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another girl, he must never know the reason she’d called. “Don’t tell him. Promise me?”
    Luke’s mother hesitated, and when she spoke, her disappointment rang in her voice. “Okay. I won’t.” Her sigh tugged at Reagan’s heart. “But can I ask you a favor?”
    “Anything.”
    “Pray for him.” Mrs. Baxter sniffed again. “And one of these days, give him a call.”
    Reagan pulled herself from the past and sat straighter. She had prayed for Luke all last night, and still she ached at her role in what had happened. Was it her fault? Had Luke walked away from his family, his faith, because she’d refused his calls?
    She sighed. The possibility was too awful to worry about right now. Certainly the day would come when she’d have to face it, but not here, not now. She hadn’t come to Ground Zero to wrestle tormenting thoughts of Luke.
    Once more, she gazed into the gaping hole where the towers once stood, concentrating on how the towers had looked—tall, dominating the skyline. Then she fixed her eyes on the place where she was sure her dad’s office had been. “Daddy…I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
    The tears came, not in torrents or even streams, but just enough to sting the corners of her eyes. She blinked and waited until the feeling went away. She’d cried so much after September 11. Entire days had passed when she wondered if she’d ever go an hour without weeping. These days her eyes were usually dry, but the ache in her heart felt pretty much permanent.
    She missed her father so much, missed the life they’d had before September 11. “I’m doing the best I can, Daddy.” She squinted and blinked back another few tears. “Happy Birthday.”
    A dump truck rolled past just a few yards away. Reagan never took her eyes from the spot in the sky. “I miss you.” She caught three quick, jerky breaths, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears. Her whispered voice was thick. “I…I love you, Daddy.”
    In response, her swollen abdomen tightened, and she rested her open hands across her belly, stroking the place where the baby grew within her. It’s okay, little one. Mommy’s all right.
    She was seven months pregnant—no surprise there. But until the test she’d been certain she was carrying a girl. Not so, according to the ultrasound. The baby was a boy. Reagan had already decided on a name.
    Her tears stopped. She stood and stretched, wiping her fingers beneath her eyes and taking a final look at the towering metal cross. It was time to go home, time to help her mother with dinner. Besides, she needed her rest. She wanted the very best for her precious baby boy. A boy who would carry the name of both his grandfather…and his father.
    A boy named Thomas Luke.

CHAPTER TWO
    A SHLEY HAD MIXED FEELINGS about the announcement Kari and Ryan were about to make that evening. No doubt they were getting married; the news could hardly be anything else. The Baxter dinner party that night would be filled with laughter and congratulations and remembered moments from when Kari and Ryan first met as kids. The group would eat Chinese food, celebrate with cake, and know in their hearts that two people couldn’t possibly be more meant for each other than Kari and Ryan.
    For the most part Ashley was thrilled for her older sister. Ryan had loved Kari since she was sixteen, and this…this announcement, if that’s what it was, had been overdue for years.
    But with Landon in New York City, Ashley’s happiness couldn’t be complete. She gritted her teeth. When would the announcement be hers, and when would life finally take on that happily-ever-after quality that always seemed to elude her? She ran a sponge over the last of the crumbs on the counter and stared out the window at her parents’ backyard. She’d spent so much time there as a teenager. The view was simple and striking, and in springtime it held a million shades of green. Maybe she’d set her easel up out back of the old farmhouse for