He waved a hand toward the pole barn, under which he kept the three-quarter-ton truck he used for plowing, along with the plow, sand hopper and a pretty impressive tractor. Not that Siobhan would find it impressive, he thought. But it was. “I don’t usually have a problem getting in and out.”
“Mommy!” a small voice yelled, and Siobhan hurried around the car and opened Oliver’s door. “Stella!”
It was hard to tell who was more excited—the boy or the dog—but the two immediately started running around the yard. Oliver’s laugh echoed through the trees, and Brian chuckled. It was impossible to be tense while watching the two of them play.
“There’s nothing in the yard that can hurt him. Stella has an area she’s limited to without me, and she’ll keep him in it, too. We’ll just make sure he stays out of the pole barn.” He turned to face her and caught her looking at him. “You want to sit on the step? The front porch is nicer, but they’ve got more space back here.”
“Sure. He always has a burst of energy after being in the car for a while.”
Once they were seated side by side on the step, with enough space between them so their arms and legs wouldn’t brush each other, Brian rested his elbows on his knees. “So is there a certain way we should explain this to him? I don’t want to traumatize him or anything, so even though it would suck, if we should wait and ask somebody, we can. Like a therapist or something.”
“If he was older, I’d say that was necessary. But at this age, I think he’ll roll with it, to be honest.”
It wasn’t long before Oliver found a colorful leaf on the ground and came running back to show it to his mom, Stella right beside him. “Look, Mommy.”
“It’s so pretty!” She took the leaf and twirled it between her thumb and finger. “Oliver, do you remember when you asked why you don’t have a daddy?”
Brian’s breath caught in his chest when he nodded. “Colton has a daddy and Abby has a daddy, but I don’t.”
“We didn’t know you had a daddy, but we found out you do. Brian is your daddy, so we came to visit and you’ll get to visit him and Stella a lot now.”
Oliver leaned on Brian’s knee and looked up at him with blue eyes that reflected his own, and the eyes of his brothers and father. “You’re my daddy?”
He thought he said yes, but his throat was so clogged with emotion, he wasn’t sure the word was recognizable, so he nodded.
The boy tilted his head, and then grinned. “Do you want a leaf, too?”
Brian watched Oliver—his son—run off and then scrubbed his hands over his face. His body vibrated with emotion and he didn’t think he could have spoken in that moment if he had to. His throat and his chest felt as if they were being squeezed in a vice.
In a flash, Oliver was back, holding out another leaf. “Here you go, Daddy.”
Brian sucked in a shaky breath, and then managed to take it with a trembling hand. “Thank you. Can I have a hug?”
Oliver reached up and wrapped his arms around Brian’s neck as he lifted him off the ground. He was careful not to squeeze too hard as he closed his eyes. Tears slid down his cheek, probably landing in the boy’s hair, but he didn’t let go until Stella nudged his leg.
He managed to swipe his cheeks with one hand while setting Oliver on the ground, and then he gave Stella’s ears a good scratch.
“I like leaves,” Oliver said, still leaning against his knee. “Do you like leaves?”
“I do. In the fall, I make piles of leaves and Stella plays in them.”
He giggled. “Mommy does that for me at the park sometimes. We don’t have our own grass. Is this your house?”
“It is. Do you want to see inside?”
* * *
Something had shifted in Siobhan, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. While she’d known Oliver would adapt easily to Brian being his father because he was still young enough not to know how things usually worked, hearing him call BrianDaddyhad wrecked her.
No, that wasn’t it, she thought. Hearing that had rocked her, but it was Brian’s reaction that had totally wrecked her. It had been a humbling and emotional experience watching a man be profoundly changed by a single word.
But change him it had, the same way Siobhan had been changed when Kelly put Oliver in her arms and told her to keep him. Now she was afraid that moment might also have him rethinking all the things he’d said when being Oliver’s father was a hypothetical. Maybe now that he’d felt those arms hugging him and heard the wordDaddy, he’d fight to keep him.
No, she told herself firmly. She knew Brian better than that. She knew his family. None of them wanted to cut her out of his life. But as she followed them into the house, she looked at Oliver’s tiny hand tucked into Brian’s much bigger one and her chest felt tight.
His house was small and she wasn’t sure if rustic or just old was a better description, but it was clean and cozy, with great light from the big windows. The kitchen needed updating badly, but the floors were gorgeous. She took for granted he’d been chipping away remodeling when he had the time and money, and buying the campground with his brothers had probably taken a lot of both from him.
They only got as far as the living room, where Oliver spotted the wicker basket of books. “Beep beep!”
