“What about...” He hesitated, his sleepy, blue-eyed gaze fixed hopefully on Katie. “I don’t know what to call you now that you and Daddy are married.”
Luke’s breath snagged in his throat as he waited for her response. There was only the faintest pause and a quick glance at Luke before she knelt to be at Robby’s level. Her mouth curved into a smile that Luke wished desperately she’d turn in his direction.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she admitted. “What would you like to call me?”
“Daddy calls you Katie.”
“Except when he’s mad,” she confided. “Then he calls me Caitlyn.”
Robby grinned. “He calls me Robert when he’s mad at me. And his face gets all scrunched up. Sometimes I think he’s gonna ‘splode.”
Katie chuckled, glancing up at Luke. “Yeah, it does look that way, doesn’t it?”
“I had no idea I was so predictable,” Luke commented. He looked at his son. “So, what’s it going to be, sport? Do you know what you want to call Katie?”
Robby hesitated. “I guess I should call you Katie,” he said with obvious reluctance.
Luke could see the disappointment on his son’s face and realized that Robby really wanted to have someone in his life he could call Mommy, even if it wasn’t his real mother. At the moment, though, loyalty to the absent Betty Sue kept him from admitting it.
“You know,” Luke said lightly. “Whatever you decide tonight doesn’t have to be your final choice. You can always change your mind.”
“Absolutely,” Katie agreed. “You call me whatever you feel comfortable with and anytime you want to change it’s okay with me.”
Robby nodded. “If you make me eat spinach, I’ll probably call you Caitlyn.”
Katie laughed, and for a minute the tension in the hallway seemed to ease. Peg was watching her niece with Robby, tears gathering in her eyes, and a smile on her lips. Truth be told, Luke was a little misty-eyed himself.
“Will you read me a story?” Robby asked Katie.
“It’s a little late for a story,” Luke protested. “Besides, I’ll bet Peg already read you one.”
“Two,” Peg confirmed.
“But I’m going to bed all over again,” Robby countered reasonably.
“Obviously he’s picked up your negotiating skills,” Katie said. “Come on. I’ll read you a very short story.”
“Something scary?” Robby asked hopefully as the two of them went up the stairs together. “I really like stuff about goblins and monsters and stuff.”
“Hey, I’m not reading something that’ll keep me awake all night,” Katie retorted. “I was thinking more along the lines of, say, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
“That’s baby stuff,” Robby argued indignantly.
As Luke watched them climb the stairs side by side, a deep sense of satisfaction stole through him. It was going to work out just fine, he told himself. Katie was the perfect mother for his son. Whatever her own misgivings about their arrangement, she would do her best for Robby.
And, he thought with a renewed sense of conviction, she was the perfect wife for him, even if it was in name only at the moment.
“Luke?”
Peg brought him back to the present.
“Let’s go into the living room,” he suggested and led the way. When they were settled, he gazed into Peg’s worried eyes. “I’m going to handle Tommy.”
“How?”
“In court.”
“But how will you deal with him if he shows up here? Maybe it’s time you told Robby the truth, so he won’t hear it by accident. It would be just like that brother of yours to blurt it out without thinking.”
She was absolutely right. He’d known that. It was what had brought him racing back to Clover this afternoon. Luke groaned and buried his face in his hands. “God, what a mess! If only I’d known six years ago...”
Peg waved off the statement. “Would you have done anything differently?”
“No,” he conceded. “I did what was right. I wouldn’t have given up having Robby in my life for anything.”
“Well, then, that’s what you have to keep in mind. It’ll give you the strength to do whatever it takes to keep your son with you.”
“I’ve asked a lot of Katie.”
“Then she knows,” Peg said with a relieved expression. “Good.”
For a moment his confidence in his plan wavered. “Am I asking too much?”
“Has she complained?”
He shook his head. “Not nearly as bitterly as I expected.”
“Well, then, that should tell you something. You’ve thrown her a curve, but Katie’s strong. More important, she loves you.”
“I’m not sure I even understand that kind of love,” Luke admitted candidly. “Maybe she’s just resigned to her fate.”
“Nonsense!” Peg reached over and patted his hand. “You’ll just have to let Katie show you the way, won’t you? Besides, anyone who’s made the sacrifices you have for your son surely does know all there is to know about love and commitment.” She stood. “I think I’d best be going. You two have plans to make. If you need anything, Luke, you give me a call. That’s what family’s for.”
Luke regarded her ruefully. “Maybe some family,” he noted dryly. “Others just seem bent on causing trouble.”
When Peg had gone, Luke drew in a deep breath, then went upstairs to the room Katie had set aside for him and his son. He found Robby sound asleep, but Katie had remained curled up on the room’s second twin bed, a pillow clutched in her arms, her gaze fixed on the boy opposite her. There was something so tender, so wistful in her expression that Luke’s throat clogged and he felt the sting of tears in his eyes.
Suddenly he thought of all that he’d denied her—all that he’d denied both of them—by walking away six years earlier. Would he ever be able to make amends for all of that? Before he could start yet another apology, Katie glanced up and met his gaze.
“You’re so lucky,” she whispered, absentmindedly brushing at an errant tear. “He’s a wonderful boy.”
“I wish...” he began, but then didn’t know how to finish.
Somehow, though, Katie seemed to read his mind. She reached for his hand. “So do I, but
