When she’d walked out to get the mail earlier, she’d smelled the mouthwatering scent of sizzling beef and charcoal wafting on the chilly evening breeze. Luke, she decided. He was back. She supposed he was down at his grandmother’s right now, perhaps sorting through Elsie’s things. His business, she told herself, even though she had offered to help.
She was cutting a few fat slices of bread when he knocked at her kitchen door.
“I decided to take you up on your ‘maybe’ and ask you if you’d like to have dinner.”
She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “One meal with you was enough, thank you. I still have indigestion.”
“I thought you had forgiven me for that.”
“I forgave you. It doesn’t mean I plan to subject myself to it again.”
“Not even for steak?”
She glanced back at the can of tuna and moistened her lips. What could it hurt? If he did something to really tick her off, she would be within walking distance of home this time.
“I’m listening.”
“I picked up a couple of Delmonicos. I just removed them from the little charcoal grill I bought at the store in town.”
“How’d you get all that out here on your Harley?”
He shrugged. “I rented a car when I got back to the island this afternoon.” Glancing over his shoulder at the dark clouds, he added, “It looked like rain.”
Ali didn’t want to discuss the weather. “Let’s get back to those steaks. How did you cook them?”
“Medium rare.”
Her stomach rumbled again, but she would be damned if she would make this easy for him.
“What do you have to go with them?”
He scratched his chin. “Well, that’s the thing. The deli was out of potato salad so I picked up one of those pasta-in-a-box side dishes at the grocery store. You know, the kind that you can make in less than ten minutes on the stovetop.”
“But you don’t have any electricity.”
“Exactly.”
She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve got potatoes. I can throw a couple in the microwave to bake and be over in ten minutes.”
He grinned. “Do you have sour cream and chives?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
Even so, as Luke backed away from her door he asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have the makings for a nice Caesar salad?”
Her gaze narrowed. “God, Banning. Do you at least have plates, silverware and napkins?”
His brow crinkled. “Nothing that’s not coated in dust and no water to wash them with.”
“Are you inviting me to dinner or are you trying to scam a free meal off me?”
He offered a sexy half grin and pointed out, “I spared no expense on the meat, and I’ve got a really nice bottle of Beaujolais to go with it.”
“But no clean wineglasses, I suppose.”
His head tipped to one side. “Ah, no. No wineglasses and, now that I think of it, no corkscrew, either. Elsie wasn’t much of a drinker.”
“Why don’t you bring the steak and wine here, since I’m providing everything else? But I’m not doing the dishes.”
“Does that mean you’re no longer angry about the other day?” Luke asked.
Ali shook her head. “No. It means I’m hungry and steak sounds good, especially since somebody else cooked it and paid for it and will be cleaning up the mess afterward.”
They ate at her kitchen table with the overhead light chasing away the gloominess of the encroaching night. Outside the wind had picked up, throwing dirt and debris at her newly cleaned windows, and fat clouds made it darker than normal for that time of evening.
“A storm’s coming,” she murmured, slicing off a sliver of meat. He hadn’t been kidding about the quality of the steak. It melted in her mouth.
Luke gazed out the window. “I’ve never liked storms.”
Ali knew that. And she knew why. His father had been found dead on the side of the road after one. It hadn’t been nature’s fault alone that Roger Banning died. More appropriately the blame belonged to the seven shots of whiskey he’d consumed before leaving a tavern near the ferry dock.
His car had struck a tree and the elder Banning had crawled out, attempting to walk home during the wicked electrical storm that had already cut phone lines and power to most of the island. They found his body the next day. He’d drowned in six inches of water after passing out in a ditch. Luke was nine at the time, a young and frightened boy. And he’d spent the stormy night alone in the dark, waiting for his father and worrying that he might have left the same way Luke’s mother had, going out one day and just not coming back.
Ali wanted to reach over and squeeze his hand in comfort now. But that wasn’t what he really needed. He would think it was pity, and he detested pity. So she kept the conversation going instead.
“I loved storms when I was a girl. I’d lie in bed, listening to the waves breaking on the shore and the wind rustling the leaves, and I’d count the seconds between the flash of lightning and the crash of thunder.”
Luke seemed to shake off his melancholy. “You always were a weird kid,” he snorted.
“Just for that I’m not going to help you with the dishes.”
“That’s okay. I’m going to leave them for the maid,” he teased.
But Ali was serious when she asked, “Do you have one of those back in New York?”
He nodded.
“And a cook, too, I suppose.”
“Yep, and a driver.”
“For your motorcycle?”
“No.” He chuckled. “For my car. I don’t get to ride the Harley very often. Too much traffic and too many stoplights in Midtown to make it any fun.”
She’d read dozens of magazine articles about his free-wheeling Manhattan lifestyle, a fact she would share with him only under threat of torture. She’d seen him, too, in the accompanying photographs, dressed in tailored suits and crisp shirts, and looking far different from the rough and tumble boy he’d once been.
“Do you like New York?”
