Romance: Altered Engagement (Wild Hearts, Contemporary Romance Book 1)

by Nancy Adams

  Kylie reached out and took Katie's hand in her own. “Katie, I don't know the answer to that question,” she said, “but I can tell you that you're a whole lot better off without Darren. I always liked him, but now—now he just seems like a creep, y'know?”

  Katie Lou smiled sadly. “Oh, yeah, I know. When we saw him at the restaurant last week, he kept watching me, and at first I thought, 'Yeah, you're regretting it now, aren't you, Butthead?' But after he kept watching me for a while, and never got up the nerve to even come over and say anything, it hit me that it felt more like when a stalker is watching you, and I started to get goose bumps from it. Weird, huh?”

  “Not so weird, considering the guy had just dumped you a couple nights before. If he tells you he's done, and then keeps following you around, then, yeah, it's creepy.” Kylie tugged on her hand, and Katie looked at her. “So, you wanna go to the store with me? Never know, we might run into some cute guys.” She gave her sister a mischievous grin. “We can make 'em wish they were gonna have fried chicken with us!”

  Katie laughed. “If they see me, they might wish for fried chicken,” she said, “but any guy who's looking at you isn't gonna be thinking of food! Sure, I'll come along. Let's go to Walmart, I need to get a few other things, anyway.”

  Kylie smiled, and they turned and headed right back out the door. Kylie opened the truck's door and Katie swung herself back inside, then waited while her sister put the wheelchair in the back. A moment later, they were on their way to Walmart.

  The big supermarket was only a few minutes away from their home, so it didn't take them long to get there. Rather than get out of the wheelchair, Katie waited in the car for a few moments while Kylie went to fetch one of the powered chairs that the store provided for handicapped customers. It was a little harder for Katie to get into it, because they couldn't get it as close to where she sat in the car. Normally, it would require Kylie actually lifting her from the car onto the seat, but this time, Katie wanted to try things a little differently.

  By the time Kylie got back, Katie had the door open and had managed to turn in her seat so that her feet were actually on the ground. Kylie turned the power cart around, and backed it in to get a little closer, but then Katie, using the roof of the car and the open door to help support herself, managed to get up onto her feet. She stood there for just a moment, and then quickly turned and sat down on the power cart.

  Kylie jumped up and down, clapping her hands. "Katie, holy cow, Katie," she was saying, "that was awesome! Oh my goodness, you stood up and got into the chair all by yourself!"

  Katie was a little out of breath from the exertion, but she smiled up at her sister as she used her hands to help lift her legs onto the cart. "Yeah," she said. "Hey, I just figured after spending most of the morning walking back and forth between those bars, I should be able to manage standing up for the few seconds it would take to get onto this thing. And, what do you know, it worked!"

  She drove the cart forward so that Kylie could close the car door, and they headed into the store. Since the power cart had a basket on it, they didn't bother getting another shopping cart. Everything they needed would fit into the basket they had.

  They headed into the grocery section, and straight to the meat counters. Kylie chose a package of leg quarters, and another of breast quarters, and then Katie followed her toward the canned vegetables. Four cans of cream-style corn later, they swung through produce to pick up a bag of potatoes.

  "Okay," Katie said, "I need to grab some shampoo and conditioner, oh, and some nail polish. Is there anything else we need for dinner?"

  "We ought to do something about dessert," Kylie said. "Any ideas?"

  "Oh, yeah, I've got an idea! Cheesecake! I have been dying for cheesecake the last few days," Katie said. "Let's get the stuff, and I'll make it."

  It only took a few minutes to gather the ingredients for cheesecake, and then they were headed for the beauty section. They were halfway across the store when Katie heard her name called, and stopped to look around. The lady who was coming toward her was one who Katie had known since she was a little girl. Connie Willis had been her Sunday school teacher when she was a child, and Mr. and Mrs. Willis were still friends of the Brennan family.

  "Oh, my goodness, I was right! Katie, it is you, isn't it?"

  Both Katie and Kylie smiled, and accepted the hugs that Connie gave them. "Connie, hi! Yes, it's me. How have you been?"

