Romance: Altered Engagement (Wild Hearts, Contemporary Romance Book 1)

by Nancy Adams

  Kylie looked at Katie Lou. “Let's show her,” she said, and Katie nodded with a huge grin. Kylie reached down and lifted Katie's foot out straight again, but by the time she got it there, Katie was already drawing it back, and when she pushed it forward this time, she was able to hold it up for a few seconds before it fell back down onto the footrest.

  “Oh, my heavens!” Judy said, her eyes wide and staring. “Oh, Katie Lou, that's marvelous, that's wonderful! Oh, thank God!”

  “Dr. Christopher says he's betting she'll be up walking within a week, at least on parallel bars, and I think she'll be doing better than that! Just this morning she could barely keep her foot on a ball, and now she can do it almost every time, for several seconds. Wait, I've got video!” She got out her iPhone and showed her mom the video of Katie holding her foot on the ball. It got all the Oohs and Aahs to be expected, and Katie was beaming with pride and excitement again.

  Allen came in, then, and the entire performance had to be repeated, including the video of the ball. He was as excited and supportive as his wife, and even more excited about seeing spaghetti making its way to the table, since it was his all-time favorite food.

  Then it was time to eat, and Allen led the family in saying the blessing. He extended his prayer, giving thanks to God for Katie's improvement, and for the fact that she made it through the entire ordeal alive, and then he thanked God for spaghetti, and they dug in.

  * * * * *

  Darren Allsip was a miserable man, and that was merely his own opinion of himself. He had allowed his political ambitions to dictate to his heart in matters of romance, and now that it had sunk in, he was wondering if it had been worth it at all. He was sad, he was lonely, and he felt as though he had lost the best thing that had ever happened to him, and the worst part of it was that he knew he was right about that.

  Katie Lou Brennan was, by far, the most beautiful girl he had ever known. He had fallen for her when he had first seen her, and had done everything he could think of to get her attention, finally buying the Corvette so that he could spend time hanging around her father's garage, getting special aftermarket options added to it. He hadn't cared that much for the car itself, but since she was the daughter of a master mechanic, he'd figured a hot car would be a step in the right direction.

  If he'd known that she wasn't all that impressed by cars, he might have saved a hundred grand, but then he wouldn't have had so many chances to hang out when she was there, anyway. She seemed to spend a lot of time around her dad, stopping at his garage most days after she got off work, and that's how he had finally gotten the chance to ask her out the first time.

  He'd taken her to a dance at the country club, and she'd had a good time. One thing had led to another, and he'd hinted to her before the first date was over that he could see himself with her forever. She had laughed, but not cruelly, and then agreed to a second date the next night. That time he'd gone for a drive-in movie—there was one place that still ran movies every weekend over in Seymour, not that far away, and it had been showing a chick flick that he'd heard was great for getting a girl in the right mood for romance, and he'd already decided he was in love, no matter how crazy it sounded, so that was the one he chose. She'd cried through parts of it, laughed through other parts, and then kissed him at the end so passionately that he almost proposed on the spot!

  He'd controlled that impulse, though, and they'd moved on into a “modern” courting relationship. They didn't move in together, but did make a few overnight trips that ended up as you would expect, though they kept up the pretense that nothing was going on, as all couples do when they plan to be married but don't feel the need to wait for that blessed event.

  Darren missed her. It was that plain and simple, and he didn't know what he wanted to do about it. Well, that wasn't true; he wanted to get into his new Chrysler, the one he'd actually bought the day before on Allen Brennan's advice, and go find her, tell her how sorry he was, ask her forgiveness and beg her to take him back, but he was pretty sure she wouldn't even speak to him. Maybe she would in a few days, a week or so, but not right then.

  He was sitting in his room at his parents' home, and looking over the things he would be taking with him to St. Louis a month hence. With or without Katie Lou, he was going to take the job at Matthews and Johnson, and let them start him on the path that he and the entire Missouri Republican Party hoped would lead to the White House. He had been spending the day just deciding which parts of his childhood and adolescence he wanted to hang on to and take with him.