“I love it. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Sometimes it’s as if the place itself is alive. There’s so much energy and excitement all the time.”
“It sounds exhausting.”
“Well, it’s not like Trillium. It’s so laid-back here.” But then he frowned, and she wondered if he’d finally realized that was part of the island’s charm.
“Audra used to say the same thing about living in L.A. Neither one of you could appreciate what people pay good money and travel for miles to find here.”
“What is that exactly?”
He sounded sincere in his curiosity and so she answered him. “Peace and tranquility. As a side benefit, they can enjoy nature’s beauty and appreciate the way it’s always changing and renewing itself.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Well, Audra seems awfully happy these days. Island life must agree with her now.”
“I think she had her fill of Hollywood excitement. I know anyone who picked up a tabloid got their fill of it,” Ali said wryly, thinking back to the days when her sister had set tongues wagging across the globe with her ribald antics. “And, of course, there’s Seth. He’s not from here originally, but he doesn’t want to leave. He absolutely loves it here. They just finished building a big house on the northeastern tip of the island. They said they want to be able to watch the sunrise from their bedroom window every morning.”
“Love gives you roots, I guess.”
“I thought it was supposed to give you wings,” Ali replied. She rubbed one of her index fingers slowly around the rim of her nearly empty wineglass, thoughtful for a moment. “So, do you have ‘roots’ back in NewYork?”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “Are you asking if I’m seeing someone, Alice?”
“Never mind,” she snapped.
“No, no.” He was smiling fully now. “I’m more than happy to satisfy your curiosity.”
“I
just figured you poked around in my private life, why shouldn’t I do a little poking around in yours?”
“That’s fair enough, I suppose.” He reached for the wine bottle and refilled both of their glasses. Afterward, he said, “I’m not in a serious relationship with anyone.”
She picked up her wine, sipped. “Define ‘not serious’.”
He didn’t hesitate, as if he had set up quite rigid boundaries when it came to members of the opposite sex. “No commitment and no expectations of one in the foreseeable future.”
The words made her sad. And yet Ali felt as if she were looking in a mirror. Had not her personal life turned out the same? With one major exception, she supposed, adding, “I’m assuming that doesn’t keep you from sleeping together.”
Luke sipped his wine and said nothing.
“It sounds cold.”
He shrugged. “I prefer to think of it as casual. It suits me.”
But after he said it, Luke wondered if it really did, just as a moment earlier he’d wondered when Manhattan’s megawatt charm had started to dim for him.
As good as his word, he cleared the table when they were through with their meal, and although he hadn’t so much as rinsed out a cereal bowl in too many years to count, he found himself standing at Ali’s sink, feeding the remnants of their meal to the garbage disposal and arranging the dirty plates in the dishwasher.
The work brought back memories of standing in his grandmother’s kitchen, helping out after dinner, and he nearly smiled. No fancy dishwasher for Elsie. She would wash and Luke would dry as she told him amusing stories about his dad’s boyhood, stories intended to make Luke remember the man Roger Banning had been before alcohol had taken over and ruined his life. All of her efforts, however, couldn’t change the fact that when a lot of the folks on the island regarded Luke all they saw was the town drunk’s son.
“I think that plate is rinsed enough,” Ali said, intruding on his thoughts.
“Hmm?” Luke turned.
She nodded toward the plate he held under a stream of warm water. “I think that plate is plenty rinsed.”
He glanced down. “Oh.” After shutting off the water, he stowed it in the dishwasher.
“Detergent is under the sink. Whatever you do, don’t use the regular dish soap or we’ll be wading through bubbles like something out of a sitcom.”
“You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”
“Dane,” she said simply.
Luke laughed outright.
When he’d completed the task and switched on the machine, he turned. Ali was still seated at the table, finishing her wine with her stocking feet propped up on the chair he’d vacated. She didn’t move her feet when he came back to the table and so after drying his hands on a dish towel, he scooped them up, sat down and plopped them back in his lap.
She tried to pull them away, but he held firm and when he began to massage the instep of the right one, she groaned low and gave up all effort to resist. That’s when he swallowed hard and found himself lost in memories again, these ones much more erotic than the last batch that had featured his grandmother.
He ran his hand up her calf and worked down one sock, revealing smooth skin and a trim ankle. Then he tugged it off completely. God, she had sexy feet, narrow and fine-boned. Her toenails were still painted the vivid red that had driven him to distraction during their meeting in Saybrook’s conference room. Had that really been just last week? A lifetime seemed to have passed since his return.
He glanced up and she was watching him, tawny eyes wary and her breathing just this side of labored. He stroked one arch with his thumb and for the briefest moment her eyelids fluttered shut before her gaze widened again as he pushed the cuff of her pants up to her knee, revealing more smooth skin.
Just as the steak had been too good to resist, he raised the limb to his mouth and dropped a kiss onto her shin, moving lower afterward until he reached the brown beauty mark just above her ankle.
