Runaway Bridesmaid (24 page)

“True.”

Katey scrambled to her feet then, whacking dirt off the bottom of her romper as she stalked over to the gate. Before Sarah could get up, she turned to her, her eyes once again brimming with tears. “If I never see Dean again, it's all your fault,” she hurled at Sarah, then ran out of the kennel, the soles of her sneakers reverberating against the concrete.

 

That Dean hadn't received a speeding ticket on the way back to Atlanta was a miracle. That he hadn't gotten creamed by a
semi was even more miraculous. Like a saloon brawl in an old Western, so many emotions were fighting it out in his head he couldn't even tell them apart. He had no idea what to do. What to think.

He walked into his stifling apartment, threw a week's worth of mail onto the table by the front door, and caught his reflection in the entryway mirror. Seven days, and he'd never noticed. The resemblance. She looked so much like Sarah, he'd just assumed… But now, he could tell. The shape of her forehead, high and broad. Her wide-set eyebrows. The deep eyelids. She'd gotten those from
him.

The litany from the past several hours started all over again: Katey was his daughter. His…
daughter.
A daughter whose first eight years, because of Sarah's deceit, he knew nothing about.

Damn,
he thought as he walked into the kitchen, pulled a beer from the fridge. Eight whole years, gone. How
dare
she…

How dare she what? Do exactly what he'd done to her?

He popped the top and gulped half the contents.

No. This was far worse.

Than what? Making love to a woman without protection and assuming there'd been no consequences? Leading Sarah to believe he'd never loved her when the truth was he'd never loved anyone else?

But she should have told him. Maybe not right away. But before this.

Certainly before she'd made love with him last night.

His eyes stung; his hand worked its way to his mouth. The fear in Sarah's eyes—
this
was what had scared her so much.

He took another long, cold swallow of beer.

Small wonder.

He drifted into his living room, dropped onto the sofa. There was no air in the apartment, having been closed up for a week. He should open windows or turn on the fans or the air-conditioning. Something. Instead, he just sat. Brooding. An activity he kept up the rest of the afternoon.

Until his aunt called.

“What the hell you doing there, boy?” she said the instant he picked up.

This was a woman who never swore. Ever.

“You know I had to come back,” he started, but her snort cut him off.

“What I
know
is, Sarah told you Katey's your little girl and you took off like the Devil himself was on your tail.”

He froze. “You knew?”

“Only for a few days, so don't go getting your drawers in a knot. Vivian told me.” He heard a dry chuckle on the other end. “Which ticked Miss Sarah off right good, from what I hear.”

“I imagine so,” he said bitterly.

“Oh, get off your high horse, Dean. We're all in this together. Except poor Katey, who's the only innocent one in the whole shebang. But now it's all out in the open….” She paused. “Katey needs you.” Another pause. “So does Sarah. They both think you don't want to see them again.”

Pain clamped his heart like a vice. “Sarah told you this?”

“No, Vivian did.” After a moment, she added quietly, “You know apologies don't come easily to me, guess because I'm just too blamed stubborn to admit when I'm wrong, but I'm apologizin' now. I should never have tried to break you two up when you were teenagers. I'm sorry, Dean. From the bottom of my heart.”

Dean leaned forward, cupping his head in his palm. “Thank you,” he said softly. “But I know you were only trying to protect me.”

Her laugh startled him. “Wasn't just you I was trying to protect, boy.”

Dean frowned. “What're you talking about?”

“Not
what. Who.
Shoot, I knew you'd land on your feet, one way or the other. Parrish men always do. No, honey—it was Sarah I was worried about, not you.” Before Dean could even react, his aunt continued. “You know your Mama'd won a scholarship to Columbia University when she was eighteen?”

He started. “You're kidding?”

“Nope. I remember overhearing one of her teachers talking down at the Winn Dixie one day, saying Marion was one of the brightest students she'd ever had the privilege of teaching. She was the editor of the school paper, wanted to pursue a career in journalism. Oh, she had big plans, and it looked like she was well on her way to accomplishin' them, too. 'Cept she fell in love with your father. And got pregnant.”

