giggle.
They waved at Dallas’s wife, Josie, who was a kindergarten teacher, and then stepped into Mrs. Olsen’s room.
Cheerful rainbows hung from the ceiling and on the walls grew a paper garden with all of the girls’ names written on flowers and the boys’ on snails, frogs and squirrels.
The desks had been arranged in five groups of four and potted ivy, goldfish and a hamster lined the windowsill. The scent of fresh orange slices was a vast improvement over the odor in the hall.
Kolt stood with two other boys, one taller than him and one shorter. All of them had their supplies spread across the desks and from the looks of it were trading pencils.
“Does Kolt have cool pencils?” Luke asked, surprised to find his pulse racing, hoping his kid was well liked. Suddenly Luke’s own issues were no longer important. In a remarkably short time, Kolt had become his world.
Daisy whispered, “Transformers were the best Dollar General had.”
“Next year, we’re going to Tulsa.”
She elbowed him. “I’d hate to see what you’d do if we ever had a girl.” The minute the words left her mouth, she covered it. “That came out wrong. I know we’ll never have another baby. The two of us. Maybe apart. Hopefully…well—I’m going to shut up.”
“I get it, Daisy.” Luke knew what she was saying and in another world, one where she had never left and he had never had his heart broken by her, her sentiment might have come true. But no matter how special sharing this occasion with Kolt may be, it was all Luke and Daisy would ever have.
Kolt caught sight of them and waved them away.
“Come on,” Luke said, hand on Daisy’s upper arm. Just touching her triggered a wave of overwhelming need, but he ignored it. That was the sex talking. An area in which they’d never had a problem. A fact proven by the kiss he’d given her not too long ago. “Let’s leave the kid alone.”
“First, tell me you know I didn’t mean what I just said. I was kidding.”
“Lord,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair, “this is neither the time nor place. Leave it alone.”
“I can’t.” Tears had pooled in her eyes. Had he been a weaker man, they might’ve been his undoing. “I want you back in my life—as a friend—and for starters, I’m willing to take your smallest scraps.”
“Stop.” In the hall, with what felt like half the town streaming around them, he said, “You’re stronger than this. Begging doesn’t suit you.”
“I need you to know I’m willing to do whatever it takes, for however long, to earn back your trust.”
“I get that, but…” He looked away. At the next room over, a little girl clung to her father, crying that she didn’t want him to go. A pang shot through Luke. A fear that the man would never be him. Would Kolt ever want to give him a hug? Would Luke one day experience the joy of being a father from the start of a child’s life? “Trust isn’t easy to come by, Daisy. It’s not a tangible item to be picked up at the store. Once gone, sometimes it never comes back.”
Raising her chin, sporting a look of defiance he hadn’t seen since she’d bought her first bottle of Jack Daniel’s, she said, “Get over yourself, Luke. I’m not asking you to marry me. Just to be my friend.” Raising her hands only to slap them at her sides, she said, “Honestly, would that be so hard?”
“In a word—yes.” Because if he were to surrender himself to her again, only to have her turn away, Luke feared he might never recover.
Chapter Ten
“Thank you so much.” Daisy’s new client, Jane Richmond, had tears in her eyes while leaving the office. A domestic violence victim, she’d finally summoned the courage to leave her abusive husband, but didn’t know how to get him to pay child support. Daisy had filed the proper papers and gotten the legal ball rolling to get the guy in court. “I’m not sure how I’ll ever repay you.”
“That’s the beauty of a free legal clinic,” Daisy said with a hug. “All you have to worry about is caring for those adorable children. No guarantees, but I’ll stay on Brian for as long as it takes to get what your babies are entitled to.”
After more hugging and tears, Jane left.
Since Daisy’s ad for free legal services had appeared a week earlier, Jane had been her only meaty case. She’d also done