The woman laid a slip of paper on the table beside Lucas’s hand. “Merry Christmas,” she said, sounding as though she was rather tired of the phrase.
Rachel pushed the rest of her pie away and reached for the steaming coffee. “Emily must be so pleased to have you home for Christmas, even if you aren’t staying for the wedding.”
Lucas swallowed the last bite of his chocolate pie. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Have you seen any more of your family since you’ve been in town?”
“Bobbie and Caleb made a short visit Monday evening. The cousins will be arriving tomorrow—I think most of them are planning to stay through New Year’s day.”
“They’re staying for the wedding, I suppose.”
He didn’t know why Rachel kept bringing up Emily’s wedding. She seemed to disapprove of his plan to skip the ceremony. But surely she could understand why he thought it best to do so.
She’d said she’d tried to forget the past. He doubted that she’d really forgotten the way people had whispered about him before he’d left town.
From the time Lucas was a kid, he’d given the bored gossips of Honoria plenty to gab about. His secret meetings with Rachel would really have had their jaws flapping—which was the reason he’d been so careful to keep those meetings secret.
“Are you looking forward to seeing your cousins again?”
He grimaced. “Not particularly. Basically, they’re like strangers to me. They’re all younger than I am—I didn’t know them very well even before I left town.”
“The few cousins I have are scattered around the country. I rarely see them.” Rachel sounded a bit wistful.
“At least you don’t have to spend Christmas trying to make conversation with them.” Lucas dreaded that.
Rachel shook off her introspective mood and forced a smile. “Have you finished your Christmas shopping?”
Lucas frowned. “I...er...”
“You haven’t done any?” She lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m not very good at that sort of thing,” he admitted.
“Surely you’ll want to get something for Emily. And you’ll probably want to get her a wedding gift, too.”
“A, uh, wedding gift,” he repeated blankly. Did she mean something like a toaster? Emily probably already had a toaster.
“And you’ll want to get a gift for Chief Davenport’s son—he’s about to be your nephew, of course. Maybe something for your aunt and uncle.”
Rachel stopped suddenly and flushed. “Sorry. It’s none of my business who you do or do not buy Christmas gifts for. I’m hardly an expert on family Christmases. I usually have dinner with my mother on Christmas Eve, then spend Christmas Day watching Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby movies and eating myself into a stupor. What do you usually do on Christmas?”
He shrugged. “I usually work. It’s the one day I can almost guarantee I won’t be interrupted.”
Rachel studied him across the table. “I don’t know which of our stories is more pathetic,” she murmured.
Lucas stood abruptly and tossed some bills on the table. “Let’s go.”
Rachel looked a bit startled, but she rose obligingly. “I was finished, anyway.”
Lucas didn’t bother to reply as he led her out of the diner and into the cool, damp night air.
6
IT BEGAN TO RAIN just as Lucas drove out of the diner’s parking lot. The rain fell gently against the roof of the car, a soft, steady background to the oldies still playing on the radio. The sound of the rain took Rachel back to that Saturday afternoon in the rock house. She’d been so happy then. So deeperately in love.
So young.
She risked a sideways look at Lucas. Did he remember that day? He seemed so different from the hot-tempered, passionate, reckless young man she’d known before. Now he was more stern. Quiet. So self-contained, she found it almost impossible to read his expressions.