The Talk of the Town (26 page)

Something about the way he said it made her heart race a little. “Who?”

“Your father.”

Her jaw dropped. “My—”

“Your father’s bank, to be more exact.”

She couldn’t believe it. “How did that happen?”

He leaned back a bit but kept his arms around her. “It’s a long story.”

“I’m not in a hurry.”

He nudged her, and she felt him virile and warm against her belly. “I am, so I’ll make this short.”

“I’m all ears,” she said in a throaty voice.

His hand swept down the supple curve from her breast to her hip to her thigh, and back up again. “I beg to differ.”

Laughing, she settled in to listen.

“First, a little background,” he said. “Granddad had a lot of admirable qualities, and, even though I wasn’t good about showing it, I respected him for them. He was a man of the land, always working, always trying to scrape together enough money to keep his bills and his taxes paid. And he was honest—he wouldn’t take the pennies off a dead man’s eyes if he needed them to stave off starvation. But he was distant, beyond embrace.”

He fell silent for a few seconds, as if what he had to say next would be difficult to put into words. Then he let out a resigned sigh and went on. “I think he always saw me as pretty much of a troublemaker. Which I was. And he always treated me like he was disappointed in me. Which he had every right to be.”

She reached up and touched his lips, not to stop him from speaking but just to let him know that she had a totally different view of him.

“He wrote me the occasional letter while I was in prison. None of them more than a page long, usually half that.” He smiled a little under serious eyes. “Once he sent one that said, ‘No news.’ That was it. ‘No news.’” Luke’s smile faded. “He never signed with ‘love’ or ‘Granddad,’ just his name, first and last. But as few and far between as they were, those letters were my lifeline to the outside, a reminder that someone hadn’t forgotten I was on the inside.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that it pierced her clean through. She debated telling him that she wouldn’t have forgotten him either, but she didn’t want to interrupt his train of thought.

After a short silence, he linked their fingers together and continued. “Anyway, I dreamed about him one night last week. I saw him plain as day striding out to check his beehives, climbing a wooden ladder to pick fruit off his trees, standing over his work bench in the honey house, reading his Bible at night by the light of an oil lamp. And then I remembered seeing him going to the bank with his hat in hand.
For what?
I wondered. Then I realized. He was going to try and borrow money on his land, his home so he could hire a lawyer to defend his good-for-nothing grandson.”

Luke drew a ragged breath. “And that’s when I knew.”

Roxie sniffed back her tears. “He loved you.”

Letting go of her hand, he sank his fingers into her still-damp hair and spread it out in a honey-gold fan on the bedspread behind her. “I knew, too, who probably owned the place. But I called the tax collector’s office the next morning just to be sure, and they confirmed the bank was the owner of record.”

“Dad has never said word one about it,” she murmured.

A glint shimmered in the gray of his gaze. “Remember the day you asked me why I came back to Blue Ridge?”

“Of course.”

“I gave you a lot of reasons, but I didn’t tell you the main one.”

But she could guess. “You wanted to take care of his bees and his trees.”

“It was too late to show him that somehow, somewhere along the line I could cut the mustard.” His sigh stirred her hair, sending a shiver of pleasure through her. “So I decided the best way to prove it, to honor both his memory and the man he was, was to try to bring back the place he loved.”

Roxie was almost afraid to ask. “Does that mean you’re staying here?”

The faint light leaking in around the window shade shimmered across his face. “I want to, but I don’t know if I can get the money together to buy the place back from the bank.”

“It sounds like you need a partner.” She waited a heart-stopping beat and then blurted, “Or a wife.”

Luke could see in her eyes that she meant it, and wasn’t that the miracle of all miracles? “Are you proposing to me, Roxie Mitchell?”

She laughed at her own audacity. “I certainly am, Luke Bauer.”

He laughed, too. Then he sobered and leaned down to claim her mouth in a soul-searing kiss. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him as close to her heart as she could. Already, he was hard, and the blood was pumping hotly through her veins. Their kiss would have resulted in another round of lovemaking if someone hadn’t pounded on his door.

They both shot up, gaping first at the door then at each other.

