by Brenda Novak
Tami poked her head out from the back. “I’ve been reading some of those parenting books that are so popular these days,” she said, “and they all say you’ve got to have tough love.”
“What’s tough love? Telling someone you care about, ‘tough luck’?” he asked.
“I’m sure Rebecca will hire her back at Hair and Now,” Don said. “Katie will pull herself up by her bootstraps eventually.”
“And when she does, she’ll thank us.” Tami nodded self-righteously. “She’ll gain perspective and confidence from working through her own problems.”
The only catch was that Katie couldn’t work. Obviously they didn’t know that. Booker considered breaking the news to them. He wanted to see their faces when they realized they were expecting the impossible. But something inside him rebelled. The only reason they didn’t know about the difficulty with Katie’s pregnancy was that they’d treated her so poorly. They hadn’t even bothered to ask how she was doing. In his view, they didn’t deserve contact with her or the baby.
“Forget it. She’ll be better off without the two of you,” he said and walked out.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PHONE RANG, finally waking Katie at eleven o’clock. She’d actually opened her eyes earlier, when she heard Booker and Delbert leave for work, but she hadn’t been able to drag herself out of bed. She didn’t have anything to get out of bed for. No job opportunities. No one to see. She didn’t even know if Booker and Delbert would be home for dinner, or if she’d spend the entire day alone.
She remembered that Mona had offered to give her a manicure….
A manicure was a hopeful thought. But when she considered the logistics of getting to the salon…She’d have to get up. Then she’d have to shower, which meant washing her hair and shaving her legs. Then she’d have to brush her teeth and put on makeup….
It was simply too overwhelming. Besides, by now, word of her pregnancy would’ve spread, and she had no way of knowing who she might encounter at Hair and Now. She could run into her own mother, for crying out loud. Or Mike and Josh’s mother, who wouldn’t think any better of her than Tami did. Or worse, the smug Mary Thornton.
It no longer felt safe to go anywhere. When had the world become such a dangerous place?
With a groan, she pulled the covers over her head. She wasn’t going to answer the phone. Whoever was calling could leave a message on Booker’s answering machine. It was probably for him, anyway.
After another few moments, blessed silence fell, and Katie began drifting off to sleep—only to have the phone start ringing again.
“Go away!” she yelled at it. But whoever was calling wouldn’t give up. If she wanted any peace at all, she had to answer.
Stumbling out of bed, she moved slowly into the hall. Hatty’s house was too old to be wired for a phone in the bedroom, and Hatty had been too set in her ways to change that.
“Hello?” Katie snapped.
“Katie?” It was Booker.
Katie softened her voice. “Yeah?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Uh…in the shower,” she said, because she didn’t want to tell him the pathetic truth.
“Are you going over to the bakery to talk to your father?”
“I was thinking about it.” Not. She’d pretty much decided it was useless. Her parents hadn’t even called to check on her. She could be living on the streets for all they cared. Which was a distinct possibility for the future. But she wouldn’t think about that. That made her feel even more tired, and she was barely moving as it was.
“Well, don’t bother,” he said.
She could hear the wind outside, the trees brushing against the house. If she hadn’t been staring at the sun streaming in through the window of the closest bedroom, she would’ve thought it was storming. “Why not?”
“I’m working on a different plan. We’ll talk about it when I get home.”
“Fine.” She covered a yawn, too indifferent to wonder what he meant, let alone ask. Nothing Booker did would make any difference. Straightening out the mess she’d made of her life was something she’d have to do on her own. Only she couldn’t manage it today. She’d deal with it tomorrow, when she felt better.
“I’ll be home at six o’clock,” he told her.
“Okay. I’ll have dinner waiting,” she said. But then she went back to bed and slept the entire day.
WHEN BOOKER AND DELBERT got home, there was no dinner on the table. The place was dark and seemed empty.
“Where’s Katie?” Delbert asked as he and Bruiser followed Booker inside.
Booker couldn’t hear anything. No TV or radio. No one speaking on the phone. “Katie?” he called.
“She’s gone,” Delbert said, and Booker felt a trace of hope. He’d been planning to offer her a bookkeeping job at his garage. Even though he knew it wouldn’t be easy to spend so much time around her, he hadn’t been able to think of anything better. But maybe someone had come to pick her up. Maybe she’d found another place to stay and a job that wouldn’t require her to be on her feet. If so, her problems, which had become his problems, might already be solved….
If only he could be so lucky.
Heading upstairs, he knocked on the walls as he neared Katie’s bedroom to announce that he was coming. “Anyone home?”
No answer. Darkness had fallen outside, but her door was shut, and there wasn’t any light glowing beneath it. “Katie?”
“Did you find her?” Delbert asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs.
“Not yet.” Booker turned on the hall light and knocked softly on her door. No answer. He looked inside to see a round lump in the middle of the bed—a round lump that was beginning to stir.
“What? Who is it?” Katie sounded groggy. Shoving herself into a sitting position, she blinked against the light spilling into her room.
Booker let the door swing wide, and leaned against the lintel. “This shouldn’t come as any kind of a shock, since I own the house, but it’s me.”
