by Shirley Jump
“Sunday is Maddy’s birthday,” Peyton said.
Luke made a mental note. His daughter’s birthday—a date that from this minute forward would be important in his life—in their lives. A date that he would never forget, or miss. And especially not this one.
“I’m gonna be four,” Maddy said. “A big girl.”
“Almost a whole hand,” Della said, holding up four fingers. “Growing up right before my very eyes. I hope to see you again on Sunday, Miss Maddy.”
Peyton looked unsure still. “We might be able to do that,” she said. “As long as you don’t mind more people at the family dinner table, Mrs. Barlow.”
“There’s always room for one more,” Della said, then wrapped an arm around Peyton. “Or two.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Luke tossed the first stack of dirtied paper towels into the trash and tore off a bunch more from the roll. “I appreciate you bailing me out.”
Della reached up and pressed a soft palm against her son’s cheek. “Anytime. And I’m glad you’re doing so well with her. It’s time somebody in this room grew up.”
“Hey, that’s a lot to ask of a four-year-old.”
Della just chuckled softly, then headed out the door. When she was gone, Peyton put Madelyne down and told her to go gather up her toys. Madelyne dashed out of the room, and Peyton set to work cleaning up the rest of the paint mess. “What did you mean, she bailed you out?”
“Me and the squirt there had a...difficult morning.”
“Difficult? How?”
“She got upset when she realized you were gone. I tried to distract her, but I...” He ran a hand through his hair. “I sucked at it. I guess I thought I had more of a handle on this parenting thing than I do.”
“It’s tough, but not impossible. And even though I was surprised to see your mom here, I’m glad you called her. Maddy has been asking me about her other grandparents.”
“Maybe we should tell her the truth.”
“And maybe all of this is too soon. You said you worried about how good you are at the parenting thing, but...”
Peyton tore off another wad of paper towels, but Luke stopped her from attacking the table. “Sometimes I worry, too,” she said softly. “That I’m making all the wrong decisions. I mean, look at how upset Maddy was today.”
“She just missed you. You’re amazing with her, while I’m still figuring out how to do this. It was no big deal.”
She shook her head. “You should have called me immediately. I should have been here.”
“Peyton,” he said, lowering his voice in case Maddy was listening, “nothing went wrong. We hit a bump, and we got past it.”
Maddy ran into the room, clutching one of her dolls. “Auntie P, did Luke show you the pitchers we made? And we played in the mud and swinged on the swing, and ate funny sammiches. I had fun, Auntie P. And candy.”
Peyton glared at him. “You gave her candy?”
He shrugged. “A lollipop. A kid can have—”
“Madelyne is not allowed to have candy. Or to have lunch before noon. I have her on a schedule—”
“She was hungry, Peyton. So I fed her.”
“It’s not that simple. If lunch is early, then dinner is early and—”
He could hear the worry and stress in her voice and realized it had been as hard for her to leave Maddy this morning as it had been for him to take the reins today. Peyton had had a lot on her shoulders all these years—responsibilities that clearly hadn’t been shared as they should have been by Susannah—and he could understand her need to maintain order and control. But in lightening up, Peyton might find a little happiness for herself, too. “The world doesn’t fall apart,” he said to her. “Trust me. Us boys ate constantly. My mom would tease us about padlocking the fridge, but truly, she didn’t care. She always made sure there were cookies in the jar and muffins in the breadbox, for when we came in from playing in the sun, hungry enough to chew our own arms off. And we turned out just fine.”
“We ate sammiches for second breakfast, Auntie P. It was good. I wanna have it again.”
“Second breakfast?” Peyton asked.
“Most awesome meal of the day, isn’t it, M-girl?” Luke bent down and gave Maddy a high five. “Right next to second dinner and second dessert.”
“Maddy, go pack up your toys, please. Now.”
“Are we leavin’? Cuz Luke said we could go ’sploring in the woods. I wanna catch a butterfly.”
“Be sure you count your toys when you put them in the bag so you don’t forget any,” Peyton said. “You brought six toys, remember?”
“Okay,” Maddy said. She trudged off to the living room.
