Page 57 of The Summer House
“I have a handle on it. I talked with Frederick. He cried like a baby over you. He has been without his son your whole life.”
Luke didn’t speak, and she tried to read his face but he wasn’t allowing his thoughts to show. He stared at her and she waited, her hands shaking terribly. His thumbs started to bounce against his legs in agitation and he went around and got back into the car, their lunch date evidently over before it had begun. Callie climbed in beside him and shut her door. The radio buzzed with a quiet hum just low enough that she couldn’t make out the words, the hurricane warnings still coming in. She ignored it and focused on Luke, waiting for his response. There was nothing more she could say.
He started the car and drove away in silence. After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived at The Beachcomber. She got out of the car when he did. He spun around and walked toward her but his face took her aback. “I can’t believe I let this happen,” he said.
“What?”
He brushed past her and headed for the beach. She clambered after him.
When they got to the back yard, he spun around. “This is all a way to get Aiden the company, isn’t it?” He shook his head, anger in his eyes. “If that got out, God knows what the papers would say. They’d have a field day. But that’s what you all planned, isn’t it? So that Aiden would get what he’s wanted all these years?” He stormed off again.
“Where are you going?” was all she could manage, the shock of his interpretation of her message causing her so much confusion that she was having trouble finding her words.
He continued walking and she couldn’t catch him, his angry stride so much longer and quicker than hers.
Callie jumped onto the new walkway, stopping only briefly to steady herself, her heart pounding like a snare drum. She got to the bottom and ran onto the sand. “Luke!” she called, but he didn’t turn around. “Luke!” she called again.
He was down by the surf and she ran after him, stumbling on the hot sand, her mind racing. Luke refused to turn around, his pace swift as he walked at a clip. She was nearly sprinting, the clouds overhead dark as if they’d explode with rain any minute. The wild wind tore through her hair.
“Olivia and Aiden don’t even know!” she yelled, stopping to catch her breath, feeling hopeless. She watched Luke slow down, her breathing heavy, and saw him stop, his back to her. Callie willed him to turn around. The very last thing she wanted was for him to think she’d betrayed him in some way, because she’d never do that.
Slowly, he turned to face her. They stood, a ways apart, as a couple crossed in between them, headed down the beach. Callie ignored their uncomfortable smiles. Luke didn’t move. She started to walk toward him carefully, trying to let him know with her stride that she didn’t mean any harm. She didn’t run to him, she just walked, and the closer she got the clearer his face became until she could see the tears in his eyes. And she knew that he believed her. The more he’d run, the more he’d processed it. When she reached him, she could feel the pain that he felt because she knew that kind of pain. She put her hands on his face for a moment, telling him with her silence that she’d be there for him. He pulled away from her and started toward the house.
“Luke,” she called.
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head as if he were trying to shake out the information he’d just learned. “I want to shout at my mother for being unfaithful. And then I wonder, does my father—the one who raised me—know? Is that why he’s been so hard on me my whole life? Is that why he doesn’t want me running the business? But I’d never ask him that, so I’m left to wonder. I feel like an outsider in my own family.” He looked down at her.
“Luke,” she said gently.
He turned away. “My life is a farce. I don’t deserve to have my father’s business. I’m not his son! I might as well be a stranger. Aiden’s bloodlines are real. No wonder my father would rather give it to him.”
“He’s never said that, I’m sure. And your life is the same as it has always been,” she said to his back. “You haven’t changed at all. Edward was the one who raised you. He instilled his work ethic in you. He taught you how to be a man. He is no less of a father to you now than he has always been. But you’re right; your bloodlines belong to someone else. And he wasn’t a part of your life. But he, too, is a good man. He mourns your absence in his life still to this day. Wouldn’t you rather know him than not know him?”
Luke still hadn’t turned around. He ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation.
“Luke, we don’t have to solve it all right now.”
He started walking away. “I can’t stay. I don’t want to talk anymore. It’s just too complicated.”
She let him go.