“Booker?”
“You got it.”
She groaned and fell back. “God, I thought I was only dreaming that I was pregnant and broke and having to rely on the pity of someone who hates me.”
Booker felt a wry smile claim his lips, and stuck his toothpick in his mouth to stave it off. He wasn’t about to let his heart soften where Katie Rogers was concerned. Not after the way she’d thrown his proposal back in his face two years ago. “What did you do today?”
“Nothing.”
“Is she there?” Delbert called up to him.
“She’s here,” Booker said. “Go ahead and make yourself a sandwich.”
“Oh, good, she’s here,” Delbert told Bruiser, as though the dog was especially worried, and galloped to the kitchen.
“What time is it?” Katie asked.
“Six-thirty.”
“Six-thirty!”
He pulled the toothpick from his mouth. “Time flies when you’re having fun, hmm?”
“Ugh.” Her voice sounded muffled because she’d ducked completely under the covers.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I just slept the whole day away and I still feel too tired to move.”
“Tell me that has something to do with the pregnancy.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant before. But then, I’ve never been shunned and penniless, either. This is all new to me.”
Booker couldn’t help chuckling. “You’ll get through it.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she told him, now sullen. “You’ve never been pregnant.”
“No, but I’ve been shunned and penniless most of my life.”
No response.
“Are you getting up?” he asked.
“No.”
“Do you think you might get up later?”
“No.”
“You’re not making me feel particularly comfortable here.”
Nothing.
Book
er searched his mind for something he could say or do. “Can you feel the baby move yet?” he asked at last.
The question obviously took her off guard. Rising onto one elbow, she stared at him. “I felt the baby move for the first time while I was driving here.”
“What did it feel like?”
Her expression mellowed. “Like…like a butterfly’s wing inside my belly. Why?”
“Because you need to remember that moment. Tomorrow you’ll get up for the baby,” he said and left.
LETHARGY WAS SPREADING through her like a slow-moving drug, incapacitating one muscle after another until she felt almost paralyzed. She’d been in bed for two nights and a day, but it didn’t seem to matter how long she slept. She was more tired now than when she’d first hit the sack. Worse, she knew she looked terrible, but she didn’t care. Brushing her teeth was suddenly too much effort.
There was a brisk knock at her door.
Katie didn’t respond. She was afraid it was Booker coming to make her get up, and she wasn’t ready. She needed more time.
He didn’t seem to receive her telepathic “Stay away,” because he came in anyway. But he didn’t say anything. He paused briefly at the foot of her bed. Then he opened the blinds and left.
Grateful for the reprieve, Katie rolled over on her side and stared at the square patch of sky he’d revealed. The sun was just beginning to rise, painting the horizon a delicate pinkish-orange. Booker had said she’d get up today—for her baby—but he didn’t understand. She couldn’t get up for anything.
Booker’s truck started outside.
Tomorrow, she promised herself as he drove away. She’d get up for her baby tomorrow. Surely she’d feel better by then.
“THAT OLD CADILLAC’S RUNNING, but I can’t promise how long it’s going to last,” Chase said, standing in the doorway of Booker’s office.
Booker glanced up from his cluttered desk to acknowledge his mechanic’s words. Chase was only nineteen, but he had a real talent with engines. “It’s old. There’s nothing we can do about that.”
“You wanted the keys?”
“Yeah.”
Chase tossed them over. Booker caught them and slid them in his pocket. The Cadillac might be running, but Katie wouldn’t be driving it anywhere if he couldn’t get her out of bed.
“Go ahead and start the tune-up of Lila Bronwyn’s Jeep,” he told Chase. Then he turned down the radio they had blasting and tried to reach Katie. He let the phone ring nearly twenty times, hung up and called again. But she wouldn’t pick up.
“Answer, damn it,” he muttered, losing patience.
“What’s wrong?” Delbert wiped his grease-covered hands on a rag as he and Bruiser came into the office. “Are you mad? Are you mad at me, Booker?”
“I’m not mad,” Booker said, but he was getting worried. What was he going to do with Katie? She’d completely withdrawn from life. She wasn’t getting up. She wasn’t eating. She wasn’t doing anything.
He thought of her parents. Should he have told them that she couldn’t work? Would it have made a difference?
He certainly wasn’t the best person to handle this, but remembering how Tami had treated Katie at the door, how both her parents had reacted to him at the donut shop, quickly convinced him that they were part of the problem, not the solution. And it wasn’t as if he saw anyone else stepping up to help her…. She’d been gone too long and apparently hadn’t kept up with relationships. Which meant, crazy as it seemed, he was the closest thing she had to a friend.
Mike Hill’s new Escalade cruised by out front, catching Booker’s eye. Watching Mike turn on First Avenue, he thought of all the times he’d heard, from almost everyone in town, that Katie had had a crush on Mike nearly her whole life. She’d once told him herself, flat out, that she wanted to marry Mike Hill someday. But Booker hadn’t taken her too seriously. He’d never seen Mike show any interest in her, couldn’t imagine them together. They were both…good. In his opinion, they each needed a counterbalance.
