“Maybe not now,” She realized sadly.
He lifted her chin with his forefinger and shook his head when her eyes met his. “Not ever. I am not going anywhere.” He cupped her face in the palms of his hand and bent his knees to be level with her mouth and pressed his against hers softly. He placed his lips to hers in a series of featherlike kisses and then pulled back and searched her eyes.
“There are things about your past, like things with your father that I don’t know the whole story about. I don’t know the magnitude of what he’s done to you. I wasn’t paying attention back then, but I am now.”
“Well to be fair, I didn’t pay much attention to you either.” She said with a hint of a smile. “But I’m willing to listen… now.” She raised an eyebrow towards him, Sam’s lingering words about Marie, playing over in her mind.
He tilted his head to the side and tried not to laugh. “If you are curious about something, just ask.” He said simply.
“Well, Marie was kind of a closed topic with Jake. Aside from death threats he never spoke her name.” She said seriously, but saw the smile creep along Luke’s face at the mention of Jake and the way he despised Marie.
“You know he liked her at one point.” He said thoughtfully and took her hand leading her into the living room. They sat together on the couch and he turned his body to her.
“Maybe so, but not after she did you and Ava dirty… Christ he loathed her. There were few people on his hate list, but Marie and my dad were front-runners for the top of the list.”
Luke spread his arm across the back of the couch and settled into the crook of the couch.
“What I told you before, outside the church? I meant. I take care of what’s mine. Marie was mine. I really thought she and I could do it, you know? We weren’t kids when she got pregnant. I mean, sure it probably wasn’t the perfect time to have a baby. Nick had left for Seattle and I had no choice but to start Lanza Automotive up on my own, but I knew at the end of the day it would be okay. I could do it on my own and now I had even more of a reason to get my act together. I was going to be a dad.” He smiled and remembered being a young guy just starting out in life and being told he was going to be a dad. It didn’t scare him half as much as he thought it would. “I took extra classes in trade school and finished just as Marie was approaching her due date. She was excited throughout the pregnancy.”
“I remember you guys didn’t want to know the sex of the baby.” Cara said as a memory hit her. She and Jake were in the Lanza kitchen when Luke came home one night with the latest sonogram photo. She remembered Jake beamed at his brother and ask if he was going to be an Uncle or an Aunt. She laughed out loud and Luke looked at her curiously. “I remembered one night you came home, me and Jake were in your mom’s kitchen. I think you had just come home from seeing Marie and you showed Jake the sonogram photo and he asked if he was going to be an Uncle or an Aunt?”
Luke smiled and bit back a chuckle trying to remember that night, he faintly did. “I didn’t want to know and come to think of it, she didn’t care either way. I guess that should’ve been a red flag, but I was just happy she allowed me one of life’s few surprises.”
“That’s sweet.” Cara said, squeezing his thigh affectionately. He glanced down at her hand on his thigh and watched her fingertips trail inside his thigh. “So everything was going fine, what changed?” She asked and he looked up at her confused for a moment until he remembered what they were talking about.
“I asked her to marry me.” He said flatly.
“What?” Cara said wide-eyed. How could she not have known that Luke was engaged?
“She said no. She said that we were having a baby and that was enough. Our life was complicated as it was without adding to it. I didn’t like that answer and told her I wasn’t going to be a part time dad. I wanted her to move in with me, be my wife, and raise our kid together. I thought that’s what she wanted too.” He shook his head. “Before she went into labor, she told me she couldn’t be the woman I needed.” He stared at Cara and wondered if she made the parallel.
“The funny thing is I didn’t know what I needed back then.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you know now?” Cara whispered.
“I don’t need much to make me happy Cara. I need someone in my life that wants to be there as much as I want her to be. I need someone who doesn’t look at Ava as my child, but someone who could one day look at her as hers too.”
“That’s all that you need in this world?”
“The love of a good woman is all any man really needs, isn’t it?”
“I’m not a man, I wouldn’t know.” She winked.
“I noticed.” He said with a smirk as his eyes traveled to her chest. She laughed and hit his leg playfully.