“Honey, is that Sassy outside?”

“It better not be Sassy.” Luke pulled a glass jar off the shelf and dumped more dried lavender inside. Twisting the copper top back on, he replaced the jar and moved onto the next. Elderflower. Passionflower. So many goddamn flowers. After six hours of filling out back orders at Herbal Heaven, he was honestly surprised he hadn’t spontaneously combusted into a bouquet of roses and Baby’s Breath by now.

“It looks just like Sassy,” Moira said, coming around the counter to stand at his side. “And that boy from Thanksgiving dinner—Julian, was it?—he’s there, too.”

Luke froze, his eyes narrowing as he turned to follow his mother’s line of sight to the front of the shop. And, shit, sure enough, there was Julian with Sassy. At the realization that he’d come under scrutiny, Julian’s mouth broke into a wide grin and he waved enthusiastically from the other side of the glass.

“Why does he have your dog?” Moira crossed her arms over her chest, her expression tugging into a frown. “Don’t tell me you’re tired of the pup already. This is exactly the reason why we never had a pet while you were a kid, you know. There I was, fearing that one day you’d wake up and realize that you preferred cats, and the poor dog would be out the door.”

“The kid is my dog walker.” Shoving the glass jar on the shelf, Luke brushed his hands across his jean-clad knees and grabbed his cane from where it rested against a stack of cardboard boxes. He leaned over, bussing a kiss on his mother’s cheek. “And don’t lie to yourself, Ma,” he said, already moving towards the front door, “we never had a dog because you were half-terrified that it would pee on the furniture.”

“Now, you wait just a minute, Lucas Michael O’Connor. That isn’t true.”

Luke half turned, briefly pausing when he noticed her happy smile, and then deadpanned, “I mentioned the dog and you went out and bought plastic covers for all the couches the very next day.”

“Not because of the dog.”

“No?”

Moira gave a delicate shrug. “You were a very messy boy, son.”

Chuckling under his breath, Luke shook his head and then pressed the front door open with a flat palm. The minute Sassy caught wind of him, he hit paws running and dragged poor Julian so that he could greet his master. Tail thwapping back and forth, Sassy shoved his head into Luke’s groin.

“Jesus, man,” Luke grunted, hooking a finger in the dog’s collar and inching him back, “watch out for the goods.”

“He tried to dismember me today too,” Julian said, patting Sassy on top of his behemoth-sized head. “You gotta have fast reflexes. One, two, duck—that sort of thing.”

With a wry grin, Luke chucked Sass under the chin. “Yeah, I’m thinking that my ducking days haven’t quite returned yet.”

“Because of your hip?”

“Because I’m old and decaying.”

Julian gave him a considering glance. “Are you older than my mom?”

Your mom couldn’t look like she was old and decaying even if she’d dressed up as a zombie for Halloween. The thought crossed Luke’s mind before he could squelch it. It’d been five days since Thanksgiving dinner, three since she’d gone on a date with her hot vet next-door neighbor.

He grimaced. Hell, even just thinking about Anna on a date with another man made him feel fifty shades of pissed off—something he had no right to feel in the first place. He’d been the one to initially reject her, idiot that he was.

Even now, with the unfamiliar sting of jealousy keeping him company throughout the day, Luke internally understood that Anna was better off with a guy who earned a spot on a twelve-month calendar spread. She was better off without him, and all of his idiosyncrasies and injuries and other issues that would never become a “non-issue” for a woman like Anna Bryce.

He dragged a hand over his jawline, wishing that hope—which was already a bitch in the real world—would for once take a back seat to a realistic viewpoint on things.

Anna wanted a husband.

Luke wasn’t fit to be a husband to anyone.

Anna wanted the love of her life.

Luke and “romance” went together about as well as peanut butter and ketchup. In short, she was better off looking for her grape jelly somewhere else, with someone who had the relationship fundamentals to provide the necessary two sandwich halves.

You did give her a gift.

Yeah, Luke thought with a snort, a gift that she hadn’t even seemed to enjoy. The fact that he’d put thought into the present . . . Well, it’d been a much-needed rude awakening to hear her say that he was the last person she’d ever consider dating.

