Page 74 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

Tony left and Ben finally unstrapped Lukas from the backboard. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head and cracking his neck.

“So your head and neck scans were fine. How does your head feel?” Ben asked.

“Hurts like the band used my head for their drum set.”

He chuckled. “You’ll have to take it easy for a few days.”

“Look, Ben.” Sam’s brother stood propped against the counter, his arms folded, quietly assessing him. He had had the same big eyes as Sam, although Sam’s were green and Ben’s were brown. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t mean to ruin the donor event. I couldn’t sit around and let Harris propose to Sam. He’s not right for her.”

“And you are?”

Lukas paused long and hard. He’d never thought so before. But he was different from six years ago. Better. Grown up. He knew how to make her smile. Did that have anything to do with being good for someone? It seemed a paltry offering. “I care about her a lot. I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy. I want to do things right this time.”

Ben heaved a sigh. “I don’t suppose Sam’s ever gotten over you, either. But if you break her heart again, I won’t hesitate to strap you to that backboard again and perform some surgery on your man parts.”

A sharp rap sounded on the door. A woman wearing multicolored scrubs popped her head in. “Dr.Rushford, security just pulled a cameraman out of our linen closet trying to make his way back here. The police from Deep River had to be called in to help control the traffic. And Millie thought she just saw Ryan Seacrest. Things are getting crazy.”

“All righty then,” Ben said, slapping Lukas on the arm. “I guess you’re discharged.”

“Look, you’ve got to help me get to Sam. Please.”

“Funny, I was just planning on throwing you to the lions.”

“Please, Ben.”

“Oh, fine. Who am I to stand in the way of young love?” Ben scratched his beard thoughtfully. “We may have to put you in a plaster body cast and haul you out on a stretcher to get past the media. Or maybe we can toss you in a hearse with a couple of the stiffs from the morgue.”

“Whatever it takes,” Lukas said with a grin.

“Well, for the record, I was kidding, but that’s the right answer. You’re all right, Lukas.”

Finally.

“Yes, Effie, I’m fine,” Sam said into her phone from her seat in the balcony section of the old theater. “Lukas’s bodyguards took me to get my car from the art museum but photographers were everywhere, so I let myself into the back entrance of the theater. Ben told me a bunch of them are still camped out in front of the Donaldsons’ driveway. He’s keeping Stevie with him and Meg tonight. But I’ll be okay sleeping in the office. I have some snacks in my desk.”

So much for spending the night with Lukas.

“Well,” Effie answered, “I hate to see you alone there in that big, dark theater with the town half run over with paparazzi. Let me send someone over to stay with you.”

“Too risky. I’ll be fine by myself.” She’d fallen asleep in the office plenty of times over the past few months. It even had a little couch. Being here didn’t scare her—how could it, when it was one of her favorite places?

The phone suddenly got muffled. There was rustling. She heard Effie’s voice in the background saying, “What was that, Ben?” More rustling, then Effie was back. “Oh, we ordered you a pizza. Witheverything. Side door, ten minutes. Enjoy!”

The line went dead.

This was the weirdest night ever. Yet Sam felt a strange sense of peace, despite the dinner being upended in the worst way. She hadn’t even stayed to do any damage control, so God knew how many of the donors would actually donate after tonight’s fiasco.

She did know Harris’s parents were not happy. Meg told her they’d left immediately after Harris punched Lukas, not wanting any association with the ruckus that ensued. They hadn’t even stayed to help their distraught son. That made her sad, but it also supported everything she’d expected, that the Buckhorns valued appearances more than anything.

Well, after tonight, she’d certainly blown any chance of ever ingratiating herself into that family. For some reason, that made her chuckle, the sound echoing across the vast rows of red velvet seats. She was sitting in her favorite spot, the front row of the balcony. The Moorish castle façade on either side of the stage basked in a beautiful golden glow, and she’d gone backstage and turned on the sky of twinkling stars overhead. One of the perks of knowing this place inside and out.

Funny, but she wasn’t sitting there doing what she would have typically done, obsessing about ways to soothe things over for Harris’s pragmatic parents or even for Harris himself, who had seemed a little brokenhearted. The semblance of security and safety and family values had brought her back to him after they’d broken up the first time, so long ago, but it wasn’t enough now to keep them together. Maybe she’d finally figured out those things were only an illusion with him.

While she was being brutally honest with herself, she also admitted she didn’t have to work at herself so much when Harris had made it so easy for her to dissolve into his big personality, his mission, his causes.

She’d given up her job for him, and she’d been willing to do whatever it took to help him get his career off the ground. Why hadn’t she seen the fact that he’d actually encouraged her not to get another job in Boston as a red flag? He was fine with advancing himself at her expense. She wondered if it was too late to get her job back, and made a mental note to talk to Joe Malone as soon as possible to find out.

Being safe, not risking anything, hadn’t got her what she wanted for her own life.

---