  There wasn't much, and he found himself wondering why. It seemed like his entire life had been gearing him up for this opportunity, and now that it was here, there wasn't a lot of the old Darren left to look at. Had he always been so obsessed? Apparently he had, and now he was looking at the results of it. He had a handful of plaques that said he was an incredibly bright student, a couple of books in which he'd been mentioned while he was in law school, and a couple of boxes of clothes. Even his bookshelf only held books that he put there for decoration; he couldn't remember the last book he'd read just for fun, and not because it was part of an assignment.

  He wasn't fooling himself, and he knew it. The real thing that was missing in his life, right at that moment, was Katie Lou. Without her, he didn't know if he even had it in him to make it in politics. Everything he'd done since he'd met her had been all about showing off for her, trying to impress her, and where had it led him? He'd lost her, and all because he let his desire for politics get in the way of his feelings.

  Who the hell was Albert Matthews, anyway, to come in here and tell him that being with Katie would hurt his career? How far had Matthews gone in his own political career? Did he know anything about being in love, about trying to make another person fit into your life so completely that they became part of you? You could bet he didn't know anything about it at all.

  Darren looked into the mirror atop his dresser, and sighed.

  He missed her.

  * * * * *

  There wasn't a lot left to do when it came to cleaning up after dinner. Judy had cleared the table, Katie had loaded the dishwasher, and Kylie had washed the pans. Allen had sat back and watched it all, fulfilling his role as supervisor. Everyone had done their part, and the kitchen was nice and clean.

  “Mom?” Katie Lou said when everything was finished. “Do you think maybe you could do something with what's left of my hair? Not tonight, but I could come by your shop tomorrow after PT, if that's okay?”

  Judy smiled. “Of course, Honey,” she said. “But we could probably do wonders with it right here and now. You didn't really lose that much, and if we feather it a bit, the spots where they clipped hair out won't be so noticeable. Let's try, and see what we can do, okay?”

  Katie smiled back. “Okay, and thanks. It just feels so awkward, right now, and I don't know what to do with it. It might not look so bad if I didn't have the raccoon mask on, but I don't see much hope of that fading in the next couple of days.”

  “Nope,” Allen said, “takes at least two weeks for those shiners to fade away.”

  Kylie grinned at him. “Dad, let's leave them to their beauty treatments, okay? Come on in the living room, we can find a movie.”

  Allen caught the wink Kylie sent him, and nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Your mother doesn't like me sticking my nose into her beauty secrets, anyway; she says I wouldn't know beautiful if it bit me on the nose. I tell her that's crazy, since I knew she was beautiful and married her!” He was still talking, but his voice trailed off as he followed Kylie down the hall.

  When she got him alone, she stepped close to him. “So? Did you find anything in the Corvette?”

  “Not a thing wrong with the steering, and no other reason I can find why the car might have gone out of control. I checked with the cops, and they said his blood alcohol was almost zero, so he wasn't drunk, and there weren’t any drugs in his system of any kind. Only thing I can think of is he must have fallen asleep behind the wheel
. Lousy bum!”

  Kylie frowned. “And the seat belt?”

  “Well, there I found a defect, but it wasn't one that came from the factory. Somewhere along the line, somebody, and it might well have been Katie Lou, shoved a can of mixed nuts up under the seat, and the jagged edge of it had been rubbing against that seat belt, down low where no one would see it, and cutting through most of it. Well, when they hit the tree, the last remaining threads snapped, and she slid right up and over the airbag on her side. The airbag sits high enough that it busted the glass, though, so by the time she hit it there was already a spider web of cracks all the way through. All she did was plow on through that, and leave a big hole in the windshield.”

  Kylie shook her head. “We just never know what little detail might be the one that gets us, do we?”

  “Nope,” Allen said. “All we can do is be thankful it wasn't a lot worse.”

