Anything for Danny
Anything for Danny
Carla Cassidy
He was only nine years old, but Danny knew what was best for his mom and dad. That was why he'd asked for a trip to the Grand Canyon. So they could be together again. Like a real family.Sherri and Luke Morgan knew this vacation was just what Danny needed. So they put aside their differences for their little boy's sake. Everything was fine–until…Sherri remembered how good it had been waking up in Luke's arms.Luke remembered the love he'd all but given up on.Maybe Danny would get his wish….
Dear Santa Claus,
Before I tell you what I want this year for Christmas, I want to thank you for bringing me that super model of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber plane last year. It took me a long time to put it together and now it’s hanging over my bed.
This year I’ve got something harder in mind, but it’s something I want really, really bad. I’d like it if you could please do whatever you can to get my mom and dad back together again. I know, it’s going to be a tough job, but they belong with each other. We need to be a family again and I know you can pull it off if anyone can.
I’m just a kid, but I know Mom and Dad still love each other. Grown-ups can be pretty dumb, huh? I would really be happy if you could do this for me as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
Danny Morgan
Anything for Danny
Carla Cassidy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CARLA CASSIDY
is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty novels for Silhouette Books. In 1995 she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times BOOKreviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998 she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series.
Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.
To my dad. Your courage inspired, your
laughter enlivened, your love warmed me
through the years. I love you, big man!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Sherri, you can’t be serious about this,” Margaret, Sherri Morgan’s best friend, said in dismay.
“I’m very serious about it.” Sherri poured Margaret another glass of iced tea, then rejoined her at the kitchen table. “You know what this means to Danny.”
“Yes, but a cross-country trip in a motor home…in the winter…with Luke…it’s madness, sheer madness.” Margaret frowned and twirled a strand of her shoulder-length blond hair. “Mark my words, it’s madness.”
Sherri smiled ruefully. “It probably is, but Luke and I have agreed that if this is what Danny wants, then we’ll give it to him. Besides, with three weeks of Christmas vacation from school, it’s the best time to go.”
“But I thought you and Luke barely speak to each other, that there was all kinds of bad blood between you.”
“We speak,” Sherri replied. “We don’t see each other often but when we do we’re always civil and polite. As far as bad blood…it’s been five years since our divorce. I don’t hold any grudges. I have my life and he has his.”
“I still say the whole idea is crazy. What are you going to do if you get snowed in someplace?”
“Dig out,” Sherri returned with a grin.
Margaret frowned. “What did the doctor say? Is Danny really well enough to make the trip?”
Sherri’s smile trembled slightly. “Dr. Winthrope says if we’re going to do it, now is the time. Danny’s stabilized for the moment, but who knows how long it will last?” A sharp stab of pain pierced her heart as she thought of her nine-year-old son.
Sweet Danny with the sunshine smile and overwhelming enthusiasm for life. Cheerful Danny…her life. His diagnosis of leukemia a year before had thrown her world topsy-turvy. “Anyway,” she continued, shoving these sad thoughts aside, “it’s all set. With both Danny and me on Christmas vacation and the weather so unusually mild, there’s no reason not to go. We leave first thing in the morning.”
“Well, I think the whole thing is crazy,” Margaret repeated once again. “Can you put up with Luke for three weeks in the cramped confines of a motor home?” Margaret eyed her skeptically.
Sherri slowly nodded. “Sure. I can put up with anything for any amount of time for Danny,” she replied with grim determination. “Even Luke.”
“Hey, Mom, it’s here!” Danny’s excited voice drifted in through the kitchen window. “Come out and see. It’s here. It’s here!”
“Goodness, what’s he talking about?” Margaret looked at Sherri curiously. “You’d think the Goodyear blimp just parked on your front yard.”
Sherri laughed. “Not the Goodyear blimp…the motor home. The people from the Dream Producers said it would be delivered some time this morning. Come on, we’d better get out there or Danny will have a fit.”
Together the two women grabbed their coats, left the kitchen and walked out into the early-morning Connecticut sunshine. Sherri stepped off the porch, then stopped and caught her breath as she eyed the shining vehicle parked along the curb in front of the house.
It was bright blue, with the Dream Producer’s logo on the side. It was huge. It was a monstrosity. It looked more like a house than a vehicle. And that’s exactly what it would be for the next three weeks, their home on wheels.
“Hi, Sherri.” The driver, one of the volunteers from the Dream Producers Charity, got out of the motor home and gave her a jaunty salute.
“Hi, Ross,” she greeted him warmly. Over the past several weeks Sherri had grown close to all the volunteers who’d worked so diligently to make Danny’s dream wish come true.
“Here are the keys, an instruction manual and an itinerary and map that will take you to the Grand Canyon.” He handed her the items. “We’ve marked the campsites that are close to area hospitals and also tourist attractions that are open year-round that we thought might interest Danny. We’ve also got a weather radio inside the R.V. so you can find out about weather conditions.” He frowned, eyeing Sherri’s slender arms and short stature. “You sure you can handle driving this baby?”
Sherri nodded confidently. “My family took a trip with a motor home the summer I was sixteen. I did a lot of the driving.” She smiled at Ross. “I don’t know how to thank you…how to thank all of you.” She took Ross’s hand in hers and held it close. “You’ve all done so much for us…for Danny.”
“The best thanks is to give that boy the trip of his dreams.” Ross patted her hand and released it. “Make yourself and that boy some precious memories. That’s all the thanks we need.”
“Hey, Mom, come on in…this is awesome!” Danny’s voice rang from one of the windows of the huge R.V. “There’s a bathroom and bedroom and everything. Margaret, come on in and see everything. Mom, come on!”
Ross laughed. “Go on, he’s waiting to show you around.” He paused and smiled at Sherri once again, a bittersweet smile. “That Danny, he’s a special kind of kid.”
She nodded, a lump forming in her throat as she remembered that Ross had lost his thirteen-year-old son the year before to bone marrow cancer.
“Go on, go to him. Make every moment count. Make some memories.” Ross’s eyes were over-bright as he gave her arm a quick squeeze, then went to the car that waited to take him back to the Dream Producers headquarters.
Sherri hesitated a moment, swallowing the emotions that lately were always too close to the surface, the tears that always pressed against her eyes.
It was a rule…Danny’s rule. No crying allowed. From the moment they had learned the extent of his illness, he’d been firm in his demand of no crying where he could see it or hear it. In the months that had passed, she had grown quite proficient at silent weeping, usually at night into her pillow.
“Mom!” Danny’s voice cried out impatiently.
“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Sherri exclaimed. She stepped into the motor home, and looked around in amazement. It was like a miniature home. There was a table with a bench seat, a stove, a small refrigerator and wooden cabinets just behind the four captain’s chairs.
“Mom, come here,” Danny called from the back of the vehicle.
Sherri passed the bathroom complete with stall shower, then entered the back area, where Danny sat on the top bunk, and Margaret was on the bottom bunk. “This is so cool.” Danny’s eyes were bright with excitement, their blueness perfectly matching the ball cap on top of his head. “Look, there are little cubbyholes up here to put stuff.”
“The whole interior has been customized,” Margaret commented.
Sherri nodded, noting the unusually wide entrance to the bathroom. “They’ve customized it so it can accommodate wheelchairs,” she observed. “The space around the table is also larger than usual.”
“Can I sleep up here? Can this be my bed?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see.” Lord, she hadn’t even thought of the sleeping arrangements. There were two beds, the top bunk and the bottom, and although both were nearly double size, there was no way Danny would have one of those bunks to himself, leaving her and Luke to share the other.
“Madness,” Margaret repeated, as if reading Sherri’s thoughts. “I told you this was all crazy.”
Sherri shot her a look of warning. She didn’t want anything to take away Danny’s joy, especially her friend’s negative prophecies concerning this trip. “It will be fine,” she assured Margaret with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Come on, Danny, let’s start loading our supplies.”
Danny nodded enthusiastically. As he jumped down from the bunk, his cap fell off, exposing the bald head beneath. Sherri’s heart constricted at the visual reminder of the chemo treatments from the weeks before. Although Danny had been a little trouper, Sherri was grateful the treatments were behind them, at least for now.
It took them most of the day to pack the motor home. They had suitcases, boxes and cans of food, lanterns and camping equipment, coats and gloves and anything else they could think of for their home away from home. Danny wasn’t satisfied until each and every item was in its place and they were ready to leave the next day.
The packing took longer than expected because they had to explore every nook and cranny. Each cabinet was opened, each drawer pulled out, every built-in convenience was marveled over with appropriate awe.
“I think it’s bedtime for you,” Sherri said that evening as they finished eating a late supper of soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches. The day had been almost too much for Danny, who’d drooped over the meal and scarcely eaten a bite.
“I’m not tired,” Danny protested, although his words lacked conviction. He yawned, his eyelids drooping. “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted with a small smile.
“You get ready for bed and I’ll come to tuck you in as soon as I clear off these dishes.”
Danny nodded, yawning once again as he disappeared down the hallway and into his bedroom. Sherri finished putting the last of their dinner dishes into the dishwasher, then filled the sink with soapy water to wash the pots and pans.
As she worked, her gaze went out the window, to the house next door where the kitchen light burned brightly, illuminating the drapery of darkness that had fallen in the past hour.
Margaret and her husband Jim, and their four boys would probably be at the kitchen table, enjoying the usual noisy, chaotic evening meal. They would all be talking at once, sharing the events of their day.
There were times Sherri envied Margaret her healthy boys and her loving husband, envied with a passion she could almost taste. She envied the noise, the confusion, the love, the family.
Family…she’d dreamed once of a houseful of kids and a handsome husband. But reality was that she and the handsome husband had divorced when Danny was almost four years old. Reality was lonely nights and early mornings of silence. Reality was Danny’s illness and living on borrowed time.
“Mom, I’m ready,” Danny called from his bedroom.
“Coming,” Sherri replied. She dried the last pan and placed it in the appropriate cabinet, then hurried into Danny’s bedroom where he awaited their bedtime ritual.
Danny’s room was a study in motion. Model airplanes hung suspended on thin wires from the ceiling, their silhouettes dancing in the light from the hallway. Pictures of birds, helicopters and jets decorated every inch of the walls.
From the time Danny was a baby, he’d been fascinated with the action of flight. When he was five, he’d constructed a pair of cardboard wings and tried to fly off the top of the garden shed. The ill-fated landing had resulted in a broken arm and a stern lecture.
Most recently before his illness, he and a buddy had rigged up a bungy-jumping cord to the backyard tree, deciding that bungy jumping was the closest thing to really flying. Thankfully, Sherri had spied the equipment before it could be tested and put to use. Since his illness, there had been no more experiments in actual flying, but Danny’s obsession with flight hadn’t faded.
Sherri sat on the edge of his bed and stroked the smoothness of his scalp. “Just like when I was a baby, huh?” Danny asked, casting her a sleepy grin.
“Exactly like,” she agreed. “Your dad and I thought you’d be bald forever. You didn’t have a hint of hair until you were over a year old.”
“But I was still the best-looking kid you’d ever seen.”
Sherri laughed and touched the end of his nose. “Yes, you were, and now you’d better get right to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“It’s gonna be great, isn’t it?” Danny closed his eyes, a sweet smile lingering on his lips. “I can’t believe it’s really gonna happen. It’s gonna be the best time ever.”
“Yes,” Sherri whispered softly. “It’s going to be the best time ever. Are you still sure you don’t want any presents?” They would be spending Christmas in the R.V., and so far, Danny had been adamant that the trip alone was present enough for him.
He nodded, his eyes drooping closed once again. “Just us being together is the best Christmas present in the whole wide world.”
She pulled the sheet up around his neck and placed a kiss on his forehead. Seeing the soft, even rhythm of his breathing, she stood up and started to leave.
“Mom?”
She turned and looked back at him. With the light from the hallway shining on his features, she was struck by how much he looked like Luke. The strong little chin, the high cheekbones, the sensual bottom lip…a chip off the old block. A bittersweet pang raced through her, there only a moment then gone. “What, honey?”
