Page 45 of My Forever Soldier

Luke moved aside so she could pass, and then closed the door behind them. He would have preferred to step out and leave her in the house alone, but the last thing he needed was for her to have even more ammunition against him.

“You don’t have your daughter today?” It was the only thing that crossed his mind to say to her.

“I’ve just dropped her off at her grandparents place. They have her once a month for the weekend.”

“Her dad doesn’t see her?”

She shot him a look he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of again.

“No.” She emphasized the word more than was necessary. “He walked out two years ago and I’ve hardly heard from him since. His folks make a big effort, though, so she has great grandparents.”

Luke wished he hadn’t asked. No wonder she and Ollie were such good friends. They both had husbands who’d walked out, and from the look on Kelly’s face she might just hate the entire male population.

He groaned. There was nothing he could do to rectify the past more than be here right now, so there was no use beating himself up over it.

Charlie saved him, storming back into the room with his wooden gun.

“Bang, bang!”

Luke laughed and pretended to be hit. Kelly didn’t look that impressed, but he wasn’t going to stop playing with Charlie just because they had a visitor who might not be into weapons.

“Did you say hello to Kelly?” Luke asked Charlie.

“Hi, Kelly.” Charlie repeated on autopilot, before running full speed at Luke. “I got you!”

Luke hoisted Charlie up into his arms before turning to face Kelly. “We’ve been having some boys’ fun time, haven’t we, big guy?”

Charlie nodded, then wriggled to get down.

“You go play with the trains. I’ll be back to help soon,” Luke told him.

“I hear you did pretty good the other night,” she said.

“Coffee?” Luke hoped she’d take the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Sure.”

“Sugar?” he asked, heading for the kitchen.

Kelly shook her head. “Liv tells me you saved him, Luke. That without you it could have been a lot worse.”

Luke didn’t want to be the hero, because he was the one who’d walked out on the party.And that had been anything but heroic.He’d hated the hero tag in the army, and hehated it just as much as a civilian. You just did what youhad to do to save someone. It was what he was trained todo, and it was what any other human being would do inthe same situation. Particularly for their own child.

“He’s okay, that’s the main thing.”

Luke passed her a mug and she took it. He sipped from his own. The liquid was far too hot, but he continued anyway. Drinking scalding coffee was preferable to making small talk as far as he was concerned, even if he did lose all the skin on the roof of his mouth.

“Look, Luke, the reason I came around was to make peace with you.”

He digested Kelly’s words. So she’d known Olivia wasn’t going to be here.

“She’s told me that the two of you are trying to work things out, to make a go of it, and I want to help,” Kelly said.

Olivia had actually told her that? “I don’t understand what you’re offering.”

“Look, I don’t have my daughter all weekend, and I have nothing else to do. Why don’t you and Liv spend a day together tomorrow, just the two of you? Do something nice, go somewhere.”

Wow. He sure hadn’t expected that. “That’s really kind of you, but I’m not sure.”

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