Teresa Hill (12 page)

“Do you think she likes us?”

“Yes,” he said, wondering if Dani had gotten any ideas in her head that needed to be dealt with.

“I like her, too,” she said.

“Good.”

“An’ I need juice.”

“I think you have a cup of juice in the refrigerator waiting for you, one from last night. Why don’t you get it while I find Luke?”

“Okay,” she said, turning to go.

“Hey? What about me? What do I get this morning?”

She grinned again and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I wuv you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, baby girl.”

He would eat bullets for her. Leap tall buildings. Swim the widest ocean, and one grin like that one, one little peck on the cheek, made him think anything he had to do to take care of her and protect her, he would.

He had her and Luke, and now he had Samantha. He could do anything.

Joe went off to search closets until he found his son.

Luke was hiding under a blanket in his closet, with a flashlight in one hand and the jelly jar in the other. He had eight teeth. He’d lost one, and he’d gotten one from his friend Jimmy last week, but that was all. Stories were going around at school about him hurting Jenny. Everybody knew he was after baby teeth, and they were getting harder to find. All the teachers knew, too, he thought. They were watching him all the time.

He didn’t know if he’d get any more teeth, except his own and maybe those of his best friend, Alex, and that just wouldn’t be enough. It would never be enough.

He was trying to decide what to do when he heard footsteps outside the door, and then the closet door opened.

“Luke?” his father said.

“Yes?”

His father lifted the blanket and peered inside. “Can I come in?”

“Okay,” Luke said, resigned to talking to his father.

His father climbed into the closet and sat down with his back against the side wall and got under the blanket. Luke liked it when it was just him and his father under the blanket. He pretended they were off in a cave far, far away, just the two of them.

Sometimes now, he couldn’t get enough of his father. He wanted to be with him all the time.

He edged closer now, until their knees were touching, and then he leaned closer still, until he was resting against his father’s side, his father’s arm around him, his head on his father’s shoulder.

“Better this morning?” his father asked.

“I guess.”

“Luke, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“About what?” Luke thought it was all his fault. He’d gotten everything all wrong. He just hadn’t understood. There was so much about grown-ups he didn’t understand.

“About you being upset. I’m sorry.”

Luke shrugged, then sighed, then pressed his face against his father’s shirt. He was afraid he was going to cry again.

“I know you’re still all mixed-up about your mother leaving, and I’m sorry. I know you don’t understand why it happened and I know it feels lousy.”

“Do you think she’s ever coming back?”

“I don’t know,” his father said. “I honestly don’t know. If I did, I’d tell you. I promise. But I do know that we’re gonna be okay. We are doing okay, just the three of us, aren’t we?”

“I guess,” Luke said. It was starting to feel normal—being just the three of them.

“And whatever happens in the future, whether your mother comes back or it’s just the three of us or we have someone else—someone like Samantha—whatever happens, we’re going to be okay. I’ll be here, and I’ll always take care of you. You and I and Dani will always have each other, all right?”

“I guess so. Is Samantha mad at me?”

“No,” his father said. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. She thinks you’re great. But I don’t want you to worry about her. I don’t want you to worry about anything at all. You let me do the worrying, okay? I want you to think about what you want to do today. Anything at all. You and I and Dani, we’ll do it.”

“Really?” Luke asked.

“Anything?”

“Ice cream?” he suggested.

“Sure.”

“The zoo?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“And we can go see the snakes?”

“Sure.”

“Dani won’t like it,” Luke reminded him.

“I’ll carry her through the reptile house and she can cover her eyes.”

“She’s such a baby,” Luke said. “Snakes are cool.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Luke felt a little better. He liked the snakes. And the monkeys. They made so much noise. He liked being with his father, and sometimes he even liked his sister, and really, it was okay with just the three of them.

“All right,” his father said. “We’d better get out of here. The snakes are waiting.”

H
e phoned Samantha that afternoon while he was sitting on a bench at the park watching Dani swinging on the swing, and Luke making a mess of himself in the sandbox.

