A Family of Her Own. Brenda Novak
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in about the same time, and Booker simply couldn’t compete with the kind of love and devotion Delbert lavished on the dog. Bruiser became Delbert’s dog and began shadowing his every move. Now the pair were almost inseparable.
Delbert got Bruiser some fresh water before pulling the lasagna out of the fridge. Booker headed into the living room, where he could hear the television. He wanted to talk to Katie, to find out whether she’d spoken to her parents today or made any decisions about her future. He recognized the difficulty of her situation. He blamed Andy for much of it. But he was determined not to get personally involved with Katie again—on any level. Which meant they had to make other arrangements as soon as possible.
The television flickered in the corner, providing the room’s only light. Booker could see Katie lying on the couch in front of it, but when he drew closer, he realized she was asleep.
He was just deciding whether to wake her, so they could get their little talk out of the way, when the telephone rang. Who’d be calling at midnight? he wondered and grabbed the cordless phone off its base.
“Hello?”
Whoever was on the other end slammed down the receiver.
“Was that my parents?” Katie asked, obviously struggling to wake up.
“Maybe.” He replaced the phone. “Why? Are you expecting them to call?”
She blinked up at him. Her mascara was smudged, her face bore the imprint of the fabric covering the couch, and her hair stuck up on one side. She looked her worst. But he didn’t care. His mind immediately conjured up the feel of that soft pouty mouth beneath his and the expression in her blue eyes when he’d first cupped her breast….
Resenting how the past two years seemed to fall away so easily, he reminded himself that what they’d had was over. For good.
“Not really.” She tried to smooth down her hair. “I…I thought they might try to contact me. You know, just to check up.”
Her brittle smile and casual tone didn’t ring true, but Booker refused to feel any sympathy. He needed to get rid of her, and he needed to do it fast, before his memories undid all the progress he’d made over the past two years. “Maybe we should call them in the morning,” he said.
She grimaced and stared at the phone. “If they wanted to talk to me, they would’ve done so by now, don’t you think?”
He settled in the recliner. “What about your father? Have you tried contacting him? Maybe he doesn’t feel quite as strongly as your mother does.”
“Maybe,” she said, but her voice held no hope. And Booker knew her father usually took a harder line than her mother did. “I—I’ll stop by the bakery tomorrow.”
“Good.” Booker thought perhaps he should visit the bakery beforehand and try to rouse Don to his familial duty.
“What did you do today?” he asked, even though he already knew a little about her movements. Lester Greenwalt had stopped by to pick up the flat he’d brought over for repair, and mentioned that Katie had visited him looking for work. Why she’d applied at an insurance office, Booker couldn’t say. He’d assumed the beauty shop would be her first stop.
“I put in a few job applications,” she said.
“Did you go by Hair and Now?”
“I popped in this afternoon. Why?”
“Was Rebecca around?”
“For a while. Until she went into the back room to take her temperature. Then she rushed off to meet Josh.”
The baby thing again. Rebecca wasn’t giving up, yet every time it didn’t work out she got that much more upset. “Didn’t she tell you she’d hire you back?”
“We talked about it briefly.”
“And?”
“I’m going to try something different for a while.”
From all indications, she was on her last dollar. Now wasn’t the time to be selective. “Why?” He scowled to let her know he didn’t agree.
She scowled right back at him. “Maybe I need a change of pace.”
“Katie, I towed the Cadillac to my shop and got it running again, but—”
“How much do I owe you for that?” she interrupted, worry clouding her face.
“Six hundred dollars.”
She winced.
“That’s giving you a good deal,” he said because it was true. Six hundred dollars represented his costs in labor and parts, nothing for profit. “You cracked the block, and I had to have the engine rebuilt. It took my top mechanic nearly all day. I worked on it some more tonight, and we’re still not quite finished. I’m waiting for another part to come in.”
“I appreciate the effort,” she said, “but you didn’t even ask me if…if I wanted it fixed.”
“What were you planning to do? Leave it on the side of the road?”
“No, I…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I hadn’t decided, I guess.”
Silence fell, during which Booker could hear Delbert talking to Bruiser in the kitchen.
“How much is the car worth out here, if I wanted to sell it?” Katie asked after a few seconds.
Booker couldn’t supply an exact figure, but he knew it wouldn’t be much. “I don’t know.”
“Well, it’s probably not worth the $4,000 I paid for it, but as soon as I sell it, I’ll give you the money.”
God, she was that desperate? What had happened in the two years she’d been gone? “I’m not going to let you sell your car,” he said flatly.
Her troubled eyes finally met his. “But I can’t pay you, Booker. Not now, anyway. I don’t even know when.”
Booker had dreamed of running into Katie again, thousands of times. She’d hurt him so deeply when she left that he’d thought he’d like nothing better than to find her penniless and repentant. But he felt no triumph. Only anger, plenty of anger, directed at her and Andy. Maybe he didn’t have a family who’d supported him all the way through college, like Andy’s. Maybe he wasn’t a slick talker with wrinkle-free clothes and a pretty face. But he would’ve starved before letting Katie go without. “What happened in San Francisco?” he finally asked. “Why hasn’t Andy been taking care of you?”
She drew up her legs and hugged them against her. “You can be so old-fashioned,” she said with a slight grimace. “I wouldn’t need anyone to take care of me if it wasn’t for this baby. I was working in a nice salon, making good money. I was the one paying all the bills. But then—”
He waited when her words drifted off, watching the emotions play across her face.
“—then I got pregnant and the pregnancy hasn’t been going well.”
A trickle of unease heightened Booker’s senses, telling him the story was about to get a hell of a lot worse. “What does that mean?”
She shrugged, but it was hardly a careless movement. “I can’t work on my feet.”
“Or…”
“Or I could lose the baby, okay? That’s why I can’t cut hair. That’s why I can’t go back to Hair and Now.”
Releasing a long sigh, Booker wiped his face with one hand. “And you have no savings.”
“No. Andy made sure of that. He barely waited until I could make the money before he spent it.”
“Wasn’t he bringing home a paycheck of his own?”
She shook her head. “I tried to get him to work, but—” She