Читать книгу The Return Of Antonides - Anne McAllister - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

WHERE THE HELL was she?

Lukas stood on the marina dock, hands on hips, squinting as he scanned the water, trying to pick Holly out of the Saturday-morning crowd of canoes and kayaks and pedal boats that were maneuvering in a sheltered basin on the banks of the Brooklyn side of the East River.

He should have been hanging drywall in one of the lofts above the gallery or helping set up the display cases in one of the artisans’ workshops. He should have, God save him, been reading more of the apparently endless supply of MacClintock grant applications.

Instead, he was here.

Because Holly was here.

Or so the principal of St. Brendan’s School had promised him.

Three days ago, as he’d read her stilted, determinedly impersonal letter requesting that he join her in making a gift to St. Brendan’s School of the sailboat he and Matt had intended to restore while they were in college, because she was “tying up loose ends before she left,” a tidal wave of long-suppressed memories and emotions had washed over him.

He could, of course, keep right on suppressing them. He’d had plenty of practice. So for all of thirty-six hours he’d tried to push Holly back in the box he’d deliberately shut a dozen years ago.

It was over, he’d told himself, which wasn’t quite the truth. The truth was, it had never really begun. And he should damned well leave it that way.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t just sign the deed of gift she’d attached to the letter. He couldn’t just walk away. Truth to tell, the mere thought of Holly was the first thing to really energize him since he’d come home.

So on impulse, he had called St. Brendan’s and asked to speak to her.

Of course it had been the middle of the school day. Holly was teaching. The secretary offered to take a message.

Lukas said no. He could leave a message, but she wouldn’t call him back. He knew Holly. If she had wanted to talk to him, she would have given him her number in the letter. She’d have written to him on her own notepaper, not printed out an impersonal little message on a St. Brendan’s official letterhead.

He got the message: Holly still didn’t want anything to do with him.

But it didn’t mean she was going to get her way. He called back and spoke to the principal.

Father Morrison was pleasant and polite and had known instantly who Lukas was. “Matt spoke very highly of you.”

“Matt?” That was a surprise.

“He volunteered here. He and Holly taught extracurricular kayaking and canoeing. Matt wanted to teach the kids to sail. Right before he died, he told me he had a boat they could use. After... Well, I didn’t want to mention it to Holly. But she brought it up a few days ago, said she had written to you hoping you’d agree to make it a gift to the school.” The statement had been as much question as explanation.

“I want to talk to Holly,” Lukas said, deliberately not answering it. “I’ve just moved back from Australia. I don’t have her phone number.”

“And I can’t give it to you. Privacy, you know,” Father Morrison said apologetically. Then he added, “But you might run into her at the marina. She still goes there most Saturday mornings to teach the kids.”

“I might do that,” Lukas said. “Thanks, Father.”

So here he was pacing the dock, still unable to spot her. He hadn’t seen Holly since her wedding ten years ago. Every time he’d been back since—less than half a dozen times in the whole decade—he’d seen Matt, but never Holly.

She had been visiting her mother or at a bridal shower or taking books back to the library. Maybe it had been true. Certainly Matt seemed to think nothing of Holly’s excuses. But Matt didn’t know Holly was avoiding him.

Now Lukas jammed his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts, annoyed that she was so hard to spot, more annoyed that he cared. His brain said there was no sense dusting things up after all this time. He probably wouldn’t even recognize her.

He’d recognize her.

He knew it as sure as he knew his own name.

A day hadn’t gone by that Holly hadn’t wiggled her way into his consciousness. She had been a burr in his skin for years, an itch he had wanted to scratch since he’d barely known that such itches existed.

A couple of days after his family had moved from the city out to the far reaches of Long Island, he had met Matt. They had been standing under a tree near his house, and Lukas had said his dad would take him and Matt sailing, that it would be cool to have a new best friend.

And suddenly a skinny, freckle-faced urchin dropped out of the tree between them and stuck her face in his. “You can’t be Matt’s best friend. I already am!” She’d kicked him in the shin. He’d pulled her braid. It had pretty much gone downhill from there.

Lukas had two sisters already. He didn’t need another girl in his life, especially one who insisted on dogging his and Matt’s footsteps day after day after day.

“I was here first!” she had insisted.

“Go away! Grow up!” Lukas had told her over and over when he wasn’t teasing her because he knew her face would get red and she would fight back.

But it was worse when she did grow up. She got curves—and breasts. She traded in her pigtails for a short shaggy haircut that accentuated her cheekbones rather than her freckles. She made her already huge blue eyes look even bigger with some well-placed eye shadow. She got her braces off, wore lipstick and sometimes actually smiled.

