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“I think it’s only too old if we let it be,” Lana said, thinking he wasn’t much older than she was.
“I guess I would be thinking more seriously about it if I had a wife. It seems... Almost like I’m not helping the children if they go from a bad home, to the home of a single man.”
“Children need a mom,” she said automatically. But, then she added, “And a dad.”
“Both,” he said with conviction.
“I raised my children without a father for the most part, and I think sometimes the Lord can fill in the gap if we depend on Him. I’m not saying it’s easy or that it’s best, just saying He can.”
“And sometimes He gives us an actual person to fill in the gap with us.”
At that, Pierre stopped moving, and he put both hands on her shoulders. They were at the edge of the dance floor, so Lana supposed no one noticed, although she couldn’t say whether they did or not because she couldn’t look away from the intense seriousness of his eyes. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but you have a pretty good relationship with my father, and he can tell you what kind of man I am. I won’t have time to court you like you deserve, but... If you’re interested in filling the position of mom for these kids, I feel like we could make it work.”
Lana blinked. Was he saying what she thought he was?
She had never thought that she might be in a position like this, but if she had, she wasn’t expecting the reaction of her emotions. It wasn’t excitement, it wasn’t even flattery. It wasn’t offense over what she was fairly sure was an off-hand offer of marriage.
It was fear. Deep and strong and sharp, it sliced up her inside and ballooned throughout her chest.
“Mr. Pierre! Mr. Pierre!” Three little bodies hurled themselves at Pierre, shattering the spell that might have wrapped around them, and allowing Lana to take a step back, breaking contact, as her hand fell from his shoulder and his slid from her waist and their clasped hands loosened.
“The lady said we could take a carriage ride if you would come with us! Please!”
“Oh! They started carriage rides. How nice. It’s a lovely night for it and so pretty and it’s not too cold. I think your children would love it.”
“You could come,” Pierre said, but his words just made the panic that was bubbling inside her more caustic.
“No. No. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of a good family thing.”
“You wouldn’t be.”
“Please! Can we go now? They said we could go first!”
“Sure,” Pierre said, although his eyes were still holding Lana’s. She shook her head, backing away, her hand at her throat. She wasn’t ready to just jump into a marriage. She was going to be choosy. She would make sure that if she did do marriage a second time, it wasn’t going to be a spur of the moment decision where some man needed a mother for his children so she hopped into the position like the marriage wasn’t a lifetime commitment, and like she hadn’t been cheated on and betrayed and cast aside and abandoned once already.
Once was enough in a lifetime.
“Are you sure?” Pierre asked softly over the chatter of the children around him.
He had gone and done something brave. Something that Lana herself had wanted to do, but just hadn’t. And now, he was asking her to do something brave too. Something selfless. Something that could potentially change four lives. But she shook her head no. And then, she couldn’t watch as Pierre, holding the hand of the little girl, his arm around the shoulders of one of the boys, turned and walked away, his children at his side.
That’s the kind of man she wished she would have married to begin with. But it was too late. Wasn’t it?
