by Kira Blakely
“Uh-huh, yeah, the same guy you just so happen to talk about every other sentence. Seriously, it’s been over a month, and you’ve spoken about him more than you have about being abducted by a mafia boss. That’s got to mean something.”
“That I’m crazy?”
“No, that you belong together. Or that you should at least give it a shot. Especially now that you’re about to have his baby.”
“About to! It’s… it’s months until I’m ‘about to.’”
“You know what I mean,” Sam said. “Look, you’re obviously more into this man than you want to let on. Let’s be real here, you have to tell him regardless.”
“Of course, I know that. I just— I want to be sure first. Or, I want to have proof. More proof than just a pregnancy test.”
“Four,” she said, and held up the corresponding amount of fingers, “pregnancy tests.”
“You know what I mean. A proper doctor’s appointment.”
“Good idea. Let’s schedule one, right now.” Sam leapt to her feet and hurried to her kitchen where she’d left her handbag. “Danny’s sister is an OB-GYN. She might be able to fit you in on short notice. This is so damn exciting!” Sam let out a muted squeal. “I can’t even— You’re going to be a mom! And I’m going to be an auntie… Yeah, hello? Yeah, I need to make an emergency appointment for this afternoon.”
I tuned out Sam’s phone conversation and ran a hand over my abdomen. “A mommy,” I whispered.
And Logan was the father.
Chapter 21
Logan
If I’d learned anything in life it was that if you didn’t go for what you wanted, you didn’t get it. That was all there was to it.
I’d spent six weeks waiting for Katie’s call—thinking about her, jerking off to memories of her, imagining what it would be like to taste her again. My patience had run out. There wasn’t a fucking chance this woman didn’t want me in her life.
She’d felt exactly what I had. She’d sworn she was mine. And she still hadn’t called.
I had to know why.
I jogged up the front steps to her apartment building, then rang the number on the intercom. Yeah, I’d done my research and tracked her down. It hadn’t taken much, given that I knew her full name and where she worked.
If she told me to fuck off, I’d do it. I’d leave her alone, but I wasn’t the guy who sat back and did nothing when I knew, I fucking knew, that what we’d had had been life-altering.
The past weeks had been colorless without her. Tasteless. The fact that we weren’t actually married had disappointed me, and that, in turn, had shocked me shitless. The last engagement hadn’t exactly ended well.
I buzzed again and a woman’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Hello?”
“Hello,” I said, briskly. “I’m looking for Katie Hendrickson. Is she there?”
“No, I’m sorry, she’s not. Can I help you with something? Take a message?”
“Shit,” I muttered, then raised my voice. “Just tell her that Logan Wright came by and that I’ll be waiting for her call.”
“Logan Wright?” The woman’s voice lifted. “Hold on a second, I’ll buzz you up.” The front door buzzed as the lock clacked, and I let myself in, then took the stairs up to the first floor. Whoever the woman was, clearly she knew who I was. Did Katie have a roommate?
I halted in front of the door, knocked once, and waited impatiently.
The latch drew back and a woman appeared a second later. She was an older version of Katie, with blonde hair tied back and a kind smile, crow’s feet around the eyes. “Logan,” she said, “Please, come in, I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You’re Katie’s mom?” I asked.
“Anna Hendrickson,” she said and presented her hand for a shake.
I took it and smiled at her. “I want to say I’ve heard a lot about you, but I can’t. Only that you mean a lot to your daughter. And that you have a dog named Butch.”
A bark rang out behind her, as if on cue, and a Labrador bounded into view, pink tongue lolling out of the corner of his mouth. He licked my hand and barked again, then nuzzled my palm. I stroked his head and fluffy ears, grinning.
“Sorry, he’s a little rambunctious.”
“And not Butch at all,” I replied.
“Ah, and you see the irony in the name,” Anna said and stepped back to allow me entrance.
I walked into the apartment and admired the cozy space which greeted me. It was so Katie, to a T, or at least the impression she’d given me. A comfy sofa next to two armchairs beside a dark-wood bookshelf, groaning under the weight of her favorites.
“Please, take a seat,” Anna said. “I dropped by to bring Katie dinner. We make a point of having a home-cooked meal together at least once a week. Would you like something to drink? Beer? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be great, thanks.” I walked through to the sofa, then took a seat.
Anna disappeared and left me with Butch, who promptly sat on my foot, wagging his tail like a fanatic. He was pretty fucking adorable. I ruffled his fur and took some time to take in my surroundings. Katie’s apartment was nothing like mine. Everything here was unique, it had its place or its memory.
A photo frame sat on a walnut coffee table, next to a couple of copies of the Business Breakdown and a National Geographic. The TV was small, a flat screen, but definitely not the focus of the space, and a pair of candles sat on one of the end tables beside the couch.
Where her place was homey, mine was cold, possibly because I spent hardly any time in it. Over the course of the last six weeks, I had been home more often than usual, and the apartment had seemed cavernous, empty. Lacking something. Lacking her.
I stopped stroking Butch and the dog barked and thwacked his tail against my head, nuzzling my palm for more attention.
