The following morning, Kate greeted the day with a trip to the bathroom for her regular bout of morning sickness. Her hands trembled as she turned on the water faucet to splash her face and drink water. She would be so glad when she got through this stage of pregnancy. Patting her hand over her flat tummy, she could almost think the baby was her imagination if not for her telltale nausea.
The night she’d shared with Michael could have been a dream. Her wedding, however, was coming at her with the speed of an oncoming train. Her mother had already called to chat about plans. Kate scowled into the mirror. Perhaps that had contributed to her nausea.
She opened the bathroom door to Michael. Surprised, she muffled a squeak. “When did you come in?”
“Long enough ago to know you’re sick,” he said, concern darkening his eyes. “I’ll take you to the doctor.”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just morning sickness.”
“Can’t the doctor give you something?”
She shook her head more emphatically. “A lot of medicines aren’t good for the baby. I don’t want to risk it.”
“How often does this happen?”
“This is how Cupcake wakes me up every morning,” she said with a weak chuckle and headed for the kitchen.
His frown deepened. “How long will it last?”
“The doctor didn’t offer any guarantees.” She lifted crossed fingers. “But it could be gone in four weeks.”
“Four weeks,” he said appalled. “Are you sure you shouldn’t see the doctor? I don’t like the way you look.”
She fought a wave of self-consciousness. “I could take offense at that, but since you helped get me into this state, you are partly responsible.” She opened her cabinet and pulled out a half-empty box of soda crackers. “Besides, you could have called first or knocked. How did you get in anyway?”
“I picked your lock,” he said. When she stared at him in inquiry, he added, “When you didn’t answer, I thought I should check on you in case anything was wrong.”
She felt him watch her set crackers, a glass of club soda, and a prenatal vitamin on the counter. “What is this?”
“Breakfast,” she said and sat down on a bar stool to nibble at a cracker.
“This is no breakfast for a woman who’s pregnant. You should be eating fruit or cereal, pancakes, eggs.”
Kate blanched. “My objective is to eat something that will stay down,” she said, then switched focus. “What brings you here so early?”
“Oh yeah,” he said as if she’d reminded him. “I got something for you yesterday and forgot to give it to you last night.”
Wary, she looked at him. “This isn’t another financial recap or trust fund or—” She gulped when he placed a jeweler’s box on the counter in front of her.
“No,” he said. “You may need to get it sized, but the jeweler assured me he’d be happy to do it while you wait.”
She stared at the box and struggled with a myriad of emotions. If she opened it, then her engagement to Michael would be more real, even though in her heart it still felt like a farce.
“Open it,” he said.
Kate felt a lump rise in her throat.
“Kate, it won’t bite. Okay, I’ll open it,” he said, flipping the box open.
Kate gasped at the size. “Omigod. It’s so—” she blinked “—big.” She looked up at him. “Why did you get such a big one?”
“I’m told that no matter what women say, size matters,” he said, his gaze falling over her intimately. “With diamonds and other things.”
Kate felt her cheeks heat. She would never forget that Michael had been an incredible lover. He had left her with the sensation of being thoroughly taken, yet incredibly satisfied. She resisted the urge to fan her cheeks and cleared her throat. “I was talking about the diamond in the ring.”
“Do you think it’s pretty?”
She moved her head in a circle. “In a big way.”
“There are larger diamonds,” Michael assured her.
“Yes, I saw the Hope Diamond at an exhibit once. I didn’t think it looked that much bigger than this one.”
“Kate, I can afford this. It’s about the same as buying a forty-foot cabin cruiser. Let’s put it on your finger and see if it fits.”
Kate pulled her hands to her chest. “No.”
“Why?” he asked, impatience edging into his tone.
“It’s too big,” she said. As if remembering her upbringing, she quickly added, “I mean I appreciate the thought and it’s lovely, but I can’t imagine wearing it.”
He spun her stool around so she was nose to nose with him. “Why not?” he demanded.
She bit her lip and appeared so nervous he almost felt sorry for her. “I’m sorry, Michael, but I just can’t imagine wearing a cabin cruiser on my finger.”
He counted to ten. He couldn’t explain why it was so important for Kate to wear his ring. He just knew it was. “If you don’t like this, then what would you like?”
