Turn to me, p.10
Turn to Me, page 10
Perhaps the same metamorphosis would occur in Luke.
She thought of his forceful nature. How he suppressed his emotions. How he isolated himself. He’d been avoiding showing love to others. But he couldn’t avoid it now.
In her office, she fed Dudley a bit of dried apple and opened his door in case he wanted a jaunt-about.
Settling at her desk, she pulled out a drawer and contemplated the small home safe Luke had purchased. She tapped in the code, opened its door, and pondered the two treasure hunt notes they’d found so far.
Do you remember the train depot we visited together, Finley? the most recent one read. I never enjoyed trains as much as I did when seeing them through your eyes.
Did the second sentence have a hidden meaning? Was he hinting at something when he said through your eyes? Eyeglasses? She’d never worn any.
She tugged on her earlobe.
If that second sentence held a hint, she couldn’t figure it out. She opened her laptop. Best to look at photos of depots in this region to see if one of them sparked a memory.
Agatha had a death wish.
Every time Luke placed the ball of terror down in his apartment, she went straight for the nearest electrical cord or darted for the space under the oven.
He’d trap her and stick her in the “playpen” Finley had provided—a circle of short metal gates attached to the open side of her crate. Agatha would cry, so he or Ben would pick her up. She’d stay still for a minute or two, then squirm to get down. They’d go through the whole cycle again.
“Aren’t puppies supposed to sleep a lot?” Luke asked irritably.
“I think so, but I really don’t know.” Ben went down on all fours to shovel her out from beneath the oven again. “You go ahead and eat. I’ll handle this.”
Back at the Center, Luke had agreed when Ben had offered to pick up dinner for them both. Then Luke had driven the dog here and taken her to the patch of grass and trees between his building and the parking lot.
She hadn’t liked the leash. She’d either plant her tiny legs, pull, or try to get herself flattened by rushing beneath his boots while he was walking.
Finley had tried to send him home with a pink leash and pink collar. He’d flatly refused. The dog had ended up with a black leash and black collar. Even so, it insulted his masculinity to be seen with such a sad excuse for a dog.
He’d waited and waited for her to go to the bathroom. Instead, she’d chewed leaves and acorns. As soon as he’d taken her upstairs, she’d immediately peed on his newly refinished hardwood floors.
Luke now sat on his sofa, hunching forward to eat from the take-out container on his coffee table. Ben had bought a rice dish with egg, meat, bean sprouts, and carrots from the Korean restaurant. Luke opened a second packet of sriracha with his teeth and squirted it on top.
For two decades, the other four of the Miracle Five had never stopped reaching out to him, even though his refusal to be a part of their group hadn’t changed. He’d been forced together with them in that crushed basement in El Salvador. He hadn’t had a choice then. Ever since, his choice had been to distance himself from them. It hadn’t worked.
Natasha and Genevieve had written to him in prison. Ben had visited him there every few months.
Now that he’d returned to Misty River, they were ramping up their efforts. He’d walked out of the gas station shortly after arriving in town to find Sebastian waiting next to his truck. Genevieve and Natasha had each come by the apartment a couple of times back when he’d been renovating. Ben had showed up at his workplace.
Ben set the dog in her playpen. Right away, she started whining.
“Can you see if she’ll eat something?” Luke asked.
Ben stepped inside the fencing, took a seat, and held a few pieces of dry food on his palm. She trotted in the other direction.
Finley had told him how important it was for puppies to eat and drink. She’d described the steps he should take if the dog wouldn’t eat due to the “trauma” she was currently experiencing. She’d recommended softening her dry food and mixing it with wet food. If that didn’t work, feed her liquid oatmeal with a syringe.
He was not going to make oatmeal and squirt it down the throats of puppies. At the same time, his puppy hadn’t eaten one bite of food since he’d taken over her care, and concern had started to darken his thoughts.
Why wouldn’t she eat like a normal dog? He’d feel better if she’d eat.
Ben kept trying to entice her with food, and she kept ignoring him.
Ben picked her up and walked her back and forth in front of the wall of industrial windows, murmuring endearments and patting her. It was the kind of thing parents did with babies on TV shows.
The puppy calmed, so Ben continued.
Ben was better with the dog than he was. Luke was torn between wanting Ben to leave so he could be alone in his apartment and not wanting Ben to leave because then he’d lose his puppy-sitter. “Feel free to go anytime,” Luke said.
“I’ll eat here, if you don’t mind. Then head out.”
Luke shrugged.
Still holding the puppy, Ben sat at Luke’s table in front of the remaining take-out container.
“Do you want me to hold her?” Luke hadn’t finished his dinner, but it didn’t seem right to make Ben deal with a dog that was Luke’s responsibility.
“Nah. She’s finally settled down. I learned the skill of eating one-handed while taking care of my nieces and nephews.” He grinned, reminding Luke forcefully of the kid that Ben had once been.
Luke was a year older, but he’d known Ben throughout his childhood because they’d grown up in the same church youth group. Of the Coleman family’s four kids, Ben was the nicest, the one who was always in a good mood.