Apparently drunk Anna could get down with the crippled veteran, but a sober Anna realized what a terrible mistake that would be.

“I’m younger,” he said, finally answering the kid’s question. Luke nodded his head to where Sassy had decided to dribble all over the storefront glass he’d just scrubbed down before lunch. “I’m guessing you didn’t feel like doing the regular walk today?”

“Not really.” Julian kicked at a stray rock. “Thought me and Sassy could enjoy some nice, clean air.”

“Clean air, in the French Quarter?” Luke propped his cane up against his hip and folded his arms over his chest. “How many times did you practice that line before you showed up here? You know that your mom is specific about which blocks you can walk and which ones are off limits.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.” With a quick tug of the leash, Julian wrangled in a wandering Sassy. “But I’m thinking to myself, I’ve got an hour to kill before she comes and picks me up, and she didn’t realize that you were working this evening. So, instead of sitting on your couch and eating popcorn with Sass like last night, I thought we’d come down for a visit.”

Luke lifted an eyebrow. “How gallant of you, Jules.”

More with the non-eye contact. “Super gallant. Don’t worry, I won’t invoice you for overtime.”

Tipping back his chin, Luke let out a belt of laughter. Damn, but Anna’s kid had the witty teenager personality down pat. He wiped a stray tear from his eye and rubbed his fingers together, miming the universal sign for money, when he said, “You’re gonna have to bill your mom for overtime, kid. Maybe buy her something real nice.”

Julian lifted a hand to his hair. “So, yeah, that’s sort of the thing.”

“You don’t know what to buy her? I’m kidding. You really don’t have to—”

“She bought you something.”

Everything in him froze. His limbs literally stopped moving, and even his left leg, which usually found a way to simply collapse beneath his weight, stayed harmoniously still.

“You there?” Julian reached out to wave a hand in front of Luke’s face.

He slowly blinked, feeling a bit out of sorts, like he was wading through water. Or just drunk. “I’m good.” Liar. Luke rubbed the back of his neck again, and went for nonchalance. “So, your mom got me something?”

“Yup.”

“Any idea if I’ll need to prearrange some bond money just in case she plans to land me in jail?”

A strange expression crossed the kid’s face, one that Luke couldn’t even begin to interpret. But then, quick as a dime, the ever-present grin was back as though it had never taken a vacation to begin with. “Tell me your cane doubles as a sword like in every video game ever,” Julian said.

Luke lifted the cane and twisted it this way and that. “Would it make me cooler if it did?”

“Definitely.”

“Are you saying I’m not cool now?”

Julian’s knobby shoulders inched up. “You’ve probably got a year of coolness left. Might want to start stockpiling where you can.”

Laughing, Luke shook his head and muttered, “You sure know how to make a man feel his age, kid.”

“My mom says the same thing.”

Once again, Luke experienced disorientation at the mere mention of Anna. He shouldn’t have bought her anything, even though when his gaze had locked on the twin, porcelain pizza tree ornaments at the store the other day he’d known that they belonged to her. Christmas might be less than three weeks away, and yeah, the gift was cheesy (pun intended), but he’d doubled back around to them no less than two times before finally grabbing the package off the hook with a grunt and dumping it in his shopping cart.

They were a gag gift, that’s it.

So why did he feel as though he’d given her something much more than a Christmas tree decoration?

The thought had plagued him like the devil for the last five days, especially while knowing that she’d been out with a guy who played superhero to everyone’s four-legged best friend. A man who lived next door to her, who could slip across the front yard at any time and ask for some flour or sugar, or hell, some of her sugar.

Dude, those thoughts are not fucking helping.

Luke scrubbed a hand over his face, determined to play it cool in front of Anna’s son. He had a year left of coolness, right? Might as well try and pretend that he wasn’t feeling more emotionally unbalanced than he had since those first years that he’d been in the military.

“So,” he started, reaching up with one hand to awkwardly pull the collar of his shirt away from his neck, “your mom bought me something?”

“Yup.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. Obviously, Julian had no plans to make this easy for him. “Did she mention what it was?”

Another slow shoulder shrug from the teenager, who was now appearing more interested in petting a drooling Sassy than anything else. “She might have.”

