Flower Girl Bride by Dana Corbit Page A

have to pretend I didn’t understand why he needed Sam’s clothes right away and didn’t want to take mine: he didn’t want any reason to come back here.
    Once a sleepy Sam had taken a restroom break and was back in his own clean things, Luke gathered his son in his arms and strode down the hallway.
    I followed after him. “It was great having you here, Sam.”
    â€œThank you,” the boy said, already snuggling sleepily into the comfort of his father’s arms. They were at the bottom of the steps when Sam’s head popped up again. “Tell Princess goodbye for me, okay?”
    â€œI will.”
    Luke glanced back at me, his silence speaking louder than his words ever could. Here I’d been trying to tell him how to care for his child, and we both knew I still hadn’t mastered Pet Care 101.
    I kind of hoped he would smile, would see the humor in the situation, even if I was having a hard time finding it myself. He didn’t. Instead, he continued across the room to the slider, only turning back to me when his hand was on the door. “Thanks for spending the day with Sam.”
    I cleared my throat. “It was my pleasure.”
    He tapped the side of his head against Sam’s mop of hair. “Say bye to Miss Cassie.”
    â€œBye, Miss Cassie.”
    Sam lifted his hand for a sleepy wave and then let it fall back on his father’s arm. His smile was the lastthing I saw as Luke carried him out the door. The sound of the slider clicking closed had a disconcerting finality to it.
    After they disappeared around the side of the house, I stared out at the deck, its stained cedar planks golden in the artificial light. The wooden structure appeared larger now that it was empty except for a few groupings of tan and navy patio furniture. The laughter and smiles that had populated the deck and the rest of this house for the last several days were starkly absent.
    But it was more than the empty house that made me feel so vacant inside. I missed the noise, the activity and the laughter that came with Luke Sheridan and his rambunctious son. After tonight, I would probably see neither of them again, and it was mostly my fault.
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    â€œHow’s my precious princess doing?”
    I grinned into the portable phone Wednesday afternoon, only a little disappointed that it was an international call I’d answered rather than a local one. I shouldn’t have expected any different. If Luke were going to call, he would have done it by now, instead of leaving me for the last two days to relax my body, bake my skin and generally go out of my mind with trying to avoid sessions of introspection. This was supposed to be a time for respite, not an episode of “Cassie Blake—This is Your Life.”
    Though my grin had long since faded, I remained determined to stay cheerful. “How’s your princess doing? That depends. Are you talking about me or the cat?”
    â€œBoth, of course.” Aunt Eleanor’s laughter warmedme, even through four thousand miles as the jumbo jet flies.
    â€œBut for now tell me about my kitty. Jack made me wait forever before I could check in with you.”
    If that wasn’t the definition of irony, I didn’t know what was. This was the third time she’d phoned me since they’d left for Paris. If she called any more often, she would have to mortgage her mansion to pay the cell phone bill.
    â€œShe’s fine. Really.”
    Well, she wasn’t dead. I knew that anyway. In fact, Princess was sitting in the doorway to my guest suite that minute, watching me chatting on the phone and putting away the rest of my clean laundry in the bureau drawers.
    For a cat that despised me, she sure spent a lot of time watching me. That morning my heart had skipped a few important beats when I’d awakened to find her sitting on the end of the bed, just watching. But then didn’t most of the big cats study their prey before