RECLAIM MY HEART(37)

Lucas’s chuckle sounded forced. “I’m sorry. Really, Tyne. Forgive my questions. Your love life is none of my business.” He shook his head, his words picking up speed. “That would be as bad as you asking me about mine. Love life, that is. Not that you would.” His gaze skidded from his coffee cup, to the condiment basket, to her face and back to his cup. “And not that there’d be anything to tell.” He grasped and released the handle of his mug several times. “I’ve dated, sure. But—” he shook his head again, his brows rising slightly “—I’ve never expected to find ‘the real thing,’ if you know what I mean. I learned the truth about that myth long ago.”
Their eyes met again, and his face went hot before he scanned the café for the waitress.
Tyne’s heart thudded so hard against her ribs she was certain he must hear it. She’d been the one who had taught him the truth about ‘the real thing.’ She’d taught him the futility of looking for true love. That was all too clear.
The conversation turned as sticky as the humid August day.
“We should probably go, don’t you think?” Clamping her hand firmly on her purse, she slid out of the booth.
“Yeah.” He pulled out his wallet and tossed several bills on the table, clearly relieved that she’d changed the subject. “You’re right. We should head on home.”
?     ?     ?

Lucas had kept himself busy all day Sunday. After cleaning the carburetor on the ancient lawn mower, he’d mowed the lawn. He’d trimmed back the overgrown bushes on the property and called to have the piles of branches removed. He’d washed his car and cleaned out the shed in the back yard.
Tyne didn’t know if he was avoiding her because he needed some time to think about his meeting with his mother, or if it was because he was feeling embarrassed about having tread on the prickly ground of their love lives.
Here it was Monday morning, and they’d barely finished their coffee and the cinnamon buns she’d baked when there had been a knock at the front door. Another Wikweko resident had come looking for legal ad k fo anvice from Lucas. The man and woman had both looked troubled as they had settled onto the couch in the living room, so Tyne had slipped on a pair of sneakers and walked into town to give Lucas the quiet he needed to consult on the couple’s problem.
Although the people had left by the time Tyne returned home in the afternoon, Lucas continued to work, spending several hours making notes and telephone calls, she assumed, to his office in the City. He’d stopped to eat the simple dinner of Cobb salad she’d fixed them. And while their conversation was a little awkward, that’s when she’d learned that the couple had been swindled out of their life savings by a fraudulent financial planner and they were hoping Lucas could somehow find a way to help them recoup their losses.
“Wikweko doesn’t have a law firm in town?” she’d asked him.
He’d shaken his head. “They’d have to drive into Oak Mills or Millersville or Lancaster. Martin and Patricia have been lied to. They were taken advantage of. It’s difficult for them to trust anyone’s advice. They weren’t sure where to turn. I’m like family, I guess. Someone to rely on without making them feel stupid for handing some stranger all that money. I’m happy that they came to me for help. Otherwise, they might have just given up. Taken the loss.”
The idea had been disturbing.
Lucas had gone back to work after dinner so Tyne had taken her book out into the backyard. But it became difficult to read in the twilight and she’d decided to take a walk.
Since Lucas had coupled the ‘love match’ phrase with Rob’s name Saturday afternoon, Tyne had thought of little else.
Did she love Rob? That one small question continued to torment her.
Before Lucas had asked her point-blank, forcing her to really and truly think it out, she’d have said she did. She cared about Rob. That much she knew. The two of them got along well enough, rarely arguing unless it was over something disrespectful Zach had said or done. Rob had no experience with teens and didn’t understand the idea that all adolescents go through a rebellious stage. He seemed understanding when it came to her job; a lot of men wouldn’t like or put up with her work schedule. He didn’t mind that she wasn’t overtly social, and that her idea of nice date was a quiet dinner and a movie at home. But were those small positives enough to base a marriage on? Would getting along offer a firm foundation for a life together?
Was there really such a thing as true love? Or soul mates, for that matter?
True, Rob didn’t stir in her that dizzying titillation one usually associated with the head-over-heels kind of love. But then, David never had, either. She’d gone into her first marriage with her eyes wide open, and she’d thought she was facing her future with Rob the same way. The practicality of it felt…?right. She’d come to the conclusion that hot and needy kind of fervor didn’t really exist. Feverish passion was something Hollywood movie makers had created. It was a myth. A fantasy. Just as Lucas had said.
But Lucas made you feel it.
She exhaled an exasperated sigh. That had happened years ago. And it had been nothing more than raging teenage hormones. She had wanted him so badly back then she’d thought she’d be completely consumed by her urges. Talk about feverish passion! She’d been frantic for him. Insane for him. She closed her eyes, an irrepressible smile curling her mouth. Even now, her skin burned when she thought of their fiery, frenzied love-making.