by Dana Corbit
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Eleanor held her hands wide the way she always did when she had what she called a “blond moment.” “Our neighbors here are great. Several have offered their guest rooms, and the few who were going to be out of town opened their homes to us.”
“You do have great neighbors. You know, I could pull my car out and follow.”
“Nonsense.” She brushed away my suggestion with a wave of her hand, glancing down the line of cars. She stopped as her gaze landed on a newer heavy-duty truck, painted a metallic blue. “Of course. You can ride in the truck.”
I was already shaking my head over trying to find a ladylike way to haul myself into the pickup when the driver turned back from whatever held his attention in the backseat. A head full of dark hair came into view. I didn’t need that quiver in my stomach to convince me I’d been had again, but there it was.
Aunt Eleanor, bless her heart, had the grace to look guilty.
Peeking to make sure the window was closed, I turned back to her. “I suppose there’s no room in the other cars?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
No one could have mistaken my exasperated sigh for an attempt to enjoy the Lake Michigan breeze. I wanted to be civil, but these people really needed a hobby that didn’t involve my nonexistent love life.
“Look, Aunt Eleanor, I appreciate your concern for me, but dating is so far from what I want to be doing right now. I’m not ready—”
“Dating? Who said anything about dating?”
My aunt waggled her eyebrow as if I’d been the one to come up with the idea. I’d never had an unkind thought about my aunt in my life, but I had an overwhelming urge to trip her.
Still, the mental picture of her landing like a fallen butterfly, all tied up in layers of filmy peach chiffon, was enough to help me keep my feet to myself. What would Jesus do? the lukewarm, on-the-fence faith nugget inside of me wanted to know. I had a pretty good idea tripping wouldn’t be part of His plan.
“I was just talking about a ride to dinner, but if you’d rather I rearrange everyone else…” She let her words trail away, looking at me as if she hoped I would cave.
And I did. “No, of course, I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.”
Why would I start now? I had a track record for being one of the least inconveniencing people I knew. I hated to make waves. But I was a little desperate here, so I tried one last plea.
“I’m a bit uncomfortable riding alone with a man, though.” I held my breath and crossed all twenty fingers and toes in my imagination.
I could practically see the wheels in her mind turning, as if she was trying to decide whether to take pity on me. Then she clapped her hands together. “Well, that’s great then because you won’t be riding with Luke alone. He’s never alone.”
Never alone? She didn’t even give me time to ask that question aloud or to feel humiliated over learning this late in the game that Luke Sheridan might be happily married after all. In a chiffon flounce, she stepped to the truck and whipped open the door.
Luke first glanced over in surprise before his gaze landed on me and narrowed. It was all I could do not to throw my hands up in a pose of the innocent and tell him I had nothing to do with this.
“Luke, dear, would you mind transporting a guest to the restaurant? It seems we don’t have a spot for my niece.”
“Well, we couldn’t have that, could we?” His tone was polite, but his jaw was tight.
Embarrassment had to be what was squeezing my chest so tightly. That and a huge slice of humble pie.
“Who’s that?” came a youthful voice from the backseat.
Though both my aunt and I ducked to get a glimpse behind Luke, only she waved and grinned at the little boy sitting in a booster.
“Hello there, Sam,” Eleanor said. “Are you taking good care of your daddy?”
I blinked hard, but at least I didn’t really embarrass myself by gasping or saying, “oh.” I’d considered that Luke might be married and realized now that I must have imagined this whole setup scenario, but I hadn’t yet leaped as far as the progeny question.
The mini-Luke—no, Mr. Sheridan couldn’t deny fathering this handsome knockoff if both their lives depended on it—was too busy studying me to answer my aunt’s question.
Luke cleared his throat. “Um, Sam…Mrs. Hudson asked you something.”
A scowl clouded Sam’s handsome face. “Daddy made me wear this stuff.”
