Not Quite Mine (Not Quite #2)(57)
Author: Catherine Bybee

Patrick voiced what she saw. “She’s nervous.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

She pushed the cart through an unlocked service door. With the exception of the penthouse level, the others weren’t locked. If a diplomat visited or a security need arose, they could be, but in Houston that wasn’t needed at the time Savannah was being delivered.

The woman hesitated at the service door and looked up.

Patrick froze the image. He zoomed in and the quality started to fade, but her features were still visible.

Katie swallowed hard and her hands started to tingle.

It can’t be.

“Do you know her?”

Katie bit her lip. “I need to see another picture. Her hair isn’t right.”

“Like I said. It’s a wig.”

Patrick moved the images forward. When the woman was seen again, she was careless about her face. The wig was gone, and she was all but running, holding her stomach, as she made her way back to her room.

Patrick stopped the film again and zoomed in.

There, with tears streaming down her face was a woman Katie had never met but knew a whole lot about.

“It’s Maggie. Dean’s ex-fiancée.”

Her entire body started to tremble.

Patrick turned off the tablet and set it down. “Dean is your boyfriend?”

She nodded wordlessly. “I just moved in with him.”

“Did he know Maggie was pregnant?”

Katie blinked a few times. Her mind went numb. “No.” He would never have allowed Maggie to have his child without him.

She stood and started to pace off the energy swarming her body.

Savannah was Dean’s daughter. His biological daughter.

More his than hers.

“Dean and I dated over a year ago,” she found herself explaining to Patrick. “He used to sneak up to my suite during the time we were together. He must have mentioned that to Maggie.”

“It did look as if Maggie knew the routine of the hotel. But unless Dean drew her a map, she had to have figured this out by herself.”

She thought of the note left with Savannah at the door. “It makes sense now. Dean knew I couldn’t have children.” It hurt to think he’d told his fiancée about her. She wanted to be angry with him but all she could feel was shock.

“I still don’t know why she gave Savannah up. Maggie called off their wedding and didn’t give him much of an explanation as to why.”

“She was pregnant. Maybe she freaked. Women get emotional when they’re pregnant,” Patrick said.

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe their breakup had more to do with you than it did Dean. Either way, I think we know who the mother is…and in light of the timeline, we know who the daddy is. From what I’ve discovered, Maggie is living with her aunt just north of Los Angeles.”

“How far away?” she asked.

“Hour and a half. Two, tops.”

Just yesterday the fabric of her life felt as if it were being sewn at the edges to hold everything together. Dean welcomed her and Savannah into his home and she’d never felt more comfortable in her life.

Outside of her father’s home when she was a child, Dean’s was home. More than Monica’s…more than the suite in a Houston hotel she called her own. The information Patrick delivered dripped acid onto that fabric. The fabric smoldered and left gaping holes.

“What should I do?” she asked almost to herself.

Patrick moved from the couch and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “Does he love you?”

Katie’s gaze flickered in Patrick’s direction. “I—I…we just reunited.”

“You’re a smart woman, Katelyn. Smarter than many of my clients. Would Maggie deliver her child to you as a tool to get Dean back?”

“She left him,” she snapped. “Common knowledge.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. My brother and Dean are best friends. Jack and Dean’s story of her exit was virtually the same.”

She barely noticed him stroking her back in comfort. “You can wait…see if Maggie comes to you.”

“Wouldn’t she have done that by now?”

Patrick didn’t meet her eyes when she looked at him. “If she had a nefarious reason for leaving Savannah with you…and she wanted to avoid any possibility of prosecution of child abandonment, she’ll get in touch with you soon.”

“How can you know that?”

“Texas laws differ from California. A mother can leave a child with a responsible adult for up to six months before the state considers it abandonment.”

“We’re both in California.”

Patrick moved his head to the side. “Doesn’t matter. She left Savannah in Texas. The papers for legal guardianship…the birth certificate were drawn up here in California. Maggie was careful in how she executed this entire ordeal. With the lawyers you could afford to hire, she would be hard-pressed to get Savannah back if she wanted to. And after six months, it’s all but ironclad. If she’d left Savannah here in California, there would be even less legality she could stand on.”

Katie blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “Savannah’s nearly three months old.”

Patrick offered a sympathetic look. “If it helps…I don’t think she’s coming back. She meant for you to have this child. I think it will be up to you to confront her.”

“And if I don’t?”

Patrick shrugged. “After six months you can relax. Even if she came after you for guardianship at that time, any lawyer worth their bar exam could get you custody.”

Katie ran both of her hands over her face and turned away from him. “None of this answers the question of why.”

“No. You asked for an identity. I told you when we started that I would find out who…how…but I’m not inside the head of this woman and I don’t know why she left you her child. It could be that she felt she wasn’t ready for parenthood. Or she couldn’t raise the child of a man who didn’t love her. Women are like that. For those answers you’re going to have to ask her.”

She cringed at the thought.

How could she talk to the woman Dean had been engaged to, the woman that could give him children…did give him a child?

When Katie had heard of Dean’s engagement, a part of her heart, her soul, had shattered.

Katie remembered those first and only days of knowing that, inside her, a life formed. A life created by her and Dean. And then that awful night had come.