Kate’s head jerked up. “I beg your pardon?”
“You’re in love with me. You just don’t know it yet.”
It took Kate only half a second to respond. “Of all the egotistical, vain, high-handed…” She paused to suck in a breath. If Luke’s intent was to shock her, he’d succeeded. She bolted to her feet and flailed the air with both hands. Unable to stand still, she started pacing the kitchen. “I don’t understand you. I’ve tried, honestly I’ve tried. One moment you’re the Rock of Gibraltar, steady and secure and everything I need, my best friend, and the next moment you’re saying the most ridiculous things to me. It never used to be like this! Why have you changed?”
“Is it really that bad?” he cajoled softly, ignoring her question.
“I don’t know what happened to you—to us—at the wedding reception, but like you said, something must’ve been in the air. Let’s blame it on the champagne and drop it before one of us gets hurt.”
“If you gave the idea of our getting married some serious thought, it might grow on you,” he suggested next.
Then he got to his feet and moved purposefully toward her, his mouth twisted in a cocky grin. “Maybe this will help you decide what’s best.”
“I—”
He laid a finger across her mouth. “It seems to me you’ve forgotten it’s not ladylike to be quite so stubborn.” With that, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her gently against him.
Knowing what he intended, Kate opened her mouth to protest, but he fastened his lips over hers, sealing off the words, and to her chagrin, soon erasing them altogether. Her fingers gripped the collar of his blue button-snap shirt and against every dictate of her will her mouth parted, welcoming his touch.
When he released her, it was a minor miracle that she didn’t collapse on the floor. He paused and a wide grin split his face.
“Yup,” he said, looking pleased, “you love me all right.”
Three
Kate had never felt more grateful for a Monday morning than she did the following day. At least when she was at school, she had the perfect excuse to avoid another confrontation with Luke. He seemed to believe he was somehow responsible for her and to take that responsibility quite seriously. She had absolutely no intention of holding him to his promise and couldn’t understand why he was being so stubborn. To suggest she was in love with him simply because she’d proposed marriage and responded ardently to his kisses revealed how truly irrational Luke Rivers had become.
Kate paused and let that thought run through her mind a second time, then laughed aloud. No wonder Luke insisted on marrying her. Kate had to admit she could see why he might have the wrong impression. Still, she wished she could think of some way to set him straight.
Luke was right about a few things, though. She did love him—but not in the way he implied. She felt for him as a sister did toward a special older brother. As a woman did toward a confidant and companion of many years’ standing. The feelings she’d experienced when he kissed her were something of a mystery, but could easily be attributed to the heightened emotions following Clay’s wedding. There’d been so many changes in Kate’s life during the past few months that she barely understood herself anymore.
She could never love Luke the way she’d loved Clay. For as long as Kate could remember, she’d pictured herself as Clay’s wife. Joining her life with any other man’s seemed not only wrong but completely foreign.
“Good morning, Miss Logan,” seven-year-old Taylor Morgenroth said as he walked casually into the classroom. “I saw you at Mr. Franklin’s wedding on Saturday.”
“You did?” It shouldn’t surprise her, since nearly every family in town had been represented at the wedding. Probably more of her students had seen her there.
“You were with Mr. Rivers, weren’t you? My mom kept asking my dad who you were dancing with. That was Mr. Rivers, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Kate had to bite her tongue to keep from explaining that she hadn’t actually been “with” Luke. He wasn’t her official date, although they’d attended the wedding together. But explaining something like that to a second-grader would only confuse the child.
“My dad made me dance with my older sister. It was yucky.”
Kate managed some remark about how much of a gentleman Taylor had been, but she doubted that he wanted to hear it.
Before long, the students of Nightingale Elementary were filing into the classroom and rushing toward their desks. From that point on, Kate didn’t have time to think about Luke or Saturday night or anything else except her lesson plans for the day.