Page 49 of This Loving Feeling (Mirror Lake)

“Yes.”

“Well, you’re making me uncomfortable,” she said.

“Good.”

She stood back to look at her handiwork. She flicked a wary glance at him. Then she handed him a mirror. “Here, take a look.”

“Very ... clownish.” He looked up at her. “Thank you.” He stood up and looked in the bigger mirror over the pedestal sink. Before he put on his red nose, he turned. “There’s something between us, Sam. I feel it and you feel it. Maybe we should both get it out of our systems.”

“You’re not in my system. I’m in love with Harris.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“What you have with him is not love.” He hadn’t seen it before when he was younger, but he saw it now. And he couldn’t be silent.

“Spoken by the guy who’s just admitted he’s never had a relationship. When did you become an expert on love?”

“I know enough. You don’t light up when you talk about him—instead, you apologize for him. You tiptoe around him like he’s a sleeping giant you don’t want to awaken. You seem embarrassed by the way he treats you. And my own personal opinion—any man who doesn’t make love to his girlfriend before he leaves town for any length of time is a fool. The thing I don’t understand is why you take it all, why you stay with him.”

“How dare you.” Anger flashed from those spectacular eyes. He fisted his hands so he wouldn’t grab her and pull her close and kiss some sense into her. Good thing his face was covered in greasepaint.

“I may not be the one for you, but Harris sure as hell isn’t either.” A graceful and quick exit was supposed to punctuate that statement. But Lukas’s giant clown shoes knocked against the bathroom cabinet and the door and prevented that, and he stumbled a little in the small space. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” He had to lift his big cloppy feet up and over the threshold. He might have detected a trace of amusement in her eyes. On top of being really pissed.

He turned back once he reached the doorway of the spare bedroom. “And if you’re inclined to help with the face painting, I’d appreciate it.”

“Fine, Ronald McDonald, I’ll help you on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Stop critiquing me and mind your own business.”

“Never,” he said, waggling his clown brows. Then he tooted his clown horn and left.

“If you call me your lovely assistant again, I’m going to bean you over the head with one of these,” Sam whispered to Lukas as she handed him three plastic bowling pin–shaped things that she thought were for juggling, even as she maintained a sweet smile for all the kids sitting in a semicircle in front of them.

Irritation made her snarky. How could Lukas waltz back into her life after six years and judge her relationship with Harris?

Yet the accuracy with which he pinpointed her feelings toward Harris was alarming. It was embarrassing that Harris condescended to her in front of her friends and sometimes even her family. Shewasfilled with doubt and a foreboding sense of unease. She avoided confronting Harris directly about anything because he turned moody and sullen for days afterward. And he was so wrapped up in his own problems that he left her—their relationship—hanging for months.

She kept hoping his irritable temperament was temporary, but in her heart she knew his true nature. She was beginning to worry that maybe she was more in love with what he represented—stability, security, normalcy—than Harris himself.

She broke out of her worried thoughts to find Lukas grinning at her, which was a tad creepy, what with his clown smile and all. “You are my lovely assistant, dammit.” He took the juggling pins from her, his hands brushing hers. Purposefully. “Maybe I should introduce you as myhotlovely assistant.” He winked, which did something to her insides. Dissolved them completely, despite her anger.

How could she get turned on by a guy in full clown makeup? Was that unnatural? She’d never flirted with a clown before. Come to think of it, she never wanted to again. Because itwaskind of creepy.

“Okay, kids. Gather round,” Lukas said, honking his clown horn. For right now, they were a rapt audience. And they would be, for as long as their attention spans held. Which, in her experience, was about ten seconds.

“Okay, hot assistant, get ready,” he said in a low voice.

She shot him the stink eye.

“For this next part, mybrainyassistant will lie down on this bench,” he said out loud to the kids. He dragged a wooden picnic bench over from Meg and Ben’s lawn table.

She cocked a brow. “Are you going to saw me in half?”

“Sweetheart,” he said, his face very near, his voice rumbly and soft, “there’s a lot of things I could think of doing with you all stretched out in front of me, but sawing you in half isn’t one of them.” He reached out a hand to help her into position. She lay down on the bench, her feet hanging over the edge, making sure her dress was tucked in.

---