Teresa Hill (10 page)

He didn’t want to think about how serious it was becoming to him already, how right it felt. She was right. He was lonely. Samantha was the first woman he’d even looked at twice since Elena left, and it wasn’t that he hadn’t had opportunities. He just hadn’t been interested. Until now.

So was that because he was simply ready to move on? Was it because he was lonely? Or was it because of who Samantha was? Because she was the right person for him and his kids?

“I like her,” he said. “I really like her. But she’s been through a lot herself, and we’re both gun-shy.”

“Good,” Katherine said.

Now, if only they could stick to that plan, Joe thought.

Samantha’s week dragged by so slowly she could hardly stand it. She glared at the calendar, wondering how five days could possibly last this long. They were coming on Friday evening, and she was going to make spaghetti—Luke’s favorite—and chocolate cake—Dani’s favorite. And she wanted everything to be perfect.

Of course, her house was a mess. Abe was furious at her and giving her a hard time about canceling their contract, and Joe’s crew had been here every day, but she could tell this was going to be a long messy process. But this is what it took to put her house in order, to end up with what she wanted.

She thought about that—a long messy process. A bit scary. One where it was hard, sometimes, to see how it could possibly turn out right in the end, when things were so unsettled now, everything out of place and feeling awkward and making her uneasy. She didn’t like messes. She always wanted life to be neat and tidy, everything in its place.

But life wasn’t like that. Hers certainly hadn’t been, and it scared her when things got so out of synch.

For the first time she thought that maybe it had to be like this now—messy and complicated and a bit scary. Maybe that was the way it worked sometimes, to get everything in place the way it should be.

Maybe she just had to learn to work through the scary times, to keep her eyes on what waited for her at the end. A place where she could feel safe and happy and secure. A place with Joe and his kids.

She wasn’t thinking about the house now. She was thinking about her personal life. Maybe this was simply the way things were, the way things were meant to be.

She rushed around the kitchen Friday evening, finding bright-blue dishes and cups with clouds on them she thought Dani would think were pretty and putting out a few toys she’d brought home from her office, where she kept a supply for the kids to play with. She was ready long before they arrived, spent an entire twenty minutes sitting in the kitchen gazing out into the backyard, thinking it was ridiculous for a thirty-year-old woman to be so excited about cooking one dinner for one man and his two children.

But she was.

They came at her in a rush fifteen minutes later, the children running up the walkway and jumping into her arms. Dani gave her a sweet-little-girl kiss on the cheek and Luke squeezed her so tight. She didn’t want to let him go.

“We’re here!” Dani announced, sheer joy on her face.

“I know. I’m glad.”

“Is your ceiling still dripping?” Dani asked, ready to go find it.

“No. Your daddy fixed it.”

“Daddy fixes everything,” Dani said, completely confident that he could.

Samantha stood up and watched him moving more slowly down the walkway, admiring the smile on his lips. “Yes, it seems he does.”

“Does what?” Joe said, giving her a quick kiss on the mouth while the children went rushing through her house.

“She said you fix things, and I was agreeing that you seem to make everything all better.”

His grin broadened. “Happy to see us, Doc?”

“Yes.”

“It’s been a long five days.”

She nodded. “Want to know how many hours? I’ve been keeping track.”

He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“Daddy, there’s a tree house in the backyard!” Luke said, spinning to a halt five feet away and staring up at them in each other’s arms. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Telling Samantha hello,” Joe said, kissing her on the tip of her nose. “You said hello, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Joe’s hands fell to his side and Samantha stepped back. “Luke gave me a hug and Dani gave me a kiss.”

Luke frowned at that. Dani came charging into the room and announced, “There’s a tree house in the backyard!”

“We know,” Luke said, impatient as a big brother tended to be with a little sister.

“Can we play in it?”

“I think that’s up to your father,” Samantha said. “I don’t know how long it’s been there or if it’s safe.”

“We have time before dinner?” Joe asked.

“Of course.”

“Okay. Let’s check it out,” Joe said, taking Luke and Dani with him into the backyard.