“Sorry,” Anna said as she bustled back in, carrying a tray with two cups, two spoons, and small containers of sugar and milk. “He’s a bit of an attention whore. He’ll do anything to get a couple of pats.”
“No need to be sorry,” I replied, and stroked the doggo some more. He was too cute – made me want to punch a hole in a wall to get my manliness back.
“Well,” Anna said, and brushed her hands off on her jeans. She touched a finger to her nose, slightly upturned just like Katie’s, then pointed to the coffee. “How do you take it? Black? With cream?”
“Black,” I said. “I’ll get it, thanks.” We settled back with our coffees, me stroking Butch one-handed now, and the silence grew. It wasn’t particularly tense or awkward, but it was still quiet.
Anna sipped her coffee and gave me another one of those warm smiles. It was the type of smile I’d always wished my mother would give me as a child, the one she never had. “It’s wonderful to have you here,” she said. “Like I said, I’ve heard a lot about you. Katie’s been talking nonstop, ever since she got back. I— I must apologize, Logan. I was part of the problem. When Marino contacted us—”
I waved it away. “You don’t need to apologize, Mrs. Hendrickson. I’m a firm believer that everything that happens, happens for a reason.”
“Me too,” she said. “But I do feel guilty that Katie went instead of me. I tried to make her stay, to take her place, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. The stress of it damn near killed me.”
“I was going to ask about that. The last I heard, you were in the hospital.”
“I collapsed after Katie’s call. I was just so darn relieved that she was safe, I guess all the stress and pressure that’d been lingering over the past few days built up and, well, you know—”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“All better now,” Anna said and drank deeply. She put her cup down, then rubbed her palms together and gave me the up-and-down look that only mothers could pull off. “So,” she pronounced the word as an accusation.
“So,” I said.
“I won’t skirt around the topic, Mr. Wright, I’m not good at making small talk.
I’ll be honest with you; Katie is everything to me. She’s my daughter and I will always want what’s best for her. For a very long time, it’s just been her and me, and Butch too. I want very desperately for my daughter to be happy and to start a little family of her own.” She waved before I could cut in. “Now, I know that sounds a bit hasty and I’m not trying to put that on you. I’m just saying that if you’re going to come into Katie’s life after everything that’s happened, be sure of it.”
I nodded once and waited. She clearly had more to say. She brimmed with it.
“I don’t want my daughter to wind up like me. I don’t want her life to be nothing but work and coming home to an empty apartment.” Butch barked and Anna gave a little laugh, tilted her head, and wiped tears from under either eye. “I mean both of us, Butchie. Don’t take offense.” The doggie whined and left my side, ran over to her and hopped his front paws into her lap, proceeded to lick her senseless.
Anna fought him off, laughing instead of crying now, then gave him a hug. “Do you understand what I mean, Logan? If you’re here because you want to mess her around or have a fling then I—”
“Mrs. Hendrickson, I’m not here for either of those reasons. I came to find Katie because she didn’t call me. I gave her my number when we left Isla Santa Maria. I wanted to hear from her.”
Anna clicked her tongue and gave a long-suffering sigh. “That girl. So typical. The minute she feels something, she gets scared and pulls back. She reminds me of me when I was younger.”
“That’s hardly an insult,” I said, kindly.
Anna blushed and patted her hair. “Well, I’m sure you and I will get along fine. We’ll just have to wait for Katie to come back to figure out whether you and her will get along.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said, “to make this work.”
Whatever it takes.
Chapter 22
Katie
“That’s it?” I asked and sat forward, pulling my shirt down, my eyes fixed on the screen.
Doctor Shelby smiled at me and hovered her finger to the screen, pointing at the shape on it, defined in white and black. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s your little one.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. Sam let out a little sniff beside me and rubbed my back. “Oh my god, you’re going to have a baby.”
“Yes you are,” the doctor said. “Now, I’m going to give you a prescription for some prenatal vitamins, and specifically, some folic acid. I will need to see you once a month for the next few months, just for a checkup and scan. Sound good?”
“Yes,” I said and nodded. The more I looked at that image, so adorable and so totally weird – how was I supposed to identify which part of it was baby and which was womb? “Yes, thank you so much, Doctor. I really appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”
“Do you have any questions for me?”
“Just about which symptoms I’ll be experiencing for the next little while,” I said. “And, um, could I get a copy of the sonogram picture?”
“Of course,” the doc said, and brushed off her white coat. “As for symptoms, you could have morning sickness, which is really a misnomer because it can happen at any time of the day. And there’s tender breasts.”
“Check,” I said, and winced.
“And you may experience a heightened sense of smell, headaches, fatigue, that type of thing,” she finished.
“Sounds like a walk in the park,” Sam said and chuckled under her breath.
“If you experience any spotting or bleeding, please make an appointment with me immediately, okay?” The doctor rose, smiling. “Congratulations. You’re going to be a fantastic mom.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I definitely didn’t have the confidence to believe that yet. The next part of this journey would be tough and scary. I had to go home, get that card Logan had given me out of my journal, and make the call.
I was about to change his life forever.
