“Guess they do.” A flush touched the boy’s high cheekbones. “A person wants to do something without his family once in a while. Didn’t you?”
He hadn’t had a choice in the matter. “I guess so. What’s this ‘something’ you have in mind?”
Theo looked at his scuffed sneakers. “There’s a job down at the yacht club. They’re pretty busy just now with lots of colleges having spring break. I could work there.”
Luke pictured the glistening white boats he’d seen moored at the yacht club, imagining the kind of people who owned them. “Sounds like a smart idea to me. That’s the kind of place where you meet people who count.”
“People who count for what?” Chloe asked.
He hadn’t heard Chloe come out, but she stood a couple of feet from him. She was close enough that he could feel the anger, close enough to see the sparks. Obviously he’d made a tactical error.
“Theo and I were just talking.” He heard the apologetic note in his own voice and wondered where it had come from. He didn’t owe Chloe an apology for taking an interest in her kid brother, did he?
Theo slid away from the rail. “Guess I’d best see if Miranda needs any help.” He vanished into the inn, leaving Luke to face the accusation in Chloe’s eyes.
“You were encouraging him to take a job at the yacht club.” She shot the words at him.
He closed the laptop and leaned back in the rocker, meeting her gaze with his own challenge. “I’m not sure encouraging is the right word. We were talking about it. Don’t you want me to talk to your brother, Chloe?”
“You implied that the yacht club people were important for him to know.”
He stood, setting the chair rocking behind him, and put the laptop on the table. It looked incongruous next to the lemonade and molasses cookies, reminding him that he didn’t belong here.
“I told him what I thought.” He frowned at her. “Unless being back here has softened your brain, you know how important it is to know the right people.”
She flushed, the color painting cheeks that were already glowing with sunlight. “That’s what it’s like in the outside world.”
“What if Theo wants to live in the ‘outside world’? You did. Are you saying he can’t make the choices you made?”
She took a step toward him, her hands curling into fists.
“Theo is too young to make choices like that. And you certainly don’t have the right to advise him.”
“He came to me, Chloe. And you brought me here.”
“Do you think I’ve forgotten that?” She glanced toward the inn, then lowered her voice. “This deception was your idea, not mine. You decided on it for business reasons, not because you wanted to do me a favor.”
“Maybe that’s true.” He wasn’t going to let her get away with shifting all the responsibility onto him. “But you’re the one who created the situation in the first place, remember?”
“I know.” She stood very straight, fists clenched. “But that doesn’t mean it’s all right for you to interfere with my family. I don’t want you giving Theo advice. I don’t want his values to be—”
“Contaminated by mine?” Whatever fascination he’d felt in seeing Chloe stand up to him disappeared in a wave of anger. “There’s nothing wrong with my values. They’re realistic in the world out there—” He jerked his head toward the mainland.
“Caldwell Cove is different.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Chloe. This place may seem like Shangri-La, but sooner or later it will get dragged into the twenty-first century. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with your Web site? Your brother might need the kind of values that lead to success.”
“I don’t want Theo influenced by you.” Chloe threw the words at him. “If you can’t accept that, then maybe you’d better leave right now.”
Chapter Six
Horror at what she’d just said flooded Chloe. Was being back on the island causing her to take leave of her senses? She couldn’t talk to her boss that way.
Apparently Luke felt the same. His face tightened, and his ice-blue eyes chilled her to the bone. “Is that really what you want, Chloe?” His voice was deceptively soft, but she’d heard that deadly calm before, directed at other people. Her job hung in the balance.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rush. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
But it was true. The thought came out of nowhere. She tried to reject it but she couldn’t. She didn’t want Theo absorbing the values that seemed so natural to Luke.
Please, Lord. The prayer also seemed to come from nowhere. I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know what I want, and I certainly don’t know what’s best.
“You have a right to say what you believe.” He shifted his weight so that he stood an inch closer to her. He was close enough that she could feel the iron control he held over his anger. “Is that what you believe, Chloe?”
“I don’t…” She stopped, took a breath, started again. “I can’t mix business and family together. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like working in Chicago. Having you here, letting my people believe we’re involved—it’s just too hard.”
She expected a withering response. Instead she felt his ire seeping away as he considered what she’d said.
“All right.” He nodded, still frowning. “I guess I can understand your feelings. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
He actually seemed to be trying to understand. Maybe he’d been as surprised by their quarrel as she had. She could breathe again.
“If we told my parents the truth…”
“No.”
His sharp response told her that, at least, hadn’t changed. He tried to manage a smile, but it didn’t have much humor in it.
“That’s the one thing we can’t do. I have too much of my time and reputation invested in this location now. If I don’t come up with a proposal, I can kiss the vice-presidency goodbye.”
The way his face hardened on the last words told her he wouldn’t do that. It meant too much to him—maybe more than anything else in his life, certainly more than her old-fashioned values.
“All right.”
She took a deep breath, trying to find an alternative they both could live with. She’d like to feel that the two of them were on the same team. She’d always felt that—until now.
“I guess I can understand that. But I’m not going to lie to anyone. And I don’t want you to give Theo any more advice.” Her mother’s worries about the boy flitted through her mind. She’d said she would help, but this certainly wasn’t what she’d intended.
“Agreed.” He clasped her hand as if they’d just sealed a deal, and his fingers were strong around hers. Their warmth swept inexorably up her arm, headed straight for her heart.
She stepped back, breaking the connection. “All right, then.” She reached behind her for the door, needing to escape. “We’ll leave it at that.”
“Just one thing—”
Luke’s voice stopped her. She turned reluctantly to look at him.
“Maybe you ought to give a little thought to what you’re saying to your brother, Chloe.”
She looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.”