The Instant Family Man

If you hadn’t seen him, Charlie might not have lasted another day. He’s lucky to have you in his life.

In that schoolgirl-crush way, she’d thought he was talking about more than just the dog. She’d been head over heels for Luke, her heart breaking a little every time she saw him with her sister. But the Luke she remembered, the same one who had let down her sister when she’d gotten pregnant, had no more permanence than wet tape. She didn’t think that side of Luke had changed one bit—

But then there was the dog.

A dog required commitment. A home. A dependable adult.

Maybe Luke could handle Maddy. It was only two weeks, after all. A blip in time.

A test...

Was she really basing her decisions for Maddy on a dog, for Pete’s sake?

But what choice did she have? Maddy needed time, love and connection, and there was no better person to do that than the man who shared her DNA. Peyton had done her best, but even she had to admit her best might not be enough. Maybe spending time with Luke, with the man who had once loved her mother, would allow Maddy to heal.

And at the end of the two weeks, if Luke still wanted to be part of Maddy’s life, Peyton could make arrangements. Call up a lawyer, draw up a plan.

“I’ll do it,” Luke said, “but on one condition.”

Her gaze narrowed. “What?”

“I’m not going to be Uncle Luke or Friend Luke or anything else. I’m Dad. So you better figure out a way to tell my kid she has a father, and also that I’m not going anywhere two weeks from now. Or ever.”

Chapter Two (#ulink_919d1871-1c63-54c8-b5cd-198f6396aec1)

Two hours later, Luke sat in a lounge chair in the shade of the lanai roof at the back of his rental house, nursing a beer that should have taken the edge off his hangover, but instead churned in his stomach. Across from him there were splashes and laughter and bawdy jokes, but he stayed where he was, feeling older than dirt.

A kid. He had a kid.

He let the thought settle over him, but it didn’t become any more real or concrete. He’d seen the photo of Madelyne, seen his eyes in her wide blue ones, but still couldn’t compute him + Susannah = Kid.

Being a parent meant being responsible. Growing up. Stepping off the hamster wheel of parties and hangovers. Considering he had a party going on right in front of him while he was still battling the hangover from yesterday, Luke Barlow clearly wasn’t stepping off that hamster wheel anytime soon.

Except a part of him had been growing weary of the life he’d been leading, had been for some time. The problem was whether he was ready to change. Or if he was even capable of change.

Change like agreeing to spend time with a four-year-old? It didn’t sound hard—what did a four-year-old do anyway?—but it sounded like something better suited for a relative or a good friend or someone other than Luke. Someone with experience. Someone who knew what to do when a kid cried or fell down.

Except he was Maddy’s father. A father should know what to do. A father should have no problem spending time with his daughter.

A father who hadn’t known he was a father until Peyton showed up on his doorstep. From the minute she started speaking, the world had dropped away. Part of it was the bomb she’d exploded in his life, part of it was Peyton herself.

Hell, he hadn’t even recognized her at first. Gone was the geeky girl who had tagged along with him and Susannah. The girl who more often than not carried a book in her backpack and buried her nose in the pages every spare second. That girl had turned into a beautiful woman, the kind who stopped traffic, made a man forget every coherent thought in his head.

And lingered in his mind long after she had pulled out of his driveway.

Peyton had always had this way about her, an air his mother had called it, that wrapped people in a spell. Okay, maybe not people. Maybe just him. Because today he’d agreed to the one thing a man like him should never do—

To be a responsible role model and parent. Ha. Luke had his position in the family—sandwiched between his military hero younger brother and his overachieving CEO elder brother—serving as the family screwup. Yeah, he’d been good at sports, but he’d never been good enough to become a star player, the way Jack had been a leader in the military or the big-bucks moneymaker Mac was. Maybe it was because Luke hadn’t found his niche, his place in the world. Or maybe it was because he was no good at doing responsible or role model or anything even close.

He’d tried, once. Tried to be the kind of guy someone else could rely on.

And he’d screwed it up. Royally. No one talked about the fallout from that day, the accident that had left Jeremiah in a wheelchair. Nowadays, Jeremiah rarely left his house, rarely returned Luke’s texts, rarely did anything other than play video games in the dark and wait for his life to unwind.

Damn.

