But better crazy than just plain mean, which was how she felt now. The few times she’d seen Luc since they made love, she’d clammed up completely for fear Zara would misinterpret friendliness for…well, for something else. Yesterday, she’d seen the pain and confusion in Luc’s face and she’d realized she had no choice. She had to talk to him.
Which was why today she’d dropped Zara off at school early, made all of her deliveries, then driven to Luc’s-alone. He hadn’t placed an order for today. He probably didn’t have any guests, which was sometimes the case during the week. Or maybe he just didn’t want to see her.
She was relieved to find his Tahoe parked in the carport. She pulled up behind it and got out, carrying a basket with some special treats just for him. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood, off to visit the Big Bad Wolf. Not that Luc, with his laid-back charm, was a wolf. But she sensed a hidden intensity beneath the surface, and it both drew her and frightened her.
She knocked on the kitchen door, and when no one answered, walked right in, which was what people in Indigo did.
“Luc?”
“Be down in a minute,” he called from upstairs. “Help yourself to coffee.”
Luc’s coffee, which always smelled so good, was a temptation, but Luc himself was a stronger lure. Loretta followed his voice up the wide cypress stairs. She found him in the hallway on a ladder, changing a light-bulb.
“It’s just me,” she said, not wanting to startle him.
He glanced around the vintage globe. “Oh. Hi.” He took a whiff. “Those wouldn’t be cranberry-orange muffins, would they?”
“They might be. And pumpkin bread. And some toffee-crunch coffee cake.”
He pulled a rag from the back pocket of his faded jeans and shined up the globe before climbing down. “Is this to make up for the rest of the week? Three deliveries, not a single free sample.”
“That wasn’t on purpose. I was so busy this week I didn’t have time to bake extras. But this is a peace offering.”
He gave her about half a grin, which nonetheless sent her stomach swooping. How did he do that?
“They’ll go better with coffee.”
They went back downstairs and Luc poured them each a mug. She took a sip of the rich brew, as if it were a shot of whiskey for courage. “I’ve handled things badly.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.” Luc looked out the window, obviously feeling as uncomfortable as she did. “If it was a mistake, just tell me. But don’t make me guess. I keep wondering what I did wrong.”
“Oh, Luc, you did everything just right, believe me.”
“Is this going to be one of those, ‘It’s me, not you’ speeches?”
“Well, it’s definitely not you. But it’s not exactly me, either.”
“Who does that leave?” But before she could explain, he got it. “Oh. Zara.”
“Yeah.”
“She…doesn’t approve of me?” Luc was only half joking.
“No, just the opposite. She thinks you’re perfect daddy material.”
If Loretta hadn’t been so miserable, the look of panic on Luc’s face would have made her laugh. “She said that? You didn’t tell her…I mean, she doesn’t know what-”
“I didn’t say a word. But children can figure out more than we give them credit for sometimes. She senses something between us. But I had no idea she’d spun it into an elaborate fantasy.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her she was out of line, that there was no chance.”
LUC KNEW HE SHOULD HAVE felt nothing but relief that Loretta understood him so well. He was crazy about her and Zara both, but he wasn’t family-man material. He never stayed in one place, for one thing. He changed jobs a lot, usually because he got tired of the same place and the same people all the time, and his income was erratic-he could be rolling in money one month and counting his pennies the next.
Although his mother loved him, she’d been gone a lot, working long hours to pay the bills and, later, going to school so she could get a better job. She’d also gone through a series of men after his father left, pinning her hopes on each one, then feeling crushed when they didn’t meet her expectations. Luc simply hadn’t been born with the constancy gene that made a good husband or father.
But, as perverse as it was, the fact that Loretta had dismissed the possibility so quickly irked him. Was he that bad of a catch? He used to get two or three marriage proposals a year. Okay, they were mostly women wanting a green-card marriage, but still.
“I don’t know if I did the right thing,” Loretta said, “but I can’t have her getting her hopes up only to have them dashed. I had no idea she felt the absence of a father so keenly. She doesn’t remember Jim at all.”
“She wants me to fill the father role?” The notion seemed very strange to him. He’d been on friendly terms with children before, but he’d never had one take a liking to him the way Zara had.
“You’ve been good to her. You don’t condescend to her. Most adults treat her like a baby, and she’s quite aware of that.”
“I don’t know how to treat her any differently.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to,” Loretta hastened to say. “But under the circumstances, maybe it’s best if we quit while we’re ahead. I don’t regret that we made love. It was wonderful. You made me feel beautiful and desirable in a way I haven’t felt since before Zara was born. But I don’t think it’s meant to be.”
Her words had the sound of a well-rehearsed speech. And he didn’t like it, not at all, even though he knew Loretta was right. They had no future, and she wouldn’t want him, anyway if she knew he was on probation for a felony. Besides, he wouldn’t be staying in Indigo much past the first of next year… Still, he didn’t like what Loretta was saying one bit.
“Zara’s a smart girl,” Luc said against his better judgment. “We could explain things to her.”
“And tell her what, exactly? That we’re having a temporary fling?” She shook her head vehemently. “That’s not the sort of example I want to set for my daughter. How can I expect her to understand that she should avoid casual sex when she sees her mother embracing it?”
Luc wanted to object to the words “fling” and “casual.” What they shared sure didn’t feel like that to him.
“How about we tell her we just don’t know where it’s going, but we want to find out? We like and respect each other, we want to spend time together…”
“When there’s no chance of it working out in the long term?”
Was that true? Was there absolutely no chance?
“I plan to live in Indigo the rest of my life,” she said. “I got my rolling-stone urges out of my system a long time ago. This is my home, Zara’s home. The bayou country is in my blood. You’ll be moving along, and don’t even try to deny it.”
He sighed. She’d made her case, damn it. The mere thought of tying himself down to one place made him feel uncomfortable. It was true he’d felt no particular urge to leave Indigo, even after more than a year, which surprised him. But how much longer would that last?
Luc drained the last of his coffee. “Living in the moment isn’t always a bad thing.”
“I know that. And there was a time I did live in the moment. When Jim and I first married, we lived out of our car, moving across the country picking produce for grocery money. I sure didn’t think about the future then. We had a lot of fun, and I don’t regret it. Not all of it, anyway.”
Luc had a hard time picturing Loretta as a drifter. She was so deeply rooted in Indigo now.
“But there’s a time for being responsible, and for me, that time started when Zara was born. Maybe when she’s grown I can be a little crazy, but not now.”
“So we just go back to the way we were? Feeling the pull and doing nothing about it?”
“I don’t see any alternative.”