The day of the earthquake, the people on their mission trip had held a sports camp for local kids on inner-city soccer fields. At one point, Luke had seen Ben jogging down the field, passing a ball back-and-forth with a young boy. Eventually, the boy had kicked the ball into a portable net. Ben had thrown his fists in the air and given the same smile he’d given just now.
A few hours after that, their lives went from normal to near death. Down in that dusty dungeon, Ben had been hopeful and supportive. Luke had been neither of those things. It had taken all his effort to continue to breathe in and out in the face of his overwhelming terror and remorse. He’d been gripped with the worst type of shock, his mind consumed with one thought.
Ethan.
Ethan!
Over and over, with sickening, gut-punching guilt, he’d recalled the words he’d said to Ethan as they were about to take the stairs to the basement. “You’re last in line.”
So stupid. So, so stupid. Why had he said that?
All these years later, he still didn’t have an answer. He only had regret. And the sharp physical pain that wedged between his ribs every time he put himself back there, even for a few moments.
Luke crossed to the trash and threw away the remains of his meal. “So, you’ve started volunteering at the Center?”
Ben swallowed his bite. “Yes. I’m enjoying it so far.”
“Are you volunteering there because that’s where I work?” Luke leaned his hips against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms.
Ben stuck his fork in his rice so that it pointed straight up like a flagpole. “I had several reasons for wanting to volunteer there. But to answer your question, yes. One of them was you. I’d like for there to be at least a little bit of communication between us.”
“Why?”
“You were . . . there with us. It’s never set well with me, the fact that the rest of us have been close friends ever since but you haven’t been a part of that. Our group will never . . . feel complete without you.”
“You want to communicate with me so you can feel a sense of completion?”
“Sure. And because I think our friendship can be of some benefit to you.”
“You remind me of the worst day of my life. So I don’t see how contact between us could be for my benefit.”
Ben’s mouth formed a grim line. “You saved us the day of the earthquake. I’ve never been able to do anything for you in return, but I’ve always wanted to. I still want to.”
They’d been kids when the walls of that basement had begun to shake. Luke had been first in line. He’d simply pulled Ben forward, then Natasha, then Sebastian, then Genevieve. He’d turned to race back into the pitch-dark hallway for Ethan when Sebastian had stopped his progress a split-second before concrete crashed down. Luke hadn’t been fast enough.
“I didn’t save you.” It was a joke to think that anybody could have left that pile of rubble feeling gratitude toward him, the boy who’d killed his brother. “You’d all have made it to safety without me.”
“No, we wouldn’t have.”
“Of course you would have.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
“You don’t owe me,” Luke stated. He hated the patient way Ben was trying to reason with him. People had handled him the very same way after Ethan’s death.
He wondered sometimes if that’s partly what had spurred his rebellious teenage years—the driving need to take the pitying look out of everyone’s eyes. If he was a drinker, a partier, and a drug user who drove too fast and slept around, they couldn’t keep looking at him with all that sympathy.
His strategy had failed. They’d still looked at him with sympathy. The day he’d turned eighteen, he’d left town with the urgency of a drowning swimmer fighting for air.
The strangers he’d met in Atlanta hadn’t treated him like the brother of a dead kid.
“Even if I don’t owe you,” Ben said, “I do care. I really liked Ethan. I still think about him often. I’m sorry about what happened to him and sorry about what happened to you and your family because of it.”
Based on what Luke’s mom had told him, Ben kept in close contact with her and his dad. Ben was perfect in every way.
It was annoying.
“I’m just hoping,” Ben went on, “that you might get to a place where spending time with us doesn’t only remind you of the worst day of your life. It would be great if we could also remind you of the good, at least some of the time.”
“What good?”
“The fact that we lived.”
“Here’s where you and I view things differently.”
“How so?”
“For years, I didn’t see the fact that I lived as good.”
Ben nodded once, solemn. “And now?”
“I’m still undecided.”
Luke could see that Ben wanted to say more.
“What?” Luke asked.
“You remember my mom?”
“Yeah.” CeCe was a short woman with tall opinions.
“She and Genevieve’s mom, Caroline, are going to host a Valentine’s party. It’s the kind of event they love to do. Big. All their friends and family members will be there, from eighty-year-olds down to teenagers. Mom wants you to come.”
“No.”
“She talks to me about it every day.”
“Still no.”
“Will you come if I take this dog home with me for the night?” Laugh lines creased the skin around Ben’s eyes.
“No.” As little as he wanted to keep the dog overnight, Luke wanted to attend a Valentine’s Day party much less.
I should have taken Ben up on his offer, Luke thought at 2:40 a.m. What had he been thinking? Lying on his side, he clamped a pillow over his exposed ear. No Valentine’s Day party could be worse than this. The puppy had more energy than a football fan hopped up on Red Bull.
Finley had said a lot of things to him about crate training, house training, and putting the puppy on a schedule because puppies loved routine.