He pointed down at an outfit that anyone besides a little boy would have called casual. It must have been a travesty to have to wear dressy tan shorts—oh the horror!—and a polo shirt with a collar.
But in the way of preschoolers, Sam must have forgotten this crime against his person because he grinned when he looked back at me. “Are you daddy’s girlfriend?”
“Samuel Lucas Sheridan.” Luke’s voice came in a low, warning growl.
Sam glanced at his dad with a “what-did-I-say” look. The kid had guts, all right.
“Well, Grammy said—”
“I don’t care what—” Luke stopped himself and took a deep breath before he continued. “I mean your grandma must have been joking because you know I don’t have girlfriends.”
“Mommy was your girlfriend.”
Again, Luke’s voice was low with warning. “We don’t need to talk about this now.”
“Well, she was.”
Luke sighed. “Yes, she was.”
Satisfied with his father’s admission, Sam turned those enormous blue eyes, so like his father’s, on me. “Mommy died.”
My breath caught, the truth so bluntly laid out before me. Here I’d been worrying about, first, being set up and, second, mistakenly assuming I’d been set up, and this poor little boy had lost his mother. Shame felt heavy on my chest.
“I’m so sorry,” I said when I finally had my voice back.
“Thanks,” Luke said automatically. “Car accident. It was a while ago.”
Not long enough for the pain to become less raw, I observed, as his hands tightened around the steering wheel. I had once told myself it would have been easier if Alan had just died instead of leaving me. Divorce was a death of sorts—of promises and dreams. But the stark look of loss on Luke’s face suggested more pain than I could even fathom. He pointedly looked away then, making it clear he wasn’t interested in my pity.
“Guys, we need to get going,” Eleanor said as she put a hand in the small of my back and propelled me forward. Instantly, I was glad Luke drove a truck. Had it been a car, I would have clipped my head on the door-frame. As it was, the side of the seat just caught me in the stomach, making the air whoosh out of me. Scrambling for balance, I somehow ended up in the seat next to Luke without collecting any visible marks.
“See you all at the restaurant,” Aunt Eleanor called out as she closed the door behind me.
Sam’s head bobbed over the back of the seat before his dad had pulled into the traffic lane.
“Hey, lady, what’s your name?”
Luke looked sharply over his shoulder. “Sam, what did we discuss about you unbuckling your safety seat?”
“You said it’s dangerous.”
“Then could you please tell me what you’re doing out of the harness?”
A chuckle rumbled in my throat, and I pressed my lips together to keep from grinning. Nobody could say that young Sam Sheridan didn’t listen when his dad spoke. Now following his advice, he hadn’t quite mastered that one. His dad might have been a stick-in-the-mud, but I had no doubt Sam and I would be fast friends. I’d never met a kid I didn’t like, and I could tell already that Sam Sheridan wouldn’t be my first. Adults were a different story.
“Back in the harness, and I want to hear two clicks right away,” Luke told him.
Sam made a face only his father could love, but he clicked one buckle and then the other.
When order had returned inside the vehicle, I peered over the seat at Sam. “Oh, you asked my name. It’s Cassandra Blake, b
ut you may call me Cassie.”
“Make that Miss Cassie,” Luke corrected.
“Of course.”
I smiled at Sam when my expression was really targeted at his father. I felt inordinately pleased that Luke was trying to instill a respect for adults in his son, a lesson that some of my students hadn’t learned at home.
“Miss Cassie.” Sam rolled my name around on his tongue to see if it fit.
“Miss Cassie works at a school,” Luke continued.
I barely had time to be surprised that Luke knew how I made my living or to process the fact that my aunt had given Luke my vital statistics after all because Sam chose that moment to let out a squeal. I studied the boy more closely. He had a starstruck look in his eyes.
“Are you a real teacher? Like at preschool? I go to preschool. I’m four.”
He appeared so in awe of me that I didn’t want to burst his bubble. Why was it that little ones always assumed only teachers worked at schools instead of administrators, paraprofessionals and other support staff?
