RECLAIM MY HEART(36)

“Thank you,” he murmured. “For urging me to do this. For going with me. For letting me vent.” He kissed the valley between her first and second knuckles and then pressed them to his chin. “For everything.”
Excitement trilled in her stomach and her body flushed with heat. When he set her fingers free, she tucked her hand in her lap to hide its trembling.
“Things might not have turned out kve fi as I’d imagined, and the whole meeting was over almost before it started, but I am glad I went.” He grasped the mug. “Listen, all this had me thinking. I, um, I want to thank you for having the strength to go against everyone and raise Zach on your own. If you hadn’t, he wouldn’t know us.” He paused. “Can you imagine that?”
She couldn’t.
“You were brave, Tyne,” he said.
The compliment made her uncomfortable. “I don’t know about that. But I was na?ve and inexperienced, and there were times when I felt extremely ill-equipped as a parent. That’s for sure.”
Lucas chuckled. “You have to stop regretting that bobby pin incident.”
“It wasn’t only that.” She balled up her paper napkin. “There were times—” Closing her eyes for an instant, she shook her head. There was no easy way to sum up those infant and toddler years full of motherly mishaps. “I think the worst was dealing with the grief of losing his step-father.”
His eyebrows arched and he blinked twice. “You were married?”
“I guess I should have mentioned it before, but…” She looked across the café where several other customers enjoyed a late afternoon snack. “It happened so long ago that—” she lifted a shoulder. “I met David when I catered a party for his construction company. It wasn’t his company. He was a cabinet maker for the company. He made beautiful furniture.” She slid back on the Naugahyde bench. “He was older than I was by quite a few years, and we were just friends at first. Because of him I started my first savings account. And he looked over a used car I wanted to buy. Things like that.” Memories made her smile. “When he suggested marriage, I actually laughed at him. His feelings were terribly hurt.
“Anyway, he knew I was struggling financially. Knew I was raising Zach by myself. Zach was two then. Just a toddler.” She smiled. “David doted on him.” A powerful sadness swept through her and she paused long enough to rein it in. “David presented a very logical argument; he didn’t have anyone to depend on, Zach and I didn’t, either. He thought we made a great team. We did get along well. So I agreed to marry him.” She looked Lucas in the eye. “It wasn’t a love match by any means. We both knew that. We were a team. It was a partnership.”
She felt an odd reprieve to be able to tell Lucas that, and she refused to stop and wonder why that would be. “But we were happy together. David was good to me. And he loved Zach.” The napkin was a tight ball in the palm of her hand. “We were together just three years though.”
It had taken a long time for her to talk about this without tears coming to her eyes. “There was an accident on the site. They were never able to tell me if he lost his grip on the bank of cabinets he was installing because he had a heart attack, or if he had a heart attack after the cabinets fell on him. He died on the way to the hospital.”
She swallowed around the lump in her throat, determined to finish her story. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain death to a five year old?” Tyne focused on breathing, slow and steady. “That child cried himself to sleep for weeks.”


Lucas waved the waitress away when she came offering a refill.
“I’m forever indebted to David. Because of the insurance pay out, I could stop worrying so much about money. Oh, things remained tight. But I had the funds for a down payment on the house. And I was able to buy a partnership in Easy Feasts when the opportunity arose.” She ran the pad of her middle finger around the rim of her mug. “I’m sorry. This certainly wasn’t the best time for me to unload all that on you.”
Lucas slid his coffee mug toward the end of the table. “I’m glad you did. I’ve been wondering, you know. How yo k knl tu and Zach have fared over the years. Where you lived; how you got along. I thought about you from time to time. Wondered if you got married. If you were happy.” He waited until she looked at him before adding, “I’m really glad that Zach had you, Tyne. I’m happy you raised him.”
His gaze slid away from her and the air chilled a degree or two. Then he offered her a synthetic smile. “So, um, you and Rob. I guess this is the love match you’ve been waiting for?”
She just sat there, startled as much by his odd and suddenly artificial demeanor as by his question. He went from warm and appreciative to cool and measuring in mere seconds. It threw her off kilter.
Focus.
Love match? She and Rob? She let the phrase sink in.
If Rob was her love match, why had she reacted to that tiny kiss Lucas planted on her hand just now? Then again, had she ever thought of Rob as the man of her dreams? The questions made her stomach go queasy. She was engaged to him. Had promised to become his wife. Shouldn’t she answer Lucas with a resounding yes?
Why had she only thought of Rob a handful of times since leaving Philly? They’d talked on the phone several times, but now that she was truly conscious of the exchanges, she realized that Rob had initiated all three conversations. The notion to call him hadn’t even entered Tyne’s head. Had she been that consumed with Zach and his problems? She looked at Lucas and frowned. Then she swallowed, pushing her coffee cup away, fearful of putting another sip of the stuff in her unsettled belly.