Mission: Soldier to Daddy

Maybe he could do this whole dad routine. He only wished he could have gotten a handle on the husband part, too.

Ollie pressed against the door and tried to ignore the tears leaving a wet trail down her cheeks. She should have walked away as soon as she’d heard Charlie talking to his dad, but instead she’d stood and listened.

She’d risen, so in tune with her son and used to him getting up in the night. Part of her loved that he’d gone in to see his dad, but part of her hated it, too—that for the first time he’d gone to someone else instead of climbing into bed with her. They’d had over two years together, she and Charlie, just the two of them, and changing that was hard.

Ollie walked silently back down to her room and crawled into bed. But those words kept playing over and over in her mind. Will you ever sleep in Mommy’s bed? The man who’d driven her crazy, made her fall so in love with him after such a short time together, and now they were like strangers. Would he have ever come back if it wasn’t for Charlie? Would she have deserved it? Because no matter what she said or felt, part of the blame in their marriage breaking down was her doing. And it was time she admitted it.

Ollie squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find sleep, but she had a feeling that slumber wasn’t going to be quite that simple. Kind of like her marriage.

The noise in the living room woke Ollie before she was ready to open her eyes. What was going on out there?

She rose, checked the drawstring on her pajama bottoms and pulled her tank top into line.

“Mommy!”

Charlie charged her, just about taking her pants down with her as he tugged her along. The remnants of a train track were sprawled in every direction. Railcars and engines added to the carnage.

“Morning.”

She looked up from the train wreck and into the kitchen. Luke stood there bare-chested, in just his boxer shorts. She took in a deep breath and self-consciously ran a hand through her bed hair. Damn. Taut, tanned torso, a sprinkling of hair on his chest that arrowed down into his shorts … She’d forgotten how good he looked without his clothes on.

Ollie ran her focus up his body again and met twinkling eyes. She quickly diverted her gaze.

“Breakfast?” He gestured with his head and she took a step forward to peer into the kitchen.

“He’s making pancakes, Mom. Pancakes!”

Charlie scooted up to Luke and hung off him as if they were glued together, not shy of his dad at all.

“Your favorite, huh?”

He grinned. “How many you going to have, Mom?”

She gave her son a smile before meeting Luke’s gaze. Ollie knew how dreadful she probably looked, all mussed from bed. When they’d first met she’d worn sexy teddies, not gingham pj’s.

“I’m just going to jump in the shower. Save me a couple, okay, Charlie?’

She directed her words to him to avoid conversation with Luke, but doubted her son had even heard her. He was yabbering away to his dad a hundred miles a minute, and Luke was flipping pancakes to exuberant yelps of excitement.

Ollie left the room and flopped down onto her bed, exhausted already. She’d hardly slept a wink and now her stranger husband was making breakfast for their son, and she had no idea what to do. What her role even was right now.

She knew the reality was that the man she’d married had been a soldier, and going away had been part of the deal, but he’d swept her off her feet and made her forget all that. Until she’d gotten pregnant and he’d proposed, and everything had slowly started to unravel. Because she’d never truly believed that he would have married her otherwise, and because the night before she’d found out she actually was pregnant, Luke had told her that he never, ever wanted to be a dad.

Luke’s dedication to the army had seemed so exciting when she’d first met him. But doubt had gnawed at her for so many months, and then with a difficult baby and no one to help her through the tough times, she’d snapped. More than once. And eventually, Luke had walked out the door and never come back.

“What do you say we head to the park?”

She watched Luke smile at Charlie as he leaped up, jumping around, no doubt hyper from all the sugar in their breakfast.

“I’m not sure,” said Ollie. “I’ve got to get to work.”

She sighed. Her husband and son looked up at her like sad puppies.

“What do you usually do with Charlie?” Luke asked.

Ollie scooped up their coffee mugs and sticky maple-syrup-covered plates and took them into the kitchen. “He comes to work with me. Ricardo’s pretty relaxed about Charlie tagging along.”

“Ricardo?” Luke’s attention was suddenly focused directly on her, eyes as sharp as a hawk’s.

“My boss. Ricardo Bolton.” She paused and leaned back on the counter. “He’s an attorney. I clean his place, have dinner in the fridge for him, all the general housekeeping type stuff so he can focus on work, and he doesn’t mind if Charlie tags along with me.”

“Right.”

It seemed so weird, having this type of conversation with her husband. Ricardo had become a close friend, but the way Luke was looking at her made her wonder if he thought their relationship was something else.

“And does this Ricardo man know you’re still married?”

Ollie laughed. She hardly remembered she was married sometimes, given her lack of husband.

“He likes Mom,” chirped Charlie, dragging his dad by the hand to reinspect his train set.

Luke picked the boy up, but his attention was still focused on her.

“It’s nothing like that,” she said, but her cheeks heated, giving her away. She’d always been a terrible liar. Her son had meant nothing by it, couldn’t have meant anything by it, but the implication was obvious. And for some stupid reason she felt guilty about it.

“What about your drawing? You were still doing some illustrating before I left.”

“Ricardo’s a great employer and we needed the extra money. No time to waste on dreams anymore,” she told him.

Ollie smiled at Luke before turning to the dishes. She felt no attraction whatsoever to Ricardo, but he was always making it clear that he’d like her to be more than just the housekeeper. Something she had no intention of ever agreeing to, but at least he made her feel wanted.

“Maybe I’ll take Charlie to the park while you go to work,” Luke suggested.

She nodded, but Luke had already turned away, his attention back on the toy box that Charlie was enthusiastically tipping upside down, to better show his dad what was inside.

Part of her, just a tiny part, wished that her husband had walked in their door and made the same sort of fuss over her as he was over his son. That they could start over, have fun again. But in her heart, she knew it was over. For good.

CHAPTER THREE

LUKE LOOKED ACROSS the dinner table, trying to figure out how to say what had to be said. He’d already been here a day, and the longer he took to talk to his wife, the harder it was going to get. Charlie was in bed, so it was now or never. He might not have come home with the intention of righting his marriage, but now that he was here it was all he could think about.

“Ollie, I need to get a few things off my chest.”

She placed her knife and fork neatly on the plate before looking up, her gaze fixed on him.

“What you said yesterday was right. I should have called more, made more of an effort. All I can say is that I’m sorry.” He paused. “I’m just not good at this sort of thing.”

The silence between them was painful.