A Little Bit Engaged

by Teresa Hill

  Who’d have thought making out on her couch like teenagers could feel this good?

  Kate pulled his mouth back to hers, feeling like they were both playing with fire at this point, but what did it matter? They weren’t really going to do anything.

  Kisses and kisses and more kisses, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

  They both still had all their clothes on, and nothing was coming off.

  Still, it felt naughty, like something she definitely wasn’t supposed to do.

  Kate was never naughty.

  She kissed his gorgeous, generous mouth, his eyelids, his jaw and was teasing his ear when…

  She heard something.

  A gasp.

  Ben looked down at her, puzzled.

  “It wasn’t me,” she whispered.

  He eased off her, and they both sat up, looking at the hallway that led to Shannon’s room.

  Nothing there.

  Then, puzzled, they both turned the other way, toward the front door, and there was Kate’s sister, Kathie.

  “Oops,” Kate said.

  “I thought she’d moved out,” Ben whispered, scrambling to his feet.

  “She did. Kind of.” Kate jumped up, too. “I mean…mostly. Just not completely. She still has some things here.”

  Kathie stared at them as if they were sixteen and she was their mother. “I thought you got back together with Joe at the diner?” she yelled.

  “No,” Kate said.

  “Would you just make up your mind!”

  “I have,” Kate said. “I’m done with Joe.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Yes, I made it perfectly clear.”

  To which, her sister said nothing at all for the longest time.

  She looked so upset, Kate didn’t know what to make of it. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Kathie said. “I’m just great. I’ll come back for my things later, and I’ll call first.”

  She was out the door before Kate could say anything else.

  Kate turned back to Ben, wondering if he understood any better than she did, but before she could ask, she heard someone else behind them.

  Shannon stood there in her flannel pajamas, her hair all wet, her expression one of sheer disgust.

  “You guys want to get a room or something?” she suggested. “And try to use something more reliable than a condom. It didn’t really work for me, and I’d hate to see you get spit up on on a regular basis by a pint-size barbarian.”

  Then she stormed off back into her bedroom.

  Kate waited, to make sure no one else was going to show up and yell at them, then looked at Ben.

  “So,” he said. “That went well.”

  Kate tried to come up with some kind of look that spoke of both annoyance and some sense of enjoyment at the same time.

  “You had a really boring life until a few weeks ago, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “But it’s better now.” He seemed very pleased by that.

  Kate was, too, although she was in no hurry to tell him that. She folded her arms in front of her and said, “You’re a very unusual man.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I don’t even know if it was a compliment myself. How can you be so sure it is?”

  “Because you like me. And I like you.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And because an ordinary man just wouldn’t do for you, Kate.”

  Kate felt as though she’d gotten called into the principal’s office five days later, when in reality, it was a summons to Charlotte Sims’s office.

  “So, how are things going with Shannon?” Charlotte asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Because, I keep hearing things, Kate. Things about her maybe living at your house, and I have to tell you, that’s just not what we do here. We’re not supposed to become parents to these kids or guardians or anything like that.”

  “Oh. Okay.” So, she’d definitely broken a rule.

  “I mean, it’s good that you care, and I know these kids need a lot more than we can provide at times. But to just take a child into your home…the child welfare department frowns on that. They have rules. They like to do things like home studies and check references and bring you into the foster care program, and we try to stay on their good side. So, if Shannon was living with you…”

  Charlotte looked pointedly at her.

  Was Kate supposed to confess? Or deny it all, because if Charlotte didn’t know about it, Kate wasn’t getting her in trouble, just herself, right?

  She really wasn’t sure, because she never broke rules.

  “I’m…not really sure where Shannon is right now,” she said.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie.

  Shannon was supposed to be at school, but Kate already knew the girl had a habit of skipping. She could be anywhere.

  “Okay,” Charlotte said, taking a breath and letting it out slow. “But…you see her from time to time, and she seems all right?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “We took her to the doctor. Ben and I—”

  “Yes, I heard all about that.”

  “And her baby’s coming soon. A month or so, the doctor thinks. We got her prenatal vitamins, and I got her some maternity clothes. Or…well, she hated all the maternity clothes. But we got her some stretchy pants and big tops to wear. And Ben’s trying to help her figure out what to do once the baby comes. We’re meeting with a couple who adopted a baby a year ago, so Shannon can see them together and hopefully see how well that can work out.”

  “Okay. Anything else you want to tell me?”

  “No. Not really,” Kate said. Was there something else she should say?

  “Well. Great. Keep up the good work.”

  “We will,” Kate promised.

  She was out of the office in no time, thinking she really didn’t care about rules. Shannon needed a place to stay and someone to take care of her right now, and Kate and Ben were doing that. Kate didn’t care what the rules were!

  She was grinning like crazy as she walked out of Charlotte’s office and came face-to-face with Melanie Mann. She hadn’t been at her desk when Kate had arrived, but now here she was, looking almost scared.

  Of Kate?

  “Hi,” she said tentatively.

  “Hi,” Kate said.

  Melanie just looked at her, as if she was ready to get yelled at.

