Florida Fling with the Single Dad, page 13
“What’s happened?” Dylan asked from the bedroom door. “Katie?”
Her mind tried to wrap around everything Matt had just told her, but none of it was making sense.
“Junior went to arrest the guy who they arrested earlier for shooting me, and the guy shot my brother.” She wanted to blame the judge who’d let a dangerous killer out on bail. She wanted to take the blame herself for being the reason her brother had been shot. But none of that would help John Jr. right then. She needed to concentrate on getting to New York as fast as possible.
“I’ve got to get home,” she said as she grabbed her laptop off the kitchen island. She punched in her password. “I need a flight from here that I can take?”
“I think there’s one flight a day that’s directly to New York. Go pack and I’ll see what I can find out.” Dylan already had his phone out.
“Okay, thanks,” she said and rushed back into the bedroom.
She didn’t know where to start. She’d brought so much stuff with her. Her clothes, books, her paints. She had no idea how long she would be gone.
But she didn’t have to take everything now. She’d have to come back for the Jeep anyway. She could get everything she had to have in one bag and a carry-on.
She pulled her suitcase out of the closet and opened it on the bed. If she missed the one flight out to New York, she’d have Dylan drive her to Miami where there would be more available flights.
She dumped a drawer of underwear into the suitcase then followed it with one full of shirts and shorts.
“Your ticket is waiting at the airport,” Dylan said as he bent to pick up a T-shirt she’d dropped.
“How long do I have?” she asked as she shut her suitcase then pulled out her carry-on bag.
He followed her into the kitchen where she grabbed her computer and vitamins. “You have an hour till boarding.”
“I’ll never make it.” She looked down and saw that she still wore her nightgown.
“Go change and I’ll load the bags. You forget that we’re just a little island. I can have you there in fifteen minutes, ten if traffic isn’t heavy.”
“But I have to get my bags checked and go through security.” She pulled a pair of jeans and a T-shirt out of the closet and rushed into the bathroom.
She stuck her brush and makeup into her carry-on. She could deal with that on the way. She picked the gown she’d worn the night before off the counter where she had laid it. She didn’t have any need for it in New York, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave it behind. Who knew what would happen in New York? She could be there for weeks.
She slid her feet into sandals and hefted her carry-on onto her shoulder. She wanted to take a last look at the cottage. She wanted to walk onto her deck and breathe in the air one more time. But time wasn’t something she had right now.
When she stepped out into the sunshine to join Dylan, the rush of adrenaline that she’d been burning gave out. Was this goodbye? She locked the door to her little cottage with a finality that she wasn’t prepared for. She had no idea how long she’d be needed in New York.
The ride to the airport was fast and it wasn’t until they stood on the sidewalk outside that she realized Dylan had come to the same conclusion: this could be the goodbye they had known was coming. It wasn’t fair that it was coming now, though. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.
They’d made plans for a trip to the beach after Violet came home from her sleepover. Violet. She had planned to tell Dylan about Violet’s statements to Jo this morning.
“Oh, Dylan. I need to tell you something. I shouldn’t have waited, but...it was just...and now I’m leaving...”
“Katie, there’s no time. Your plane will be boarding in a few minutes. You need to go.”
“But it’s Violet. I was going to talk to you this morning about what Jo told me, but we didn’t have the time.” She knew she was just making excuses for not speaking about it earlier, when the truth was she’d been afraid that Dylan would want to end things between them after she told him. “But you need to know this, especially now.”
“What about Violet?” he asked, his eyes, which had been avoiding her since they left the cottage, now locked with hers.
“Jo says she’s gotten it into her mind that you and I, that the two of us, are a couple. She seems to think that I’m going to stay and that we’re going to get married.”
“And now I have to tell her you’re leaving?” The shock on his face quickly turned to pain. She knew it had been his greatest fear that his daughter would be hurt.
He turned away to take her suitcase from the back seat of his car. It wasn’t until they were at the airport doors that he spoke.
“I’ll take care of getting the rest of your belongings packed and shipped,” Dylan said as he handed the handle to her.
“I’m still on the schedule,” she said. “And there’s the Jeep.”
“I’ll take care of it. You don’t need to worry about things here. Take care of your family,” he said then pointed to the ticker board inside the entrance. “You better hurry or you’ll miss your flight.”
But still she stood there. Was this really how it ended? Was he not even going to kiss her goodbye?
He was angry. At her? At himself for not protecting his daughter? Did it really matter when she didn’t even know if she would ever see him again.
She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to her. He might be ready to let things end between them as strangers, but she wasn’t. He meant too much to her.
She pressed her lips to his and gave him a deep kiss that he was not going to forget easily before turning and running to make her plane.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT DIDN’T TAKE Katie but a moment to find her father and brothers in the surgical ICU waiting room that was crowded with NYPD officers, both uniformed and plainclothes.
