Lucas Read online

  He still did.

  But the whole family issue had been the sole cause behind his breakup with Tanya. He hated to admit it, but it seemed like he was still waiting for Tanya to come to her senses and to call him again and to say that she now wanted a family as much as she wanted him. In his emotional moments he wondered if that would be a good thing or bad.

  His sister called out, “Hey. You two want to say hi to your uncle?”

  The two boys looked up, and Jonah squealed and raced for Lucas.

  Lucas squatted down, careful of the weight hurtling toward him, even while overhearing his sister’s cry, “Wait, Jonah. Wait.” Lucas caught him easily, using his legs as he’d learned and straightened up, swinging the little boy around. Jonah squeezed his arms tight around Lucas’s neck and hung on.

  For a moment, Lucas buried his face into the hair of the innocent child in his arms and hung on. For a long time, he thought he’d never see this little guy again. It was such a relief to realize he was actually whole and back with his family. During his convalescence they’d shared FaceTime often, but that wasn’t the same as holding this little body in his arms.

  Meg reached out and gripped his wrist and said, “It’s good to have you back.”

  He smiled at her over Jonah’s head and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Nathan stretched a hand out, smacking him lightly on the shoulder. “Good to see you back, Lucas.”

  “Good to be back,” he admitted. “Wasn’t sure I’d make it.”

  “Neither were we,” Meg said softly. “Jonah, let Uncle Lucas visit with Momma in the kitchen.”

  Jonah shook his head and refused to let Lucas go.

  Chuckling, Lucas walked in and sat down at the kitchen table, trying to be careful with his back after the long trip. It didn’t take much these days to jerk it into a full-blown problem again. He’d done a ton of rehab work and built up as much of the back muscles as he could. But he knew he would always have to watch out for his back now.

  Jonah lifted his head and smiled the sweetest of smiles and said, “I’m glad you’re alive.”

  And Lucas felt his heart melt.

  He touched Jonah under the chin gently and said, “So am I, little man. So am I.” And felt another little one leaning against his knee. Lucas reached a hand down, patting the child on the face, and said, “Hey, Eggy. How you doing?”

  Their littlest boy beamed up at him—displaying all his baby teeth, which he was obviously proud of—and, with a fine dusting of hair, he was just adorable. Jonah scrambled off Lucas’s lap and ran over to his mom and dad while Lucas greeted little Eggy. It was his nickname because he never ran in a straight line; instead he always went in sharp circles. His real name was Yegg, which was odd enough, but it was Nathan’s grandfather’s name, so everybody seemed to be okay with it.

  He hugged Eggy and stroked the plump cheek with his other hand. There was just something special about a homecoming like this. His sister caught his eye and smiled. “You could live here, you know? I know it’s not home for you yet, but it could be.”

  He gave his nephew an extra squeeze and then reached over and hugged his sister. “I’m here now,” he said in a low voice. Breaking off his engagement had been hard on his sister too. She’d been ecstatic to think he’d be living close to her, finally. His accident, his injuries, his recovery, … he often forgot it wasn’t just him who’d gone through a lot. … “That’s what counts.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “That was one of the most oddball reasons I’ve heard yet for coming home though. A dog? You know you don’t need an excuse, right?”

  He chuckled. “Hey, I’ve been home many times over the years when I had leave for no other reason than to see you. Sure, they weren’t the easiest trips, but I did come.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And this time you’re after a dog?”

  His brother-in-law turned and looked at him. “Yeah. I don’t get that,” he said. “Why this dog?”

  Lucas tried to explain as much as he understood. “I just know that Top Hat apparently also has some behavioral issues after he was attacked by several other dogs, and the military is worried about him.”

  “Not other War Dogs, right?” Nathan asked.

  Lucas shook his head. “I don’t have all the details still. But, from what I’ve learned to date, Top Hat was initially wounded in the mission, a gunshot from all accounts. His blood drew in a pack of wild dogs in the area, which are all over Iraq. Of course his team came to his rescue, but Top Hat was already weak before the added attack, and he surely didn’t understand these wild dogs compared to the War Dogs that Top Hat normally worked with.”

  “The poor thing,” Meg said.

  “So the military is worried about him or worried about those humans who might come in contact with him?” Nathan asked shrewdly. “Because, if it’s a case of Top Hat needing some training, that’s a different story, but, if he’s aggressive and dangerous to families, we don’t want him in a rescue center to be adopted by some unsuspecting mom and dad with young kids.”

  “I already contacted the center. The second one now. They do still have him, and I’m on my way to get him tomorrow,” Lucas said. “Of course we have to do some paperwork to get him back across the border again.”

  “Right,” Nathan said. “That’s your problem. Although I’m surprised you’re handling this. Isn’t that the War Dogs Department’s problem?”

  “Well, it would have been, but that entire department has been disbanded. Titanium Corp was asked to look into these last few cases of lost War Dogs, hoping they’ve ended up in good homes. And my friends at Titanium asked me to have a look into this dog’s situation.”

  “Fine. But if he’s super-aggressive,” Nathan continued, “that’ll cause problems no matter which side of the border he’s on.”