But never at him.

Except...sometimes, obliquely, Lukas thought she watched him the way he watched her.

But her focus was always on Matt. “I’m marrying Matt.” Holly had said that for years.

Hearing her, Lukas had scoffed. And at first Matt had rolled his eyes, too. But he had never been mortified by her declaration as Lukas would have been.

“That’s Holly,” he’d said and shrugged. Then, when he was fourteen, he told Lukas that he’d kissed her.

“Holly?” Lukas felt as if he’d been punched. “You kissed Holly?” Then, hopefully, he’d asked, “Was it gross?”

Matt’s face had turned bright red. “Nope.”

It couldn’t be different than kissing any other girl, Lukas had thought. So he’d done that. And then he’d kissed another. And another. He couldn’t believe Matt kept on kissing only Holly.

Then, Christmas of Holly’s senior year in high school, they’d got engaged.

“Engaged?” Lukas hadn’t believed his ears. It was ludicrous, he’d told Matt fervently. He’d told Holly the same thing. “You’re crazy,” he’d said. “How can you think about spending the rest of your life with one person? You’re not in love!”

But they hadn’t paid any attention to him. And when he’d tried to make it clear to Holly, well, let’s just say she hadn’t got the message. In fact, she’d hated him even more.

Then, when Matt was twenty-two and Holly just twenty, they had tied the knot.

Lukas had been on the other side of the world when he got Matt’s call to come home and be his best man.

“I’m in Thailand!” Lukas had objected. He’d been crewing on a schooner that summer, basking in sunny days, balmy nights and the charm of a bevy of intriguing, exotic women. He hadn’t been home for three years, had no intention of going to the wedding.

“There are planes,” Matt had said. “Get on one.”

Lukas had argued, but Matt was implacable. “You’re my best friend,” he’d insisted. “You’ve always been there, always had my back.”

The words had stabbed his conscience. “Fine,” he’d muttered. “I’ll come.”

He’d done it. Had even managed a toast to the happy couple at the reception. Then he’d got the hell out of there, lying about the departure time of the plane he had to catch. He’d been back in Thailand twenty-four hours later—back to his real life, back to being footloose and fancy-free. Matt could have marriage with its boredom and sameness.

Lukas had been telling himself that for a decade now. Today was no different, he thought as he shaded his eyes with his hand and squinted out across the water. It was just a matter of putting the past to rest.

And then he saw her.

One minute he was scanning the water where everyone pretty much looked alike paddling their canoes and kayaks and pedal boats in the confines of the marina. The next moment his gaze locked onto a woman in the back of a canoe out near the breakwater. There were two kids in front. And in the back there was Holly.

His heart kicked over in his chest. He didn’t know how he’d missed her before. There was, as always, a purposefulness about her. Everyone else was splashing and floundering. Holly was cutting through the water with ease and determination, as if she knew what she wanted and aimed to get it.

She hadn’t changed a bit.

He remembered when she hadn’t known how to paddle a canoe, and, taking advantage of that, Lukas had refused to let her come with him and Matt.

Her chin had jutted. Her eyes had flashed. “I’ll learn.”

He’d scoffed. “From who?”

It turned out his oldest brother, Elias, was no proof against big blue eyes. Elias had taught her, and the next time they went canoeing, Holly had come, too.

Suddenly there came a whistle from the car park. A man wearing a green St. Brendan’s T-shirt waved broadly. “Bring ’em in!”

With greater or lesser skill, the paddlers turned their canoes and kayaks and headed for shore. Lukas kept his eyes on Holly. He could see her talking to the students, giving instructions to back off a bit and let the earlier arrivals dock first.

She still hadn’t seen him, but she was close enough now that Lukas could study her more easily. Gone were the luxuriant dark waves she’d worn at her wedding. Now she had the same pixie-ish look she’d had as a child. Most of her face was hidden behind a pair of sunglasses and she wore a sun visor for shade, as well. The boy in the front of her canoe said something that made her laugh. And Lukas’s breath caught in his throat at the husky yet feminine sound.

“Gimme a hand, mister?”

Lukas looked down to see a kayak alongside the dock and two boys looking up at him. One held out a line to wrap around the cleat. Lukas crouched down to steady the kayak while the boys scrambled out. Then he helped them haul it out so they could carry it up to the waiting van. Out of the corner of his eye, he kept an eye on Holly’s canoe where she was talking to her students. She was still several feet away from the dock.

