Considering Kate

by Nora Roberts

  He needed to take control back, he realized. Right here, right now. “You didn’t say let’s consider marriage, did you? You didn’t say let’s discuss it.” Which had been his plan if she’d given him the chance. “There are a lot of factors here besides two people who enjoy and respect each other.”

  And love each other, he thought. God, he loved her. But he needed to know what they wanted for the future—separately, together, as a family. There were things they were just going to have to set straight, once and for all.

  “Of course there are,” she began. “But—”

  “Let’s start with you. Right now, you’re free to pick up your dance career any time you want. There’s nothing stopping you from going back to New York, back on stage.”

  “My school is stopping me. I made that decision before I met you.”

  “Kate, I saw you. I watched you up there, and you were a miracle. Teaching’s never going to give you what that gave you.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s going to give me something else, the something else I want now. I’m not a person who makes decisions lightly, Brody. When I left the company to come back here, I knew what I was doing. What I was leaving behind, what I was moving toward. If you don’t trust me to make a commitment, then stand by it, you don’t know me.”

  “It’s not a matter of trust. But I wanted to hear you say it, to me, just like that. You say you mean to stay, you mean to stay. I’ve never known anybody as focused on a goal as you.”

  He’d thought, moments before, he’d known how he would handle this. The steps he’d take toward asking her to share his life. Building on that foundation. Now the woman had finished nailing on the trim and wanted a wreath for the door.

  She was going to have to back up a few steps, because he built to last. “I’ve got something more than a career decision to consider. I’ve got Jack. Everything I do or don’t do involves Jack.”

  “Brody, I’m perfectly aware of that. You know I am.”

  “I know he likes you, but he’s secure the way things are, and he needs to be sure of me. Kate…God, he’s only ever had me. Connie, she got sick when he was only a few months old. Between doctors and the treatments and the hospitals…”

  “Oh, Brody.” She could imagine it too well. The panic, the upheaval. The grief.

  “She couldn’t really be there for him, and I was just trying to hold it all together. The world was falling apart on us, and I had nothing extra to give Jack. The first two years of his life were a nightmare.”

  “And you’ve done everything you can to give him a happy and normal life. Don’t you see how much I admire that? How much I respect it?”

  Flustered, he stared at her. He’d never thought of parenting as admirable. “It’s what I’m supposed to do. Thinking of him first, that’s how it has to be. It’s not just you and me, Kate. If it were…but it’s not. A change like this—a life-altering one—he has to be in on it.”

  “And who’s saying differently?” she demanded.

  “Well, damn it. I can’t just go tell him I’m getting married, just like that. I need to talk to him about it, prepare him. So do you. That’s the kind of thing you’d be taking on. He needs to be as sure of you as he is of me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, O’Connell, don’t you think I’ve taken all of that into account? You’ve known me for months now. You ought to be able to give me more credit.”

  “It’s not a matter of—”

  “It was Jack who asked me to marry you in the first place.”

  Brody stared into her flushed and furious face, then held up his hands. “I have to sit down.” He backed up, dropped down on a flattened stump. Because the dog was shoving the rope into his lap, Brody tossed it. “What did you just say?”

  “Am I speaking English?” she demanded. “Jack proposed to me yesterday. Apparently he doesn’t have as much trouble making up his mind as his father. He asked me to marry you, both of you. And I’ve never had a lovelier offer. Obviously, I’m not going to get one from you.”

  “You would have if you’d waited a couple of days,” he muttered under his breath. “So are you doing this to make Jack happy?”

  “Listen up. However much I love that child, I wouldn’t marry his bone-headed father unless I wanted to. He happens to think we’d all be good for each other. I happen to agree with him. But you can just sit there like a—like a bump on that log.”

  Not only had Kate beat him to the punch, Brody thought, his six-year-old son had crossed the finish line ahead of him. He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or delighted. “Maybe I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t snuck up on me with this.”

  “Snuck up on you? How could you not see? I’ve done everything but paint a heart on my sleeve. Why haven’t I moved my things out of storage and into that apartment, Brody? An organized, practical woman like me doesn’t ignore something like that unless she has no intention of ever living there.”

  He got to his feet. “I figured you just wanted…I don’t know.”

  “Why have I squeezed every minute I could manage out of the last few months to spend with you, or with you and Jack? Why would I come here like this, toss away my pride and ask you to marry me? Why would I do any of those things unless I loved you? You idiot.”

  She whipped around and stomped off toward her car while tears of hurt and fury sparkled in her eyes.

  There was a fist squeezing his heart. Brutally. “Kate, if you get in that car, I’m just going to have to drag you out again. We’re not finished.”

  She stopped with her hand on the door. “I’m too angry to talk to you now.”

