“I don’t mind you coming over to see the horses.”
She hunched against the wind that suddenly blew around the corner. “As long as I stay away from your brother, right?”
“That’s complicated, Lucky. My reasons are probably far different than you think.”
She doubted it. He didn’t believe her good enough for Mike, and most everyone in town would agree with him. “Well, like I said, I didn’t come here with Mike in mind. And what happened last night won’t happen again. In any case, I’ll be leaving soon.”
“How soon?”
Obviously she couldn’t leave soon enough for him. “When the house is finished.”
“What are you going to do with it then?”
“Mike mentioned he’d still like to buy it.”
Josh removed his leather gloves and slapped them against his thigh. “So you’re going to sell it to him?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Pardon me?”
“Why are you finally willing to let him have it?”
She attempted a careless shrug. “I don’t know. There’s no use letting it sit empty after all the work I’m having done.”
“That’s not very convincing,” he said.
“What’s not convincing?”
“Your excuse. You’ve already let it sit empty for years. That’s why it needs the work it does.”
“Things change.”
“You care about Mike, don’t you? That’s what’s changed.”
Lucky ignored his soft-spoken words because life was easier when she held her cards a little closer to her chest. “Did everything go okay with your mother?” she asked instead of answering.
He balled his gloves in one large hand. “Fine.”
Relieved, she said, “That’s good,” and turned to go once more. But he spoke again.
“I can tell what Mike sees in you. You’re attractive, young, bright. Not at all what we thought. But…”
She drew a deep breath and braced for the worst. “But?”
He seemed to search for the right words. “You have to realize that a relationship between you and Mike wouldn’t work, Lucky. I might be able to live with it, learn to accept it, but my folks and extended family never could. Mike might be able to choose you over them for a while, but he already has problems with commitment, and this is a small, close-knit town. I’m afraid it would eat at him, eat at you both.”
“There’s no danger of him choosing me.” Last night, she’d imagined that Mike felt something for her, had reveled in those few short hours when his caring seemed so real. But she knew she must’ve been dreaming. She was such a pariah in Dundee that he couldn’t even take her out in public, for crying out loud. “I would never ask him to.”
Josh’s eyebrows shot up. “You care about him that much?”
Lucky scowled. She didn’t like giving herself away, but she knew it would be futile to claim she didn’t love Mike. Josh had read the signs too easily. “Just take care of him after I’m gone, okay?”
He scuffed one boot in the dirt before glancing up at her again. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
She forced as brave a smile as she could muster. “I know.”
“YOU SEEM DISTRACTED, Dad. What’s going on?”
Garth Holbrook blinked and focused on his son, who was sitting in his wheelchair near the Christmas tree. “Nothing. I’m just preoccupied with the campaign.” He doubted Gabe believed him, but what else could he say? That he was worried sick? Ever since Lucky had dredged up the past, Garth couldn’t rest easy about anything.
“Garth, can I get you a glass of wine?” Celeste stood at the entrance to the kitchen. His wife was still pretty if slightly plump. He’d always admired her blue eyes and dark hair, both of which Gabe had inherited. Garth’s only wish was that he could reach her on a deeper level than the cordial partnership in which they’d always existed.
He stared down at the torn wrapping paper and open boxes at his feet. What they’d given each other for Christmas this morning said it all, didn’t it? She’d given him a tie, some new slacks and a briefcase; he’d bought her an expensive set of pans and a butcher block of knives. All practical items, even though he’d wanted to give her something skimpy and transparent from the lingerie catalogue that came in the mail.
That idea brought a flicker of the sexual desire he worked so hard to ignore, but he quickly squashed it. He knew better than to buy Celeste anything revealing. She promptly threw the lingerie catalogue away without even glancing through it and wore a flannel nightgown to bed. Now that she was long past her childbearing years, he despaired of enticing her to participate in anything she deemed “nasty” or “vulgar.”
“Wine would be nice, Celeste, thank you.”
She looked at him a little oddly, and he realized he’d addressed her as formally as he would a stranger. He smiled to compensate.
She nodded, apparently satisfied, and went back to the kitchen for his wine. Celeste believed cooking, scrupulous cleaning, waiting on him like a servant, smiling for the cameras and helping with various charities in town constituted being a good political wife. According to her own definition, he couldn’t fault her. But there’d always been something missing, something he’d allowed Red to temporarily provide….
Surveying the torn wrapping paper once again, he wondered what Lucky Caldwell’s Christmas was like. Mike had indicated that she’d left for the holidays, which meant she was close enough to her brothers that she had somewhere to go.
See? he told himself. She didn’t need him. She had no business coming back here and destroying his life.
But he couldn’t deny an underlying curiosity. Could she belong to him? Had Red been lying about birth control? He had to admit it was possible. He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he was seeing her. If he could believe that he was somehow special to her, special beyond his gifts and his money, he could believe just about anything.
The phone rang, and he automatically held his breath. He always expected it to be Lucky, pressing him, insinuating herself into his life. But she hadn’t contacted him since that day she’d asked him to take the paternity test. And this wasn’t her, either. He could hear Celeste wishing her sister a merry Christmas.
“You think we’ll be able to hit four hundred thousand dollars?”