Mr Destiny (34 page)

Kate glanced at the girl standing closest to her.

She had a pretty face, but she was wearing way too much makeup for a girl her age.

She looked down at the girl's feet. “Size seven?”

Both girls giggled.

“Yeah, so?” The girl punched her friend and they both giggled again.

Kate stuck her foot out. “Manolo Blahniks,” she said. “Five hundred dollars' worth. Trade with me and you can sell them to
buy yourself several new pairs of tennis shoes.”

The girl thought about it. “You don't have any weird foot fungus or anything, do you?”

“No. Do you?”

When she shook her head, Kate said, “Follow me.”

They made it across the street and stopped in front of an outside café long enough to make the trade. Her feet breathed a
welcome sigh of relief when she slipped on the tennis shoes.

“Those totally look crunk on you, Lisa,” the girl's friend said, admiring the pumps when the girl put them on.

Lisa smiled at Kate and grabbed her friend's hand.

They quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Afraid, most likely, she was going to change her mind.

Not a chance.

Even though now she was three and a half inches shorter.

A wedding dress and tennis shoes.

Not
what Vera Wang had in mind, she was sure.

Kate put the Blessed Virgin and her child down long enough to pick up the hem of her dress and drape it over her arm to keep
the hem from dragging. She hoped to wear the dress for real one day.

The fact that she was begging for more smart remarks now that she'd hiked Vera's lovely creation up to only a hair longer
than a miniskirt, didn't even faze her. She picked the painting up again, squared her shoulders, and headed off in her new
tennis shoes determined to reach her final destination.

But Kate had decided one thing.

After everything she was willing to go through, if she did find Tony and if Tony
didn't
say he loved her the second he saw her.

She was going to pistol-whip him with his own damn revolver!

Once the blackout hit, Tony had been too busy to worry about afternoon tea at the Waldorf. He had, however, said more than
one silent prayer that Kate was safe.

With the city in turmoil, he was positive his shift wouldn't be ending at its regular time, either. That nixed his idea of
heading to Kate's apartment as soon as he was off duty. But at least maybe by nightfall communication would be restored, the
streets would clear out, and Kate would have made it home safely.

Then he would call her.

He'd beg her to forgive him for being so stupid.

And hopefully have her in his arms as soon as possible.

It did make him wonder though, if the blackout had been destiny's way of telling him to leave her alone.

Or?

Was destiny just reminding him that life really could change in a New York minute?

A cop like him, always living on the edge to a certain degree, needed to be reminded of that now and then. Reminded that life
was short, and the best way to have no regrets was to hold on to love if you were one of those people lucky enough to find
it.

He loved Kate with all his being.

He'd tell her that this time.

The second she answered her phone.

With that settled in his mind, Tony turned his attention back to the current situation. People had poured into Central Park
from every direction, seeking a likely place of refuge away from the mass confusion on the crowded New York streets.

The good news was, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, even taking the inconvenience in stride—once word spread through
the city that a major power failure along the entire Eastern seaboard was the cause of the problem.

However, there's always one more imbecile than you counted on.

The only time Tony had heard anyone mention what had been on everyone's mind, was one wise-ass in a suit and tie who had joked,
“Who needs terrorists? We've got ConEd.”

Angry looks had told him real quick no one was amused.

Tony surveyed the area one last time. When he was sure nothing was amiss, he pulled on the reins, signaling to Skyscraper
it was time to head to the next section of the park. They'd barely made it fifty feet when he heard someone yelling.

“Officer! Hurry. We need your help.”

Great.

That would teach him to relax even for a nanosecond.

Tony tugged the reins to the right, turning Skyscraper back around and directing the horse toward a man who was now motioning
frantically in his direction. A group of people had already gathered around the man, everyone looking concerned.

It wasn't until Tony dismounted, secured Skyscraper's bridle to a nearby bush and made it to where the group was standing,
that he saw the problem.

Someone had failed to tell Mother Nature about the blackout.

The woman sitting on the park bench had both hands flattened against her enormous stomach, her eyes were squinted shut, and
she was panting like crazy to fight off the pain.

“Officer, hurry. We need an ambulance. My wife's… uh… well, her…”

“My water broke, Tom!” his wife yelled. “Just say it. This is no time to be embarrassed.”

The mother's outburst caused the toddler standing beside her to pucker up and burst into tears. The husband had no sooner
picked the little girl up to comfort her, than a loud wail erupted from the baby carriage that was pulled up next to the other
end of the park bench.

The poor guy looked ready to cry himself.

“I'll take care of the baby,” said an older woman standing in the crowd. The baby stopped crying when she took the infant
out of the carriage.

The husband looked ready to kiss her.

Tony quickly radioed for help.

No need to panic,
he kept reminding himself.

It could take hours after a woman's water broke before she delivered. Even under the current circumstances, there should still
be plenty of time for an emergency medical crew to arrive and take over.