“It’s gonna be just like it used to be. Me and you and Dad all together again like a real family. It’s gonna be the best time in my whole life.”
Sherri hesitated, then nodded and left the room. She should have told him, she berated herself. She should have told him that there was no way it could ever be the way it used to be. Even though the three of them would be together, there was no way to go back and be a family. Too much time had passed, too many bitter memories made that particular dream of Danny’s impossible. She and Luke were divorced and no amount of time spent together would change them into a normal, loving family.
She pulled on her coat and walked out the front door. She sat on the porch swing and pushed her feet against the wood. The motion set the swing moving back and forth in a lulling, easy movement.
Night had fallen completely and insects buzzed and clicked in the darkness. A cold evening breeze rippled through her long dark hair as she continued to swing.
Thank God the weather was cooperating for their winter cross-country trip. The entire country was enjoying an unusually mild winter. She was willing to put up with all the ice and snow Mother Nature might cast their way in a month’s time, but she just hoped that for the next three weeks the weather remained moderate.
Leaning her head back, she sighed. She should go to bed. Danny had a big day tomorrow, and so did she. Not only did she want to give Danny the trip of his life, but she also had to figure out how on earth she was going to spend three weeks cooped up in that motor home with Luke.
Luke Morgan threw the last sweatshirt in the duffel bag and zipped it closed. He looked at his wristwatch. Ten minutes until seven. Sherri had said they should be here by seven, so he knew they’d be here any time. Sherri was never late.
He moved the duffel bag by the front door, then plopped down on the bright red futon to wait. He was dreading this trip…knew it was probably the biggest mistake he’d make in his life, and he’d made plenty.
At least he didn’t have to worry about anyone watering his plants while he was gone. He looked over in the corner where two dead plants hung in macramé hangers. He sighed and leaned back against the futon.
Sherri. She’d been a closed book in his life. He’d moved on, made a life for himself without her. He was a respected and admired photographer. He was considered a witty and charming date.
Yes, he’d managed to put Sherri in his past quite nicely. They’d worked out agreeable visitation arrangements that included Luke’s getting Danny every other weekend he wasn’t working. Even with Danny’s frequent hospitalizations over the past year, he and Sherri had managed to maintain a healthy distance and civility. They’d worked out their divorce much nicer than they’d managed their marriage.
He looked around the apartment that had been his home for the past year. The futon where he sat and a television set/stereo unit comprised the extent of his furniture.
The walls were covered with some of his best work…pictures of native children in South Africa, fatherless children who were the legacy of the Vietnam era, the despair on young faces in Belfast.
He’d given up his world travels a year ago when Danny had gotten ill, and he now photographed the young, the disillusioned, the hopeless in the United States. That way, he was always no more than a couple hours’ plane ride away should Danny need him.
He looked around him again. Sherri would hate this place. Sherri loved order and the one thing his apartment lacked was order. He felt a dull sense of dissatisfaction sweep over him. He really should invest in more furniture, perhaps an end table or two. He eyed the untidy stack of clothing in the corner of the room. A chest of drawers would be nice…maybe a maid could make some sense of his chaos.
He frowned, realizing he was viewing his apartment through her eyes. He pulled himself off the futon and glared out the window. His apartment was fine just the way it was. The futon served as his sofa by day, his bed at night. His clothes were fine in a stack in the corner, as were his magazines, his albums and his photography equipment.
Damn, this trip from hell hadn’t even begun yet and already Sherri was an intrusion into his life. He didn’t want to go. He couldn’t imagine being trapped in an R.V. for three weeks with his ex-wife. He must have been crazy when he’d agreed to the whole thing.
His mind suddenly filled with a vision of Danny. His frown automatically faded, replaced by a small smile. What a kid. He and Sherri might have failed at their marriage, but somehow, the best of both of them had joined together on the night that Danny was conceived. That’s why he had agreed to this trip. For Danny.
He stared out the window, seeing a motor home pull to a stop in the parking lot. He looked down at his watch. Bingo…seven o’clock on the nose. Some things never changed.
He grabbed his duffel bag, pulled on his jacket, locked the front door, then hurried down to meet them.
Luke felt his heart expand in his chest as Danny stuck his head out the window. “Hi, Dad,” he yelled. He opened the door and jumped down from the passenger seat and ran toward Luke. “Hey, big man,” Danny said, grinning up at him.
“Hey, little man,” Luke replied. He let the duffel bag fall to the concrete and went down to one knee as Danny threw himself into his arms.
For a moment, Luke held him tight, smelling the little-boy scent of him…a scent of sunshine and freedom, of laughter and dreams. Dreams the doctors said would probably not be fulfilled…dreams Luke would sell his soul to see come true.
“Come on, Mom is waiting.” Danny wiggled from Luke’s tight embrace. He grabbed his father’s hand and tugged Luke toward the R.V. “Wait until you see everything inside. It’s so awesome. And Mom says if it’s not too cold we can make a camp fire every night and toast marshmallows and when we get to the Grand Canyon we’re going to rent a helicopter to fly us over it.”
“Whoa,” Luke said with a laugh. “Slow down. We’ve got a lot of driving time ahead of us before we get to the Grand Canyon.”
“Yeah, but with you and me and Mom all together, it will be fun. We can sing and talk and just be together.” Danny tugged impatiently on his father’s hand again. “Come on, let’s get this show on the road!”
Funny, Luke thought as he stepped into the vehicle. He’d forgotten how small Sherri was…how petite. Sitting behind the steering wheel, clad in a pair of red slacks and a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved blouse, she looked like the cute little teenager he had fallen in love with years before.
He had a sudden vision of the way she had looked on the day they had gotten married. It hadn’t been much of a ceremony, a simple civil service in city hall. She’d been eighteen years old and had gazed up at him as if he were her entire world. It wasn’t until they’d been married several months that he’d realized he was her entire world.
“Hi,” he said awkwardly.
She smiled a greeting, her big brown eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at his duffel bag. “Is that all your luggage?”
He nodded. “I travel light.” He saw her lips compress in disapproval, as if she knew he’d thrown together clothes in the bag only moments before, which of course he had.
“I’ll take it, Dad. I’ll store it with ours,” Danny said, taking the bag from him. He disappeared into the back as Sherri started the engine.
“You want me to drive?” he asked with a touch of irritation. She’d probably packed a month ago…sixteen suitcases full of useless items.
“I’ll drive until I get tired, then you can take over,” she answered, her voice pleasant, but distant.
Luke settled into the seat with a sigh. He stared out the window at the passing scenery, waiting for her to say something, anything to ease the awkward silence that grew and expanded with each passing moment.
What do you say to the woman you’d been married to for five years, and divorced from for the past five? he wondered. He could tell her about his date last Friday night, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t want to hear about it. Besides, it had been a horrible night and he was doing his best to forget it. He could tell her about his latest photography assignment, but she’d always resented his work.
They’d had little in common years ago. After five years of separation, he suspected that hadn’t changed. Maybe it was best that he just keep his mouth shut.
He sighed again. He leaned forward and turned on the radio, relaxing somewhat as the sounds of an old rock and roll song filled the motor home.
“Uh…would you mind leaving it off until we get out of this rush-hour traffic?” she asked politely.
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. He turned it off, remembering that she’d never liked to drive with the radio playing.
He was aware of Danny returning from the back and sitting down in the chair just behind him. Danny leaned forward and placed a hand on Luke’s arm, and his other hand on Sherri’s shoulder. “This is gonna be so much fun,” he exclaimed with all the excitement a nine-year-old could generate. “We’re going to have the greatest time in the world, aren’t we?” His words were met with silence. “Aren’t we?” he prompted, squeezing Luke’s arm.
“Sure, the greatest,” Luke replied faintly.
“The best,” Sherri added. She looked at Luke, and in her eyes he saw the same dull dread he knew was in his own.
He smiled weakly, then turned his gaze out the window. Yes, this was definitely going to be the trip from hell.
Chapter Two
Sherri feigned sleep and studied Luke beneath her lowered lashes. She’d spent the last six hours driving and after they’d stopped for lunch, had relinquished control of the vehicle to him.
She’d spent the past five years trying not to really look at him whenever they happened to run into each other. She now took the opportunity to examine the man she had once been married to, the man she had once loved above all else.
Luke had always been handsome. Sherri was honest enough to know that it had been his intense good looks that had initially attracted her to him.
He was still sinfully attractive. The passage of time had merely intensified his bold features. His chin was square and strong, his nose a Roman feature. He’s wearing his dark hair longer, she observed. She liked it. She decided it gave him a rakish look that complemented his devil-may-care personality.
He’d taken off the leather bomber jacket he’d been wearing this morning and was clad in a short-sleeved T-shirt that exposed his firmly muscled, tanned arms. He had the body of a man who worked out, but she knew Luke was too undisciplined to follow any regular workout regimen.
She looked at his hands, gripping the steering wheel competently. She’d always loved his hands. They were artist hands, slender and long-fingered, yet masculine with the dark curly hair that dotted each knuckle.
He talked with his hands, gesturing often as if they were an extension of his thought processes. They used to laugh about it. She’d teased that if his hands were tied behind his back, he would be completely tongue-tied.
“Sherri?”
His voice caused her to squeeze her eyes more tightly closed. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been looking at him. She kept her breathing even and rhythmic, feigning deep slumber.
“I know you aren’t sleeping, Sherri.” His voice was softly indulgent and she could hear the smile in it.
She cracked an eyelid. “How do you know I’m not?” she asked, suddenly irritable.
“Because you always sleep with your mouth hanging open,” he observed.
She sat up straighter in the seat. “I most certainly do not,” she replied stiffly.
He smiled, a smirking, knowing grin that instantly fueled her unreasonable aggravation with him. “For the five years we were married, you never, ever slept with your mouth closed.”
“Well, it’s been a long time since you’ve slept with me and nobody else has ever complained,” she snapped. She groaned inwardly. Now why had she said that? In the years since her divorce from Luke, there had been no opportunity for anyone to complain about her sleeping habits. Other than the occasional night when Danny had a nightmare and had needed some assurance, she’d slept alone.
“We need to talk,” he said, not taking his gaze off the highway they traveled.
“Talk about what?” She sat up in the seat and eyed him curiously.
“About the silence we’ve suffered through for the last six hours.”
“It hasn’t been silent…Danny has been chattering.” Sherri turned around in her seat, looking for her son.
“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “He went back a little while ago to take a nap. He can’t hear us.” He looked at her for a moment, then redirected his gaze to the road. “Sherri, I don’t know about you, but so far this trip has been damned uncomfortable. The tension between us is so ripe, Danny can’t help but feel it. We can’t have the whole trip like this.”
Sherri thought about those six hours. She had driven, Luke had stared out the window and Danny had talked. It had been the inane chatter of a kid who sensed tension and was attempting to dispel it. “So, what do you suggest?” she asked.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that we’ve got three weeks of close contact, intimate togetherness and a Christmas holiday to get through. For the sake of that kid back there, we’d better be able to put our past behind us and act like reasonable adults.”
“I can do whatever it takes to make Danny happy,” she answered.
Luke grinned. “I think it would make Danny happy if you tried to be nice to me.”
Sherri glared at him in outrage. Was he somehow trying to take advantage of this whole situation? It would be just like him to do that. She instantly steadied herself. Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t want to be with her any more than she wanted to be with him. He was merely thinking of Danny. And she would do the same. “I can be nice to you…for Danny’s sake.”
“Okay, then it’s agreed. For Danny’s sake, we’ll act like we really like each other.”
Sherri grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m that talented an actress,” she muttered.
“You are, I can still remember all those times you acted like you enjoyed my lovemaking.”
“Oh!” Sherri gasped at his temerity. She sputtered for a moment, opening and closing her mouth in an effort to find effectively scathing words. When nothing strong enough came to mind, she turned around in the seat, staring out the passenger window and studiously ignoring the soft chuckle he emitted.
Why did he have to mention that? she thought. Of all the things that had happened between them, of all the memories both good and bad she had entertained in the past, their lovemaking was something she’d never looked back on. That had been one particular set of memories she’d refused to acknowledge, refused to indulge herself in remembering.