“Hi,” he said, something in him easing when he heard her voice.

“Hi. How’s Luke?”

“Filthy and laughing and raising hell in the sandbox at Grant Park.”

“Oh. Good. He’s not upset?”

“Not at the moment. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I…I miss you.”

Joe grinned. “I miss you, too, and I’ve been thinking about when I’m going to get to see you. I don’t get a lot of time without Luke and Dani.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t suppose I could interest you in a quick lunch on Monday? At this messy old house I’m working on, the one on Dogwood Lane?”

“A mess, is it?” she asked.

“Afraid so. It won’t be the most elegant lunch you’ve ever had.”

“I’ve always found elegance vastly overrated.”

“Sounds like a woman after my own heart.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a little something like your heart,” she said.

She was singing in the office on Monday. Singing! And according to her staff, she absolutely glowed. She wasn’t talking about it, but they guessed right away it was Joe, and all she could do was blush.

“I’m taking an early lunch,” she told Dixie at twenty minutes to twelve. She’d rushed her last two appointments and felt a bit guilty about that, but everyone was fine. Everyone’s teeth were fine, and she never played hookie from the office. She figured she was entitled every now and then.

“Have fun,” Dixie said, as if Samantha was heading off on a two-week Hawaiian vacation.

“I’m just going home for lunch,” she claimed. It was technically true.

“Nobody’s as happy as you about going home for lunch. Unless there’s a little romance involved!”

“Dixie!” Samantha couldn’t do anything but stand there with her face flaming.

“Go on,” Dixie urged. “Have fun.”

She intended to. She rushed home, nearly drove right through a stop sign she was so excited and distracted. Joe’s truck was out front, along with three others. She hadn’t thought about that—having an audience. Too bad. Would she ever get the man to herself?

She headed for the front door when one of the workmen stopped her and said, “You the lady dentist?”

“Yes.”

“Joe’s waiting for you around back.”

“Thanks,” she said, heading for the backyard. He was nowhere to be found.

“Up here, Doc,” he called.

She followed the sound of his voice, behind her and…up? Then spotted his face amidst the branches, in the tree house.

“Come on up,” he said.

She tugged off her shoes and climbed the makeshift ladder, laughing as she went, emerging on a platform that was maybe five feet by seven perched on the branches of an oak tree. Joe took her into his arms the minute she stepped free of the ladder and kissed her soundly.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“What do you think?”

She looked around, spying a picnic basket and a blanket by her feet. “Not bad.”

“I didn’t want to share you with the rest of them. This was the most privacy I could find on short notice,” he said. “Tomorrow I thought I’d offer to buy them lunch if they all go somewhere else to eat it.”

“We’re going to do this tomorrow?”

“We’re going to do this every day we can manage it,” he said, still kissing her. “Have you ever made out in a tree house?”

“No.” She laughed. “Have you?”

“No. But I’m willing to try it.”

“I think I’d try anything with you,” she admitted. Even risking her heart again. Even giving it away. She felt gloriously free and happy and hopeful for the first time in so long. She’d forgotten anything could feel this good, forgotten there were still things this good in the world.

He lifted his head and kissed her once, then again, then just looked at her. With a slow sweet smile that made her dizzy, he said, “I was thinking you should marry me.”

Samantha backed up six inches and blinked, all the breath leaving her body. “Joe—”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

He looked faintly apologetic but dead serious. Samantha made a faint pained sound.

“And I know all the reasons why that’s crazy. I know ’em all. You don’t even have to say them. I still think that’s what you should do.”

“Y-you said we’d take it slow. This is your idea of taking it slow?”

“I said we’d take it slow in front of the kids. Not with us. You and I haven’t ever taken anything slow between us.”

“It’s only been—”

“I know,” he said. “I do. And I’m perfectly willing to carry on a clandestine romance for as long as you want—as long as we think it’s necessary for everybody. We can wait to tell people. For you to wear the ring on your finger. We can wait to actually take the vows. But between the two of us…I know what I want. I hope you do, too.”