His job was to keep everyone calm.

To keep the crowd back and out of the way.

To keep his own head clear and focused.

That was his game plan until the husband walked up, still jostling his daughter in his arms, and whispered, “How soon do you
think it will take the ambulance to get here? I'm worried. We barely made it to the hospital with our son. Once she goes into
labor, my wife delivers real quick.”

Perfect.

“Help will arrive in plenty of time,” Tony assured him. “Just remain as calm as you can. Your wife needs your support right
now.”

The man nodded and walked back to stand beside his wife.

Jesus.

Now Tony was worried the ambulance wasn't going to make it before a brand-new little citizen to protect and serve showed up.

Another woman had thankfully come forward from the crowd to help. She was currently blotting the wife's forehead with a tissue.
Tony motioned the crowd back to give the poor woman some privacy. He walked over and mumbled more words of encouragement to
the husband. He even finally got a smile out of the little girl by tickling her tummy.

It didn't change a thing.

Mother Nature crooked her finger.

The wife threw her head back and screamed.

“The baby's coming. Oh, God. Somebody please do something!”

Tony launched into action.

He motioned for the husband still holding his daughter and the woman holding the baby to move away from the bench.

“You stay,” he said, pointing to the woman blotting the wife's forehead. “I'm going to need your help.”

“Okay,” he said, “everybody else form a circle with your backs to this woman. We need to make a barricade and give her some
privacy.”

People started falling into line without him having to ask again, linking their arms, and placing their backs to the soon-to-be
new mother. He turned back around and the woman who had stayed to help was now holding the wife's hand, helping her lie down
on the bench.

Tony grabbed the blankets and the soft mattress out of the baby carriage. Then he grabbed the diaper bag sitting at the end
of the bench. He'd changed his own nieces and nephews enough to know there wasn't much a woman didn't keep in her diaper bag.
At least he should have enough to make do until official help arrived.

He kneeled down beside her. “What's your name?”

“Judy,” she groaned, grabbing her stomach again.

“Judy, I'm Tony,” he said. “You've done this before, and so have I. Everything's going to be fine. Okay?”

She looked at him. “You've delivered a baby before?”

Tony nodded.

“Okay, Tony,” she said, and grabbed on to his hand.

Him delivering a baby before?

A blatant lie—Tony was scared shitless.

The relieved look that washed across her worried face?

Well worth going to confession later.

By the time Kate walked the twenty-plus blocks from the Waldorf Astoria to Central Park, she figured she could land the role
as an understudy for the freaking
Bride of Frankenstein.

Be beautiful?

Ha!

Being beautiful was not something she'd been able to pull off under the circumstances.

She walked through the entrance of the park and headed for the area where she'd been standing the day her entire life changed.
And she wasn't being dramatic. Without a doubt, nothing about her life had been the same since she first saw Tony galloping
up the path in her direction.

Please God. Let me find him.

She'd already decided she'd have a better chance running into Tony if she stayed in one place. Her walking randomly in one
direction, and him possibly riding off in the other direction, could result in them missing each other altogether.

Plus, she was exhausted.

If Tony (Please God) did happen to be on duty, he'd keep patrolling the area. She'd let him find her standing right where
she'd been standing the first time he saw her—happily waiting to finally become his destiny.

Make that
sitting
where he first saw me,
Kate decided when she noticed a vacant spot on a park bench in the same general area.

She walked over and gently propped the painting against the end of the bench. She spent the next few minutes removing every
bit of dust—and any other suspicious-looking particles—from the back and the seat of the bench with her bare hand.

The older woman sitting on the opposite end of the bench had been watching her with great interest the entire time she cleared
a safe place to sit. But the woman had never said one word.

That won't last long
, Kate thought, and finally sat down.

The woman was just one of those people you knew at a glance would ask you a million questions and never think a thing of it.

She was around sixty, rather large, and had a bad perm and a worse dye job. Her flowered muumuu had a torn pocket. Her pair
of run-down sneakers looked as if they possibly could be home to some type of weird foot fungus.

“What happened to you?” she asked, just as Kate knew she would. “Did the groom run off when the lights went out? And you decided
to steal the Madonna's picture from the church to get even?” She smiled at Kate, fanning herself with the paperback novel
she held in her hand.

Kate glanced at the title.

A mystery.

Great. Granny's a supersleuth.

“No, the lights finally came on up here,” Kate said, tapping her forehead. “And if I'm lucky, my future husband is going to
come riding through here any minute now.”

“Your Fairy Godmother told you that, did she?”

Kate laughed in spite of herself.

“I'm Lorraine,” the woman said, sticking out her hand. Kate shook it.

“Kate.”

“So, Kate,” she said. “The streets are still swarming with people. I'm not going anywhere until the crowds thin out. You're
sitting here waiting for your prince to ride by. Why don't we pass the time by you telling me what really happened to the
groom?”

Oh, what the hell?