But now the memories exploded in her mind, reminding her of the intensity, the wonder of sexual fulfillment she had always found in his arms. He’d been her first…her only. Sex had been their common ground, the only thing they had really done well together. It was what had kept their marriage alive much longer than it should have been.
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, refusing to give those vivid memories any substance, shoving the disturbing visions firmly out of her mind.
As the motor home traveled onward, she allowed the motion to lull her to sleep.
Luke glanced over at Sherri and realized this time she really was sound asleep. A small smile curved his lips upward as he saw that her mouth hung slightly agape. Yes, she was definitely asleep.
He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and reached over and flipped on the radio, turning it up so he could hear it, but not so loud it would intrude on Sherri’s slumber. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up. One thing he remembered quite well, a tired Sherri was a cranky Sherri. His grin widened. The first thing he’d learned about her after marriage was that when she was tired her nose itched, and when he saw her scratching the tip of her pert little nose, he knew to watch out and give her a wide berth.
He eyed her again, humming along to Elvis’s crooning ‘Love Me Tender.’ He didn’t know why he had thrown out that comment about their lovemaking, but somehow he knew it had been because of a perverse wish to shake her up, watch her blush.
She’d always been so damned tight, so rigid. She’d come to him with a full structured set of ideals on love and marriage, ideals that no man would have been able to live up to…especially him.
He’d wondered how many others had tried. No complaints, she’d said and he’d been surprised to feel a swift, strong shaft of jealousy sweep through him. He’d thought he’d gotten beyond that particular emotion long ago where she was concerned.
He shook his head ruefully. He hadn’t exactly been a monk since their divorce. He’d just never thought about Sherri’s being with somebody else. He’d never contemplated the thought of her breathing her sweet sighs of passion into the hollow of another man’s neck. He’d never considered that another man’s hands might stroke the smoothness of her shapely legs, caress the satiny texture of her breasts. He now realized it had been the height of conceit to assume that Sherri would never love another…never make love to another man.
He looked at her again, this time studying her in her vulnerable state of sleep. She’d done something different to her hair. Although she still wore it long, below her shoulders, the rich darkness was now shot through with strands of lighter shades. He liked it, he decided. It gave her a softer, more stylish look.
He could smell her, a curious mingling of floral perfume and that indefinable scent that had always belonged to her alone. He’d often boasted that in a roomful of women, blindfolded he would be able to pick out Sherri by her scent. It had always turned him on. He was shocked to realize it was having that same kind of effect on him now.
With an edge of irritation, he cracked open the window, allowing in the cold December air, needing it to banish the heat that suddenly flooded through his veins.
He jumped as Danny touched him on the shoulder. “Hi, sport, have a good nap?” he asked, relieved for the distraction from his crazy thoughts.
Danny nodded. “How long has Mom been asleep?” he asked.
“Not long,” Luke answered, then grinned. “I see she still sleeps with her mouth open.”
Danny laughed. “Yeah, last Easter Sunday I woke her up by dropping a black jelly bean between her lips. Boy, did she get mad.”
“I can imagine,” Luke replied. “She always did hate black licorice,” he added, making Danny laugh again.
“Where are we?” Danny asked, peering out the side window.
“About an hour from our first campsite. According to your mother’s schedule, we’re stopping at a place just outside Akron, Ohio, for tonight.”
“Cool, I’ve never been to Ohio before,” Danny observed.
“You’ve never been out of Connecticut before,” Luke reminded his son. “Are you getting hungry?”
“Not really. What about you?”
“Yes, I’m starting to get hungry,” Luke replied.
“Mom made out menus for each night. Hang on and I’ll tell you what she’s cooking tonight.” Danny scurried out of his seat and rummaged around in one of the drawers.
Menus. Of course, Sherri would make menus, Luke thought. And lists. There was probably a list detailing all the lists she had made for the trip.
“Steaks and baked potatoes. Sounds good, huh,” Danny exclaimed, sitting back down behind Luke.
“Sounds terrific,” Luke agreed.
“You think we’ll be able to have a camp fire and cook the steaks outside?” Danny asked.
“We’ll have to wait and see what sort of campsite we stop at,” Luke explained. “If it’s too cold out and we can’t have a fire, then we’ll be eating in.”
“Okay,” Danny agreed easily.
Luke’s heart swelled with pride, and the peculiar kind of dread that was always there when he thought of his son. The latest prognosis was that Danny had six months to a year to live. There had been a time when Luke had been unable to imagine a life with a son. Now he couldn’t imagine life without Danny.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, sport?” Luke shoved his dark thoughts away.
“I told Mom I wanted to sleep on the top bunk, but she said we’d have to see. So what do you think? Can I have the top bunk and you and Mom can share the bottom one?”
Amusement rippled through Luke at the very thought. He tried to imagine he and Sherri in the small confines of the lower bunk. It was an interesting image.
Of course, it would be only natural that they’d inadvertently touch each other. A rubbing of shoulders, a brush of a thigh…it could be quite stimulating. But it was a stimulation neither of them needed, or wanted, he reminded himself firmly. Besides, if Sherri got cranky when she was tired, he’d hate to see her if she realized she would be sharing a bed with him once again.
“How about us men take the top one?” he countered. “If we can share my futon on weekends, surely we can share the upper bunk for the duration of this trip.”
“Okay,” Danny replied. Luke expelled a sigh. One crisis averted. He wondered how many more lay in wait for him.
Sherri awoke as the motor home pulled to a halt. “Where are we?” she asked, sitting up and looking out the window for orientation.
“At the Happy Camper’s Park just outside of Akron.” Luke shut off the engine and opened his door. “Just sit tight and I’ll get us a parking space for the night.”
“I’ll come with you, okay, big man?” Danny asked, scrambling after him.
“Okay, little man,” Luke replied.
“Danny, your coat!” Sherri called, holding the winter jacket out to him. She didn’t care if Luke caught a cold, but she didn’t want Danny getting ill. He shrugged on the jacket and together he and Luke left the R.V.
Sherri watched as the two of them approached the office. Her heart constricted as Luke threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders. They walked so much alike, with a sort of jaunty, rambling roll of natural arrogance. In Luke it was incredibly sexy, in Danny it was just plain cute.
As they disappeared into the office, she got up out of her seat and began putting together the items for their dinner. One thing she couldn’t take away from Luke: he was a terrific father. Even when he’d been traveling and was out of the country, a week didn’t pass that Danny didn’t receive several letters from wherever Luke was working.
It had surprised her over the years, the commitment that Luke had made to his son. She’d always believed the only thing Luke could be committed to was his work and his need for excitement. That had certainly always come before his commitment to her. She shoved the bitterness aside, knowing it would ruin the taste of the steaks.
Besides, it was the past, and there was no way to change it, no way to go back and reclaim it. She didn’t need Luke anymore. The only thing she needed was to make sure this was the best three weeks of Danny’s life.
“We’re all set,” Luke said as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “We’ll have electrical and water hookups.” He restarted the motor home.
“And the man says we can have a camp fire so we can cook our steaks outside,” Danny said with excitement. “We can toast marshmallows, then tell ghost stories and stuff.”
“Sounds like a winner to me,” Sherri replied.
It took them nearly an hour to hook up and get a fire burning. By the time they cooked the steaks and ate, darkness had fallen and the air held a sharper nip of winter. The fire provided a welcoming light and warmth against the night. Again, Sherri was thankful that the weather was cooperating by remaining unusually mild for December. Now, if it would just hold.
She settled back against the fallen tree limb that provided her a seat in front of the fire. A quiet contentment swept through her as she listened to Luke and Danny talk about sports.
The dinner conversation had been pleasant. They had talked about the weather, their travel plans for the next day, the campsite…they’d managed to find things to talk about that were nonthreatening and safe. Now if they could just continue in the same vein for the next three weeks….
She gazed across the fire, watching her son’s face as he animatedly dissected the last New York Yankees ball game with Luke. She smiled, seeing her son’s hands flail in the air as he described a particular pop fly. Definitely a chip off the old block.
In the glow of the fire, Danny’s face looked like a youthful miniature of his father’s. But according to the doctors, his face would never reach the maturity of Luke’s. Sherri shoved this thought aside, unable to deal with the grief, the breath-stealing pain that tore through her at thoughts of losing Danny.
Doctors have been known to be wrong, she reminded herself firmly. And miracles did still happen in this world. All she had to do was keep praying for their own special miracle.
Her heart expanded as she heard Danny’s lilting laughter, saw Luke’s responding grin. She focused on their conversation, realizing that their talk had turned from sports to ghost stories.
As Luke related to Danny a story he’d heard while in Ireland, Sherri got up and went into the camper. Opening one of the cabinets, she drew out her camera. She wanted to chronicle this trip, these memories. She’d been surprised that Luke hadn’t brought his camera equipment. During their marriage, he’d even carried it with him on short trips to the grocery store, afraid he might miss the opportunity of getting an award-winning photo.
She loaded the film and checked the batteries to make sure the flash would work, then went outside and sat across from the two males.
Luke was at the climax of his story, his voice low and creepy. Danny’s eyes were wide, his mouth opened in an ohh of anticipation. Sherri snapped a picture, laughing as the flash made Danny jump and yell in surprise.
“Mom, you scared me,” he exclaimed. He clasped a hand to his heart and grinned. “Hey, let me take one of you and Dad,” he urged suddenly.
“Oh, no,” Sherri protested, looking to Luke for support.
“Come on, Mom, just one,” Danny pressed, his big blue eyes pleading his cause.
It’s just a picture, Sherri told herself as she reluctantly gave Danny the camera. But there was something intimate about a photograph, an image that lasted despite time and change. Luke had always told her that he thought pictures were the most telling medium of all, that relationships, character and emotion could all be read by studying a photo.
As she moved to sit next to Luke, she wondered what perceptions people would draw years from now about the picture of the man and woman sitting by the camp fire. Would they know the two were divorced, or would they guess that they were lovers enjoying a camp-out?
She eased down next to Luke, immediately able to smell his scent, a heady combination of spicy cologne and wood smoke and the smell of worn leather from his bomber jacket. She held herself stiff, not touching him, but aware of his body heat warming her as effectively as the flames of the fire.
“Relax,” Luke murmured to her as Danny worked the focus. “Give the kid what he wants.” He placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close against his side.
“That’s great,” Danny exclaimed in delight.
In the moment it took for him to snap the picture, myriad emotions flooded through Sherri. She had spent the last five years trying to forget everything about Luke, yet in the single instant in his arms, her body remembered the sweet familiarity of his touch.
The second the flash went off, with white dots still dancing in front of her eyes, she jerked away from Luke’s touch and stood up. “That’s enough pictures for one night,” she said as she took the camera back from Danny. “I think I’ll go in and take a quick shower.”
Luke grinned, his gray-blue eyes lingering on her for a moment. “While you shower, Danny and I will put out the fire.”
With a curt nod, Sherri hurried into the motor home. The shower was a confounded contraption. The nozzle produced a pathetic spray of water that was virtually ineffective against banishing the lingering feel of Luke’s body pressed against her side.
It had shocked her, the momentary stab of desire that had suddenly reared its head when he’d pressed her against his side. It was an emotion she hadn’t felt for a very long time, had thought never to feel again.
“Ridiculous,” she scoffed aloud, scrubbing her skin to a rosy hue with the washcloth and fresh-scented bar of soap. It had been shock she’d felt, not desire. It had been surprise and distaste. After all, how could she possibly feel desire for a man she disliked? How could she feel desire for a man who’d taken her love and left her bitter and empty? It had been a long time since she’d felt a man’s arms surrounding her, her body had simply reacted to the novelty of the embrace, nothing more.
By the time she’d finished showering and changed into a long, demure sleep shirt, Danny and Luke were back inside. They sat at the table, sharing a bedtime snack of peanut-butter crackers and milk.
“Danny, when you’re finished there, take your shower and don’t forget to brush your teeth,” Sherri reminded him.
