A Family for Luke Read online

  “I measured the oil,” Autumn added loudly, not willing to be outdone.

  “And everything is just right,” Janie said.

  As she looked at the happy faces around the table, she wondered why she hadn’t ever gotten the kids to help in the kitchen before.

  Because you can’t let go of control.

  Luke’s voice in her head annoyed her with its truth. She had deliberately sat with her back to the kitchen counter so she couldn’t see the mess. And she tried to ignore Luke, who seemed to be laughing at her, as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head.

  “And you’re not cleaning up,” Todd announced as he started clearing the dishes from the table.

  She caught Luke’s warning glance. She could do this, she thought as she settled back in her chair.

  “This is hard for you, isn’t it?” Luke said with a cocky grin as Suzie, Autumn and Todd carried the dirty dishes from the counter to the table.

  Her only answer was a vague shrug as she took a careful sip of the coffee Luke had poured for her. Everything would be fine. The kids were old enough to do the dishes.

  A sudden crash behind her made her jump, and she twisted in her chair in time to see Suzie juggling a haphazardly stacked set of pots.

  “Suzie, you should put the little one inside—”

  “I think your mom and I will drink our coffee on the porch,” Luke announced, pushing his chair back with a screech, which drowned out Janie’s instructions.

  “But the kids have never—”

  Luke held up his finger to stop her. “Let’s go,” he said, taking her by the arm and helping her to her feet.

  She wanted to protest but Luke didn’t give her time. He escorted her through the living room, past the bag of defrosting corn, and helped her into a wooden chair.

  “Okay. Foot up,” he said, pulling a chair close. He ducked into the house and returned with a pillow from her couch in one hand, her cup of coffee in the other. Janie didn’t even bother to object and obediently dropped her foot on the intricately embroidered pillow her mother had made for her. “Comfy?”

  She nodded, cradling her mug in her hands as she forced herself to relax.

  “I’m going to supervise the kids,” he said, poking his thumb over his shoulder. “Are you going to be okay? Do you need anything else?”

  “So now you’re taking my needs into consideration?” She added a quick smile so he would know she was teasing.

  He lifted his hands in a “what can I say” gesture.

  “Go. I’ll be fine,” she said.

  Which wasn’t entirely true. She felt as if her life had taken a whirlwind detour and she was still trying to find her way back to normal.

  You’re okay. You’re fine. Just let go. Enjoy the moment. Ignore the noises coming from the kitchen. You can fix whatever they broke or messed up later tonight.

  Twenty minutes later, Luke towered over her, his hands shoved in the back pockets of jeans now spotted with water.

  Janie didn’t want to know how his pants got wet doing dishes. Later. She could deal with that later.

  “So, that’s done. The kids said they would get themselves ready for bed.”

  “Suzie has homework,” Janie said.

  “She’s doing it. But I told her to help Autumn clean up her room first.”

  Janie had to lay her head back against the chair to get a better look at this puzzling man, still not sure where she should put him in her life.

  He was a neighbor, but no neighbor had ever taken care of her children or cooked in her kitchen. In fact, her mother hadn’t even done as much.

  “Thanks so much, for everything.” The polite words sounded inadequate, but she was afraid to tell him what she really thought.

  That he was a great guy who was becoming enmeshed in her and her children’s lives. That he was getting her kids to do things she never could. That her children seemed happier around him. Brighter.

  More relaxed.

  That he was awakening feelings in her with his consideration and his caring, which she had never thought would come to life again.

  He scared her.

  Luke squatted down, putting himself disturbingly closer to her. “You’re welcome.” His mouth tipped up in a lazy smile, creating appealing crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “But you might not be so thankful when you find out what I did.”

  “Washed my cast-iron frying pan with soap and water?” she asked in a breezy voice. She was alone with an attractive man, and humor helped to keep a distance between them.

  He held up his hand, his face expressing horror. “Nothing so sacrilegious.” He sighed, resting his hand on the arm of her chair. “I had to go and check on Cooper, and I ran out the back door and put my foot through your deck. I’m so sorry.”

  Janie waved off his concern. “I’m actually surprised that didn’t happen sooner. Those boards were in rough shape when we bought the place.”

  “I’m coming back tomorrow to fix it.”

  “No. Please. You’ve done enough.”

  “I’ll say,” he said with a short laugh. “I made you sprain your ankle, and now I’ve wrecked your deck. But seriously, it has to be fixed. It’s dangerous.”

  Janie felt the ominous weight of her financial situation settle on her shoulders. She couldn’t afford to have him fix her deck. But she couldn’t afford to leave it either.

  “If you’re worried about paying me, don’t,” Luke said as if anticipating her protest. “I wrecked it, so I should fix it. I’ve got some leftover lumber we can’t return to the store and I can’t use on the house.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’d hate to see your kids get hurt.”

  “Me, too. So I’ll get someone to do it.”

  “Yes. Me,” he pressed. “Besides, Todd and Suzie said they’d love to help.” He smiled again, holding her gaze.

