Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) by Linda Lael Miller, Cathy McDavid

morning she showered, dressed and set out for the airport. After breakfast in one of the coffee shops there, she boarded Flight 187, bound for Fiji, New Zealand and Australia.
    The trip was incredibly long, with layovers at each stop, and Kate lost a full day of her life when they crossed the international dateline. By the time she arrived in Sydney, she was rumpled, cranky and exhausted.
    She took a cab to the hotel where her travel agent had made reservations and, after checking in and taking a shower, she collapsed into bed. When she awakened, it was nighttime, and the bridge stretching across Sydney Harbour glowed in the rainy darkness. Seeing the dense traffic still filling the lanes, she guessed it was still evening.
    She was wildly hungry. She called room service, then, sitting cross-legged on the bed, she dialed Sean’s number.
    A housekeeper answered. “Harris residence.”
    For a fraction of a moment, Kate didn’t know what to say. Should she introduce herself as Abby’s sister, Gil’s aunt or Sean’s friend? “This is Kate Blake,” she finally said. “Is Mr. Harris there, please?”
    “I’m sorry, miss,” the housekeeper replied, “but he’s out with friends tonight.”
    Kate felt a pang of jealousy, imagining Sean on a date with some other woman, but she quickly suppressed that unworthy emotion. She wanted to see Gil; his father’s social life had nothing to do with anything. “Will you tell him I called, please?” she asked.
    The housekeeper promised that she would and rang off.
    Kate’s dinner arrived, and she sat on the edge of her bed to eat, feeling strange and far from home. She’d forgotten the keen sense of isolation Australia could give a person—especially when that person was traveling alone.
    After wheeling the service cart out into the hall, Kate read for a while and then went back to sleep. A knock at her door awakened her early the next morning.
    Never at her best at that hour, Kate scrambled awkwardly out of bed, stumbled over to the door and tried to focus one eye on the peephole. She couldn’t see anyone, and was just about to turn around and stagger back to bed when another knock sounded and a young voice called, “Auntie Kate? Are you in there?”
    Kate’s heart hammered against her rib cage. She wrenched the door open and there stood seven-year-old Gil, looking up at her with Abby’s eyes. He had his mother’s hair, too, and Sean’s infectious grin.
    Until that moment Kate hadn’t realized how badly she wanted to see and hold this child. With a cry of joy, she enfolded the little boy in a hug, which he bore stoically, and then ruffled his golden hair. “Am I ever glad to see you,” she said. “Where’s your dad?”
    Gil pointed one finger toward the elevators. “He’s gone to get a newspaper,” he said.
    Kate appreciated Sean’s attempt to give her a few minutes alone with his son. She just wished they’d called first, so she would have had time to dress.
    Gil sat on the bed while she dashed into the bathroom to put on jeans and a turquoise pullover shirt. She was barefoot, both hands engaged in working her hair into a French braid, when she came out.
    “You don’t look anything like the pictures of Mom,” Gil observed, watching Kate with quizzical eyes.
    Of course, he would have been too little to remember Abby. A momentary sadness overtook Kate. “Your grandfather Blake used to call her his Christmas-tree angel,” she said.
    “What did he call you?” Gil asked with genuine interest, and Kate realized for the first time that her father had never given her an affectionate nickname. He called her Kate if he was pleased with her and Katherine if he wasn’t.
    “Just Kate,” she said.
    “Dad calls you Katie-did,” Gil announced. This time Kate noticed that several teeth were missing from the endearing grin.
    She searched her mind for something to say to a little boy. “Do you like to play baseball?”
    Gil squinted, then shook his head.