“Oh, my God,” Luke said, and he scrambled off the bed to toss her a satin slip, a brasserie and underpants.

“What are you doing?” Roxie asked as this shower of lingerie splayed over her.

Another fervent knock reverberated through the small room.

“Get dressed.” He yanked on his blue jeans and buttoned them as fast as he could. His head went to the left then the right. He scooped up her blouse and yelled, “I’m coming,” then tossed the blouse to her.

She folded her hands in her lap and watched him.

“My God, aren’t you dressed yet?” He looked around wildly. “The closet isn’t very big, but if you’re quiet—”

“Luke, I don’t care,” she said.

The hammering at the door became insistent.

He threw open the door to the closet and began pushing her clothes into it. “Come on, hurry up, if you’re seen here, everyone will know—”

“I don’t care if I’m seen,” she said with emphasis.

He stopped shoving clothes into the closet and stared at her. She had never looked more like her mother, with the possible exception of a lack of clothing.

“You don’t care?”

“Not if you plan to make an honest woman of me.”

To the repeated banging on his door, Luke addressed a mild curse and an order to wait a minute. To the naked woman with the tender half smile sitting on his bed, he issued a rattled demand to know what she was talking about.

“I just proposed to you,” she reminded him with a self-satisfied smile, “and you’ve yet to answer me.”

The renewed pounding on the door had him flinging up his hands in surrender. “I accept. Now for God’s sake, put something on. As lovely as I think your birthday suit is, I don’t think anyone we know could stand the shock of seeing you in it.”

“Thanks a lot,” she said, laughing lightly as she slid out of the bed. She grabbed his work shirt, put it on to cover her nakedness and went to stand behind him as she buttoned it up to the neck.

Her slight shadow warmed his back. Luke turned on the overhead light and set his hand on the knob, hoping with all his heart it wasn’t a policeman who had come in connection with the problem at the warehouse. Once Roxie realized all the hassles that were a part of his life, she might take back her offer of marriage. And though he felt obligated to point out all the problems and the reasons against it, the one thing he wanted most in this life was to marry her. With suspicion and dread, he at last pulled open the door.

“It’s about time!” Layton Stewart huffed, his Fedora dripping rainwater off the brim and onto the bare floor. “We were beginning to think you’d stashed a—” He stopped in his tracks just a foot over the threshold, and his brows rose as he took in the sight of his half-dressed employees standing together.

“Hi, Mr. Stewart.” Roxie waved a floppy sleeve at him from behind Luke’s back. “Luke and I are getting married.”

“Oh . . . well . . . congratulations,” he sputtered.

Luke looked at her over his shoulder. “Roxie, we only—”

“Hi, Gary,” she said, ignoring Luke’s attempt to speak. “Did you hear the news?”

“Yes, yes, I did.” Like the innate gentleman he was, Gary had taken off his cap. Holding it in both hands in front of him, he averted his eyes from Roxie and looked more toward the peeling patch in the ceiling above her. “May I add my congratulations to Mr. Stewart’s?”

“You may,” she said graciously and stepped out from behind Luke to accept his good wishes.

Neither the warehouse owner nor the warehouse manager could have been more shocked by her attire, or lack thereof, than Luke was by her actions. He hadn’t expected her to tell anyone, much less to announce it so happily, so proudly. And he certainly hadn’t expected her stand there half-dressed in front of the two men.

With difficulty he gathered himself together and said, “Hello, Mr. Stewart. Gary.”

Layton Stewart looked like he’d been knocked flatter than a barn in a tornado. He ran his gaze over the bare-legged and bare-footed Roxie. “Well, I guess Mondays aren’t so bad after all.”

“I guess not,” she agreed.

“And I don’t suppose there’s any need to ask if you’re happy, since you’re bright as a light with it.”

“Glowing from head to toe,” she chirped.

Now Layton Stewart turned his attention to Luke and said in a fatherly fashion, “You’d better be good to her, young man, or you’ll answer to me.”

Luke tensed at his warning until he saw how Roxie’s face was shining. Then he softened. For her sake he would have to learn to accept these commonplace comments without thinking they held a challenge for him.

“I will, sir,” he said. “You can count on it.”

