Jackie Braun - Claimed by the Rebel

She decided to keep with her plan to keep Dylan’s mind off his worries. “Tell me about your sister. Are you the only two children?”

“Unfortunately. Tara’s seven years older than me, and I would have liked a dozen other siblings to keep her busy. So she wouldn’t focus so much on me. She’s a menace. Meddlesome. Opinionated. I can’t believe a nice guy like Sam married her.”

Underneath every single word Katie heard pure love. “You adore her,” she surmised.

He glared at her. “She’s a pain in the butt.”

“You love her madly.”

“Whatever.”

“You send her flowers all the time.”

“Yeah, well, mostly to bug you.”

“To make me think you are something you aren’t,” she deduced softly.

“I’m every bit as bad as you think I am, Katie. Probably worse.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You were very smart never to go out with me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you don’t believe me, ask my sister.”

“Okay.”

“And quit agreeing with me, for goodness’ sake!”

“Are you afraid of something, Mr. Fearless?” But she already knew. He was terrified of the very same thing she was. Love . He was terrified because he knew it was a force out of his control. His sister being hurt was a reminder of that. That life could best the warrior when it came to love.

He squinted narrowly at her. “I’m terrified of your driving, actually.”

She was a little rusty with the standard, and after a stop at some lights her takeoff was a bit rough. The car bucked and threw Dylan’s head forward.

“And whatever you’re wearing. You look like you’re going to an audition for the Von Trapp Family singers. What do they call those things?”

“Culottes.” Ah, he was trying so hard not to let her see his heart. But she felt as if she could see it anyway.

“Good name,” he muttered. “Terrifying, right up there with blood culottes.”

A good thing to know about a man, that he could keep his sense of humor, even in a crisis. A good thing to know about a man—that making wisecracks was one of the defenses in the armor around his heart. They finally pulled up to the Hillsboro Hospital at the emergency door. “I’ll let you go in,” she said, “and I’ll go find a parking spot.”

“I don’t want to leave my car with you.”

“Too bad. Pretend it’s valet service.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but his concern for his sister got the better of him. He got out, slammed the door, raced to the hospital entrance and disappeared.

She parked the car, but way off in a back lot, not close to any other cars. If it got scratched she was going to be blamed. And then she turned the mirror and winced at what she saw. It was one thing to play the flower girl at work, for her customers, and to bug Dylan, but to go into a public building looking as if she had made an outfit out of curtains and was ready to burst into song!

She removed the scarf, ran her fingers through her hair and shook it. There was, unfortunately, not a thing she could do about the culottes, except hold her head up high, something, thankfully, that she’d had a great deal of practice at.

She went in through the sliding emergency room doors, and had to pause to let her eyes adjust from the bright light outside.

And then she looked around.

She saw Dylan, standing by a window, but he was not alone.

He was holding a baby. The breath went out of her. The baby was nestled against his chest, thumb in mouth, his other hand tracing the outline of Dylan’s lips. And if she was not mistaken, Dylan kissed those little fingers, then said something that made the baby lift his head, look at him and smile.

She could see clearly they were related. The child was obviously his sister’s baby, Dylan’s nephew. The baby’s smile showed the promise of being at least as devastating as his uncle’s was. In fact, that baby could have been Dylan’s son rather than his nephew, their appearance was so similar. Both had hair the color of rich, dark chocolate, amazing blue eyes. The baby, though dimpled, already had the cheekbones and the chin that were going to break hearts.

Katie was completely taken by the contrast of what she was seeing: Dylan so strong and so sure, his arm muscles flexed to hold the baby, so pudgy and powerless, so completely trusting of his uncle.

She stared at Dylan’s posture. He was comfortable, relaxed, and yet two things were very evident: his deep love of the child, and the warrior protectiveness he felt toward him.

Again, she could sense how deeply this man loved when he allowed himself to. And Dylan, man least likely to ever make a serious commitment, looked as if he had been born to be a daddy.

But watching them, she suddenly felt her own heartbreak as fresh and as painful as if the wound had happened yesterday.

Once upon a time this had been her dream for herself.

Exactly .

A strong man. A baby. A little house. A swing set. More babies. A sandbox. Cookies baking. Flower beds to supply a home-based fresh-cut flower business.

Only, her dream had died, been shattered, when she had miscarried the baby. A little boy, who would have been just a year or so older than the one in Dylan’s arms.

Months in a gray fog, a place of no feeling. No tears. No laughter. No joy. No sense of having anything to look forward to. Marcus growing impatient, then distant. More distant than he had been before.

As the memories swamped Katie, she watched a nurse approach Dylan, tiny, perky, all smiles and bubbliness.

The kind of girl Dylan always went for—except that, as a nurse, she was probably smart.

Katie wanted to leave. Her heart hurt in ways she had not thought it could hurt.

This was the hurt she always had known Dylan was capable of inflicting. This was the hurt three days of not seeing him had begun to prepare her for. It was the hurt of a woman who wanted something terribly badly—underscored by the picture he made holding that baby—and it was like wanting two scoops of pistachio on the moon. Not just unrealistic. Impossible. Nonexistent.

She drew in a deep breath, and marched up to him, just as the nurse moved away. “Here are your keys,” she said brightly. “I’m going to go. I hope your sister is all right.”

“She fell over some toys on the stairs,” he said, but he was watching her, carefully. He made no move to take the keys. “Her leg is broken, badly. An orthopedic surgeon is on the way.”

“On the way!” she said. “That’s great. Well, I must—”

He took a step in to her. “What’s the matter?” he asked softly.

The baby was reaching for her hair. He smelled sweet, of talcum and baby soap, and of innocence and hope and dreams.

She couldn’t even do the baby bouquets at work. She let Mrs. Abercrombie fill the little blue ceramic boots and the pink stork baskets.

“The matter?” She stepped back from the baby. If he touched her with those little pudgy hands she knew she would shatter into a million pieces, and there would be no putting her back together again. “Nothing.”

But her voice wobbled shamefully. She pressed the keys into his hand. “I have to—”

“Katie,” he said, his voice gravelly, firm, strong, “Talk to me.”

No .

A terrible thing happened. She began to cry. It felt as if every one of those feelings she’d bottled up after the miscarriage had decided to pick this moment, of all moments, not be dammed one second longer.

It was exactly the kind of demonstration that could absolutely be counted on to horrify a man like Dylan McKinnon.

Only it didn’t.

He drew her into him with his free arm, pressed her head against his chest. “Hey,” he said, “Hey, it’s okay.”