Worth the Drive

by Mara Jacobs

  Katie’s unborn child. He could not be sure this child was his. Not yet.

  And yet, all his thoughts were of that child’s future, and what part he would play in it.

  Katie’s laughter from across the room pulled Darío from his thoughts, and he made his way to the booth. She had come directly from work, wearing a skirt with a floral print and a baby blue, short-sleeved blouse. It was plain, but it looked spectacular on her. The other two women were dressed more casually, in shorts and tee shirts.

  Darío wore a golf shirt and shorts. He wore shorts whenever he could during the summer. Players were not allowed to wear them on the course during events, even practice rounds. He missed the days of his youth when he played in shorts and a tee shirt, soaking up the sun.

  Katie saw him as he approached. Her face lit up as he walked toward her and he nearly stumbled. She slid over allowing him to sit next to her, across from her friends.

  “Hey,” she said softly, “you found us okay?”

  He nodded. “You were right. Right across the street from the hotel.”

  “Darío, let me introduce you to Alison Jukuri. And of course you remember Lizzie.”

  Darío stood once again, moving to the other side of the booth. The women looked startled that he’d risen for the introductions. What kind of men were they used to up here?

  Alison was closest to him, she stuck her hand out and gave him a sly smile. “Darío, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Alison, the pleasure is all mine.”

  He then shook Lizzie’s hand. “It is nice to see you again, Lizzie. Though I must say you have certainly changed since the last time I saw you.” He sat once again next to Katie.

  Lizzie rested a hand on her protruding belly and laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. But a good change.”

  From the corner of his eyes, he saw Katie also place her hand on her still flat belly, not even realizing she’d done so. The movement pleased him, though he could not say why. Darío nodded. “Sí, a very good change. You are radiant, and have my congratulations.”

  Lizzie bowed her head, accepting his good wishes. He meant it, she glowed. Much like Katie did. And would even more so as she ripened with child. His child. Maybe.

  “And congratulations to you too, Darío. We can’t tell you how happy we are for Katie. And you too of course.”

  Congratulations. He’d not heard the words before. Not about the baby. Binky had sensed he didn’t want to talk about it, and had wisely stayed away from the subject for the past few weeks.

  When he’d spent a few days at his home in Spain while in Europe for the British Open, he’d fully intended to tell his mother, but never found the right words. He needed to be able to answer more of her sure-to-come questions before he could tell her about Katie.

  The lawyer he’d hired to draw up the papers he’d brought to the Copper Country had offered no congratulations, but, given the nature of the visit it didn’t seem like congratulations were in order.

  Lizzie offering her congratulations was the first time someone other than Katie and his lawyer had spoken to him about his child, and he took a moment before speaking. In fact all he could do was nod back to Lizzie and murmur, “Thank you.”

  The women seemed to take his silence as reluctance, Alison and Lizzie’s eyes darting carefully to Katie. Darío could see the protectiveness in their glances. He tried to put them at ease. Tried to alleviate some of their obvious fear for their friend. “Despite the…unusual circumstances, I’m very pleased.”

  That seemed to work. Lizzie sat back in her seat. Alison picked up her drink – which was in a huge glass – and took a long swallow.

  Katie brought him up to speed, that she’d explained everything they’d agreed on last night to her friends before he’d arrived. They ordered dinner and another round of drinks, though Alison was the only one really drinking, Darío choosing to have a soft drink.

  Alison groaned when he gave his beverage order to the waitress. “You’re not going to be one of those expectant fathers who gives up drinking because his wife has to are you?” She shot a look to Katie. “Not that she’s your wife, but you know what I mean.”

  Darío shook his head. “I had not thought to do such a thing.” He turned to Katie, she was glowering at Alison. He placed a hand on her arm. Her skin was so soft, warm from the summer heat. “Is that something you’d like me to do?” he asked her.

  She looked away from Alison and to him and his breath caught as she gave him one of her huge smiles. “No. Of course not. That doesn’t bother me at all.”

  He nodded, but made a mental note to go ahead and cut out that one beer a night on Fridays and Saturdays.

  “Okay. You gave us the broad idea, but just when are you leaving to go on Tour?” Lizzie asked.

  Darío waited for Katie to answer, still thrilled that she’d agreed to travel with him. “We’re leaving Monday for Denver,” she said.

  “So you’ll be here through the weekend. Both of you?” Lizzie asked.

  “Yes. I’m taking Darío to meet my parents tomorrow,” Katie said.

  Alison chuckled. “Ooh, meeting the parents. Are ya nervous, Darío?”

