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She wanted to ask exactly what the hospital had told him about his sister, but it seemed like a wiser course just to keep his mind on her driving. And not let him behind the wheel! If she did that, she had no doubt they would be racing through the streets of Hillsboro at record-breaking speeds. He’d probably get pulled over before he got anywhere near the hospital.
“You’re not safe to drive right now,” she informed him, pulling into the stream of traffic on a busier road. Another horn honked.
“Sheesh, and you are? Did you know sometimes you have this holier-than-thou way of speaking that drives me crazy?”
That could be a good thing, too, right? Lots of women would like to be the ones driving Dylan McKinnon crazy. Or just driving him. “At least no one will get hurt if we crash at this speed.”
“There’s that tone again. My sister will be transferred to the old folks’ home before we get to the hospital.”
She decided to keep with her plan to keep Dylan’s mind off his worries. “Tell me about your sister. Are you the only two children?”
“Unfortunately. Tara’s seven years older than me, and I would have liked a dozen other siblings to keep her busy. So she wouldn’t focus so much on me. She’s a menace. Meddlesome. Opinionated. I can’t believe a nice guy like Sam married her.”
Underneath every single word Katie heard pure love. “You adore her,” she surmised.
He glared at her. “She’s a pain in the butt.”
“You love her madly.”
“Whatever.”
“You send her flowers all the time.”
“Yeah, well, mostly to bug you.”
“To make me think you are something you aren’t,” she deduced softly.
“I’m every bit as bad as you think I am, Katie. Probably worse.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You were very smart never to go out with me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If you don’t believe me, ask my sister.”
“Okay.”
“And quit agreeing with me, for goodness’ sake!”
“Are you afraid of something, Mr. Fearless?” But she already knew. He was terrified of the very same thing she was. Love. He was terrified because he knew it was a force out of his control. His sister being hurt was a reminder of that. That life could best the warrior when it came to love.
He squinted narrowly at her. “I’m terrified of your driving, actually.”
She was a little rusty with the standard, and after a stop at some lights her takeoff was a bit rough. The car bucked and threw Dylan’s head forward.
“And whatever you’re wearing. You look like you’re going to an audition for the Von Trapp Family singers. What do they call those things?”
“Culottes.” Ah, he was trying so hard not to let her see his heart. But she felt as if she could see it anyway.
“Good name,” he muttered. “Terrifying, right up there with blood culottes.”
A good thing to know about a man, that he could keep his sense of humor, even in a crisis. A good thing to know about a man—that making wisecracks was one of the defenses in the armor around his heart. They finally pulled up to the Hillsboro Hospital at the emergency door. “I’ll let you go in,” she said, “and I’ll go find a parking spot.”
“I don’t want to leave my car with you.”
“Too bad. Pretend it’s valet service.”
He looked as if he wanted to argue, but his concern for his sister got the better of him. He got out, slammed the door, raced to the hospital entrance and disappeared.
She parked the car, but way off in a back lot, not close to any other cars. If it got scratched she was going to be blamed. And then she turned the mirror and winced at what she saw. It was one thing to play the flower girl at work, for her customers, and to bug Dylan, but to go into a public building looking as if she had made an outfit out of curtains and was ready to burst into song!
She removed the scarf, ran her fingers through her hair and shook it. There was, unfortunately, not a thing she could do about the culottes, except hold her head up high, something, thankfully, that she’d had a great deal of practice at.
She went in through the sliding emergency room doors, and had to pause to let her eyes adjust from the bright light outside.
And then she looked around.
She saw Dylan, standing by a window, but he was not alone.
He was holding a baby. The breath went out of her. The baby was nestled against his chest, thumb in mouth, his other hand tracing the outline of Dylan’s lips. And if she was not mistaken, Dylan kissed those little fingers, then said something that made the baby lift his head, look at him and smile.
She could see clearly they were related. The child was obviously his sister’s baby, Dylan’s nephew. The baby’s smile showed the promise of being at least as devastating as his uncle’s was. In fact, that baby could have been Dylan’s son rather than his nephew, their appearance was so similar. Both had hair the color of rich, dark chocolate, amazing blue eyes. The baby, though dimpled, already had the cheekbones and the chin that were going to break hearts.
Katie was completely taken by the contrast of what she was seeing: Dylan so strong and so sure, his arm muscles flexed to hold the baby, so pudgy and powerless, so completely trusting of his uncle.
She stared at Dylan’s posture. He was comfortable, relaxed, and yet two things were very evident: his deep love of the child, and the warrior protectiveness he felt toward him.
Again, she could sense how deeply this man loved when he allowed himself to. And Dylan, man least likely to ever make a serious commitment, looked as if he had been born to be a daddy.
But watching them, she suddenly felt her own heartbreak as fresh and as painful as if the wound had happened yesterday.
Once upon a time this had been her dream for herself.
Exactly.
A strong man. A baby. A little house. A swing set. More babies. A sandbox. Cookies baking. Flower beds to supply a home-based fresh-cut flower business.
Only, her dream had died, been shattered, when she had miscarried the baby. A little boy, who would have been just a year or so older than the one in Dylan’s arms.
Months in a gray fog, a place of no feeling. No tears. No laughter. No joy. No sense of having anything to look forward to. Marcus growing impatient, then distant. More distant than he had been before.
As the memories swamped Katie, she watched a nurse approach Dylan, tiny, perky, all smiles and bubbliness.