The doctor excused herself to print out the picture, and I swung my legs over the side of the table and sat up straight.
Sam rose from her chair and scooched closer. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. I know you can do this.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you should be a motivational speaker?”
“There’s the wise-cracking bitch I love,” Sam said and cuffed me on the shoulder.
“I’m happy about this,” I said, and it felt right on my tongue. I could only hope I’d be as good of a mother as mine had always been to me. Oh, wow, she’d be over the moon once I told her. “I guess I just need to figure out my next steps. I— It’s going to be crazy to call him after all this time has passed.”
“Honey, I don’t know why you didn’t call him when you got back to New York in the first place.”
“I told you, Sam, it just wasn’t right. It was— We’d known each other for three days and—”
“And you were scared because you actually felt something for him,” Sam finished. “Don’t bullshit me. I know what you’re like. You’ve never believed in those types of feelings, ever since you were a kid. I was there, remember? When your dad left and—”
The doctor entered the room and handed me an envelope which contained the picture. “Here you are.”
“Thank you so much, Doctor Shelby,” I said.
“It was my pleasure.”
We left the doctor’s office and caught a taxi outside, the quiet growing between me and my best friend as I worked all of this over in my mind. She was right, of course. I’d always been hesitant about love or feelings. It was the reason I’d kept my previous boyfriends at a distance, and why I’d thrown myself into work instead.
Of course, I loved what I did, but it was part of the reason, and that was pretty sad.
But I couldn’t expect anything of Logan now. All that mattered was telling him about the baby and how we’d move forward. Could I do this on my own if he didn’t want to be a part of the journey? I certainly had enough support from my mother, but the thought of him stepping back made me super sad.
Sam squeezed my knee as we pulled up outside my apartment. “Sorry if I upset you earlier,” she said. “I went too far.”
“Don’t be silly, Sam. You said what you should have and you were right. But for now, I’m going to focus on all things baby, rather than all things Logan. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I’ve got a dinner date with Mom tonight.”
“Oh, so exciting! You’ll get to tell her all about it.”
I was excited about that. I air-kissed my bestie, then slipped out of the cab and made my way up the front steps of the apartment building. Two minutes later, I unlocked my front door to the sonorous barks from Butch inside.
“Mom, I’ve got news,” I said as I entered because I could hardly keep it in a second longer. “And you’re going to need to sit—” I gasped and pressed my fingers to my lips.
My mother was already seated in the living room, and directly across from her sat Logan Wright.
Oh my god.
“Wh-what?” I blinked. “Logan, how did you— What are you doing here?”
“I came to pay you a visit,” he said, and that deep rumble set off every memory we’d had together. Flashbacks streamed through my mind: us naked together; cooking in the kitchen; him standing on the beach with the gun raised, threatening Marino.
“Logan wanted to talk to you, darling,” Mom said and rose from the armchair. Butch pawed at my feet and barked, nuzzling my palm for attention as he always did. “I let him in.”
“Oh,” I said. “Oh.”
“You didn’t call, Katie.” Logan got up too and crossed the living room, my living room, filling it so completely with his frame. He halted in front of me but didn’t touch me. “I couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing.”
“Not knowing what?” I asked, a little panic rearing up, now. Get it together. He doesn’t know about the baby, yet.
“Whether what we had on the island was nothing more than just a fling to you
,” he said. “It wasn’t to me.”
Oh, my god times two. This was everything I’d have loved to have heard from him today if I hadn’t just found out I was pregnant with his child. All thoughts of romance would be erased once he found out the truth.
Shit, and mom had probably invited him to stay for dinner.
“Well,” Mom said and cleared her throat. “I think I’ll leave you two to talk. Logan, be sure to call me and give me that cannelloni recipe. Or you can email me, whichever is easiest.”
“I will, Mrs. Hendrickson,” he said.
“Wait, you’re leaving? What about dinner?” I turned toward her, but she was already on the way to the door, Butch in tow.
“We’ll catch up tomorrow, hon.” She blew me a kiss, then slipped out and shut the door behind her. Butch barked one more time before he was shushed, and I heard their footsteps track down the hall.
Logan shifted in front of me. We still hadn’t touched, but the tension which spread between us threatened to break me right in half. This was… it was everything I’d imagined seeing him again would be like.
I drank him in, from the collared shirt to the rolled up sleeves, the tailored pants, and his strong nose. Those eyes weren’t cold for me anymore. They were alive with emotion, and it would’ve been too easy to get sucked into them had there not been so much I had to say.
“Jinx,” he whispered and dragged a single finger down my cheek and to my chin.
My eyelids fluttered and I inhaled, forcing down the tide of desire which automatically responded to his touch. God, I’d missed him. The rich scent of his cologne embraced me.
“Logan,” I said, barely croaking it out—not the brisk, professional tone I’d been going for. “Logan, I’m actually glad you’re here. We need to talk.”
“You’re right about that. Why didn’t you call?” Logan asked, and took my hand. He walked us over to the sofa, then sat me down, sinking into the cushions beside me. “I’m not a patient man, Katie. It took all my energy not to rush over here and claim you right away.”