Not Quite Mine (Not Quite series) (13 page)

“Hey, Steve.”

The men shook hands and Katelyn glanced at Dean before covering the plans she and Steve were looking over. Although she wasn’t watching him, Dean dominated the small space and the pine scent of his skin floated toward her.

“I’m going to check on the convention rooms before I leave.” She’d only just arrived, but Savannah had her first doctor’s appointment at ten.

“I’ll get back to you on the quote,” Steve told her.

Dean squinted. “What quote?”

Katie offered a smile and pushed away from the desk. “A redesign for the courtyard fountain.” More like a redo, but Dean didn’t need to know that until she could figure out a way to work it into her budget. His budget.

“Redesign?”

“Yeah, no biggie.” Katie brushed off the discussion and moved around the men in the small space.

The weight of Dean’s stare followed her as she placed her hard hat on and opened the door to the trailer.

“By the way, Katie, I talked to Jack. He and Jessie will be back next week.”

She stalled. Her heart did a full stop in her chest before she turned toward Dean. “I thought they were going back to Houston.”

“They are…well, Jessie and Danny anyway. Jack will be here for a few days before returning to Texas.”

She refrained from blowing out a breath. Jessie would want to visit Monica, but Jack would probably stay at the hotel. Which would work to her advantage. She would tell her brother that she was staying with a friend and avoid the constant running between both spaces.

“Are they having a good time?”

“He sounded relaxed.”

“Good.” Hopefully he’d be in his own marital bliss and not notice anything out of sorts with her.

“I’ll check in tomorrow. Bye, Dean, Steve…Jo.”

Dean smiled, Steve waved, and Jo grunted behind her computer monitor.

Outside the trailer, the dry heat wrapped around her. The path to the main site had several pieces of plywood covering the ground. A rare thunderstorm had come through the day before, wetting the dirt and making the site a mess. Katelyn was busy shoving papers under her arm and didn’t notice the warp in the wood below her feet. Her heel found the swollen board and caught. Her tight mini kept her from catching herself and before she knew it, she landed flat on her ass, mud all over her skirt, and her ankle screaming in protest.

She sat there for a moment, stunned that she was sitting on the ground. The papers she was attempting to hold were scattered at her feet. Luckily, no one saw her tumble.

With as much dignity as she could muster, she pushed herself up, ignored her throbbing ankle, and picked up her papers.

Dirt rode high on her thigh and ruined the hem of her silk skirt. Even the hard hat sat in a puddle of mud.

“OK, Grace,” she chastised herself.

After wiggling her shoe back on her foot, she attempted to stand.
Attempted
being the key word.

“Dammit.”

Pain shot up her leg and nearly had her on the ground a second time. She bit her lip and took another step.

Not so bad. Not good…but not bad.

She made it to her car but decided the trip was all she could take in four-inch heels. The convention hall would have to wait.

Dean’s voice and words followed her back to Monica’s apartment. “
You’re defying gravity in those shoes…This is a construction site, not a dance floor.
” He’d been harping at her daily to get out of her shoes and she had refused.

By the time she managed to pull into the parking spot at Monica’s, her ankle was twice the size it should have been and ibuprofen wasn’t going to cut it for the pain. She gave up on the shoes and carried them with one hand when she walked in the door.

Mrs. Hoyt clicked her tongue the moment she saw Katie limping. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. I’m OK.”

Mrs. Hoyt was the perfect plump grandmother who lived to take care of people. “You need ice.” She was already at the freezer by the time Katie set her purse on the counter. Once she managed to sit, a sigh of relief left her lips.

“Damn, shit…” she cursed under her breath. The last thing she needed was a stupid turned ankle to slow her pace, and God knew she hated being wrong.

It killed her that Dean had known this would happen…eventually.

Mrs. Hoyt returned with the ice and gently placed it on Katie’s swollen ankle.

“Thanks.”

“Hard hats and stilettos don’t mix,” her babysitter chided.

“Don’t remind me.”

Mrs. Hoyt raised an eyebrow, but left the rest of her lecture behind her lips.

“Your daughter is sleeping.”

Katie attempted a smile and glanced toward the hall. They had an hour before the doctor’s appointment.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“I’ll be OK.” She hopped deeper in the room. “Thanks.”

Alone with a sleeping baby in the apartment, Katelyn cursed her ankle again. After a hobble to the bathroom, she found some Motrin and chased it with a glass of milk. It was a good thing Dean hadn’t seen her fall. Chances were he would have insisted on a trip to the doctor. Maybe even picked her up and carried her against her will.

The memory of his arms around her, of how safe he once made her feel, squeezed something inside her chest and started to hurt. He’d always made her feel secure, wanted. With Dean she never had to put on airs.

“Makeup is for ugly women. Your skin is perfect,” he told her, holding her face in his hands and running his thumb over her lower lip.

“A lady never leaves home without her makeup, Dean Prescott. You have sisters, you know this.”

“We’re not going anywhere tonight.”

They didn’t leave that night. And wearing makeup when it was only the two of them became a thing of the past.

But that was well over a year ago, and best forgotten.

Dean stretched out his legs on his chaise lounge on his back patio. Mike sat across from him sipping a beer. “How’s the hotel?”

