Читать книгу Found: His Perfect Wife - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 6

Terrific, just terrific.

For the first time in a very long time, he felt like having a drink. But that wouldn’t help anything. It was because he’d taken a drink—several drinks—that he was in this predicament to begin with.

“Bad news?”

Luc LeBlanc looked over his shoulder to see his cousin Ike standing behind him. The Salty, the saloon they both owned and Ike ran, was nearly empty this time of day.

Ike had been watching his cousin for a while now. He indicated the letter lying on the table in front of him.

Luc drew the letter closer to him. “What makes you ask that?”

“The vein in your neck looked like it was going to pop out just then.” Without waiting to be invited, Ike turned the letter toward him and scanned the contents. They were closer than brothers and there were no secrets between them. For that matter, there were precious few in a town the size of Hades. It was average only by Alaskan standards. Coming to the portion that had Luc silently swearing, Ike raised his eyes to look at his cousin. “Wow, what makes Jacob think you’re—?”

“Married?” Luc shrugged, looking off. “Might have been something I said when I ran into him in Anchorage.”

“Well, if you want to save face, looks like you might have to go on a wife hunt.” Ike grinned. “I’d lend you mine but I’m just getting the hang of being a husband myself and I might lose my place if I let you borrow Marta for appearance’s sake.” He grew serious. “What are you going to do?”

Luc stared down at the letter. “I don’t know.”

“This,” Ike said as he got up to get the bar ready for the mine workers who came in to the Salty Saloon at noon, “is going to be interesting.”

Interesting wouldn’t have been the word he would have used, Luc thought. Frustration surged through him. He resisted the urge to crumple the letter. Crumpling it wouldn’t make the problem go away. It was coming via an airplane in a little more than three weeks. Both of them were coming.

Served him right. He’d lied; now he was going to have to pay for it. Which meant owning up to the truth.

Something he wasn’t looking forward to.

He’d lived with and by the truth all his life, not fanatically, but just because it was his way. To his recollection, the lie he’d allowed to slip out in a moment of pure, unadulterated weakness had been the only one he’d ever told.

People lied every day, even here in Hades. Especially here in Hades, he thought, where boredom almost demanded it. It was a form of creative art in this tiny town hovering a hundred miles away from Anchorage. None of the townsfolk had probably ever had to face up to the fact that they had lied to someone who had once, when life was simpler, been their best friend.

But he had lied to Jacob and now he was going to have to admit it.

What he needed, Luc decided, wasn’t a drink. It was to get away. Both were only temporary fixes, but a trip would do him far more good than alcohol. Maybe now was the time for that visit to Seattle he’d been promising himself.

He rolled it over in his head. Seattle. Sure, why not?

It might just be the thing to help him pull his thoughts together and figure out how to handle this without completely humiliating himself.