Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(33)

She didn’t move. Her skin felt too tight. “So you’re here,” she said, “and I’m here, and obviously we’ll run into each other now and again.”

“Yes.”

“You look good, Spaniard,” she said. “The years have been kind.”

His eyes smiled. His face didn’t move; it was like a magic trick or something, the way he could smile like that. Those dark, dark Latin eyes. Lucas never said too much, but his eyes did. Always had.

Never once had he ever said he loved her. Never. But she would have sworn it was true anyway, hell’s to the yes, she thought she’d seen it in his eyes a thousand times.

She wondered if his wife had thought the same thing.

Her throat was abruptly tight.

“I need to walk my dog,” she said. He could just stay here and eat and brood and be by himself.

“Can I come?” he asked.

“What about your dinner?”

“It can wait.”

Dang it. “Sure.”

He left a few bills on the table, and they went out. Better. The cool May air was welcome against her hot face.

They crossed the town green. O’Rourke’s looked safe and cheery; she could see the mob through the windows, the soft, golden light and gentle tide of voices and music from inside. The pub’s slogan was simple and heartfelt, and one Colleen had come up with the first day she and Con bought the place: O’Rourke’s: You’re very welcome here.

And now, Lucas one step behind her, she wanted very much to go into the bar, see her brother, flirt with Tom Barlow and Gerard Chartier, chat up Cathy and Louise, give a hug to Mel Stoakes, whose wife had just died. She wanted to be the person behind the bar, because she knew what she was doing there.

They went down the block, away from the green and into the Village until they were in front of her house. “I’ll be right back,” she told him, and ran up the stairs, past the landing where she’d just planted her porch garden, and up to her cheery blue door.

Rufus, her faithful pup, was waiting. “Come on, big guy,” she said, and he bounded down the stairs in two strides.

Lucas took a step back, she was happy to see, and Rufus did what most dogs did—rammed his snout right into Lucas’s crotch.

“Easy there, boy,” he said.

“He likes you. Then again, he tried to hump a tree the other day, so don’t take it personally.”

Lucas’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “You need a leash?”

“Nope.” Rufus stuck to her side like a guardian angel as they walked to the park down by the lake. “Go ahead, boy,” she said, and he loped off to sniff and investigate.

The air smelled coppery and sweet—lilacs and lake water—and the hum from O’Rourke’s was audible on the breeze. Small waves slapped the shore and dock. There were a few people out, but it was fully dark now, and most were on their way home.

The tingling feeling was back, and her whole body thrummed with that invisible connection to Lucas, as if they were circled by electricity.

She wondered if he felt it, too.

This is pathetic, she told herself. He was your first love. Big deal. Get over it. He’ll be gone again soon, anyway.

She sat down on one of the benches that overlooked Crooked Lake. Lucas sat next to her, not touching, but close enough.

He smelled the same. That clean, sharp smell, like the outdoors. She used to tell him it was ironic, he smelled like the mountains, her city boy—

Well. He wasn’t a boy anymore. And he wasn’t hers.

Funny that she’d felt buzzed earlier. She was stone-cold sober now.

“Well? You wanted to talk,” she said, her voice sounding terse to her own ears.

“Yes.” There was a long silence, the wind gusting. It was getting chilly. She should’ve brought a sweater. Or he could put his arm around her, and she’d feel perfect.

Stop it.

Rufus came up, and she rubbed his rough head, then tugged on his ears. He smiled happily and flopped at her feet, and she slid her foot over his stomach for the obligatory belly rub.

“How have you been?” Lucas asked.

“Good. Fine. Great, actually.” She cleared her throat. Think of him as an old friend. “You know. Connor and I bought the pub, and he’s the chef, and I run the place. We love it. Things are good.”

“And your family?

“Just fine. Sort of. Dad and Gail got married, and they have a daughter. Savannah. She’s nine now.” Weird, to be telling him about this. Maybe he knew. Maybe he internet stalked her the way she occasionally looked him up on Google. Well. She hadn’t in a long time. But she used to.

“Is your grandfather still alive?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s horrifyingly healthy.” Gramp no longer spoke and hadn’t in years, and he cried most afternoons, but his body was doing just great. One of God’s little jokes.

“How old is he now?”

“Eighty-seven.”

Lucas nodded. Didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t, either. He was the one who wanted to talk, after all.

“Colleen,” he began, and his voice, damn it, so deep and rumbly and scraped her in all those special places, and it just wasn’t fair.