“Ah, Mom, we’re on vacation,” Danny protested.
“Hey, sport, dirt and cavities don’t take vacations,” Luke said firmly. He stood up and put away the crackers and milk. “Besides, I don’t want a stinky, tooth-decayed bunk mate.”
“Okay.” Danny laughed and headed for the shower.
When he was gone, Sherri busied herself wiping the table and counters, conscious of Luke’s gaze following her movements. “You’re staring,” she finally said as she sat down across from him.
“Yes, I am,” he agreed with a lazy smile. “I was just observing the fact that you look good. I like what you’ve done to your hair.”
She ran a hand through it self-consciously. “Thanks.”
“Since our divorce, you’ve only managed to get more attractive.”
She flushed. “What did you expect? That without you in my life, I’d somehow fall apart?”
“It would have done my ego wonders if you had.” The lazy grin widened.
“Gosh, Luke, I’m really sorry that I couldn’t accommodate your massive ego, but I’ve not only survived since our divorce, I’ve actually thrived.” She tilted her chin upward, returning his gaze with an edge of defiance. She studiously shoved aside the memory of how frightened she had once been that she wouldn’t survive, that she would fall apart without him.
He stretched out his long jean-clad legs and grinned at her. “I’ve managed to do pretty well myself since our divorce,” he said. “I’m considered quite a catch in the circles I travel.”
Sherri smiled thinly. “I’m sure you have to beat the women off with sticks since you’re such a sexy hunk.”
“You really think so?” His dark eyebrows danced upward.
“Hmm, I’m sure you have to carry two baseball bats with you to fend off the attention of love-starved females,” she replied sarcastically.
“No, I meant do you really think I’m a sexy hunk?” He leaned up over the table, so close she could feel his warm breath on her face, see something unfathomable in his eyes. He reached out and traced the swell of her bottom lip with a fingertip. “You know, Danny wanted to sleep in the top bunk all by himself. You and I could share the bottom one…share a little passion for old times’ sake. What do you think?”
Sherri reeled back in the chair but before she could scald him with a flurry of scathing words, Danny stepped out of the bathroom. “All done,” he exclaimed.
“Terrific, I’ll tuck you in.” Sherri escaped Luke’s proximity, following her son back into the sleeping area. “Make sure you leave plenty of room for your father,” she said loudly enough for Luke to hear.
“I think I’ll take a quick shower,” Luke said, his voice still filled with the lazy amusement that only fueled Sherri’s irritation with him.
“Danny and I will just go on to bed,” she replied coolly.
As he disappeared into the bathroom, Sherri gave her son a kiss, then crawled beneath the sheets on the lower bunk.
The nerve of the man, she fumed inwardly. She punched her pillow and flopped over on her side. He’d been playing with her, using his overt sensuality to get to her. How many of their fights had ended with him cajoling her into bed, sweet-talking her out of her anger and into his arms? Share a little passion for old times’ sake…oh, the nerve of him!
Luke and his lazy, sexy charm. It had always been coupled with a touch of arrogance that had merely increased its potency. His arrogance didn’t cross the line into conceit. If it did, it wouldn’t be so damned appealing. She punched her pillow once again.
“The beds are kinda hard, aren’t they?” Danny said from above her.
“A little,” she replied, but she knew it wasn’t the physical discomfort of the bed that bothered her. It was the fact that she still found Luke sexy. After all these years, she still found his naughty charm stimulating. Damn his handsome hide!
She jumped as above the sounds of the water running in the shower, she heard him begin to sing. Luke had always sang in the shower…always sang loudly and badly.
Some things never change, she thought as she heard him lustily singing the words to a familiar Garth Brooks tune. Without the words, the song would have been totally unrecognizable.
Danny’s giggles filled the air. His laughter grew stronger as Luke’s singing became louder. The sound of her son’s laughter fed a sudden spurt of her own.
“He really is bad, isn’t he, Mom?” Danny said amid fits of giggling.
“He is,” Sherri agreed. “And the frightening part is he honestly doesn’t know how bad he is.” Again, Danny and Sherri burst into laughter.
They were still giggling when Luke finally stepped out of the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
Sherri’s laughter died instantly on her lips as she stared at him. He stood backlit by the light from the bathroom. He was clad only in a pair of boxer shorts, exposing his firm muscular chest, flat abdomen and long masculine legs. “Nothing,” she murmured. She quickly turned over on her other side, facing the wall, closing her eyes against the vision that was momentarily burned into her brain. They were silk boxers, bright red and incredibly sexy. Drat the man, anyway, she fumed.
She was vaguely aware of him turning out all the lights and pulling himself up into the bunk above her. She sensed the mattress depressing beneath his weight, smelled the clean soapy scent that emanated from him. She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed. Margaret had been right. This whole idea was a study in insanity.
“Sweet dreams, Sherri,” Luke murmured, his voice softly mocking as if he knew the view of his scantily clad body had disturbed her.
She grunted in response and punched her pillow a final time. She’d forgotten how potent Luke’s sexuality was, how overtly male he was. She hadn’t considered her own vulnerability, the fact that she had been without male companionship for too long, that her body remembered Luke’s caresses, his lovemaking far too keenly for sanity’s sake.
I just have to concentrate on all the things I don’t like about him, she thought. Aside from the failure of their marriage, she had to hang on to the little things that drove her crazy. He ate ketchup on his steak. He was tone-deaf and loved to sing. He popped his knuckles to see her squirm.
As she slowly drifted off to sleep, she remembered something else she hated about him. He snored.
Chapter Three
Luke awoke first. The dawn light illuminated the interior of the motor home with a golden glow, and outside a bird chirped softly, as if welcoming the coming morning light.
He knew he should get up, get the utilities unhooked so they would be ready to roll when Sherri and Danny awakened. But he didn’t move. Instead, he remained still, drinking in the sensations that surrounded him.
Although the bed was little more than a thin foam pad covering plywood, and the ceiling was suffocatingly close to his nose, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so comfortable, so content.
Danny’s warmth pressed sweetly against him and he could hear Sherri’s soft breaths as she slept soundly below. He’d forgotten what it was like to wake up and listen to the sounds of somebody else’s sleep. The women he’d dated, the ones he’d made love to since his divorce, had never been allowed to spend the night. That was an intimacy he shared with nobody.
He rolled over on his side and peeked into the bunk below, staring at the woman who’d once been his wife. A smile curved his lips as he saw her mouth hanging slightly open. It was a pretty mouth, eminently feminine and dainty. Her lashes were long and dark enough so she rarely wore mascara. Her hair was a dark spill of brown and gold against the pristine white of the pillowcase. She was curled up on her side, her hands clasped beneath her cheek. She looked soft and touchable.
His smile widened into a full-fledged grin as he rolled over onto his back, imagining how quickly soft and touchable would become prickly and hateful if he were to crawl into bed with her. And yet there was a certain appeal in the thought of making love to her again. Sex had always been terrific with Sherri. She was a giving lover, eager to please as well as be pleased. Had they managed to stay in bed twenty-four hours a day, then perhaps they’d never have divorced.
One more time for old times’ sake…he didn’t know why he had said that to her the night before. He’d known before the words had left his mouth that they would make her mad. Yet, she’d always managed to evoke in him a strange perverse need to shake her up, and sex had always been the way to do it.
When he’d seen her in that sleep shirt the night before, it had brought back memories…disturbing ones that instantly threatened. She’d always worn cotton nightshirts to bed. He could still remember the lemony sunshine scent of them, the way the cotton would warm with her body heat. He could remember the texture of the material stretched taut across her nipples as he caressed her breasts.
Yes, somehow he’d found her threatening, and he’d responded to the threat by saying things he knew would make her angry. The last thing they needed from each other was a casual, physical fling.
He released a small sigh and flung an arm over his eyes, thinking over their brief conversation from the night before. In truth, when they’d divorced, he had been surprised that she hadn’t fallen apart. There had been a small part of him that had expected it, anticipated it.
He’d been surprised at the strength and determination she’d shown in wanting to make it entirely on her own. She had wanted no alimony and only a small amount of child support. She’d insisted they sell the house and split the equity. The only thing she’d requested was that he help her obtain loans so she could go to college and get a teaching degree. Too bad that it had taken the divorce for her to show him the strength he’d desperately longed to see in her during their marriage.
Oh well, water under the bridge now. Shoving aside the past, Luke eased himself off the top bunk and to the floor, landing silently, with the grace of a large cat. Casting one last look at his sleeping son and ex-wife, he yanked on a pair of jeans and his bomber jacket, then went outside to get the motor home ready to travel once again.
Sherri was up and had coffee made when he came back in. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully, shrugging out of his jacket.
“’Mornin’,” she muttered, scratching the tip of her nose with two fingers. “Where’s your shirt?” she asked, frowning as she stared at his bare chest.
Uh-oh, Luke thought, remembering the warning signs. She apparently hadn’t slept as well as he had. “Hmm, that coffee smells terrific.” He was determined to remain cheerful. “You want me to pour you a cup?” he offered.
She nodded and sat down at the table, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. She once again scratched the tip of her nose as he set the cup of coffee before her. “I need about a pot of this to get me started this morning.”
“Didn’t sleep well?”
“Those beds aren’t meant for sleeping. They’re torture devices.” Her brown eyes raked him irritably. “And I’d forgotten all about your snoring.”
“Sorry,” he replied with a shrug. He grinned at her, knowing he was a fool, but enjoying it. “You know in the past what always stopped my snoring…”
He saw the blush of memory darken her cheeks and knew she was remembering that they used to laugh because the only nights Luke didn’t snore were on the nights they made love.
“Stuffing a sock in your mouth would have the same effect,” she said dryly, then took another sip of her coffee.
Luke laughed, reared back in his chair and studied her. She was so familiar…and yet so different from what he remembered. She was like an old song with new harmony, different pitches and notes. “Do you like teaching?” he asked suddenly, realizing he knew next to nothing about her life, her work. “What is it? Third grade?”
“Second, and I love it.” She smiled, her brown eyes softening to the color of melted caramels. “As far as I’m concerned, second-graders are the best. They’re old enough to be manageable, yet young enough to truly believe that the teacher knows everything.” She smiled her pleasure. Luke again noticed how pretty she looked. The morning sunshine was just beginning to streak into the window and caressed her delicate features. “It’s a wonderful job, teaching children. I love my work.”
She gazed at him, her eyes seeming to pierce through his skin, into his soul. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your camera equipment with you. There was a time when I thought it was permanently mounted on your hand.”
Luke got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, unsure how to answer her, unsure himself why the thought of bringing the camera along on this particular trip had been abhorrent. “I just didn’t feel like it,” he finally replied. “I wanted this to be pure pleasure, not work.”
“I always thought for you they were one and the same,” she observed.
Although there was no censure in her voice, the words rankled, felt like a criticism. “Maybe you aren’t the only one who’s changed in the last five years,” he answered curtly. He sat down at the table and stared out the window for a long moment. “It’s going to be a gorgeous day. Cold, but lots of sunshine. I hope this weather keeps up for the remainder of the trip.”
She nodded and he saw the tiny flicker of pain that darkened her eyes as she gazed toward the back where Danny still slept. He knew what she was thinking…how many more gorgeous mornings would Danny have to enjoy? How many more days would he feel like getting out of bed?
“He’s too thin,” he said gruffly. “We need to fatten him up on this trip.”
“He doesn’t have much of an appetite,” Sherri explained. “I try to entice him with his favorite foods as often as possible.”
“How is he ever going to become a world-class jet pilot if he doesn’t have a little more meat on his bones?” he returned. She looked at him, her eyes bottomless pits of despair. She knew that Danny would never grow up to be a world-class jet pilot. Deep inside, Luke knew it, too.
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Carla Cassidy
He was only nine years old, but Danny knew what was best for his mom and dad. That was why he'd asked for a trip to the Grand Canyon. So they could be together again. Like a real family.Sherri and Luke Morgan knew this vacation was just what Danny needed. So they put aside their differences for their little boy's sake. Everything was fine–until…Sherri remembered how good it had been waking up in Luke's arms.Luke remembered the love he'd all but given up on.Maybe Danny would get his wish….
