Tina Leonard - Her Secret Sons

“Thanks,” Luke said, opening the van door reluctantly.

She softened for a second, knowing he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting. Her fondest wish would be for her sons to never dread talking to their father…when they got to know him.

Prickles ran over her scalp. Duke and Zach had never had any reason to expect anything other than respect and love from their dad, as had she. “Good luck,” she murmured.

Luke looked at her. “Yeah. Thanks.”

She nodded, their gazes meeting. He hesitated, perhaps recognizing sympathy in her expression, so she broke eye contact and looked at her hands.

“I hope I see you again,” Luke said softly. “I have a feeling you turned out to be a very remarkable woman.”

She didn’t look up. She couldn’t. So he closed the door and walked away. She heard his footsteps crunching up the gravel drive, and sneaked a peek. Toby and Josh walked like their father, she realized, with that same loose, arm-swinging gait of busy alertness. While the walk was cute on her boys, it was darn sexy on a grown man, giving Pepper a flash that one day, her boys were going to turn out much like their father in the girl-magnet department.

They were thirteen, not so much younger than when she and Luke—

Not letting herself think about it, Pepper backed up the van and drove off.

LUKE WALKED INSIDE his boyhood home with reluctance. The front door was open, so he didn’t need the key his father kept under the cracked flowerpot. Luke had checked to make sure it was still there, knowing that nothing would have changed despite time’s certain march.

The house smelled musty, closed up, like library stacks in an unventilated basement. It was a world away from the open ocean and thrilling waters of Greece. Setting down his small bag, he headed to the den, where he knew his father would be on a Sunday evening.

His dad was parked in front of a blaring TV with a cereal bowl perched on a TV dinner tray. Luke swallowed hard, looking at the round top of a nearly bald head, all that was visible from behind the green recliner. “Dad.”

His father got to his feet, finally realizing someone was in the house with him. “Luke. You’re back.”

They stared at each other for a tense ten seconds before the older man finally stretched out his hand. “Good to see you.”

Luke nodded. “You, too.” He shook the offered hand with trepidation.

“Nice of you to come home to see your old man,” his father began, and Luke stiffened.

“You sent for me,” he said. “I assumed it was important.”

“My letter?” His father shook his head. “I didn’t send for you. I merely suggested you might want to take over the family business.”

“It’s your business, Dad,” Luke said, not wanting to jump immediately into a conflict. “Thanks, though. Residential real estate isn’t my cup of tea.”

By the looks of his father’s home, it wasn’t his cup of tea, either. There was a lot of work needing to be done, both inside and out.

Stepping back, his father accidentally bumped the TV table. When he reached to steady it, the cereal bowl went crashing to the floor, and Luke realized that he hadn’t been called home for business matters at all.

His father appeared quite feeble. A flash of despair and recognition washed over Luke as the truth hit him. His dad couldn’t take care of himself as well as he used to, and most certainly could no longer care for a large acreage. My footloose traveling days are over. Luke saw himself locked into the finality of caretaking for a man who’d never loved him or been proud of him.

He swore to himself on the spot that if he ever had children, they were going to know he loved them every day of their lives. Every single damn day.

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