She slid her gaze to the ring, then back at him and lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Something that doesn’t scream rich guy’s wife. Something more like me,” she said in an unsteady voice. Her eyes turned sad. “Something that doesn’t make me feel like a fraud.”
That night Michael didn’t visit Kate. Instead he called and they shared a muted, brief conversation. After such an inauspicious beginning to his day, he buried himself in his work and fell asleep when his head hit the pillow. The phone awakened him.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he reached blindly for the receiver. “Yes,” he murmured.
“Michael?”
The unsteady voice bore a vague resemblance to Kate’s. “Kate?”
“I’m sorry to bother you so late,” she said. “I would have called Donna, but she just went out of town on a business trip.”
Michael’s gut gave an uneasy twist. She sounded as if she were holding back tears. “Stop apologizing and tell me what’s wrong.”
“Well, I need a ride,” she said. “I—uh—don’t have my car.”
He sat upright in bed. “Where are you?”
“The duplex beside me had a little gas problem.”
Michael felt the cord of tension inside him knot. “Where are you?” he asked again, rising from bed and grabbing his jeans.
“There was a fire and there was a lot of smoke—”
“Kate, where are you?”
“At St. Albans General Hospital.” Her voice cracked, and he felt something inside him crack too. “Could you come and get me?”
Four
M ichael jerked on his clothes and defied the speed limit. He’d barely cut the engine before he stepped out of his car and raced into the emergency room. He approached the receptionist’s desk, and Kate walked straight into his arms.
Unprepared for an action that demonstrated such pure trust, he stood still, stunned. It was a totally new sensation. She smelled of smoke. Instinct kicked in and he tightened his arms around her, wanting to make sure she was okay. “What happened?”
“There was a fire,” she said, her face pressed into his shirt as if she wanted to absorb him. “Some of us suffered from smoke inhalation.”
Alarm clanged through him like a discordant bell, and he urged her head from his chest. “Us?”
“They gave me oxygen,” she said. She looked as if she were struggling to remain composed. “I was worried about the baby,” she whispered, her face crumpling, the expression grabbing at something deep inside him.
Michael held his breath. “What did the doctor say?”
“The baby and I are fine.”
Michael breathed a sigh of relief at the same time as he battled frustration. “Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded.
“Everything happened so fast when the ambulance arrived, and then I had to wait. I was so scared,” she said, her voice quivering. “I wasn’t that worried about me. I just didn’t want anything to happen to the baby. I tried to call Donna, but she was gone. I didn’t want to bother you.”
Michael tightened his arms around her again. “You should have called me. For Pete’s sake, I’m going to be your husband,” he scolded, thinking he could have prevented this if he’d been with her. He should have prevented this.
She pushed her hair from her face. “I know, but we don’t really have a normal engagement.”
“You’re going to have to get used to calling me,” he told her. “I may not know much about what husbands do, but I damn well know you call them in an emergency.”
Staring at him as if some of his words were sinking in, she slowly nodded.
“I don’t think they want me to go back to my house yet.”
“Damn straight you’re not going back to your house. You’re coming to my apartment,” he said emphatically.
“But I don’t know where Parkay is and—”
“Parkay?” Michael struggled to follow her, wondering if, perhaps, the lack of oxygen had affected her brain.
“My cat. Parkay. She’s not much of an outside cat, so I need to go look for her.”
Michael shook his head. “It’s the middle of the night. You can’t go looking for a cat in your condition.” His mind clicked through possibilities. “I’ll take you home, then go look for her,” he said, although how in hell he would find a cat at night was beyond him.
He took her home and settled her into his apartment. “Take my bed,” he ordered, and when she started to protest, he cut her off. “You need the sleep. I’ll take the couch after I get your cat.”
So, at three o’clock in the morning, armed with an open can of tuna, Michael conducted a search-and-retrieval mission for Kate’s cat. By three-thirty, he had seven feline friends trailing after him, mewing. But none was a calico. He sneaked past the yellow caution tape and in through the back door. Using his flashlight, he searched through two rooms until he caught sight of green eyes under Kate’s bed. Parkay clawed him until he gave her a bite of the tuna.