Still the One (42 page)

Zack’s chest felt as if it would crack, as if it couldn’t contain all the emotions running through him. “I hate it so much
that you had to give her up. And I hate it that you went through all this alone.”

She lifted her shoulders. “I wasn’t entirely alone. There were people from the adoption center.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as family.”

Even as he said it, he realized how ironic it was. Hypocritical, even. Him, espousing the importance of family? All of his
life, he’d told himself that relationships didn’t matter, that connections were temporary and replaceable, that people pretended
family was important so they didn’t have to face the cold fact that everyone is really alone. And yet here he was, talking
as if connections mattered.

Because they did.
Good God—they did. All his loner bull—it was just that: bull. A way of dismissing something too painful to look at.

All his denial about how much relationships mattered—it was because they did. How much had he wanted a family, a real family,
when he was a boy? A mother and a father who wanted him and loved him, who listened to him and talked to him and actually
enjoyed being around him?

He’d wanted that more than anything in the world. And when he couldn’t get it… well, he’d pretended it just didn’t matter.
His life had turned into a great big exercise in denial.

What a fool. How could he not have seen what was so obvious? Families mattered. Families were the place where love was stronger
than bad behavior, where forgiveness wasn’t a single act, but a continuous choice.

He had to talk to Katie. The pressure built within him. “Want to go down and get a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

They got in an elevator. Zack punched the halt button.

Katie looked at him, startled. “What are you doing?”

“The offer of coffee was just a way to get you alone.”

The elevator alarm shrieked.

“I don’t think a hospital elevator is the best place for a private conversation.”

“Apparently not.” He punched the open button. The elevator door slid open. He pulled her out. “Let’s take the stairs.”

The middle-aged nurse at the desk frowned at them as he led her out of the elevator and down the hall to the metal door under
the red glowing exit sign.

Katie stepped through the door, and he followed her into the stairwell. The door closed behind them with a loud steel-on-steel
bang.

He took her hand. “Kate—I’ve got to ask you something.” It was hard to talk around the lump in his throat. “Will you marry
me?”

Katie’s mouth opened, then closed, her eyes so bright and hopeful it almost hurt to look in them.

“You know how we talked about being grandparents before we were ever parents? Well, this is a chance to be both. To help raise
Gracie’s baby together. To be a family. I know how important family is to you, and I feel so bad that I wasn’t there for you
when you had Gracie, and…”

Her expression changed. He couldn’t say exactly what happened, but it was as if the light went out of her eyes.

He spoke faster, hoping to smooth things over. “I want to be there for you and Gracie and the baby. I want to marry you, Kate.”

She gazed at him, her expression telling him nothing. “Don’t do me any favors.”

This wasn’t going well. Not well at all. He dropped to one knee. “Kate, will you marry me?”

“No.”

He stared up, startled by the word, equally startled by the curt way she’d said it. “No?”

“No way.” She shook her head. “I refuse to marry you to create some kind of weirdly retro family unit.”

“But…”

“You can be a father to Gracie and a father figure for her baby without making the ultimate sacrifice.”

He frowned. Where the hell had that come from? “Who said anything about a sacrifice?”

“Zack, I know how you feel about commitment. The very mention of the L-word sent you running for the Vegas hills. Call me
crazy, but that is not the behavior of a man I want to marry.” She punched his chest with her finger. “You are not exactly
ideal husband material, Ferguson.”

A nerve worked in his jaw. “Look, I know I’m not Saint Paul, and maybe this isn’t the proposal of your dreams, but we can
make this work.”

“ ‘
We can make this work?
’ That’s supposed to convince me to marry you?” Her eyes blazed. “Well, here’s a news flash, Zachary—marriage isn’t supposed
to be
work
.”

She turned away and huffed down the stairs.

He leaned against the wall and blew out a harsh breath. If he lived to be a hundred and two, he would never understand what
women wanted.

“Zack proposed?” Bev gripped the steering wheel of her Range Rover and stared at Katie. Katie had called Bev from the hospital
and asked for a ride back to Zack’s place to pick up some clothing and other things for Gracie, the baby, and herself. “And
that’s why you look mad as a wet hen? Because he
proposed
?”

“Well, yes. I mean, no. I mean, yes, he proposed.” Katie sank against the headrest and closed her eyes. “But I didn’t like
the way he did it.”

Bev’s forehead creased like corrugated cardboard. “What? You wanted him to get down on one knee and he didn’t?”

“Actually, he did.”

“So what’s the problem?” Bev looked at her as if she were the most ungrateful moron on the planet. “You didn’t like what he
said?”

“I didn’t like what he
didn’t
say.” She gazed out the window. “He didn’t say anything about love.”

“Ah.” Bev looked both ways as she pulled out of the hospital parking lot. “You know, honey, lots of men have trouble verbalizing
their feelings.”

“Yeah,” Katie said glumly. “Especially if they don’t have any.”

“You know better than that. That man is crazy about you.”

“He was also crazy about Scarlett Johansson.”

“He’s been with you a lot longer than he was with her.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel good?”