  Back in the guest room bath, Judy and Katie were talking over what might be done with Katie's hair, and Judy had gone for her scissors and combs. She had Katie parked before the mirror, and was trimming here and there, then combing through the hair she was leaving behind to make it blend in and cover the gaps where the holes in her head had been drilled. Each of those spots was small, but the hair clipped away made it seem bigger. Katie was determined not to let the loss of her previously long, beautiful locks get her down, but it was actually taking quite a bit of effort to prevent the tears from getting out.

  “So,” Judy asked as she worked, “how's it going with your sister and Dr. Christopher? Has she gotten him to notice her yet?”

  Katie Lou shrugged and grinned. “I'm not really sure,” she said. “He talks to her as if they're old friends, but I can't tell if he's actually paying any attention to her or not. Although, he did call her tonight, when we sent him the video of my leg kicking. He's got my number, but he called hers.”

  “Hmm,” Judy said. “Am I detecting a note of jealousy?”

  Katie laughed. “Oh, no, I promise you, I'm not a bit jealous! As far as I'm concerned right now, men are like hornets, and something to be avoided at all costs!”

  Judy chuckled. “I feel like that about twice a year, usually right after your father makes me mad about something stupid. Trust me, you'll get over it.”

  “I might,” Katie said, “but I'm not in any hurry. Darren hurt me, Mom, and he was the one man I really trusted; I don't think I can ever trust another one, at least not anytime soon.”

  “That's perfectly understandable,” Judy said. “Just don't let yourself become bitter towards all men over what one of them did to you. That's a surefire way to miss out on a blessing. God doesn't close one door without opening another, Honey, so don't let one man's stupidity make you miss out on something good.”

  Katie sighed. “I can't think about men right now, Mom. I don't even want to.”

  * * * * *

  The next morning, Katie and Kylie were looking forward to the visit to Dr. Christopher's clinic, and left a few minutes early in their excitement. They couldn't wait to show him how much more control Katie had gained over her left leg, just since the night before—she'd shown her family that morning that she could actually extend it out in front of her without having to lift it with her hand first, and could even put it down slowly onto the foot rest. For most people, that would be nothing, but Katie was thrilled at being able to do this simple little thing.

  When they got into the room with the mat, Rob was waiting for them. “There's my superstar,” he said, and Katie beamed. “I can't tell you how excited I got last night, looking at your leg!”

  Kylie burst out laughing, and Rob suddenly realized his blunder. “Looking at your leg moving, I mean! I got excited watching it move!” He covered his face with his hands, and both girls laughed at him.

  “It's okay,” Katie said. “I got pretty excited about it myself! It just sort of started all on its own in the bathtub, and then I realized I could control it a little bit, but watch what I can do now!” She concentrated for a second, and her left foot rose off the footrest and stuck straight out in front of her, then she drew it back and extended it again, before putting it back down. “The right one won't do that much, yet, but I can get it to move a little.” To demonstrate, she lifted her right foot, but couldn't make it extend. A second later, it dropped back onto the footrest.

  “Katie,” Rob said, “that is absolutely incredible, and I mean it. If you'd told me two days ago that you'd make this kind of progress so quickly, I'd have said you were overly optimistic, and that would have been being nice, but I'm seeing it, so I'm believing it! This is genuinely awesome!”

  “Well, I thought so,” Katie said. “Of course, I'll be a lot happier when I'm actually able to walk again.”

  Rob nodded. “I'm just curious, but have you tried to stand yet? Now that you can get that leg to move, I mean?”

  Katie shook her head. “No,” she said. “I mean, I hadn't even thought about it; I don't think it's that strong, yet.”

  Rob grinned at her. “Why wouldn't it be? You've been walking around on it for years, haven't you? You haven't been off your feet long enough to have lost much of your strength or muscle tone. What do you say we give it a try?”

  At the far end of the room was a set of parallel bars, the kind people use when they're learning to walk again. There was also a hydraulic lift, like the ones you see in hospitals for lifting people out of bed, or into a bathtub, with a harness on it that looked like it would go around the waist and legs. Rob led them to this contraption, and had Kylie help him strap the harness onto Katie. When she was secured in it, he used the lift to bring her to a vertical position, with her hands holding onto a bar and her feet dangling down onto the floor. He moved her into position between the bars, and lowered her slightly so that both feet were touching the floor.