  Lucas nodded. “That’s tomorrow’s problem. I have to see what shape he’s in and then report back first.”

  His sister clapped her hands and said, “Okay. Let’s have dinner.”

  Tanya Nolan answered her phone, surprised to see Meg’s name come up on her Caller ID. They had just talked first thing this morning. “Hey, Meg. What’s up?”

  “Lucas is here,” Meg said abruptly. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for you, but I didn’t want you coming over unexpectedly, and the two of you having an argument.”

  At the news, all Tanya could do was suck back her breath. “Why is he here?” she asked bluntly. She hated there was that eternal hope in the back of her mind. That maybe, just maybe, he had come back to see her.

  “He’s on a mission of some sort involving a dog,” Meg replied. “Even though it seems odd, it is a legitimate job. We did quiz him about it, but apparently a War Dog was accidentally shipped up here, and so Lucas is heading out to the center tomorrow to check it out.”

  “For real?” Tanya had a hard time with that as an excuse. But, then again, he hadn’t shown any inclination to come see her again. Neither had she called him. Not recently anyway. Their breakup had been bad. Painful. Awful. Then she’d heard about his accident and injuries. She had tried to get in touch with him then, but he wouldn’t answer her calls.

  He’d been up here twice since their breakup—once before his accident and now this one—and she’d yet to see him. She didn’t know how bad the damage was, although Meg kept telling her how Lucas was doing fine. Tanya knew he wasn’t fine because he’d spent six months in a hospital. He had broken his back and lost several ribs. She really wanted to see that he was “fine” with her own two eyes. She didn’t know what else had gone on with him, other than Meg’s generic updates, but Tanya knew that, when Lucas was down and out, she had tried to get in touch with him, but he didn’t want anything to do with her.

  That had hurt in a big way.

  She understood, but, at the same time, it was devastating. She still loved him, always had. She didn’t necessarily want to marry him anymore because they had such divergent plans for their future—she d
idn’t want a family, and he did—and that was one of those essential cores to a marriage, where a successful marriage needed the parties to be aligned, either both pro or both con. But she hadn’t changed her mind. Yet, it hadn’t changed how she felt about him either.

  Had he changed how he felt about her?

  She had no idea. Well, she had an idea and dismissed it.

  Had he changed about wanting a family? Chances were high that he hadn’t. Family was very important to him. He adored Meg’s boys. Always had. He’d always wanted a big family. But, for her, well, that was the last thing she wanted, and, for that, she felt guilty as hell. She had raised her younger siblings like some single mother, when their real mom was alive and always working. The maternal responsibilities had fallen on Tanya’s shoulders and had cured her of wanting to raise more. She felt like she’d been there and done that.

  Everybody kept telling her it would be different when it was her own child, yet she hadn’t any inclination to get pregnant to prove that theory. The last thing she wanted to do, if she ever would be a mother, was to be a terrible one, like her own mother, and that was all she could think she’d be.

  She had choices now that she had left her mother behind to deal with her children herself. One of the hardest choices since then had been to break up with Lucas because he had wanted a family. He’d been angry when he had heard her reasoning. But, when she asked him if he was prepared to go through life without children, and he had told her no, she had told him that they had no future.

  As she put down the phone, she thought about all the things that had happened since she’d broken it off with Lucas. All the things he’d gone through, and all the things she’d gone through.

  She’d lost her job and picked up several small useless jobs until she had landed her current job and had done a whole lot of introspection, taking another look at her life. Before that she’d also lost her roommates—one had been murdered, and the other was in a drug-induced coma after a car accident. The families had come and moved out both girls’ possessions, and Tanya was left with monthly bills that, once she lost her job, she could not afford on her own, so she had moved to a small one-bedroom apartment.

  She didn’t really like how things were going, but she didn’t know how to fix it. It was as if, since breaking off with Lucas, the universe had decided to show her exactly what her life without him was like. And she didn’t think much of it. Now she stood all alone, wondering what the hell was going on.

  She worked as a cashier in a department store, ringing up purchases for customers, even though she was an accountant. At her previous job, somebody had said she was stealing from her employer, and there had been a horrible inquiry that had made her feel like she was a thief, even though she wasn’t. She had no clue who reported her, but she had lost her job regardless of later proof she was not at fault. The boss had said the trust factor had been broken.

  It wasn’t that the company didn’t trust her, her boss had said, but they didn’t trust anybody anymore.

  For her, that had been devastating because it had been a good paying job. Getting laid off had come with incredibly difficult consequences, and, in this small community where she lived, that led to dire consequences. One of which was, she couldn’t get another job in her field since then.

  It broke her heart to see how her life had gone from one extreme to the other. She couldn’t overlook that she had it better than her two friends, but it was a far cry from how Tanya’s life had been with Lucas.

  Most evenings she spent time at Alice’s bedside. But it was hard because her friend was practically vegetative. Tanya knew Alice was in there and that she would heal—the doctors said so—but the process was slow. That was the whole point of going—connecting to her friend and letting her friend know she was there. While, at the same time, Tanya herself had nothing to look forward to except for the future hope that her friend wake up.