Ali felt the pressure building inside her, heat seeming to simmer out of her every pore. She should pull away and put an end to this…this…My God! It was foreplay. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She reached for her wine, hoping to act nonchalant even as her pulse was revving like an Indy car on the final lap of the big race. Then Luke’s tongue flicked across the birthmark on her ankle and she arched back on a moan, spilling wine down the front of the oversize chambray shirt she wore and nearly kicking him square on the chin.
He stopped. He smiled. And she supposed it was just as well that the electricity sputtered off at that point, because she knew her face was heating to the same color as the Beaujolais. She hurriedly set her feet back on the floor and rose.
“I’d better go soak this shirt or the stain will set.” The words were practical, and yet her voice was a nearly unrecognizable whisper.
“Ali—”
“I th-think I have a flashlight in the cupboard over the stove, if you want to get it while I’m changing.”
But when she tried to walk past Luke, he snagged her hand and forced her to stop. She could just make out his features in the nearly dark kitchen. His eyebrows were raised in question as he pressed her palm to his lips and kissed it. His breath was warm. She remembered that heat. God help her, but she yearned to feel it again. She reached out and stroked his cheek, which was rough with a day’s worth of stubble, and then she couldn’t stop herself. She bent and kissed him full on the mouth.
One kiss. That was all she intended while her need was safely obscured in the room’s shadows. Afterward, she would end their evening and send Luke on his way before she did something she truly regretted. That was the smart thing to do, the practical thing, after giving in to this bit of insanity. But his apparent hunger fed hers. Even as their kiss deepened, she felt his fingers tugging at her shirt, working free the button closest to her throat before moving on down to the next one. His hands made quick and efficient work of the task even as his tongue took its time exploring her mouth.
“Ali,” he murmured afterward, trailing his lips down her neck and she was lost.
Gone was the commonsensical woman who’d made it her mantra to look before leaping. Passion beckoned, obliterating all else. Ali shocked them both by straightening, but only so she could hoist a leg over his lap and straddle him as he sat on the chair.
Forget practicality. Forget sanity. She knew what she wanted. It had been so long. More than a decade of need boiled over inside—consuming her, consuming them both as Luke parted her shirt. He hesitated then and Ali framed his face between her trembling hands, kissing him again. Cloaked in darkness, she was bold, nipping at his lower lip and sighing out his name. When the kiss ended, she arched back again until the edge of the table bit into her spine. Luke needed no more invitation. He was pushing the lace of her bra aside when the overhead light flickered back on, illuminating the kitchen in harsh reality.
Ali didn’t need to see herself reflected in his eyes to know the picture of reckless abandon she made with her shirt gaping open and her hair tumbling about her shoulders.
What was she thinking? That if sex happened during a power outage it didn’t count? And here she had berated Luke for his casual relationships just minutes before and yet what more could come of this than heartache?
She tried to scoot off his lap and, in truth, she might have even run from the room, appalled as she was by her behavior. But Luke didn’t allow her the option. He did something that for all of its chivalry and good sense still managed to break her heart. He rebuttoned her shirt, helped her to her feet and then he left.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY somehow managed to avoid one another throughout the rest of the week and Ali was never so happy to have the weekend arrive. She had another date with Bradley that Saturday evening and she had considered canceling it. After what had gone on in her kitchen with Luke, she felt she should. She still blushed every time she recalled the way she had tossed a leg over his lap and arched back against the table.
But in the end she didn’t cancel the date. Memories of Luke had caused her to cancel too many dates. She could see that now. She could see the way she’d been in a virtual holding pattern for the better part of eleven years, waiting for him to return to the island and tell her that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by walking away.
Well he was back, although not for good. And while he’d made it clear he still wanted her, it was plain he didn’t regret leaving.
I can’t imagine living anywhere else, he’d said of New York.
The truth was leaving hadn’t been a mistake for him. He’d made a different choice, chosen a different road, just as it had been Ali’s choice to stay on Trillium when she could have gone after him or gone anywhere else for that matter. She hadn’t, because to her the island was more than an isolated hunk of rock and soil cropping out of the vast lake that girded Michigan’s western boundary. It was her home, her center, the one place where she felt complete and at peace.
Ali and Luke might be on speaking terms once again but that didn’t change the fact that for him Trillium was not a paradise but a prison of unhappy childhood memories from which he was glad to be free. She would be wise to remember that.
And so she prepared for her date.
Audra showed up at the cottage just after Ali stepped out of the shower. She strolled into the bathroom and plopped down on the edge of the big claw-foot tub while Ali toweled the excess water from her hair.
“Hot date tonight?”
“Bradley will be here in about thirty minutes. We’re having dinner at the resort.”
They were dining at Saybrook’s at his suggestion. He’d never eaten at the resort and wanted a chance to sample the offerings of their new chef, whom the Conlans had courted away from a mainland restaurant.
Audra frowned. “You’re having dinner with Bradley? You’re seeing him tonight?”
“Who else would I have a hot date with?” Ali challenged.
“I just thought…Luke’s been spending his evenings out this way. I assumed…”
Their Unfinished Business Page 8
