CHAPTER Twenty
“O.M.Geeee. Katelyn? Is that you?”
Katie swiveled in the baby goods and feminine hygiene aisle to the sound of her name. In her path was one of the last people she’d ever thought she’d see in a grocery store.
“Sasha?”
Sasha Godier lived in New York and occasionally France. What the hell is she doing here?
“It is you…” Sasha rushed forward in five-inch heels, which was a task in itself, and threw her arms around Katelyn’s shoulders. With heels, Sasha actually met Katelyn’s height. It helped that Katie was wearing a flat pair of shoes. And no makeup.
Katie rubbed a hand over her face and hoped her longtime friend…er, acquaintance, didn’t notice her lack of polish.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Sasha asked in a rush.
“Helping…er, a friend. My God, it’s good to see you.” Katie’s response was automatic and completely insincere. She expected no less of Sasha.
“You…you look positively…tired.” Sasha grasped Katie’s hands and offered a most stoic look of alarm. “Oh, God. Tell me your father hasn’t cut you off.”
She would think that…wouldn’t she?
“No. Nothing like that. You caught me at an awkward time. What are you doing here?”
Sasha glanced around her and whispered. “I met someone.”
“That’s great.”
Sasha ran a hand down her skirt and stood taller. “It is…he’s amazing. Married, but amazing.”
Speechless. There was no other response. “Married?”
“He doesn’t love her.” Sasha tossed a lock of perfectly dyed black hair from her shoulder and released a nervous giggle. “He flies in and sees me. And it’s soooo close to LA. Don’t you think?”
Katie bit her lip and avoided saying anything controversial. She and Sasha had partied in Vienna, and hit the best clubs in New York. They weren’t friends. Just…people who hung out. Plastic people who knew very little about the other. What Katie did know was that Sasha had always been looking for someone rich enough to help her escape her dysfunctional family.
To hear she was hooking up with a married man wasn’t surprising.
Actually, it was depressing.
“Very close to the city.”
They stood there, taking in the other in silence. “Well, I should go,” Katie told her.
“Great seeing you.”
“You, too.” Sasha kissed both Katie’s cheeks and let her swivel away. Out of the corner of Katie’s eye, she noticed Sasha grab an early pregnancy test.
Katie peered down at the bottles of formula in her basket and forced herself to continue walking forward.
It’s not your business.
Take the baby and run, she wanted to shout at her could be friend. But she couldn’t do that. Shouldn’t do that.
The cashier smiled as she rang up Katelyn’s purchases and bagged the formula.
In her car, Katie grasped the wheel and realized her heart was beating too fast. The lie she was living was larger than Sasha’s…by a lot.
Something needed to change.
The answers from Patrick were coming too slow for Dean’s taste. He’d spent some time researching private detectives and found one who specialized in finding parents of adopted children. Dean took the opportunity of Katie leaving Savannah in his care to snap a couple of pictures with his cell phone. Not that a picture could help that much. She’d grown so much in such a short time, she wouldn’t look at all like she did the day she was born. As he saw it, all infants started to look alike.
Savannah could easily be his niece or even Jack’s daughter for that matter.
As if hearing his thoughts, Savannah slowly blinked her eyes open.
Dean couldn’t stop the grin that spread over his face. She really was amazing.
Without waiting for her to fuss, he unbuckled her from the car seat and lifted her into his arms. She protested with a whine and, with one pat of her bottom, Dean understood her needs. He noticed a diaper bag left on his sofa and attempted to grab it while holding her. He fiddled a little before giving up and setting her down on the floor.
Savannah’s shriek filled the room.
“I’m hurrying, darlin’. No need to cry.”
But Savannah didn’t listen. She went on crying and flailing her arms as if to emphasize her point about his delay.
He found several diapers and a box of those wet wipe things moms used. Dean had seen Katie use a cushion for diaper changes and searched the bag for one.
“OK, baby girl. We’ll get you out of that old one and into this new one, but you’re going to have to give me a little break. I haven’t done this before.”
His words seemed to calm her a little. She blinked several times and hiccupped on her tears. He managed to unsnap the outfit and expose the damage.
“Whoa! What is your mama feeding you?”
A dozen wipes later, her tiny behind was clean and she was kicking her legs and smiling. “You like being naked? Is that what you want?”
Savannah kicked at his hand. He laughed and snuck a clean diaper under her. “My carpet won’t hold up to the abuse,” he told her. “And your mama would tie me up if she came home and you were exposed. We can’t have that,” he cooed.
It took him twice as long as it should have, but in the end, Savannah was clean and smiling as he talked to her.
He left her safely in the middle of the floor on her back and ran the soiled diaper to the outside trash. When he made it back inside, he found her on her tummy and lifting her head.
“Look at you.” He removed his cell phone from his pocket and crawled on the floor with her, taking pictures. “Did you do that all by yourself?”
Savannah smiled, lost the strength in her neck, and bopped her chin on the floor. She cried at the shock. He walked her around the room for a while, but she kept crying. He moved to the backyard and let the early evening air wrap around them.
That was where Katie found them less than twenty minutes later. Dean was pointing out different objects and plants with Savannah propped against him.
“There’s your mommy. I told you she’d be back.”
Katie stopped in the doorway and stared at the two of them.
“What? Do I have baby powder on my face?” Dean asked.
She shook her head and grinned. “No. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“I rushed and I didn’t need to. Look at you two. It’s sweet.”
Dean leaned down and brought his lips close to Savannah’s ear. “Hear that, I’m sweet. Maybe I can score some points and keep my girls here with me tonight?”
“Her bassinet is at the apartment.”
Dean shrugged. “Let’s go shopping. She’s getting too big for the tiny bed anyway. Might as well get ready for the next phase.”
