Goodness and Light (9 page)

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I really have to go.” She walked briskly away.

“Elena. Elena, wait!”

She walked faster, dodging the lighter-than-usual pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and tore the stupid hat with its stupid wreath off her head after a third person wished her a Merry Christmas. It wasn’t merry. It hadn’t been merry since she was fourteen. Her eyes blurred and she blinked furiously, annoyed with herself. It was that kiss, that soul-touching, toe-curling, life-changing kiss. Just thinking about it put a hitch in her stride.

It was her own fault. She’d been enthralled by his smile from the second she’d seen it. She kept telling herself she was leaving soon, so stay uninvolved, keep things casual but did she listen? No, she kissed this man with the beautiful smile, beautiful eyes, and beautiful heart like she actually deserved some of that beauty for herself.

It was so ludicrous, it was laughable.

She unzipped her purse, found her phone, tapped out a quick message.

Yes, laughable.

She tugged a tissue from her coat pocket, and wiped her eyes.

L
ucas shoved his phone back in his pocket with a curse.

“Careful, man. You might scare away the customers.” Chuck Garrison crossed his arms over his barrel chest and studied Lucas carefully. “Woman trouble?”

Luke pulled the candy cane from his mouth and snorted out half a laugh. “Yeah.”

Chuck blew out a loud sigh, tore the paper hat off his head. “Man, that is discouraging. Guys like you have trouble with a woman, there is no hope for short and pudgy guys with an adorable sense of humor like me.”

“Come off it, Chuck.” Luke rolled his eyes. “You’re the married deacon of a church with three kids.”

“Oh. Right. All hope was lost years ago.” He tugged off his formerly white apron, balled it up. “Wanna talk about it?”

Luke shot him a yeah-right look. “No. I want to hit something. Hard. You okay by yourself? I’m going to the gym.”

“Yeah, sure. Go. And good luck with your lady.”

His lady.
Outside Trinity Church, with the frigid air hitting him like a bucket of cold water, Lucas couldn’t stop thinking about Deacon Chuck’s words. Lucas didn’t do relationship—no girlfriends, no involvements, no relationships.

No meaning.

His lady.
Damn it, no. He had no claim on Elena Larsen. Okay, so they’d shared a kiss or two. And yes, it had damn near stopped his heart. That didn’t mean—

Ah, hell.

Yes, it did.

Without the fury pushing him, his restless mind kept replaying everything that had happened the day before. He hadn’t said anything rude—though there were a few opportunities he’d let fly by. And she hadn’t pissed him off.

Much.

The kiss—she’d assured him it wasn’t the kiss. So what the hell happened?

His phone buzzed again. He pulled it out, tugged off his gloves, and checked the ID. “Hey, Al.”

“Luke, I’m sorry, but I think I messed things up for you with Elena. Have you talked to her today?”

Lucas came to a screeching halt in the middle of the sidewalk. “You spoke to her? When? What did you say?”

“I saw her about an hour ago. Down near Fulton. She said she had to buy groceries.”

Lucas shut his eyes, prayed for patience. “I mean what did you say to upset her?”

“Nothing! We were standing on the street, looking up at the new trade center. I mentioned some of the symbolism—”

“Oh, please. Not more signs.”

“I know, I know. But she seemed interested in all of that. It wasn’t until I mentioned the soup kitchen that she got weird.”

“Why the hell did you tell her?”

“That was an accident. She said you had a breakfast thing, so I thought you’d told her you served breakfast over at Trinity. I misunderstood.”

“Okay, forget it. What did she say?”

“That’s just it. She didn’t say anything. She just took off. Looked like a kid who just found out the truth about Santa.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll take care of it.”

“Good luck.”

It made sense. An hour ago was about the time he’d gotten her text message. Lucas shoved the phone back in his pocket and took off at a run. Woman thinks she can just kiss him to within an inch of his life one day and walk away the next? They’d just see about that. If she thought he’d hit the streets just because she sent him off with a text message—

He skidded to a stop, pulled off his hat, dragged both hands through his hair. At a slow walk, Lucas pondered his options. Walk away. Confront her. Move on. He could call Jill or—or what was that redhead’s name? Alison. He could put Elena firmly out of his head. Yes. Yes, that was a good plan. This way, there’d be no drama.

He hated drama.

He turned away, took one step and found Elena standing there, watching him, with that same haunted look in her eyes, the same look that used to be in his and sometimes, still was.

She turned and ran.

H
er jaw fell open.

She turned a corner and there he was.

Saint Luke.

Her heart tore down the center. She couldn’t—she simply couldn’t deal with any more of this—this
taunting
. She was sorry! Deeply, irrevocably sorry. But it did no good. Her mother was gone now—there could be no forgiveness, no forgetting.

