A Bride by Summer. Sandra Steffen

item of clothing they owned was dirty. They needed help around here with laundry and dishes and especially with Joey’s care, which was why they were interviewing someone later this morning. Luckily, Joey seemed oblivious to the havoc his arrival had brought. Tipping the scales at eleven and a half pounds, he was a handsome, sturdy baby with hair as dark as Marsh’s and eyes that were gray-blue like Reed’s.

      “Hi, buddy,” Reed said with more emotion than he’d known he was capable of feeling for a child so small. He carried the baby to the table and took a seat. “Is this formula still good?” he asked his brother.

      Marsh looked at his watch, nodded, and Reed offered the baby the last ounce in the bottle. As Joey drank, he looked up at him and wrapped his entire hand around Reed’s little finger. Reed was growing accustomed to the way his heart swelled, crowding his chest.

      He’d read a tome’s worth of information and suggestions about how to care for infants these past ten days. Maybe the way Joey grasped the finger of whoever was feeding him was reflexive. Reed was of the opinion that it had more to do with being a Sullivan, which among other things meant he wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.

      Marsh was leaning against the counter across the room, ankles crossed as he somberly sipped his coffee. “How many times do you think we waited out the night sitting around that table?”

      “During Noah’s rebellious years—which was most of them—and last year with Madeline? Too many to count,” Reed said.

      It reminded them both that they weren’t novices when it came to handling tough situations. After their parents were killed in an icy pileup on the interstate thirteen years ago, twenty-three-year-old Marsh had suddenly become the head of the family. Reed had nearly doubled his class load at Purdue, and as soon as he graduated a year later, he’d come home to help. Noah had been a hell-raising seventeen-year-old then. Their sister, Madeline, had been fourteen and was struggling to adjust to a world that had changed overnight. It was hard to believe Noah and Madeline were both married now.

      “This feels different, doesn’t it?” Reed said, looking into Joey’s sleepy little face.

      “Different in every way,” Marsh agreed.

      Marsh tore the paternity test kit package open, read the directions and then handed them to Reed, who carefully moved Joey to the crook of his left arm, then read them, too. They filled out the forms with their pertinent information and followed the instructions to the letter before sealing everything in the accompanying airtight sleeves.

      “What do you think Dad would say if he were here?” Reed asked as he closed the mailing carton.

      “After the shock wore off, he probably wouldn’t say much,” Marsh answered quietly. “Mom would be the one we’d have to worry about.”

      Reed and Marsh shared a smile that took them back to when they were teenagers. Reed said, “She’d expect us to do the right thing. They both would.”

      “We are doing the right thing, or at least as close to the right thing as we can under the circumstances,” Marsh said. “Have you decided what you’re going to do if Joey is yours?”

      Reed eyed the baby now sleeping in his arms. If Joey was his son, it meant Joey’s mother was the curvy blonde waitress named Cookie who’d accidentally spilled chili in his lap during a layover in Dallas last year. She’d blushed and apologized and somehow, when her shift was over, they’d wound up back at her place.

      “If it turns out Joey’s mine, and Sam locates Cookie and she has a legitimate reason for leaving him, I’d like to get to know her better.” He wished he’d asked more questions that night. She’d mentioned an ex-husband, somewhere, and a local play she’d been auditioning for. He didn’t recall ever hearing her last name. Now he wished he had asked. After all, if she was the mother of his son, she deserved better. She deserved the chance to explain. “What about you? What will you do if the test proves Joey is yours?”

      Marsh took his time considering his reply. “The week I spent with Julia on the Outer Banks last year was pretty damn idyllic. I thought I knew her as well as a man could know a woman. I thought we had something. If Joey is our son, she would have had to have a very good reason for all of this. The Julia I knew wouldn’t have left Joey unless she had no other choice. I have a hundred questions, but it does no good to imagine what might have happened to her or what might be happening to her now. I only know that if Julia is Joey’s mother and I am his father, she will return for him, and when that happens I’d like to try to work things out, as a family.”

      It wasn’t surprising that they wanted the same thing, for Reed and Marsh were both family men at heart. They grew silent, each lost in his own thoughts. The only sound in the room was Joey’s hum as he slept in Reed’s arms and the tick of the clock on the old stove.

      “Why don’t you put Joey in his crib for his morning nap,” Marsh suggested. “The agency is sending another woman out for an interview later. You should have plenty of time to overnight the paternity kit and be back before then. Unless you want me to mail it.”

      “You had the late shift with Joey,” Reed said. “I’ll take the kit to the post office.”

      After laying Joey in his crib in the home office they’d converted into a nursery last week, he returned to the kitchen, where Marsh was still somberly sipping coffee. Keys in one hand and the sealed test kit in the other, Reed headed for the door.

      “Hey, Reed?” Marsh stood across the room, his jeans riding low, his stance wide, his brown eyes hooded. “May the best man win.”

      Again, that grin took Reed back to when they were kids and everything was a competition. He shook his head, but he couldn’t help grinning a little, too.

      Getting in his car with its loosened side mirror, he wondered if Marsh was picturing Julia right now. Reed could only wonder what might have prompted Joey’s mother—whoever she was—to leave him with only a vague note and a loose promise to return for him.

      He was at the end of the driveway when it occurred to him that he couldn’t seem to bring Cookie into sharp focus in his memory. Her bleached-blond hair kept switching to red.

      * * *

      “How was your drive?” Ruby’s closest friend, Amanda Moore, asked the minute Ruby got back. “Tell me you got completely lost.”

      Ruby shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”

      “Not even slightly turned around?” Because Amanda had been lost when she’d met her fiancé, Todd, she was convinced that the key to finding happiness was that sensation she’d experienced when she’d made a wrong turn but somehow wound up in the right place.

      But as Ruby had told her a hundred times, she didn’t get lost. Ever. Her innate sense of direction was intricately linked to her keen memory for all things visual. Both had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years.

      “The reunion is in just over two weeks.” Amanda was tapping away on her notebook at the end of the bar in Ruby’s new tavern. “That doesn’t leave us very much time to find you a date.”

      “You’re my best friend, and I would give you a kidney or the shirt off my back,” Ruby declared from behind the bar. “But I told you. I’m not taking a date. From now on I’m flying solo. I mean it, Amanda.” Her laptop was open, too. Next to it was the box she’d started filling with cameras from the former owner’s collection. “I don’t even want to attend the class reunion.”

      “You have to, Ruby.”

      “Peter’s going to be there.”

      “I know,” Amanda said gently. “That’s why I think you should bring a date. As former class officers, we’re not only the planning committee, but we’re the welcoming committee, too. Don’t even think about trying to get out of it. You promised, and you never break your promises.”

      With a sigh, Ruby returned to compiling the menu of drinks that would be indigenous to her saloon.