One by one, as the canoes and kayaks came up against the dock, Lukas helped them all until finally when he turned back there was just one canoe left.

Holly sat in the stern, unmoving, her sunglass-hidden gaze locked on him. No question that she’d seen him now.

Lukas straightened nonchalantly. “Holly,” he said casually. “Imagine meeting you here.”

The boy and girl in the canoe looked at him, surprised. Holly’s sunglasses hid her reaction. She still didn’t move as the two students brought the canoe against the tires lining the dock, and Lukas grabbed the bow to hold it for them.

The boy scrambled out, followed by the girl. Holly stayed where she was.

“Thanks, mister,” the boy said.

“You’re welcome.” Lukas had seen all the St. Brendan’s canoes now, and this one, with its deep, narrow hull, was far nicer and swifter than the wide-bottomed trio he’d helped pull out earlier. He let his gaze slide slowly over it, then brought it to rest on the woman who hadn’t moved. “Nice canoe. Yours, Holly?”

“How come you know Ms. Halloran?” the girl demanded.

“We grew up together—I’ve known Ms. Halloran since she was about your age.”

The boy’s brow furrowed, as if he couldn’t imagine either of them being that young. “You kiddin’?”

“Not kidding.” Lukas held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a Boy Scout!” Holly blurted.

“Ah, she speaks,” Lukas drawled.

Her freckled cheeks were suddenly a deep red.

“I was a Cub Scout,” Lukas said, “when I was eight. You didn’t know me when I was eight.”

Holly gave a muffled grunt. She still didn’t move to get out.

And knowing her, she probably wouldn’t, unless Lukas forced the issue. “Nice to see you again, too, Hol’. It’s been a long time.” He held out a hand to help her out of the canoe, daring her to refuse it.

She muttered something under her breath that sounded like “Not long enough.”

And of course, she ignored his hand. Instead, she set the paddle on the dock and shoved herself up, trying to step sideways at the same time so as to avoid his outstretched hand.

In a flatter-bottomed canoe, it might have worked. In this one, she’d barely edged sideways when the canoe tipped.

“Oh!” she yelped. “Oh, hel—”

“Ms. Halloran!” The kids shrieked as Holly pitched, arms flailing into the water.

Lukas couldn’t hide the unholy grin that stretched across his face.

More kids came running. So did the men loading the canoes onto the trailer with St. Brendan’s van. Lukas didn’t move.

Holly sputtered to the surface, hair streaming, sunglasses gone, those all-too-memorable blue eyes shooting sparks in his direction. He still couldn’t stop grinning.

All around him kids clamored. “Ms. Halloran! Are you okay?”

“Ms. Halloran! You fell in!”

“You’re s’posed to stay in the center of the canoe, Ms. Halloran!”

One of the men who’d come from the van pushed past Lukas, a hand outstretched to help her. “Are you all right?”

“She’s fine,” Lukas said abruptly, stepping around the man and reaching to grasp her arm. He hauled her unceremoniously up onto the dock, steadying her with a hand against her back, aware of the warmth and suppleness of her body through her wet T-shirt even as she shivered. “Aren’t you fine?” She sure as hell looked fine, her nipples pebbling beneath the cotton of the shirt and her bra. He swallowed.

“Of course I’m fine,” she said brusquely, clearly unaware of the spectacle she presented as she turned to the students. “I slipped. We’ve all done it, haven’t we?”

At the fervent bobbing of heads, Holly grinned, shaking her hair out of her eyes. “So, I’m just today’s reminder. Do what I say, not what I just did. Now, let’s get the canoe out.” And with a deft move, she twisted out of Lukas’s grasp to haul the canoe up onto the dock.

If the T-shirt was a temptation, it was nothing compared to the way her shorts plastered to her rear end. Lukas’s mouth went dry. The other men and boys seemed to be appreciating the view, as well.

Stepping between Holly and her interested audience, Lukas wrested the canoe away from her, simultaneously snapping at one of the teachers. “Get her a towel. The rest of you, give me a hand.”

Everyone jumped to obey, and by the time Lukas and the boys wrestled the canoe onto the dock, Holly was wrapped in a towel.

The man who had provided it held out a hand to Lukas. “I’m Tom. Thanks for helping her out.”

Lukas grinned. “It has always been my pleasure to pull Holly out of the water.”

“Usually after you pushed me in,” Holly retorted.

Tom blinked. “You two know each other?”

“We’re old friends,” Lukas said.

“He’s an old friend of my husband’s,” Holly amended. “Lukas Antonides.”