Luke waited until his daughter was out of earshot before he spoke. “I thought we were going to have lunch together.”
“I think it’s best if we get going now. She’s had a busy day here already.”
“You’re just a little stressed because things got off schedule. Lighten up, Peyton. She’s a kid, and half the fun of being a kid is being spontaneous.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m the one who’s been raising her for the last four years. You don’t have a right to come in here and tell me how to do that.”
“Actually, I do,” he said, moving closer, keeping his voice low. He met Peyton’s hard stare head-on. In her eyes, he could see worry, fear, anger, a thousand protective emotions all centered around that little girl. He understood it, because a part of him felt the same way. Cautious and concerned, and wanting only the best for the child who had stolen his heart already. “I’m her father, and you brought her to me so I could be a part of her life. Let me do that, in my own way. So we have an extra meal today or get some paint on the floor. It’s no big deal,” he repeated. “And—” he gave her a grin “—I hear doctors say fun is good for you.”
“I’m not against fun—”
“Then let’s have some. You’re here for a vacation, so take one. Don’t worry about the schedules or the messes. I may not have four years of experience, but even I know kids make messes. They drop stuff and play in the mud and track dirt on the carpet. And that’s totally cool. It’s part of being a kid. And the fun part of being a grown-up is getting in the mud with the kid.”
Peyton shook her head. “Growing up means not being messy, wild and uncontrollable.”
“You talk like she’s twenty, not four. Being messy, wild and uncontrollable is the best part of being young. Heck, all of us have a little of that in us.” He moved into her space, the mess forgotten, the kitchen disappearing from his peripheral vision. He trailed a finger along the buttons of her dress. “Doesn’t that side of you still exist, somewhere under the buttons and schedules?”
She held his gaze for a second, and it seemed a river of memories poured into the space between them. Then Peyton shook her head. “You don’t understand, Luke. I have to be the grown-up. The constant—”
“Party pooper.”
She scowled. “I am not. You don’t understand, Luke. I grew up in chaos. Susannah loved that, loved the unpredictability of it, but I...I need to know when dinner is going to be on the table, and that we leave the house at eight on the dot, and that the moon is going to be in the sky every night. I need that structure because...because it makes me feel...”
“Safe,” he finished for her. “I get that, Peyton, I really do. But if you let go a little, you might find that life is even sweeter that way.”
“You’re wrong, Luke.” Peyton started to turn away. He grabbed her arm, the movement startling her, and she stumbled back and into his chest. Just as fast, Peyton jerked away. “I have to go.”
“Wait. Not yet. Not like this.”
“I have to get Madelyne back to the hotel. It’s almost time for lunch.”
“You have an hour until noon. Stay. I’ll order a pizza. We can talk.”
She hesitated, long enough for hope to bloom in his chest that she would say yes. “Talk about what, Luke?”
“The past. The present.
The future.” He gave her another grin. Always before, that grin would make Peyton’s features soften, tease her into agreement. He’d watch an echoing smile curve across her face, and whatever had passed between them would be forgiven.
But this time, Peyton didn’t smile. She just shook her head again. “You haven’t changed a bit. I don’t know why I keep thinking you have.”
“Because you’re refusing to see that there may be another way to be a grown-up, Peyton. Besides the one filled with rules and schedules.”
Maddy came back into the kitchen, her half-filled bag of toys forgotten in the center of the living room floor. “Auntie P, are we goin’ to get pizza? Cuz I wanna play with Charlie some more and Luke said I could afta Charlie took his nap.”
Peyton bent down, greeting Madelyne with a big smile. “I thought we were going to the hotel pool after lunch.”
Maddy pointed outside. “Luke has a pool. We can stay here. And I can play with Charlie some more.”
Clearly, his kid was the smartest one in the world. He couldn’t have said it better himself. “Brilliant idea, M-girl.” He turned to Peyton. “Stay, have lunch and go swimming.”
“I’m not dressed for it and I don’t have Maddy’s bathing suit and...”
“Meri left a suit here when she was over with Jack last weekend, so you can borrow that. And as for Maddy, heck, she’s a kid, she won’t care what she wears.”
