Chapter 26
ONE WEEK LATER
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Luke snapped irritably at Stacey.
“Well,” Stacey said, mixing the salad and handing him the bowl to take to the dining table. “I mean gone in that her lease on the house was up last weekend. I asked if she wanted to renew; she said no. And she moved out. Hence, gone. Not coming back.”
Luke ignored the bowl, his scowl demanding more answers, but she merely shoved it at his chest, forcing him to take hold of it.
“Save your glare,” she said, picking up a lingering carrot from the cutting board and pointing it at him before taking a bite. “I didn’t chase her away.”
“I didn’t either,” he grumbled.
“You did, kind of,” Isobel said, coming up beside him and resting her cheek on his shoulder in a rare show of physical affection.
He glanced down at her orange head. “You too?”
She gazed at him blandly as she straightened and picked an olive out of the salad. “You really do know nothing about women.”
He gave her a look and she grinned, patting his shoulder. “Seriously, though, do you think everyone’s not blaming you for Jordan-gate?”
“It has a name?”
“Are you kidding?” Stacey said. “It was the most interesting thing to happen to this town since some asshole left three different women at the altar.”
“I’m so glad I accepted this dinner invitation,” Luke muttered. “What’s next, tar and feathering?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Isobel said as they settled around Stacey’s cozy dining room table. “You ran Jordan out of town. Why?”
Isobel’s tone was light, but it held the directness she was known for, the willingness to say what nobody else had quite had the courage to for the past few days—that he’d screwed up royally.
Even his sister had been uncharacteristically gentle, perhaps mistakenly assuming he was still reeling from the rumors that Eva was in talks with CBC to do her own show.
Screw Eva.
He didn’t know when he’d figured it out, but he realized now that he hadn’t cared about her in a long time. Even more important, he realized that he had forgiven her. Not so much because she deserved it, but because it was behind him and not worth caring about.
If anything, he was embarrassed that he hadn’t seen Eva for what she really was, when so many of the people closest to him obviously had.
He’d forgiven Gil too and hoped his friend knew it, wherever he was.
Gil wasn’t coming back. Neither was Eva—God willing.
Jordan, though…
“Where’d she go?” Luke asked, as Stacey opened a bottle of wine he didn’t want.
She looked up. “What?”
“Jordan. Where’d she go?”
“I have no idea,” she said, holding his gaze. “Back home, I imagine.”
Home.
That felt wrong. It was wrong.
Home wasn’t New York.
Home was…with him?
The thought felt both ridiculous—he’d just met her—and yet not ridiculous at all.
“You’re so dumb,” Isobel muttered, shoving in a mouthful of lettuce.
Stacey gave her a chastising look, then turned a gentle gaze toward Luke. “Lukey—”
He held up a hand to stop his ex, his attention fixed on the ever-practical Isobel. “What would you do?”
She paused in her chewing, startled since she usually left the talking to the more-chatty Stacey. “What?”
“If you’d blown things with Stacey, if she’d left town. What would you do?”
“Oh boy,” Stacey muttered under her breath.
Isobel leaned back in her chair, wiped her mouth with a napkin as she studied Luke. “Well, it depends. How’d you leave things with her?”
Luke swallowed. “An argument. I may or may not have accused her of sleeping with me so that I’d be less pissed about the Eva thing.”
“Oh, Isobel’s right,” Stacey breathed. “You are so dumb.”
Isobel and Luke both ignored her.
“Okay, so after all of that, is there any possible reason she’d stay in Lucky Hollow?” Isobel asked calmly.
Luke nodded, but Isobel was already shaking her head. “Not good enough. Say it out loud.”
He rolled his eyes to cover the fact that his hands felt slightly clammy. “Yes, she had a reason to stay in town.”
“Which was…” Isobel said, rolling her finger for him to continue.
Luke swallowed. “I wanted her to.”
“Why?”
He glared at her, but she merely stared back. Took a sip of wine and waited.
“I care about her,” Luke said, his voice a little rough. “I feel like there might have been something important there.”
“Eh.” Isobel picked up her fork. “It’s not great, but it’s a start.”
Luke stared at her. “That’s it? That’s your big advice?”
“Nah.” Isobel ate a piece of cucumber. “My advice is to practice that speech. It needs to be a hell of a lot better if you want her back. Now eat your damn salad.”
Luke picked up his fork, though he wasn’t at all hungry.
Isobel was right. He did need to get a better speech if he wanted to have a chance with Jordan.
But the far more important factor…
He had to find her first.