  "Oh, me, I'm fine," Connie said. "I heard you were hurt in an accident, but I didn't know you were back home already. How are you? I mean, are you getting, you know, better?"

  Katie grinned and shrugged. "I'm getting better, yes," she said. "I'm slowly getting the use of my legs back, and I'll be walking again pretty soon. I may have to use a walker for a while, but that's just to help teach my legs what they're supposed to do again. They seem to have forgotten."

  Connie nodded her head. "You're probably too young to remember, but my brother was in an accident about thirty years ago and ended up in a wheelchair for a couple of years. Just like you, he had to learn how to walk all over again. Of course, doctors have learned a lot since then, so hopefully things go easier for you than they did for him."

  "Well, I've had some good doctors, I can say that," Katie said. "Right now, the main focus is on physical therapy, and I go to that everyday. They're teaching me exercises that are helping my legs remember how to move, or teaching them new ways to get the message."

  Connie smiled and hugged Katie again. "Well, it's just so good to see you, and to know that you're going to be walking again, that's just a blessing. We've all been praying for you at church, and I'll be happy to go back and tell them that our prayers are having some good effects."

  Katie smiled and pulled the older lady down for another hug, then kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you," she said, "and please don't stop praying yet. I need all the prayers I can get, believe me."

  Connie said goodbye to both of them, and went back to where she had a cart full of groceries waiting to check out. Katie and Kylie made their way on to the beauty department, where Katie got the things she needed, and Kylie suddenly remembered an item or two she wanted for herself.

  Katie grinned at her. "Somebody's getting ready for a date," she said. "Should we stop at the dress shop on the way home?"

  Kylie stuck her tongue out at her sister. "Very funny," she said. "It's a first date, and it's probably only happening because you were such a tease. If you think I'm going to spend any serious money trying to impress this guy, you're off your bird. He can have me in the same dress I wore on my last date, or he can find somebody else."

  Katie laughed. "Yeah, sure," she said, "like I believe that. You’ve been trying to get Rob's attention since the day we met him; somehow I think you've got something nice in mind for your first date with him."

  "Well, I guess that's for me to know, and you to find out, if you can." Kylie stuck her tongue out again and turned to head for the checkout lines. Katie grinned and turned the cart to follow.

  It only took them a few moments to get checked out, and then they were back in the car and headed for home. Katie was leaning back on her seat, with her eyes closed, seemingly deep in thought. Kylie glanced at her couple of times, but didn't say anything; she figured if her sister needed to talk, she'd say so.

  Katie rolled herself in when they got back home, while Kylie got their purchases out of the car and brought them in. By the time they had everything put away, Katie was getting out the pans and dishes they would need to make dinner, not to mention the things she'd need for making the cheesecake. Kylie grinned at her, then slipped upstairs to her room to change clothes. Making fried chicken would be messy, she knew, and she didn't want to get flour or grease splatter on the nice outfit she was wearing. She came back down moments later wearing workout shorts and a t-shirt.

  Katie was mixing cream cheese, eggs, sugar, vanilla extract and sour cream together, with the ready-made graham cracker crust waiting for the mixture to fill
it up. The oven was preheating, and Kylie looked over her shoulder.

  “You're being awfully quiet,” she said, and Katie Lou jumped, startled.

  “Oh, don't do that!” she said. “I wasn't expecting you to be there, you scared the dickens out of me!”

  Kylie tried not to laugh, but she couldn't stop it. “Oh, my,” she said, “I'm sorry! I didn't mean to sneak up on you, I thought you knew I was here! I made enough noise, clomping down the stairs.”

  Katie grinned. “Yeah, you probably did,” she said. “I was lost in thought, again, that's all. You know the last time I made cheesecake? Bet you can't remember.”

  Kylie thought about it for a moment. “Um, was it when you told us about Darren's proposal?”

  Katie shook her head. “Nope, and I knew you wouldn't get it. The last time I made this was for your graduation from high school. Remember, I came home from college the week before, and we had that big party for you? That was the last time I made this cheesecake.”