“Katie, you’re here,” her youngest brother shouted, making his way to her. A sob escaped her lips as he caught her up in his arms.
“How is he?” she asked. Her brother had still been in surgery when she’d touched down in New York.
“He just got out of surgery. The bullet did a lot of damage, but the doctor says he stopped all the bleeding,” Mikey said, as he led her over to the corner where her father stood waiting.
“Oh, Daddy,” she choked, as she was once again wrapped inside strong arms.
“He’s going to be okay,” her father said, though she didn’t know if he was talking to himself or her.
“Lisa just went back to see him,” Mikey said as Katie took a seat beside him.
“How is she holding up?” Katie asked. His brother’s fiancée, a district attorney, was as tough as they came.
Before anyone could answer, Katie saw the petite blonde woman they’d been discussing enter the waiting room and head toward them.
“He’s going to be okay. He’s sleeping and they said they were going to leave him on the ventilator until tomorrow, but they say he’s stable,” Lisa said, breathless as she rushed toward them then suddenly broke into tears.
Katie gathered her into her arms while the other McGee men walked off using the excuse that they needed to tell the other officers the good news.
“They’re all alike,” Lisa laughed as she wiped her tears away. “They’re ready to run into a burning building or fight their way through a hail of bullets to rescue someone, but as soon as a woman sheds a few tears they run the other way.”
“I know,” Katie said as the two of them moved apart.
“Thanks for understanding. It was just seeing him lying there. He was so still. You know Junior. He’s never still. It just scared me.” Lisa wiped at her eyes, then looked up at Katie. “They explained all the monitors to me and they say he’s stable, but I told his nurse you were a flight nurse with Heli-Care. He promised to let you come in whenever you arrived. I thought maybe you could go check him out. You know. Just to be sure he’s doing okay.”
“Oh, okay.” Katie stood, anxious to see her brother and reassure all of them that he truly was going to be okay.
It wasn’t until a few minutes later, standing over her brother, that it hit her: only months ago she had lain in a similar room recovering from a gunshot wound much too similar to her brother’s. The sight of her strong older brother pale and unmoving against the white hospital linen made her feel sick.
She waited for the anxiety that she dreaded to hit her, but it didn’t come. If this had happened six weeks ago, she knew that she would not have been able to stand there. All the work she had done with her counselor and the confidence she’d rebuilt with Dylan’s help made the difference.
After checking her brother’s ventilator settings and reviewing his vital signs with his brother’s nurse until she was satisfied that Junior was recovering as he should be, she made her way back to where her family waited for her.
* * *
Dylan sat on the steps to Katie’s cottage and waited for his daughter’s bus to arrive. No, not Katie’s cottage. Katie was gone. And it had never really been Katie’s cottage. She’d always been just a temporary renter. Just like, they had been temporary lovers.
Only it hadn’t ever felt temporary. What they had together had grown when it shouldn’t have. That was his mistake. Instead of keeping things light and friendly between the two of them, he’d crossed the line to caring about Katie as more than just a lover. Something that hadn’t been in their agreement. There was a reason he had rules for his love life which included not getting involved with someone who was visiting the island. But he’d broken the rule and now he had to live with the consequences.
He had always known Katie’s plan was to return to New York. Not only was her family and life there, he knew a part of Katie wanted to prove to herself that she’d made it back to being one of the best flight nurses in the biggest city in the country. Her confidence had been so low when she’d first arrived. He wasn’t sure even Katie had believed she would recover enough to become the nurse she had been before. But something about the stubborn tilt of that chin of hers had told him that she wasn’t a woman who was going to give up. Her determination was one of the things he loved about her.
He stood and swore. Love wasn’t part of their agreement. Thank goodness he’d never let on to Katie about the way he felt. She had made it plain that she didn’t want any complications any more than he did. Her goal was to get back to New York. His was to protect his daughter.
From what Katie had told him, he had failed.
The yellow bus came to a stop at the top of the drive. The pride he felt when his daughter ran up to him and hugged him eased some of the pain in his chest. He was so lucky to have Violet. Her mother could have kept her away from him forever. But Lilly had done the right thing for her daughter, bringing her to him. The little girl needed a stable home.
“Hey, Daddy, can we go inside and see Katie? I brought another book home from the library that I think she’ll like.” Violet stared up at him with the light blue eyes of her mother.
“She’s not here, honey,” he said.
“Did she go off with Jo and Summer shopping again?” Violet followed him as they made the walk from Katie’s cottage. “Can I go next time? Jo promised to help me pick some new clothes.”
“We’ll see about you going with Jo, but Katie won’t be able to go. A bad man hurt her brother and she had to go home.” Dylan opened the door to the house and watched as his daughter hung her backpack in the small closet at their entrance without being told. She was taking Katie’s leaving a lot better than he thought she would. Maybe Jo was mistaken about what Violet had said.