Luke twirled the beer in his hands, but didn’t drink. The weight on his shoulders hung too heavy for him to do anything other than sit there and wonder if Peyton had made a huge mistake in bringing a kid into his life.

Not a kid. His own child. His daughter.

Ben Carver plopped down into the seat beside Luke, clutching a nearly empty beer, his hair wet from the pool. Ben grinned, and the gesture lightened the heavy air around Luke. Friends for almost all their lives, Luke and Ben had been named Most Likely to Cut Class in high school, gone on more adventures in twenty-six years than most people went on in eighty and served as each other’s wingman almost every night of the week. They were bachelors—and damned good at it, if you asked anyone in Stone Gap. If there were ever two men in this town least likely to grow up, it would have been Luke and Ben.

Except now Luke had a child, and that changed things. A lot.

“You going to sit there all day or join the party?” Ben said. “There are some hot girls waiting for you to join them in the pool. Actually, they’re waiting for me, but they said you could tag along. Pity dates.”

“Yeah.” Luke tipped his beer in the direction of Tiffany and Marcia and...Beth? Barbara? He couldn’t remember. There were three other women in the pool, and two other guys Luke had known since high school. A typical Sunday afternoon at Luke’s house, a small rental he’d had for about a year now. He should have been enjoying himself. Should have been in that pool, living it up with Beth/Barbara/whatever her name was. But his mind kept straying back to Peyton, back to the earnest intent in her eyes, to the obvious protectiveness she felt for Madelyne and, most of all, to the way Peyton had dropped a detour into his life. “Nah. Got a lot on my mind.”

“Dude, it’s Sunday. Party day. Not the time to think about anything other than Coors or Yuengling.”

Luke propped his elbows on his knees, let the beer bottle dangle from his fingers. “You ever think we’re too old for this? That maybe it’s about time we grew up?”

“What is wrong with you? Hell no, we’re not too old for this. When your AARP card comes in the mail, then maybe it might be time to grow up.”

Luke smiled, but the gesture felt flat. “Jeremiah might disagree.”

“Jesus, Luke. What the hell is wrong with you? Why’d you go and bring that crap up?”

Luke saw his own reflection in the mirror of Ben’s sunglasses. The image seemed distorted, small, as if there was a lot more Luke could do to be a bigger presence. “Just thinking through my life choices, that’s all.”

“Well, that isn’t going to get you anywhere but depressed. And that doesn’t work on party day.” Ben clinked his bottle against Luke’s. “So come on, have another beer and let’s go join our hot friends.”

Luke glanced over at the others. “You go. I’m going into town. Pick up some snacks and beer.”

“We have plenty—”

But Luke was already out of his seat and heading into the house. He left the full beer on the countertop, threw on a T-shirt, then climbed into his Jeep and headed toward downtown Stone Gap. He didn’t need to go to the store. Didn’t need to do a damned thing today except mow the lawn, but for some reason, he couldn’t stay in that lounge chair for one more second.

All he could think about was his daughter. With her blond ringlets and blue eyes and a wide, toothy smile.

She still didn’t feel any more real. He needed to know, to see, to really believe. Luke drove for twenty minutes, passing through downtown Stone Gap, turning right at Gator’s Garage, closed on Sunday, as it had been for the past forty years, then another left and a right before he realized where he had ended up.

The Stone Gap Hotel sat atop a tiny hill a few blocks outside town. The white wood clapboard building wasn’t doing much to live up to its name, considering it held about twenty rooms and room service was provided by Tony’s Pizza across the street, but it was the only thing Stone Gap had for out-of-towners, and this, Luke figured, was where Peyton would be staying. Peyton’s mother, long divorced, had died a few years back, and that meant Peyton had no real family left in town, so the hotel was the most logical choice.

Luke tried to imagine that—a loss of the family that had surrounded him since birth. Two brothers, a mother, father, numerous aunts and uncles and cousins, a whole army of family at every holiday and gathering. Peyton had always been part of the little Reynolds crew of three, and now two of those three were gone.

Except for Madelyne, her niece. Susannah’s daughter. His daughter. A connection between two families, one big and boisterous, one so tiny it almost didn’t exist.

He parked, got out of the car and headed up to the front desk. The blonde behind the desk smiled when he entered the air-conditioned office. Karen Fleming had been a year behind Luke in high school and had dated half the football team—but not Luke. Something Karen tried to rectify every time she saw him.