It took a second to register that Dean would have been the result of that pregnancy. He blew a stream of air between his teeth. “So she got married.”

“That's what folks did in those days, Dean. And it wasn't like they didn't love each other, don't get me wrong. Johnny adored your mother, and I truly believe she felt the same way about him. But—” She stopped.

“But?”

“Did you know your father couldn't read, Dean?”

“Not until later, but yeah, I knew. Mama told me he was dyslexic.”

“Then you can understand what it must've been like, a man who can't read, falling in love with a woman who read everything she could get her hands on, who wanted to be a
writer,
for heaven's sake. And there they were, married at nineteen, with a baby on the way, and him only able to scrape by with his furniture-making. I don't suppose it mattered to either of them at first, what with being so much in love, and then you came and they were both just tickled pink with you. I don't think it ever even occurred to Marion she was making a sacrifice, giving up that scholarship and her career for love. She was young. They both were. And they figured, long as they had each other, nothing else mattered.

“But Johnny confided in me once, I guess about the time they were expecting Lance, how he'd catch Marion watching the TV news with a wistful look in her eyes sometimes, or that she'd be readin' the newspaper and suddenly start to crying for no reason he could figure. It was about that time she took up with all that craft stuff she got into, stopped reading the newspaper altogether. And Johnny said, he figured it was on
account of him she'd given up her dreams, see. That he should've been man enough to let her go do what she needed to do, rather than trapping her the way he did—”

Anger boiled up inside him. “Mama never felt that way! I never once got the feeling she resented the choice she made.”

“No, of course not, honey. She was devoted to you and Lance. And Johnny. But he loved her enough to hear what she wasn't telling him. And the guilt over his part in keeping her from doing what she wanted nearly ate him alive.”

“And you were afraid the same thing'd happen to Sarah and me.”

The silence throbbed between them. “Yes. I was.”

Dean leaned forward with a soft groan, then said quietly, “Except Sarah and I weren't my parents, Aunt Ethel. I would never have let her make that kind of sacrifice for me, baby or no baby.” He allowed a rueful smile. “And she never would have let me stand in the way of her goals.”

“I know that,” his aunt replied. “Now. But at the time…” She sighed. “I grew up in a time when women didn't have the opportunities they have today, you know? It like to broke my heart when I saw Marion give up her dreams. Then when you and Sarah got so serious, so young, and her so promising, academically…I couldn't stand the idea of history repeating itself.”

“It wouldn't have,” Dean said wearily, “if anyone had given us half a chance to prove otherwise.”

He heard his aunt sigh. “Well, we're giving you that chance now. We all created this problem. Now it's time we all fix it.”

 

He just needs time, her mother said. He'll come around, just be patient.

Yeah, right.

Vivian said the same things about Katey, more than once in the week after the wedding. The child had not magically adjusted to the idea of Sarah being her mother and Vivian her grandmother. She spoke little, ate less and spent most of her time with the puppies. To everyone's shock, Ethel—who
ranked shrinks right up there with devil worshippers—suggested maybe they take Katey to see a child psychologist to help her deal with all this.

But Sarah knew what the real problem was. Something no counselor, however well-meaning and experienced and pricey, was going to fix: Katey had no sooner met her real father than she'd lost him. Her heart ached for her daughter, far more than it did for herself.

Then, late Friday afternoon, Wilma Thomas called Sarah at the clinic.

“Hey, Wilma. The calf okay?”

“The calf? Oh, yes, he's just fine,” the widow said with a chuckle. “Listen, that's not why I'm calling. I was wondering if you could stop by and give Franklin a message for me on your way home.”

Sarah frowned. “Stop by where?”

“Oh, I'm sorry, honey. I just assumed you knew. He's over at the old Parrish house, and there's no phone yet. Dean hired him before he went away.”

She was becoming more baffled by the second. “Hired him to do what?”

“Oh, paintin' and strippin' cabinets, stuff like that. Fixin' it up.”

“Oh. To sell, I guess.”