  She looked away, recognizing that while she had allowed him to help tonight, she ran the danger of letting him creep too easily into their lives. “I’m sure they could. They don’t seem to mind helping you.” A tiny sliver of jealousy entered her voice as she deflected the conversation. She had never been able to eke that kind of cooperation out of Suzie.

  “I guess it’s because I give them space to help.”

  “More advice?” She blamed the edge creeping into her voice on her ankle, on the news she’d received only a few hours ago. And on the fact that she didn’t know how she was going to run her coffee shop with a sprained ankle and limited mobility.

  She didn’t want to think it had anything to do with his nearness. With the way he was looking at her. Like she was even the tiniest bit appealing.

  He shrugged, laying his hand on the arm of her chair to give himself balance. “I’m not trying to tell you how to raise your kids.” His voice was quiet, a soft contrast to her ire.

  She looked away, knowing she had overreacted. “I know. It’s just as a single mom, everything I do is under extra scrutiny. If the kids mess up, there’s an immediate assumption as to why. I don’t want to elicit that reaction.”

  “You’ve got really nice kids. I don’t think you need to worry about them messing up.”

  She let him cling to that illusion. It gave her hope that maybe it could happen. Maybe Suzie would settle down and not buck her at every turn. Maybe Todd would come out of his shell at school. Maybe Autumn would stop dragging that bear around like a security blanket and talking to it as if it was real.

  “I don’t want to sound like I know it all,” he continued. “I mean, I’ve never had kids, though I’ve always wanted to…” His voice trailed off, and he laughed lightly as if brushing his last comment away.

  She took a chance and looked at him again. “How old are you, Luke?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “Got close once.” He scratched his cheek with one index finger, as if thinking. Remembering.

  “What happened?”

  “She didn�
��t want kids.” Luke’s expression grew serious, and she felt drawn into his gaze.

  “And you did,” she said quietly.

  He nodded, and as their gazes held, she felt the tiny beginnings of possibilities and potential. A single man who wanted kids. A single, attractive man who got along with her kids.

  She shifted her hand ever so slightly until it touched his and his fingers curled over hers. His hand was large, rough and warm.

  And then his face grew blurred. She didn’t know who moved first but his lips brushed hers, a gentle touch, light as a butterfly, then again. And her soul, so long alone and lonely, teetered on the edge of longing.

  She leaned forward as their lips met again, and he embraced her.

  “Todd, get out of my room.”

  The screech from above them was like a douse of cold water, and Janie jerked back. What was she thinking? Kissing this man on her porch while her kids were in the house?

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so breathless as she tried to pull her hand away from his. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t seem put out by her sudden withdrawal or her apology. Nor did he let go of her hand.

  “My kids—”

  “Are upstairs. They can’t see us, and even if they did…” His shoulder lifted in a shrug that seemed to nullify her concerns and worries.

  “They would get confused.”

  “They would think that I like you,” Luke corrected as he looked down at their joined hands, his fingers lightly caressing hers. “And they would be right.”

  He spoke the words so easily that she almost missed their import. His presence, his persistence was wearing her down. Eroding her defenses.

  “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what? Talk to me? Spend time with me? What’s wrong with that?”

  She dug for all the arguments she knew she should have been using from the beginning. “My kids haven’t had it easy with their father, and I can’t afford to make the same mistake again. I have to protect them. To keep them safe. And Suzie…” She didn’t bother finishing that thought. She and Suzie had a complex relationship. Introducing someone else into the mix would only make things more difficult.

  “You don’t think I’m safe?” he persisted.

  Janie held his gaze as around them the sounds of the neighborhood settled into evening. “I don’t know. I don’t know much about you.”

  “So the only way you can find out more about me is to maybe make some room for me in your life.”

  “But to do that would mean I’m not putting my children first in my life. And right now I have issues to take care of. Resolve. To make room for you means I have to push something aside. And I have no idea what.”

  Luke released her hand and pushed himself to his feet. “I don’t think you need to push something aside. I think you just need to let someone else take over a few things.”

  He made it sound so easy. So simple. As if all he had to do was slowly ease his way into their lives and ta-da. Instant family.

  She had yearned for that, as well.

  A complete family with a husband for her and a father to her children. But the path to that destination was strewn with so many potential pitfalls that to take even one step on that journey would open themselves up to a world of hurt.

  “I’ve got three kids who need me,” she said quietly, her attention on an elusive hangnail. “Three kids who depend on me to love them and to make sure their lives go on. Add me into the mix and we’ve got four bodies in this house. Four hearts with the potential to be hurt, bruised or broken.” She dug down deeper, praying for the right words. “If you, let’s say, date a woman with three kids and think she’s the one for you and she drops you like a rock, you’ve only got your own broken heart to nourish and heal. But if I date a man who has no kids and he drops me like a rock, that’s four hearts that need healing. I don’t have the energy for that, Luke. And I don’t want to expose my children to that.”

  The silence seemed to create a chasm, waiting to be breached.

