“You never said. Is Katie going to be my new mommy? I mean is that what I should call her?” Robby asked, tugging at his tie interrupting his thoughts. His own suit was an exact replica of Luke’s, but he was clearly less comfortable in it.
He was far more fascinated with the concept of having a new mother. He rarely saw Betty Sue, which was her choice, not Luke’s and certainly not Robby’s. For weeks after she’d gone Robby had stood silently in front of her photograph, tears rolling down his cheeks.
Now, he asked Luke, “Would Mommy be mad if I called Katie Mommy, too?”
“I think she’d want you to do whatever made you happy,” Luke said.
Robby frowned. “But will Katie mind? I mean I’m not really her little boy.”
“That’s something you and she will have to decide.”
“Will we live in her house? I like it there. Mrs. Jeffers said I could call her Grandma, and I beat her at checkers. And it won’t be lonely with all those people around all the time.”
Luke felt as if he’d been sucker punched by Robby’s calmly delivered statement. No five-year-old should be talking about loneliness so matter-of-factly.
There was no question that Robby had spent far too much time alone in his young life. Betty Sue hadn’t been much interested in mothering. She’d had a list of available baby-sitters that would just about have filled his Rolodex and she hadn’t hesitated to call them morning, noon or night. As a result, Robby was amazingly adaptable and outgoing, almost desperate in his bids for approval. Some of those traits would benefit him, Luke supposed, but that knowledge didn’t assuage his guilt.
“It will be like getting a big family all at once, won’t it?” Luke said, wondering again at the odd sense of disappointment that had settled into the region of his heart.
What kind of privacy would a pair of newlyweds have in a crowded boarding house? And how long would it be before everyone in town knew that he and Katie were sleeping in separate bedrooms, as she’d dictated?
Of course, if every room were rented...
A slow grin crept across his face. Yes, indeed, that would solve that particular problem in a hurry. Katie couldn’t very well hold him to their deal if there was a paying customer for that extra bedroom. He swore to himself that he’d have that situation resolved by the time they came back from their farce of a honeymoon in Charleston. He’d sensed an ally in Mrs. Jeffers. Perhaps she would be willing to screen new applicants for the room. The whole matter could be handled in no time.
For some reason the thought of Caitlyn in his bed, in his arms, warmed him in a way that nothing else had in a very long time. He couldn’t think of a single other business merger that had affected him quite the same way, a fact that would have surprised his ex-wife. She’d always thought the only thing that turned him on was business. He hadn’t been able to deny it...until now.
Now it seemed that his best friend, the woman he was supposedly marrying solely for convenience, had the ability to make his whole damned body throb with anticipation. Something told him this marriage was going to turn out to be a whole lot more than he’d bargained for.
CHAPTER THREE
Lucy Maguire Ryder, who was the only person who knew the whole truth about this sham of a wedding, stood back and studied Katie speculatively. The close scrutiny had Katie squirming. She was nervous enough without her best friend looking her over with the intensity of the last quality control inspector on the assembly line at General Motors.
“You look beautiful,” Lucy declared finally, when she had straightened the hem of Katie’s new knee-length silk dress for the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes.
“Yes, you do, darling,” Peg agreed. “That pale pink brings out the roses in your cheeks, though why you wouldn’t agree to a fancy gown is beyond me. This is your wedding, hopefully the only one you’ll ever have. You should have all the trimmings.”
“Wedding gowns are outrageously expensive,” Katie said. She didn’t add that the boarding house debts had eaten up all of her savings. Such an admission might lead the conversation too close to her financial arrangement with Luke.
“I could have made one for practically nothing,” Peg began.
Katie quickly cut her off. “There was no time for you to make it and there was no point in spending all that money for a ceremony that will take five minutes,” she countered. “Luke and I agreed this was more sensible.”
“Sensible,” Peg repeated with a huff. “Weddings aren’t supposed to be sensible. People in love should indulge themselves just this once.”
Katie exchanged a look with her best friend and tried to avoid her aunt’s penetrating gaze.
“What?” Peg exclaimed, catching the two of them. Her forced cheerfulness died, replaced at once by suspicion. “What is it that you’re keeping from me? From the very beginning, I’ve suspected that you weren’t telling me the whole truth. Now what’s going on here?”
“Nothing,” Katie reassured her, giving her a hug. “Thank you for everything.”
Peg glanced from Katie to Lucy and back again, clearly not satisfied. Finally, apparently guessing that she wouldn’t learn anything from either of them, she shrugged. “Everything? I have a cake and a few canap;aaes at home. I always dreamed of—”
“Stop it,” Katie said firmly, before Peg had them all in tears with her description of the ideal church wedding she’d envisioned for her niece. “This is what I want—just a quiet ceremony with the people I love most. Isn’t that what really matters?”
To Katie’s relief, the question, for which there was only one reasonable answer, finally silenced her aunt’s litany of regrets.
“I’m sorry,” Peg said. “The last thing I want is to spoil this
