It Was Only a Kiss

‘Why?’

Pain flickered in Jess’s eyes. ‘My grandfather walked out on my grandmother and he and his mistress hightailed it to that cottage.’

‘And that rocked your world?’ Luke commented. Why would the disintegration of her grandparents’ marriage affect her so much? He wanted to know. Just for tonight he wanted to know everything about her. ‘Why?’

‘My gran thought they had an awesome marriage. She considered him her soul mate, her best friend. Hearing that he’d been having an affair for ten years side-winded her. She moved in with us for a while, and I watched a vibrant, intelligent woman shrink in on herself. It was as if someone had removed her spine.’

Ouch, Luke thought.

‘And my mom took the strain because my grandfather still wanted a relationship with her, but he’d hurt her mother so badly... It was a nasty time, and because this was my family, highly volatile and voluble, nothing was kept from me. My brothers went to boarding school but I stayed at home, so I heard it all: the rants, the tears, the curses.’

Luke considered her words for a moment. ‘So when you caught your boyfriend in bed with someone else it was a double whammy? A visit to the past wrapped up in the present?’

Jess half smiled. ‘Along with dinged pride.’ She dropped her hand so that it lay beside his and curled her pinky in his. ‘Did your wife cheat on you?’

Luke waited for the fist in his sternum and frowned when he didn’t feel the normal punch the subject generally instigated. ‘I never caught her at it.’

‘Why did you divorce her?’ Jess asked, the side of his hand warm against hers.

Luke stared at a point past Jess’s shoulder and wondered whether or not to answer her question. Because she had a crazy shopping habit? Sure. Because she was bat-crap insane? That was a really good reason. Because...because...

‘Because I looked at her one day and realised that I really didn’t want her to be the mother of my children.’

‘Ah.’

‘Not that she had any intention of being a mother. She told me that she’d pop a kid out for me but had no intention of raising it. Since I knew exactly what it was like, being raised by a parade of nannies and au-pairs, I knew that I wanted my kids to have a mother.’

She heard the thinly disguised pain in his voice and wished she could soothe it away.

‘I realised a long time ago that I wasn’t cut out for the picket fence and two-point-four kids.’

Oh, Luke. You are so made to have a family. Instead of the words she wanted to say, she asked, ‘Why not?’

This was the trouble with smoky bars with low lighting and cool, vibey music. Confessions and confidences tended to flow.

‘I think to have a successful family you have to be part of one.’

‘I don’t know that I agree with you,’ Jess said, moving her hand across his. ‘Do you think you’d feel differently if your mother hadn’t passed away when you were so young?’

Luke wondered whether he should tell her or not...after all it wasn’t a secret. It wasn’t talked about, but it was not a secret. For the first time in his life he actively wanted to share this information with someone...wanted her to know a little piece of his soul. Normally that would terrify him, but in this warm bar, with soft music, a couple of drinks under his belt and a gorgeous woman looking at him with tender eyes, he couldn’t keep the words from spilling out. Tomorrow he might regret it...

‘No, I don’t think anything would’ve been different. My mother—a fairly moody creature, from what I hear—bailed out on me when I was three and got herself killed in a car accident a couple of days later. And my father was fickle, selfish and changed women like he changed clothes. Kids raised in a dysfunctional home do not have functional adult relationships and families. Basic psychology.’

‘That’s such nonsense—but back up a moment.’ Jess frowned. ‘Your mother left you?’

‘She had suitcases full of clothes and personal possessions in her car when she crashed. Nothing of mine.’ Luke felt the muscle tick in his jaw and closed his eyes. It had happened over thirty years ago—why did it still sting? Why did he still wonder what she’d needed, wanted from her life that had made her step out of the marriage, away from him? Freedom? Another man? And would he ever stop wondering what he’d done that had made his mother leave him instead of taking him with her?

He’d been three, for goodness’ sake...even he couldn’t have been that bad.

Jess shook her head and covered his hand with both of hers. She had a look on her face that Luke had come to recognise as stubbornness. ‘Who told you that she’d left you behind? And when?’