Not Quite Mine (Not Quite #2)(67)
Author: Catherine Bybee

I’m a dad.

He opened the picture function on his phone and brought up Savannah’s picture. So beautiful.

I’m a dad.

Being Savannah’s father answered one very important question he and Katie had been asking for weeks.

Maggie’s her mother.

Dean turned off his computer and left his office. “I’ve got to go,” he told Jo.

“Is Katelyn OK?” she asked, concerned.

Hesitating, he tried to smile. “She’s doing OK. But, uh, I have something I need to do. I’ll be out of reach—fire, flood—”

“Or surprise inspection,” she finished his sentence for him. When he couldn’t be disturbed he’d always said that only a fire, flood, or surprise inspection should interrupt him. “I know the drill, Dean. You all right?”

The shock must have shown on his face. “Yeah. Hold it all down, Jo.”

“I do that every day, boss.”

Yeah…and today he was damn thankful for her skills.

He drove around the block where Maggie had lived when they were engaged. The condominium complex wasn’t secured so he drove into the parking lot and found a visitor spot.

He sat in the car with the engine running, trying to figure out what he was going to say.

He’d driven over without thinking. Why hadn’t she told him she was pregnant? Why did she give Savannah up? What the hell was she up to? Was she coming back to get Savannah one day, to hurt him for not fighting to keep Maggie in his life?

Memories of their breakup surfaced. He hadn’t thought much about her in a long time. The fact that he’d pushed her out of his mind so quickly, so completely, proved to him they weren’t right for each other.

“I can’t do it,” she’d said less than a week before their wedding.

“Can’t do what?”

She’d asked for them to have a quiet lunch at one of “their” restaurants. She would meet him there.

He knew afterward why she didn’t want them in the same car.

She removed the ring he’d placed on her finger six months before.

He’d asked her to marry him after only a few months of dating. They had been in a club with some friends, they’d both been drinking. “I’m tired of the dating scene,” he’d told her. “Let’s get married.”

In hindsight, he hardly knew her. She quickly accepted and they both fell into the thought of being married. The closer to the wedding, the more he told everyone how perfect she was.

Then little things started to bug her. Motorcycles are dangerous. He hardly drove the one he owned as it was. She wanted it gone.

Are you going camping with your friends again? He and Mikey managed two trips…maybe three a year tops.

The blow to his ego kept him quiet while she told him they weren’t right for each other. “You’re not ready to get married,” she had said. “Not to me anyway. You’re not in love with me.”

He wanted to counter her…but he couldn’t.

He didn’t.

He left the café with his ring and drove to a resort town in the San Bernardino Mountains. He parked his motorcycle and found the nearest bar. Jack and Mike found him and helped him drink to forget. Then they helped him sober up and kicked his ass back to work.

In the days and weeks that followed, he was thankful Maggie had called it all off.

She was right. He wasn’t ready to marry her…he didn’t love her.

But God damn it, he didn’t know she was pregnant with his child. He would never have let her walk away had he known. He took care of his responsibilities and Savannah now topped the list.

Anger started to build in his blood. If he confronted Maggie now, who knows what he’d do.

With his truck still running, he pulled out of the parking space and decided to go home first. He needed a level head before this conversation.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The doctors extubated her mother before the three of them arrived at the hospital the next day. A new nurse walked them into her room and explained that she was groggy but coherent.

“Has she asked about us?” Jack asked.

“She asked about what happened. She doesn’t remember the accident. Which is probably a blessing.”

“Which means she hasn’t asked about us.” Katie paused outside of the nurse’s station. Jack and her father stopped along with her.

“You don’t have to go in there,” her father said.

“No. I’m not a child.”

Less medical equipment filled the room and instead of looking half-dead, Annette looked like she was sleeping.

“Annie?” the nurse called as they all breached the doorway.

Her mother responded by slowly opening her eyes. It took a few blinks before she focused on the three of them.

“Your family is here.”

“Hello, Annette,” Gaylord said.

The monitor above the bed beeped a little faster. Katie had watched the monitor for hours the day before and knew her mother’s heart rate was speeding up with their presence.

The nurse pressed a button and glanced at them. “This will have to be a short visit. Annie needs to rest.”

“We won’t be long,” Jack told her.

“Th-they told me you were here,” Annette’s scratchy voice stuttered her words.

“The hospital called the night of the accident. They said you were asking for the kids.”

Katie and Jack stood back and let their father do the talking. It seemed the two of them were paralyzed.

“I thought I was dying, Gaylord.” Even with her hoarse words, Katie could tell her mother had little to say to her father.

“The doctors say you’re doing better,” Katie found her voice.

Annette moved her gaze to Katie. “I heard. Guess this life isn’t done with me.”

No, Katie wouldn’t need that black dress quite yet.

“Why did you call for us, Mom?” Jack asked with thinly veiled anger in his voice. Now that they all knew she wasn’t dying, it was easier to return to the emotion they’d all identified with the woman in the bed.

Annette turned her head away from them, stared out the window. “If I had died, I didn’t want you to think I’ve never thought of you.” Her delivery of why she called was as cold as the woman on the bed.

“Do you think of us?” Jack asked, his jaw tight.

“I do.”

“You waited until now to tell us?”

Katie placed a hand on her brother’s arm, hoping to calm him.