, it was as if they were back in high school, when it had been only the two of them no matter how many other people were in the room.

  He heard her catch her breath, felt his own hitch in his chest. His hand reached out to her of its own volition and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to trace the familiar dusting of freckles on her cheeks, as if nine years and countless arguments didn’t lay between them.

  He started to s
ay something, stopped. Tried again, stopped again. Then the moment was gone, her attention diverted by a young voice asking, “Mom, can I get my milkshake now? I ate all my green beans.”

  Her expression appeared stricken before she turned her attention to her son. For a second Logan couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then he looked toward the boy sitting across from her, his black curls gleaming under the restaurant’s warm, yellow lights, and Logan’s entire world caved in.

  He felt his jaw slacken and his eyes widen as a thousand different questions exploded in his head. As he looked over Paige’s son, Logan told himself that it couldn’t be. That he had to be mistaken. That Paige wouldn’t have his child without telling him.

  The words circled his brain, a particularly ineffectual mantra. Because even as he was talking to himself, even as he was trying to convince himself that he was wrong, that he was making a huge mistake, he knew he wasn’t. This child—this lively, eight-year-old boy with the silver eyes and small birthmark on his right cheek—was his son and he didn’t even know the kid’s name.

  The realization was a blow that nearly brought him to his knees. Shock and sorrow warred within him, followed by the beginnings of a rage so powerful it made him shake.

  His child had existed in the world for eight years and he hadn’t known.

  His child had grown and laughed, hurt and played, for eight years and he hadn’t known.

  His child had—

  “Hello, Logan.”

  Screw pleasantries. There was only one thing he wanted from her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Paige raised one blond eyebrow, smiled serenely, coolly as if the same moments that had just blown Logan’s world to hell and back had barely affected her.

  “I did tell you. You chose not to believe me.”

  That was it. No explanation, no plea for forgiveness, no acknowledgment of guilt. A few simple words that did nothing to lower his blood pressure, and nothing to set this situation to rights.