Gary waited stoically for the laughter to die away before clearing his throat. “Perhaps we should get on with the business at hand, Mr. Stewart, and then leave the two young ones alone.”

“You’re right as you almost always are, Gary.” The warehouse owner turned back to Luke. “We came to tell you that today’s problem has been cleared up. There never was any missing money.”

“So what happened to it?” Roxie asked on behalf of both herself and Luke.

“Remember that Friday a few weeks ago when I left early so I could take Mrs. Stewart to St. Joseph to stay with our daughter and newborn grandson when they left the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the day the deposit in question was made, last Friday, was also the day I went back to St. Joseph to pick up Mrs. Stewart and bring her home. It was a quick trip, up there one day and back here the next. I knew I wouldn’t need much in the way of money, so I raided the cash we’d received that day.”

Roxie’s mouth fell open but she didn’t interrupt him.

“At the time,” he continued, “I made a note of the debit. But somewhere in my rush to get on my way, the note got lost. And in all the confusion this morning, I didn’t have a clear enough head to think of it.”

“You’re sure?” Roxie said quietly.

“I’m wearing the same suit I wore to St. Joseph that day, and I found the note myself in the jacket pocket when I started for home this evening.” He smiled with chagrin. “I called Gary, and we came right over here.”

Gary put out his hand. “I want you to know, Luke, that even if Mr. Stewart hadn’t found his note, I wanted you to stay on in the warehouse. You work hard and you do good work.”

Luke took his hand. For the first time in his life he felt like an equal. He glanced at Roxie. With Roxie at his side, no matter where he wound up working he would be equal to any man on earth.

Layton Stewart saw the look that passed between the two and smiled. “When’s the wedding?”

“Uh, we haven’t set a date yet,” Roxie replied. “But we’ll let you know as soon as we do.”

“Well, it’s time we left you two alone.” He patted her on the cheek, shook hands with Luke, and left with Gary.

Luke closed the door after them and got right to the point. “You can’t really want to marry me, Roxie.”

“Of course I can. I do.”

“You want to live like this?” He glanced around his shabby room, illuminated only by that single light bulb in the ceiling.

“No, but then we aren’t going to live like this.”

He gave her a skeptical look.

“We’ll fix up your grandfather’s house and move in there after we’re married.” She was making it up as she went along, but it sounded like a good plan. “My parents have several nice old pieces in the attic that will look wonderful once they’re refinished and—”

“And you’re out of your mind.” He put his hand flat over her mouth. “Now, just listen a minute and then think through what I’m about to say. Agreed?”

She nodded.

He removed his hand.

“But, Luke—” she began.

He put his hand back over her mouth and said bleakly, “You have to understand, Roxie, that every time there’s money missing and I’m in the vicinity, I’ll be under suspicion. As my wife, you’d be part of that. You’d be part of my past.”

She pulled his hand away from her mouth but held onto it for dear life. “It’s not where you’ve been that matters. It’s where you’re going.”

“I know that, but there are people who look only at the trail behind you.” Giving her fingers a gentle squeeze, he stared at her meaningfully. “Those are the people who will hurt you, Roxie, in a thousand little ways. And I don’t want you hurt. Not at all, not ever.”

“It would hurt me not to marry you,” she said in all sincerity.

“I love you very much, but I’m not good enough for you.”

“Of course you are.”

He shoved his hair off his forehead with aggravated fingers. “I want to marry you more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, but—”

“And you’re going to marry me,” she stated decisively. “I love you, and I want to share the rest of my life with you. So when, do you think?”

He cradled her cheeks in his palms and gazed at her with such open love that her heart skipped erratically. “I’ll marry you tonight if you really want me.”

She solemnly studied his face, his ruggedly handsome face. His eyes were darkly silver, flashing and alive and filled with love. His very masculine mouth was curved in a tenderly sweet smile. His dark hair fell boyishly over his brow. He looked younger and happier than she’d ever seen him.

Reaching out, she gently brushed his hair back. “I think that I’ve always known you were different. Even way back in school. Anytime the talk was about you, I sat up and listened. Anytime you were around, I stood and stared. Maybe I’ve always loved you, even all those years ago.”