  “Now, what I want you to do, Katie, is to try to lift your weight off the harness and onto your legs. Hold onto the bars, and if you lift a little with your arms, that's okay, but I want you to use your legs as much as you can, okay? Go for it!”

  Katie took one of the bars in each hand, and began to tell her legs to stand up, but while they seemed to be trying to move, it wasn't necessarily in the right directions. Rob grinned.

  “One of the things people often realize at this point in their therapy is that all the walking they've done all their lives has been essentially unconscious. They don't actually know what their legs were doing, even though it seems like they should. The fact is, if you have to stop and think about each movement of each muscle involved in taking a step, you might spend a couple of minutes planning out the moves that will take place in less than a second! Try this: just think about making your legs push down, like you're trying to stomp on a bug with both feet at once. That might be easier than trying to figure out everything involved in just standing up.”

  Katie let out a sigh, and then tried to just push down, as he'd said, and a moment later she let out a squeal as her left leg responded and she felt herself standing on one leg for a moment. She was holding onto the bars, and bracing herself, and without even thinking about what she was doing, Katie Lou moved her right foot forward and tried to take a step.

  It was a baby step, that was true, but for Katie Lou it was like the one that Neil Armstrong made on the moon, and when she realized that she'd actually done it, she suddenly went weak in the knees and began to collapse. The harness held her up, and Rob and Kylie each threw an arm around her and helped her come back to her wheelchair. But Katie knew, now, beyond any doubt…

  She'd walk again, and soon!

  The rest of the session was spent in the harness, as Katie tried over and over to take more than one step at a time, but one was all she could manage. She didn't really feel that upset about only making one, because before that moment she hadn’t thought she could walk at all, so she was doing a lot of smiling. Rob was smiling right along with her, as was Kylie, and when the session ended and they all excitedly told Anna what had happen
ed, even she was excited and smiling.

  “This has been a day for the record books,” Rob said. “I'm so pumped, I could just about run a marathon, but I'm going to settle for lunch. Can I buy you ladies lunch again?”

  “They say yes,” Anna said, and both Kylie and Katie looked at her and burst into laughter.

  “And what if they already had plans?” Rob asked, but Anna was smugly grinning.

  “Well, Katie's stuck with Kylie, because Kylie is driving, and Kylie has a crush on you, so I know she wants to go to lunch, so Katie has to come along too. Simple enough.”

  Kylie turned red, and Rob was a bit pink, himself. Katie thought it was all hilarious, and might even get the two of them to notice each other, so she just smiled and nodded at Anna. “Perfect logic, my dear girl,” she said, and then whispered to Anna, “I had a professor in college who always said that, and I've been looking for a chance to use it for years! Thanks!”

  Katie and Kylie went out to the truck and got in, and Kylie put the wheelchair in the back. They waited for Rob and Anna to come out and get into Rob's car, and then followed as he drove down the street. He didn't stop at the restaurant they'd gone to a few days before, though; this time, Rob led them across town to a big, fancy place that was known for high prices. Katie frowned, because it was one of the places where Darren had brought her from time to time, but then she shook it off. If she avoided places they'd gone together, she'd be stuck in the house from then on, and that just wasn't gonna happen!

  10

  Life is seldom fair. That bit of wisdom comes to most people by the time they reach their twenties, and if it hasn't found them by then, it's a safe bet that it will within the next couple of years. This is because it's true, and nothing you can do will change that fact. Life isn’t fair. Deal with it.

  That fact was brought home to Katie Lou Brennan about five minutes after she and Kylie and Rob and Anna had taken a table at the restaurant Rob had chosen for a celebratory lunch. They were all going over their menus, trying to decide which of a dozen different entrees would be most appealing, when Katie heard a voice and glanced up to see Darren Allsip standing just inside the door, staring at her.