Fortune's Valentine Bride

by Marie Ferrarella

  Blake closed his phone and put it away. He felt his energy dissipating and decided he needed an infusion of coffee—decent if possible, but at least black if the former was too much to ask for.

  As it turned out, he had to settle for vending-machine coffee, which by definition was mediocre. He brought back two cups, one black and one so light it looked more like white-chocolate milk than coffee.

  Katie was exactly where he’d left her, holding up the wall with her back and appearing as if she was about to drift off to sleep that way.

  “Sugar and a ton of cream, right?” he asked as he handed her the appropriate paper cup.

  That was enough to banish her fatigue, at least for the time being. “You remembered,” she said in surprise.

  To her recollection, Blake had never gotten her coffee. If anything, it had been the other way around, not that she minded. She had never felt it necessary to define herself by what she did or didn’t do. Besides, if she was willing to groom Blake so that he would be more appealing to Brittany, bringing an occasional cup of coffee to the man was no big deal.

  Having him bring coffee to her, however, was a big deal. At least in her book.

  “I pay attention,” Blake protested, then amended, “Sometimes,” when Katie gave him a penetrating, knowing look.

  Her smile was warm and grateful. “Thank you.” She peeled off the plastic lid and then took a long, appreciative sip. “I really need this,” she told him as she felt the warm liquid wind its way through her sleepy system. “I’m dead on my feet.”

  His eyes casually swept over her. For a wilting flower, she looked damn good. Maybe too good, he judged a split second before he banked down his thoughts. It was just the exhaustion taking over, he told himself, taking him to places he didn’t intend to go.

  “Could have fooled me,” he commented. And then, changing the subject, he looked up and down the hallway. No one was coming. “Any word from Marcos?”

  The question had no sooner left his lips than Marcos turned a corner and came barreling down the hallway, looking like a man who had run rather than driven the twenty miles to the hospital from the Red Rock restaurant he managed.

  “Where is she?” he cried, latching onto his brother-in-law’s arm. “Where’s Wendy?”

  “Catch your breath, Marcos,” Katie told him. “Wendy’s still in recovery.”

  Alarmed, his system on overload, Marcos cried, “Why? What’s she doing there?”

  “Recovering,” Katie answered simply. “It was a big ordeal, Marcos,” she elaborated, then couldn’t help adding, “for all concerned. Her doctor wants to be perfectly sure she’s all right before he sends Wendy to her room.”

  The fact that Katie had mentioned only his wife suddenly registered. “And the baby?” he asked suddenly. “Where’s MaryAnne?”

  “She’s in an incubator. She’s fine,” Katie told him quickly when his worried expression only deepened, all but pinching his handsome features. “She’s just a little small right now, but the doctor said that was to be expected, remember?” Katie placed her hand on Marcos’s shoulder. “She looks perfect,” Katie assured him. “Trust me.”

  She wasn’t prepared for what happened next. One moment, she was talking to Wendy’s distraught husband, trying to reassure him, the next moment Marcos was suddenly enveloping her in what could only be described as a bear hug.

  Caught off guard, Katie could only stand there, stunned and motionless for a moment, her arms pinned to her sides.

  “Marcos?” she asked uncertainly. “Are you all right?”

  “Blake told me everything you did, delivering the baby and keeping Wendy calm. I don’t know if she would have made it without you. Thank you,” he cried, squeezing her hard again. “Thank you!”

  The more he thanked her, the harder he squeezed, until she couldn’t draw any air in. “No need to thank me,” she all but squeaked. The next moment, he released her and it was hard not to just go limp, but she managed to hold herself together. She gulped in a lungful of air. “I’m just glad I was there and could help. It’s a pretty humbling experience,” she confessed.

  If either Marcos or Blake were going to say anything, she never got the chance to hear it because, just then, the double doors leading into the recovery room swung open. A nurse came out, guiding the foot of a gurney while an orderly pushed it out of the room and toward the service elevator.

  Marcos instinctively moved out of the way before he realized that his wife was the patient on the gurney. When he did, his face lit up like a Fourth of July sparkler.

  “Wendy,” he cried, taking her hand in his and walking quickly beside the moving gurney. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there. If I’d had the slightest idea that you were going to—”

  “I’m not sorry,” Wendy said truthfully, cutting into his apology. She saw no reason for it. “I wasn’t exactly at my best.”

  “You were having our baby.” Marcos’s eyes were filled with love as he looked at his wife. “I can’t think of a time when you could have looked more beautiful to me,” he told her honestly.

  Following behind the gurney, Katie deliberately fell back and then stopped walking altogether. Wendy and her husband needed some time alone together.

  “Now, there’s a marriage that’s going to last forever,” she murmured in admiration and envy.

  “Think so?” Blake asked.

  She hadn’t realized she’d said the words out loud, or that Blake was so close to her. She flushed, embarrassed, but there was no pretending she’d meant something else—or that she wasn’t just a tiny bit envious.

