Still the One (10 page)

Whoa. What was she doing, thinking about Zack’s buns? She hadn’t thought about a guy that way since Paul. Rattled, she moved
from her station to the cash register.

Zack followed her. “I came by to see if you wanted to go to dinner with Gracie and me.”

The thought of going out and being ogled by everyone in town made Katie’s stomach twist, but she was dying to spend more time
with Gracie. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you and Gracie come to dinner at my place?”

His smile seemed to go right through her. “Great.”

“Do you know where I live?”

“Yeah. I deliberately bought a house just a block away.”

She should have known the proximity was no accident. Few things escaped Zack’s notice.

“I figured it would make it easier for us to share custody if Gracie could just walk back and forth between our places. Do
you have a room where she can sleep?”

“Sure.” The spare room was set up as a guest room, but Katie thought of it as the nursery, because she and Paul had planned
to turn it into one when she had the baby they so desperately wanted. How ironic that it would now be used by the baby she
gave away.

“As I said before, half the time Gracie can stay with you, and the other half with me,” Zack said.

“How do you want to structure this? Are we going to alternate weeks?”

“We can play that by ear. At first we should probably just alternate nights, because Gracie…” His voice trailed off.

“Won’t want to stay with me,” Katie filled in.

“She doesn’t know what she wants.” Zack shifted. “Can she stay with you tonight? The beds weren’t delivered, and I don’t want
to make her sleep on the floor.”

“No problem.” The thought filled Katie with excitement. She would get her daughter all to herself. They’d spend some time
together, Gracie would begin to thaw, and before she knew it, they’d be laughing and talking, and Gracie would be confiding
in her, just like a regular mother and daughter.

“So what time do you want us to come over?” Zack asked.

Katie ran a fast mental inventory. She always kept the ingredients of an emergency dinner on hand: pasta and spaghetti sauce
in her pantry, plus garlic bread, ground meat, and ice cream in her freezer. She had a fresh bag of mixed lettuce in her fridge.
She wouldn’t even have to run by the store. “In, say, thirty or forty minutes?”

“Great.” He turned toward the door. “We’ll see you then.”

Katie’s house was a taupe-colored cottage with a deep front porch, green-shuttered windows, and white, Victorian-style trim.
It looked like Katie, Zack thought—small, pretty, and stylish. Gracie’s flip-flops slapped loudly as she climbed the wooden
porch stairs beside Zack, her face set in a stubborn sulk.

The scent of cooking garlic and onions wafted out the door as soon as Katie opened it. “Umm. Smells delicious,” Zack said
as he stepped into the house. He handed Katie the bottle of wine he’d picked up on his way home from her salon.

She took it from him, her eyes surprised. “Thanks.”

He looked around. The living room and the connected kitchen were painted a soft golden yellow and decorated with a mix of
antiques and Pottery Barn–style furnishings. The overall effect was charming and inviting. “Nice place, isn’t it, Gracie?”

The girl tilted up her nose and ignored the question.

He should have known there was no way she’d be conned into saying anything positive.

“Where’s my room?” Gracie asked.

Katie gestured toward the back of the house. “Down the hall, to the right.”

Without a word, the girl clomped away, her purse slung over one shoulder, a backpack over the other.

“Make yourself at home,” Katie called.

A door closed with a hard thud.

“She’s not big on manners,” Zack said apologetically.

“It’s okay.” She looked at the wine bottle, then smiled up at him. “You more than made up for it. Come on in.”

He followed her into the living room and paused in front of an old black upright piano. “Do you play?”

“No. My husband did.”

Husband.
The word knotted something in Zack’s gut. He glanced at Katie’s left hand and noticed that a wedding ring still sparkled
there.

“He was teaching me, but I haven’t touched it since he”—her eyes darted away—“didn’t come back.”

“I’m really sorry. That had to be rough.”

“Yeah.”

That must be her husband in the photo on the piano. He looked like a nice enough guy—sandy hair, ramrod posture, and an easy
smile. Zack’s gaze drifted to a large urn on the mantel. Oh, God—was that what he thought it was? He swallowed. Yeah, it probably
was, because it was surrounded by smaller framed photos, and they all featured the same man.

Zack walked over and looked at them. A large photo in a heavy silver frame showed a man in a tuxedo, standing beside Katie
as a radiant bride, beaming at her as if he’d just won the lottery. In the next one he stood with his arm around her in front
of a Christmas tree with a bunch of other people. To the right, Katie and the man sat in a buggy drawn by a horse. On the
left, they lounged on a white-sand beach.

The knot in Zack’s stomach tightened. He picked up a photo of the man in a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve uniform. “So this was
Paul.”

Katie nodded.

“How long were you married?”

“Four years.”

He’d known Katie only a little over six weeks that summer. Funny how much of an impact those six weeks had made on his life.
“I understand he died in Iraq.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

Katie’s head bobbed in acknowledgment. “He was in Baghdad, on his second tour. He was twenty-nine days away from coming home
when a man pulled a bomb out from under his coat in the middle of a crowd. Paul tackled him, and it went off.” Her mouth pinched
with pain.

“He was a real hero.”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip as she gazed at the photo. “But then, he’d always been my hero.”

It was as it should be. So why did the words sting? “How did you two meet?”

“He was a drug rep before his Reserve Unit was called up. I met him at a local doctor’s office the day I had the flu. I was
at my absolute worst—runny nose, fever, and a hacking cough—not to mention stringy hair and baggy sweats.”

“Baggy sweats,” he said dryly. “That’s a flu symptom you don’t usually hear about.”