The kind of girl Dylan always went for—except that, as a nurse, she was probably smart.
Katie wanted to leave. Her heart hurt in ways she had not thought it could hurt.
This was the hurt she always had known Dylan was capable of inflicting. This was the hurt three days of not seeing him had begun to prepare her for. It was the hurt of a woman who wanted something terribly badly—underscored by the picture he made holding that baby—and it was like wanting two scoops of pistachio on the moon. Not just unrealistic. Impossible. Nonexistent.
She drew in a deep breath, and marched up to him, just as the nurse moved away. “Here are your keys,” she said brightly. “I’m going to go. I hope your sister is all right.”
“She fell over some toys on the stairs,” he said, but he was watching her, carefully. He made no move to take the keys. “Her leg is broken, badly. An orthopedic surgeon is on the way.”
“On the way!” she said. “That’s great. Well, I must—”
He took a step in to her. “What’s the matter?” he asked softly.
The baby was reaching for her hair. He smelled sweet, of talcum and baby soap, and of innocence and hope and dreams.
She couldn’t even do the baby bouquets at work. She let Mrs. Abercrombie fill the little blue ceramic boots and the pink stork baskets.
“The matter?” She stepped back from the baby. If he touched her with those little pudgy hands she knew she would shatter into a million pieces, and there would be no putting her back together again. “Nothing.”
But her voice wobbled shamefully. She pressed the keys into his hand. “I have to—”
“Katie,” he said, his voice gravelly, firm, strong, “Talk to me.”
No.
A terrible thing happened. She began to cry. It felt as if every one of those feelings she’d bottled up after the miscarriage had decided to pick this moment, of all moments, not be dammed one second longer.
It was exactly the kind of demonstration that could absolutely be counted on to horrify a man like Dylan McKinnon.
Only it didn’t.
He drew her into him with his free arm, pressed her head against his chest. “Hey,” he said, “Hey, it’s okay.”
The baby was too close now. Touching her, squawking at her like a little bird, tangling his fists in her hair.
She waited to break, to shatter, for her heart to burst into a million pieces.
Standing there with Dylan’s arm around her, held fast by his strength, with the sweet-scented baby pulling at her hair and chirping away at her in baby talk, something did shatter. The ice around her heart. Only, behind it was not destruction but warmth. The loveliest warmth burst through her.
She wiped her tears on Dylan’s chest, took a step back. “Can I hold him?” she whispered.
The baby came to her so willingly, gurgling and blowing spit bubbles. Her arms closed around him, and she felt his wriggling, beautiful strength.
She felt life. In all its mystery and all its magnificence.
She met Dylan’s eyes and heard herself saying, her voice brave, “I had a miscarriage. I lost my baby. The marriage didn’t make it.”
He just looked at her. He didn’t try and make it better, but he didn’t try and look away, either. He didn’t try and change the subject. He didn’t offer words that would not and could not help. He just looked at her, and there was something in the look in his eyes that she could hang on to.
“Come on,” he finally said. “Let’s sit down over here.” He guided her to the waiting room, which was blessedly empty, and she took a chair, the baby nestled happily against her. Dylan took the chair beside her, covered her hand with his own.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Jake.”
“I was going to call my baby Jonathon. It was a boy, too.”
“Jonathon’s a nice name. I think you would have been a good mom. No. A great one.” He did not say she was young and there would be more babies, more chances, as if one child could be replaced with another.
“I took it really hard,” she told him.
“Would there be any other way to take it?” he asked softly.
“Marcus, my husband, seemed relieved.” She had never said that to another living soul before. Had she even said it to herself? The words were tumbling out now.
“He said ‘I’m not sure I was ready for a baby.’ He hadn’t wanted to try again. What he’d wanted was for me to get over it. He didn’t understand how you could grieve for something that had never breathed.” She paused, and said so softly maybe she just said it to herself, “But my dreams breathed.”
Dylan swore under his breath. One word. Not a word anyone else had said, except maybe her in the darkness of night when she had found herself so alone with a heart full of misery.
And Dylan meant it. And she knew he was a man who would never be relieved if something happened to his unborn baby. Never.
The yearning leaped in her, clawed at her, told her, Take a chance on him.
On him? That was craziness! She had looked after his flowers. She knew better. Except what she had seen in his eyes just now was like a beacon that called the ships lost at sea home to safe harbor.
“If Tara’s your sister,” she asked, suddenly, “who’s Sarah?”
He slid her a look, smiled crookedly. “PR manager.”
“Margot?”
“Receptionist at my office.”
“Janet?”
He sighed. “It’s Sister Janet.”
“I think,” she decided out loud, “I’ll move to another country.” Was it even possible to outdistance what was unfolding within her? How far would she have to run to escape the hope that was unfurling inside of her?
“Katie, my lady,” he said, “Oh, Katie, my lady.”
Katie, my lady. Just a teasing phrase, not something that was intended to increase the yearning within her. But spoken with such tenderness, from his heart, that’s exactly what it did. And it made her decide she wasn’t going anywhere. Not just yet.
And then he took his hand in hers, and he kissed the top of it, and sighed, a man who would rewrite the past for her if he could.
But what would he write on her future?
The baby, who had been slurping contentedly, suddenly popped his thumb from his mouth and roared, “JAAAKE.”
She laughed, startled and delighted.
“We’re working on volume control,” Dylan said affectionately. “He only has one setting, loud. And if I put him on the ground, he only has one speed.”
