Page 70 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

The girl I can’t forget

People all across the lawn stood up and headed out to the dance floor to move to the catchy beat. In the grass, women kicked off their shoes and men shed their jackets. He saw the Rushfords, even Brad and Effie and the ladies, and nearly everyone he knew from town ...

Suddenly Harris ran from the podium across the grass and scrambled onto the stage, furious and enraged. Lukas managed to weave in and out around the musicians and somehow finish the last verse. As the music finally ended Harris latched onto the mic and pulled hard.

Lukas gripped it with both hands as if he were hanging on to the last lifeboat on theTitanicand spoke. “And I’ll tell you who else is a jewel. You’re a jewel, Sam. You’remyjewel on Main Street. Hell, on any street. Don’t marry him, Sam. Don’t ...”

He heard Sam yell his name into the podium mic and looked up. Too late. Harris threw a punch that slammed Lukas into and over the drum set. Drums clattered and cymbals crashed. A blinding pain sliced into the back of Lukas’s head and the world went black.

When he came to he was sprawled on the ground. Something warm and coppery trickled onto his lip. Harris’s enraged face hovered above him. Lightning lit up the sky and in the distance, thunder rumbled.

“You son of a bitch,” Harris said.

Then Sam was there, pushing through the crowd of people who’d rushed the stage, and through the haze, Lukas saw nothing else. Just her lovely face, full of concern and worry, and those ruby red, kissable lips. She was the only thing that mattered in all this craziness. He gestured to her, opened his mouth to say something, but Harris spoke instead.

“I’ll take care of him, Sam,” he barked. “He’s probably drunk. Go back and sit down.”

“No, Harris,” she said. “You’ve taken care of enough.” Two local security guys bent down and gripped Lukas beneath the arms. “Don’t move him,” Sam said. “EMS is coming.” Sensing the command in her voice, the guys backed off.

“Sam, it’s best to leave,” Harris said. “We’re going to get bad publicity for this.”

Sam shook her head. “I’m sorry, Harris.”

“I know. I’m sorry, too. I never meant for this to get so out of hand ...”

“I’m not talking about this,”—she waved to Lukas on the ground, people with cameras drawing closer, the crowd in a tizzy—“I’m talking aboutus.” She faced him straight on. “I want to break up.”

“Sam, no,” Harris said. “This isn’t a good time ...”

“There’s never a good time, is there? Not to talk and not to actually listen.”

“I was about to ask you to marry me. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It’s too little too late,” she said quietly. “We’ve been over for a long time, but neither of us has been able to let go for whatever reason. I saw strengths in you that I wanted, but was content to watch you instead of develop them in myself. But that’s cheating. I want a full life, regardless of how untraditional it is.”

“Sam, I told you. The past month has been hell. Let me make it up to you. Don’t let him”—he tossed his head toward Lukas lying on the ground—“come between us. Let me show you—”

He took a step toward her, but she held up a hand to keep him back. “You’re controlling and condescending and you care way too much about what people think of everything you do. I’m tired of making excuses for your behavior. I—I don’t love you like a woman should love a man she’s going to spend the rest of her life with. I’m sorry.”

Lukas wondered if he was hallucinating. Because she was finally giving someone else hell besides him. And because she’d finally, finally said the words he’d longed to hear. Harris stood there, his mouth hanging open, speechless for once. Sam stepped over cords and Lukas’s sprawled-out legs and knelt beside him. Well, sort of knelt because the Aircast on her leg was pretty bulky. Her warm palm swiped gently across his forehead and it felt so good he shivered. Sirens wailed in the distance.

“You should go,” Lukas managed. “This will be all over the news.”

“I’m not leaving,” Sam said, her voice shaky.

“I’m glad,” Lukas said, reaching up to take her hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed it. She had tears in her eyes, maybe because she just broken up with Harris but maybe because of him. Becausetheywere finally starting.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Much better,” she said with a little smile. Then she bent down and kissed him on the lips. Maybe he had died and gone to heaven, or else this was the best damn dream he’d ever had. Minus the concussion, that is.

Her brother Tom finally managed to escort Harris away, thank God, although Harris did manage to flip Lukas the bird before he left.

Ben knelt on the other side of Lukas and gave him that assessing-doctor look. “The back of your head is bleeding a little.” Then Ben poked him in the lower legs and in a line up his thigh. “Where am I touching you?”

“In inappropriate places,” Lukas said.

“He’s fine,” Ben pronounced.

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