swallowed. Daddy. It was a name he’d dreamed of being called for two long years, but now he didn’t know how to even be a dad. When he’d left, Charlie had been so young, and now Luke could see how much he’d missed out on. “Yes, Charlie?”
“I love you.”
“Well, uh, I love you, too.” Luke choked. He tried to swallow again. Thank God it was dark and his son couldn’t see him.
“You won’t go away again, will you, Daddy?”
“No, bud.” He held his son close, fighting back tears. Truth was, he didn’t know when he’d be going away again, but he wasn’t going to let his son know that. It was what he did—the army called and he had to jump to attention. He’d tried to think otherwise sometimes, that maybe he could change vocation, but being a soldier was what he did, and he did it damn well. He had a few months without having to leave, and then he didn’t know what he was going to do. Or how he was going to leave things here.
“I like having a dad.”
Great. Talk about pulling on his heartstrings. Luke pushed away the feelings he’d tried so long to keep hidden—the guilt of leaving his son and repeating the cycle. Of letting his own child go through what he’d been through, what he’d struggled with his whole life: growing up without a dad and wishing like hell his life could have been different. But then, deep down, he’d rather Charlie not even know his dad than lose him and remember what he’d lost for the rest of his life. Like he had.
He’d gone all these years in the army without crying, and now he was on the verge of turning into a blubbering baby.
“Will you ever sleep in Mom’s bed?”
That made him smile. “Let’s hope so, kiddo.”
He knew it was a lie, a fib at a stretch. Ollie was never going to let him back in her bed, and although it was tempting to think about being under the sheets with her, that wasn’t why he was here. He’d come home for his son, to get to know the boy, not with any illusions that Ollie would take him back. Things had been strained between them, and he’d helped their marriage go from bad to worse.
“Do you have a night-light?”
Had someone taught his son interrogation techniques? “Let’s get some sleep, huh?”
Luke snuggled him even closer, tucking his son’s little body into his.
Maybe he could do this whole dad routine. He only wished he could have gotten a handle on the husband part, too.
Ollie pressed against the door and tried to ignore the tears leaving a wet trail down her cheeks. She should have walked away as soon as she’d heard Charlie talking to his dad, but instead she’d stood and listened.
She’d risen, so in tune with her son and used to him getting up in the night. Part of her loved that he’d gone in to see his dad, but part of her hated it, too—that for the first time he’d gone to someone else instead of climbing into bed with her. They’d had over two years together, she and Charlie, just the two of them, and changing that was hard.
Ollie walked silently back down to her room and crawled into bed. But those words kept playing over and over in her mind. Will you ever sleep in Mommy’s bed? The man who’d driven her crazy, made her fall so in love with him after such a short time together, and now they were like strangers. Would he have ever come back if it wasn’t for Charlie? Would she have deserved it? Because no matter what she said or felt, part of the blame in their marriage breaking down was her doing. And it was time she admitted it.
Ollie squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find sleep, but she had a feeling that slumber wasn’t going to be quite that simple. Kind of like her marriage.
The noise in the living room woke Ollie before she was ready to open her eyes. What was going on out there?
She rose, checked the drawstring on her pajama bottoms and pulled her tank top into line.
“Mommy!”
Charlie charged her, just about taking her pants down with her as he tugged her along. The remnants of a train track were sprawled in every direction. Railcars and engines added to the carnage.
“Morning.”
She looked up from the train wreck and into the kitchen. Luke stood there bare-chested, in just his boxer shorts. She took in a deep breath and self-consciously ran a hand through her bed hair. Damn. Taut, tanned torso, a sprinkling of hair on his chest that arrowed down into his shorts … She’d forgotten how good he looked without his clothes on.
Ollie ran her focus up his body again and met twinkling eyes. She quickly diverted her gaze.
“Breakfast?” He gestured with his head and she took a step forward to peer into the kitchen.
“He’s making pancakes, Mom. Pancakes!”
Charlie scooted up to Luke and hung off him as if they were glued together, not shy of his dad at all.
“Your favorite, huh?”
He grinned. “How many you going to have, Mom?”
She gave her son a smile before meeting Luke’s gaze. Ollie knew how dreadful she probably looked, all mussed from bed. When they’d first met she’d worn sexy teddies, not gingham pj’s.
“I’m just going to jump in the shower. Save me a couple, okay, Charlie?’
She directed her words to him to avoid conversation with Luke, but doubted her son had even heard her. He was yabbering away to his dad a hundred miles a minute, and Luke was flipping pancakes to exuberant yelps of excitement.
Ollie left the room and flopped down onto her bed, exhausted already. She’d hardly slept a wink and now her stranger husband was making breakfast for their son, and she had no idea what to do. What her role even was right now.
She knew the reality was that the man she’d married had been a soldier, and going away had been part of the deal, but he’d swept her off her feet and made her forget all that. Until she’d gotten pregnant and he’d proposed, and everything had slowly started to unravel. Because she’d never truly believed that he would have married her otherwise, and because the night before she’d found out she actually was pregnant, Luke had told her that he never, ever wanted to be a dad.
Luke’s dedication to the army had seemed so exciting when she’d first met him. But doubt had gnawed at her for so many months, and then with a difficult baby and no one to help her through the tough times, she’d snapped. More than once. And eventually, Luke had walked out the door and never come back.
“What do you say we head to the park?”
She watched Luke smile at Charlie as he leaped up, jumping around, no doubt hyper from all the sugar in their breakfast.
“I’m not sure,” said Ollie. “I’ve got to get to work.”
She sighed. Her husband and son looked up at her like sad puppies.
“What do you usually do with Charlie?” Luke asked.
Ollie scooped up their coffee mugs and sticky
