Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish. Marta Perry
tried to find an answer to that question throughout another mostly sleepless night. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so torn—between Luke and her family, between the past and the future. She’d made a promise to Luke, and she’d always been taught that a promise had to be honored. Taught by her daddy, to whom honor was everything.
The future, that was what worried her the most. She turned over, trying to keep the bed from creaking in protest, and stared at the ceiling. Would Daddy say that if he knew what promise she was keeping? Moonlight filtered through the curtains, sending designs across the ceiling as the branches of the live oak swayed. When she was a child, she’d imagined whole stories taking place in those moving shadows—filled with castles and dragons and knights on horseback.
Miranda’s even breathing from the other bed was oddly soothing. Miranda had made her choices, and as difficult as they’d been, she never seemed to doubt the road she was on. Chloe envied that certainty.
Where was this adventure going to end? She couldn’t picture it, couldn’t believe that things could ever go back the way they’d been between her and Luke, between her and her family.
Maybe that was bound to happen sometime. She could hardly expect to find happiness while working for Luke—not when that meant holding her feelings secret in her heart. As for her family—her relationship with them had changed, and she hadn’t even realized it. She’d looked for her career off the island, thinking that was the only way to be her own person. She’d been tired of being just one of the crowd of Caldwells.
Now—she thought of her mother, talking to her about Theo as if she were a friend. Of the pleasure she’d found in being useful here. Of the way her experiences with Dalton Resorts had begun to translate to ideas for running the inn. Things changed, whether she wanted them to or not.
She turned again, and her restless gaze fell on the framed sampler with the words of her Bible verse embroidered on it, which was propped on her bedside table. She couldn’t leave it behind in Chicago, so it had come with her.
As the words reverberated in her mind, she felt her tension begin to seep away. Hope and a future. She might not be able to see how God’s plans were going to work out, but knowing they existed should be comfort enough. Her body relaxed, her eyelids drifting closed.
She’d meant what she said to Luke about not telling her family any lies. But as Chloe watched her father talk with Luke over coffee in the breakfast room the next morning, she wondered if she’d gone far enough. Maybe she should have specified that Luke not tell any lies, either.
“Excuse me, miss, could I have another pot of tea? This one isn’t hot enough.”
Chloe managed a smile for the elderly guest whose tea water was never hot enough. She didn’t mind being pressed into service at breakfast—she’d done it since she was old enough to carry a tray. She did mind not being able to hear what Luke and her father were talking about.
Why? The question nagged at her while she brought a fresh pot of tea for table four, replenished the dish of homemade strawberry jam at table six and whisked a nearly empty breakfast casserole dish from the buffet table. Why did it bother her to see her father with Luke?
Maybe it was her fear that the two of them could never see eye-to-eye on anything. Clayton Caldwell lived by a few simple rules—rules he’d taught his sons and daughters from the day they were born. Trust the Lord, and He will guide your ways…. Tell the truth, even if it’s painful…. A man’s word is his bond, and without it he has nothing.
Her father wouldn’t understand the kind of business world Luke operated in, though he’d probably equate it with Uncle Jeff. Luke would never understand her father. He’d mistake her father’s sense of honor for naïveté, just as her father would mistake Luke’s sense of competition for dishonesty. No, it would be far better if she could keep the two of them apart until this game had ended.
Carrying the carafe of coffee, she approached their table with a sense of determination. “Daddy, would you like a thermos of coffee to take with you?”
“I’m not going just yet, Chloe-girl.” He held out his mug, his sharp eyes inspecting her. “Fact is, I’m not going fishing at all today. Your momma’s been pestering me to take a picnic lunch, go over to Angel Isle, check out the cottage. I’m thinking we’ll do that today.”
Well, at least that would get him out of Luke’s company for a while. “Sounds like a nice idea. Don’t worry about anything here. I’ll keep an eye on the desk.”
Luke smiled and held out his mug for a refill. “Actually, your father invited us to go with them to the island.”
Only long years of practice kept her from dribbling coffee onto the blue-checked tablecloth. “Don’t you have some work you want to do?”
Luke was probably longing for her to give him an excuse to get out of it, she assured herself. He probably had no desire to go out on the boat again.
“Not at all,” he assured her blandly. “Sounds like a great idea.”
She set her lips into what she hoped resembled a smile. “Fine. I’ll just go help my mother get things ready.”
Trying to avoid her father’s gaze, she whisked herself off to the kitchen. Daddy knew his children only too well. He’d always been harder to fool than her mother—not that she’d spent a lot of time trying to fool either of them, even as a child. But she’d seen the twins try, and fail, too many times. This cozy little trip together was not a good idea.
And what had given Daddy the idea? He didn’t take the morning off just to—The thought struck her with a certainty she couldn’t deny.
Gran and her matchmaking.
She pressed her palms to overheated cheeks. She could just imagine the conversation.
All Chloe’s young man needs is a little push to propose, Gran would say. It’s up to us to see he gets it. Chloe will be the next Caldwell bride.
Now what was she going to do about that?
She still didn’t have an answer an hour later, when she stood on the dock handing a picnic basket to Luke. He’d already been on the boat with her father when she’d come down. What had they been talking about? She tried to think of one single thing they had in common, and couldn’t. Except, possibly, her.
She gave Luke a sharp look as she accepted the hand he held out, and climbed onto the Spyhop. “Are you sure you want to do this?” She spoke under the noise of the motor. “Daddy would understand if we begged off.”
Luke looked at her questioningly. “Don’t you trust me around your father, Chloe?”
She definitely should have laid down the law to Luke about her father, as she had about Theo. “It’s not that.” Since she didn’t believe herself, she felt quite sure he didn’t believe her, either. “I just thought this wouldn’t be much fun for you. The water might be rougher out on the sound today.”
“Then, I’ll have to depend on you to keep me safe, won’t I?”
His low voice teased her, and she felt a little ripple of…what? Longing for a relationship with him in which teasing spoke of affection? That was a dangerous way to think.
Luke turned away to help her mother on board, drawing her gaze. Had he borrowed the jeans and T-shirt from one of her brothers? It certainly wasn’t his usual garb. Before this trip, she’d have said he wouldn’t look at ease in anything but a business suit. But he seemed perfectly at ease now, with the T-shirt stretching across broad shoulders and looking even whiter against his tanned arms.
She shouldn’t be noticing that, she told herself firmly, bending to stow the hamper in the locker and taking the jug of sweet tea her mother handed her. She should imagine Luke right back into one of his expensive suits. Maybe then she’d be able to get through this trip.
She started forward, but her mother caught her arm.
“I’ll