But Mike was rich and dependable. Maybe the best thing Booker could do for Katie and her baby was to throw them into Mike’s lap. A friend would do something like that, right?
Picking up the phone, he called Rebecca at the salon.
“Hello?”
“Is Rebecca there?”
“Hi, Booker.”
From the voice, it was Ashleigh Evans. “How’s it going?”
“Good. Where’ve you been? I’ve missed you.”
They’d danced last Friday at the Honky Tonk, but Booker knew if he pointed that out, she’d just say Friday seemed too long ago. “I’ve been busy.”
“You promised me a ride on your bike, remember?”
How could he forget? She reminded him whenever he talked to her. “I’ll stop by the salon sometime.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
The phone changed hands and he heard Rebecca’s voice. “I think she has a thing for you.”
“Ashleigh?”
“Yeah.”
Booker already knew that. She’d been coming on to him ever since she’d broken up with that bull rider from Boise. She’d even invited him to her place last Friday night, but his response had been decidedly lukewarm. “I need a favor,” he said.
“Really? Wow! You’ve never asked me for anything before,” Rebecca said. “You must be desperate.”
He ignored her teasing because it hit a little too close to home. He didn’t like asking for favors. He didn’t like needing anything. But this wasn’t for him—exactly. “Katie’s looking for a job.”
“I heard she’s pregnant.”
Booker braced himself for her reaction. “That’s true.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her voice filled with accusation.
“I figured you’d find out soon enough.”
She released a long sigh. “Some people have all the luck.”
Booker pictured how rumpled and dispirited Katie had been sitting up in her bed last night and doubted she was feeling very lucky. “I’m sure Katie would be surprised to hear you say that.”
“I’d do anything to have a baby, Booker. Especially Josh’s baby. Sometimes I love him so much I can’t even breathe, and yet I can’t give him the one thing we both want most in the world.”
Bill Peterson arrived to pick up his Camaro. Booker could hear Chase talking to him in the garage, and started searching his desk for the work order. “You’re too tense about it, Rebecca.”
“But I’m nearly thirty-three.”
“A lot of women have babies at thirty-three.”
“And everyone else is having one.”
“Everyone?”
“Delaney’s pregnant again.”
“She is?”
“She’s been holding off telling me, hoping I’d get some good news, too. But she’s gaining weight, and I guessed.”
“You’ll just have to keep trying,” Booker said. “I’m sure Josh doesn’t mind that.”
“No, he likes all the trying. He just doesn’t like how upset I get when it doesn’t work out.”
“It’s that watched-pot thing. You need to forget about it, and then it’ll probably happen.” Finding the paperwork he was looking for, Booker waved to let Mr. Peterson know he’d be right out.
“I don’t think it’s the watched-pot thing. I’m going to start taking fertility drugs,” Rebecca said.
“Do whatever works, Beck.”
“A lot of people have fertility problems.”
Fortunately Chase came in and took the paperwork out to get Bill on his way.
“I know.” Booker cleared his throat. “About that job…”
“I already offered Katie a job,” she said. “She came by here a couple of days ago. But she told me she can’t be on her feet.”
“I wasn’t thinking of having her work at Hair and Now.”
“Where, then?”
“What about the resort?”
“It’s wintertime, Booker. The r
esort’s overstaffed as it is because Conner and Delaney won’t lay anyone off. They’re trying to limp by until summer, but I have the impression that finances are getting tight. They need to be careful.”
“Do you think Josh and Mike might have an opening out at the ranch, then? She could do bookkeeping or answer phones behind a desk, couldn’t she? Katie’s a good friend of their family’s. Surely they can help her out until she has the baby.”
“They could probably come up with something for her to do but…I never would’ve suggested it because of you. Are you sure you want her working with Mike, Booker?”
Booker shoved away from his desk and stood. “I think it’s time Katie got what she wants.”
Silence. “What about what you want?”
“I already have what I want.”
“O-kay.” She didn’t sound convinced, but after a moment she said, “I’ll call Josh and get back to you.”
BOOKER REFUSED TO GO AWAY. He stood over Katie’s bed, scowling at her. When that didn’t work, he started pulling off blankets.
“Leave me alone,” she grumbled. “I’m tired.”
“How can you be tired?” he asked. “It’s nearly three o’clock in the afternoon, and you’ve been sleeping for two days.”
“I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“It’s called depression.”
“I’ve never had trouble with depression.”
“Then get up.”
She curled into a ball to compensate for the warmth she’d lost when he stole the covers. “I’ll get up tomorrow.”
“You’ll get up today,” he said, and from the determination in his voice, she could tell he meant it. “I’ve set up a job interview for you.”
“Where?” she asked, but she didn’t really care. Who’d want her? She couldn’t even function anymore.
“Mike Hill is looking for a secretary.”
She raised her head to blink at him. “Mike Hill?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No.”
She covered her eyes with her arm. “I don’t know anything about ranching.”
“You’ll be doing some type of bookkeeping.”