Joe stood at the bottom of the stairs for several seconds before deciding to head up to the second floor. He walked down the hall to Sandra’s room, stood in the doorway, his gaze settling on the bed. He was, of course, no stranger to it. They had slept together here half a dozen times. And they’d had more than one rendezvous on the Cape. But they’d never been intimate in his own home. Wasn’t exactly easy, when you still lived with your mother. It wasn’t that his mother would have disapproved. She wasn’t a rigid moralist—thou shalt not screw your brains out before marriage—but did you really want to come down to breakfast in the morning and face her when she’d had to listen to the sounds of lovemaking the night before?

Once he had his mother settled into a first-class seniors’ facility, would he and Sandra live here? Would he move her and her kids to his place? Or maybe they’d sell both properties and start off with something new.

This would be after they went public with their relationship, of course. Once they’d told Archie and Katie. Joe wanted to get to know them better. The only real contact he’d had with the kids was the night he came here to break the news about the death of their father, not counting the time he’d had to bring Archie home when he scaled the mast of that ship.

He hoped the memory of delivering bad news wouldn’t be something the kids would hold against him. They’d have to move past that. He’d win them over. Take them, along with Sandra, for a day at the beach. Dinner at one of Garrett’s posh resort hotels. (Joe knew all the hotel managers, so he could get a break on the bill, maybe even wangle a freebie.) An overnighter to Boston, maybe. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, lunch at Cheers. Joe knew they’d grow to love him. Not as much as their own father, of course. That was totally understandable. And he’d leave any disciplining issues to their mother. He could foresee all kinds of problems if he tried to assume a fatherly role too soon.

Better to hang back. See how things worked out.

And given that Katie was already sixteen, she might not even be around that much longer. She was a bright kid. Joe was betting she and her mother were already talking about colleges. That’d mean, before long, it’d just be Sandra and Archie, who no doubt was in need of a good, strong father figure.

Joe knew he was born to play that role.

He wouldn’t just be gaining a wife when Sandra married him. He’d be gaining an entire family. Just like that.