  Kate couldn’t think of why, and she really didn’t care that Melanie was the biggest gossip in the world. In fact, she thought it could come in handy. Kate was tired of all the gossip about her and Joe, the on-again, off-again stuff. It was ridiculous. She could clear that all up right now.

  “Melanie? Joe and I are done,” Kate said. “For good. That little scene in the café…I was just wishing him well. We’re not getting back together. Not ever. Understand?”

  Melanie nodded.

  “Spread it around, okay?” Kate said.

  She thought she must be wrong, but she could swear Melanie looked more scared than ever. How odd.

  That weekend Kate, Ben and Shannon visited a couple in Ben’s parish who’d adopted a little girl the year before. She was almost fifteen months old, walking like she was half-drunk, babbling constantly and drooling even more than baby Graham had been.

  But she looked very, very happy and absolutely at home with her adoptive parents, Tim and Tina Richardson. They were the cutest couple, high school sweethearts, they said. She was a secretary, and he was an engineer. They’d spent ten years trying unsuccessfully to have a baby before they managed to adopt baby Emily.

  She was doing her drunken-sailor walk, weaving and swaying and looking like she was going to fall over any minute, as she hurried from her mother to her father and then shyly off to Shannon, who was sitting on the floor trying to get the baby to come closer.

  Kate sat next to Ben on the sofa, trying not to say much of anything, letting Shannon find out what she needed to know.

  Emily finally got within a fo
ot of Shannon and stood there sucking on her fist, a little unhappy that the whole thing wouldn’t go into her mouth, but otherwise just fine. She started blowing out air, against her fist and making an “Ahhhoooo-ahhhooo-ahhooo,” sound as she worked the fist back and forth against her mouth, looking very proud of herself at the noise.

  “She seems…happy,” Shannon said, sounding as though she needed reassurance about that.

  “She is, most of the time,” Tina said. “Of course, she’s teething right now. That’s not easy. And she falls a lot, because she’s not that steady on her feet. But the doctor says all that’s normal for her age. She’s so funny. She stays so busy, she wears herself out. She’ll be running across the room one minute, and lying down on the floor asleep the next. When she gets tired, she just collapses wherever she is.”

  Shannon smiled sadly. “She’s really cute, too.”

  Emily grinned, as if she knew they were talking about her. She seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. She patted her own head with her tiny hand, then reached up and patted Shannon’s, again thrilled with herself.

  “Watch out,” her father said. “She pulls hair.”

  Emily’s grin turned diabolical. She was probably thinking about doing just that, then changed her mind, rushed back to her mother’s arms and hid her face against her mother’s shoulder.

  “She gets shy, too,” her mother said.

  “Does she know about her…other mother?” Shannon asked.

  “As much as she can understand at her age,” Tina said. “We’re not going to hide anything from her, and Wendy, her birth mother, brought her a little present at Christmas and on Emily’s birthday. We send pictures back, and sometimes Wendy calls. She’s a freshman at Georgia Tech now.”

  “So, her birth mother still sees her?”

  Tina nodded.

  “We don’t want to make this any harder for her than it already is,” Tim said. “She needs to know that Emily’s okay and happy and loved.”

  “I wasn’t sure I could do that… Still see the baby every now and then, I mean,” Shannon said looking to Ben and Kate.

  “A lot of adoptive parents are open to that, if that’s what you want,” Ben said.

  “Maybe. I mean, it would still be hard.” She looked to Tim and Tina, needing them to know that.

  “It has to be one of the hardest things in the world,” Tina said. “I know how much I loved Emily from the first moment I saw her, and even before that, it was like I was in love with the idea of her and everything I wanted her to be and all the times I imagined us having together. So even before I saw her, I loved her, and it wasn’t like I had her inside of me for nine months. I think you must love your baby already, and I’m sorry you don’t think you’re in a position to keep her. But…well, I just want you to know, there are a lot of people like us, who want children desperately, and the only way we can have them is through the generosity of someone like you.”

  Shannon worked hard to hold back tears. “I thought it was kind of selfish, wanting to give up a baby. I thought it just meant you weren’t willing to take care of it.”

  “We don’t think so,” Tina said. “We see her as a gift. A wonderful, amazing gift. I think any adoptive parent would.”

  “Plus…having her this past year,” Tim said. “Well…don’t get me wrong. We love her so much I could hardly tell you. But it’s not easy. It’s a lot more work than we ever realized. I mean, when they’re first born, they can’t do anything for themselves. They’re completely dependent on you. Everything she needs, whether it’s something to eat or someone to hold her or someone to provide a roof over her head—all of it has to come from us. She can’t really do anything for herself, and it’s a very big job, Shannon. I don’t know if I could have done it at your age. I didn’t know how big a responsibility it was, until she came.”

  “I know it would be hard,” Shannon said.

  “And you’ve lost you mother?” Tina asked.

  Shannon nodded. “Last year. But she didn’t really raise me. My grandmother did. She’s gone, too, now.”

  “And your father?”

  “I didn’t see him much when I was growing up. He took me in when my mother died last year, but…he’s really upset about the baby. He kicked me out of the house a few weeks ago.”

