If he gives you any trouble, let me know.” He acknowledged her thanks with a nod, thinking that she had a lovely smile. But her smile faltered and, glancing around, he frowned in concern. Had she stopped smiling because she’d seen Marcus?
“Where’s this dinner you were promising?” She glanced at Marcus and then smiled when his relaxed manner indicated that the three of them would spend an enjoyable evening. She had wondered what Marcus was doing alone in the living room, whether he was brooding about Amy. She took pleasure in having controlled her urge to go to him, suspecting that he had needed to be alone in order to recoup from the trauma of their long wait for the doctors’ verdict.
Amanda asked Marcus to say grace, explaining that her aunt Meredith had always said that, in a civilized home, the head of the house always says grace before meals. Marcus looked as if he wasn’t sure he was head of that house, but a smirking Luke bowed his head and waited. Marcus said the grace. Amanda wouldn’t have admitted that she had set out to impress Luke with her cooking, but that was the effect she got. He had as big an appetite as his brother, and as he swallowed his fifth biscuit, he told her, “If you feed Marcus like this every night, you’ll never get rid of him.” In a reflexive action, she reached over and gently wiped the scowl from Marcus’ face and got an embarrassed grin for her effort. Her innocent gesture seemed to surprise and please Luke, and she was happier than she’d been at any time since her marriage. She felt that she had a friend and ally in her brother-in-law, and her instinct told her that, in the months to come, she would need his support.
Innocently desiring to communicate to Marcus the feeling that Luke gave her, she told her husband, “I like your brother, Marcus.”
Marcus fingered his emerging beard and shrugged his left shoulder. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Liking Luke is something women just seem to do automatically.”
Rather taken aback, she responded honestly. “Oh, I can see that Luke is very handsome, Marcus, but not more so than you. Perhaps even less. Do you have any more brothers?” Marcus stopped eating and looked at his wife.
“No. You really think I’m better looking than Luke? You’re pulling my leg. You’ve got to be. Luke’s on the stud list of every matchmaking matron in Portsmouth. If a celebrity beauty comes to town, he’s the man they ask to escort her. He once squired Miss America around Portsmouth. Tell her how many tuxedos you’ve got, Luke.”
Luke’s gruff response reflected his discomfort and belied his commanding presence. “He’s overstating it, Amanda. They all know that I’m a widower, and they take advantage of it.” Amanda postponed commiserating with Luke over his status as widower and turned to her husband. First things first.
“Luke is nice, Marcus, but you’ve got the most bewitching eyes I’ve ever looked into in my life.” She plowed on; make hay while the sun’s shining, Aunt Meredith had always said. “Have you been wearing dark glasses, or are the women in Portsmouth all blind?” Marcus actually blushed, and Luke clearly delighted in it. The exchange gave Amanda food for thought: The brothers enjoyed each other’s company; they loved each other. So this was what she had missed in not having a sibling.
“What’s so funny?” Marcus blustered, but both his wife and his brother could see his delight in Amanda’s compliment.
Luke watched Marcus clear the table, scrape the dishes and put them in the dishwasher while Amanda made coffee and got the dessert. What interested him most was that they did it without uttering a word. Teamwork, he thought. Don’t they know that they would make a great team if they tried? He’d never seen Helena and Marcus cooperate on any level; they had always seemed to be at cross-purposes.
When Amanda served the deep-dish apple pie à la mode, Luke threw his head back and roared with laughter. Marcus knew from his brother’s cheshire grin that Luke was delighted at his discomfort. He scowled. Sure, Amanda was catering to his passion for apple pie. Well, let her. Nobody could blame her for trying. Beside, she made the best apple pie that he’d ever eaten. He didn’t miss her smothered smile.
“The hell with both of you,” he told them amiably, as he gave himself another serving. “You grin and I’ll eat.”
A few minutes later, walking through the hall toward the living room feeling as if she had progressed in her effort to make friends with her husband, Amanda glanced toward him, saw that he had just called the hospital and waited for him to give her news of Amy. He hung up, turned and went to the kitchen apparently to give Luke the information. Sorely disappointed that he hadn’t told her how Amy was progressing, she waited at the bottom of the stairs in the hope that he would realize her concern and rectify the oversight. But he remained in the kitchen and, convinced after a long wait that he didn’t think it necessary to tell her, she pondered what to do. Fighting a growing annoyance, she walked back to the kitchen, interrupted the conversation and asked him if he’d planned to tell her.
“Look, I…she’s…doing fine.”
“But you weren’t going to tell me. Didn’t you think I cared?”
“I’m sorry, but…well…I’m so used to talking with Luke about this…” Realizing his error, he added as an explanation, “He’s her uncle.”
“And I’m nothing to her, right?” He grimaced, but she didn’t care that she’d made him uncomfortable.
“Amanda, please be reasonable. This situation is difficult enough without…”
She didn’t wait to hear the rest of it, but fled to her room, tears stinging her eyes.
“Proud of yourself, Marcus?” Luke asked him. “Are you touched in the head, man? You don’t recognize a good, honest woman when you see one. How could you do that to her, when you know how badly she’s been hurt?”
Marcus braced his elbow against the wall and supported his head with his hand. “Lay off, man.” He shook his head, perplexed. “No, I’m not proud of myself. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult for me to behave naturally with Amanda. I do know that I can’t let her establish any contact with Amy. If Amy starts to like her, she’ll be hurt when we go our separate ways—as you and I both know we will—and she’s already suffered too much. Having her mother reject her is enough.”
“You go right ahead and fool yourself. Where do you keep the bedding? I’m going to turn in. Good night…Oh, Marcus.”
“What?”
“If you’d just try to be your normal self, this would be a peaceful, maybe even a happy home. Amanda is a terrific woman.”
In the quiet house, only the wind could be heard bending the trees as the storm moved off the coast and out to the ocean. Marcus leaned his big muscular frame against the banister at the bottom step and looked up the stairs. How could he have done it, he asked himself. He felt protective toward her, had from the very first. Yet he’d deliberately hurt her when she was only expressing concern. You go right ahead and fool yourself, Luke had said. He wasn’t fooling himself, he argued to himself, he was protecting his child. And he didn’t want any involvement with Amanda or any other woman. He had taken care of Amy by himself since she was two years old, and he would continue to take care of her. “I should have asked him how he knew Amanda was a terrific woman after a mere half-hour conversation with her. Oh, hell. I know she probably is, and that’s the trouble,” he murmured, as he forced himself to climb the stairs.
He saw the light shining beneath her door and paused. She’d been up there nearly three hours, he estimated, and was still awake. What had
