Teresa Hill (11 page)

Sometimes being a parent was just too much. Sometimes he was sure he couldn’t do it. That he’d never get it right or be good enough. Sometimes he thought something was wrong with the world when the person in charge decided to entrust anything as wonderful and as fragile as a child to someone like him.

I
t was late when he called, much later than she thought it would be. She’d had time to worry herself to death and try to find a way to tell him what she had to tell him. She had to, for all their sakes. But when he called, his voice sounded so odd, so low and tight and strained.

“It’s me,” he said, and that was all it took. She knew right away it was even worse than she thought, if that was even possible. “What happened?”

“He thinks you’re moving in with us,” Joe said. “One dinner together, a sleep-over the night your roof leaked and a few visits to your office, and he’s got us turning into one big happy family and all his troubles over and done with.”

“I know. He told me!” she cried. “Joe, I’m so sorry. I never imagined.”

“Neither did I.”

“And I feel so foolish. I knew this was dangerous, but I was worried mostly about myself. I never imagined that Luke would put so much importance on what little bit of time we’ve spent together.”

“I didn’t, either, and I’m the one who should have realized. I’m his father.”

“How is he?”

“He cried himself to sleep one more time. I swore I wasn’t going to let anything upset him that badly again, but there he was, crying himself to sleep.”

“Oh, no,” she said, knowing she’d do the same thing. And knowing something else, too. “You know what this means. We can’t see each other again.”

“Don’t say that, Samantha.”

“What else can we do?”

“I don’t know,” he snapped, all his frustrations coming to bear in those three words. “And I can’t think about what we’re going to do right now, but don’t you do this to me. To us. Don’t you run away from me now.”

“I’m not running. I’m thinking about your son. I don’t want to do this to your son.”

“I’ll deal with my son. I’ll find a way to explain this to him, and I’ll make him understand.”

“I promised myself I’d never hurt him, and I did, Joe.”

“Samantha, it’s the past that’s upset him. It’s losing his mother and how confused he still is over that, not you,” he said. “We can make this work.”

“I don’t see how.”

“We can.”

“It was stupid of me to even try this. I know better. I know all about it, and I promised myself, Joe—”

“Samantha, I need to see you. To talk to you.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“I need to see you tonight. The kids are both asleep. I can’t come to you, but you can come to me. I want you to get in your car and come over here.”

“Joe.”

“This is too important to leave to a telephone conversation.”

She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the need in his voice, the utter despair. He sounded just like Luke—heartbroken.

“It won’t change anything,” she insisted.

“I think it will.”

“Joe—”

“Come on, don’t tell me you’re the kind of woman who gives up and runs away the minute things get tough,” he said. “I never believed that about you.”

“I don’t.”

“Because I don’t need another woman like that.”

“I’m not.”

“Then come over here and talk to me about this.”

She sighed. “We really haven’t started anything. It’s not too late to back out. It can’t be that bad to stop now.”

“Is that what you really think? That you’ll just close the door and never think of me again? Never miss me? Never think of what might have been between us? Because I don’t believe that. I think you feel as much for me as I feel for you, and it doesn’t have a thing to do with how long we’ve known each other or how much time we’ve spent together. I think I could fall in love with you.”

“Joe—”

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? You want someone to love you. The way you deserve to be loved. Someone who’s never going to turn his back on you and walk away. Someone who appreciates everything about you and knows how special you are. You want someone to build a life with. Someone who won’t give up when things get tough.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“I know that. I know exactly what you need, and I need you. I need you right now, tonight. I feel as bad as I ever have in my life. I nearly put my fist through the wall, I was so mad when I first came out of Luke’s bedroom. I had to walk away, because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I was so mad and so frustrated, and I felt so helpless sitting there listening to him cry. And I just didn’t have the words. I didn’t have anything to give him to make it better.”

“Oh, Joe.”