  Kylie grinned. “Wow, that has been a while. Almost two years, now. You used to make it all the time when we were teenagers.”

  “Yeah. I think a lot of things change when you suddenly realize that your life isn't gonna be quite the way you envisioned it. I haven’t done a lot of things I used to do all the time. How long has it been since we sang in church? Wow, we used to sing almost every other Sunday morning.”

  Kylie grinned. “Yeah, we did. I kept it up for a while, after you went off to school, but I think a few people were relieved when I finally went off to college, too. I don't sound as good by myself as I do when I'm singing harmony to your melody.”

  The two girls reminisced for a while as they worked in the kitchen, talking about some of the things they each missed about their teens, and laughing at some of the pranks and antics they'd pulled. Kylie got Katie to blush when she told her how she'd overheard Katie and her friend Sherry talking about their “first times,” but Katie got her back when she reminded her little sister that she'd actually walked in on her and Bradley Stowers in the middle of things.

  “Do you ever wish,” Kylie said, “that you'd waited? Held it back for when you get married?”

  Katie nodded. “All the time,” she said. “Especially now; I really had thought that Darren and I were it, y'know, that we were gonna be married and be together forever, so I didn't worry about it. We were a couple, we were going to be married, and neither of us was a virgin, so we—you know, we did.” She sighed. “Sure do wish now that I'd waited. If he's like most guys, then someday he'll be telling his buddies, 'Oh, Katie Lou wasn't bad, but I've had better.' That's why I'll never let it happen again. If I ever get with another guy, he's waiting, and that's all there is to it. If that's not acceptable to him, then he's not acceptable to me!”

  Kylie nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said. “I can relate. George was the one I thought I was gonna be with for the rest of my life, but he had other ideas. Turns out he only considered me a convenience, and especially for—well, for that. I think I'm with you, next guy waits or goes on down the highway.”

  Katie looked at her sister. They had the cheesecake in the oven, and Kylie had potatoes boiling on the stove, while the chicken was quietly marinating in the refrigerator. “I'm so glad we did this,” she said. “Took the time to really talk, for once, I mean. I like it when we can do that, when we can just let our guards down and be sisters and best buds again, like we used to.”

  Kylie smiled. “Hey, I've always tried to talk to you. You may not know it, but you were my role model. You were the one I looked up to, the one I wanted to be like when I grew up. All the way through school, all I knew was that my big sister was the greatest girl I knew, and I wanted to be just like her. You ran track, so I ran track; you were a cheerleader, so I was a cheerleader. I never did any of it as well as you did, but I tried, and I can say that I'm a lot better person for it. There are so many things I'd never have accomplished if I hadn’t done those things first.”

  Katie cocked her head. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  Kylie gave her sister a lopsided grin. “Well, for one, if I hadn’t been on the track team or become a cheerleader, I'd probably never have taken that trip to Florida. The first couple times I had to go to track meets in other towns, I was terrified! I mean, that was some other part of the world, and it was foreign to me; I didn't know how to act in some other place! Then, in cheerleading, when we got to the competition in Atlanta? Oh, dear Lord, we were actually staying in a motel, and without Mom or Dad around anywhere! I lived through it, though, and that's why I was able to go off to school, and take these trips I've gone on. All because of trying to be like you!”

  Katie laughed. “Okay, but wait a minute—you're saying you wanted to be like me, but you were the one who was always hanging out at Daddy's garage, getting all greasy and working on cars. I wouldn't know a carburetor from a cardboard box, but you could build a car from a pile of spare parts.”

  “Oh, that,” Kylie said. “That was also because of you. See, when I was little, it seemed to me that Daddy was always paying all the attention to you. When he came home from work, he always talked to you about your schoolwork first, and he always asked what TV show you wanted, and everything, and I was kinda jealous. Then I asked him one day what he meant when he said he was rebuilding an engine, and he showed me, and it hit me that if I liked cars the way he did, then he'd pay more attention to me. It worked, too, I can tell ya! And if I ever decide I don’t want to finish college, I can always go to work as a mechanic. It's good to have a backup skill, y'know.”