Peyton’s gaze flicked between Maddy and Luke. “But I don’t have her water wings.”
“I’ll be her water wings.” He smiled again. “Problem solved.”
“Can we stay, Auntie P? Please? Luke is really nice, and he likes playing dolls and he likes paintin’ pitchers and he likes doggies.”
Luke could see how much Peyton wanted to say yes. She kept glancing down at her niece’s earnest face, then back up at Luke’s. Just when he thought he’d won her internal battle, her features hardened.
“Let’s go take a swim, Peyton,” he tried again, before she could say no. He reached for the door handle that led to the pool. “Let’s have fun.”
“Don’t you want to finish cleaning up this mess first?”
He glanced back at the paint, already drying on his table and floor. “It’ll be there when we’re done.”
“But...”
“Live on the edge, Peyton. Leave a mess. Eat candy for lunch. And...” He swiped a glop of paint off the picture on the fridge and plopped it on her nose, if only because everything about her was too neat, too perfect, too buttoned-up. “Get dirty once in a while.”
Chapter Eight
Maddy pouted for a solid hour. Peyton took her to Miss Viv’s for lunch, but it was a waste of time. Maddy didn’t want to eat and Peyton’s appetite was just as uncooperative.
Peyton had been tempted, so tempted, to say yes to Luke. To stay for lunch and some pool time, especially if it meant seeing Luke’s bare chest again. But just the fact that she wanted to stay, to loosen the reins on her life, let the mess rule the day and, most of all, see Luke half-naked again, all told her she should leave.
How was it that a man she had been infatuated with as a teen could still have such a hold over her emotions and thoughts? Had his kiss been that good?
Well, yeah. It had been amazing. Even better than she’d imagined in all those teenage dreams. And that was what scared her the most—that she wanted more. Not just more, not just a single kiss—
Everything.
A part of her did want to loosen those reins on her life, but she had seen where chaos got someone—and she’d always been the one left to clean up the mess and be the responsible—
Party pooper.
Was Luke right? Had she gotten so tied up in her schedules and order that she had left fun in the rearview mirror?
After lunch, Maddy didn’t want to go to the park, or to the pool, so in the end, they curled up onto one of the beds in Peyton’s hotel room. Peyton found a children’s movie on the television, and Maddy lined up her dolls to watch with her. Peyton got out her sketchpad, but barely scratched the white pages. Her mind wandered, and she found herself watching a movie about a prince rescuing a princess, and picturing Luke on a horse, sweeping her up to join him.
Riding off into the sunset?
No, that wasn’t reality. Those fairy tales she read as a girl weren’t going to come true here in Stone Gap with Luke Barlow, of all people. But her motivation to stick to that schedule and all those rules she loved so much was fraying like an old ribbon.
A second princess movie followed the first one, and as much as Peyton wanted to be up, working, doing something, she settled against the pillows with Maddy in her arms—and fell asleep.
“Auntie P?”
Peyton roused and found Maddy staring down at her. “Hey, monkey. Is the movie over?”
“Uh-huh. And somebody’s knocking at the door, but I didn’t answer it, cuz you told me not to.”
“Good girl.” Peyton pressed a quick kiss to Maddy’s temple, then swung her legs over the bed and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. There was a second knock at the door, just as Peyton was crossing the room.
She peered through the peephole, and there, as if she’d conjured him up from her dreams, was Luke. He’d changed into blue plaid shorts and a plain white T-shirt. His hair was damp, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. He looked good. Too good.
She took in a deep breath, then opened the door. “Luke, what are you doing here?”
“Since you couldn’t stay for lunch, I took the liberty of bringing you dinner.” He hoisted a pizza box in one hand, and a box of wine coolers in the other. A bag dangled from his wrist. “And apple juice for the squirt.”
“Oh, we shouldn’t—”
“You have to eat. I have food. Problem solved.”
Despite her earlier resolve, she found herself caving in with a laugh. “You have all the answers, don’t you?”
Maddy poked her head around Peyton’s leg. “Luke!”
“Hey, Maddy.” He bent down and held out the pizza box. “Would you like to have pizza with me?”