“Well, actually—yes. It would make me feel terrific, that’s for sure. And come on, Katie. He asked you to
marry
him. A guy doesn’t do that unless he’s got strong feelings.”

“Yeah. And those feelings are guilt and obligation.”

Bev frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“He doesn’t really want to marry me. He just thinks it’s the right thing to do. He’s all emotional from Gracie nearly losing
and then having this baby, and he feels bad he wasn’t there when I had Gracie, and he thinks the only way he can make things
right is to marry me, because that’s what he thinks he should have done when we were kids.”

“Even if what you’re saying is true—and I’m not sure I was even following all that, much less agreeing with it—none of this
means he doesn’t love you.”

“I’m not sure Zack knows what love is.” She knit her fingers together so hard they hurt. “He’s never seen it up close. His
parents’ marriage was a nightmare.”

“It’s not like you had a great example from your family, either.” Bev braked for a stop sign. “But you and Paul still managed
to have a wonderful marriage.”

That was true. Katie closed her eyes and rubbed her temple. “You know what the difference is? I wanted love and marriage.
And I believed it was possible.” She opened her eyes and stared at the light pole illuminated in the black night. “Zack never
believed in it, and he never wanted it. And I don’t want to marry a man who only wants to marry me because he thinks he should.
If I marry again, it’ll be to a guy who loves me with all his heart, a guy who can’t wait to share his life with me, a guy
who loves me as much as I love him.”

She gazed out the window, her heart as dark as the rain-slicked street. “As much as I’d like him to be, I just don’t think
Zack is that guy.”

Two days later, Zack cornered Katie in the hallway outside Gracie’s hospital room. His mouth was set in a hard, angry line.
“We need to talk.”

He took her arm and steered her down the hallway to a doorless supply closet. One wall was stacked with bedpans and other
creepy plastic receptacles. Another held folded hospital gowns, sheets, and towels. A mop sat in an industrial-style bucket,
making the room reek of pine disinfectant. He loomed over her, his face like a storm cloud. “What the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You asked me to stay at the hospital with Gracie today while you ran an errand.”

A little tremor shot through her. For the last two days, she’d avoided Zack as much as possible. She’d spent the night in
Gracie’s room at the hospital, and she left whenever he came to visit.

“While I was here, you moved all of Gracie’s and your belongings out of my house.”

“My house is nearly finished, so I thought it would be best if Gracie and the baby and I adapt to the new normal as soon as
possible.” A normal that didn’t include Zack as a day-to-day part of their lives.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Maybe I was hoping to avoid a scene like this one.”

His scowl darkened. “This isn’t a scene. This is a conversation. But if you think a scene is called for, I can damn sure ramp
things up for you. In fact, I’m ready to do just that, because the thought of you lining up movers and bringing them in behind
my back really chafes my ass.”

“I didn’t line up movers. Bev and her husband helped me.”

“Same thing. You planned things out and didn’t tell me.” He stepped closer. “What is the big idea?”

“It’s
your
big idea. I’m just following your plan.”

The furrows between his eyebrows deepened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your plan. We’d share custody until Gracie had the baby and turned eighteen. Well, she’s had the baby. She’ll be eighteen
in a few months. So I figured we might as well get things settled so that she doesn’t have to move twice. She can simply bring
the baby home.”

“What’s wrong with my place being home?”

“You and I have no reason to live together. And you’ll soon be leaving Chartreuse.”

“Who says?”

“That was the plan.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Gracie just had her baby.”

“She’s going to be raising that baby for the next eighteen years, and you’re going to be trotting all over kingdom come while
she does it.” Katie deliberately kept her voice calm and upbeat, as if she were explaining something to a small child. “We
all might as well get accustomed to the new routine from the outset.”

His scowl turned into a glower.

She forced what she hoped was a conciliatory smile. “You’re welcome to pop in for visits whenever your schedule allows.”

“My, that’s big of you.”

“I don’t understand why you’re upset.” Katie used her best talking-to-a-sulky-kindergartner voice. “This was our arrangement.”

“Initially, maybe. Before we started sleeping together.”

“That didn’t change anything.”

“It damned sure did. I proposed to you, didn’t I?”

“What do you want, a gold star? You proposed, yes, but you made absolutely no mention of love.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. If I haul out the abracadabra word, will that change things?”

“No. No, it won’t.”
Not at this point. Not when I know you don’t mean it.
A lump formed in her throat. She willed herself to shove it down, to keep her voice calm and unemotional. “Zack, thank you
for bringing Gracie into my life. Thanks for helping out after my house was ruined. Thank you for the”—she swallowed—“romantic
interlude, too. It was very therapeutic.”

His face was beyond a storm cloud. It was a tornado of fury. “You thought our
romantic interlude
was
therapeutic
?”

“Yes. It helped me move on.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “From the little scene I witnessed in your closet, it didn’t help at all.”

“What?”

“After you were so talkative in bed. I went up to your room later that day, and saw you sitting on the floor, wearing your
dead husband’s clothes and going through his things.”

“I…”

He cut her off, his face hard as a steel trap. “You haven’t moved on. You haven’t moved an inch. You’ve simply moved back
to your house—or should I say, to your rebuilt shrine.”