“You okay?” Adam said.
“I’m sorry,” Lucas said. He set his hands on his hips and looked at the dead needles under his feet as he shook his head. “I was out of line.”
“Yeah, well, he was over it,” Adam said. “Something going on with you and Alana?”
Fuck it. “Yeah,” he said. “How did you know?”
“You’re the only single man not looking at her,” Adam said with a laugh.
“Fuck,” he breathed. He tilted his head back and stared at the sky. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“It did at the time.”
But things had changed. He didn’t want them to have changed, but he’d long since given up on life performing to his whims and standards. After last night . . . things were different.
“You and Marissa weren’t exactly discreet,” he said.
“Ris didn’t give a damn what people thought about her. Still doesn’t.”
“Alana does.”
“She’s worried about her reputation in Walkers Ford?”
For him. They were different for him. She seemed perfectly happy to carry on exactly as they were. He’d sold himself out. “She’s a private person. And she doesn’t want to make waves in town. She’s going back to Chicago as soon as we get back, and she didn’t want to damage my reputation.”
Adam’s eyebrows shot up, and he turned a laugh into a cough. “Thoughtful of her. And you went along with this . . . why?”
Lucas turned and looked at him because surely Adam got this. If the woman you wanted to sleep with had some random stipulation you didn’t give a rat’s ass about, why not agree? You got what you wanted. She got what she wanted. Simple enough.
“Okay, I know why.” Adam blew out his breath. “Still up for this?”
“Yeah. Give me a second.”
He walked over to the kid. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was out of line.”
Dull heat infused his face as Garrett yanked climbing gear out of his pack. “Is this some fucking game the two of you play? ’Cause I didn’t see a ring, and you didn’t talk to her at all last night.”
Not until he showed up at her hotel room door. “You didn’t miss anything.”
“Dude, that’s fucked up,” Garrett said, clearly aggrieved. “I’d never have said a word if . . . that’s not right.”
“I know,” he said, then held out his hand. “We good?”
Eyeing him warily, the kid shook his hand. “We’re good. Just don’t drop my ass at the base of this fucking cliff, yeah?”
Lucas smiled. “Don’t drop mine, either.”
“Deal.” Garrett smiled at him. “You’re fucking spooky. Like . . . stealth. You know that? No idea what you’re thinking or feeling. Nice. How do you pull that off, anyway?”
You watch a kid you’ve mentored through rock-climbing expeditions like this one say good-bye to his mother after he’s been sentenced to twenty-years-without-parole for armed robbery.
He tried to find the real smile from just seconds ago. “Let’s go.”
But if this kid doesn’t know how he feels, how would Alana? Did he even know how he felt?
11
ALANA SET THE plates holding slices of pound cake on the wrought iron table, then eased into a chair at the food court plaza in the Fashion Valley Mall. Adam’s mother set up napkins and silverware, then distributed the plates. Marissa followed with three coffee cups balanced in her hands.
“I’d forgotten how fun shopping can be,” Marissa said. “The biggest shopping trips I make these days are to grocery stores to lay in provisions before we leave port.”
“You’re happy with what you bought?” Alana asked as she squeezed honey packets into her tea.
“I am,” Marissa said. “A couple of new bathing suits, new shorts because I ripped my least tattered pair on the dock in Hawaii, and something for tonight.”
This last statement came with a sidelong glance at Darla.
“You’re very sweet to be so modest, but I am aware that you’re sleeping with my son,” she said, magnificently unconcerned. “I hope you bought something pretty.”
The nightgown was exquisite. Alana had recognized the lingerie brand in the window as one Freddie adored, and she’d firmly guided Marissa inside Henri Bendel. Marissa winced at the price tags, but decided she could set aside low-key for the wedding night. They’d left Darla to move at her own pace, examining fabrics and lines and designs—they bought the nightgown and spent the rest of the day wandering in the open air and sunshine.
“Did you get the ring?”
“I did,” Marissa said. She brought a dark blue jeweler’s box out of the zippered pocket in her purse and opened it. A simple gold band rested inside. Alana saw the date engraved into the band. “The gold’s going to get pretty scratched, but I like it. It’s traditional.”