“And then I got myself together and went back in there and sat beside him until he went to sleep, and the whole time I was thinking that there had to be a way to work this out. And I just wanted you. I needed to know that I wasn’t in this alone anymore. That I could reach out for you and you’d be there. You’d listen to me and care about me and my kids and help me figure out what to do.”

“Joe—”

“That’s what I need, and I honestly thought I’d have that now that I found you. I thought I’d never have to go through anything else like this all alone.”

She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

“Come to me,” he said. “Come now.”

In the end she went. She couldn’t leave him all alone like that, because she knew exactly how he felt, and there would have been a time when she would have given anything to have someone she could call. Someone who, if she said she was feeling lost and sad and needed help, would come to her, as she went to him.

It was dark, close to midnight, as it had been the last time she’d slipped into his house. There weren’t any lights on anywhere in the house, and she thought perhaps she’d waited too late, that he’d given up on her ever coming.

But as she got out of her car, his front door opened. He stood there staring at her with eyes that were dark and troubled, and when she got close enough, he took her hand and pulled her through the door to the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and pulled her into his arms. He was trembling, she realized. So was she.

“I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

“Neither was I,” she admitted. “But I’m not somebody who quits when things get tough, and I can’t walk away now.”

He took her face between his hands, and she saw the strain in
his
face, the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth, and he seemed to be hurting so badly it nearly broke her heart.

“You’ve done a good job with them, Joe. They’re good kids, and they’re probably as happy as they can be, considering what they’ve gone through.”

“I hope so. I just didn’t see this coming. I didn’t see it at all.”

“But you’re here, and you’re going to deal with it,” she said. “It’s just one of those things that nobody tells you how to handle. That’s a lot of what parenting is—fumbling around in the dark, trying your best and loving them. I know you love them, and they know it, too. I know you’re patient and kind and very, very loving. The rest of it you’ll figure out.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I needed to hear that. I need you. Here with me. Now.”

Samantha pulled his face down to hers and kissed him. He resisted for a moment, caught by surprise, but then he was kissing her right back.

It was a kiss that started out as comfort and turned into something so sweet. It turned into everything.

He pulled back after a long moment and raised his head. “That’s not what I meant when I said I needed you here with me tonight.”

“I know. It’s just…what I wanted to give you.”

It was. She wanted to give him everything, to make everything all better, to belong to him. He’d said he could fall in love with her, and she was at least half in love with him already.

She reached for him, drew him close and kissed him with every bit of longing in her soul, every bit of loneliness and fear and vulnerability lurking inside her. She wanted to absorb every bit of sadness and worry in him, every bit of despair. She wanted to take it all away.

“I need you, too,” she said.

“Samantha, I think we have to try this. I don’t see any way around it.”

“I don’t know if I can, if I can remember how.”

“I think it’s like riding a bike,” he said, running a hand through her hair.

“Riding a bike after you’ve fallen off and maybe gotten stitches,” she answered.

“I haven’t been in a new relationship in about a decade,” he said.

“Me, neither,” she replied, feeling a little giddy at the prospect. “Do you think we can manage it?”

He gave her a knowing grin. “Have a little faith, Doc, would you?”

“I do. In you,” she said, wrapping her arms tightly around him and pulling him into a hug.

She’d been so worried tonight, so sure it was over and done with. But it wasn’t. He wouldn’t let it be over, and neither would she. He was right. She couldn’t forget about him and couldn’t let him go.

And this was where she was meant to be. She felt it deep down inside, as certainly as she knew the sun was going to come up in the morning and set in the evening.

So she just held on more tightly and thought of truly belonging to him in every way possible, thought of creating the kind of bond that no one could ever break. Did those still exist—bonds that would never break? She wanted to believe they did, that she would have that with him.

Without knowing exactly why, Samantha started to cry.

“Oh, baby,” he said. “It’s all right.”

“I know. It’s so right,” she whispered, lifting her wet face and pressing her mouth against his. “I’m just…it’s overwhelming.” She had to stop to breathe. “You know?”

