Much Ado About You(60)
I half expected another sarcastic response. Something immature and lacking in foresight. Yet, to my surprise, Lucas just looked at The Alnster Inn and then back to me, his expression solemn.
“You think I don’t already know that, growing up with my dad, then you really don’t know anything about this place. Now”—his gaze flickered over my shoulder to Roane before returning to mine—“take this as a gentle warning and not a threat, because I don’t want your boyfriend kicking my arse, but putting your nose into people’s business round here tends to get the thing lopped off.”
I could tell by his expression and tone that it wasn’t a threat. That he actually meant well by the warning. So I heeded it, wondering if perhaps I really had crossed a line. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just . . . trying to be helpful.”
“Aye, well, I’m not in need of your matchmaking services, Ms. Starling.” With a wry grin and a tip of his invisible hat, he strode past me toward the inn.
I shook my head in disbelief. No wonder young Viola was intrigued by this guy. He was too smart for his own freaking good, and talking to him wasn’t like talking to any twenty-year-old guy I’d met before. There was an attractive authority and maturity about Lucas Elliot that made him dangerous to young women everywhere. And he totally had me figured out.
Dammit.
“You getting in anytime soon?” Roane called from his SUV.
With a grin of apology, I hurried over and climbed in. “Sorry.”
“What was that about?” He jerked his chin in the direction of The Alnster Inn.
Did I really want to tell Roane about my failed matchmaking attempts?
“Evie?”
Finding myself unable to invent a lie or bad excuse, I told him everything. What I’d witnessed between Lucas and Viola on Market Day, Viola’s expression when she saw Lucas with that unknown girl, and then Lucas’s reaction to the old racist villager.
“I think they like each other underneath all that animosity.”
Roane shot me an amused look as he drove us out of Alnster. “Evie, anyone with eyes can see Lucas Elliot wants Viola Tait.”
I gaped. “You know?”
“Oh, aye.” He turned left onto the main road, heading south from Alnster. “A few years ago—it must have been early summer, just before the two of them were heading to Newcastle Uni—Viola was in a car accident and ended up in hospital with a broken collarbone and cracked ribs. Word spread round the village fast, but all anyone knew was that Vi was in hospital, that the car she was in was totaled and it was bad. Her friend, the driver, escaped miraculously with very few injuries, but Viola was unconscious when she was pulled from the car by paramedics.”
“Jesus,” I whispered, thinking of Milly and Dex and how worried they must have been.
“Aye. Well, I was at the hospital to support Milly and Dex. I didn’t want to leave them until I was sure Viola was going to be all right. When I came out of her room, I found Lucas skulking around, pale faced—a jittery bloody mess.” Roane shook his head, smirking. “When I approached him, he practically jumped me for information about Viola, and I knew then my suspicions were correct. Lucas doesn’t just fancy Viola, Evie, he cares about her. He might even love her.”
My chest ached at the thought. “But—”
“He knew I knew then, and he made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone he’d been there to see how she was. And I haven’t told anyone until now.”
“Why?”
“Because his name is Lucas Elliot. Do you think West, or even Kathy, would ever speak to that boy again if he told them he was getting together with Viola Tait?”
I threw my hands up in despair. “This is ridiculous, Roane! Why should two young people who obviously care about each other have to be at each other’s throats to keep the other at bay, because some dude can’t get over a lost love?”
My friend was quiet for a moment. And then, voice gentle, he asked, “Have you ever been in love, Evie?”
Surprised by the turn of conversation, I blinked a few times before admitting, “No.”
“Then how can you say West Elliot should just get over it? I’m not saying I agree with the shit he’s pulled, or that he shouldn’t have tried to move on . . . I absolutely don’t. I’m just saying that West must have loved Milly with everything he had for it to have twisted him up inside so badly. And that’s sad, Evie. That’s fucking tragic.”
It was. Terribly so. But . . . “Any good father wouldn’t wish the same on his son.”
“I know you mean well.” He gave me a gentle smile to soften the blow of what he said next. “But you need to stop playing matchmaker with those two.”
Feeling somewhat foolish and admonished, I turned away, watching the countryside pass us by. “I just . . . I don’t want them to end up like me. In their thirties and desperately searching their memory for where it was they took the wrong goddamn turn. It would be worse for them, knowing what was possible between them and they never took the chance on each other.”
“Who’s to say it would work out with them anyway?”
True.
I nodded, melancholy.
“Hey.” I felt a strong sensation squeeze my knee, and I looked down to see Roane’s big hand on me. There was a scar across his middle knuckle, and his fingernails were short and blunt. The skin of his hands and arms was just a shade darker than my tan legs. His palm was rough, leathery. A working hand. Masculine against my feminine, slender, soft-skinned knee. There was something visceral about the sight.