A Billion Reasons Why (22 page)

“I’ll just eat my bread, thanks,” he answered sheepishly.

“So, Dexter, what kind of work do you do?” Mam asked him. “Will they give you time off for a broken heart?”

Katie wished they’d just put an end to this charade. Southern manners!

“I design optical equipment for medical machinery. Katie wouldn’t have had to work when we were married.”

“Then I suppose it’s all for the best. Katie loves her work. Always had such a heart for the downtrodden. Just like her father that way. Why carry the weight of a quarta when your brother needs it?”

Dexter punched a fist to the middle of his chest.
Indigestion
, Katie thought.
Irene McKenna’s way
. The kind that would burn for a good, long time. Katie knew her mam—if a man was going to run about saying he was heartbroken, he should feel something.

“I wanted to marry a teacher,” Dexter went on. “Good with kids, summers off until we have children, so we could travel.”

“You had it all planned,” Mam said, patting his hand again. “Such a pity this didn’t work out.”

“Our pastor says one shouldn’t force things before the wedding.”

“Absolutely,” Mam agreed. “It’s hard enough after the wedding. Did you need a ride to the airport, Dexter? I think I just heard Rusty pull up outside.”

Dexter stared at her and choked down some more water. “That would be great.” He pressed his open palm to Katie’s cheek. “Are you going to be all right, darling?”

Katie urged a tortured expression from within. “I think so, Dexter. I’m so sorry you came all the way out here.”

“I had to be certain I wasn’t getting cold feet. I thought I came for your ring, but subconsciously, I must have been coming for answers.”

She nodded. He patted her face again. It took everything she had not to grab his hand and twist it behind his back.

“Very heroic of you, Dexter,” said Mam. “It’s good when a man is able to stand up for what he knows is right, even when it hurts.”

Dexter walked out the door as though he was Superman himself.

“All that’s missing is the cape,” Katie said aloud as he climbed into Rusty’s truck. She’d gathered a new appreciation for her mam.

Chapter 16

M
AKE
S
OMEONE
H
APPY

Katie relaxed immediately as she walked into the darkness of the familiar Barrelhouse Club for another practice session. She set down the wrapped package for Olivia’s shower later in the day. Billie Holiday’s emotive voice played and led her in with a soft hand. The smooth, sultry song lulled her into a sense of peacefulness where the struggles of life were easily forgotten. Though she knew Luc had no reason to attend practice, she had a feeling he’d show up any moment.

Stepping across the stage, she leaned against the wall and allowed the music to calm her senses. It was a good thing he wasn’t there. The last thing he needed to know was that another man, a far less interesting man, had dumped her as well. Several musicians were warming up around the room and acknowledged her with a nod, but she felt alone. Alone and blissfully happy.

The lights clicked on, and she closed her eyes. In that moment, she knew what she wanted. She understood why her life felt so unbalanced, as if she was waiting for the world to start spinning again. How much of her life had she handed over to other people without considering what she liked? It had been easier to acquiesce, to wait for instructions rather than decide for herself. Now she stood at a crossroads, where if she allowed someone else to decide she’d live a life of constant sacrifice with nothing to show for it. What point was there in giving Dexter the life he imagined? His children wouldn’t complete her, nor would they take her memories away. The only way to move forward was to admit what she wanted and feel the pain of its loss.

She wanted to be loved with abandon. She wanted to love with abandon. She wanted too much. That was what she wanted.

Suddenly Luc hopped up on the stage and leaned into her. “Good morning, beautiful.”

“I–I didn't expect to see you again today.”

“Would I miss seeing the great Katie McKenna sing? If the great Katie McKenna is planning to retire, I'd have to be nuts to miss one of her last times on the stage.”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you want in life, Luc?”

“That’s a random question. Everything?”

“You’ve got all the money you might have imagined, the success that the world pines for. What’s left for you?”

“The woman I love.”

“A convenient answer. Like King Solomon’s seven hundred wives?”

“I only want one. I can only handle one. With the Irish temper, I think it’s more like one and a half anyway.”

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious. You look incredible, by the way. I love that dress.” He held out a hand and led her down from the stage and around the room, their bodies naturally waltzing as they spoke.

She loved how easy it was to be with him, how he stimulated her mind and soothed her soul at the same time. She could live on the memories of these moments forever. Maybe that’s why God ordained this trip? To show her she could be alone and still have her memories.

“Why the sudden interest in my aspirations? I want what I’ve always wanted.”

“And what’s that?”

“A life like your father’s.”

“My father’s?”

“Because your father was the only man I ever knew who I thought was truly happy in this world. Maybe I hoped it would rub off on me.”

“He wasn’t happy at the end of his life.”

“No,” Luc agreed. “He had worries. That keeps a man down. But he would have been happy again if given the opportunity, and he still could have told you a hundred things he was grateful for on his worst day. Nobody’s life is perfect. We all have valleys.”

“You, the great Luc DeForges, billionaire at large . . . what do your valleys look like? The price of asparagus is high?”

“You say billionaire on purpose, don’t you? You like to make me correct myself and humble me at the same time.”

“Maybe.”

“If I become a billionaire, what then?”

“I’ll have to go with gazillionaire, I suppose. So what do your valleys look like, Luc? Do you run out of Perrier on your private jet?”

“My valleys are the same as yours, Katie-bug. I believe my work can fulfill me and I run full-speed ahead, until I remember what I had here once. Home, family, a woman I loved with all my heart.”

“Luc, cut it out.”

