Page 41 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

But the kids were all about the bus, asking Lukas if they could go inside, admiring the elaborate artwork on the outside.

Lukas sent her a concerned look. One that seemed to ask if she was okay.

She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. She didn’t like that look. It was possessive. Territorial. Like he would have risked getting into it with Harris if need be.

Sam didn’t need anyone to defend her. It wasn’t his business and she’d been fine without him. Still, he’d come to her aid. He was trying to make the situation better. And, God help her, that made her ridiculously happy.

Lukas got pulled away by the kids. Harris was telegraphing her his I’m-sorry-please-forgive-me face that usually won her over but she just wasn’t feeling it.

“Want to stay and help out for a while?” Sam asked, giving him a chance to redeem himself.

“You know I’ve got that plane to catch. And I’ve been driving all morning to make things right between us. I’ll see you next week, okay? I’ll be back before the big donor dinner. We’ll spend some quality time together.” He kissed her, but she felt no comfort. She looked over to see Lukas watching her and frowning before he turned back to the kids.

Harris squeezed her hand. “Next week, everything will get back to normal, okay, Sammy?”

Sam hated when he called her that. It made her feel like she was ten. Somehow she managed a civil good-bye. As he drove away from her only to pull up to the pumps for gas, she realized he’d managed to escape without subjecting his car to a wash.

She looked over to see the tour bus full of soap and Lukas holding his Gibson under the shade of the gas pumps, looking around for a place to plug in his amp cord. Stevie ran out of the bus, dressed in too-big swim trunks with bright fluorescent fish, waving wildly at her with the hand not holding his blankie.

She waved back just as wildly. She would survive this. Although she seriously doubted things would ever get back to normal as Harris had promised. But there was fun to be had, and this time she wasn’t going to miss it.

“What’s up, buddy?” Lukas asked Harris as he got out of his car and inserted the gas nozzle into his tank. From the expression on Harris’s face, Lukas could tell he wasn’t stopping by to ask for an autograph.

“Stay away from my girlfriend, roughneck,” Harris said, lowering his voice so Sam couldn’t hear.

Lukas almost smiled. What kind of man pulls up to a kids’ fundraiser and refuses to have his car washed? A first-class jerk, that’s what kind. For the thousandth time he wondered what the hell Sam saw in this guy.

Lukas plucked out a little riff, to make sure the amp was working. A few twangy notes spilled forth and reverberated out into the parking lot. Harris’s hands curled into fists, and his face turned angry-emoji red. It was too easy to push this guy’s buttons. He really should refrain. Hold back. Be the gentleman he strived so hard to be.

But holding back was not in Lukas Spikonos’s nature.

“I walked away once, Harrison old buddy, and I won’t be making that mistake again.”

He was now convinced Harris Buckhorn, the-Whatever-Number-He-Was, was not good for Sam at all. There was no way he could stand by and watch him ruin her life.

Lukas squeezed his guitar a little tighter. Otherwise he held the same relaxed posture, kept the same lazy grin on his face. But his hands were trembling a little. Because he’d meant it, every single blessed word.

Harris’s laughter held a diabolical edge. “We’ve been dating for six years. Do you actually think you have a chance of breaking us up?”

“Funny, but I don’t see that you’ve put a ring on it. No ring, no promises.” He punctuated that with a strum.

“You’re a scumbag.”

“I love when you talk dirty to me.” Lukas took great pleasure watching a brand-new wave of flush start at the collar of Harris’s Ralph Lauren polo and race up his face. He might be handsome now, but Lukas detected a bit of puffiness around the eyes. A hint of softness around the middle. Good thing Lukas had stopped smoking, as of six days ago, anyway. No premature crow’s-feet for him, no siree. Or flab, for that matter.

“Go ahead, rock star. Insult me. Try to steal her. See what happens.” Then he revved his car. Lukas almost said,big car, small penisbut he didn’t want to get a war started in front of the kids.

Lukas was relieved when Harris finally peeled off. He picked up his guitar but discovered the amp wasn’t working. He’d just walked over to the outlet and unplugged the cord when a guy wearing long pants and a T-shirt with a blown-up view of Michelangelo’s God and Adam that said “Adam Was Made of Atoms ... so Study Physics!” walked up to him. He bent down and pushed a little button in the middle of the socket. “Now try,” he said.

The couple of notes he played sounded out loud and clear. “Thanks for the help.” He extended his hand toward the stranger.

“Evan Wolensky. I teach physics at the high school.” A bunch of kids wearing “Physics is Phun” shirts had gone to mingle with the other students. There still weren’t any cars in line.

“I couldn’t help but notice how you told that guy off,” Evan said. “Impressive. I have the same problem.” He sighed and nodded toward a woman Lukas recognized as Sam’s best friend Jess, who was watching a very built guy do a front-double-biceps pose for a group of kids. With his shirt off. “Except I haven’t got the muscles, and couldn’t carry a tune if someone threatened to cut off my family jewels.”

Lukas laughed. “Everyone’s got their own special talents going, you know, man? Why wish for somebody else’s?”

“Because those kind get the chicks. Maybe I can get a job at the nuclear plant over in Waterford and hope for a radiation exposure.”

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