“When Olivia let me in, she introduced me to your painter,” Luke said right off the bat when Callie got into the SUV. Her heart went a hundred miles an hour and she worried he’d actually see the thudding through her shirt. There was no way this lunch was going to be easy.
“Frederick,” she said. “He’s really nice.”
“Yeah, I like him.”
He was probably just making conversation, but she hung on the words: he liked him. They filled her with a rush of excitement. Luke was experiencing the one thing she’d always wanted to have with her own father—that chance to talk, with nothing between them—and he didn’t even know it.
“I was a little worried about him when I first met him,” Luke said.
She snapped her head over in his direction. “Why?”
He glanced over at her and then back to the road. “Olivia mentioned he had a box full of articles about me and my family. She wondered if I knew him. Not sure what that was all about.”
Breathe, she told herself. Smile. “He just loves the area, I think. He grew up here and actually has a house right across from The Beachcomber. I think he had a bunch of different articles—not just yours.” She could barely get the words out, the tiny white lie slithering off her tongue like some sort of foreign serpent. She swallowed hard.
Luke looked at her again; her response clearly had not helped things. Uncertainty swam across his face. She wanted to slide down onto the floor of the car and it just swallow her up. In fact, she was praying for it.
He pulled into the parking lot of a local seafood shop and put the SUV in park. Then, without getting out, he shifted in his seat to face her. “You’re acting weird,” he stated. Before she could say anything, he demanded, “Why wouldn’t you see me when I called?”
Her mouth opened but nothing would come out, the tiny lie she’d just told stripping her of any possible speech that she might have had.
“Have I done something?”
She shook her head.
“I would’ve painted that mural for you,” he said. “You didn’t even ask me.”
She felt the crease form between her eyes—the same crease that she got when she was studying for a big test in college or worried about something. She didn’t understand his line of conversation, her mind still on Frederick. But then she wondered if he was just hurt that she hadn’t asked him to paint. “What?” was all she could manage.
“You hired someone instead.”
“I didn’t hire him. He’s doing it as a favor.”
“Why?”
She tried to focus on the fact that he just didn’t believe that she’d found a second artist in the Outer Banks who would do her a favor. His questions, instead, felt like he was screaming, Why didn’t you tell me this was my father! She bit her lip. The heat was rising and she needed air or she might pass out. She opened the car door, trying not to gasp when the breeze blew in.
“Callie, you need to tell me what’s going on because I’m thinking that you just don’t want to see me anymore.” He got out and walked around to her side of the car. When he got to her open door, he said, “And that’s fine, but just have the decency to tell me face to face. If it’s true, though, know that it’ll knock me sideways.”
Her head was swimming as she tried to sift through all her thoughts. “What are you talking about?” Callie stood up, worried her legs wouldn’t hold her. She shut the door and leaned against it for support.
“I sit at work and think about when I can call you again,” he said. “All I think about is when I’ll get to see you. I’ve never met someone who gets me like you do, and I’ve never shared as much of who I am with anyone.” He took a step forward, the gravel beneath his feet crunching and ringing in her ears. “And getting to know you, I think you feel the same. You won’t admit it to yourself, but you’ve opened up to me too—I can tell. Tell me, Callie. Why don’t you want to see me?”
“I do…” Her words withered and fell short of the impact she’d wanted to have. Two people walked past them, glancing over with interest. Callie avoided eye contact. The truth was, she did want to see him. And he was right; she felt just as he thought she did, but things were too difficult with this big hurdle between them. It wasn’t her place to say anything and she was caught in a terrible situation.
She looked up at Luke; his jaw was set and he looked away, shaking his head just slightly.
“You’re so frustrating,” he said quietly.
“None of this was meant to happen,” she said, the words suddenly tumbling out. “I wasn’t trying to meet someone.” That was the truth but the way it was coming out, it sounded like some sort of breakup. “That’s not what I meant,” she scrambled, “I mean, it is, but…”
“What are you afraid of?” he asked, irritation penetrating his words. “Are you afraid of getting close to me?”
“No!” she said loudly, looking around to see if people were staring. The lot was empty.
“Are you afraid because of the press? I could sort of tell, Callie, but I thought we’d gotten over all that.”
She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do. She just stood there, her mind empty.
Luke’s face came into view. “That’s what it is, isn’t it?” he said. “You actually believe what you’ve read about me. And now… Now that I know you better, and I see how private you like to be, I’ll bet you’re worried the press will hound you too.” He scratched his face in thought. Then, in a whisper, he said, “I can’t believe that you trust the media over me.” He let the words hang in the air between them, his pain written all over his face.
She could see how hurt he was by this idea, and it was killing her. He was so wrong but what else was he supposed to think? She shook her head.
“If you believe them, then you do. I’m not going to try to beg you to listen to me, Callie. I fell for you in a big way, and I was willing to give you all my trust, but if you can’t do that, then I guess we’re at an impasse.”
She could feel him pulling away, and it terrified her. That, coupled with the overwhelming sadness she felt about the fact that he thought she couldn’t trust him over the papers, made her tear up. “I do trust you,” she blurted as he headed over to his side of the car. He stopped and turned around. “There’s a reason I’m struggling right now and it has nothing to do with you and me specifically.”
He walked back over to her. “Then what is it, Callie?”
“I… Can’t tell you.”
He took in a deep, short breath. “You can’t tell me,” he spat. “You just said you trust me but you can’t tell me.”
Defeat in her eyes, she said slowly, “I’ve learned a secret that could literally change everything. It’s so big that I was willing to not see you to keep from having to tell you.”
“Look. I think you and I are great together. But we can’t move forward until you can be honest with me. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” His blue eyes bore down on her.