She laughed. The sound was like a forgotten favorite melody playing on the car radio, the kind that made him sit in the car
to listen after he’d reached his destination.

“When he came back through town the following week,” she continued, “he called and asked me to lunch.”

Zack carefully set the photo back atop the piano, quashing the childish urge to place it facedown. “Even at your worst, Kate,
you always outshone every other woman in the room.”

Katie wrapped her arms around her chest and tried to squelch her pleased reaction. It was meaningless flattery, she told herself.
He’d dated movie stars and models, so he probably kept a tankful of high-octane compliments at the ready. “Yeah, right.”

“I mean it.”

It was alarming how much a pathetic part of her wanted to believe he actually did. “Uh-huh.”

“Remember that day we got caught in that downpour and you fell down and got covered in mud? And you’d worn eye makeup that
day, and it ran all over your face.”

“I’m so glad you remembered that.”

“It was a memorable sight. You looked like a cross between a raccoon and a melting clown.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it. The thing is, you looked better messed up than most women look after hours of primping.”

He was BS-ing her, but her cheeks heated all the same. “I’m not sure I’m pleased that’s your most enduring memory of me, but
thanks.” She headed for the kitchen.

He followed her. “I didn’t say that was my most enduring memory.” He leaned his hip against the counter as she checked to
see if the water was boiling in the pasta pot. “I have lots of memories about you.”

He was laying it on a little thick. “Really.”

“Seriously. Every night at juvie, I’d lie in my bunk and think about you, recalling all the details. I’d picture those silver
earrings you always wore, and the way you pinned your hair back and it kept getting loose and falling in your face, and that
tiny little beauty mark on the back of your neck.” He reached out and touched her neck, just below her ear.

The touch was electric, loaded with the current of a million memories. It buzzed through her, shocking her with its intensity,
making it impossible for her to breathe, much less move.

It seemed to paralyze him as well. The steam rising from the simmering water hung in the air between them, as if generated
by the heat of their skin. It seemed like forever before he lifted his hand.

She turned away and crossed the room to the built-in oven. “I, uh, need to check the bread.” Her face felt so hot that when
she opened the door, the blast of heat was almost cooling.

He moved to the sideboard below the window and picked up another picture of Paul, one that Katie had taken of him while he’d
been installing the cabinetry in this very kitchen. “So this husband of yours…”

Katie slammed the oven door harder than she’d intended. “Paul,” she said sharply. “His name was Paul.”

“You were happy with him?”

She strode back to the stove, picked up a wooden spoon from the pewter spoon-rest and stirred the sauce. “Very happy.” She
stirred the sauce too vigorously, and some splatted out of the pan, leaving a red blob on her black cooktop. She grabbed a
paper towel and wiped it up, feeling his gaze on her. “I was crazy about him, and he felt that way about me. It was one of
those even-steven, real-deal marriages. In some relationships, it seems like there’s a lover and a lovee, like one person
cares more, but we were equally matched.” Why was she talking so much?

“How come you never had kids?”

“We wanted to, but…” She put down the spoon and picked up a bag of spaghetti. Her hands shook as she tried to rip the bag.
Why the heck was she telling him all this? It was personal information, and she didn’t have any intention of getting personally
involved with Zack. “I’d rather hear about Gracie.”

He took the bag from her, opened it in a single tug, then handed it back. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. What do you know about her adoptive parents?” Katie had tried to imagine them, time and time again. She’d told
herself that they were warm and loving and nurturing, the kind of people who would read to her, kneel by her bed for prayers
and tuck her in at night, after a full day of dance lessons and playdates and romping around a large, child-friendly, spotless,
beautiful home. She’d idealized them, she knew she had. No one could possibly be as perfect as the parents she’d imagined
for her child; no child could possibly have the idyllic life she’d painted in her head. She knew it was unrealistic, but a
part of her clung to that, wanting it to be true, even as she asked for the facts.

“Her dad was the personnel manager at a bank, and her mom stayed home with Gracie.”

Okay, so the house probably wasn’t as large as she’d imagined. But it sounded like a nice, stable family, and the stay-at-home
mom fit in with her ideal scenario.

“According to the aunt,” Zack continued, “Gracie was the center of their lives.”

Even better.

“She was an extremely bright child,” he continued. “She grew into a typical teenager—a little rebellious, but not too bad.
She thought her parents were too strict. She really loved them, though. When they died, she kind of fell apart.”

Katie’s heart turned over. “She must have been devastated.”

“Yeah. She had to move to Pittsburgh to live with her aunt, and she had a rough time adjusting. She not only lost her parents,
but everything else comfortable and familiar—her home, her friends, her school.”

Katie’s throat thickened, like the sauce on the stove.

“Gracie started acting out—staying out all hours, getting her nose pierced, cutting class. When she turned up pregnant, the
aunt was completely overwhelmed.”

Katie turned down the heat under the sauce and picked up the pot lid. “Who’s the father of the baby?”

“Gracie won’t say.”

Katie’s hand froze, the pot lid in midair, and looked at Zack. “Does she know?” When she’d been at the adoption center in
Kansas, she’d known a girl who hadn’t. In a sad attempt to feel loved and wanted, the girl had slept with any boy who would
have her.

“Gracie says she does, but she doesn’t want him involved in the baby’s life. She refuses to talk about it. She said it’s none
of my business.” Zack’s lips formed a hard line. “I intend to make it my business.”

“How?”

“Electronic snooping. She hasn’t posted anything on Facebook in months, but she’s got a phone, and I’ve downloaded her address
book. I’m also checking all her recent texts and calls.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

“Maybe, but it’s important. I don’t want another guy in the situation I’m in.”