I smirked. “Ah, see, you think you’re so smart, that you know everything. Well, I do know Viola. And I know women. As a tough-talking variety of the species myself, I can say with some authority that sometimes we women bust a guy’s balls so he won’t see just how much his words hurt us.”
He shook his head, green eyes flashing with disbelief. “Why would anything I have to say matter enough to hurt Viola?”
“Yeah, Lucas.” I made a “duh” face. “Why would your words matter enough to hurt her?”
It took a second but slowly that disbelief and confusion softened to understanding. And then shock. Before veering between disbelief again and something I couldn’t quite work out.
He opened his mouth to respond, when a beep of a horn stopped him.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the Land Rover. Roane gestured from the driver’s seat. Shadow’s head was hanging out the window, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
I gave them a quick wave and turned back to Lucas, who was scowling at his feet in thought. “Well, see you around.”
He glanced up at me warily. “What are you playing at here?”
This guy was so suspicious. For someone this sharp, he really was blindly clueless about Viola. “I’m just looking out for Viola, that’s all.”
Lucas curled his upper lip. “Aye, well, I doubt very much Viola would want you telling her enemy that he has the ability to hurt her feelings.”
“Her enemy?” I scoffed. “Why on earth would a smart guy like you go out of his way to make an enemy of Viola Tait?” I shook my head at him as if he were a moron. “I’ve lived in one of the biggest cities in the US, kid. I’ve met a lot of people in my thirty-odd years on the planet. And she’s a singular kind of woman. Intelligent, confident, kind, loyal, fierce, protective, witty as hell, funny, drop-dead gorgeous and no ego to go with it. Whatever guy ends up with Viola will be the luckiest guy in the world.”
He smirked. “What are you? Her publicist?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why did you stick up for her with that old guy if you’re so indifferent to her?”
“Again, why do you care?”
“Answer my question first.”
With a heavy sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I already told you why. I would stick up for anyone who was the target of that kind of bigotry.”
Remembering how he shook with fury over what that old villager had said, I mirrored Lucas’s sigh. “You’re young and cocky and right now you think you’ve got years to make mistakes and fix them. But you don’t, Lucas. That’s why I’m here. Because I graduated from college and the next eleven years of my life passed by in the blink of an eye and I found myself with nothing but regrets over the choices that I’d made. I don’t want you, or anyone, to wake up in ten, twenty years’ time, and wonder what could have been. Such benign little words—‘what if.’ But at some point in life, those two words become the scariest two words in the English language.”
I half expected another sarcastic response. Something immature and lacking in foresight. Yet, to my surprise, Lucas just looked at The Alnster Inn and then back to me, his expression solemn.
“You think I don’t already know that, growing up with my dad, then you really don’t know anything about this place. Now”—his gaze flickered over my shoulder to Roane before returning to mine—“take this as a gentle warning and not a threat, because I don’t want your boyfriend kicking my arse, but putting your nose into people’s business round here tends to get the thing lopped off.”
I could tell by his expression and tone that it wasn’t a threat. That he actually meant well by the warning. So I heeded it, wondering if perhaps I really had crossed a line. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just . . . trying to be helpful.”
“Aye, well, I’m not in need of your matchmaking services, Ms. Starling.” With a wry grin and a tip of his invisible hat, he strode past me toward the inn.
I shook my head in disbelief. No wonder young Viola was intrigued by this guy. He was too smart for his own freaking good, and talking to him wasn’t like talking to any twenty-year-old guy I’d met before. There was an attractive authority and maturity about Lucas Elliot that made him dangerous to young women everywhere. And he totally had me figured out.
Dammit.
“You getting in anytime soon?” Roane called from his SUV.
With a grin of apology, I hurried over and climbed in. “Sorry.”
“What was that about?” He jerked his chin in the direction of The Alnster Inn.
Did I really want to tell Roane about my failed matchmaking attempts?
“Evie?”
Finding myself unable to invent a lie or bad excuse, I told him everything. What I’d witnessed between Lucas and Viola on Market Day, Viola’s expression when she saw Lucas with that unknown girl, and then Lucas’s reaction to the old racist villager.
“I think they like each other underneath all that animosity.”
Roane shot me an amused look as he drove us out of Alnster. “Evie, anyone with eyes can see Lucas Elliot wants Viola Tait.”
I gaped. “You know?”
“Oh, aye.” He turned left onto the main road, heading south from Alnster. “A few years ago—it must have been early summer, just before the two of them were heading to Newcastle Uni—Viola was in a car accident and ended up in hospital with a broken collarbone and cracked ribs. Word spread round the village fast, but all anyone knew was that Vi was in hospital, that the car she was in was totaled and it was bad. Her friend, the driver, escaped miraculously with very few injuries, but Viola was unconscious when she was pulled from the car by paramedics.”
“Jesus,” I whispered, thinking of Milly and Dex and how worried they must have been.
“Aye. Well, I was at the hospital to support Milly and Dex. I didn’t want to leave them until I was sure Viola was going to be all right. When I came out of her room, I found Lucas skulking around, pale faced—a jittery bloody mess.” Roane shook his head, smirking. “When I approached him, he practically jumped me for information about Viola, and I knew then my suspicions were correct. Lucas doesn’t just fancy Viola, Evie, he cares about her. He might even love her.”
My chest ached at the thought. “But—”
“He knew I knew then, and he made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone he’d been there to see how she was. And I haven’t told anyone until now.”
“Why?”
“Because his name is Lucas Elliot. Do you think West, or even Kathy, would ever speak to that boy again if he told them he was getting together with Viola Tait?”