CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Tate

Ten days went by and still no word from Luke. He'd said to call the store and request a service call whenever I wanted him to visit. But the two times I called, requesting Luke, they said he was unavailable. If they'd found my calls suspicious, they certainly didn't sound that way.

Finally, after thinking he was avoiding me, I went directly to the store. That trip was two days ago when I was feeling like a sixteen-year-old girl who couldn't bear another day without seeing her high school crush. The desperation visit wasn't my proudest moment, but I was smitten, not to mention worried something had changed.

"Hello, Mr. Finnigan,"the young man I recognized as Jed had said when he found me wandering around the showroom. "Shopping for additional pieces, sir?"

"Actually, Luke told me about some terrific wood polish I should use on my new furniture, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name,"I'd replied. "Any chance Luke is around so I can purchase some or ask where to find it?"

"Sorry, sir, but Luke's been on farm duty most of this week. He'll be back tomorrow though,"Jed had answered. "I could ask my brothers in the back if you can wait a second."

"Thank you, but I'll stop by another day."

That day was today. Seeing Luke again was all I was thinking about. The problem was I had worked late, assisting with a deposition, which meant getting to the store before it closed at seven was cutting it close. All day, every day, I imagined being with Luke. His constant presence in my mind proved I had allowed him to slip into my heart. My brain said, forget about it. My heart said, go ahead, love him.

Porsche builds very fast cars. It's a fact. Other cars and drivers, not so much. I glanced at my watch, frustrated to be following some farmer on a tractor, both on a joyride. Four minutes to seven.

"Fuck me!" I yelled, slamming my left hand on the steering wheel, my right hand downshifting as I pressed on the gas pedal. "Get out of my way, Grandpa!" I hollered, zooming around him. Please be there. Please be there.

I came screeching into the store's parking lot just as the interior lights dimmed. The familiar truck I recognized as Luke's was parked alongside the building and out of my current view. I wasn't religious, but I prayed he was the driver and would appear at the front door at any moment.

I waited for three, then five, and then eight minutes before the engine on the truck fired up. No one had come out the front door. How'd they get to the vehicle?

I jumped out of my car and hurried to the side of the building just as the driver put the truck into gear and was about to drive off. I stepped in front of the truck, surprising Luke, who I could now see through the windshield.

"Tate, you're here," he said, hopping out of the truck. "I didn't see your car, or I would've come out the front door."

"There's a back door?"

Luke stepped in front of me, smiling and breaking my heart. Shit! I loved him. The love I recognized wasn't the one where you expressed it to the intended on one knee, but the one where you knew you were headed down that same road. Damn it. Now what?

"There's a back door," he confirmed, focusing on me. I studied his expression carefully. He was happy to see me. He seemed as relieved as I was to see him. "I missed you," he admitted.

"You did?" I asked, feeling something in my chest that I hadn't felt in such a long time. "I was afraid I wouldn't get here in time," I confessed.

"You look so handsome in your suit. I always forget how incredible you look until I see you the next time."

He was so sweet, so heartbreakingly perfect. Part of me knew that what I was feeling right then was the beginning of something major. Fighting my heart was futile. I was done. Put a fork in it.

"What are we doing, Luke?" I whispered, exhausted from the questions in my mind.

He closed the small gap between us. We stood in an empty, graveled parking lot, staring at each other. There were a thousand things I wanted to say. Each one of them made no sense, considering I barely knew him. But isn't that how love can be sometimes? The age-old adage, ‘It'll happen when you least expect it.'

"I can't speak for you, Tate, but I've been dreaming lately," he stated. "I'm dreaming about being with you. I'm dreaming about what I can do to prove to you I'm someone worth being with. So, I'm dreaming about the day you feel the same way about me."

Wow!That was a response I wasn't prepared for. People might think Luke was simple. Perhaps they looked at him and then lumped him into a category where he was less than they were. They, like me, could never know what choices were made for him when he was born. Decisions that brought him to the life he lived.

But Luke was anything but simple. The sad reality for others was that all they had to do was scratch the tiniest bit of his beautiful armor and they'd see what I saw; a truly wonderful human being who said exactly what he thought. Spoke straight from his heart.

"What if I already felt the same way?" I asked, figuring he wouldn't be expecting that response.

I was wrong when he unexpectedly had an answer ready. "Then I would be ready to show you how much you mean to me, Tate. I would prove to you I'm more than what people think I am," he began. "Sure, I don't know all the right things to say. And I've never even kissed anyone, but I would be loyal to you. I would work really hard to improve myself for you, too."

"I don't want you to change," I stated. "No one is worth changing for, Luke. Especially when you're already so good."

Luke cupped his hand over his eyes, looking into the distant horizon, the sun about two hours from calling it a day. His mouth pinched while I watched him. He seemed to have more to say. I studied his profile and wondered if he had any idea how handsome he was.

He was a big guy—it seemed I always went back to that—but carved to such perfection that you overlooked his sheer mass. He definitely had me feeling weak in the knees whenever I thought about being with him in a certain way. A way he admitted he lacked experience in. A way he'd also stated he'd prefer not to participate in.

