Page 9 of Luke

Shaking his head at all the memories, Luke walked out of the parking lot, heading toward the house. He was about ten feet away when a woman came through the front door and down the steps. She wore skinny white jeans and a yellow tank top. A pile of wavy blonde hair fell around her shoulders.

His heart came to a crashing halt. His breath froze in his chest. The pretty blonde took him back to another time. He wasn't seven years old in this new memory; he was twenty and madly in love with his college girlfriend, a woman he hadn't seen in almost a decade, a woman with whom he'd had the worst breakup of his life—Lizzie Parker.

Lizzie stopped abruptly, her eyes widening in recognition as her gaze ran down his body. And not for the first time, he wished he didn't have a killer headache, a bad hangover, and a serious case of jet lag, because seeing Lizzie again had put him into a serious head-spin. If the car were a little closer, he might have leaned against it or jumped inside and headed back the way he'd come.

"Luke," she said, putting a hand to her heart. "Is it really you?"

He nodded, not quite able to get any words out.

She took a tentative step forward, then stopped.

He did the same. They were closer, but there was still distance between them. Finally, he found his voice. "What are you doing here, Lizzie?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, more surprise in her voice. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"I'm the manager."

"What?" It didn't make sense that she was the manager. Lizzie was a concert pianist, not a hotel manager.

"Your dad gave me the job six months ago."

"My dad gave you the job," he echoed in confusion. "I don't understand."

"He didn't tell you?" She answered her own question. "Of course he didn't tell you. He probably didn't know where to find you. Well, if you have a problem with it, you should take it up with him."

"Take it up with him?" he repeated, feeling like a dimwit. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"

"Just call him. I know you don't get along that well. He told me he never sees you, and that he feels badly about it. I know he wasn't the perfect dad, but if you tried to reach out a little, he would probably meet you halfway—"

He cut her off with a shake of his head, unable to hear one more word about his father. "He's dead, Lizzie. My dad is dead." His words drained the blood from her face.

She swayed a little, and he had to fight back a very old instinct to rush to her, to protect her, to save her. But that wasn't his job anymore; it hadn't been for a very long time.

"That's impossible," she said slowly. "I talked to him a week ago. He sounded a little tired, but he didn't say anything was wrong. What happened? Was it an accident?"

"No. He apparently died of cancer several days ago."

"I had no idea," she murmured.

"No one did. Dad didn't tell anyone in the family that he had been diagnosed a month earlier. No one knew he was sick. No one knew he died. He was staying at his house in the Bahamas. He was secluded, surrounded only by people he paid to take care of him."

"I can't believe it," she murmured, her gaze softening as it came back to rest on his. "I'm sorry, Luke."

He didn't want her sympathy. He didn't want his father to be dead. He didn't want this resort, but somehow he'd ended up with all three.

They stared at each other for at least a minute. "I still don't understand what you're doing here," he said finally. "You're a musician. Now you're running a lodge?"

"Sometimes life doesn't turn out the way you think." She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

The move brought his gaze to her beautiful breasts. It had been a long time, but he could still remember kissing every inch of her body. He could still hear her urgent pleas in his ear: don't stop, Luke, don't ever stop.

He sucked in a breath, looking back into her face, but that didn't help. She was even prettier than he remembered with her blue eyes the color of a morning sky, her skin reddened by the sun, her lips sweet and full. She'd filled out a bit since he'd last seen her; she was still slender, but not teenage-thin. And her eyes held a few more shadows. He'd put some of them there, but he wondered where the others had come from.

"Are you here by yourself?" Lizzie asked.

"Do you see anyone else?"

---