Sarah rolled her eyes. “Yeah, she seems like she wants to work things out.”

“Give her a little time.”

“I think it’s obvious I’ll be the one doing all the giving.”

Luke wondered about the pampered princess Margaret described and whether she and the woman standing before him were really one and the same.

Maybe over the last few years Sarah had changed.

Maybe she wasn’t at all like Margaret described.

“Now you’ve seen that I’ve delivered them to her. I assure you I will stay out of her way and let her enjoy her time with them. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get our things inside. The sun is setting, and I need to feed my bottomless boys.”

Luke wasn’t quite ready to go.

He liked a good puzzle, and Sarah was like a thousand pieces sitting on a table just waiting for him to sort out and fit together. It would nag at him until he figured out who this woman truly was. And he would find out.

Chapter Five

Sarah didn’t know what to make of Luke. He didn’t seem quite sure of her, and she could only blame Margaret for that.

Sean had never mentioned Luke as a childhood friend. Then again, he really only liked to talk about himself. And he’d been a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. She’d liked that about him, because she often thought about her crummy past and found herself wallowing in all the bad instead of focusing on how far she’d come and all the good in her life.

Once the boys came along, she had so much good to focus on with them.

She wanted to place some of the blame on Luke for Margaret threatening to take her to court, but he seemed sincere that he thought they could resolve their issues with this voluntary visit. Even if it had been forced.

Luke didn’t take the hint to leave and pulled all three suitcases out of the back of her SUV. “I’ll take these in for you. You grab the other stuff.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

He started toward the house. “I know. Just being neighborly,” he reminded her.

She wondered if there were indeed ulterior motives at play.

Fine. Let him and Margaret watch her. She expected to be scrutinized by Margaret the whole time she was here anyway. So be it. They’d see. She loved her boys. She was a good mother. No one could say any different.

She grabbed the computer bags out of the back of the car, slammed the lid, and caught up to Luke on the porch. The second they walked in the front door, Margaret called out, “Take the two bedrooms at the top of the stairs on the left.”

Luke followed her up the gorgeous oak staircase.

She walked into the first bedroom on the left and found a beautiful cream-colored room with a king-size bed. A stack of sheets and blankets sat atop the bare mattress. The huge antique dresser had a beveled mirror above it. Crystal vases stood on each end of the dresser and a huge crystal chandelier hung in the center of the room. A cream-colored rug stood out against the dark wood floor. Everything had a thick layer of dust covering it. Stuffy; the air smelled stale.