Peyton gave him a dubious glance. “Okay. Let me grab another towel.” Maddy followed her, as close as an extra leg.
“Auntie P, who’s that man?”
Peyton, her hand halfway to the towel, turned and looked at Luke. Her eyes were wide and scared, like Madelyne’s had been a second ago. The look said Don’t upset this little girl’s world. She’s been through enough.
He wanted to tell his daughter the truth, but some instinct deep in his gut said springing the fatherhood connection on a preschooler wasn’t the best choice. What was it that Peyton had said? Maddy had had enough uncertainty for now.
It would upset her world, and that was the last thing he wanted to do. He might not be good at being a father, might not have the slightest clue where to start with a child he didn’t even know, but he knew this much—dropping that shocking news into the life of a kid who’d just suffered a major loss would be a stupid move on his part.
She needed get to know him first, and he needed to get comfortable with the idea of being a dad. He thought of his own father, of the impromptu wrestling matches in the living room; the way Bobby Barlow had cheered for each of his boys at every sporting event, all the times he’d taken them fishing or showed them how to fix a broken gate. That was being a dad. Walking into a room and announcing fatherhood was not. Right now, the truth was, he wasn’t a dad at all; he was just the sperm donor.
And as scary as it seemed, a part of him wanted to change that.
“I’m a friend of your mom’s and your aunt’s,” Luke said, taking a step into the room. Relief flooded Peyton’s features. “Just a friend.”
He bent down and put out a hand. “I’m Luke.”
Madelyne slid her tiny hand into Luke’s, her fingers as delicate as twigs. But she had a firm grip and her gaze was direct and assessing. It was weird, Luke thought, holding the hand of this tiny person who was half him.
“I’m Madelyne,” she said. “I’m almost four.”
“Nice to meet you, Madelyne.” He shook hands with her, then gave her a grin that he hoped spelled trustworthy and friendly. “Is it okay if I go swimming with you?”
Madelyne bit her lip. Behind her, Peyton did the same, probably completely unaware she was mimicking her niece. There was a hushed anticipation in the air, a sense of worry and fear, and Luke got the feeling that this moment would set the tone for what was to come.
“I dunno.” She cocked her head, sending a few of those curls springing off her shoulder. “Do you like doggies?”
The non sequitur caught him off guard. “Uh, yeah, sure. I love doggies. Even have one of my own. His name is Charlie.”
That made her brighten a little. “Can he come swimmin’ wif us?”
“I didn’t bring him today, but if you come over to my house, you can see him. Would you like to come over sometime? With your aunt, of course.” He felt as nervous as a teenager waiting on Madelyne’s answer. Here he was, asking his own daughter, whose bright pink cheeks made her look like a porcelain doll, if she wanted to come over. If Madelyne said no, or shied away again, Luke would take it as a sign. Back away and leave her in the undoubtedly highly capable hands of Peyton.
Madelyne toed at the carpet, then met his gaze with her own. Her eyes were dark pools, unreadable and still. “You promise? I can play with the doggy? I love doggies. They’re so furry and soft and they give kisses and eat cookies and play lots.”
“I promise you can play with Charlie. Cross my heart.” Luke made the gesture across his chest, and for a second, he was four again himself, swearing allegiance to some pact he’d made with his brothers. Cross my heart and hope to die, they’d said back then, in that cavalier way of kids who thought the world lasted forever and mothers never died too young. “Sound good?”
A tentative smile filled Madelyne’s face, and to Luke, that smile felt a lot like winning the lottery. “Okay.”
A second later, the three of them were heading down the hall. Like a family, he thought, though they were far from any such thing. He was still the stranger, uninvited at that, tagging along on the visit to the pool.
“Well, you clearly passed her test,” Peyton said.
“I think the kid grades on a bell curve.”
Peyton laughed. “Maddy’s pretty easy to please, most days. Plus, she figures anyone who loves dogs is okay. That’s her big criteria for everyone she meets.”
“I’m lucky she sets the bar low.” He tossed Peyton a grin. She returned it, and the dark, threadbare hall seemed brighter for a moment.
“Charlie to the rescue again,” she said. “That dog is quite the miracle worker, and he doesn’t even know it.”
“That he is.” Luke’s gaze went down the corridor, but his mind reached into the past. To the days after he’d found Charlie, the dark days that haunted Luke still, when he would sneak Charlie into his room at night and whisper his regrets into the mutt’s caramel-colored fur. The dog would lean against him and listen, patient and true.
“Honestly, I think that dog saved me rather than the other way around.” The admission slipped from Luke’s lips before he could stop it.
“What do you—” Peyton’s question was cut off when Madelyne dashed ahead, reeling back when Peyton called out to her to take it easy, to walk instead of run. Dash, slow, dash, slow. It was like watching a yo-yo.
Luke turned to Peyton. “She always this hyper?”
Peyton laughed. “Hyper? Honey, this isn’t hyper. This is normal.”
Something inside him tripped at the word honey. He knew it was an offhand comment, a word Peyton probably hadn’t even realized she’d said. He shook it off. He was here to figure out how he was going to be a father to a kid he never knew he had, not get wrapped up in the way Peyton looked or the words she used.
Madelyne started skipping from diamond to diamond on the patterned rug while she sang a rhyming song about a whale and a lemon. She was wearing a pink-and-white polka-dot one-piece swimsuit with a ruffled skirt, matching sandals, and even had pink ribbons tied in bows around the twin braids in her hair. She seemed awfully dressed up just to get in the pool. Reason number five hundred and seventy-two why Luke wasn’t going to be very good at this fatherhood thing. He couldn’t braid hair or tie ribbons or color-coordinate shoes and bathing suits.
But the more he looked, the more he could see himself in her eyes, her mannerisms. He saw Susannah in Maddy’s impish smile, in the way she danced down the hall. No doubt—this was his daughter.
“I gotta warn you, I have zero experience with kids,” Luke said. “I could screw this up without thinking twice.”
Peyton shot him a smile. “You’ll be fine. Spending time with a four-year-old can be challenging, but it’s also not as hard as you think. I’ll be right there the whole time, ready to give you plenty of instructions and worried-auntie input.”
He watched the girl stop and twirl in the hall, spinning and spinning and spinning while she went on and on about the whale and the lemon, and their new friend, a lime. Those braids spun out from Madelyne’s head, loosening a ribbon. Without missing a beat, Peyton stepped forward, retied the bow and sent Madelyne on her way.
Maddy pushed on the door handle, flooding the hall with sunlight. “Wait, wait,” Peyton said, running up to Madelyne and putting a cautionary hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Remember, you can’t just run out there.