“I made a mistake eight years ago that I can’t seem to recover from. Will you ever risk your heart again? Or will you settle for a reliable life, free from danger and all this—” He spread his hand out toward the stage. “Did you ever think that might be the most dangerous route of all?”

“Paddy never had all this, and you seem to think he was the happiest person you knew. You don’t think it was his business and customers that made him so happy?”

“I did then, but I know better now. He worried that he wouldn’t be able to provide for you and your mam, but things would have turned around. I admired the way he took immediate action and sold the business, but I don’t think he knew what to do after that. It sucked some purpose from his days.” He paused. “I think you blame me for that.”

Maybe she did.

“Katie, your father asked me to buy the business. I bought it because he asked me to and for no other reason. I borrowed the money from my dad, knowing my inheritance and graduation was coming.”

She took time to process his words. “What could have changed? People still needed vegetables. And why would he ask you, of all people?”

“Thanks.”

“Because it wasn’t making it, and he thought you with your business degree could turn it around?” she asked, hoping to solve the mystery.

“The business was fine. In the black.” Luc rubbed the back of his neck, a sign that he felt uncomfortable. “I suppose he trusted me and I told him he could buy it back if he changed his mind, but he assured me he wouldn’t.”

She wished Luc would come out and tell her all he knew. All the prancing around the facts. Why? Why did her dad sell his beloved business to Luc? To anyone for that matter?

“I don’t know why he asked me to, but he came to me in need. And he was a proud man, Katie. I knew he wouldn’t have come if he didn’t need to sell. I had too much respect for him to ask him why.”

Nothing made sense to her. “But surely he might have sold it another way. Publicly.”

Luc shrugged. “Maybe he knew I wouldn’t ask questions.”

His BlackBerry trilled, and he stepped away from her. “I just need to take this.”

She grabbed the phone from his hand and threw it to the back of the room.

“Katie!”

“If you’re serious, you have to know that I don’t like to be ignored for long periods of time. And if you want to be happy like my Paddy, well, he would have never brought his work home to interrupt family time. Can you handle the constancy of Paddy's life? The slowness of it?”

The phone buzzed again from the back of the room.

“It still works. You can get it later.” She placed her hands in his again for the dance.

“So I guess this means
you’re
serious? You’re ready for the truth?”

“You forget, I have nothing to lose now. I already look like an idiot, and here I am again at a DeForges family function playing the lost little puppy dog. My bum is on the cover of the
Tattler
, and they said your so-called fiancée has put on a few pounds and is pregnant, hence the wedding. So you need my wild Irish blood. Who else could put up with that kind of stuff?”

“There was something more going on with your father, Katie. I didn’t know what it was, and I worried if I said yes to you, the insurance people would start investigating and you and your mam would be left with nothing.”

She steeled herself. “Why is my mam mad at you? When my mother makes up her mind about someone she never changes her mind, and she is not nice to you right now. Why not?”

“That part of the story I’m not sure about. I didn’t ask why your dad had to sell me the business, and he never told me. He was very adamant that no one find out it was in fine shape.” Luc’s cell started up again. “Katie, I just felt God saying,
No, not yet
when you asked me. I wanted to ask
you
, but then—there were all these questions. You still didn’t have your insurance settlement.”

“Eight years and two hundred blondes or so just sort of slipped by.” Her voice took on a hard edge.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me what you believe to be true about me, Katie.”

She stared into his eyes, and her stomach filled with butterflies, her throat became parched, her defenses weakened. She felt her chest pounding. She’d read that men’s cortisol levels rose when they met a beautiful woman they considered out of their league—it was bad for their hearts.

She wondered if being with Luc DeForges was bad for hers.

“Your eyes tell me what your lips won’t. I know what you think of me, Katie. Even if you fight it with everything in you.” Luc reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gray box. He opened the lid, and she gasped.

“My ring! You had it all along?”

He knelt in front of her. “Katie McKenna, marry me.”

She covered the bottom half of her face with her hands. “Where did you get that?”

“Your father gave it to me.” His gaze didn’t waver. “Answer the question.”

She shook her head. “He didn’t. You had a copy made.”

He stood up and took the ring out of its box. He brought the ring to her face and showed her the engraving on the inside:
My Everlasting Love
. “It’s yours. Your father gave it to me on the day he died. I knew he wouldn’t have killed himself, but I didn’t want the insurance agent to have any reason to assume he had. So I kept it all these years. He asked me to give it to you on your wedding day. I almost told you so many times that I had it, that it was time, but you were so angry with me. And then the years passed and I didn’t know how to go back. Then you went and got engaged to someone else, and it was fish or cut bait.”

“I came home for that ring. All this way, and all this trouble, and you had it in California?”

He swallowed visibly. “I needed time to show you I’m not all about the money. That you can trust me.”

“By lying to me?”

“I fudged the truth a bit. I said no that night to protect you and your mother, but you never let me explain. You were grieving. You didn’t have the insurance settlement, and I didn’t have my own inheritance yet. There were a billion reasons why I said no that night.”

“My father loved that store. He would have never sold it if he could have made it work. Why couldn’t you have lent him the money to fix the business?”

“Katie, listen to me. There was nothing wrong with the business. It was in the black when I bought it. I told you, I don’t know why he had to sell it, but he came to me saying he had to.”

“If you wanted to marry me, you had eight years to make it happen. Why would you wait until I was engaged to another man? You just want to win!”

“What have I won? If anything, it looks from my point of view that I’ve lost what matters most to me. I’ve lost your faith in me.”