“I love pizza!”
“I know you do. And your favorite is pizza with little pieces of chicken on it, and lots of cheese. We had a long conversation about it.”
Peyton blinked in surprise. Luke knew all that already? In just a couple of hours with Maddy? He’d clearly bonded with her, judging by how much she’d wanted to stay at his house, how she had pouted after they’d left and how she bounded up to him now.
“Can I have some?” Maddy asked.
He chuckled. “As much as you want, as long as you leave me a slice.”
Before Peyton could utter a protest, Maddy was taking the pizza box from Luke and leading him into the room. She slid the big box onto the tiny desk in the corner, then pointed at the bed. “You sit ova there, Luke. And, Auntie P, you sit ova there.” She pointed at the corner of the same bed. “And I’s gonna sit on this bed all by myself cuz I’s a big girl.”
“Somebody inherited someone’s control-freak tendencies,” Luke whispered to Peyton when they were sitting together on the end of the bed.
“I’m not a control freak.”
“You, honey, are the biggest control freak I know. Except maybe Mac, who definitely needs to learn to relax once in a while.”
“I just like things the way I like them.”
He put out his hand as if to say, See, exactly what I meant.
“I’s gonna give everyone their pizza,” Maddy said. She opened the box, looked inside, then looked up at Peyton. “Auntie P? Where’s the plates?”
Peyton shot him a glance. “That’s one thing restaurants always have, which was why I was planning to go out to dinner. Just wait a minute, Maddy. I’ll have to run down to the front desk and see if they have any. Or go to the store—”
“We don’t need plates,” Luke said. “We’ll make our own.”
“Make our own?”
“Just watch me.” He tore the top off the pizza box, t
hen divided the cardboard into three pieces. He handed the first one to Maddy. “Load her up, pardner.”
Maddy giggled, then slid a piece of pizza onto the cardboard. Half the toppings ended up tumbling to the floor, but Luke didn’t skip a beat. He thanked Maddy, handed the piece to Peyton, then repeated the action twice more. Maddy snuggled up on her bed and started watching a third movie.
“Come on, Peyton. Let’s sit down at the American family dinner table.” Luke gestured toward the pillows propped against the headboard. “And watch TV while we eat, like the best families do.”
“The best families sit down at a table and converse while they eat. Or at least they do in Rockwell paintings.” She grinned, not quite ready to admit yet that maybe Luke’s version was more fun.
“We’ll do that. Sunday at my mother’s. Tonight, let’s just overindulge in cheese and dough and watch...” he said, glancing at the TV, “some girl with fish legs sing.”
Maddy giggled. “That’s Ariel. She’s a mermaid. She’s pretty.”
“Not half as pretty as the girls right here in this room.”
Even though she was sure he wasn’t flirting, Peyton felt her cheeks heat, and she dropped her gaze to her pizza. She listened as Maddy explained the plot of The Little Mermaid to Luke, and realized that for the second time in the space of two days, Maddy was...
Happy.
Her little face was animated, her eyes bright. She talked and laughed, and scrambled around on the bed, acting out Ursula’s role and pretending to be the friendly seagull. She ate her pizza and drank her juice, and talked too loud, and in general, acted like an ordinary kid. It was a blessing, one so unbelievable, it nearly made Peyton cry.
As the movie drew to a close, Maddy’s energy began to wane. She curled up against her pillow and, five minutes later, was fast asleep, in her own bed, with her trusty bear at her side. Peyton pulled the blankets up, turned off the TV and dimmed the lights.
“I think you wore her out today,” Peyton said.
“She wore me out. That girl can talk faster than Jeff Gordon can lap at NASCAR.”
Peyton laughed. “Well, she hasn’t been talking like that or been that active and happy in a long, long time. I’m grateful that you got her to open up.” She glanced at the bed and realized that continuing the conversation with Luke meant either standing at the end of the bed, or climbing back into the space beside him. And right now, with Maddy asleep and the room quiet, Peyton was all too aware of how much space two adults took up in a double bed, and how close she’d be to Luke. “Uh, you want to sit outside again?”
