Brenda Novak - A Family of Her Own

The engine was going to need a lot more than a good cooling. He could tell that without even looking at it. But Booker didn’t say so because this time when she’d spoken, something about her voice had sparked a flicker of recognition.

The California license plate flashed through his mind. He didn’t know anyone from California, except…God, it couldn’t be…

“Katie?” he said, trying to make out her face despite the shadow of her hood.

He saw her shoulders droop. “It’s me,” she said. “Go ahead and gloat.”

Booker didn’t respond right away. He didn’t know what to say. Or how to feel. But gloating was pretty far down on his list. Mostly he wanted to leave so he wouldn’t have to see her again. Only he couldn’t abandon her, or any woman, on the side of the road in the cold rain. “You need a lift?”

She hesitated briefly. Then her chin came up. “No, that’s okay. My dad’s good with cars. He’ll help me.”

“Does he know you’re out here?”

A slight hesitation, then, “Yeah, he’s expecting me. He’ll know when I don’t show up.”

Booker put the toothpick back in his mouth. Part of him suspected she was lying. The other part, the stronger part, felt immediate relief that she was somebody else’s problem. “I’ll take off, then. Your dad can call me if he has any questions.”

He strode briskly to his truck, but she followed him before he could make his escape.

With a sigh, he rolled down his window. “Is there something else?”

“Actually I’m here a little earlier than planned and—” she hugged herself, shivering “—well, it’s possible that my parents won’t miss me for a while. I think I’d be better off taking that ride you offered, if you don’t mind.”

Everything’s fine…. She’d said so when he first pulledup. Why couldn’t he have taken her at her word and let her remain anonymous?

The pain and resentment he’d felt two years ago, when she’d closed the door in his face, threatened to consume him again. But considering the circumstances, he had to help her. What choice did he have?

“What’s with the sandals?” he asked.

She gazed down at her soaked feet. “I bought them in San Francisco. They’re one of a kind, designed especially for me.”

They were still only sandals, and it was raining, for Pete’s sake. She must have realized that he didn’t understand the full significance of what she’d just said because she added, “The day Andy and I bought these was the best day of the past two years. And the only day that turned out anything like I’d planned.”

So they were a symbol of her lost illusions. Well, thanks to her, Booker had a few lost illusions of his own. Not that he’d possessed many to begin with. His parents had taken care of that early on. “Hop in,” he said. “I’ll get your luggage.”

KATIE SAT WITHOUT TALKING, listening to the hum of the heater and the beat of the wipers as Booker drove into town. Of all the people in Dundee, he was the last person she’d wanted to see. So, of course, he’d been the first one to come along. It was that kind of day—no, year.

Clasping her hands in her lap, Katie stared glumly out at the familiar buildings they passed. The Honky Tonk, where she used to hang out on weekends. The library, where her friend Delaney, who was now married to Conner Armstrong, used to work. Finley’s Grocery. Katie had once knocked over a whole display of Campbell’s soup there, trying to get a better look at Mike Hill, a boy she’d had a crush on all the time she was growing up.

“You warm enough?” Booker asked.

He’d already removed his jacket so she nodded, even though she was still chilled, and he turned down the heat.

“So,” she said, hoping to ease the tension between them, “how’ve things been since I went away?”

She could see the scar on his face that ran from his eye to his chin—souvenir of a knife fight, he’d once told her—and the tattoo on his right biceps. It moved beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt as his hands clenched the steering wheel more tightly. But he didn’t respond.

“Booker?”

“Don’t pretend we’re friends, Katie,” he said shortly.

“Why?”

“Because we’re not.”

“Oh.” Booker’s friends had always been few. He regarded everyone, except maybe Rebecca Wells—Rebecca Hill since she’d married Josh—with a certain amount of distrust. So considering their history, Katie knew she shouldn’t be surprised. She’d lost his good opinion along with everything else. If she’d ever really had it. Even when they were seeing each other before she left, she’d never felt completely certain that he cared about her. He’d driven her around on his Harley and shown her one heck of a good time. But he was somewhat remote, and she’d always approached their relationship with a sense of inevitability, believing that it wouldn’t—couldn’t—last. Then he’d shown up at her door and proposed! She didn’t know how to explain it, except that his widowed grandmother, Hatty, had just died. He and Hatty had been so close throughout her final years that Katie could only suppose his sudden marriage proposal was triggered by his loss.

Now he was obviously holding a grudge that she’d turned him down at a difficult time, or been the one to cut things off between them. “I make a left at 500 South?” he asked after several minutes.

She pulled her attention from the rain beading on the windshield. “What?”

“Your parents still live in the same place, don’t they?”

Last she’d heard they did. But she didn’t know. She hadn’t talked to them since a year ago last Christmas, when they’d told her not to call again. “They’ve been on Lassiter nearly thirty years,” she said, infusing her voice with as much confidence as she could muster. “Knowing them, they’ll be there another thirty.”

“Seems I heard your father say something not too long ago about building a cabin a few miles outside of town.” He shifted his eyes from the road to study her. “They give up on that?”

Apprehension clawed at Katie’s insides. Her folks still had the same telephone number. She’d definitely heard her mother answer when she used the pay phone yesterday. She’d wanted to tell her family she was on her way home. Only she’d lost her nerve at the last moment and hung up.

“Yeah.” Having the same number didn’t necessarily mean they hadn’t moved within a certain geographic area, but Katie was sticking with the gamble. Doing anything else would reveal a rift she preferred to keep private. “They like living so close to their bakery. That bakery is their life,” she added.

The Arctic Flyer appeared on the right, evoking bittersweet memories. Katie had worked there the summer of her junior year because she’d wanted to try something besides her parents’ bakery, and she’d broken the ice-cream machine her first week. Harvey, the owner, had complained every day about the money she was costing him, until the part to repair the darn thing finally came in.

Booker turned up the radio, and she glanced surreptitiously in his direction. Her memories of him didn’t go back nearly as far as her Arctic Flyer days. She’d heard tales of him visiting for several months when he was about fifteen; he’d raised enough hell that the entire town still regarded him as trouble. He’d mentioned a few things about that visit himself, like stealing Eugene Humphries’s truck and wrecking it only a few hours later. But Katie was nine years old at the time. She hadn’t met Booker until years later when he moved in with Hatty.

“Aren’t you curious to know what I’m doing back?” she asked, turning to conversation to stanch the flow of memories.

He looked pointedly at her two suitcases, which he’d wedged into the back seat of his extended cab. “That’s pretty obvious.”