comforting, her father rigidly fair, silencing the angry clamor of her three brothers, who wanted to dump Tyler into the deepest part of the channel. Her sister, Chloe, married now, hadn’t been present, but she’d undoubtedly join them as soon as she heard.
Her father had been firm. Tyler had a right to see his son, Clayton Caldwell had said. They’d have to put up with it, for Sammy’s sake.
That had been the only thing that would make the twins and Theo behave, she suspected. David and Daniel considered themselves substitute fathers, while Theo had always been a big brother to his ten-years-younger nephew. None of them would do anything to hurt Sammy.
She rubbed her forehead tiredly, then tilted her head to stare at the porch ceiling, painted blue as the sky. She cherished her family, but coping with their reactions had made it impossible for her to work through her own feelings about Tyler’s reappearance.
Maybe she wouldn’t have been able to, anyway. Just the thought of him seemed to paralyze her with shock.
“Momma?” Sammy pushed through the screen door and let it bang behind him. “Grandma says you want to talk to me.”
She forced down a spurt of panic and patted the chintz-cushioned seat next to her. Please, Lord.
“Come sit by me, sugar. We need to talk.”
Sammy scooted onto the swing. Those jeans were getting too short already, she noticed automatically. He was going to have his father’s height.
His face clouded. “I studied for my arithmetic test. Honest.”
She was briefly diverted, wondering how Sammy had done on that test. What she had to tell him made arithmetic unimportant for the moment.
“I know you did.” She ruffled his hair, and he dodged away from the caress as he’d been doing for the last year or so, aware of being a big kid now. For an instant she longed to have her baby back again, so that she could savor every single experience.
Tyler had missed all those moments. Tension clutched her stomach. Was he angry about that? Or just angry that she hadn’t told him about his son?
Sammy wiggled. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
“No. I just need to tell you something.” She hesitated, searching for the words.
“Somethin’ bad?”
Sammy must be picking up on her apprehension, and that was the last thing she wanted. She forced a smile. “No, not bad. Just sort of surprising.”
Say it, she commanded.
“You know the man who was here this afternoon, when you got home from school?”
He nodded.
She took a breath. “Well, that was…Tyler Winchester.”
Sammy jerked upright on the swing. “My father?”
“Your father. He came to see you.”
Her son’s small face tightened into an expression that reminded her of his grandfather’s when faced with an unpalatable truth. “He never wanted to before.”
“Sugar…” He didn’t know about you. Her throat closed at the thought of saying that. She ought to, but she couldn’t.
“He wants to see you,” she said finally. “He wants to get to know you.”
Sammy slid off the swing and stood rigidly in front of her, his solemn expression at odds with his cartoon-character T-shirt. “When?”
“Maybe tomorrow after school?” She made it a question. “If that’s okay with you.”
“I’ll think on it.” That was what her father always said when presented with a problem. I’ll think on it.
“All right.” She was afraid to say more.
He went to the door, his small shoulders held stiffly. Then he paused. “Will you come up and say good-night?”
She couldn’t let her voice choke. “In a minute.”
She watched him disappear into the house. He’d taken it quietly, as he did everything, but this was a bigger crisis than he’d ever had to cope with in his young life. And she was to blame.
Had it really been for Sammy’s sake that she’d hidden his existence from Tyler? She struggled to say the truth, at least to herself.
She’d been so distraught when she’d come home from Baltimore, her marriage in tatters, that she hadn’t even realized what was happening to her body. By the time she did, she’d already been served with the divorce papers. The trek she’d made to Baltimore in a futile effort to see Tyler and tell him had only convinced her that their marriage was over.
She crossed her arms, hugging herself against the breeze off the water. She’d made her choice. This was the world for her son—the secluded island, the patient pace of life, the shabby inn, the sprawling Caldwell clan who’d accepted him without question as one of them.
Now Tyler was back, with his money and his power and his high-pressure life. He wanted to see his son.
What if he tried to take Sammy away? The question ripped through her on a tidal wave of panic. She wasn’t as naive now as she’d been at eighteen, but she still knew that power and money could sometimes overcome justice.
The Winchester wealth might dazzle Sammy. She couldn’t compete with all the things Tyler could give him.
Worse, Sammy could risk loving him, as she had. What were the chances Tyler would walk away again, leaving broken hearts behind?
Tyler pulled into the shell-covered driveway of the Dolphin Inn that evening, his lights reflecting from the eyes of a shaggy yellow dog who looked at him as if deciding whether to sound an alarm. His son’s dog?
That was one of the many things he didn’t know about his child. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been able to stay in his room at the island’s only resort hotel.
He’d never intended to start a family. The example his parents had set would be enough to sour anyone on the prospect of parenthood. It was too late now. He’d fathered a child.
Deep inside a little voice said, Run. Go back to Baltimore, forget this ever happened.
Tempting, but impossible. Would he eliminate those days with Miranda if he could, even knowing how their relationship would end?
Of course. Their marriage had been a mistake, pure and simple, born out of sunshine and sultry breezes.
He got out of the car, his footsteps quiet on the shell-encrusted walk. The dog, apparently deciding he wasn’t a threat, padded silently beside him. He rounded the building and had to force himself to keep walking.
Miranda’s family waited on the wraparound porch, at least the masculine portion of it. She’d told them.
Tension grabbed his stomach. They had no reason to welcome him. They couldn’t stop him, but they could