  “You won’t have to do that much talking. Sit,” he said, and gestured to the stump.

  “I don’t want to sit.”

  “Kate.”

  She threw up her hands, stalked over and sat. “There. Happy?”

  “First, I don’t intend to marry anyone just to give Jack a mother. And I don’t intend to marry anyone who can’t be a mother to him. Now let’s put that aside and deal with you and me. I know you’re mad, but don’t cry.”

  “I wouldn’t waste a single tear over you.”

  He pulled out his bandanna and dropped it in her lap. “Get rid of them, okay? I’m having a hard enough time.”

  She left his bandanna where it was and dashed tears away with her fingers.

  “Okay, this is a box.” He pointed at the ground. “Everything we’ve just said is going into this box, and I’m closing the lid. We can open it later on, but we start fresh right here and right now.”

  “As far as I’m concerned you can nail the lid on it and throw the entire thing into a pit.”

  “I was going to talk to Jack tonight,” he began. “See how he felt about some changes. I figured he’d have liked the idea. I know my kid pretty well. Not as well as I assumed since he’s going around proposing to my woman behind my back.”

  “Your woman?”

  “Quiet,” he said mildly. “If you’d been quiet a little while longer, we’d have started out this particular area of discussion more like this.”

  He moved closer, took her lifted chin in his hand. “Kate, I’m in love with you. No, you just sit there,” he told her as she started to rise. “I was trying to work out how I’d do this right before you drove up.”

  “Before I…” She let out a long breath. “Oh.” As her heart began to thud she shifted her gaze to the ground. “Is the lid on that box really tight?”

  “Yeah, it’s really tight.”

  “Okay.” She had to close her eyes a moment, try to clear her head. But the thrill racing through her refused to let her think straight. And that, she decided, was perfect. Just perfect.

  “Would you mind starting again?” she asked him. “With the I love you part?”

  “Sure. I love you. I started sliding the first minute I saw you. Kept thinking I’d get my balance back, that you couldn’t be for me. Every once in a while I’d start sliding fast, I had to pull myself back. I had lots of reasons to. I can’t
think of a single one of them right now, but I had them.”

  “I was for you, Brody. Just like you were for me.”

  “That night in your sister’s house, I couldn’t pull myself back anymore. I just dropped off the edge in love with you, I’m still staggering the next day when I see you dance. Not like I saw you that day in your school where it was pretty, and like a dream. But strong and powerful. That messed me up some again.”

  He crouched down in front of her. “Kate, a few minutes ago I was standing here, putting a picture in my mind. I do that sometimes. You and me, sitting on a porch swing I still have to buy.”

  Tears wanted to come again, but she held them back. “I like that picture.”

  “Me, too. See, I was figuring we were building a house—not the kind up the hill there. A kind of relationship house. I take my time building things because it’s important to build them right—to build them to last.”

  “And I rushed you.”

  “Yeah, you rushed me. Something else I figured out. Two people don’t always have to move at the same pace for them to end up at the same place. The right place.”

  A tear escaped. “This is the right place for me.” She framed his face with her hands. “I love you, Brody. I want—”

  “No, you don’t. I’m making the moves here.” He drew her to her feet. “See that house up there on the hill?”

  “Yes.”

  “Needs work, but it’s got potential. That dog chasing his tail in the yard’s just about housebroken. I’ve got a son who’s coming home from school on a bus that’s running late. He’s a good boy. I want to share all that with you. And I want to come to your school sometimes, just to watch you dance. I want to make babies with you. I think I’m good with them.”

  “Oh, Brody.”

  “Quiet. I’m not finished. Come summer, I want to sit out in the garden we’ll plant together. You’re the only one I want to have all that with.”

  “Oh, God, just ask me before I fall apart and can’t even answer you.”

  “You’re pushy. I like that about you. Marry me, Kate.” He touched his lips to hers. “Marry me.”

  She couldn’t answer, could only lock her arms around him. Her heart poured into the kiss and gave him more than words. The dog began to yip and race in desperate circles around them. Clinging to Brody, Kate began to laugh.

  “I’m so happy.”

  “I still wouldn’t mind hearing you say yes.”

  She tipped her head back, started to speak. And the rude blast of the school bus’s air brakes drowned out her words.

  She turned, sliding her arm around Brody’s waist and watched Jack burst out the door. The pup took a running leap into Jack’s arms.

  “Let me,” Kate murmured. “Please. Hey, handsome.”

  “Hi.” He looked at the tears on her cheeks and sent a worried look at his father. “Did you get hurt?”

  “No, I didn’t. Sometimes people cry when they’re so happy everything bursts inside them. That’s what I am right now. Remember what you asked me yesterday, Jack?”