They had a great time. They ate and laughed and played, and they were so sweet. It felt so right, being with them. She found herself wishing her father was still alive, because he’d always understood magic. She wanted to ask him how he’d known when he met her mother that it was real, that it was right. What little spark of magic he’d felt that let him have no more doubts and not be so afraid. Or was she the only one who was so afraid, so cautious, so worried about taking the wrong step and it leading to disaster?

There must be some way people just know, a way to sidestep all these games and insecurities and worries.

She tested her heart, asked herself what was inside it. Pure joy at the moment. They were coming to fill up her house and to fill up her life, at least for this night.

She considered the night a complete success, and she was already asking herself when, if they were going to take this slowly, she could let herself see them again and when she could see Joe alone. She wanted to have Joe to herself, too.

It wasn’t until they’d all climbed into the car and Luke ran back for the jacket he’d forgotten that she started to worry.

“You really like my daddy?” he said quite seriously.

“I like you all,” Samantha said.

“But you were kissin’ him an’ stuff.”

“Yes. Do you not want me to do that, Luke?”

“I dunno. I just…” He kicked at a stone on the sidewalk in front of her house. “Are you gonna get tired of us and go away, too?”

“Oh, Luke.”

“’Cause my mommy went away. She got tired of us and went away.”

“Luke, I don’t know why she went away. I think that’s something you should talk about with your father, and as for me and your father, and you and your sister, I don’t know what’s going to happen. We barely know each other.”

“I know you,” he insisted.

“Yes. That’s not what I meant. We haven’t spent that much time together. We’re just friends, and—”

“Are you gonna move in with us and live with us now?”

“No,” she said. “It’s… Why would you think that?”

“My friend Jimmy from down the street? He’s got a new daddy. His daddy left, and now he has a new one. I didn’t know you could just get another one, and so I wondered. That’s all.”

“Sometimes when parents separate, one of them or both of them will find someone else and get married, and kids get a new mother or a new father. Sometimes both.”

“If you do, you’d better not leave us,” he said. “’Cause my sister was really upset. She just cried and cried and cried, and I didn’t think we’d ever get her to stop.”

“Just your sister?” Samantha asked gently.

“Well, Daddy wasn’t really happy, either. He yelled sometimes, and I think sometimes he cried, too, but you shouldn’t tell anybody that. I don’t think dads are supposed to do that, but he was really sad, and he said everybody gets sad sometimes and sometimes they cry.”

“And you?” Samantha suggested. “I bet you were kind of sad, too?”

“Maybe,” he admitted.

“Luke, I don’t know what to tell you. We’re just not there. We’re not to that point. Not nearly. We’re all just getting to know each other. We all need to take some time to figure out if we like each other, and maybe, someday, if we all agree that’s what we want, we could all get married and live together. But we shouldn’t be worrying about things like that now. It’s too soon.”

“Oh. Okay.” He frowned again. “But I know already. I like you. I want you to stay with us. I get a vote, don’t I? Is that how it works? All of us’ll vote?”

“Kind of like that,” Samantha said.

“And Dani likes you, too. I know she’d vote yes, and Daddy likes you. That’s three votes. That’s all we need, right?”

“Oh, Luke. There’s just a lot more to it than that. It’s… You know how sometimes the things grown-ups do just don’t make a lot of sense to you, because they’re so complicated?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, this is one of those things. There are all sorts of things to consider, so many that I couldn’t even tell you all of them.”

“You could tell me. I could understand. I’m really smart.”

“Luke…I need to talk to your father about it, okay? And he needs to talk to you.”

“Okay. But you like us, right?”

“I do. I promise I do.”

“Then everything’ll be okay.”

“No. Luke!” Samantha couldn’t believe this, couldn’t believe how fragile this poor little boy was and what they’d done to him already, just by all of them being together a few times. She’d never imagined. Even as worried as she was, she’d never imagined it would happen this fast. “I need to talk to your father, and it can’t be now because he and your sister are ready to go. They’re already in the car.”

