A Cowgirl's Secret(38)
“What’s the procedure now?” Luke asked.
Daisy said, “I generally walk him in, and make sure he gets settled. We met his teacher a few days ago when I picked up his supply list, so I don’t especially need to see her again, but it’s always good to sign up for PTA or find out if the class needs room moms.”
“How about dads?” Luke might be new to the whole elementary-school scene, but he wanted in on everything. He’d already missed so much of his son’s life. He wouldn’t be absent a second more.
“Sure. Back in San Francisco, Kolt attended private school, but most parents were involved.”
Inside, it didn’t take long for Luke’s eyes to adjust. What took longer was getting used to dozens of pint-size bodies darting like atoms through the halls.
Aside from a fresh paint job and new bulletin boards, the place didn’t look all that different from when he and Daisy and all of her brothers had attended. It even smelled the same. Like dirty sneakers and super-strength cleaning solution.
“This is a trip, isn’t it?” Daisy led the way to Kolt’s room. “Seems like just yesterday when we were here.”
“You were the hottest little third-grader I’d ever seen,” he admitted. “Those braids of yours drove me wild.”
“Stop,” she said with a giggle.
They waved at Dallas’s wife, Josie, who was a kindergarten teacher, and then stepped into Mrs. Olsen’s room.
Cheerful rainbows hung from the ceiling and on the walls grew a paper garden with all of the girls’ names written on flowers and the boys’ on snails, frogs and squirrels.
The desks had been arranged in five groups of four and potted ivy, goldfish and a hamster lined the windowsill. The scent of fresh orange slices was a vast improvement over the odor in the hall.
Kolt stood with two other boys, one taller than him and one shorter. All of them had their supplies spread across the desks and from the looks of it were trading pencils.
“Does Kolt have cool pencils?” Luke asked, surprised to find his pulse racing, hoping his kid was well liked. Suddenly Luke’s own issues were no longer important. In a remarkably short time, Kolt had become his world.
Daisy whispered, “Transformers were the best Dollar General had.”
“Next year, we’re going to Tulsa.”
She elbowed him. “I’d hate to see what you’d do if we ever had a girl.” The minute the words left her mouth, she covered it. “That came out wrong. I know we’ll never have another baby. The two of us. Maybe apart. Hopefully…well—I’m going to shut up.”
“I get it, Daisy.” Luke knew what she was saying and in another world, one where she had never left and he had never had his heart broken by her, her sentiment might have come true. But no matter how special sharing this occasion with Kolt may be, it was all Luke and Daisy would ever have.
Kolt caught sight of them and waved them away.
“Come on,” Luke said, hand on Daisy’s upper arm. Just touching her triggered a wave of overwhelming need, but he ignored it. That was the sex talking. An area in which they’d never had a problem. A fact proven by the kiss he’d given her not too long ago. “Let’s leave the kid alone.”
“First, tell me you know I didn’t mean what I just said. I was kidding.”
“Lord,” he said, raking his fingers through his hair, “this is neither the time nor place. Leave it alone.”
“I can’t.” Tears had pooled in her eyes. Had he been a weaker man, they might’ve been his undoing. “I want you back in my life—as a friend—and for starters, I’m willing to take your smallest scraps.”
“Stop.” In the hall, with what felt like half the town streaming around them, he said, “You’re stronger than this. Begging doesn’t suit you.”
“I need you to know I’m willing to do whatever it takes, for however long, to earn back your trust.”
“I get that, but…” He looked away. At the next room over, a little girl clung to her father, crying that she didn’t want him to go. A pang shot through Luke. A fear that the man would never be him. Would Kolt ever want to give him a hug? Would Luke one day experience the joy of being a father from the start of a child’s life? “Trust isn’t easy to come by, Daisy. It’s not a tangible item to be picked up at the store. Once gone, sometimes it never comes back.”