“There isn’t room in the apartment for a crib.”
“I have plenty of room here.” The words popped out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying.
“Excuse me?”
He settled into the thought of Katie and Savannah staying with him. “Stay here. You and Savannah. Move in with me.”
Katie’s brows pitched together. “That’s fast, Dean. I mean, we’re just starting over. Moving in is huge.”
Dean placed Savannah on his shoulder and walked over to Katie. “What better way to see if this is going to work, with all of us, than to have you stay here.”
“I don’t know. It’s a major step.”
“And staying with Monica in an apartment wasn’t a big move? C’mon. It doesn’t have to be permanent. We’ll take it one day at a time. Besides, Savannah rolled over a little while ago. She’s growing out of her tiny quarters whether a crib will fit in your space or not.”
“She rolled over for you?” Katie’s eyes grew large. She reached out and took Savannah in her arms. “You rolled over? Oh, baby…I’m so proud of you.” She kissed Savannah several times.
“I take it rolling over is a new thing?”
“It is.”
“I took pictures.”
“You did?”
Dean moved into the house, shut the door, and fished his phone out of his pocket. He showed Katie the snapshots of Savannah grinning and lifting her head.
“Move in with me,” Dean said as he reached out and smoothed her hair with his hand.
“An instant family could be disastrous,” she warned him.
“Or it could be perfect. Since when do you shy away from a challenge?”
“You’re being manipulative, Dean Prescott.”
He chuckled and dropped his hand from her hair. “That’s how I get what I want.”
She didn’t say no…in fact, she looked like she might just be considering his proposal. He suppressed a grin and waited for her to say something.
“I’ll think about it.”
He chewed the inside of his cheek and rocked back on his heels. Thinking about it is a start.
“I can accept that.”
“It’s not a yes.”
He grinned. “No, I’ll think about it isn’t a yes. It’s closer to a yes than a no…but it’s not a yes.”
She squeezed her eyes together. “How do you figure?”
Dean looked to the ceiling and thought back on his childhood. “How often did Gaylord say to you, I’ll think about it, Katelyn…and he eventually said no?”
She tilted her chin. “If I buttered him up, he never said no.”
Dean let a slow, evil grin spread over his face.
Let the buttering begin!
The delivery boy from the local florist must have thought her suitor was crazy. First, there were roses…a dozen pink ones with a big red bow. Alongside the flowers was a package of diapers.
Katie couldn’t look at the flowers without laughing. Leave it to Dean to court her with diapers. The next day at work she told him about her strange gifts with a smart-ass comment about someone getting her address mixed up with a nursery.
The next day a bouquet of orchids arrived along with a box of formula.
At work, Dean asked how Savannah was eating. Katie let him know she wouldn’t be hungry for weeks.
Then came star lilies with a teddy bear…then sunflowers with a handmade knit blanket.
By the time Monica arrived home from Florida, the apartment looked like a gift shop.
“My God, this place looks like a flower shop threw up in here,” Monica said when she walked in.
“Dean.”
Monica dropped her duffel bag at the door and sniffed the first bouquet. “Did you fight?”
Katie laughed. “No. He wants me and Savannah to move in with him.”
Monica moved to the second set of flowers and sniffed. “All this to convince you to change your address?”
Smiling, Katie said, “Yeah. He sent stuff for Savannah, too.”
“Wow.” Monica moved into the room and flopped onto the couch. “Hold out for something that won’t die or get used up,” she told her with a laugh.
Katie reached over and hugged Monica. “It’s good to see you. How was it?”
“Amazing. I know it’s only training…but the people were crazy-excited about what they do. It’s an adrenaline rush like nothing else. There was disaster triage training, figuring out who was beyond saving, and working on those who had a chance.”
The thought sickened Katie, but she understood the drama enough through Monica’s eyes to be excited for her friend.
“Could you leave someone who was suffering to take care of someone else?”
“I don’t know. I have to try. In the ER we’re told that one day we might have to make that choice but, as of yet, I’ve always stayed with a patient until there was nothing left. The thought of getting out there in the thick of something and working day after day to help people…I like it, Katie. Helping people is why I wanted to be a nurse.” Monica’s green eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“Thank God there are people like you out there. I couldn’t do it.”
Monica tapped her thigh and moved from the couch to the refrigerator. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’d do what you had to if pushed to the wall. I doubt you’d crumble.”
Katie shrugged. “If pushed, maybe. But I wouldn’t jump in the disaster willingly.”
“According to you, you jumped into some crazy crap earlier in life.” Monica popped the tab on a soda and drank her fill.
Yeah, she had. But with Savannah, that had all changed. Actually, shortly after Jack and Jessie had hooked up, all that had changed.
No…when she and Dean had broken it off! That was when it had all changed. “Life is different now,” she said softly.
“So…ya gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Move in with Dean?”
“Should I?”
“Oh, don’t put this on me. This is your decision. You two have a huge history. I couldn’t give you sound advice if I wanted to.”
Fair enough. “I want to. I think I do.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“What if it doesn’t work? How badly will it hurt if I end up leaving?”
Monica drank more soda and smirked. “The easy questions,” she said. “That’s the problems with relationships. You don’t know if they are going to work out. There are no guarantees and tons of heartache along the way.”
“Some work out great, like Jack and Jessie.”
“Some suck, like your parents and mine.”
“That’s cold, Monica.”
Monica looked beyond Katie to a bundle of flowers. “And true, or you’d already be packed.”
She had her there. Fear was what kept her from moving her crap and giving in to the flowers and formula.
“Fear is a shitty way to live life.”
Monica leveled her gaze with Katie’s. “It’s when that fear goes away that you know you’ve found the right person to risk everything for.”