Anything for Danny

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.