“About that. . .” She glanced up at him, her expression wary. “My mother is due home in a couple of weeks. I’d like to wait for her, if that’s all right with you.”

“Of course it is. Whatever you want.”

“Will you always be such an accommodating husband?”

“Maybe not always, but it’ll always matter to me that you’re happy.”

She bent to put Thomas down on the carpet and linked her arms around Mac’s neck. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” she said, drawing him into a kiss. “I missed you so much.”

“Me, too. I thought I’d go crazy without you.” Mac wanted to lose himself in the kiss, but he held back. “Hold that thought for a second, will you?”

Moaning in protest, Maddie released him.

“So, um, there’s something I have to tell you, and you might get mad at me for not telling you sooner, but I had a really good reason—”

“What’ve you done now?”

Mac withdrew the envelope from his back pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.”

Giving him that wary look she did so well, she withdrew the papers from the envelope and scanned them.

He was about to explain when she gasped, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

“Before you freak out, will you listen to me?”

She couldn’t seem to speak, so she nodded.

“A couple of days after we ran into him on the ferry, he found me in the diner when I was there with Thomas. He said he’d asked around and knew we weren’t married and that we hadn’t been together long. He’d figured out that Thomas was probably his.”

“Oh God,” she whispered. The stricken look on her face broke his heart and confirmed he’d done the right thing by not telling her when it happened. “Oh my God!”

Mac rested his hands on her shoulders. “All he cared about was that we’d come after him for money.”

“I’ve never wanted his money!”

“And I told him that, but he wanted assurances. I said we’d sign something releasing him from financial obligation if he’d sign away his rights to Thomas so I can adopt him.”

She wrenched free of Mac’s hold and began to pace the big, empty room.

From the floor, Thomas watched them with that big-eyed solemn expression of his.

“This happened weeks ago! When were you going to tell me?”

“As soon as I had the signed papers from him, which Roseanne delivered to me with my mail. I was going to bring them to you tonight.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the day it happened? We’re right back to you keeping things from me!”

Mac forced himself to stay calm. “If I’d told you that he knew about Thomas, you wouldn’t have been able to breathe or sleep or eat for the two weeks it took him to get these papers to me.”