Dean hadn’t seen Mike since Jack’s wedding. When Mikey had called earlier in the day to suggest they get together, he jumped at the opportunity. Outside of work obligations, Dean hadn’t had a social life since his breakup with Maggie. At first, he avoided his friends. Not that they let him sulk for long. Jack and Mike had found him up in Big Bear and assisted him with getting good and drunk. He’d spent an entire weekend brooding and cursing anything in a skirt before returning to his life. And even then he did so slowly…if at all.

Jack and Mike saw him through the hard time, and went on to support him ever since. Although they didn’t talk about his ex, Dean knew his friends watched him. Whenever they got together, one of them would ask if he was seeing anyone. Checking to see if he was climbing back on the horse, so to speak. In truth, he hadn’t. Not because of an undying love for Maggie, but because of how done he was with the whole dating scene. Maggie was a perfect case of “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” He knew that now. After.

He supposed Maggie had picked up on his feelings and that was why she had broken off their engagement. Being dumped weeks before your wedding sucked. Being married to the wrong person would have sucked more.

“Coming along. No major setbacks.”

“Is Katelyn actually showing up to work?”

An instant picture of Katie’s blonde hair poking out from under
his
hard hat surfaced. “She is. I’ll be the first to admit how shocked I am at how seriously she has taken this job.”

“I didn’t think she’d last a week. Of course her real work won’t come until the hotel is nearly finished…right?”

Dean twisted the top off his beer and shook his head. “She’s taken great pride in pointing out design issues in the construction phase. Niches that need electrical and framing. Separate meeting areas outside of conference halls for kids and adults. She even snuck behind my back to talk with my plumber about one of those fancy fountains that shoot water out of the ground for kids to play in.”

“What does all that have to do with sofas and wall color?”

“Nothing. I’m gonna grill Jack when he gets back.”

“You think he knew how involved she wanted to be?” Mike brushed a fly off his arm as he spoke.

“I think Jack was too busy doing all that sappy married crap before he left to pay Katie much attention. Katie is all kinds of resourceful. Probably snuck in a limited amount of details and had him saying yes without realizing what he was doing.” Dean could picture the conversation easily. Chances were Katie cornered Jack with Jessie across the room.
C’mon, Jack. You know I’m a born decorator. No need to hire someone to do the job.

That’s all that would have needed to be said to land the position. And it wasn’t as if she was getting paid. How could Jack say no?

“She’s busting your budget I’ll bet.”

“That’s just it, she’s not.”

“What?” Mike sounded as surprised as Dean felt.

“I gave her a budget, a low one thinking she’d balk at it, and so far she’s staying within it. I even heard her haggling with a vendor over paint prices.”

“No shit?”

“No shit!” Dean took a pull off his beer.

“So Jack was right. Katie isn’t acting herself.”

Dean shrugged. “Not completely. The work thing is new. I keep expecting her to burn out. I’ve called the hotel a few times but it doesn’t seem she spends a lot of time there.” And that was classic Katie behavior.

“Is there a guy?”

Dean thought of that Ben guy and ignored the twist in his gut. “Probably.”

“That’s good.” Mike relaxed with that information.

“Why is that
good
?” Dean didn’t think so. Ben was too old for Katie.

“Think about it, Dean. If Katie cut away from her normal life of partying, traveling, and appearing in the tabloids every other week so she could work full-time and stay at the hotel at night watching movies, then we’d all know something wasn’t right. So she started to work, find meaning in her life. I get that. Even actors work on occasion. No one gives up everything in their life without a reason. It’s like when you gave up camping and riding your bike.”

Mike had him up until he started talking about camping. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Don’t get defensive. You know what I’m talking about.”

“No. I don’t.”

“When you were with Maggie, you cut out the things that make you tick. I couldn’t get you to go camping all last year. And it wasn’t until after Maggie skipped out that you found your bike again. Maggie was your reason for strange behavior.”

“Sometimes we do things for the people in our lives.”

Mikey sat forward and met Dean’s eyes. “If falling in love and getting married means I have to give up everything I like doin’, then count me out.”

“I didn’t give up everything.”

Mike snorted.

“I didn’t.” Dean winced, knowing he sounded like a five-year-old. “OK, maybe I did. I was messed up back then.”

“That’s my point, buddy. If Katie wasn’t acting at all normal, we’d know she was messed up. That something had gone down that none of us knew about. And as much as we might hate it sometimes, we all like to keep tabs on each other. Be there for each other.”

Mike was right.

They changed the subject to a local baseball team and grilled a couple of steaks. Katie was never far from Dean’s mind. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something…something big.

Dean wasn’t sure why Katelyn insisted on showing up to the job site before him, but for the fourth time in a week he pulled alongside her rental car and shook his head.

The top of the convertible was down and he glanced in the backseat. A bright pink pacifier stuck out like a bald man in a hair salon. He reached in and picked it up. Maybe the pacifier was hidden under the seat, and the person who rented it before Katie had lost it.

Still, the presence of the infant toy sparked a moment of recognition much like déjá vu, and didn’t let go.

He cupped the plastic binky into his palm and made his way inside.

Jo greeted him and gave him his messages. The light in the conference room was on, and he could hear Katelyn talking on the phone. After the conversation with Mike the day before, and his own nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right, Dean had decided to poke a little more into Katie’s mind.