Her sin had festered—a dark spot on her soul—for over a dozen years and it had gotten worse, not better. Here she was, back in New York where she swore she’d never go again, falling for an angel with a glowing smile instead of wings who helped people in distress. Slowly, she put down the grocery bag in her arms and watched Lucas.

Suddenly, his gaze snapped to hers and for a brief moment, she wondered why he looked so sad. Then she ran—left the bag of groceries where she’d plopped it—and ran. Ran to Kara’s building, grateful that the elevator was waiting when she reached it.

It was one small thing that went in her favor.

She let herself into Kara’s apartment, fell back against the door and tried to still her racing heart. When she could move without shaking, she searched for her sister, found the apartment empty.

Kara still wasn’t home.

Elena sighed, stared at the baby’s crib, all ready for baby’s first nap. There would be a little life form inside that crib in a few weeks. A life its grandmother would never get to see because she’d been stolen from them, and its father would not see by choice. Her hands curled into tight fists and she breathed through the pain in her chest.

Abruptly weary of the signs and the guilt and the pain—of damn near everything, Elena nearly crawled into her air mattress, wishing Kara were home so they could just lie next to each other the way they used to when they were little and scared of thunderstorms. But the buzzer sounded.

Slowly, she headed to the wall buzzer and pressed it. She knew it was Lucas and accepted her fate.

Her earlier text message was a crappy way to say goodbye to somebody. She owed him an honest conversation. She opened the apartment door, waited for the elevator. She could hear it, the
ding
it made as it passed each floor sounding like the fall of a gavel in her sentence. When the doors slid open, she straightened her spine, and prepared to tell the most incredible guy in the world she couldn’t see him again directly to his face.

L
ucas counted the floors, not sure if he should confront Elena or kiss the breath out of her. The elevator finally slid to a stop and he shoved out of it while the doors were still opening, her bag of groceries clutched in his arms. She was waiting for him braced for battle, her back straight, her chin up—and misery filling her eyes.

Ah, hell. Confrontation wasn’t gonna work.

“Elena, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

Oh, sure, and the Brooklyn Bridge just came up for sale. She blocked the door and he concluded kissing her wasn’t the right decision either so he merely walked right past her, into Kara’s kitchen, and began unpacking the bag. His eyebrows shot up when he saw almost a dozen empty Nestle Crunch Bar wrappers and scooped them up. “Did you eat all of these by yourself?”

She snatched the wrappers from his hands, stuffed them into the tiny trash can Kara kept under her sink. But she didn’t answer him. Instead, she moved beside him to unpack the rest of the bag. Milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper, a whole chicken, flour and sugar.

And a Queen of Hearts, torn and filthy.

Her face was pale and her chin quivered. He watched her as she carefully and deliberately put all the perishable food in the refrigerator and all the dry goods in a cabinet. And then she carefully and deliberately folded up the paper bag and tucked it in the cabinet under Kara’s sink.

She lowered her head to the counter with a sob and he swore he heard his mother’s voice scolding him.
Lucas Alexander Adair! Help that girl
.

I’m trying, Mom
, he wanted to shout back and wished he had a clue what to do to make it better.

Just listen.

He scooped Elena up at the knees and took her into the living room. He sat in the middle of the sofa, cradling Elena in his lap, running his hands down her hair to soothe. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“The signs, Lucas. They’re everywhere.” She clutched him, shaking.

He swallowed a curse. He would
kill
Al first chance—abruptly, he refused to finish that thought. Damn. He shook it out of his head and sighed heavily. “Right. You were talking to Al. I’m sorry he upset you.”

“No. I’m sorry.” She shook her head, wiped her eyes and shifted, moved away from him. He recognized her move to the opposite end of the sofa as an attempt to put distance between them.

He met her eyes head on, refusing to hide the pain he hoped she could see in them. He needed her to know she could—she
was
—able to hurt him. “You keep saying that and then keep right on doing the things you’re sorry for.”

She blinked, surprised, and he knew she hadn’t considered that. That gave him an idea. But first, he needed the details. “Tell me about the candy wrappers. Why did they upset you?”

Elena covered her face for a second. “They were my mom’s favorite thing. She used to keep bags of them hidden all over the house.” She managed half a laugh over her tears. “When we moved the first time, away from the city, we found a bag stuffed inside the vacuum cleaner attachments case which is funny because we
never
would have looked there.”

Lucas listened but didn’t say anything.

“I saw Al on my way to the market and he told me how he loves to be here because his father sends him signs. He showed me this baseball card and—” she trailed off, shaking her head. “I thought he was nuts and then I went to the market. Nestle Crunch Bars were on sale—two for a dollar. Right at the freakin’ entrance. I walked by them. Coincidence, I tried to tell myself.”

He nodded, his lips twitching into a smile. “Yeah. Felt the same way when Al did this with me.”