Free Luke's #1 Rule by Cynthia Harrison Page B

really wanted to be on the water.”
    “I can call my buddy. His wife used to live in the main house until they got married. Now she rents it out to select guests.”
    “Maybe I’m not so select.”
    “Yeah, you are. I know Daniel and Eva, and my mom works there. Want me to give them a call? They don’t advertise the house, so the only way to get in is to call and ask.”
    “Okay,” she said. “Thanks.” She checked her phone calendar and gave him the dates.
    He called right then and got it all set up. Didn’t even ask for a credit card.
    “Are you hungry?” she asked when he replaced the phone into his pocket. She could make him a thank-you lunch.
    “I could eat,” he said. Their eyes locked, and the air charged with energy that felt like something else. Something that didn’t appear in any of the food groups.
    She got up and opened the fridge. She found turkey and cheese and then bent over to check the veggie bin. She turned to ask if he liked lettuce and tomato on his sandwich and caught him staring at her butt. She forgot what she meant to ask him and shut the fridge without pulling anything out.
    “What do you like?” she asked, leaning against the fridge.
    He got up to refill his glass of water. He didn’t answer for a minute, just stood at the sink, his back to her, drinking his water. Then he turned around and let her see the hunger in his eyes. He walked the four paces it took to reach her and pulled her into his arms for a long, delicious kiss.
    She’d been kissed a lot in her life, but never ever like this. His mouth on hers took her to another place, fully in her body but unaware of the kitchen and the fact that her mother could walk in, back from the grocery store, at any moment. Nothing else but Luke existed for the length of his kiss. Every time he started to move away, she pulled him back, and they kissed some more. She kissed him for every day before that when she hadn’t been able to. She kissed him and asked him with her kiss to care about her the way she cared about him.
    The slam of her mother’s car door in the driveway stopped the kiss. They pulled slowly away from each other, but he kept his eyes glued to hers. “I want you,” he said.
    “I want you, too.” And then she went out and helped her mother bring the groceries into the house.
    She counted down the days until Luke would finish his projects and leave. Three. Two. One. And in those three days, there had been no vibe of desire. Zero kissing.
    ****
    The day before Luke left, Josh and Tommy went for a weekend with their dad. Bettina, one hand on her small of her back, watered flowers in the front yard. Chloe didn’t see Spence, so she got out and walked over to Bettina, the boys already racing into the house.
    They were excited, as usual, to spend time with Spence, who they adored despite his shortcomings as a father. They’d said distracted good-byes to Luke, who kept his own good-bye equally short, although he stopped rolling sod long enough to watch them pull out of the driveway.
    “You know he’s going home after tomorrow,” Chloe said to the boys as she turned the corner to Spence’s house.
    “Yeah, but Grandma’s moving to Luke’s town, so we’ll see him all the time.”
    Her Seattle secret burned in her throat, even as she asked Bettina, the boys out of earshot, “How’s Spence?”
    Bettina turned the water faucet off and put both arms behind her back, rubbing and stretching.
    “He’s upset about the boys.”
    “I’m sure he is, but what else is going on?”
    Bettina bent her head. Groaned as she reached to pull out a dandelion.
    “He’s promised to shape up. We had a huge fight, well, a discussion. He saw his doctor and is on a new medication. The others just weren’t cutting it for him.”
    Bettina’s eyes welled. “He admitted he’d been pill shopping. His meds just stopped working, and he was over-medicating. So now there’s a fresh cocktail.”
    “Does the doctor know that Spence drinks