“No, I’m not a teacher, but I still work with a lot of children. I’m a speech pathologist.”
“Oh.” He nodded, my answer seeming to satisfy him, but since he started playing with his handheld video game, I took it my hero-admiration session had ended.
Without Sam’s constant chattering, the air in the truck cab grew stuffier than if Luke had been blasting heat instead of the air-conditioning. I’d always wondered if someone could die from social discomfort, and I figured I was about to have my answer.
“Aunt Eleanor sure looks beautiful tonight,” I said when any inane comment seemed better than letting this silence linger.
Luke made one of those grunting sounds that men like to use instead of words. Only real words count as far as I’m concerned, but I continued anyway, as if he’d spoken, tried to make eye contact and made a real effort.
“I think it’s great that my aunt and your mother have been friends for as long as they have. How many of us can say we have friends like that?”
“Not many.” He didn’t look at me as he followed the line of cars down the winding, tree-lined road that led to town. Though he didn’t mention whether he had any friends like that, if he was the sweetheart with other people that he’d been to me, I was guessing no. Maybe he’d never heard the whole catching-more-flies-with-honey argument.
I tried again though I didn’t know why I was making the effort. Talking to Luke Sheridan was like trying to break through a brick wall with conversation when only a sledgehammer would do the job.
“I’m so happy for my aunt and uncle. Twenty-five years of marriage is a major accomplishment these days.”
Luke slowed to a stop at one of Mantua’s few traffic lights, and he turned to face me, his expression tight. “Look, I’m sure you’re a nice person, but—” He cleared his throat and started again. “I don’t know what my mother told you when she said she would set you up, but she was wrong.”
“Told me?” Even I heard the squeak in my voice, so I didn’t kid myself into believing he didn’t hear it. “You think I would have subjected myself to this humiliation on purpose?”
Clearly he had or he wouldn’t have been looking at me with an expression every bit as incredulous as the one I had trained on him. “You mean you didn’t know—”
“No!”
I jerked at the harsh sound of my own voice, and looked up to see the light change. I waited for him to pass through the intersection and sneaked a peek back at Sam, who was still mesmerized by his game, before I continued.
“I’ve been avoiding matchmakers like a good case of malaria ever since the—well, for a while now.”
My cheeks burned, and I stared at my hands in my lap. I couldn’t believe I’d almost mentioned the divorce out loud when I’d become an expert at pretending it hadn’t happened. All is well on the banks of denial, after all.
“Kind of hard to escape this particular Cupid, huh?”
My head came up with a snap. Had the sourpuss just made a joke? “Aunt Eleanor? Probably would have been a little awkward, I’ll give you that. But I would have found some excuse if I’d known what my aunt had planned.”
“Like you had to wash your hair?”
“And do deep conditioning, of course.”
“Of course.” He shrugged. “I just wish I could have avoided this overromanticized tribute to matrimonial bliss altogether.”
“Now don’t hold back, Luke. Tell me what you really think.” I couldn’t help chuckling, as the tension between us eased. “Wait. I’m related to the bride. I had to be here. What’s your excuse?”
“You don’t know my mom very well, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a transplanted Southern belle, and she’s used to getting her way.” He jerked the hand that wasn’t on the steering wheel toward me as if to toss out his earlier comment. “What can I say? I’m a mama’s boy to the core.”
I grinned at his profile, surprised and pleased that he would admit that. He shook his head, clearly as startled as I was by what he’d said, but then he glanced sidelong at me and smiled, a tiny dimple appearing on his right cheek.
I tried not to notice, really I did. Just a single cute dimple and a smile in my direction, and I was feeling tingly inside all the way to my bare toes in my strappy sandals. That was just pitiful.
And as quickly as that, the tension that had dissipated inside the truck cab was back and doing a pretty good job of stealing all the oxygen. If I were in the habit of being honest with myself, I might have admitted that this tension was different than the other—about awareness rather than avoidance—but why go and change my habits when they were working for me?