  “So you’re all alone?” Tina said. “That’s awful.”

  Shannon shrugged, not trusting herself to say anything, then just blurted out, “It would have been nice to have a father…growing up. Well, one who really cared about me and wanted me.”

  And then the four of them looked as if they felt sorry for her, exactly what she wanted. Pity. She might feel sorry for herself at times, but she sure didn’t need anybody else to. She was going to make some smart-ass crack about that, because she’d rather have them mad at her than pitying her.

  But then Emily held out her arms to her father, and launched herself at him.

  He caught her easily, as if he’d done it a thousand times, and made a growling noise, then put his mouth to the side of her cheek while he did it. She shrieked and twisted away, than came right back to him, throwing her arms around him.

  She seemed completely happy in his arms, completely secure, and his look said he adored her.

  Yeah, it would have been nice to have a father who loved her.

  The following Friday, Kate could not imagine things going better.

  It looked as if Shannon was coming around to the idea of putting her baby up for adoption, which Kate was sure would be the best thing for the baby and probably for Shannon, too.

  Kate’s sisters had moved in together and seemed fine with the arrangement. Kim had gotten a long-term substitute teaching job at the local middle school, working for a teacher on maternity leave with college behind her. Kate’s brother, Jax, was happy as could be with his fiancée, Gwen, and Kate climbed out of bed every morning happy and excited to see what the new day would bring.

  She hadn’t been this happy in years.

  She wasn’t getting as much done as she should have at work, but the place wasn’t falling apart, either, and she wasn’t there until all hours of the evening, either. She had something of a life.

  Kate finished with a stack of documents on her desk and moved them into another pile, the ready-to-go-out ones. It looked pretty high.

  “Gretchen?” she called out through the open door that led to the reception area.

  Her assistant appeared instantly. “Yes?”

  Kate picked up the stack of documents. “Just wanted to give you these.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Gretchen took them, but didn’t turn around to leave.

  “Anything wrong?” Kate asked.

  “Well…you’re humming,” she said, as if it were a crime.

  “I am?”

  Gretchen nodded. “You’ve been humming a lot lately.”

  “So? Is it a problem?”

  “No, it’s just… Is this some strange kind of coping mechanism, to help you get over losing Joe? Did you read some weird article about humming yourself happy or something? Mind over matter. Something like that? Because that would be like you.”

  “No, I didn’t read any articles. This is not a mind-adjustment exercise.” Kate laughed. Would she really have done that? Mind-adjustment exercises? Sure she could hum her way to happiness? She supposed she would have. Gretchen must have thought she was nuts. “I’m just happy, really.”

  Gretchen seemed puzzled by the concept. “Why?”

  “It’s a guy,” Kate confessed. “A really great guy.”

  “The priest?”

  “Yes.” Kate grinned broadly. She couldn’t help it. If this conversation went on much longer, she might find herself gushing about him, like some high school freshman who’d snagged a date with the captain of the football team or something.

  “He’s a priest.”

  “I know, but he’s a really great guy.”

  “He’s probably never going to make a lot of money. He probably doesn’t eve
n care about money,” Gretchen pointed out.

  “I know.”

  “You want a lot of money,” Gretchen reminded her.

  Kate shrugged. “So?”

  “Does that mean you don’t now?”

  “I don’t know. I just want him.”

  There. She’d said it out loud. How about that?

  “Want him? Like…?”

  “In every possible way,” Kate said.

  It just sort of rushed out of her. Gretchen looked as stunned as Kate felt. But now that it was out… She did want him. In every possible way.

  Kate grinned like an idiot, then picked up the phone. Ben answered on the first ring, sounding a little rushed and busy, the way she usually sounded.

  “Hi,” she said. “How do you feel about ice cream?”

  “Are we talking flavor preferences or waffle cones versus sugar cones, or the whole philosophical dilemma that comes into play regarding the purity of the product when toppings are added, like nuts and whipped cream?”

  “I just want to know if you like it.”

  “I do.”

  “And if you’d like to have some right now?”

  “I would.”

  “With me?”

  “Even better,” he said agreeably.

  “Meet me at the ice cream cart in the park in ten minutes?”

  “I’m there,” he said.

  Kate hung up, then stood and grabbed her purse. “I’m running away for a while.”

  “But…we have all these things to take care of. You have three closings in the next two days.”

  “Oh well,” Kate said, as she strolled out the door.

  Falls Park was a short walk from her office, down one street, down the next and then down the pretty stone steps to the park, which ran along the river surrounding the falls.

  Kate walked slowly, knowing she’d get there faster than Ben, and wondered how she could have such a gorgeous place so close to where she worked and hardly ever come here. It was practically a sin.

  Late October in Georgia meant the leaves were just starting to fall, the trees still full of gorgeous color. The sky was a deep, spectacular blue, the temperature altogether pleasant.

  It was without question a beautiful day, and she planned to enjoy it.

  She sat on one of the stone walls that lined the walk-way and lifted her face to the sun, closing her eyes and enjoying the warmth and the sense of light on her face.