Samantha closed her eyes and felt the wetness of tears flooding her eyes.

“Ever been proposed to in a tree house before?” he said softly.

“No.” Richard was the only one who’d ever proposed to her, and he’d done it in typical Richard fashion—in the best restaurant in town with champagne and soft music and not nearly the heartfelt emotion she sensed in Joe’s proposal.

“I guess I could have waited, could have worked on my presentation a bit…”

“No.” She wasn’t grading him on his presentation skills but on the emotion behind the words and the utter sincerity. “You make me dizzy,” she complained.

“But that’s a good thing, right?”

“Dizzy,” she said breathlessly. “It’s like the whole world is spinning and I might fall down any minute—”

“I won’t let you fall, Doc.”

“No. I know you won’t. I think you’re a wonderful man,” she assured him.

“But I did forget one, very important part.” He kissed her once again, softly. “I’m in love with you. In a way…I didn’t even know, Samantha. I’ve only said that twice in my life, and I didn’t even know what I was talking about the first time. I’m a different man now. A better one, I hope.”

“I think you’re a wonderful man,” she reassured him.

“But you think it’s too soon.”

“I think you make my head spin, and that makes it hard to think. But I miss you every second I’m away from you. And I have all these visions in my head of you and me together. You and me and Dani and Luke and babies. I’d like to have babies.”

He grinned. “We could have babies.”

Samantha started to cry then at the outrageousness of the whole situation and at how much she felt at the moment and how much she was falling in love with him.

“I’d never make Luke or Dani feel slighted in any way because someone else gave birth to them.”

“I know that, Doc. I never doubted it for a minute. But you missed out on a whole lot with them, a lot of good days, days when they were so little they’d let you sit and hold them forever, just looking at them and smelling them and knowing they’re absolute miracles. That two people and love can make something like that is an absolute miracle. I don’t want you to miss that.”

“I’d like to be there from the very beginning, at least once,” she said.

“You will. You’re going to make beautiful babies. We’ll make beautiful ones together.”

“This is crazy,” she said.

“I know. Marry me.”

Still, she hesitated.

“It’s just you and me, remember,” he said. “Just between us.”

“I want to. I know I shouldn’t. Not yet. But I want to.”

“Then we’ll do it,” he said. “Whenever you’re ready. You and the kids.”

“I love you, Joe.”

And then he kissed her, and she didn’t have to think anymore.

Luke came home that day disgusted with the whole world. Danny Greene, a kid in third grade, had lost a tooth, and Luke hadn’t been able to talk Danny out of it. Not for quarters or cookies or any of his favorite rocks. Not for anything.

He was afraid it was all over for him and his plan to collect a hundred teeth.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dani asked, as she came in and bounced onto his bed.

“Nothin’,” he said.

“I got a loose tooth,” she announced, sticking her finger in her mouth and appearing to wiggle one a bit.

But Luke wasn’t the least bit excited. His sister was only four, and four-year-olds didn’t lose teeth unless they knocked them out by accident. That was what happened to one of their neighbors. He fell out of a swing one day and when he got up, there was blood everywhere and one of his teeth was gone. They almost didn’t find it.

Luke wasn’t desperate enough to try to get teeth out of a four-year-old, and his sister had been claiming for a whole year that she was losing a tooth any day now, and it never happened.

“I’ll give it to you if you’re nice to me,” Dani said.

“Nah,” Luke said. “Forget it.”

“You’re gonna forget all about it? But what about the wishes?”

Luke had confided in her a few weeks ago about his plan, and now he wished he hadn’t. All she did was bug him about it. Sisters were such a pain.

“I don’t have enough teeth,” Luke said.

“How do ya know?”

Luke thought about it for a minute. He didn’t really know. He’d never known whether his plan would work. He’d just decided it was worth a shot, and a hundred was a good big number. But really, he didn’t know. Samantha wouldn’t talk to him about it, and he was still mad at her for that and he still believed she was the tooth fairy and that maybe she was the only one who could bring his mother back.

