Kristine Rolofson - The Baby And The Bachelor

“I get out of the house enough,” he said. “I don’t have to fly to California to prove anything. I like my house just fine.”

“Humph.” Anna stirred the peppers in the pan, filling the kitchen with the aroma of good Italian cooking. “I like my house, too, but at least I get to Florida a couple of times a year to visit my sister and her son.”

“I don’t think much of Florida,” he declared, his stomach rumbling with anticipation. “And I don’t think much of that doctor fella either. He’s not good enough for Kimmy.”

“Somebody better be,” Anna said, waving the smoke away from her face. “She’s not getting any younger.”

“None of us are, Anna,” he said, taking another sip of ice-cold beer. “None of us are.”

“YOU’RE KIDDING. THE GORGEOUS Stuart Thorpe was here?” Kim’s twin sister leaned against the kitchen counter and retrieved her margarita. With short spiky red hair, gold hoop earrings and perfect makeup, Kate Cooper looked like a woman confident of her beauty. Her lime-green shirt fit snugly, as did the black Capri pants that hugged her legs. Kate had a gift for fashion and flair, while Kim had a talent for…babies.

“Yep. All six feet of him.”

“What’d you do?” She took a swallow of her drink and smiled. “See, isn’t it better with extra tequila?”

“I took pictures of his niece, which was why he was here.” Kim sipped her drink, then coughed. “Remind me never to let you near my blender again.”

“It won’t do you any harm.” Kate rummaged through the cupboards until she found a bag of tortilla chips, which she poured into one of Kim’s yard sale finds. “Where do you get this stuff? It’s chipped.”

“I liked it.” She wasn’t about to confess to buying it for fifty cents at a yard sale last summer. The blue and white bowl had flaws, but it held the exact amount of popcorn made from a microwave packet. “And it matches the tile.”

Kate turned and opened the refrigerator. “Do you still have that pineapple salsa I brought last week?”

“It’s in there, behind the milk.”

“I see it.”

Kim took her drink and the bowl of chips across the room to the small white couch and set everything in the middle of her coffee table, a mahogany relic leftover from their parents’ house. She’d painted it white and placed a piece of vintage fabric on top. The blue and pink rose material covered up most of the flaws and blended with the raggedy quilt folded along the back of the couch. The one-bedroom apartment she called home took up the second floor of the house that held their photography business, but it had grown obvious to both women that they needed the space to expand. The business they’d inherited from their father couldn’t keep growing unless they had more studio space in which to work.

Once Kate settled herself on the opposite chair, she kicked off her black mules and eyed her sister. “Tell me about him.”

“Who?”

“Your doctor.”

“He’s not my—” she began, but there was no point in disguising the truth. Her sister knew damn well that Stuart Thorpe had, at one time many years ago, been the man of Kim’s childish dreams.

“Did he say anything to you?”

“Just that it was good to see me.” Kate looked so disappointed that Kim almost laughed.

“He’s still one of the best looking men I’ve ever seen in my life,” she admitted.

“Call him. A weekend with a sexy doctor might do you a world of good.” Then she stopped, stricken. “I’m sorry,” Kate murmured, the smile gone from her face. “I shouldn’t tease, especially about this weekend.”

“It was a long time ago. And I can deal with it, honest.” She really, really hoped Kate wasn’t going to cry.

“Jeff was a real SOB.” Now her twin looked as if she was trying to blink back tears.

“Kate—”

“Mom and Dad wanted you to come to Florida this weekend. They wanted to spoil you and show you all the sights.”

“I know. Mom’s called every night this week hoping I’d change my mind.”

“She sent a ticket for you. It’s in my purse.”

It was silly to feel trapped by one’s own family, but Kim felt suffocated by their concern. She didn’t want her parents to worry; she dreaded hearing the concern in their voices when they called her to hint about taking a vacation right now.

And all because of Jeff, whom she thought was a good and decent man, had asked her to marry him. Two years ago she’d planned to get married this Memorial Day weekend. They’d set their wedding date, had a celebration dinner with their families gathered together at Jeff’s favorite steakhouse, and then four months later he’d confessed he’d thought it over and changed his mind. He was too young to settle down, he’d said. And then he’d run off with his nineteen-year-old office assistant, rumored to be pregnant with his child.

“I’d rather stay home,” she said, hoping Kate would understand. Kate usually did, despite their different personalities.

“Not all by yourself?”

“No. With a male stripper who’s going to fulfill my every fantasy.”

“You wish.” But Kate smiled. “But there’s always the good doctor. You could call him and tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

“Don’t make more of it than it was. It’s not as if I ever really went out with him, except for that one blind date. In a group from the apartment house on Wickenden Street, remember? You said he was nice enough.”

“It was strictly platonic, though I think he might have kissed me good-night.” Kate frowned. “I didn’t know you liked him or I wouldn’t have gone out with him at all,” she said. “Rules are rules.”

“It didn’t matter.” She took another cautious sip of the drink. “He never gave me a second look.”

“Because you probably never said one word to him. Even now you could pick up the phone and ask him out to dinner.”

“You could do that. I can’t imagine it.” Stuart Thorpe was out of her league. Period.

“I don’t know why we’re so different.”

“We drove Mom crazy.” Kate was the demanding one, Kim the quiet one. Kate talked first, but Kim learned to read at age five. Kate talked to strangers while Kim hung back, waiting for her twin to assure her that everything was fine.

“I think we still do.” Kate wiggled her painted toenails and stretched her legs. “Are you sure you won’t go out with me tonight? There are going to be lots of wonderful men there. Friday night is always good and it will keep your mind off Jeff and that whole mess.”

“No, thanks. I’m not brooding or feeling sorry for myself, Kate. Honest.”

“Will you call the doctor?”

And say what?

“No. And not in a million years, no matter how much advice you give me.”

“Ah, I see. He’s the one who got away,” Kate said, taking another sip of her drink.

“No.” Kim tucked her feet underneath her and remembered her senior year at Rhode Island School of Design, the well-known art school. “He’s the one who never came near me at all.”

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