At this point he could not have cared less about crate training, house training, or a routine. His goal was far simpler. Keep the dog alive until its rightful owners—and he couldn’t imagine who’d be idiot enough to adopt this puppy—took it home.
He just wished he knew how to make the job of keeping the dog alive easier on himself.
Before he’d stretched out in bed, he’d moved the playpen and crate into his bedroom because Finley had told him it would be comforting for the puppy to sense his presence through the night.
She’d said nothing about how uncomfortable it would be for him to sense her loud, unhappy presence through the night.
With a groan, he stretched his torso off the side of the bed and rooted around until he caught hold of the puppy in the dark. She easily fit inside the grip of one hand. He gently pressed her into the angle between the mattress and his bare chest.
She tried to scramble away, upset and shaking. No doubt she was searching for Ben, the love of her life.
Looping a finger around her collar, he kept her in place. In his most soothing voice, he whispered, “Ben’s not here, which means you’re stuck with me, and I really, really dislike you. You’re making my life hell, and if I could sell you to a dog meat distributor in exchange for sleep, I would.”
She continued to strain against his hold, but not as frantically.
“I hate the way you pee and poop on my floor,” he whispered sweetly. “I hate the sound of your crying. And I hate that you still haven’t eaten anything. If I never see you again, I’ll be glad. Also, your ears are dumb. They don’t fit on your head.”
Gradually, finally, she stilled. Plopping down on her belly, she scooted as close to him as she could get. Then tried to scoot even closer.
She was a small warmth against his skin, a body mostly made up of fur with fragile bones and a pattering heart underneath. She smelled like dog breath and shampoo.
He hadn’t shared a bed with anything or anyone in years, and this wasn’t how he would’ve chosen to break that streak. He was going to have to wash her stink off his sheets.
He closed his eyes, exhaustion creeping over his muscles. If he squished her during the night, or if she fell off the bed and broke her neck, or if she starved, then it would serve Finley right.
An image of Finley took shape in his mind, coming into focus. Her pale skin. Eyes the clear illuminated blue of the most stunning place he’d ever been: a mountain lake in the Tetons on a family trip a month before the earthquake. Her bright and genuine smile.
Finley, passionate champion of underdogs.
Finley, whose dead fiancé had been a do-gooder.
He wanted her—
No.
Don’t think about her, he warned himself. You cannot let yourself care.
And with every fiber of his soul, he knew it was true.
CHAPTER NINE
The next morning, Finley relocated herself and her laptop to Furry Tails’ foyer so that she could keep an eye out for Luke.
He arrived right on time. She watched him approach the building, holding a dog carrier in one hand. He shouldered in the door like an angry north wind.
Lately, pleasure coursed through her every time she saw Luke after they’d been apart. This time, no different. Pleasure swirled, warm and enticing.
No no no. Take away this pull I’m feeling toward him, Lord! Her motives toward Luke had to be sterling.
“How’d it go?” she asked cheerfully.
“Not well.” His eyes looked red and tired.
“In what way?”
“Every way. I think you’re going to need to shoot oatmeal into her mouth because she hasn’t eaten anything.”
“Has she been drinking water?”
“Some.” He set down the carrier. Agatha wailed.
“Not to worry. We’ll take over now.”
“Have you figured out which train depot you visited with your dad?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I spent time looking at pictures last night, but nothing clicked.”
“What do you remember about the depot?”
“I don’t think trains were coming and going, back when we visited. So it might have been a historic site.” She sounded uncertain, because she was. “When I checked, I learned that North Georgia has a lot of historic train depots.”
“What color was the building?”
“Grayish . . . maybe?”
“How long did it take you and your dad to drive there?”
“I don’t remember.”
His face fell.
She did not want this hiccup to affect the progress he’d made thanks to her five-step plan.
“I don’t think my dad would have taken me on a long trip to a train depot,” she said quickly. “Hours in the car have always made me antsy.”
This did not appear to brighten his spirits.
“I’ll keep working on it,” she assured him, “and come up with some train depot suggestions soon.”
“Very soon?”
“Yes!”
He stalked down the hallway.
“Thanks for taking care of Agatha,” she called after him. “I’m sure that you and Ben did a great job.”
Luke vanished from sight.
She regarded the puppy. “Affectionate man, no?”
Agatha gave her a look like, Are you crazy, lady?
“I’m crazy like a fox,” she whispered to the dog. She took Agatha to the empty play yard, released her, then texted Meadow and Bridget.
Finley
I’m experiencing consistent pangs of attraction toward Luke Dempsey. I feel sheepish admitting this because these feelings don’t square with my no-dating stance and because Bridget expressed interest in Luke back on my birthday.
Bridget
I officially withdraw my romantic interest in Luke Dempsey! I’ve never even met the man.
Finley
How do I squelch pangs of attraction?
Meadow
By ignoring pangs at all costs.
Bridget
Feelings are valid. Don’t stuff them down. Take time to explore your chemistry with Luke.
Meadow
Um, what? She decided ages ago to remain single.
Bridget
Situations change. God’s will for us changes. You have to give yourself permission to change, too, Finley.
