A Family of Her Own (Dundee, Idaho #3)(46)
Author: Brenda Novak

“How should I know? He doesn’t exactly check in.”

Booker cursed under his breath. “When you talk to him, tell him I’m looking for him,” he said and hung up.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

KATIE GAZED AT THE NEW Web site she’d created. “Booker T’s Auto Repair” was emblazoned across the top in large black letters. Below that she’d positioned a picture of Booker’s shop next to a map showing its location. A menu with bold red letters, including buttons for “Services,” “About Booker,” and “Testimonials” lined the left side and leaped into a different font when her mouse rolled over them. To finish off the page, she’d added some graphics that included an animation with checkered flags.

The site looked good, but Katie wasn’t convinced Booker would like it. She wasn’t planning to show it to him, anyway. She wasn’t even sure why she’d created it. Booker didn’t have much need for a Web presence. His business came from locals and his shop was clearly visible, right on Main Street. This site was just something she worked on during long, lonely nights like this one, when she couldn’t sleep. Besides, if Booker ever changed the name of his business, she didn’t know if he’d use his middle initial. But she liked the sound of “Booker T’s” and thought it was about time he made the shop “officially” his own.

Pressing a hand to her aching back, Katie stood and stretched. She needed to call her doctor in the morning. The pains she was experiencing seemed to be getting more acute. She’d been doing so well the past couple of months she doubted they were anything serious, but there were moments when she worried….

Sleep would help. If only she could relax. If only she could quit thinking about the look on Booker’s face when she’d seen him earlier. She could’ve sworn he hated her. Which meant Rebecca had to be wrong. Booker didn’t love any woman. He guarded his heart too fiercely.

But he’d let his defenses down once….

Lying on the bed to ease the tension in her back, Katie stared up at the ceiling and remembered the night they’d first made love. They’d been at the two-bedroom rental house she shared with her best friend Wanda, making chocolate-covered pretzels to fill Christmas tins. Wanda was at work and, just prior to sunset, a snowstorm darkened the sky. Booker built a fire while she melted chocolate—which never made it to the pretzels. When she called him to begin dipping, Booker started playing around, lifting her shirt and dropping warm chocolate on her stomach, then licking it off. What had begun as a game quickly flared into something more when he snapped open her bra, dropped chocolate on her nipple and took the chocolate and her nipple in his mouth.

Katie felt her br**sts tingle just thinking about it. Never had she experienced a more erotic evening. Booker had aroused her so completely she’d practically begged him to take it further. And he had. But he was so gentle and careful, despite the urgency they were both feeling, that she knew right then—when he covered her body with his—that she was falling in love with him. The man who went to prison for grand theft auto. The man who made the police chief grimace and the mayor complain. The town’s black sheep…

And that was when she’d panicked.

As the wind picked up outside, whistling eerily beneath the eaves, Katie’s mind shifted to the night Booker had appeared at her house just before she left with Andy. He’d stood outside in the dim glow of the porch light looking darkly handsome, even dangerous, with his stubbled chin and enigmatic eyes. And he’d asked her to marry him. She’d turned him down, but she hadn’t been able to stop shaking for hours afterward.

Now, putting herself in his shoes, she winced. It had been difficult enough for her; she could only imagine what he’d gone through, standing there on her porch, laying his heart bare. She’d hurt him, and he hated her for it, and she could understand why.

Close your eyes. Go to sleep. Forget him.

The wind was getting stronger, making noises that sounded like someone outside the cabin. Katie knew it was probably nothing, but she couldn’t help feeling vulnerable when she remembered what had happened to poor Mrs. Willoughby in her trailer.

She glanced at the phone, wishing Mike was home tonight. The ranch house was only an acre or so away. She would’ve felt better knowing he was close—especially when she heard very distinct footsteps on her porch.

She tensed, sending another pain shooting through her abdomen, and grabbed the phone. But before she could call anyone, there was a solid knock at the door.

“Katie? It’s me, Andy.”

Andy! He’d been in town for a month, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. But she’d known he’d show up eventually.

Hanging up, she went to the window and peeked out to see him hunched against the cold, wearing a pair of black pants and a white shirt with no jacket. “What are you doing here, Andy?” she called, moving to the door.

“I need to talk to you, Katie!”

“About what?”

“Come on. You’re carrying my baby. Surely that means something to you. I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

With a sigh, she opened the door. She didn’t want him to wake the cowboys on either side of her, although she doubted anyone could hear him above the wind, which was getting louder by the minute.

“It’s about to storm, Andy, and it’s very late. Why are you here?”

“I want the money you owe me.” He slid past her, rubbing his arms and looking as though he was long overdue for a haircut. Even though she’d asked him not to, he’d had his nose pierced while she was living with him in San Francisco. The garish streak of blond in his hair was new.

“What money?” she said.

“Did you think you could sell off our stuff and run out on me without giving me anything?”

Dumbfounded, Katie blinked at him. How could he feel entitled to a dime of that money after everything she’d done to support him? “I bought all that stuff in the first place,” she said.

“I worked—” he staggered a bit “—occasionally.”

He hadn’t even glanced at her belly. He didn’t care about the baby. He didn’t care about her. He hadn’t seen her for two months, yet all he could talk about was money.

Large drops of rain began to pelt the ground. Andy was already inside the cabin, so she closed the door. “When did you work? You partied. And you spent almost everything I earned on dope and alcohol!”