  As for Claire, her other friend who had died, Tanya took a walk every weekend to Claire’s grave, where Tanya would sit and think of nothing more than the fact that this beautiful young woman had been cut down in the prime of her life. Sometimes, when Tanya got really depressed, she wondered if it didn’t have to do with her breaking up with Lucas. Because it seemed like that was the point when everything went south.

  She’d never considered such a thing as karma and fate before, but, since losing Lucas and then Claire and then Alice, Tanya had done a ton of thinking about it. She had had viable reasons for breaking up with Lucas, so she didn’t understand why that would cause everything else to go to hell. Her other friends at work had laughed at her when she had told them what she’d done.

  Her mother had said Tanya was a fool. But then her mother had never understood what life had been like for the eldest of the seven children when their mother was too busy working and having multiple boyfriends to spend any time with her children.

  Tanya felt bad for even complaining because her mother still managed to provide a roof over their heads while keeping all seven children. None were shipped off to a shelter. But her mother never learned about birth control either. All that hadn’t been fun, and Tanya didn’t want to do it again now, even though her four sisters were grown up with lives of their own. Not the youngest boys though. They were still at home and likely would be for a few more years yet. Tanya couldn’t even remember exactly how old they were anymore.

  She felt like she’d been robbed of her childhood and now robbed of motherhood.

  She sat here wondering what she should do. Should she try to see Lucas? With everything going on in her life and with life being so short for Claire and Alice, maybe that was exactly what Tanya needed to do. Lucas would be at the shelter in the morning. She thought it was maybe a four hour drive away—eight hours or more round trip. The more she thought about it, she wondered if maybe he wanted company for the trip. She picked up her phone and called Meg back.

  As soon as Meg answered, Tanya said, “May I speak to Lucas, please?”

  Meg paused, and Tanya kept her voice calm and neutral. “It won’t hurt to talk to him, will it?”

  Meg sighed. “No. It won’t. But I don’t want him upset,” she warned. “He spent a lot of time recovering.”

  “Will talking to me send him in a tailspin?” She hated to even think of it. But she couldn’t blame Meg. If it was one of her siblings, Tanya would have asked the same questions.

  Meg groaned and asked her friend to hang on. In the background Tanya could hear her calling her brother.

  They had a muffled conversation, as if Meg had put her hand over the mouthpiece. That was too damn bad because it would be nice to know his reaction. To know if Lucas hated her for what she’d done.

  “Hello, Tanya. What’s up?”

  She stared at the phone, surprised. How could he be so calm and so neutral? There wasn’t even a strain to his voice when she was sitting here on tenterhooks. “Meg says you’re driving the long trip up to the rescue center. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” he replied cautiously. “Why?”

  “I have the day off,” she said abruptly. “Are you up for company for the drive?”

  Chapter 2

  She waited nervously outside her apartment the next morning at seven. It was early, but they had nearly a four-hour drive ahead of them.

  He pulled up on time. That was Lucas. He was someone you could count on all the time. So why the hell had she not figured out that was important? And although they had some big differences, they were her issues, not his. He was perfect. Always had been. Now if only she could figure out how to walk time back and regain all they’d lost.

  If he didn’t already have anyone new.

  She hopped in. “Thank you for letting me come.” She feasted her eyes on him, loving the way that one wayward front lock of hair resisted going with the flow and always hung slightly off center. With a little curl to the rich brown color, it had always looked perfect.

  He gave a clipped nod.

  She looked
for an opening to break the ice. Taking a deep breath, she said in a bright voice, “So … why is this dog important?”

  He gave a brief explanation. When he was done, he glanced at her before asking, “After all this time why did you want to come with me?”

  “I wanted to see you,” she said bluntly. “You’ve been out twice before and avoided me.”

  “I came up to visit family before,” he said equally as blunt. “And I wasn’t ready to see you.”

  She sighed heavily. “Why didn’t you take my calls?”

  “What calls?” he asked, frowning, glancing at her again.

  He really didn’t remember? She shook her head. “I called—twice—while you were in the hospital. As soon as I heard from Meg what had happened to you, I just needed to hear to your voice.” She glanced at him, gauging his reaction. His face was one big grimace. That couldn’t be good. “Why didn’t you take my calls?”

  Lucas gave his own heavy sigh. Then seemed to be counting to ten. Finally he spoke. “You know how I get when I’m sick. That hasn’t changed.” He stared at her to say the next few words. “I haven’t changed.” He shook his head, watching the road again. “I just want to sleep, give my body a couple days to focus solely on healing. Like a bear hibernating, I just need to be left alone. And I’m a grumpy bear if anybody interrupts my hibernation.”

  She wondered if this was such a good idea after all to be trapped in an all-day road trip with Lucas.

  “But, Lucas,” she said, getting his attention, at least briefly, “this wasn’t two days to get over the flu. You were attacked. It took months of surgeries and rehab.”

  He frowned at her, seemed surprised that she knew.

  “Meg and I have always been close. She keeps me up-to-date on what’s going on in your life.”