A Cowgirl's Secret(50)
Luke asked, “Do I have to?”
“Yeah! Come on!”
They’d climbed around for a while, with Luke finding web-climbing to be not so bad, when two teens strolled by hand-in-hand, doing more kissing than animal observation.
“That’s gross,” Kolt noted, nodding in their direction. “But my friend Jonah was talking about you and Mom and wondering why you’re not, like, boyfriend and girlfriend?”
The question had come from so far out in left field that Luke couldn’t think of a damned thing to say other than, “Is that what you want?”
“Well,” Kolt said, hanging by his knees from the web’s top rope strand. “You are, like, my mom and dad, which means you’re s’posed to be married, so I guess it’d be okay, but it would be better for me if you were married, ’cause that way it’d be easier talking about you guys with kids from school. But then you guys fight a lot, so it’s probably a bad idea.”
Luke’s chest tightened. It hadn’t occurred to him that in this day and age kids even cared if parents were together or divorced or never married.
“Why haven’t you talked about this before?”
Shrugging, Kolt admitted, “You never asked.”
Marriage. Wow. Luke would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about the notion—especially with Daisy. But that had been back in high school when his most important goals had been passing Chem II and finding something fun to do on any given Saturday night.
Since Daisy’s revelation about Kolt, Luke would’ve expected his parents to press the wedding issue. Far from it, they’d urged him to keep things casual between him and Daisy.
Oddly enough, even Georgina, who was a renowned stickler for having all of her offspring wed the moment children became involved, hadn’t said so much as a peep on the topic. At least not to Luke. Did she feel the same as Dallas when it came to the topic of a reunion?
If so, why did that make him feel about six inches tall?
Moreover, why did he care what Daisy’s family thought of him? He never wanted her back, did he?
“I’M CURIOUS,” LUKE SAID to Daisy after they’d both tucked Kolt into bed. They sat on the front porch, cloaked in darkness save for the flickering gaslights. The temperature was, for once, in the comfortable eighties, and crickets sang in conjunction with occasional house-rattling explosions coming from Dallas’s movie room. “Why do you think your mom hasn’t wanted us to marry?”
“E-excuse me?” Judging by her expression, Luke’s question took Daisy by surprise.
“She practically held your brothers at gunpoint to marry Josie and Wren. Should my feelings be hurt she doesn’t want me in the family?”
“Where is this coming from?” Daisy asked. “Days ago you confirmed you want nothing to do with me. Now, all of the sudden you want to talk marriage?”
“No. That’s not at all what I said. What I want to know is, does Georgina think that the two of us would be a poor match? Dallas does. In fact, at the cookout, he pretty much warned me to steer clear of you.”
“Why?” Daisy leaned forward sharply enough to set the frame of her chair creaking. “How is what we do even any of his business?”
“It’s not,” Luke said, “but I can see how Dallas would feel protective toward you. Especially with what went down with Henry right under his nose.” When she failed to comment, he probed, “What are you thinking?”
Her eyes had turned glassy. Was she tearing? “God’s honest truth, I love the idea of us being a family. An official family. But we both know there’s more to it than that.”
“You think?” He hoped his half smile sent the message he was teasing.
“You know what I mean. Loving the idea of something isn’t enough to sustain a marriage for the next fifty years. Let’s say we were to put aside our differences in order to stay together until Kolt leaves for college, then what? Would we still want to be with each other?” When he didn’t answer, she noted, “Now you’re the quiet one.”
“Guess I have a lot on my mind.”
“I’m sorry Kolt mentioned what his friends at school have been saying. While I hate his being given a hard time about anything, let alone an issue that’s in our power to fix, that’s not a good enough reason to marry. Agreed?”
Though Luke nodded, stress knotted the base of his neck. He didn’t want to marry Daisy, but he resented like hell having first Dallas, then her tell him it would be a bad idea. He hadn’t thought of it before, but aside from taking Daisy to court, marriage would be the most certain and relatively painless way to ensure Luke got to spend as much time as possible with his son. It was the perfect solution for all concerned parties.