Jolted from such disloyal thoughts by the sound of Luke bringing the cart around to the front of the house, she pinched her lips together.
She didn’t want to think about last spring anymore. She’d made her choices, and she would live with them. She snatched up her reticule and bolted down the stairwell.
Attentive as usual, Luke assisted her off the porch and then onto the Bench of the cart.
Along with his hat, he’d donned his jacket again, not his uniform, but a simple black one that he’d worn more recently while working on the repairs.
As they drew away from the house, he seemed tense beside her, staring straight ahead.
“I would have said yes.” She wasn’t sure why she’d blurt her thoughts out like that, but he’d been nothing but honest with her.
His glance was questioning.
“I would have allowed you to court me.” Of course, she would have.
“But Arthur had already—”
“He didn’t ask me until the dayafterthe Garden Party. He lied to you.”
She hated that word:lied.Because it had her wondering if he’d lied about other things. Had he broken other promises as well? “I’m so damn mad at him, Luke.” Luke had been Gil’s friend. He would understand. He was perhaps one of the only people she knew who wouldn’t judge her for this truth.
She almost felt a sense of relief to make such an admission. Because she’d been angry with Arthur for weeks now, months. When they first married, he’d made all sorts of promises. And then he’d always had some sort of excuse to break them—or delay them. Yes, he’d usually delayed them. And she’d made excuse upon excuse for him, convincing herself she was being too demanding—too picky. They’d been in love and she was his wife! She wasn’t supposed to find fault with him so quickly.
Luke pulled the cart to a halt and turned to face her. “It doesn’t change who he is—that you loved him.”
She shook her head. “I married him. I’m supposed to be loyal to his memory but now I don’t even know if that memory was real. I don’t even know what to feel anymore.” Had she been so blinded by her physical passion that she’d chosen not to see her husband’s flaws? Tears burned at the back of her eyes. Tears of betrayal and guilt and confusion.
Luke lifted his hand, rough from the labor he’d finished over the past two weeks, and cradled the side of her face. “You’re allowed to feel whatever you want.”
She swallowed hard, a tumult of emotions clogging her throat at the look in his eyes. What if Arthur hadn’t lied to Luke and Luke had courted her first? “I’m not sure if I can trust my feelings.”
Which feelings was she talking about? The ones she had had for Arthur or the ones threatening to overflow now? Longings that had her staring into eyes the color of a brilliant sapphire, feeling lost but also very, very much at home.
His thumb moved in slow circles on her chin, and then just below her lips.
This close, she could make out each individual whisker on his jaw and noticed for the first time a white scar trailing from just below his lip to the edge of his chin.
This close, she recognized desire and affection in his steady gaze.
For what seemed like forever, neither of them moved. Time stood still as the world came to a halt except for a bird singing nearby and the breeze rustling the leaves in a distant grove of trees. She held her breath, afraid to move. Afraid to do anything that would break this moment and send her spiraling back into her reality.
“Naomi,” he whispered before his face moved closer. “Stop me.”
But she didn’t want to stop him. Because this madness made sense. As uncertain as she was about everything else, right now she wanted nothing more than for Luke to kiss her.
His gaze flicked to her mouth and then back to her eyes, and she recognized that he was possibly as confused as she was.
Was this fate or was this a very bad decision? She’d wrestle with those questions later. As would he.
Of its own accord, her hand slid up his arm and reached around the back of his head. Beneath her fingers, his skin was rough along his throat and jaw, and then smooth and hot at the back of his neck.
“I don’t want to stop you,” she whispered.
Her words were enough.
He leaned forward and kissed her.
The kiss was soft, tentative almost, and yet he might as well have set a flint to dry tinder. The feelings she’d been fighting at night and sometimes when she watched him work surged from her core to her breasts and between her legs.