“They’ll come back,” he said.

“No. Not now. But we’ll talk. All of us will talk. But I think you should go now.”

“Okay.” He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and gave her a big, big hug before he turned and ran down the sidewalk.

Joe came home feeling like a million bucks, only to find a frantic-sounding message from Samantha to call him as soon as he got the kids in bed. He frowned at the answering machine as it broadcast the message. Luke and Dani were right there to hear it.

“Can we call her?” Dani asked, excited by the idea.

“No. I’ll call her after I get you and your brother in bed, which needs to happen right now,” Joe said. “It’s late.”

“But I wanna talk.”

“Not now. It’s past your bedtime.”

Dani sulked, but he finally got her into bed. Luke was unusually cooperative, suspiciously cooperative, in fact. Which meant something was up. Joe tucked him in and said, “Have a good time tonight?”

“Yes. Did you?”

“Yes.”

“And Dani did, too. Do you think Samantha did?”

“Yes. What did you say to her when you went back to get your jacket?”

Luke shrugged. “Some stuff.”

Joe frowned. “What kind of stuff?”

“Just…stuff. She wants to talk to you about it.”

“So she said. Anything you want to tell me?”

“Well…just that I vote yes.”

“What do you mean, yes?”

“And Dani does, too. I didn’t ask her, but I’m sure she’d say yes.”

“Yes to what?”

“Us all living together and Samantha bein’ our new mommy.”

“Luke? What in the world are you talking about?”

“Jimmy Allan got a new daddy. He just moved right in, and they all got married and stuff.”

“So? That’s Jimmy Allan. What does that have to do with us?”

“I didn’t know you could get a new one like that. I thought with Mommy gone and not coming back, that was it. But we could just find a new one, and we did. She likes us. She told me so, and we all like her. So I thought she’d come live with us, and everybody would be happy.”

“Oh, Luke.” Joe groaned and wanted to hit something. Himself, maybe, for not seeing how messed up his son still was by his mother walking out, or for never imagining that Luke could come to a conclusion on the basis of nothing but seeing Samantha a few times.

How in the world could he explain this?

“It doesn’t work like that, Luke.”

And then his son started to cry. “That’s what she said, but it could. I know it could.”

“Luke!”

“You don’t like her? ’Cause I thought you did.”

“I do. I like her. A lot. But we barely know each other.”

“But I like her, and I still miss Mommy….”

“I know. I know you do.”

“And you said she’s not coming back, so—”

“Luke.” Joe pulled his son into his arms, and suddenly it felt as if their hearts were breaking all over again. As if it was every bit as bad as it had been when Elena left and they all just fell apart. “I’m sorry. I know it still hurts. All of it, and I’m so sorry.”

“I thought everything was going to be okay. I thought we’d fixed everything ’cause we found Samantha.”

“No.”

“But you like her. I know you do.”

“Luke, can we talk about this in the morning? Okay? ’Cause it’s going to take some time for me to explain it all to you, and it’s late, and we’re all tired, and…” And he was falling apart. He was falling completely apart here, feeling as lost as he had when the reality of taking care of two little kids on his own hit him, feeling totally inadequate and lost and mad as anything at his ex-wife and the world in general. And feeling as if he’d failed his son once again. “I can’t do this now, Luke, okay?”

“Okay,” Luke said, pulling away and still crying.

Joe turned his head away and stifled a curse, thinking he’d never get this right. He’d never be able to make this all better, and what was a father supposed to do except fix things like this? Protect his kids and keep anything from ever hurting them this badly?

“I can’t do this now,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“Okay… Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Luke. None of this is your fault.”

“I made you sad.”

“No. The situation makes me sad. Not you. I love you, Luke. I love you very much.”

Luke held his arms open wide. “This much?”

It was a game they played.
I love you. How much? This much.

“More than that,” Joe said. “More than I can reach.”

He gave his son a big hug and dried his tears, closed the bedroom door behind him and leaned his head against it and had to fight to breathe, to keep from hitting the wall and screaming in frustration or maybe sinking to the floor.