"I'll need to make plenty of changes, Tate," he said, lowering his hand from his eyes and turning back to me. "I won't be able to be with you if I don't."

Alarm bells sounded, setting my goal of being with him ablaze. "What kind of changes?"

"I won't be able to stay on the ranch if you'll agree to be with me, but I don't know how I'll protect my family if I don't."

"They need protecting?" I asked, surprised yet not truly knowing anything about his family or the ranch they all lived on.

As I stood there, doubts and life experiences began flooding my mind. What the hell was I doing? We came from entirely different places. Our lives couldn't be more different than if he'd arrived from outer space. Was I really willing to ask this boy to change his entire world for me?

"They'll suffer if I leave," he stated. "But then again, they'll suffer if I stay."

I turned away from him. This was all going way too fast. I had no clue what his other life was like, and encouraging him to join my world? Where would Luke fit into my world?

"Can we maybe not rush you into something?" I asked, turning back, biting my lower lip, knowing that wasn't what I truly wanted.

Like the ones on playgrounds, my emotions were on a see-saw ride. Up. Down. Love him. Don't love him. When he wasn't near, I was desperate to see him. When with him and confronted with the reality of his world and what the odds were for us, I panicked that I'd end up hurting him. Hurting me.

"I'm not rushing," he stated. "My whole life I've stood still. Idly standing by and waiting for something to happen while the world around me keeps going by," he explained. "The ranch and that life isn't what I want, not as an adult, anyway. Something has always been missing, but I couldn't figure out what that was, Tate. Not until the day you walked into the bakery."

"I felt something that day, too," I admitted. "You didn't give off the impression you liked me, though, Luke," I teased.

"I was tongue-tied is why."

I checked my watch. "I suppose you have to head straight home?" I asked, wanting to table this until we were somewhere more private. "If so, can we pick up from here another night so we have more time to talk?"

"Can I show you something?" he asked.

"Now?"

He nodded and motioned to the truck. "I'd like to now, and we'll take the truck because where we're headed is dusty and too bumpy for your car."

"Can we stop and get some caffeine-free Cokes on the way to wherever you're taking me?" I asked. "Perhaps officially call it a date?"

His mouth pinched. "I can't," he replied. I sensed he was disappointed about why he couldn't.

"Did I push the Cokes on you the other night?" I asked, worrying I disregarded his lifestyle. "Maybe crossed a line I shouldn't have?" He kicked at the gravel and wouldn't look at me. "Luke?"

"It's not that," he said, still dragging his foot across the gravel. "I don't have money to purchase Cokes," he confessed, digging his hands deep into his jeans pockets. "We don't receive pay from our jobs. I never have money."

His admission shocked me. What young man didn't at least have running-around pocket money? "They don't pay you for working?" I asked, needing confirmation of something I couldn't even begin to fathom.

He shook his head. "No. We work for the better of the community. We have no needs that aren't provided for; therefore, we get nothing extra."

The sadness I felt at hearing this news hurt my heart. Here stood a grown man, a wonderfully sensitive man, and he didn't have the one thing that I couldn't imagine living without—money. And yet, he was prideful and strong-willed. His life was as foreign to me as I'm sure mine was becoming to him.

"I'd still like you to show me what you're talking about," I urged. "And since you're paying for the gas to drive there, I'd still like to buy those Cokes, so we can still count it as a date. A date you asked me on."

He lifted his face and gazed at me. "That right there," he whispered, pointing at me and tearing up.

I looked behind me, wondering what. "What?" I asked, turning back to him.

"That's what you do every time I feel bad or ashamed. You do that."

"Is it bad?" I asked, worried I'd unintentionally hurt him. "I'm sorry, Luke."

"You save me every time, Tate. What you do, is you save me from feeling bad about myself," he explained. "No one has ever done that for me. No one acts like I matter," he added.

I stepped closer and reached my hand out for him to hold. He hesitated, but I kept my hand out. He nervously looked around before committing to the act, but instead of holding my hand, he tapped my fingers with his, and we held them there, not so much holding as touching.

"You do matter," I whispered, my voice cracking from the incredibly tender moment we were sharing. "And just so you know, I'm not hung up on money being what a person brings to a relationship, Luke. I'd never want you to think that money was all I could bring to one, and I would want you to bring so much more than money to ours."

"If we were to have one?" he asked.

"If we were to have one," I agreed.

We locked eyes, and both of us began to smile. I'd learned some things about Luke in that exchange, and I hoped he learned something about me as well. He didn't know that I'd had a relationship where money ruled. And I hadn't known he lived in a world where having no money was the rule. The reality of who we were in the same world seemed to balance out in my mind.

"Still want to show me that something?" I asked.

His hand encircled mine. The love that emanated from this boy's eyes was enough to melt polar ice in January. I didn't know where we were going, and I'm not sure that mattered. After a life of careful planning, plotting each and every goal, financial success being the biggest goal, and obsessively worrying about every detail of my life, I decided right there and then to take a risk. I'd heard the greatest rewards in life came when you risked something important to achieve it.

My heart is important. Why not risk that on him?