Dear Santa Claus,
Before I tell you what I want this year for Christmas, I want to thank you for bringing me that super model of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber plane last year. It took me a long time to put it together and now it’s hanging over my bed.
This year I’ve got something harder in mind, but it’s something I want really, really bad. I’d like it if you could please do whatever you can to get my mom and dad back together again. I know, it’s going to be a tough job, but they belong with each other. We need to be a family again and I know you can pull it off if anyone can.
I’m just a kid, but I know Mom and Dad still love each other. Grown-ups can be pretty dumb, huh? I would really be happy if you could do this for me as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
Danny Morgan
Anything for Danny
Carla Cassidy
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CARLA CASSIDY
is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty novels for Silhouette Books. In 1995 she won Best Silhouette Romance from Romantic Times BOOKreviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998 she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series.
Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.
To my dad. Your courage inspired, your
laughter enlivened, your love warmed me
through the years. I love you, big man!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Sherri, you can’t be serious about this,” Margaret, Sherri Morgan’s best friend, said in dismay.
“I’m very serious about it.” Sherri poured Margaret another glass of iced tea, then rejoined her at the kitchen table. “You know what this means to Danny.”
“Yes, but a cross-country trip in a motor home…in the winter…with Luke…it’s madness, sheer madness.” Margaret frowned and twirled a strand of her shoulder-length blond hair. “Mark my words, it’s madness.”
Sherri smiled ruefully. “It probably is, but Luke and I have agreed that if this is what Danny wants, then we’ll give it to him. Besides, with three weeks of Christmas vacation from school, it’s the best time to go.”
“But I thought you and Luke barely speak to each other, that there was all kinds of bad blood between you.”
“We speak,” Sherri replied. “We don’t see each other often but when we do we’re always civil and polite. As far as bad blood…it’s been five years since our divorce. I don’t hold any grudges. I have my life and he has his.”
“I still say the whole idea is crazy. What are you going to do if you get snowed in someplace?”
“Dig out,” Sherri returned with a grin.
Margaret frowned. “What did the doctor say? Is Danny really well enough to make the trip?”
Sherri’s smile trembled slightly. “Dr. Winthrope says if we’re going to do it, now is the time. Danny’s stabilized for the moment, but who knows how long it will last?” A sharp stab of pain pierced her heart as she thought of her nine-year-old son.
Sweet Danny with the sunshine smile and overwhelming enthusiasm for life. Cheerful Danny…her life. His diagnosis of leukemia a year before had thrown her world topsy-turvy. “Anyway,” she continued, shoving these sad thoughts aside, “it’s all set. With both Danny and me on Christmas vacation and the weather so unusually mild, there’s no reason not to go. We leave first thing in the morning.”
“Well, I think the whole thing is crazy,” Margaret repeated once again. “Can you put up with Luke for three weeks in the cramped confines of a motor home?” Margaret eyed her skeptically.
Sherri slowly nodded. “Sure. I can put up with anything for any amount of time for Danny,” she replied with grim determination. “Even Luke.”
“Hey, Mom, it’s here!” Danny’s excited voice drifted in through the kitchen window. “Come out and see. It’s here. It’s here!”
“Goodness, what’s he talking about?” Margaret looked at Sherri curiously. “You’d think the Goodyear blimp just parked on your front yard.”
Sherri laughed. “Not the Goodyear blimp…the motor home. The people from the Dream Producers said it would be delivered some time this morning. Come on, we’d better get out there or Danny will have a fit.”
Together the two women grabbed their coats, left the kitchen and walked out into the early-morning Connecticut sunshine. Sherri stepped off the porch, then stopped and caught her breath as she eyed the shining vehicle parked along the curb in front of the house.
It was bright blue, with the Dream Producer’s logo on the side. It was huge. It was a monstrosity. It looked more like a house than a vehicle. And that’s exactly what it would be for the next three weeks, their home on wheels.
“Hi, Sherri.” The driver, one of the volunteers from the Dream Producers Charity, got out of the motor home and gave her a jaunty salute.
“Hi, Ross,” she greeted him warmly. Over the past several weeks Sherri had grown close to all the volunteers who’d worked so diligently to make Danny’s dream wish come true.
“Here are the keys, an instruction manual and an itinerary and map that will take you to the Grand Canyon.” He handed her the items. “We’ve marked the campsites that are close to area hospitals and also tourist attractions that are open year-round that we thought might interest Danny. We’ve also got a weather radio inside the R.V. so you can find out about weather conditions.” He frowned, eyeing Sherri’s slender arms and short stature. “You sure you can handle driving this baby?”
Sherri nodded confidently. “My family took a trip with a motor home the summer I was sixteen. I did a lot of the driving.” She smiled at Ross. “I don’t know how to thank you…how to thank all of you.” She took Ross’s hand in hers and held it close. “You’ve all done so much for us…for Danny.”
“The best thanks is to give that boy the trip of his dreams.” Ross patted her hand and released it. “Make yourself and that boy some precious memories. That’s all the thanks we need.”
“Hey, Mom, come on in…this is awesome!” Danny’s voice rang from one of the windows of the huge R.V. “There’s a bathroom and bedroom and everything. Margaret, come on in and see everything. Mom, come on!”
Ross laughed. “Go on, he’s waiting to show you around.” He paused and smiled at Sherri once again, a bittersweet smile. “That Danny, he’s a special kind of kid.”
She nodded, a lump forming in her throat as she remembered that Ross had lost his thirteen-year-old son the year before to bone marrow cancer.
“Go on, go to him. Make every moment count. Make some memories.” Ross’s eyes were over-bright as he gave her arm a quick squeeze, then went to the car that waited to take him back to the Dream Producers headquarters.
Sherri hesitated a moment, swallowing the emotions that lately were always too close to the surface, the tears that always pressed against her eyes.
It was a rule…Danny’s rule. No crying allowed. From the moment they had learned the extent of his illness, he’d been firm in his demand of no crying where he could see it or hear it. In the months that had passed, she had grown quite proficient at silent weeping, usually at night into her pillow.
“Mom!” Danny’s voice cried out impatiently.
“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Sherri exclaimed. She stepped into the motor home, and looked around in amazement. It was like a miniature home. There was a table with a bench seat, a stove, a small refrigerator and wooden cabinets just behind the four captain’s chairs.
“Mom, come here,” Danny called from the back of the vehicle.
Sherri passed the bathroom complete with stall shower, then entered the back area, where Danny sat on the top bunk, and Margaret was on the bottom bunk. “This is so cool.” Danny’s eyes were bright with excitement, their blueness perfectly matching the ball cap on top of his head. “Look, there are little cubbyholes up here to put stuff.”
“The whole interior has been customized,” Margaret commented.
Sherri nodded, noting the unusually wide entrance to the bathroom. “They’ve customized it so it can accommodate wheelchairs,” she observed. “The space around the table is also larger than usual.”
“Can I sleep up here? Can this be my bed?” Danny asked.
“I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see.” Lord, she hadn’t even thought of the sleeping arrangements. There were two beds, the top bunk and the bottom, and although both were nearly double size, there was no way Danny would have one of those bunks to himself, leaving her and Luke to share the other.
“Madness,” Margaret repeated, as if reading Sherri’s thoughts. “I told you this was all crazy.”
Sherri shot her a look of warning. She didn’t want anything to take away Danny’s joy, especially her friend’s negative prophecies concerning this trip. “It will be fine,” she assured Margaret with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Come on, Danny, let’s start loading our supplies.”
Danny nodded enthusiastically. As he jumped down from the bunk, his cap fell off, exposing the bald head beneath. Sherri’s heart constricted at the visual reminder of the chemo treatments from the weeks before. Although Danny had been a little trouper, Sherri was grateful the treatments were behind them, at least for now.
It took them most of the day to pack the motor home. They had suitcases, boxes and cans of food, lanterns and camping equipment, coats and gloves and anything else they could think of for their home away from home. Danny wasn’t satisfied until each and every item was in its place and they were ready to leave the next day.
The packing took longer than expected because they had to explore every nook and cranny. Each cabinet was opened, each drawer pulled out, every built-in convenience was marveled over with appropriate awe.
“I think it’s bedtime for you,” Sherri said that evening as they finished eating a late supper of soup and grilled-cheese sandwiches. The day had been almost too much for Danny, who’d drooped over the meal and scarcely eaten a bite.
“I’m not tired,” Danny protested, although his words lacked conviction. He yawned, his eyelids drooping. “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted with a small smile.
“You get ready for bed and I’ll come to tuck you in as soon as I clear off these dishes.”
Danny nodded, yawning once again as he disappeared down the hallway and into his bedroom. Sherri finished putting the last of their dinner dishes into the dishwasher, then filled the sink with soapy water to wash the pots and pans.
As she worked, her gaze went out the window, to the house next door where the kitchen light burned brightly, illuminating the drapery of darkness that had fallen in the past hour.
Margaret and her husband Jim, and their four boys would probably be at the kitchen table, enjoying the usual noisy, chaotic evening meal. They would all be talking at once, sharing the events of their day.
There were times Sherri envied Margaret her healthy boys and her loving husband, envied with a passion she could almost taste. She envied the noise, the confusion, the love, the family.
Family…she’d dreamed once of a houseful of kids and a handsome husband. But reality was that she and the handsome husband had divorced when Danny was almost four years old. Reality was lonely nights and early mornings of silence. Reality was Danny’s illness and living on borrowed time.
“Mom, I’m ready,” Danny called from his bedroom.
“Coming,” Sherri replied. She dried the last pan and placed it in the appropriate cabinet, then hurried into Danny’s bedroom where he awaited their bedtime ritual.
Danny’s room was a study in motion. Model airplanes hung suspended on thin wires from the ceiling, their silhouettes dancing in the light from the hallway. Pictures of birds, helicopters and jets decorated every inch of the walls.
From the time Danny was a baby, he’d been fascinated with the action of flight. When he was five, he’d constructed a pair of cardboard wings and tried to fly off the top of the garden shed. The ill-fated landing had resulted in a broken arm and a stern lecture.
Most recently before his illness, he and a buddy had rigged up a bungy-jumping cord to the backyard tree, deciding that bungy jumping was the closest thing to really flying. Thankfully, Sherri had spied the equipment before it could be tested and put to use. Since his illness, there had been no more experiments in actual flying, but Danny’s obsession with flight hadn’t faded.
Sherri sat on the edge of his bed and stroked the smoothness of his scalp. “Just like when I was a baby, huh?” Danny asked, casting her a sleepy grin.
“Exactly like,” she agreed. “Your dad and I thought you’d be bald forever. You didn’t have a hint of hair until you were over a year old.”
“But I was still the best-looking kid you’d ever seen.”
Sherri laughed and touched the end of his nose. “Yes, you were, and now you’d better get right to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“It’s gonna be great, isn’t it?” Danny closed his eyes, a sweet smile lingering on his lips. “I can’t believe it’s really gonna happen. It’s gonna be the best time ever.”
“Yes,” Sherri whispered softly. “It’s going to be the best time ever. Are you still sure you don’t want any presents?” They would be spending Christmas in the R.V., and so far, Danny had been adamant that the trip alone was present enough for him.
He nodded, his eyes drooping closed once again. “Just us being together is the best Christmas present in the whole wide world.”
She pulled the sheet up around his neck and placed a kiss on his forehead. Seeing the soft, even rhythm of his breathing, she stood up and started to leave.
“Mom?”
She turned and looked back at him. With the light from the hallway shining on his features, she was struck by how much he looked like Luke. The strong little chin, the high cheekbones, the sensual bottom lip…a chip off the old block. A bittersweet pang raced through her, there only a moment then gone. “What, honey?”
“It’s gonna be just like it used to be. Me and you and Dad all together again like a real family. It’s gonna be the best time in my whole life.”
