A Family of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho #3)(13)
Author: Brenda Novak

She winced.

“That’s giving you a good deal,” he said because it was true. Six hundred dollars represented his costs in labor and parts, nothing for profit. “You cracked the block, and I had to have the engine rebuilt. It took my top mechanic nearly all day. I worked on it some more tonight, and we’re still not quite finished. I’m waiting for another part to come in.”

“I appreciate the effort,” she said, “but you didn’t even ask me if…if I wanted it fixed.”

“What were you planning to do? Leave it on the side of the road?”

“No, I…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “I hadn’t decided, I guess.”

Silence fell, during which Booker could hear Delbert talking to Bruiser in the kitchen.

“How much is the car worth out here, if I wanted to sell it?” Katie asked after a few seconds.

Booker couldn’t supply an exact figure, but he knew it wouldn’t be much. “I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s probably not worth the $4,000 I paid for it, but as soon as I sell it, I’ll give you the money.”

God, she was that desperate? What had happened in the two years she’d been gone? “I’m not going to let you sell your car,” he said flatly.

Her troubled eyes finally met his. “But I can’t pay you, Booker. Not now, anyway. I don’t even know when.”

Booker had dreamed of running into Katie again, thousands of times. She’d hurt him so deeply when she left that he’d thought he’d like nothing better than to find her penniless and repentant. But he felt no triumph. Only anger, plenty of anger, directed at her and Andy. Maybe he didn’t have a family who’d supported him all the way through college, like Andy’s. Maybe he wasn’t a slick talker with wrinkle-free clothes and a pretty face. But he would’ve starved before letting Katie go without. “What happened in San Francisco?” he finally asked. “Why hasn’t Andy been taking care of you?”

She drew up her legs and hugged them against her. “You can be so old-fashioned,” she said with a slight grimace. “I wouldn’t need anyone to take care of me if it wasn’t for this baby. I was working in a nice salon, making good money. I was the one paying all the bills. But then—”

He waited when her words drifted off, watching the emotions play across her face.

“—then I got pregnant and the pregnancy hasn’t been going well.”

A trickle of unease heightened Booker’s senses, telling him the story was about to get a hell of a lot worse. “What does that mean?”

She shrugged, but it was hardly a careless movement. “I can’t work on my feet.”

“Or…”

“Or I could lose the baby, okay? That’s why I can’t cut hair. That’s why I can’t go back to Hair and Now.”

Releasing a long sigh, Booker wiped his face with one hand. “And you have no savings.”

“No. Andy made sure of that. He barely waited until I could make the money before he spent it.”

“Wasn’t he bringing home a paycheck of his own?”

She shook her head. “I tried to get him to work, but—” She fell silent. “Never mind. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about that.”

Booker’s heart was pounding against his chest. He wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was because, painful though it might be, he did want to hear the details. “What about Andy’s parents?”

“What about them?” she asked. “Have you ever met them?”

“No, but from what his cousins say, they’re pretty damn supportive of their only boy. According to LeAnn and her brother, Todd, he never had to work a day to put himself through school.”

“His parents cut him off a few months after we reached San Francisco.”

“Why would they do that after paying his way until then?”

She turned her attention to the remote and muted the television, but he got the impression it was just to give herself something to do so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “They had…reason.”

“Are you going to tell me what that reason is?”

She dropped the remote into her lap. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’d like to know.”

“Fine.” A touch of belligerence entered her voice. “They came to visit us in San Francisco and were pretty disappointed by what they saw, okay? At that stage, Andy was hardly someone to be proud of.”

He raised his eyebrows in place of demanding an explanation, but she got the point. Groaning, she rested her forehead on her knees. “Andy rarely bothered to come home. When he did, he was usually wasted.”

“You mean drunk?”

“High, although he drank, too. He got involved in the party scene almost the first week we lived there.”

Booker didn’t feel he could say much about Andy’s partying. There’d been a rough patch in his own life when he’d deadened the pain with whatever he could beg, borrow, buy or find. And he’d acted out in other ways, too, and paid a heavy price. Only now, years later, was he glad his actions had caught up with him. Prison had changed him. Forced him to realize that his behavior was more self-destructive than anything else. Taught him to appreciate the simple things in life. He wasn’t proud of his past, but he’d finally come to terms with who and what he was.

“By the time his parents left, his mother was crying,” Katie went on. “And Andy’s father told him not to bother calling with any more sob stories about being laid off or losing his last paycheck. He said they weren’t going to send him any more money and, as far as I know, Andy hasn’t heard from them since. I’m guessing he’ll contact them now, though. I’m not sure he can survive without me there to pay the rent.”

“So his folks don’t know about the baby?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you going to tell them?”

“I don’t know. Andy wanted me to have an abortion. Right now, I feel the baby’s pretty much exclusively mine.”

Wonderful. Katie’s life was the complete mess he’d been hoping for since she’d rejected him, yet Booker couldn’t feel good about it.

He got slowly out of the recliner. “Don’t worry about paying for the car. You need some way to get around.”

“Booker, I can’t accept—”