  “Yes, I do,” she said with conviction. “Marcos knows exactly what to say to make her feel beautiful, even when she knows, deep down, that appearance-wise, she’s had better days.”

  He nodded, as if her words made perfect sense. This really was a red-letter day, she couldn’t help thinking. Either that, or she’d fallen asleep against the recovery room wall and this was all a dream.

  “Are you ready to go home,” Blake asked, “or do you want to go upstairs to her room?”

  Despite the coffee, she was having trouble battling exhaustion, which had returned stronger than ever and seemed only a half step or so away from flattening her. “Oh, so ready,” she confessed.

  Blake nodded with a smile, ready to turn in himself. “Home it is.”

  Katie fell asleep almost the moment he pulled out of the space in the hospital parking lot. She was still asleep when they reached the house, some twenty-five miles later. Pulling up the hand brake and turning off the engine, Blake looked at his sleeping passenger. He debated waking her, then thought better of it.

  Instead, he got out of the vehicle and went to the front door. He unlocked it with the key that Wendy had given him. Then, leaving the door open, he returned to his car and opened the passenger-side door.

  Her face looked softer when she was asleep, he thought. More at ease. He wasn’t certain just how long he stood there, looking at her, letting his thoughts drift, before he snapped back to attention. He was grateful there was no one around to witness it.

  Taking a breath, he very gently eased Katie out of the car and into his arms. She hardly weighed anything, he thought as he turned toward the house. Like a bridegroom with his new bride, he carried Katie across the threshold and then proceeded to carry her up the stairs.

  She made a slight, dreamy noise just as he came to the landing and that in turn woke her up. A contented sigh escaped her before she opened her eyes.

  As her surroundings penetrated, her eyes widened proportionately. By then she was inside her room. The next moment, she felt herself being lowered to her bed. She looked up uncertainly at the man who had brought her here.

  “Blake?”

  Anticipating her question, Blake explained, “You fell asleep. I did
n’t have the heart to wake you, and leaving you sleeping in the car didn’t seem like a good option, either.”

  “So you carried me into the house?” she marveled. Who did that these days? That was straight out of some period piece—and she loved it!

  Blake shrugged dismissively. “Seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized, feeling a tad self-conscious. “You should have woken me up.”

  He laughed softly. “Where’s the chivalry in that?” he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know about chivalry, but at least your back wouldn’t hurt.” If he’d hurt it because of her, she’d never forgive herself....

  “My back’s fine. You don’t even weigh as much as a sack of flour,” he told her.

  “I’ve had more flattering comparisons,” she told him with a self-deprecating laugh.

  “I’m sure you have,” he agreed. “But none more sincere,” he guaranteed. When she began to get up, he said, “Stay in bed, Katie.”

  “Is that an order?” she asked whimsically. Or an invitation? she added both silently and wistfully.

  “It is if you need it to be,” he told her. “Do you?” And then he smiled to himself. He was talking to an unconscious woman. Katie had fallen asleep again. Had to have been a hell of a day for her, he thought. He knew it had been for him.

  Funny, he would have sworn that he knew Katie’s limitations, having grown up with her. And yet, she had surprised him today, both with the way she had taken charge when his sister had gone into labor, and with her resilience and determination to be there for Wendy until Marcos arrived. And then, even though she looked utterly wiped out, she was the one who’d recalled that his family needed to be notified when he clearly should have been the one to remember.

  Which just told him that, no matter how well you thought you knew someone, there were still surprises in the offing.

  He paused long enough to lightly drape the end of her comforter over Katie and brush back the hair that had fallen into her face.

  She looked peaceful, he thought. God only knew she’d earned it.

  He’d let her sleep in tomorrow, he decided. There was no need to get started at the crack of dawn. Nine o’clock or so would be early enough. He had a feeling that tomorrow would be, in large measure, taken up by visits to Wendy and MaryAnne.

  That was okay, he thought with affection. There was no hurry to get on with Project Brittany. As far as he was concerned they were already ahead of schedule. Besides, even if they weren’t, Brittany wasn’t going anywhere. The Valentine’s Day fundraiser where he intended to make his move was more than a week away. Brittany had already agreed to go with him. Not because of any resurging affection on her part—she had a very practical reason for attending it with him.

  He wasn’t about to fool himself. She was in need of an escort and he had been in the right place at the right time. She wouldn’t miss the annual event for the world. A great many people would be attending and she liked—no, loved—making an entrance, he thought.

  As a matter of fact, she never missed an opportunity to be seen and fawned over. She was like an exquisite work of art and exquisite works of art, needed an audience to be properly viewed and admired, he thought. It was probably one of the first lessons that Brittany had ever learned. That, and that turning heads was extremely good for the ego.

  And God knew that Brittany had no problem in that department, he mused. Her ego was alive and thriving.

  Unlike Katie, he caught himself thinking.

  Glancing at her one last time, Blake shut the light and eased her bedroom door closed. He deliberately ignored the odd, unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that seemed to hint that the girl he’d grown up next to had turned in to the kind of woman he could grow old with.