  “You’re really thinking ahead.”

  Janie gave a short laugh. “I don’t have the luxury of living for the moment like my sister does. I have to plan. I have to think. For the sake of my family.”

  “I understand that,” Luke said. “And I respect that. In fact, I probably respect you even more for what you’re saying.”

  She felt herself wavering, but pressed on. “And even more important is the faith issue.”

  “What issue?”

  “Church. Faith. Dependency on God. First time around, I married a man to whom God was a swear word. He didn’t come to church with me and the kids. I didn’t have the support I needed to bring my children up as children of the Lord. My faith, my relationship to God is my first priority. Even more than my children.” She kept her gaze fixed on something across the street.

  “You don’t know anything about my faith life.” A defensive tone crept into Luke’s voice. “You don’t know what I believe or don’t believe.”

  “I know you are aware of the commandment to keep the Sabbath day, but that only proves knowledge.” She felt as if she was stumbling through unfamiliar territory with no discernible landmarks. But she also felt as if she had to press on. “But you’re right. I don’t know anything about your faith life. I don’t know about your relationship with God, if there is one.” She tried to gauge his reaction. “And that’s part of my problem.”

  Luke sighed, then sat back, leaning against the house. “I used to go to church, if that’s any help.”

  “Used to?”

  “When Al, my foster father, died, I slipped away. Stopped going.”

  “Do you miss it?” She should have stopped, but even though she had laid out the boundary between them—“good fences make good neighbors”—the lonely part of her who missed adult company, the female part of her who responded to his attention, kept her talking. Prying.

  Hoping?

  “Sometimes. But I keep myself so busy, I often forget which day Sunday is.”

  “There’s a couple of churches in town here,” she said. “Every Sunday, you’ve got options.” It was his spiritual well-being she was concerned about now, she reasoned.

  “I don’t know if God would even recognize me if I came in, not with all the stuff I’ve done, or haven’t done.”

  Janie chose to ignore that. She didn’t want to delve into his past. “Of course He would,” she assured him instead. “He says in Isaiah that He has engraved you in the palms of His hands. He is a loving and faithful father.”

  “I’ve always been thankful that Al could model at least that for me.”

  “Al was never married?”

  Luke shook his head. “Nope. Though I had a brief moment of insanity when I thought he might marry my mother. As if Al would have anything to do with her.”

  Janie felt a moment of sympathy for the young Luke, lost, confused. Living with a man who wasn’t his father, neglected by his mother.

  No wonder he was looking for a family.

  She stopped that thought right there. Luke didn’t need her pity, nor did she have to harbor the faintest notion she could give him what he needed.

  “You sound bitter.”

  “Yeah, well, my mom brings that out in me. Uncle Chuck keeps telling me to forgive and forget, but that’s easier said than done.” He stopped, then gave a short laugh. “Sorry. Over-sharing. That sounds bitter. I may not look it, but I guess I’m a bit of a dreamer. A happily-ever-after kind of guy. Not very manly of me, but there it is.”

  “It’s a nice fantasy,” she said. “I think all of us yearn for that.”

  “Did you?” Luke asked. “When you married Owen. Did you think he was your happily-ever-after?”

  No, Janie thought. Never at any moment. Owen was the man her parents insisted she marry to make things right.

  She’d tried to be a good wife. Thought if she worked hard enough, praye
d hard enough things would work out. But they never did.

  “He divorced me, remember,” she said, the harsh word slicing through the soft night.

  Luke nodded. “He didn’t know what he was missing.”

  Luke pushed himself to his feet and looked down at Janie. “You’re an amazing woman, Janie Corbett. You’ve raised three wonderful kids. You’ve created a life for them that any kid would be happy to have. And you did it on your own. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  His words created a tantalizing image. A woman in charge of her life, family intact. The reality was so different. Secrets swirled beneath the facade.

  He waited a moment, as if his declaration might break through her defenses. And it might have, if she’d allowed it.

  “I’m sorry, Luke. I’m not who you think I am. I can’t be that woman.”

  Luke ran his hands through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “I get it. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

  Janie felt the sting of tears at the anger in his voice. As she watched him walk across the lawn, she almost called him back. Almost asked him to say those wonderful words again.

  But then he jogged up the step of the half-finished house he was fixing up to sell.

  He was dangerous and he was leaving.

  And yet, as she slowly got to her feet, she replayed those words in her mind, “…amazing woman…wonderful kids…did it on your own.”

  “If only it were true,” she whispered.

  Chapter Ten

  Janie gingerly worked her way across the porch and into the house. She stopped at the couch, picked up the bag of soggy corn and brought it to the kitchen, her ankle shooting pain up her leg at every shuffling step.

  She turned a blind eye to the baked-on tomato sauce on the stove and the smears of flour still evident on the floor and counter. Later.

  Autumn was already in her pajamas, standing on a footstool by the sink when Janie managed her way upstairs. Todd was squeezing toothpaste onto her toothbrush.