07 It Had to Be You Read online

  “Before me.”

  “You didn’t make me promise,” Jack pointed out. “And anyway, everyone knows chicks are better at this shit, man. She’s getting on a flight. We need her here. You need her.”

  They made it to the ER and sat in the waiting room, waiting on news. Several hours later, Sara ran in.

  Tall, athletically lean, with her blue eyes filled with worry, she walked right into Luke’s arms.

  “Nothing yet,” he told her. “We’re waiting on tests. They haven’t let us see him.”

  Sara nodded and sniffed, wiping her nose on his shirt. He let that one go and introduced her to Ali.

  “Sorry,” Sara said, swiping beneath her eyes. “I see Luke, and I always cry. It’s a silly reaction, but I just always know that when he’s in charge, it’s all going to be okay, you know?”

  “It is going to be okay,” Luke said.

  Sara gave Ali a soggy smile. “See?”

  A few minutes later, the doctor came out. “Intestinal distress,” Dr. Josh Scott said.

  They all just stared at him.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said. “What?”

  “He didn’t have a heart attack,” he said. “He ate two pastrami on rye sandwiches, three large dill pickles, and an entire bag of spicy Cheetos. He had indigestion.”

  Sara grinned broadly. “Sounds like grandpa.”

  Dr. Scott shook his head. “He has dangerously high cholesterol, and we’re setting him up with a dietician. But otherwise he’s as healthy as an ox.”

  Luke was the first to go in to see him. Edward was propped up on his hospital bed eating Jell-O.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Luke said.

  Edward frowned. “Don’t take that tone with me. I could have died today.”

  “You had gas.”

  Edward pointed the spoon at him. “But you didn’t know that. Were you worried?”

  “No.”

  Edward gave him a small, knowing smile. “Liar.”

  Since Luke’s legs were suddenly wobbling from relief, he sank to the side of his grandpa’s bed and scrubbed his hands over his face. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Why, because you nearly let me die without fulfilling your promise to Sara?”

  Luke dropped his hands from his face. “What promise?”

  “To give me a hug.”

  “You want a hug,” Luke said with disbelief.

  “You deaf, boy?”

  Luke stared at him. “If I hug you, do you promise not to die on me?”

  Edward’s smirk faded, and he set the Jell-O down. “I promise not to die today. How’s that?”

  “Good enough,” Luke said, and hugged him tight.

  Chapter 21

  That night Sara stayed in Lucky Harbor at Luke’s house. Ali made omelets while watching brother and sister, fascinated by their relationship.

  Sara was at the table, flipping through one of Fay’s old photo albums. “Jeez,” she said to Luke, “here’s one of you up in a pine tree on the bluffs. What were you, Luke, ten? Grandma had just told you not to climb any, remember? So of course, Ben dared you, and you climbed a damn tree. You got up about forty feet and then froze. We had to call the fire department, and Jack’s dad had to come with his ladder truck and save you. You were such an idiot.”

  “Thanks,” Luke said.

  He’d been quiet, very quiet, and Ali knew that the worry about his grandfather had left him exhausted.

  “Here’s another one,” Sara said, pointing to the next page. “You tried to windglide from the roof straight into the water, you freakazoid. Look, remember that? You broke an arm and a leg. You’re lucky you didn’t crack your skull.” She paused. “Probably because your head’s too thick to break.”

  Luke gave a small, distracted shake of his “thick” head but didn’t say anything.

  Sara gave him a worried glance before flipping through the pages some more, and Ali realized Luke’s sister wasn’t trying to bait him for the hell of it, she was trying to coax him out of his mood. Her heart melting for both of them, Ali brought over two plates with omelets. She stroked a hand over Luke’s shoulders and felt the tight knot of taut muscles, so she stopped to rub his neck.

  With a grateful sigh, he dropped his head forward to give her room to work, eyes closed, silent.

  Sara stood up. “Be right back.” Two minutes later, she came back in with two stacks of files—one large, one small—and plopped them down onto the table.

  “What’s this?” Luke asked.

  “I didn’t want to tell you, but I stopped in to see Craig.”

  Luke narrowed his eyes. “You stopped in on my commander?”

  “No, I stopped in on my ex-boyfriend,” Sara said. “I knew him first, if you’ll remember, and he wasn’t your commander back then. I borrowed these from him.” She pointed to the first stack of files, which was a foot thicker than the other stack. “Know what those are?”

  “Your criminal records?”

  “Funny, har-har,” Sara said. “They’re the cases you’ve closed. The cases you solved. The cases filled with scores and scores of people whose lives you changed for the better.”

  She pointed to the much, much smaller stack. “Those you can pout about. Those are your supposed failures. Without that stack, without you being good at your job, this stack—” She tapped the big one, “—these people’s lives would be destroyed. So take a good, hard look, Luke, and tell me that you don’t always do your absolute best. That you didn’t give each and every one of your cases a little piece of your heart and soul.”

  She paused, and when she spoke further, her voice was softer and very, very gentle. “You didn’t fail grandma. You certainly have never failed me. And you didn’t kill Isabel Reyes. Say it. Say that you know you’re a good man, the best man I know. That there’s still enough heart and soul left inside you to go on. Because if you’ve given up, Luke, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll…” Her voice broke.

  Looking pained, Luke reached for her.

  She curled into him. “Tell me, Luke.”

  “I’m okay,” he said gruffly.

  Sara lifted her head and searched his gaze. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Okay.” She nodded and sniffed. Then she stood up and gathered the files quickly, but Luke caught her before she could run off. “The files,” he said. “They’re not from Craig. He’d never have given them to you.”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  He shook his head. “What did you fill them with?”

  She bit her lower lip. “An empty ream of paper from your printer.”

  “You’re a nut,” he said.

  And then they ate omelets.

  The next day at the ground-breaking ceremony, Luke watched the crowd, wondering if the thief was also watching. Just about everyone in Lucky Harbor was at the building site, where the early afternoon sun beat down on the empty lot and the masses, who were held back by a wide, yellow ribbon.

  Ali was next to him, and they were off to one side, trying to lie low. On the other side of the ribbon, up on a makeshift platform of plywood, stood Tony and Bree Medina. The mayor and his wife were both holding shovels and smiling into the cameras. Near them were Ted Marshall and a handful of town council members. Bree was telling one of the council members about a show she’d recently seen, and Ali suddenly tensed.

  “What?” Luke asked.

  She sneezed. “That show,” she whispered. “The one Bree’s talking about? I found two ticket stubs to it in the key pot the night Teddy moved out.” She sneezed again. “Sorry, it’s her perfume. It gets me every”—sneeze—“time.”

  He squeezed her in close, pressing her face to his chest. She breathed in deeply and let out a soft, little “mmm,” which shouldn’t have done anything to him, but completely did. She was always trying to inhale him, as if the scent of him was the best thing she’d ever smelled. He felt the same about her. “You okay?”

  She set her head on his