Page 133 of Just One Look

Luka reached across her, took her hand from Baxter, examined it, and said, “Barely a mark, really. If you think that’s bad, Baz, you should’ve seen what she did tome.Had me wearing long sleeves for days.”

* * *

Luka looked around the table,then back at Baxter, and asked, “Too much? Sorry. Just a rugby player, eh, and rough as guts at that. Don’t even have a diploma, whilst Elle’s got all those flash letters on that white coat of hers.”

She told him, “That’s not funny.”

“Oh,” he said, “I think it’s a little funny.”

“I was just thinking,” she said, “that I don’t have to tell him anything! How do Inottell him anything after that?”

“What in the Sam Hill have you gotten yourself into?” her father asked. He looked aghast. Angus looked thoughtful, but Luka hoped his steady gaze was telling her,You can handle this.Lauren looked … amused. In a nice way, of course. But definitely amused.

“Do you know why I was mousy?” Elle asked her father. Conversationally.Pretend that you’re in charge everywhere,Luka had told her, and now, she was doing just that. She straightened her already straight shoulders, held Luka’s hand under the table, and waited for an answer.

He squeezed her hand. Least he could do.

“I’m not here for a psychological discussion of your past,” Baxter said.

“Oh?” she asked. “Then whatareyou here for?”

“To bring you home, of course. Since you’re making a fool of yourself.”

“Dad. I’m not coming home. Not for months.”

“And what will have happened in that time?” he asked. “Will you be even more irrational? Have quit medicine and become a waitress in a truck stop, because you want to experience real life? Will this person have persuaded you to marry him, so he can continue taking advantage of you?”

“If I’m lucky,” Luka said. He didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.

“That’s the spirit, mate,” Angus said.

Elle said, “You can’t— We haven’t—”

He said, “Maybe we should think about setting goals. Goals are good.” The top of his head was about to blow off. Recklessness. Anger. General loss of control in a way you didn’t allow yourself. Unless the top of your head was blowing off, of course.

She almost visibly shook it off and asked her father, “Do you know why I was mousy?” She didn’t wait for an answer this time. “Because everything in that house revolved around you. Because everybody tiptoed around you. Because I was so scared of messing up!”

“Nonsense,” he said. “You can’t put your failings onto me.”

“Mama was going to leave you,” she said. “When she died. She was running home to Memaw, and it was partly because of me. Because of what you did to me, and because of what you did to her.”

“I did nothing to you,” he said. “Either of you. I gave her everything. She was raised in a shack. Goats in the yard, a pig in the pen, chickens scratching in the dirt, a roof patched with tar paper. It was ashack.”

“And then she graduated from high school, went to trade school, and came to Savannah,” Elle said. “To be a medical secretary and follow her dreams. And she met you.”

He said, “Nobody’s interested in this history.”

“I’m interested,” Luka said. “And I’m guessing Lauren is, too, if only to remind herself of her lucky escape.”

Baxter didn’t answer. He focused on Elle, but there were patches of red mottling his cheeks. She went on, “Why did you marry her? Why her, if she wasn’t good enough? Whowouldhave been good enough?”

“Why do you think?” he asked.

“Oh.” Luka could see that hit her. “Oh. Because she was pregnant. Of course she was. Of course that was how it happened.” After that, she rallied and said, “And then you spent the rest of her life telling her she wasn’t good enough. Only perfection was good enough in that house, and only you defined perfection. She never measured up, did she? And neither did I.”

“Your mother was reckless,” Baxter said. “Immature. Careless with property, with money, with her time. Impulsive and undisciplined. Those aren’t faults a husband can ignore.”

“So you spent my whole childhood making sure I wouldn’t have them,” Elle said. “And my adolescence. And my adulthood. You made me cautious. Frozen. Too old for my years. Terrified of failure, and unable to react spontaneously to anything.”