“That’s okay. I can wait till she gets back,” his daughter said as she shut the door. “My jeans are just a little short. It’ll be okay.”
“No, Violet, I don’t think you understand. Katie isn’t coming back. She would have told you goodbye but her brother is hurt really bad. She had to take the first flight she could get to take her home to New York.” Dylan saw the moment his daughter understood his words. Once more he was left alone to pick up the pieces, only this time it wouldn’t be just his heart, it would also be his daughter’s.
Then she smiled and laughed. “Katie can’t have left for good. She left her car. Besides, she can’t stay in New York when you get married. She has to come back and live with us.”
“Baby, what makes you think that Katie and I are getting married?” He’d searched his mind for some action or something he could have said that might have caused his daughter to come to this conclusion, but there wasn’t anything.
“Nobody told me. But I saw you kissing her when you thought I was asleep. You were out on the deck. Don’t you remember?” Violet asked.
He did remember being out on the deck one night when Violet had gotten up for a drink. Had his daughter been spying on him? But that still didn’t explain why she thought they were getting married. She was much too young to understand his and Katie’s friendship.
“Violet, come sit next to me on the couch.” How was he supposed to do this? Was there a handbook out there for single dads with a chapter on how to keep your child from dreaming up romantic ideas concerning your love life? He took a deep breath.
“Honey, sometimes men and women kiss each other when they’re just friends. It doesn’t mean that they are going to get married. It can just be a way to show that you like someone.” There. Simple and to the point. If only things between him and Katie could be that simple.
“I like Shawn Hart at school, sometimes. Does that mean I have to kiss him?” his daughter asked.
“No. Definitely not. There is not to be any kissing Shawn Hart or anybody else.” He was messing this all up. He needed to take control of this talk before it ended up in places he was not ready to go.
“Look. The bottom line is that Katie and I aren’t getting married. She has a life in New York that she had to get back to. My life is here with you. We’ll both miss her, but we’ll be okay.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy, Katie will be back soon. You’ll see,” Violet said before giving him a look which he knew meant her mind was made up and there was nothing he could say that was going to change it.
* * *
Katie scrolled through her texts, stopping at the only text she had received from Dylan since she’d left Key West and rereading it as she had every few hours for the last two days.
How is your brother?
He’s doing better than expected. He’s being extubated this morning and should move out of the critical care unit this morning. How is Violet?
OK
She’d waited for him to expand on his answer, but nothing else came. Those two little letters seemed to have been all he had to say to her. And now she didn’t know what to do.
She’d typed message after message back to him, then deleted each one before she sent them. His last words of assurance that she didn’t need to worry about things in Key West, had seemed final.
Her door buzzed and she looked out to see that it was her father.
“What’s happened?” she asked as she flung the door open. She’d just talked to her brother and he seemed to be doing well.
“Everything’s fine. I just wanted a few minutes alone with my daughter away from that crowded waiting room,” her father said as he walked past her into her apartment. “Could I get a cup of coffee?”
There were dark circles under her father’s eyes and his usually perfectly pressed uniform looked as if he’d been wearing it for days. She remembered him looking like this only once before. Then, it had been her in the hospital that he’d been worrying over. “I think you need a nap instead of more coffee.”
“Coffee for now, if you don’t mind. I can sleep later,” he said, though he did take a seat in the nearest chair.
After starting the coffee, she returned to her father. “Really, Daddy, it’s okay for you to take a break. Junior’s doing fine now.”
“I know. I’m headed home after I leave here. I just had to make a trip to the courthouse to make sure no judge was going to let that shooter out again. The man shot two of my kids. Two.” Her father stood with those words and headed into her kitchen. She knew the coffee was only an excuse for him to leave the room. He’d been raised in a time when men didn’t let others see any sign of weakness. She allowed him a few minutes of privacy before she joined him.
“So when are you headed back to Key West?” her father asked.
Startled, her first sip of coffee went down wrong causing a fit of coughing that took several seconds to recover from.
“I don’t think I am,” she said, setting her cup down and wiping the countertop for the umpteenth time that morning.
“Didn’t your contract go until the first of the month? Shouldn’t you be returning to finish it?” her father asked.
“Are you in a hurry to get rid of me?” she asked. Her father seldom made small talk. There was a reason he made the trip to see her but there would be no hurrying him to get to it.
“Of course not. I like having all my kids where I can get to them if they need me.”
It was a very fatherly thing for him to say and she knew it was true. Dylan had expressed the same sentiment when he’d worried about not having the legal paperwork giving him full custody of Violet. Lilly could take their daughter at any time and he wouldn’t be able to guarantee her safety.
“If you don’t want to finish your contract, that’s up to you. You’ve got to return anyway, don’t you? That Jeep isn’t going to drive itself back to New York.”
Her father was right. While Dylan had offered to pack her things, a plane ticket to Key West would be much cheaper.