Sherri hesitated, then nodded and left the room. She should have told him, she berated herself. She should have told him that there was no way it could ever be the way it used to be. Even though the three of them would be together, there was no way to go back and be a family. Too much time had passed, too many bitter memories made that particular dream of Danny’s impossible. She and Luke were divorced and no amount of time spent together would change them into a normal, loving family.
She pulled on her coat and walked out the front door. She sat on the porch swing and pushed her feet against the wood. The motion set the swing moving back and forth in a lulling, easy movement.
Night had fallen completely and insects buzzed and clicked in the darkness. A cold evening breeze rippled through her long dark hair as she continued to swing.
Thank God the weather was cooperating for their winter cross-country trip. The entire country was enjoying an unusually mild winter. She was willing to put up with all the ice and snow Mother Nature might cast their way in a month’s time, but she just hoped that for the next three weeks the weather remained moderate.
Leaning her head back, she sighed. She should go to bed. Danny had a big day tomorrow, and so did she. Not only did she want to give Danny the trip of his life, but she also had to figure out how on earth she was going to spend three weeks cooped up in that motor home with Luke.
Luke Morgan threw the last sweatshirt in the duffel bag and zipped it closed. He looked at his wristwatch. Ten minutes until seven. Sherri had said they should be here by seven, so he knew they’d be here any time. Sherri was never late.
He moved the duffel bag by the front door, then plopped down on the bright red futon to wait. He was dreading this trip…knew it was probably the biggest mistake he’d make in his life, and he’d made plenty.
At least he didn’t have to worry about anyone watering his plants while he was gone. He looked over in the corner where two dead plants hung in macramé hangers. He sighed and leaned back against the futon.
Sherri. She’d been a closed book in his life. He’d moved on, made a life for himself without her. He was a respected and admired photographer. He was considered a witty and charming date.
Yes, he’d managed to put Sherri in his past quite nicely. They’d worked out agreeable visitation arrangements that included Luke’s getting Danny every other weekend he wasn’t working. Even with Danny’s frequent hospitalizations over the past year, he and Sherri had managed to maintain a healthy distance and civility. They’d worked out their divorce much nicer than they’d managed their marriage.
He looked around the apartment that had been his home for the past year. The futon where he sat and a television set/stereo unit comprised the extent of his furniture.
The walls were covered with some of his best work…pictures of native children in South Africa, fatherless children who were the legacy of the Vietnam era, the despair on young faces in Belfast.
He’d given up his world travels a year ago when Danny had gotten ill, and he now photographed the young, the disillusioned, the hopeless in the United States. That way, he was always no more than a couple hours’ plane ride away should Danny need him.
He looked around him again. Sherri would hate this place. Sherri loved order and the one thing his apartment lacked was order. He felt a dull sense of dissatisfaction sweep over him. He really should invest in more furniture, perhaps an end table or two. He eyed the untidy stack of clothing in the corner of the room. A chest of drawers would be nice…maybe a maid could make some sense of his chaos.
He frowned, realizing he was viewing his apartment through her eyes. He pulled himself off the futon and glared out the window. His apartment was fine just the way it was. The futon served as his sofa by day, his bed at night. His clothes were fine in a stack in the corner, as were his magazines, his albums and his photography equipment.
Damn, this trip from hell hadn’t even begun yet and already Sherri was an intrusion into his life. He didn’t want to go. He couldn’t imagine being trapped in an R.V. for three weeks with his ex-wife. He must have been crazy when he’d agreed to the whole thing.
His mind suddenly filled with a vision of Danny. His frown automatically faded, replaced by a small smile. What a kid. He and Sherri might have failed at their marriage, but somehow, the best of both of them had joined together on the night that Danny was conceived. That’s why he had agreed to this trip. For Danny.
He stared out the window, seeing a motor home pull to a stop in the parking lot. He looked down at his watch. Bingo…seven o’clock on the nose. Some things never changed.
He grabbed his duffel bag, pulled on his jacket, locked the front door, then hurried down to meet them.
Luke felt his heart expand in his chest as Danny stuck his head out the window. “Hi, Dad,” he yelled. He opened the door and jumped down from the passenger seat and ran toward Luke. “Hey, big man,” Danny said, grinning up at him.
“Hey, little man,” Luke replied. He let the duffel bag fall to the concrete and went down to one knee as Danny threw himself into his arms.
For a moment, Luke held him tight, smelling the little-boy scent of him…a scent of sunshine and freedom, of laughter and dreams. Dreams the doctors said would probably not be fulfilled…dreams Luke would sell his soul to see come true.
“Come on, Mom is waiting.” Danny wiggled from Luke’s tight embrace. He grabbed his father’s hand and tugged Luke toward the R.V. “Wait until you see everything inside. It’s so awesome. And Mom says if it’s not too cold we can make a camp fire every night and toast marshmallows and when we get to the Grand Canyon we’re going to rent a helicopter to fly us over it.”
“Whoa,” Luke said with a laugh. “Slow down. We’ve got a lot of driving time ahead of us before we get to the Grand Canyon.”
“Yeah, but with you and me and Mom all together, it will be fun. We can sing and talk and just be together.” Danny tugged impatiently on his father’s hand again. “Come on, let’s get this show on the road!”
Funny, Luke thought as he stepped into the vehicle. He’d forgotten how small Sherri was…how petite. Sitting behind the steering wheel, clad in a pair of red slacks and a red-and-white-striped long-sleeved blouse, she looked like the cute little teenager he had fallen in love with years before.
He had a sudden vision of the way she had looked on the day they had gotten married. It hadn’t been much of a ceremony, a simple civil service in city hall. She’d been eighteen years old and had gazed up at him as if he were her entire world. It wasn’t until they’d been married several months that he’d realized he was her entire world.
“Hi,” he said awkwardly.
She smiled a greeting, her big brown eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at his duffel bag. “Is that all your luggage?”
He nodded. “I travel light.” He saw her lips compress in disapproval, as if she knew he’d thrown together clothes in the bag only moments before, which of course he had.
“I’ll take it, Dad. I’ll store it with ours,” Danny said, taking the bag from him. He disappeared into the back as Sherri started the engine.
“You want me to drive?” he asked with a touch of irritation. She’d probably packed a month ago…sixteen suitcases full of useless items.
“I’ll drive until I get tired, then you can take over,” she answered, her voice pleasant, but distant.
Luke settled into the seat with a sigh. He stared out the window at the passing scenery, waiting for her to say something, anything to ease the awkward silence that grew and expanded with each passing moment.
What do you say to the woman you’d been married to for five years, and divorced from for the past five? he wondered. He could tell her about his date last Friday night, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t want to hear about it. Besides, it had been a horrible night and he was doing his best to forget it. He could tell her about his latest photography assignment, but she’d always resented his work.
They’d had little in common years ago. After five years of separation, he suspected that hadn’t changed. Maybe it was best that he just keep his mouth shut.
He sighed again. He leaned forward and turned on the radio, relaxing somewhat as the sounds of an old rock and roll song filled the motor home.
“Uh…would you mind leaving it off until we get out of this rush-hour traffic?” she asked politely.
“Okay,” he agreed reluctantly. He turned it off, remembering that she’d never liked to drive with the radio playing.
He was aware of Danny returning from the back and sitting down in the chair just behind him. Danny leaned forward and placed a hand on Luke’s arm, and his other hand on Sherri’s shoulder. “This is gonna be so much fun,” he exclaimed with all the excitement a nine-year-old could generate. “We’re going to have the greatest time in the world, aren’t we?” His words were met with silence. “Aren’t we?” he prompted, squeezing Luke’s arm.
“Sure, the greatest,” Luke replied faintly.
“The best,” Sherri added. She looked at Luke, and in her eyes he saw the same dull dread he knew was in his own.
He smiled weakly, then turned his gaze out the window. Yes, this was definitely going to be the trip from hell.
Chapter Two
Sherri feigned sleep and studied Luke beneath her lowered lashes. She’d spent the last six hours driving and after they’d stopped for lunch, had relinquished control of the vehicle to him.
She’d spent the past five years trying not to really look at him whenever they happened to run into each other. She now took the opportunity to examine the man she had once been married to, the man she had once loved above all else.
Luke had always been handsome. Sherri was honest enough to know that it had been his intense good looks that had initially attracted her to him.
He was still sinfully attractive. The passage of time had merely intensified his bold features. His chin was square and strong, his nose a Roman feature. He’s wearing his dark hair longer, she observed. She liked it. She decided it gave him a rakish look that complemented his devil-may-care personality.
He’d taken off the leather bomber jacket he’d been wearing this morning and was clad in a short-sleeved T-shirt that exposed his firmly muscled, tanned arms. He had the body of a man who worked out, but she knew Luke was too undisciplined to follow any regular workout regimen.
She looked at his hands, gripping the steering wheel competently. She’d always loved his hands. They were artist hands, slender and long-fingered, yet masculine with the dark curly hair that dotted each knuckle.
He talked with his hands, gesturing often as if they were an extension of his thought processes. They used to laugh about it. She’d teased that if his hands were tied behind his back, he would be completely tongue-tied.
“Sherri?”
His voice caused her to squeeze her eyes more tightly closed. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been looking at him. She kept her breathing even and rhythmic, feigning deep slumber.
“I know you aren’t sleeping, Sherri.” His voice was softly indulgent and she could hear the smile in it.
She cracked an eyelid. “How do you know I’m not?” she asked, suddenly irritable.
“Because you always sleep with your mouth hanging open,” he observed.
She sat up straighter in the seat. “I most certainly do not,” she replied stiffly.
He smiled, a smirking, knowing grin that instantly fueled her unreasonable aggravation with him. “For the five years we were married, you never, ever slept with your mouth closed.”
“Well, it’s been a long time since you’ve slept with me and nobody else has ever complained,” she snapped. She groaned inwardly. Now why had she said that? In the years since her divorce from Luke, there had been no opportunity for anyone to complain about her sleeping habits. Other than the occasional night when Danny had a nightmare and had needed some assurance, she’d slept alone.
“We need to talk,” he said, not taking his gaze off the highway they traveled.
“Talk about what?” She sat up in the seat and eyed him curiously.
“About the silence we’ve suffered through for the last six hours.”
“It hasn’t been silent…Danny has been chattering.” Sherri turned around in her seat, looking for her son.
“Don’t worry,” Luke said. “He went back a little while ago to take a nap. He can’t hear us.” He looked at her for a moment, then redirected his gaze to the road. “Sherri, I don’t know about you, but so far this trip has been damned uncomfortable. The tension between us is so ripe, Danny can’t help but feel it. We can’t have the whole trip like this.”
Sherri thought about those six hours. She had driven, Luke had stared out the window and Danny had talked. It had been the inane chatter of a kid who sensed tension and was attempting to dispel it. “So, what do you suggest?” she asked.
“I don’t know. All I do know is that we’ve got three weeks of close contact, intimate togetherness and a Christmas holiday to get through. For the sake of that kid back there, we’d better be able to put our past behind us and act like reasonable adults.”
“I can do whatever it takes to make Danny happy,” she answered.
Luke grinned. “I think it would make Danny happy if you tried to be nice to me.”
Sherri glared at him in outrage. Was he somehow trying to take advantage of this whole situation? It would be just like him to do that. She instantly steadied herself. Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t want to be with her any more than she wanted to be with him. He was merely thinking of Danny. And she would do the same. “I can be nice to you…for Danny’s sake.”
“Okay, then it’s agreed. For Danny’s sake, we’ll act like we really like each other.”
Sherri grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m that talented an actress,” she muttered.
“You are, I can still remember all those times you acted like you enjoyed my lovemaking.”
“Oh!” Sherri gasped at his temerity. She sputtered for a moment, opening and closing her mouth in an effort to find effectively scathing words. When nothing strong enough came to mind, she turned around in the seat, staring out the passenger window and studiously ignoring the soft chuckle he emitted.
Why did he have to mention that? she thought. Of all the things that had happened between them, of all the memories both good and bad she had entertained in the past, their lovemaking was something she’d never looked back on. That had been one particular set of memories she’d refused to acknowledge, refused to indulge herself in remembering.
