blouse, she looked like the cute little teenager he had fallen in love with years before.
He had a sudden vision of the way she had looked on the day they had gotten married. It hadn’t been much of a ceremony, a simple civil service in city hall. She’d been eighteen years old and had gazed up at him as if he were her entire world. It wasn’t until they’d been married several months that he’d realized he was her entire world.
“Hi,” he said awkwardly.
She smiled a greeting, her big brown eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at his duffel bag. “Is that all your luggage?”
He nodded. “I travel light.” He saw her lips compress in disapproval, as if she knew he’d thrown together clothes in the bag only moments before, which of course he had.
“I’ll take it, Dad. I’ll store it with ours,” Danny said, taking the bag from him. He disappeared into the back as Sherri started the engine.
“You want me to drive?” he asked with a touch of irritation. She’d probably packed a month ago…sixteen suitcases full of useless items.
“I’ll drive until I get tired, then you can take over,” she answered, her voice pleasant, but distant.
Luke settled into the seat with a sigh. He stared out the window at the passing scenery, waiting for her to say something, anything to ease the awkward silence that grew and expanded with each passing moment.
What do you say to the woman you’d been married to for five years, and divorced from for the past five? he wondered. He could tell her about his date last Friday night, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t want to hear about it. Besides, it had been a horrible night and he was doing his best to forget it. He could tell her about his latest photography assignment, but she’d always resented his work.
They’d had little in common years ago. After five years of separation, he suspected that hadn’t changed. Maybe it was best that he just keep his mouth shut.
He sighed again. He leaned forward and turned on the radio, relaxing somewhat as the sounds of an old rock and roll song filled the motor home.
“Uh…would you mind leaving it off until we get out of this rush-hour traffic?” she asked politely.
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. He turned it off, remembering that she’d never liked to drive with the radio playing.
He was aware of Danny returning from the back and sitting down in the chair just behind him. Danny leaned forward and placed a hand on Luke’s arm, and his other hand on Sherri’s shoulder. “This is gonna be so much fun,” he exclaimed with all the excitement a nine-year-old could generate. “We’re going to have the greatest time in the world, aren’t we?” His words were met with silence. “Aren’t we?” he prompted, squeezing Luke’s arm.
“Sure, the greatest,” Luke replied faintly.
“The best,” Sherri added. She looked at Luke, and in her eyes he saw the same dull dread he knew was in his own.
He smiled weakly, then turned his gaze out the window. Yes, this was definitely going to be the trip from hell.
Chapter Two
Sherri feigned sleep and studied Luke beneath her lowered lashes. She’d spent the last six hours driving and after they’d stopped for lunch, had relinquished control of the vehicle to him.
She’d spent the past five years trying not to really look at him whenever they happened to run into each other. She now took the opportunity to examine the man she had once been married to, the man she had once loved above all else.
Luke had always been handsome. Sherri was honest enough to know that it had been his intense good looks that had initially attracted her to him.
He was still sinfully attractive. The passage of time had merely intensified his bold features. His chin was square and strong, his nose a Roman feature. He’s wearing his dark hair longer, she observed. She liked it. She decided it gave him a rakish look that complemented his devil-may-care personality.
He’d taken off the leather bomber jacket he’d been wearing this morning and was clad in a short-sleeved T-shirt that exposed his firmly muscled, tanned arms. He had the body of a man who worked out, but she knew Luke was too undisciplined to follow any regular workout regimen.
She looked at his hands, gripping the steering wheel competently. She’d always loved his hands. They were artist hands, slender and long-fingered, yet masculine with the dark curly hair that dotted each knuckle.
He talked with his hands, gesturing often as if they were an extension of his thought processes. They used to laugh about it. She’d teased that if his hands were tied behind his back, he would be completely tongue-tied.
“Sherri?”
His voice caused her to squeeze her eyes more tightly closed. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been looking at him. She kept her breathing even and rhythmic, feigning deep slumber.
“I know you aren’t sleeping, Sherri.” His voice was softly indulgent and she could hear the smile in it.
She cracked an eyelid. “How do you know I’m not?” she asked, suddenly irritable.
“Because you always sleep with your mouth hanging open,” he observed.
She sat up straighter in the seat. “I most certainly do not,” she replied stiffly.
He smiled, a smirking, knowing grin that instantly fueled her unreasonable aggravation with him. “For the five years we were married, you never, ever slept with your mouth closed.”
“Well, it’s been a long time since you’ve slept with me and nobody else has ever complained,” she snapped. She groaned inwardly. Now why had she said that? In the years since her divorce from Luke, there had been no opportunity for anyone to complain about her sleeping habits. Other than the occasional night when Danny had a nightmare and had needed some assurance, she’d slept alone.
“We need to talk,” he said, not taking his gaze off the highway they traveled.
“Talk about what?” She sat up in the seat and eyed him curiously.
“About the silence we’ve suffered through for the last six hours.”
“It hasn’t been silent…Danny has been chattering.” Sherri turned around in her seat, looking for her son.
“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “He went back a little while ago to take a nap. He can’t hear us.” He looked at her for a moment, then redirected his gaze to the road. “Sherri, I don’t know about you, but so far this trip has been damned uncomfortable. The tension between us is so ripe, Danny can’t help but feel it. We can’t have the whole trip like this.”
Sherri thought about those six hours. She had driven, Luke had stared out the window and Danny had talked. It had been the inane chatter of a kid who sensed tension and was attempting to dispel it. “So, what do you suggest?” she asked.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that we’ve got three weeks of close contact, intimate togetherness and a Christmas holiday to get