  He bit his lip, glanced warily at his father again. “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, here’s the answer for both of you.” With one hand still caught in Brody’s, she touched Jack’s cheek. “Yes.”

  His eyes went huge. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Dad! Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “Kate’s going to marry us. That’s okay, right?”

  “That’s absolutely okay. Let’s go home.”

  They left the truck and car parked where they were, and started walking toward the house together. Jack raced ahead, the dog at his heels. At the edge of the lawn, Brody stopped, turned, kissed her.

  No, it wasn’t okay, Kate thought.

  It was perfect.

  Epilogue

  “Dad? How much longer?”

  “Just a few minutes. Here, let me fix this thing.” He hauled Jack up on a chair and straightened his fancy black tie. Fiddled with the red rosebud on his lapel. “My hands are sweaty,” Brody said with a little laugh.

  “Do you got cold feet? Grandpa said how sometimes guys get cold feet on their wedding day.”

  “No, I don’t have cold feet. I love Kate. I want to marry her.”

  “Me, too. You get to be the groom, and I get to be the best man.”

  “That’s it.” He stepped back, surveyed his son. A six-year-old in a tux, he thought. “You sure look slick, Jacks.”

  “We look handsome. Grandma said so. And she cried. Girls cry at weddings, that’s what Max said. How come?”

  “I don’t know. Afterward, we’ll find a girl and you can ask her.”

  He turned Jack so they could look in the mirror together. “It’s a big day. Today, the three of us become a family.”

  “I get a mom and more grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and everything. After you kiss the bride, we get to go have a party and lots of cake. Nana said so.” Kate’s mother had said he could call her Nana. Jack liked saying it.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you go on your honeymoon so you can do lots more kissing.”

  “That’s the plan. We’re going to call, Jack, and send you postcards,” he added, trying not to fret about going away without his boy.

  “Uh-huh, and when you come back, we’ll all live together. Rod said you and Kate are going to make a baby on your honeymoon. Are you?”

  Oh, boy. “Kate and I will have to talk about that.”

  “I can call her Mom now, can’t I?”

  Brody shifted his gaze back to Jack’s in the mirror. “Yeah. She loves you Jack.”

  “I know.” Jack rolled his eyes. “That’s why she’s marrying us.”

  Brandon opened the door to see the groom and his best man grinning at each other. “You guys ready?”

  “Yeah! Come on, Dad. Come on. Let’s get married.”

  Kate stepped out of the bride’s room, held out a hand to her father.

  “You’re so beautiful.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “My baby.”

  “Don’t make me cry again. I’ve just put myself back together from Mom.” She brushed fussily at his lapel. “I’m so happy, Daddy. But I am not going to walk down the aisle with wet cheeks and red eyes.”

  “Frogs in your stomach?”

  “I think they’re doing the polka. I love you.”

  “I love you, Katie.”

  “Okay. We’re okay.” She heard the music, nodded. “That’s our cue.”

  She waited, her arm tucked in her father’s while her sister and her cousins who were her attendants walked down the aisle. While her little niece sprinkled rose petals on the long white runner.

  Then she stepped into the doorway, in the billowing white dress and sparkling veil. All the nerves faded into sheer joy.

  “Look at them, Daddy. Aren’t they wonderful?”

  She walked to them, feeling the music. And when her father put her hand in Brody’s, it was steady and sure.

  “Kate.” As her father had, Brody lifted her hand to his lips. “I’ll make her happy,” he said to Spence, then looked into Kate’s eyes. “You make me happy.”

  “You look pretty.” Forgetting himself Jack bounced in his new shoes. His voice carried through the church. “You look really pretty. Mom.”

  Her heart, already full, overflowed. She bent to him, kissed his cheek. “I love you, Jack. You’re mine now,” she told him, then straightened, met Brody’s eyes. “And so are you.”

  She passed her bouquet to her sister, took Jack’s hand in her free one.

  And married them both.

  Passionate, proud and hopelessly romantic, the Stanislaskis are a family you won’t soon forget!

  Look for the rest of Nora Roberts’s captivating six-book family saga, available now wherever ebooks are sold:

  The Stanislaskis

  Taming Natasha

  Luring a Lady

  Falling for Rachel

  Con
vincing Alex

  Waiting for Nick

  Considering Kate

  Don’t miss these other favorite series by Nora Roberts, also available now wherever ebooks are sold!

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  Hidden Star

  Captive Star

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  The Heart of Devin MacKade

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  IMPRINT: M&B

  ISBN: 9781460800133

  TITLE: Considering Kate

  First Australian Publication 2011

  Copyright © 2001 Nora Roberts

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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