But now the memories exploded in her mind, reminding her of the intensity, the wonder of sexual fulfillment she had always found in his arms. He’d been her first…her only. Sex had been their common ground, the only thing they had really done well together. It was what had kept their marriage alive much longer than it should have been.
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, refusing to give those vivid memories any substance, shoving the disturbing visions firmly out of her mind.
As the motor home traveled onward, she allowed the motion to lull her to sleep.
Luke glanced over at Sherri and realized this time she really was sound asleep. A small smile curved his lips upward as he saw that her mouth hung slightly agape. Yes, she was definitely asleep.
He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and reached over and flipped on the radio, turning it up so he could hear it, but not so loud it would intrude on Sherri’s slumber. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up. One thing he remembered quite well, a tired Sherri was a cranky Sherri. His grin widened. The first thing he’d learned about her after marriage was that when she was tired her nose itched, and when he saw her scratching the tip of her pert little nose, he knew to watch out and give her a wide berth.
He eyed her again, humming along to Elvis’s crooning ‘Love Me Tender.’ He didn’t know why he had thrown out that comment about their lovemaking, but somehow he knew it had been because of a perverse wish to shake her up, watch her blush.
She’d always been so damned tight, so rigid. She’d come to him with a full structured set of ideals on love and marriage, ideals that no man would have been able to live up to…especially him.
He’d wondered how many others had tried. No complaints, she’d said and he’d been surprised to feel a swift, strong shaft of jealousy sweep through him. He’d thought he’d gotten beyond that particular emotion long ago where she was concerned.
He shook his head ruefully. He hadn’t exactly been a monk since their divorce. He’d just never thought about Sherri’s being with somebody else. He’d never contemplated the thought of her breathing her sweet sighs of passion into the hollow of another man’s neck. He’d never considered that another man’s hands might stroke the smoothness of her shapely legs, caress the satiny texture of her breasts. He now realized it had been the height of conceit to assume that Sherri would never love another…never make love to another man.
He looked at her again, this time studying her in her vulnerable state of sleep. She’d done something different to her hair. Although she still wore it long, below her shoulders, the rich darkness was now shot through with strands of lighter shades. He liked it, he decided. It gave her a softer, more stylish look.
He could smell her, a curious mingling of floral perfume and that indefinable scent that had always belonged to her alone. He’d often boasted that in a roomful of women, blindfolded he would be able to pick out Sherri by her scent. It had always turned him on. He was shocked to realize it was having that same kind of effect on him now.
With an edge of irritation, he cracked open the window, allowing in the cold December air, needing it to banish the heat that suddenly flooded through his veins.
He jumped as Danny touched him on the shoulder. “Hi, sport, have a good nap?” he asked, relieved for the distraction from his crazy thoughts.
Danny nodded. “How long has Mom been asleep?” he asked.
“Not long,” Luke answered, then grinned. “I see she still sleeps with her mouth open.”
Danny laughed. “Yeah, last Easter Sunday I woke her up by dropping a black jelly bean between her lips. Boy, did she get mad.”
“I can imagine,” Luke replied. “She always did hate black licorice,” he added, making Danny laugh again.
“Where are we?” Danny asked, peering out the side window.
“About an hour from our first campsite. According to your mother’s schedule, we’re stopping at a place just outside Akron, Ohio, for tonight.”
“Cool, I’ve never been to Ohio before,” Danny observed.
“You’ve never been out of Connecticut before,” Luke reminded his son. “Are you getting hungry?”
“Not really. What about you?”
“Yes, I’m starting to get hungry,” Luke replied.
“Mom made out menus for each night. Hang on and I’ll tell you what she’s cooking tonight.” Danny scurried out of his seat and rummaged around in one of the drawers.
Menus. Of course, Sherri would make menus, Luke thought. And lists. There was probably a list detailing all the lists she had made for the trip.
“Steaks and baked potatoes. Sounds good, huh,” Danny exclaimed, sitting back down behind Luke.
“Sounds terrific,” Luke agreed.
“You think we’ll be able to have a camp fire and cook the steaks outside?” Danny asked.
“We’ll have to wait and see what sort of campsite we stop at,” Luke explained. “If it’s too cold out and we can’t have a fire, then we’ll be eating in.”
“Okay,” Danny agreed easily.
Luke’s heart swelled with pride, and the peculiar kind of dread that was always there when he thought of his son. The latest prognosis was that Danny had six months to a year to live. There had been a time when Luke had been unable to imagine a life with a son. Now he couldn’t imagine life without Danny.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, sport?” Luke shoved his dark thoughts away.
“I told Mom I wanted to sleep on the top bunk, but she said we’d have to see. So what do you think? Can I have the top bunk and you and Mom can share the bottom one?”
Amusement rippled through Luke at the very thought. He tried to imagine he and Sherri in the small confines of the lower bunk. It was an interesting image.
Of course, it would be only natural that they’d inadvertently touch each other. A rubbing of shoulders, a brush of a thigh…it could be quite stimulating. But it was a stimulation neither of them needed, or wanted, he reminded himself firmly. Besides, if Sherri got cranky when she was tired, he’d hate to see her if she realized she would be sharing a bed with him once again.
“How about us men take the top one?” he countered. “If we can share my futon on weekends, surely we can share the upper bunk for the duration of this trip.”
“Okay,” Danny replied. Luke expelled a sigh. One crisis averted. He wondered how many more lay in wait for him.
Sherri awoke as the motor home pulled to a halt. “Where are we?” she asked, sitting up and looking out the window for orientation.
“At the Happy Camper’s Park just outside of Akron.” Luke shut off the engine and opened his door. “Just sit tight and I’ll get us a parking space for the night.”
“I’ll come with you, okay, big man?” Danny asked, scrambling after him.
“Okay, little man,” Luke replied.
“Danny, your coat!” Sherri called, holding the winter jacket out to him. She didn’t care if Luke caught a cold, but she didn’t want Danny getting ill. He shrugged on the jacket and together he and Luke left the R.V.
Sherri watched as the two of them approached the office. Her heart constricted as Luke threw an arm around Danny’s shoulders. They walked so much alike, with a sort of jaunty, rambling roll of natural arrogance. In Luke it was incredibly sexy, in Danny it was just plain cute.
As they disappeared into the office, she got up out of her seat and began putting together the items for their dinner. One thing she couldn’t take away from Luke: he was a terrific father. Even when he’d been traveling and was out of the country, a week didn’t pass that Danny didn’t receive several letters from wherever Luke was working.
It had surprised her over the years, the commitment that Luke had made to his son. She’d always believed the only thing Luke could be committed to was his work and his need for excitement. That had certainly always come before his commitment to her. She shoved the bitterness aside, knowing it would ruin the taste of the steaks.
Besides, it was the past, and there was no way to change it, no way to go back and reclaim it. She didn’t need Luke anymore. The only thing she needed was to make sure this was the best three weeks of Danny’s life.
“We’re all set,” Luke said as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “We’ll have electrical and water hookups.” He restarted the motor home.
“And the man says we can have a camp fire so we can cook our steaks outside,” Danny said with excitement. “We can toast marshmallows, then tell ghost stories and stuff.”
“Sounds like a winner to me,” Sherri replied.
It took them nearly an hour to hook up and get a fire burning. By the time they cooked the steaks and ate, darkness had fallen and the air held a sharper nip of winter. The fire provided a welcoming light and warmth against the night. Again, Sherri was thankful that the weather was cooperating by remaining unusually mild for December. Now, if it would just hold.
She settled back against the fallen tree limb that provided her a seat in front of the fire. A quiet contentment swept through her as she listened to Luke and Danny talk about sports.
The dinner conversation had been pleasant. They had talked about the weather, their travel plans for the next day, the campsite…they’d managed to find things to talk about that were nonthreatening and safe. Now if they could just continue in the same vein for the next three weeks….
She gazed across the fire, watching her son’s face as he animatedly dissected the last New York Yankees ball game with Luke. She smiled, seeing her son’s hands flail in the air as he described a particular pop fly. Definitely a chip off the old block.
In the glow of the fire, Danny’s face looked like a youthful miniature of his father’s. But according to the doctors, his face would never reach the maturity of Luke’s. Sherri shoved this thought aside, unable to deal with the grief, the breath-stealing pain that tore through her at thoughts of losing Danny.
Doctors have been known to be wrong, she reminded herself firmly. And miracles did still happen in this world. All she had to do was keep praying for their own special miracle.
Her heart expanded as she heard Danny’s lilting laughter, saw Luke’s responding grin. She focused on their conversation, realizing that their talk had turned from sports to ghost stories.
As Luke related to Danny a story he’d heard while in Ireland, Sherri got up and went into the camper. Opening one of the cabinets, she drew out her camera. She wanted to chronicle this trip, these memories. She’d been surprised that Luke hadn’t brought his camera equipment. During their marriage, he’d even carried it with him on short trips to the grocery store, afraid he might miss the opportunity of getting an award-winning photo.
She loaded the film and checked the batteries to make sure the flash would work, then went outside and sat across from the two males.
Luke was at the climax of his story, his voice low and creepy. Danny’s eyes were wide, his mouth opened in an ohh of anticipation. Sherri snapped a picture, laughing as the flash made Danny jump and yell in surprise.
“Mom, you scared me,” he exclaimed. He clasped a hand to his heart and grinned. “Hey, let me take one of you and Dad,” he urged suddenly.
“Oh, no,” Sherri protested, looking to Luke for support.
“Come on, Mom, just one,” Danny pressed, his big blue eyes pleading his cause.
It’s just a picture, Sherri told herself as she reluctantly gave Danny the camera. But there was something intimate about a photograph, an image that lasted despite time and change. Luke had always told her that he thought pictures were the most telling medium of all, that relationships, character and emotion could all be read by studying a photo.
As she moved to sit next to Luke, she wondered what perceptions people would draw years from now about the picture of the man and woman sitting by the camp fire. Would they know the two were divorced, or would they guess that they were lovers enjoying a camp-out?
She eased down next to Luke, immediately able to smell his scent, a heady combination of spicy cologne and wood smoke and the smell of worn leather from his bomber jacket. She held herself stiff, not touching him, but aware of his body heat warming her as effectively as the flames of the fire.
“Relax,” Luke murmured to her as Danny worked the focus. “Give the kid what he wants.” He placed his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close against his side.
“That’s great,” Danny exclaimed in delight.
In the moment it took for him to snap the picture, myriad emotions flooded through Sherri. She had spent the last five years trying to forget everything about Luke, yet in the single instant in his arms, her body remembered the sweet familiarity of his touch.
The second the flash went off, with white dots still dancing in front of her eyes, she jerked away from Luke’s touch and stood up. “That’s enough pictures for one night,” she said as she took the camera back from Danny. “I think I’ll go in and take a quick shower.”
Luke grinned, his gray-blue eyes lingering on her for a moment. “While you shower, Danny and I will put out the fire.”
With a curt nod, Sherri hurried into the motor home. The shower was a confounded contraption. The nozzle produced a pathetic spray of water that was virtually ineffective against banishing the lingering feel of Luke’s body pressed against her side.
It had shocked her, the momentary stab of desire that had suddenly reared its head when he’d pressed her against his side. It was an emotion she hadn’t felt for a very long time, had thought never to feel again.
“Ridiculous,” she scoffed aloud, scrubbing her skin to a rosy hue with the washcloth and fresh-scented bar of soap. It had been shock she’d felt, not desire. It had been surprise and distaste. After all, how could she possibly feel desire for a man she disliked? How could she feel desire for a man who’d taken her love and left her bitter and empty? It had been a long time since she’d felt a man’s arms surrounding her, her body had simply reacted to the novelty of the embrace, nothing more.
By the time she’d finished showering and changed into a long, demure sleep shirt, Danny and Luke were back inside. They sat at the table, sharing a bedtime snack of peanut-butter crackers and milk.
“Danny, when you’re finished there, take your shower and don’t forget to brush your teeth,” Sherri reminded him.
“Ah, Mom, we’re on vacation,” Danny protested.