  Chapter Ten

  The dream was so vivid, so moving, Katie felt it with every fiber of her being. Her body heated as the seconds ticked by, bringing with them more and more pieces to fill her mind.

  But even while it was unfolding, she knew it had to be a dream. Because Blake was paying attention to her. Right in the middle of writing a love letter to Brittany—a sizzling, hot love letter, Blake had used her name rather than Brittany’s. When she’d pointed out his mistake, he’d looked into her eyes and told her that for the first time in his life, he wasn’t making a mistake. That his initial belief that he was in love with Brittany had been the real mistake.

  And then he’d taken her into his arms and, suddenly they were dancing—and then they weren’t. Because he was kissing her. Caressing her. Making love to her with every breath he took.

  Katie couldn’t remember when she’d been happier.

  And then daylight had crept into her consciousness, nudging her awake, banishing sleep. She screwed her eyes up tight, reluctant to leave this make-believe place her mind had created for her.

  But it was no use.

  The dream broke up into wisps of vapor and then was gone.

  With a sigh, she gave up and got out of bed. A quick shower had her almost feeling human. She had made her way down the stairs and reached the kitchen when the silence finally penetrated. She was alone in the house. Marcos, she realized, must have remained in the hospital with Wendy. Which was where Katie wanted to be.

  The problem was how to get there.

  Her first impulse was to call the man who had been her mode of transportation ever since she’d arrived in Red Rock. But her call to Blake’s cell phone went straight to voice mail. Katie was in no mood to leave a message that Blake would listen to God only knew when.

  She terminated the call abruptly, muttering a few choice words under her breath.

  Frustrated and antsy, Katie impulsively went into the garage to see if there were any vehicles available. Marcos’s sedan was gone, just as she knew it would be, but Wendy’s car—the one Wendy had offered to let her drive on more than one occasion since she’d arrived here—was still there.

  A peek inside told her the vehicle was all gassed up and ready to go.

  She’d initially turned Wendy’s offer down because she didn’t like being responsible for someone else’s car. They were called accidents for a reason—but this fell under the heading of an emergency, or at least something close to it, she reasoned.

  The debate in her head went on for all of two minutes before it tilted toward yes. She retraced her steps back to the kitchen. As she recalled, Wendy kept her car keys hanging on a peg next to the bay window over the sink.

  They were still there.

  Ten minutes later Katie found herself hitting the open road. She was on her way to San Antonio and the hospital, thanks to the GPS device perched on the dashboard.

  She left Wendy’s vehicle in the hospital’s guest parking lot, silently counting the number of cars in her row, and hurried into the hospital.

  Her first order of business, Katie decided happily as she got into the elevator car, was to look in on the tiny human being she’d helped bring into the world last night. The infant wasn’t even a day old yet, Katie thought with a wide grin as she got off on the maternity floor.

  She’d never known anyone that young before.

  Turning a corner, Katie stopped and hesitated for a moment. She debated quietly slipping away until Marcos was finished visiting with his daughter. He was looking at the infant through the glass.

  The tiny girl looked even smaller in the incubator, Katie decided.

  The deeply concerned look on Marcos’s face made Katie’s mind up for her. She not only stayed but came forward and made herself known to him.

  “She’s doing fine, Marcos,” Katie assured him, even as she placed a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder.

  Lost in thought as he stared at his daughter, Marcos jumped, startl
ed, and swung around to see who was talking to him.

  When he saw that it was Katie, he relaxed. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Katie took a step back, not wanting to crowd him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you off guard like that.”

  He waved away her apology. “I should be the one who’s saying he’s sorry. I was preoccupied,” he explained. “I didn’t even hear you come up.”

  His preoccupation brought her full circle, back to the concerned look she’d seen on his face. “You don’t have to worry. The doctor told me she was very healthy,” Katie said, in case he didn’t recall her having said that to him last night.

  Marcos nodded, a weary smile half curving his mouth. “I know. It’s not her I’m worried about.”

  Katie jumped to the only conclusion she could. If he wasn’t worried about the baby, that could only mean one thing. “Did something happen to Wendy—?” Even as she asked, she half turned, ready to dash down the hall to Wendy’s room.

  He was quick to shoot down her mistake. “No, Wendy, thanks to you, is doing just great.” And for that she had his undying gratitude. “I’m just worried about Javier,” he confessed. Backtracking, Marcos explained, “I spent the night here, in Wendy’s room—one of the orderlies brought a cot in for me,” he told her. “This morning I went to look in on Javier, to give him the good news about the baby being born. He congratulated me and said to give his love to Wendy, but I could see that he was still having a really hard time dealing with his injuries. He’d always been so damn healthy, he doesn’t know how to handle this.”

  Filled with frustrated energy and no release, Marcos fought the urge to start pacing. That wouldn’t do any good. The only thing that might help would be to knocking some sense into Javier’s head—literally.