Of course, he’d thought for a while that Samantha would be his new mommy and that maybe they would all be happy together. That sounded okay to him, too. But his dad said he’d gotten it all wrong then, and things were so mixed up now. He still missed his mommy, and he didn’t even know exactly what he wanted anymore.

“Couldn’t you just try it, Luke? Try the wish, anyway?” Dani asked.

And Luke thought he might as well. He had nothing to lose except eight teeth.

That night, when his father thought he was asleep, Luke crept out of bed and got his jar of teeth. He’d thought long and hard about what to do, and he decided the first star at night was as powerful as anything he knew, and everybody said those were good for wishes, too.

He stood by his window with the teeth and gazed up at the sky, and there it was—a star. He took the teeth out of the jar and held them in his fist, closed his eyes and wished. He wished hard.

Then he put the teeth under his pillow and got back into bed.

All he could do now was wait.

“Well, I’ve got trouble,” Joe said when he called her late that night.

It had become a habit with them over the past month. Every night she put on her pajamas and crawled into bed, and the last thing she did was have a sleepy, sweet conversation with Joe.

She missed him terribly. It wasn’t often they found time to sneak away together even for a conversation and even more seldom for anything else. She was still scared and surprised, hopeful and just a little bit crazy with love for him.

“What’s wrong now?” she asked. Things had been settling down, she thought. The kids seemed okay. Luke hadn’t gotten into any more trouble at school, and her house was looking good.
Life
was looking good.

“I went into Luke’s room to check on him before I came to bed and stubbed my toe on a jelly jar on the floor. An empty jelly jar.”

“Where he keeps his teeth?”

“Yes.”

“Uh-oh,” Samantha said. They hadn’t had a teeth crisis in weeks. She hadn’t heard a word from Luke the two brief times she’d seen him about magic or wishes.

“He put them under his pillow tonight. All eight of them. What am I supposed to do with them?” Joe asked.

“He didn’t say anything about them?”

“No.”

“Well…he’s not after some new toy, is he? Something he’d buy if he suddenly came into a lot of cash?”

“No such luck, doc.”

“Has he said anything about Elena lately?”

“Nope. I have no clue what he’s up to.”

“Oh, Joe.”

“Maybe it just means he’s done with this. This whole scheme,” Joe said. “Maybe he’s giving them up because he’s not going to try to get any more and all of this is over.”

“Maybe,” Samantha said. “Or maybe he made his wish.”

“Maybe we should offer him what he wants. A mother. You.”

“Joe, it’s only been a few months.”

“I know. We don’t have to tell them we’re getting married, but we could talk about the idea of dating. He knows about that from the shows on
Nick at Nite.
”

Samantha groaned. “So you’re ready to turn to the Nick at Nite School of Psychology and Child Rearing?”

“Hey, he can relate,” Joe said. “And maybe he is ready to let go of this idea of wishing his mother back. Maybe he’s ready to think about letting someone else into our lives. Maybe if he thought he would have someone else to mother him one day, he’d be happy.”

“I hope so,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

“Take the teeth and hide ’em in a jelly jar in the top of my closet,” Joe said.

“You’re hoarding teeth, too?”

“I thought I might. They’re my kid’s teeth.”

She laughed again, thinking of a grown man saving each and every one of his son’s baby teeth because they were as precious to him as anything else about his son.

“And the rest of it…I don’t know,” Joe said. “I guess we’ll just have to see what Luke wants.”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said.

“I hope so. I don’t want him upset again. I want him to be happy. I want us all to move on. Together.”

“We will,” Samantha said.

“Soon. I want you with me. With us. All the time.”

“I will be,” she said.

“I’m holding you to that, Doc. Now, go to sleep and dream of me. Will you do that for me, darlin’?”

“I will, Joe. I will.”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

“Good night,” Samantha said. She hung up the phone and fell back against the pillows. Joe and Luke and Dani filled her thoughts, and she couldn’t help but smile. How on earth had she gotten so lucky?