“Thanks for that revelation,” he grumbled. “I didn’t date. I didn’t make a commitment to anyone that I slept with. I told the women I was with up front that my heart was already taken.”
She stared at him. “And they still slept with you?” She stated with disgust.
He nodded. “They were idiots,” Skylar declared.
He laughed. “Why were you watching my fights?” He asked.
“Trying to discover this man that I’m living with,” Skylar said. She touched him. “He’s made of flesh and bone that is somewhat familiar to me even though he’s grown up without me,” She cocked her head to the side taking him in. Sky ran her hand down his large bicep. “He is so different as well. I recognize his eyes although his body has changed from the lanky boy who left me.”
He chuckled.
She stared at Luka. Then she picked up his hand. “His hands are the same. Rough and broad. I remember them and what they could do to me. How they could make me feel.”
She laid his hand back on the bed. Then she gazed at his
face. “There are lines around your eyes that are new.” She traced the faint lines with her fingers and his eyes closed at her touch. Her focus traveled down to his lips. Her finger traced his full lower lip. “Those lips are just the same too.”
He pulled her to him so that she was sitting across his body, straddling him. His hands rested at her hips. “I’m the same man I was.”
She dropped her head a little. Thinking. “But you’re not,” she told him.
“Because I have a big bank account.”
“That and you are famous. You’ve attended black tie events. Walked red carpets with models. Luka, that isn’t me,” she told him.
She rested her hands on his shoulders. “I’m still me, Luka. Small town girl. Horse trainer. Nothing more.”
His gaze was intense as they locked on hers. “Mother of my child,” he whispered huskily. His deep voice caressing her like a soft wind through her hair and making her shiver. “Mother of my future children,” he informed her. She swallowed hard. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that statement.
“The love of my life. I meant what I said when I told you that my heart was still here.” He was adamant about that.
Skylar laced her arms around his neck. She tangled her fingers in the strands of his dark hair. The silkiness reminding her of how he felt covering her body with his then and now. His breath was hot in the curve of her neck. “Skylar, don’t you know?” She shook her head no.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I have always loved you.” He could feel her holding her breath. She held it for a few seconds more. “Breathe Skylar,” he told her. He realized then that she was crying. He pushed her back so that he could see her face. Luka cupped her cheeks in his big palms. “What?”
She closed her eyes. “Luka,” her chest rose and fell as she if she struggled to breathe. “I…I can’t put into the words the pain that I felt when your mom told me that you were gone.”
His hands slid across her back drawing her tighter in his embrace.
“When I heard the amount of money that you had made fighting all I could think was…well he accomplished what he set out to do and I couldn’t help but feel resentful of you, Luka because I wasn’t enough to keep you here.”
Luka lowered his gaze. “You don’t understand Sky.”
“I do understand,” she said.
She slipped off the side of her bed. His hands fell to his side. “You really didn’t love me enough.”
Skylar went to the door of her bedroom. “From now on this is about Ava and how we make it up to you both that I didn’t tell you about her.” She walked out of the bedroom and shut the door leaving him sitting on her bed alone.
In the hallway, she leaned against the solid door. Her knees trembled. She looked up at the ceiling to keep from crying. She was done crying over Luka Shaw. She heard him though. In her bedroom, she heard him shout. “Like hell Skylar.”
She pulled herself away from the door and headed down the stairs. Skylar went to the kitchen to make lunch. She peeked through the window over the sink to see Brett and Ramona playing with Ava in the goats’ pen. She heard the slamming of the screen door. She didn’t have to ask to know who that was.
Then she heard his truck start and she wondered where he was going. Skylar walked back through the house. Luka’s truck was heading down the lane to the main road. She stepped out onto the porch and walked to the end towards the barn.
“Where’s he going?” She asked them.
“He said he had things to do,” Brett answered. “He’ll back in time for dinner.”