“You gonna tell me what it is?”

Julian’s gaze flicked up to meet his. “That would ruin the surprise.”

The kid had to be shitting him. Shifting his weight to his good leg, Luke said, “If you didn’t come down here to tell me what the present was, then why did you? And don’t give me the whole, ‘Sassy and I needed some fresh air’ spiel.”

“Sassy and I really did need some fresh air.”

Luke groaned. God save him from meddling teenagers. Julian Bryce was worse than Moira, and that was saying something.

“But,” Julian went on, “I wanted to ask you a question.”

“More than the one thousand questions you ask me daily? No, you cannot throw water balloons at tourists from your mother’s shop, and, yes, I promise that wearing glasses will not be the end of your lady-killing world.”

“None of those questions.”

Luke couldn’t even imagine the absolutely crazy shit Julian would come up with today. He made a give-it-to-me gesture. “Okay, let’s do this.”

This time when Julian’s shoulders snapped back, the move wasn’t slow and easy. It was sharp and militaristic, as if he’d been waiting days for this moment and didn’t dare screw it up.

Luke instinctually girded himself for the worst.

Not that he knew what the “worst” could be, because Julian’s favorite game was being unpredictable.

He watched the kid take a deep breath, hook an arm around Sassy’s neck, and rub the dog’s ear with his other hand.

“I’m losing more of my coolness every second, Jules. Hurry up before it’s gone.”

Julian’s breath whooshed out all at once, and his question hooked on the tail end, “Do you like my mom?”

Luke opened his mouth, and then was soundly cut off: “I know you said that she was the last woman on earth you’d date, but you gave her a present. She’s giving you a present. She told me that her date with Mr. Ajax was okay, but not life-changing. Are you . . . do you like her?”

At the mention that Anna’s date with Ajax hadn’t been spectacular, Luke felt an absurd burst of pleasure.

But then reality set in, and Luke remembered shit that he shouldn’t have even un-remembered, and that seed of pleasure dropped into the black void. “Listen, Jules, I think your mother is great, but I—”

Julian’s mouth firmed. “Don’t lie to me, Luke.”

“Or what?” he fired back, only slightly annoyed with himself that he was sparring with a teenager.

Julian’s blue gaze flicked back and forth, searching. “Or I won’t walk Sassy anymore.”

Poor Sassy lifted his big head, tongue lolling out of his mouth, eyes all squinty, as if to ask, you would abandon me?

In silent reply, Julian curled his hand into Sassy’s fur and edged the Dane just a little bit closer.

“You’d be a good blackmailer,” Luke finally said.

“I learned from the best.”

Lifting a disbelieving brow, he asked, “From your mom?”

“No, from Game of Thrones.”

Ah, touché.

“But do you, Luke? Like my mom, that is?”

Heart pumping, Luke looked beyond Sassy to the bustling French Quarter street. It was early evening and the tourists were out in full bloom. Moms pushing strollers, couples hanging off each other as they drank from their go-cups, tour guides leading schools of groups through the crowd.

He took a deep breath and turned to face Julian with the truth. “I shouldn’t.”

“But you do?”

Luke could only shake his head again. “I shouldn’t.”

As though accepting that was the best answer he was going to get, Julian began to back up with Sassy in tow. “You might want to figure that out before this evening. I think my mom is planning to bring her gift to your house.”

Shit. Tonight? He was a walking mess. He’d been restocking shelves, painting the office—he needed a shower, and he needed one about three hours ago. “You walking Sassy straight back to my house now?” he demanded to know instead of asking the myriad questions streaming through his head.

“Yup!”

“Straight back to my house, Jules!” Luke hollered. “You call me as soon as you enter the door, and you don’t move an inch until your mother picks you up.”

Julian was still close enough that Luke spotted the kid’s classic eye roll. He waved his hand in the air, and called back, “All right, Mom!”

The kid’s good-bye left Luke reeling on the stoop of Herbal Heaven. Because even though he knew Julian had just been joking, Luke imagined another word taking the place of “mom.”

Dad.

And that was a three-letter word that Luke had never let himself dwell on. Not once.