  They laughed together, then, and both of them enjoyed it. When the potatoes were thoroughly boiled, Kylie used the mixer to mash them well, and then set them on the back burner to stay hot while she got the chicken out and coated it in flour that she'd already mixed up with several different spices. Katie helped out by opening the corn and putting it all into a pan and setting it over a low heat. Their parents wouldn't be home for another hour, so there was plenty of time for everything to cook.

  “I always wondered why you were so into cars,” Katie said. “You never seemed interested in them before you hit your teens.”

  “Yeah, well, you had Mom teaching you to cook and fix hair, and I wasn't really all that good at either one,” Kylie laughed. “I didn't even really learn how to fry a chicken until I went off to school, and then it was a cooking school student who taught me that. If I hadn't taken a room in the same house she was in, I'd have a hard time boiling water.”

  “Oh, come on, you weren't that bad off. I can remember you making burgers and stuff before I left for college, and that was when you were, what, sixteen?"

  Kylie looked over her shoulder at her sister. "Yeah, well, burgers aren't that hard to work with. A lot easier than some of the fancy dishes you used to make. Mom used to brag to all of her friends about what a fantastic cook you were, and whenever I'd offer to help out in the kitchen she'd smile, but you could see the terror behind it."

  Katie burst out laughing. She'd seen that look on her mother's face before, and knew exactly what Kylie was talking about. "Well, at least you were pretty good at cleaning up the messes," Katie said. "And you were always pretty good about helping out when it was my turn to clean up the kitchen, so I want you to know that I appreciated that." She leaned back in her chair and looked at Kylie for a moment, and her eyes were soft. "You know what? You were a pretty doggone good sister," she said after a moment.

  Kylie shrugged, then dropped another chicken leg into the deep fryer. "Well, I had a pretty good example. You're not a bad sister yourself."

  They busied themselves with getting the table set and watching the chicken fry, not to mention yanking the cheesecake out of the oven and stuffing it into the freezer so that it would cool quickly for dinner. Katie managed to make another picture of iced tea, then sat back and watched Kylie draining the chicken. She would set it on a plate that was covered with paper towels for a moment, let the grease drain off, then transfer it to anothe
r plate that was sitting inside the still-warm oven.

  Their parents would be home at any moment, and the girls were pleased with themselves at having dinner ready to go on the table. Kylie pointed at the fairly large platter of chicken and said, "Too bad neither one of us has a boyfriend at the moment; it would be a perfect night to invite someone over for dinner."

  Katie's eyes went dark for just a moment, but then she shook it off and smiled. "Well, you've got Rob's number, you could always call and invite him."

  Kylie's eyes went wide as she stared at her sister. "What are you, nuts? I finally just got the guy to even notice I'm alive, I'm not gonna scare him off by having him try my cooking. Heck, with my luck, he'd choke to death on a chicken bone and I wouldn't get my date!”

  They both froze at the same time, as they heard their mother's car pull into the driveway. Katie put a finger to her lips to tell Kylie to be quiet, and they both hurried to get into the living room and out of sight. Judy, their mother, walked in through the sliding door to the kitchen, and stopped just inside to take a deep breath of the wonderful aromas that were waiting for her there.

  “Okay,” she called out, “I don't know who's cooking in here, but you're never getting out of my kitchen again! Consider yourself my prisoner!”

  The girls came into sight, laughing delightedly, and Judy hugged them both. “Oh, goodness, that smells so delicious!” she said. “I almost thought I'd wandered into the wrong house! What's the occasion that brings on such a special dinner?”

  The girls looked at each other, and finally it was Katie who spoke up. “It's me,” she said. “I made a total of six laps on the parallel bars today, and Rob says he figures I can be out of the wheelchair and on a walker by this weekend. Isn't that exciting?”

  Judy squealed with delight and hugged her daughter again, then hugged Kylie once more for good measure. She sat down at the table and demanded details, and Kylie happily described the physical therapy session in great detail, including some of the comical elements.