“Sell? Uh-uh. Didn't you know?”

“Know…what?”

“He's setting up that factory in Opelika, so he's going to live in his old house. Funny…I just figured you knew.” She paused, then repeated, now sounding perplexed herself, “I just figured…”

“No,” she said. “I didn't know. But I'll be happy to give Franklin the message. What is it?”

She jotted Wilma's instructions on a Post-it on her desk, then tucked it into her jeans, all the while wondering what to think. After all, since Dean hadn't said boo, it was pretty clear—wasn't it?—he wasn't in any split for her to find out he was moving back. For Katey's sake, she hoped Dean was com
ing home for good. For her sake, however, she wasn't sure she particularly liked the idea. Unless…

Forget it, she told herself. Unlike her mother, she didn't believe in fairy tales and magic and happily-ever-afters anymore.

A couple of last-minute walk-ins prevented her leaving the clinic until after six. She figured Franklin would be long gone, but, since she'd promised to try to get him the message, she went on up to the Parrish house anyway.

Nope. Too late. No truck parked out front, and as she walked up the porch steps, pushing open the unlocked door, she heard nothing resembling construction noises.

“Franklin?” she called, not expecting an answer. She should leave. Franklin wasn't there, so there was no reason for her to be, either.

But she didn't.

She hadn't been near the house since the night Katey was conceived, when she and Dean had given in to each other underneath that stand of pines beside the pond, their bed a thick blanket of pine needles. She knew that Katey had “discovered” the old house some time ago and was particularly enchanted with the pond. Maybe, one day, after several tons of emotional dust had settled, Sarah would tell her. Maybe.

Franklin had been busy, she thought, her eyes scanning the airy living room. Sarah remembered the old house as being on the bleak side near the end of Dean's time there, when his mother had been so ill. In fact, Sarah hadn't liked going to the house much. Too sad, too dark.

No more. All the walls were painted a soft, buttery color; the floors had been refinished and now glowed like topaz. Hesitantly, she pushed open the swinging door to the kitchen and saw that the horrid mustard color was gone, too, replaced with the same ivory as in the rest of the house. The old cabinets had been refinished, the glass panes clear and sparkling like faceted stones. A brand-new side-by-side refrigerator was already in place, as well as a new gas stove.

She waggled her hands as if she'd touched something hot, then quickly walked out of the kitchen, intending to leave.

Something made her turn as she passed the stairs. She paused, listening. There it was, a definite scrape, like a ladder being moved.

“Franklin?” she called, beginning to climb the stairs. “You here?”

She got to the top of the stairs and listened again. There it was—another scrape. From one of the bedrooms.

“Franklin, it's Sarah. Your mother wanted me to give you a message—”

She pushed open the paneled door, then dropped her jaw. It was the most beautiful little girl's room she'd ever seen. The walls were papered in a tiny print of pink roses and hearts entwined with blue ribbons, with a border of larger roses circling the top; rose-patterned chintz curtains were swagged on either side of the two windows. A maple four-poster twin bed with a matching spread, canopied in lace, sat in the middle of the room atop a thick Chinese rug in the same pastels as the rest of the room. There was a dresser, a highboy, and a desk as well.

And in one corner, a child-size rocker just like Jennifer's and Dean's.

“Think she'll like it?”

Sarah screamed and jumped like a spooked cat.

Laughing, Dean caught her in his arms and hugged her to him. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, maneuvering her around and kissing the top of her head. “I meant to surprise you. Not set you back five years.”

Refusing to let hope cheat her—again—she tried to wrestle herself out of his arms, but he wouldn't let go. “What the hell are you doing?”

He grabbed her again, his breath hot on her lips. “Kissing you, if you'll quit wiggling for a second.”

Oh, what the heck. She quit wiggling. His mouth was warm and soft and urgent, and she didn't even think about whether or not she should respond. She didn't have a choice. While his
muscular arms entwined around her like a python, she wound her fingers through his hair, over his shoulders, down his hard, muscled back, and she opened her mouth, giving, taking, wanting.