“That’s not true! It’s just that . . . I don’t want . . . Dammit, I’m not going to be fit company for the next two days! I just want to be left alone, okay? Come back Tuesday afternoon, and we’ll leave after supper.”
“Not fit . . . What in hell are you talking about?”
Her cheeks turned blistering red. “Look, I started my period today, okay? And for the next two days, I’m going to be a miserable, achy grump.”
He was so relieved, he started laughing.
Camry jumped up and ran out of the room.
Luke instantly sobered. “Hey, wait! I’m sorry!” he called, scrambling after her.
Her bedroom door nearly hit him when she slammed it shut, and she managed to get it locked before he could open it.
He thunked his head against it with a groan. “Camry, I’m sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you. I mean, not really. Dammit, don’t shut me out.”
“Go away,” she said, her voice coming through the wood only inches from his. “I’ll be right here come Tuesday, I promise.”
God, he was an idiot. For a man who’d managed to earn several degrees, he didn’t seem to have a clue when it came to women. Which was surprising, considering he’d spent the first thirteen years of his life in an all-female household.
“Have I mentioned that I was raised by my single mother, my grandmother, and my aunt?” he asked, his head still resting on the door.
“No,” she whispered after several heartbeats.
“And I can certainly attest the old myth is true, that when women live together their menses gravitate to the same schedule.” He chuckled.
“What’s so funny about that?” she growled.
“I just thought of your poor father, living in a household of eight women.”
“That’s a sexist remark!”
“It’s not sexist if it’s a scientific fact.”
“Go away, Luke.”
He straightened away from the door, running his fingers through his hair. Dammit to hell. He didn’t want to leave. “The only reason I pointed out my having been raised by women was to let you know that I don’t care how grumpy you get. I can pretty much handle anything you dish out.” He hesitated. “Except being told to get lost.”
When she didn’t respond, Luke walked to the living room, threw himself down on the couch, and glared at the transmitter sitting on the coffee table. He leaned forward and picked up the stubbornly silent instrument. “You are obviously the design of a feminine mind,” he muttered. “Why in hell do women have to be so complicated?”
“Because it’s our job.”
Luke jumped, fumbling to hold on to the transmitter, but it still went flying when Camry plopped down on the couch beside him.
“Because men are such simple creatures, women need to be complicated to balance things out,” she continued, preventing him from going after the transmitter by snuggling against his chest.
Luke wrapped his arms around her and sighed heavily.
“Did your mother really tell you to get lost all the time?”
“No, my aunt did. She was a grumpy woman every day, but it wasn’t until I was nine or ten that I realized she was downright mean a few days each month.” He softly snorted. “The day we moved out of Gram’s house and in with my new stepfather, my mother actually apologized for making me live with Aunt Faith for thirteen years.”
“Why was Aunt Faith so grumpy?”
“Who knows. My guess is she was bitter. Even though my biological father took off the day he found out about me, I think Faith was jealous that Mom had even had a passionate affair.” He shrugged. “Faith didn’t have much luck with men, and I finally decided she was lonely.”
“Maybe she would have had better luck if she wasn’t so grumpy.”
Luke chuckled humorlessly. “I actually told her that once. It was around the time my mother met André Renoir. I was eleven. Aunt Faith went from grumpy to openly hostile the deeper in love Mom fell with André.”
Camry popped her head up. “André Renoir became your stepfather?”
Luke nodded. “When I was thirteen. And he legally adopted me the day they got married.” He nudged her head to his chest so she’d quit looking at him. “I hadn’t minded André up until then, since he made Mom happy. But I didn’t see why I suddenly had to change my name, too, as well as let him have any say over my life.”
She popped her head up again. “Was he mean to you?”
“Oh no. André is a good man, and he was sincerely interested in me,” he said, pulling her back against him. “But for the first thirteen years of my life, I pretty much did what I wanted without receiving much flack. I’d lock myself in my room for days with my books and computer, and nobody bothered me. But after we moved in with André, the man kept dragging me outdoors, saying I needed to get the stink blown off me.”
Luke laughed. “He tried to teach me to play baseball, but I kept striking out on purpose. So he took me hunting with him, and I made enough noise stomping through the woods to scare off all the game. But God bless the patient man, no matter how much I sabotaged his good intentions, he just kept trying . . . until the day I ran away from home.”
“You ran away from home? How old were you?”
“Fourteen. My mother and André told me I was going to have a baby sister.” He chuckled. “Even though I knew all about the birds and bees, I was horrified to suddenly realize they’d been having sex. I waited until they went to bed that night, then took off.”
“Where’d you go?” she asked with a giggle.
“I decided to go back and live with Gram and Aunt Faith, so I started walking to Vancouver, which was a little over a hundred miles away. But I didn’t care. I just wanted my old self-centered life back, grumpy aunt and all.”
“And? Did they take you back?”
“I didn’t make it ten miles. It was the dead of winter, and André found me half frozen to death, stubbornly trudging along the side of the road. He never said a word the entire ride back home. But when we drove into our dooryard, instead of letting me go inside and warm up, he dragged me out to the woodshed, and—”
“He beatyou?” she gasped as she straightened.
Luke grinned at her fierce expression. “No. But it was the first time I’d ever seen him angry. He handed me a crosscut saw and axe, and told me to start working up next year’s firewood. And that while I did, I was to contemplate one simple question, and give him the answer when I was done.”
“And that question was?”
“He asked me the definition of love.”
Camry’s eyes grew huge with anticipation. “And what did you tell him love was?”
Luke snorted. “I was fourteen—what in hell did I know about love?”
She scrambled off the couch and stood glaring at him. “But you had to have told him something! You obviously didn’t freeze to death in the woodshed.”
Luke stood, then walked over and picked up the transmitter before looking at her again. “Oh, I came up with an answer that at least got me back in the house—though it didn’t get me out of working up eight cords of firewood. André told me what I’d come up with was only a start, but that he would know I had figured out the rest when I finally apologized to my mother.”
“And did you?”
He nodded. “When I was twenty.”
“So, what’s the definition of love?” she asked, her expression eager again.
Luke eyed her speculatively, wondering how far he could push her. “If you let me stay, I’ll tell you on the drive to Pine Creek.”
She actually stomped her foot in frustration, then immediately grabbed her leg and hopped back to the couch. “Now look what you made me do,” she muttered, lifting her foot onto the coffee table as she glared up at him. “That’s blackmail.”
“You can thank your mother for teaching me that one.” He sat down on the table, tossed the transmitter on her lap, and set her foot on his thigh so he could take off her sock and rub her ankle. “When I came out of the woodshed, I told André that love meant not hurting someone who loved me.”