Tom Williams beamed. “Great. He can take you home then.”

“I ride the bus!” Holly protested.

Tom raised doubtful brows at her sodden clothes and streaming hair. “They aren’t going to let you on like that.”

“I’ll take a taxi.”

Tom shook his head. “Not likely, Hol’.”

“It’s all right,” Lukas said. “I’ll take her.”

Tom beamed and grabbed Lukas’s hand, pumping it up and down again. “I wouldn’t want to leave her to get home on her own, and I’ve got to get these kids back to school. See you Monday, Hol’. Come on, gang.” He clapped two of the boys on the shoulder, then herded all the kids up to the van.

Holly didn’t speak until they were all out of earshot. Then she said, “I’m not going with you.”

“Right,” Lukas said. “You’re just going to stand here until you dry.”

He could hear her grinding her teeth. She didn’t look at him, just hugged her towel tighter and stared at the departing van. Lukas didn’t care. He stood there and drank in his fill of Holly Halloran.

It felt oddly like reaching an oasis after a lifetime of wandering in the desert. He had spent so many years determinedly not thinking about Holly that it was hard to believe she was actually here in front of him.

She was definitely no less eye-catching than she had ever been. Her bones were sharper now, her eyes set deeper. Tiny lines fanned out at the corners of them. From laughter? From sorrow? God knew she’d suffered that. Lukas wanted to reach out a finger and touch them.

No doubt he’d get a slap for his trouble. That wouldn’t have changed, either. Except once. Once she’d let him touch her.

“What are you doing here, Lukas?” Her voice cut across his memories, jerking him back to the present. She was looking at the Manhattan skyline, not at him. There was nothing inviting in her tone.

“You wrote me a letter,” Lukas reminded her.

Her fingers tightened on the towel wrapped across her breasts. “I sent you a deed of gift and asked you to sign it. Or to tell me if you wanted to keep the boat yourself.”

“I read that.”

“So, I repeat, what are you doing here?” The afternoon sun made her hair look more auburn than brown, like spun copper.

“I figured we could talk about it.” He paused. “I wanted to see you.”

Wanted to see if whatever he’d once felt was still there. It was perverse, he supposed, how Holly’s contrariness had always sharpened his senses. Going head-to-head with Holly always exhilarated him, made him feel alive. As a boy he hadn’t understood the subtext to their encounters, hadn’t yet connected the dots. It was all about attraction. His brain had finally recognized it at fifteen. His body had known it sooner—probably from the very moment he’d met her when he’d been shaken and stirred, both at once. He’d put it down to the suddenness of her tumbling out of the tree and confronting him. His heart had pounded and his pulse had raced the same way they were doing now.

The way they had the night he had incurred Holly’s everlasting wrath, the night he’d crossed the line.

And heaven help him, Lukas wanted to cross it again. He’d been gone for a dozen years, had dated more women than he could even remember, and they’d all paled in comparison to Holly. His best friend’s girl, and he’d never stopped comparing other women to her! He wanted to touch her again now, wanted to feel the softness of her skin and to trace her curves, to kiss her lips and still the chatter of her teeth. Good lord, her lips were blue!

“Come on,” he said abruptly. “Let’s get you home.”

“I don’t need you to—”

“Don’t be an idiot, Holly. I’m offering you a ride. Nothing else!”

For the moment.

For a dozen years he’d told himself that the past was past, that they’d all moved on, that what he’d felt was kid stuff, that he was well over her. After all, when he’d come back to New York, he hadn’t sought her out. He hadn’t even considered opening that door again. Not until Wednesday when he got Holly’s letter.

And when the door had opened anyway, he knew he had to see her again. But even this morning he had been convinced that everything he’d ever felt for Holly wouldn’t stand the test of time. She had been the dream girl of his past, the one girl against whom he’d measured all the others he’d met since.

But he really hadn’t expected to do more than make his peace with the past—with her. He expected to feel maybe a little nostalgia—and a twist of guilt.

But seeing her now, he knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as that. He felt the guilt, all right. But he didn’t feel nostalgia.

He felt as fierce an attraction as he’d ever felt. Some elemental connection that he’d never felt to another woman. He had a lot more experience now than he’d had back then.

Yes, she was obviously still holding a grudge. But he had to believe she’d changed, too, that she couldn’t hate him forever. Could she?

Lukas slanted a glance at the girl who had stirred his blood, at the woman apparently capable of stirring it still, and knew he was going to stick around and find out.

For all that he suspected he should, he couldn’t walk away.