“Hey, sport, dirt and cavities don’t take vacations,” Luke said firmly. He stood up and put away the crackers and milk. “Besides, I don’t want a stinky, tooth-decayed bunk mate.”
“Okay.” Danny laughed and headed for the shower.
When he was gone, Sherri busied herself wiping the table and counters, conscious of Luke’s gaze following her movements. “You’re staring,” she finally said as she sat down across from him.
“Yes, I am,” he agreed with a lazy smile. “I was just observing the fact that you look good. I like what you’ve done to your hair.”
She ran a hand through it self-consciously. “Thanks.”
“Since our divorce, you’ve only managed to get more attractive.”
She flushed. “What did you expect? That without you in my life, I’d somehow fall apart?”
“It would have done my ego wonders if you had.” The lazy grin widened.
“Gosh, Luke, I’m really sorry that I couldn’t accommodate your massive ego, but I’ve not only survived since our divorce, I’ve actually thrived.” She tilted her chin upward, returning his gaze with an edge of defiance. She studiously shoved aside the memory of how frightened she had once been that she wouldn’t survive, that she would fall apart without him.
He stretched out his long jean-clad legs and grinned at her. “I’ve managed to do pretty well myself since our divorce,” he said. “I’m considered quite a catch in the circles I travel.”
Sherri smiled thinly. “I’m sure you have to beat the women off with sticks since you’re such a sexy hunk.”
“You really think so?” His dark eyebrows danced upward.
“Hmm, I’m sure you have to carry two baseball bats with you to fend off the attention of love-starved females,” she replied sarcastically.
“No, I meant do you really think I’m a sexy hunk?” He leaned up over the table, so close she could feel his warm breath on her face, see something unfathomable in his eyes. He reached out and traced the swell of her bottom lip with a fingertip. “You know, Danny wanted to sleep in the top bunk all by himself. You and I could share the bottom one…share a little passion for old times’ sake. What do you think?”
Sherri reeled back in the chair but before she could scald him with a flurry of scathing words, Danny stepped out of the bathroom. “All done,” he exclaimed.
“Terrific, I’ll tuck you in.” Sherri escaped Luke’s proximity, following her son back into the sleeping area. “Make sure you leave plenty of room for your father,” she said loudly enough for Luke to hear.
“I think I’ll take a quick shower,” Luke said, his voice still filled with the lazy amusement that only fueled Sherri’s irritation with him.
“Danny and I will just go on to bed,” she replied coolly.
As he disappeared into the bathroom, Sherri gave her son a kiss, then crawled beneath the sheets on the lower bunk.
The nerve of the man, she fumed inwardly. She punched her pillow and flopped over on her side. He’d been playing with her, using his overt sensuality to get to her. How many of their fights had ended with him cajoling her into bed, sweet-talking her out of her anger and into his arms? Share a little passion for old times’ sake…oh, the nerve of him!
Luke and his lazy, sexy charm. It had always been coupled with a touch of arrogance that had merely increased its potency. His arrogance didn’t cross the line into conceit. If it did, it wouldn’t be so damned appealing. She punched her pillow once again.
“The beds are kinda hard, aren’t they?” Danny said from above her.
“A little,” she replied, but she knew it wasn’t the physical discomfort of the bed that bothered her. It was the fact that she still found Luke sexy. After all these years, she still found his naughty charm stimulating. Damn his handsome hide!
She jumped as above the sounds of the water running in the shower, she heard him begin to sing. Luke had always sang in the shower…always sang loudly and badly.
Some things never change, she thought as she heard him lustily singing the words to a familiar Garth Brooks tune. Without the words, the song would have been totally unrecognizable.
Danny’s giggles filled the air. His laughter grew stronger as Luke’s singing became louder. The sound of her son’s laughter fed a sudden spurt of her own.
“He really is bad, isn’t he, Mom?” Danny said amid fits of giggling.
“He is,” Sherri agreed. “And the frightening part is he honestly doesn’t know how bad he is.” Again, Danny and Sherri burst into laughter.
They were still giggling when Luke finally stepped out of the bathroom. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
Sherri’s laughter died instantly on her lips as she stared at him. He stood backlit by the light from the bathroom. He was clad only in a pair of boxer shorts, exposing his firm muscular chest, flat abdomen and long masculine legs. “Nothing,” she murmured. She quickly turned over on her other side, facing the wall, closing her eyes against the vision that was momentarily burned into her brain. They were silk boxers, bright red and incredibly sexy. Drat the man, anyway, she fumed.
She was vaguely aware of him turning out all the lights and pulling himself up into the bunk above her. She sensed the mattress depressing beneath his weight, smelled the clean soapy scent that emanated from him. She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed. Margaret had been right. This whole idea was a study in insanity.
“Sweet dreams, Sherri,” Luke murmured, his voice softly mocking as if he knew the view of his scantily clad body had disturbed her.
She grunted in response and punched her pillow a final time. She’d forgotten how potent Luke’s sexuality was, how overtly male he was. She hadn’t considered her own vulnerability, the fact that she had been without male companionship for too long, that her body remembered Luke’s caresses, his lovemaking far too keenly for sanity’s sake.
I just have to concentrate on all the things I don’t like about him, she thought. Aside from the failure of their marriage, she had to hang on to the little things that drove her crazy. He ate ketchup on his steak. He was tone-deaf and loved to sing. He popped his knuckles to see her squirm.
As she slowly drifted off to sleep, she remembered something else she hated about him. He snored.
Chapter Three
Luke awoke first. The dawn light illuminated the interior of the motor home with a golden glow, and outside a bird chirped softly, as if welcoming the coming morning light.
He knew he should get up, get the utilities unhooked so they would be ready to roll when Sherri and Danny awakened. But he didn’t move. Instead, he remained still, drinking in the sensations that surrounded him.
Although the bed was little more than a thin foam pad covering plywood, and the ceiling was suffocatingly close to his nose, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so comfortable, so content.
Danny’s warmth pressed sweetly against him and he could hear Sherri’s soft breaths as she slept soundly below. He’d forgotten what it was like to wake up and listen to the sounds of somebody else’s sleep. The women he’d dated, the ones he’d made love to since his divorce, had never been allowed to spend the night. That was an intimacy he shared with nobody.
He rolled over on his side and peeked into the bunk below, staring at the woman who’d once been his wife. A smile curved his lips as he saw her mouth hanging slightly open. It was a pretty mouth, eminently feminine and dainty. Her lashes were long and dark enough so she rarely wore mascara. Her hair was a dark spill of brown and gold against the pristine white of the pillowcase. She was curled up on her side, her hands clasped beneath her cheek. She looked soft and touchable.
His smile widened into a full-fledged grin as he rolled over onto his back, imagining how quickly soft and touchable would become prickly and hateful if he were to crawl into bed with her. And yet there was a certain appeal in the thought of making love to her again. Sex had always been terrific with Sherri. She was a giving lover, eager to please as well as be pleased. Had they managed to stay in bed twenty-four hours a day, then perhaps they’d never have divorced.
One more time for old times’ sake…he didn’t know why he had said that to her the night before. He’d known before the words had left his mouth that they would make her mad. Yet, she’d always managed to evoke in him a strange perverse need to shake her up, and sex had always been the way to do it.
When he’d seen her in that sleep shirt the night before, it had brought back memories…disturbing ones that instantly threatened. She’d always worn cotton nightshirts to bed. He could still remember the lemony sunshine scent of them, the way the cotton would warm with her body heat. He could remember the texture of the material stretched taut across her nipples as he caressed her breasts.
Yes, somehow he’d found her threatening, and he’d responded to the threat by saying things he knew would make her angry. The last thing they needed from each other was a casual, physical fling.
He released a small sigh and flung an arm over his eyes, thinking over their brief conversation from the night before. In truth, when they’d divorced, he had been surprised that she hadn’t fallen apart. There had been a small part of him that had expected it, anticipated it.
He’d been surprised at the strength and determination she’d shown in wanting to make it entirely on her own. She had wanted no alimony and only a small amount of child support. She’d insisted they sell the house and split the equity. The only thing she’d requested was that he help her obtain loans so she could go to college and get a teaching degree. Too bad that it had taken the divorce for her to show him the strength he’d desperately longed to see in her during their marriage.
Oh well, water under the bridge now. Shoving aside the past, Luke eased himself off the top bunk and to the floor, landing silently, with the grace of a large cat. Casting one last look at his sleeping son and ex-wife, he yanked on a pair of jeans and his bomber jacket, then went outside to get the motor home ready to travel once again.
Sherri was up and had coffee made when he came back in. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully, shrugging out of his jacket.
“’Mornin’,” she muttered, scratching the tip of her nose with two fingers. “Where’s your shirt?” she asked, frowning as she stared at his bare chest.
Uh-oh, Luke thought, remembering the warning signs. She apparently hadn’t slept as well as he had. “Hmm, that coffee smells terrific.” He was determined to remain cheerful. “You want me to pour you a cup?” he offered.
She nodded and sat down at the table, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. She once again scratched the tip of her nose as he set the cup of coffee before her. “I need about a pot of this to get me started this morning.”
“Didn’t sleep well?”
“Those beds aren’t meant for sleeping. They’re torture devices.” Her brown eyes raked him irritably. “And I’d forgotten all about your snoring.”
“Sorry,” he replied with a shrug. He grinned at her, knowing he was a fool, but enjoying it. “You know in the past what always stopped my snoring…”
He saw the blush of memory darken her cheeks and knew she was remembering that they used to laugh because the only nights Luke didn’t snore were on the nights they made love.
“Stuffing a sock in your mouth would have the same effect,” she said dryly, then took another sip of her coffee.
Luke laughed, reared back in his chair and studied her. She was so familiar…and yet so different from what he remembered. She was like an old song with new harmony, different pitches and notes. “Do you like teaching?” he asked suddenly, realizing he knew next to nothing about her life, her work. “What is it? Third grade?”
“Second, and I love it.” She smiled, her brown eyes softening to the color of melted caramels. “As far as I’m concerned, second-graders are the best. They’re old enough to be manageable, yet young enough to truly believe that the teacher knows everything.” She smiled her pleasure. Luke again noticed how pretty she looked. The morning sunshine was just beginning to streak into the window and caressed her delicate features. “It’s a wonderful job, teaching children. I love my work.”
She gazed at him, her eyes seeming to pierce through his skin, into his soul. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring your camera equipment with you. There was a time when I thought it was permanently mounted on your hand.”
Luke got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, unsure how to answer her, unsure himself why the thought of bringing the camera along on this particular trip had been abhorrent. “I just didn’t feel like it,” he finally replied. “I wanted this to be pure pleasure, not work.”
“I always thought for you they were one and the same,” she observed.
Although there was no censure in her voice, the words rankled, felt like a criticism. “Maybe you aren’t the only one who’s changed in the last five years,” he answered curtly. He sat down at the table and stared out the window for a long moment. “It’s going to be a gorgeous day. Cold, but lots of sunshine. I hope this weather keeps up for the remainder of the trip.”
She nodded and he saw the tiny flicker of pain that darkened her eyes as she gazed toward the back where Danny still slept. He knew what she was thinking…how many more gorgeous mornings would Danny have to enjoy? How many more days would he feel like getting out of bed?
“He’s too thin,” he said gruffly. “We need to fatten him up on this trip.”
“He doesn’t have much of an appetite,” Sherri explained. “I try to entice him with his favorite foods as often as possible.”
“How is he ever going to become a world-class jet pilot if he doesn’t have a little more meat on his bones?” he returned. She looked at him, her eyes bottomless pits of despair. She knew that Danny would never grow up to be a world-class jet pilot. Deep inside, Luke knew it, too.
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Carla Cassidy
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: He was only nine years old, but Danny knew what was best for his mom and dad. That was why he′d asked for a trip to the Grand Canyon. So they could be together again. Like a real family.Sherri and Luke Morgan knew this vacation was just what Danny needed. So they put aside their differences for their little boy′s sake. Everything was fine–until…Sherri remembered how good it had been waking up in Luke′s arms.Luke remembered the love he′d all but given up on.Maybe Danny would get his wish….