Hold Me Close
Page 32
There was such a lump in Luke’s throat, he didn’t know how any more words were going to come out. How did she know? She knew because she knew him. Because she saw all the way through to the bottom of him, to the best of him. Because she made him his best man.
But Eli was looking at him now, and he had to answer. “Yeah,” he told the boy. It came out strangled, so he tried again. “Yeah. That’s exactly what it meant. And it meant more than that, too, because our situation’s a little different, isn’t it? There’s no such thing as an engagement ring for a kid, and I don’t think you’d wear it anyway.” He got a little smile out of Eli for that. “But this is a little complicated here tonight, because I don’t just want to marry your mom. I want you, too.”
“You do?” Eli asked, looking so unsure, Luke’s heart squeezed just that much more. This family thing was going to wring it purely dry, he was sure of it.
“Yep,” he said. “I sure do. I want a family.” And there was no getting around it, he was choking up. “I want this family.”
“But . . . you can’t be my dad.” It came out so low, Luke had to lean over the table to hear it. “I had a dad already.”
“You’re right. I can’t be that,” Luke managed to say. “But I can be your stepdad. And I’ll be doing my best to be a good one. The very best one I can be.” He had to stop and get it together. If proposing to Kayla had been nerve-racking . . . at least he’d had some clue how to do that.
“Your mom just shared something with you that I told her,” he finally said. “And now I’m going to share something she told me. Something really wise. She said that a heart has a lot of room. That a heart can . . . expand. That the more you love, the more love you have to give. I know she was right for me. I hope she can be right for you, too. But I promise you this.” He wasn’t too steady at all, and only Kayla’s hand in his gave him the courage to keep going. “You don’t have to forget your dad to be my son.”
“OK,” Eli said, and it was barely a whisper.
“Sweetie.” Kayla had left Luke’s side, was over on the other side of the booth, hugging her boy, and Eli, for once, wasn’t objecting, and if Luke was crying a little, too—well, there was a time and a place for that, and this was it.
It took a while, but they all finally got it together. After a lot of hugging and a fair amount of kissing. After a lot of tears and a little bit of laughter. And as a family proposal, it hadn’t been too bad at all.
“OK,” Eli finally said, swiping hurriedly at his eyes with his napkin. And then he took that same napkin and wrapped the rest of his burger in it.
“Sweetie. Ew,” Kayla said with a watery little laugh. “You don’t have to save it. I’ll make you a new hamburger tomorrow. At Luke’s.”
She smiled at Luke, and he smiled back, and his heart was so full, he didn’t know how it could hold it all. Except that it could. Kayla had been right about that. It could, and it would.
“It’s not for me,” Eli said. “It’s for the . . . it’s for Daisy.”
“Ah,” Luke said. “It’s for Daisy. You bet, bud. Because if we’re a family—well, there’s one thing every family needs, isn’t there? And that’s a family dog.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES:
One in four women (22.3%) has been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.
One in six women (15.2%) has been stalked during her lifetime.
More than one in four women and more than one in ten men have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner and reported significant short- or long-term impacts, such as post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and injury.
Source: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs-fact-sheet-2014.pdf
Get help:
The National Domestic Violence Hotline: http://www.thehotline.org/
More resources here: http://www.feminist.org/911/crisis.html
Important safety note: As in Kayla’s case, computer use (and even telephone use) can be monitored. If you’re afraid your Internet usage could be monitored, use a public computer (for example, at a library), or call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 (800)799-7233 or TTY 1 (800) 787-3224 from a public or other secure telephone.
IS IT ABUSE?
As Kayla found, abuse doesn’t begin overnight, but there are signs. Behaviors that seem romantic and flattering, “like a romance novel,” at the beginning of a relationship (his strong, nearly obsessive interest in you; possessiveness; rushing the relationship; excessive calling, texting, and gifts) can be a sign of something very different.
Learn more about abuse here: http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/
WARNING SIGNS AND RED FLAGS
(from The National Domestic Violence Hotline)
It’s not always easy to tell at the beginning of a relationship if it will become abusive.
In fact, many abusive partners may seem absolutely perfect in the early stages of a relationship. Possessive and controlling behaviors don’t always appear overnight, but rather emerge and intensify as the relationship grows.
Domestic violence doesn’t look the same in every relationship because every relationship is different. But one thing most abusive relationships have in common is that the abusive partner does many different kinds of things to have more power and control over their partners.
If you’re beginning to feel as if your partner or a loved one’s partner is becoming abusive, there are a few behaviors that you can look out for. Watch out for these red flags and if you’re experiencing one or more of them in your relationship, call the hotline to talk about what’s going on.
Telling you that you can never do anything right
Showing jealousy of your friends and time spent away
Keeping you or discouraging you from seeing friends or family members
Embarrassing or shaming you with put-downs
Controlling every penny spent in the household
Taking your money or refusing to give you money for expenses
Looking at you or acting in ways that scare you
Controlling who you see, where you go, or what you do
Preventing you from making your own decisions
Telling you that you are a bad parent or threatening to harm or take away your children
Preventing you from working or attending school
Destroying your property or threatening to hurt or kill your pets
Intimidating you with guns, knives, or other weapons
Pressuring you to have sex when you don’t want to or do things sexually you’re not comfortable with
Pressuring you to use drugs or alcohol
[Source: The National Domestic Violence Hotline: http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people helped with the research for this book. Any errors or omissions, however, are my own.
My thanks go to, in alphabetical order: The Hon. Barbara Buchanan, Rick Dalessio, Bernie Druffel, Jake Druffel, Erika Iiams, and Robert Pryor, for their help with country life, farm life, domestic-abuse resources, legal issues, firearms, and the school system.
As always, thanks to my awesome critique team: Lisa Avila, Barbara Buchanan, Carol Chappell, Mary Guidry, Leslie Harlib, Kathy Harward, Erika Iiams, and Bob Pryor, for helping whip the book into shape.
And to my editors at Montlake Romance, Maria Gomez and Charlotte Herscher, for their assistance.
Finally, to my husband, Rick Nolting, for his unwavering support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2015 Shoey Sindel
Rosalind James, a publishing industry veteran and former marketing executive, is an author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels publi
shed both independently and through Montlake Romance. She started writing down one of the stories in her head on a whim three years ago, while living in Auckland, New Zealand. Within six weeks, she had finished the book, thrown a lifetime of caution to the winds, and quit her day job. She and her husband live in Berkeley, California, with a Labrador retriever named Charlie (yes, she named a character after her dog, but she swears she didn’t realize it until later). Rosalind attributes her surprising early success to the fact that “lots of people would like to escape to New Zealand! I know I did!”