Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish. Marta Perry
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Название: Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish
Автор: Marta Perry
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon Love Inspired
isbn: 9781408965559
isbn:
Chloe stirred restlessly. “Some of us have found lives elsewhere, Gran. Maybe we don’t belong here any longer.” Did she? That thought had been in her head too often since she’d been back.
Gran patted her hand. “You belong, all right. Your roots run too deep here to forget, even if you do run off to outlandish places.”
“Matt will be safe.” She knew her grandmother was thinking of Matt’s early morning flight. “We’ll hear from him again soon.”
Gran nodded, then fanned herself with her hat. “Chloe Elizabeth, I’m going to set a spell on the bench. You finish, all right?”
“We’ll take care of it, Gran. You relax.”
“Are you sure she’s all right?” Luke frowned, watching as Gran tottered off to settle on the wrought-iron bench under a live oak. “Maybe we should take her home.”
“She’s not tired.” Chloe knew her gran too well to be fooled. “She’s matchmaking. Giving us a chance to be alone.”
She waited for a sarcastic response, but it didn’t come.
Instead Luke gestured toward the gray stones, tilting across the long grass. “You do this often?”
“What?”
“Come here, plant flowers. Read off the names.”
He obviously didn’t understand the Southern attitude toward cemeteries, and she wasn’t sure she could explain it in a way that would make sense to him.
“Gran would say it’s a shame to the living if the family graves aren’t taken care of properly. I’ve been doing this since I was a little girl. We all have. It feels natural to me.” She touched a worn stone, and it was cool beneath her fingers. “This was the first Chloe.”
Luke knelt, frowning at the faded words. “What’s that beneath the dates? I can’t make it out.”
“Her Bible verse. ‘May God grant you His mighty and glorious strength.’ All of us have our own verses.” She shrugged, a little embarrassed. “It’s a family tradition—a scripture promise to live by. Gran gave each of us a verse on our baptism, just as her grandmother did.”
He stood, and he was very close to her. “What’s your verse, Chloe?”
She looked up at him, wanting to turn the question away with a light comment. His blue eyes seemed to darken, staring into hers with such intensity that she couldn’t escape, and he took both her hands in his. Her breath caught in her throat.
“It’s from Jeremiah.” She forced the words out, trying to sound natural. “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.’”
“Hope and a future,” he repeated softly. “That’s a nice promise, Chloe Elizabeth.”
The lump in her throat was too big to swallow, and she could only nod. It had been a mistake to bring Luke Hunter here. She should have known that it would be. Things had changed between them. They’d never be the same again.
But they’d also never be the way she sometimes wished they would be. Somehow, she had to accept that.
He had to stop letting these people affect him so much. Luke drove toward the inn after dropping off Chloe’s grandmother, trying to dismiss the feelings that had crept over him in the cemetery. Trying to tell himself the whole thing was maudlin, or quaint, or silly.
It didn’t seem to work. He glanced sideways at Chloe. She wasn’t really that different here than she was in Chicago, was she? Maybe not outwardly, but inwardly…He felt as if he’d opened an ordinary-looking package and discovered something rich and mysterious.
He couldn’t erase the sense that she’d introduced him to a new world, a world where family meant something other than a collection of strangers held together by law. Those moments in the cemetery had moved him in a way he’d never experienced, and he didn’t know what to do with those feelings.
He’d like to categorize this whole visit as an expedition into the sticks. It could be an amusing story—something to entertain his acquaintances at the next cocktail party or gallery opening. He tried to picture himself talking about Chloe’s family and their quaint customs. He knew instinctively that he never would.
Okay, he’d accept that. But he’d also accept the fact that none of this fit into his real life—not Chloe, not her family. He didn’t understand them, and they’d certainly never understand what he came from. He had to get things back to business, and he definitely had to trample the insidious longing to share more of himself with Chloe.
“Looks as if your father’s just coming in.” He drew up opposite the dock and watched Chloe’s father jockey his boat into position.
Chloe was out of the car before he could go around and open her door. “Come on. We’ll give him a hand.”
She jogged onto the dock, and he followed reluctantly. The water was higher than it had been the last time—meaning the tide was coming in, he supposed. Waves slapped against the wooden boards, making them vibrate uneasily beneath his feet. The salt air assaulted his nostrils, and the expanse of sky made him feel vulnerable and exposed.
He didn’t have to like it here. He just had to look at it through a businessman’s eyes, so he could make the right deal.
“Hey, Daddy.” Chloe grasped one of the dock supports and leaned out to take the line her father held, then made it fast. “Any luck this morning?”
“Nothing running.” Clayton Caldwell cut the engine. “If we depended on my fishing to put food on the table, our bellies would be bumping our backbones—”
He glanced at Luke, and Luke read reserve in those clear eyes. Clayton hadn’t decided what to make of him yet.
“Hop down and secure that aft line, Luke.”
The small boat bounced, bumping against the dock, and Luke’s stomach bounced with it. Hop down? He didn’t think so. But saying no would declare him either a rotten guest or a wimp, and he didn’t like either of those alternatives. Steeling himself, he took a step forward.
Chloe nipped in front of him and stepped nimbly down into the boat. “I’ll get it, Daddy.” She grabbed the line and looped it around the upright. “Have to show you I haven’t forgotten how.”
“I didn’t think that, Chloe-girl.” Clayton stepped easily up to the dock, then leaned down and pulled Chloe up next to him.
The man must be close to sixty, but his muscles seemed as hard as those of any bodybuilder. Clayton’s level gaze rested on him, and Luke discovered he felt smaller under that calm stare. He didn’t like it.
Chloe hugged her father, pressing her face against the older man’s white T-shirt. “You’ve been saying the same thing about the fishing ever since I can remember. We haven’t gone hungry yet.”
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