The silence seemed louder this time, our chorused breathing and the air conditioner’s drone the only interruptions as we pulled into the parking lot of Gino’s Taste of Italy. Was Luke waiting for me to say something? If so, what did he expect me to say? And what if I didn’t want to be the one to speak up first? I sat for several long seconds, waiting him to give in and fill the silence.
Say something, will you.
Somebody spoke up, all right. It just wasn’t who I expected.
“Daddy, what’s a matchmaker?”
Chapter Three
I glanced down the long line of checkered-cloth covered tables that had been pushed together at Gino’s. Far too many of us were crammed into spots along those tables, but nobody seemed to mind. In fact, from the laughter coming from various spots throughout the room, everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time.
Except Luke, the grouch.
Sitting across the table from me, a few people down, he’d been quiet all through dinner, had barely touched his baked ziti. Every time I’d caught his eye, he’d scowled at me. Okay, I had to admit that he might have had a small reason to be annoyed. A forty-pound reason.
I couldn’t help it that most of the seats were already taken when we’d arrived at the restaurant or that when there were two remaining side-by-side seats that Sam had begged to sit by me instead of his dad. With Luke’s sour expression, who would blame his son for making that choice?
“Hey, Miss Cassie, look. I have a mustache.”
Sam looked up from his sundae to show me his upper lip, which he had now painted with chocolate fudge. While the rest of the adults were still finishing their entrées, the child had already moved on to dessert.
“Wow, that’s a pretty fancy job you’ve done there.”
“It’s chocolate.”
“No way. I thought it was a real mustache.”
I didn’t mention the chocolate that had made its way down to Sam’s pale yellow polo shirt and had combined with the remnants of garlic bread and marinara sauce already there. Glancing at Luke, I caught him frowning at me again. I shouldn’t have been encouraging Sam’s mischievousness, but he was just so adorable that I couldn’t resist.
Sam reached a grubby hand over to twirl his finger in one of the tendrils at my chee
k. I could just imagine how stiff my hair would be when he was finished with it, but the sweet gesture made me smile. That same dull ache I’d felt earlier when he’d crawled into my lap and hugged me, settled in my chest, making me wish for things that might have been.
To avoid the pain that came with wishing, I tucked the thought away as I looked up from the last of my fettuccini Alfredo. From across the table, I felt as much as saw Luke’s gaze on us, intense and not quite pleased. I wished my cheeks didn’t have to burn like that, letting everyone know what I was thinking.
Luke blinked a few times and turned his head to look at the other end of the table, but I sensed that I’d seen something raw, something unmasked in him, before he’d shuttered it away. I stared at my plate again, stirring my fork in the remaining sauce.
“One of the Sheridan men sure has hit it off with the flower girl,” the handsome older gentleman who’d introduced himself as Marcus Sheridan said from across the table.
Sitting next to him, Luke elbowed his father. “Cut it out, Dad.”
Marcus only laughed. “Sam sure has a thing for blondes, and this one isn’t too hard on the eyes, either. But I’m sure you hadn’t noticed.”
Luke narrowed his gaze at his father but didn’t answer.
“I know somebody who shouldn’t be paying attention to such things at his age.” Yvonne Sheridan leaned forward from where she was seated on Marcus’s other side and waved a warning finger at him.
“My eyes haven’t given out on me yet.”
That little comment earned him another elbow—this time from his wife. Even Luke fought back a smile.
The boy sitting next to me appeared oblivious to the conversation as he sat stirring the rest of his sundae into chocolate soup.
I turned back to Luke. “Do you want me to clean him up? You’ll never get those stains out of that shirt.”
“No, I’ve got it.” He paused, straightening in his seat. “And you’d be amazed at the stains I can get out of clothes.”
With that, he picked up a small canvas bag I hadn’t noticed him carrying into the restaurant and came around the table to his son.