“Yes, I know.”

He drew his fingertips along her jaw, across her hot cheeks, touched the tip of her nose.

A long moment later, she said, “I should probably go.”

“I know. I wish you didn’t have to, but—”

“I do.”

“Hey, this changes everything. You know that, don’t you?”

“I thought it would,” she whispered. “You were right. I can’t walk away. Not from you. Not the way I feel about you.”

He let out a long slow breath, then gave her a gorgeous smile. He took her hands in his and brought them to his lips. “We’re gonna make this work, Doc. I need you to believe that.”

“I believed in all sorts of magic once.”

“And you’ll believe again,” he said. “We’ll just…we’ll leave the kids out of it for now. We’ll do the you-and-me part for a while. Nothing wrong with it being just you and me.”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“And later, when we’re all ready, we’ll bring the kids into it.”

“Okay.”

“I know I’m going to miss you tomorrow. I wish I could see you, but—”

“Luke needs you now.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll find something to say to him, Joe. You’ll find the right thing. I know you will,” she said. “I know you won’t let them down.”

“I won’t let you down, either, Samantha. I want you to understand that. From this point on, we’re in this together. You and me and whatever comes along. We’ll handle it. No running away anymore. No pushing each other away. No giving up.”

“No. Not anymore.”

She stayed with him for a while longer, her head against his shoulder, just holding him, and it was wonderful to have that. Then she drove home and climbed into her empty bed and dreamed of him. Joe, who was everything good and strong and patient and kind and so very determined.

And she found herself thinking about magic—about love and hope and sheer magic. She thought of her father and mother again and how happy they’d been together. She knew how they met—on a windy late-summer day at the beach. But she wondered now what it had felt like, how he’d known she was the one.

Did he see it right away? Take one look at her and know? Was it something in his head? Or something in his heart that told him? And she tried to think of how it had been with Richard, though she thought she knew.

She met him around the time her father became ill, when she was scared and shaken and worried about losing him. Richard had reminded her of her father, although it had all been on the surface. Not appearance, but that surface image people showed to the world. She’d believed that all those qualities she loved so much in her father she’d found in Richard, and it had been sheer illusion.

Richard, in the end, had turned out to be shallow and selfish and impatient with the world, a bit childish, as well. He’d somehow gotten the idea that everything revolved around him, his happiness, his needs. And she saw now that when he was dissatisfied with his life, he assumed he could fix all that dissatisfaction by finding someone new. It was much easier than working through his own problems.

And she just hadn’t seen it. She’d been in love with his daughters by then.

But she was a different woman now. An older, smarter, more careful woman. She wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. She’d found a much-different man, a simply wonderful man, and she was afraid she was already in love with him. Completely, helplessly in love. She’d probably lost her heart already to his children, too.

But that didn’t mean she was headed for disaster. She had Joe now. Joe who she trusted, who had so much good inside of him.

It would all be different this time. She wasn’t going to get her heart broken this time.

Joe awoke groggily from the sweetest of dreams to find sunshine, bright enough to have him wincing, coming through the blinds of his bedroom window. Dani was sitting on his chest and grinning.

“Daddy’s lazybones this morning!” she announced.

Lazybones was the last one out of bed in the morning, and it was a title Joe seldom won.

“Good morning,” he said, rolling her off him and genuinely happy to be alive this morning. When he had her tucked in beside him, tickling her mercilessly for a moment, he asked, “I’m the last one in bed?”

“Yes,” she shrieked. “You!”

“What about Luke?”

“He’s hiding! In his closet!”

“Really?” That didn’t sound good.

“Yes, and he won’t come out. So I came to find you.”

“Well, you found me.”

“Are we gonna see the fairy today?”

“No. Not today. And she has a name— Samantha.”

“S’mantha,” Dani said, only mangling it a bit.

“Close enough,” Joe said.