  Darío realized that maybe he should be. Before he could verbalize that thought, Katie came to his rescue. “What’s there to be nervous about? They’ll be thrilled for me. They know how long I’ve wanted a baby.”

  “Yes, but that was when you were married,” Alison offered.

  The table was silent.

  “Friday night pasty party at the Maki’s. And all those overprotective brothers. She did tell you about her brothers didn’t she Darío?”

  “Al, stop. You’re scaring him.”

  He hadn’t really thought beyond the arrangements he and Katie made last night after watching that poor girl at dinner with her father. Of course Katie’s family would have questions for him. But they’d be satisfied that he’d asked Katie to marry him, wouldn’t they?

  And just what was a pasty?

  “You can’t tell them that you asked me to marry you,” Katie said.

  “Why not?” both he and Lizzie asked at the same time.

  “I just don’t want them pressuring me to marry you just because they think I should for the baby.”

  The “too” at the end of her sentence was left off, but Darío heard it clearly.

  She was right. They’d agreed not to bring up marriage, or any other permanent arrangements, for three months. It might as well count for her parents as well.

  “Well, KitKat, they’ll obviously bring it up. I wouldn’t put it past your dad to bring out his shotgun,” Alison teased. At least, Darío thought she was teasing.

  “I’ll just tell them nothing has been decided for certain. And then I’ll try to distract them with talk about the baby and how happy I am.”

  Darío looked at her. He hadn’t known her long, didn’t know her moods or her nuances. But he guessed that right now was maybe the happiest she’d looked in years. Maybe ever. Her radiance was obvious. Surely her family would see it too.

  Her friends seemed to agree with his unspoken thought. Lizzie reached across the table and laid her hand over Katie’s. “I know. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “Oh geez, here they go again. I’m going to need another drink,” Alison said. Darío could see the warmth behind the sarcasm as Alison looked at her two best friends, both pregnant, both wearing huge grins.

  “Hey. If Darío’s going to be in town this weekend, he could play in Annie Aid,” Alison said. Both Katie and Lizzie looked at her then at each other. Lizzie raised a questioning brow at Katie and Darío felt Katie shrug back at her friend. “Ask him,” she said to Lizzie.

  “Darío, my company puts on a fundraiser for a needy child each year. Well, actually this is only the second year. But last year was a huge success and we’ve got even more professional athletes coming this year. There’s a golf outing on Saturday. Followed by a dinner dance. Would you play in the outing for us? You’d be the only pro
golfer. We’ve never thought to ask any because there’s a tournament going on the same weekend.”

  Ah, golf. That would put him back on familiar ground. On the course he was sure of himself. He needed that right now after the past twenty-four hours with Katie. She, and the situation, had made him more unsure of himself since he’d first taken up the game of golf. That he had mastered in three years. Would it take as long to get a firm handle on Katie? On fatherhood?

  “I’d be happy to play. I have to make sure I can, though. I’ll call the PGA Tour offices tomorrow and make sure I have clearance.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot about that rule,” Lizzie said. “Listen, if you think it’ll be a hassle, forget about it. We wouldn’t have time to properly promote the heck out of you anyway.”

  “What rule?” Katie asked. Her shoulder brushed Darío’s and he reached across her for a napkin that he had no use for to prolong the contact. When he brought his arm back, he kept it attached to hers.

  Lizzie waited for Darío to answer Katie, but he was too preoccupied with finding a way to press his thigh against hers. “The Tour has a rule that you must get clearance if you are going to play in any other tournament other than the Tour tournament.”

  “Even some rinky-dink charity thing in the U.P.?” Alison asked.

  “Hey!” Lizzie chided. “Watch what you call my pride and joy.”

  Alison nudged Lizzie. “You know I’m just kidding, Lizard. You’ve done a great job with Annie Aid, this year and last year.”

  “Yes, even a smaller tournament,” he emphasized the word smaller for Lizzie, saw her nod her approval, then went on, “must have clearance from the Tour. I’ll need some details to give them, Lizzie.”

  Lizzie nodded. “Sure. In fact, why don’t I go ahead and fax the information sheet to the Tour headquarters tonight when I get home, that way when you call tomorrow, they’ll at least have some idea of what you’re talking about. I’ve got their fax number because of Chad.”

  “And exactly what am I talking about?” Darío asked. Though it really didn’t matter. If Katie thought it was a worthwhile event, he would play. He wasn’t going to do anything to break their tentative truce. At least he’d be on a golf course.

  Katie explained what he’d just signed on for. “Lizzie’s stepdaughter, Annie, needed a very expensive operation around this time last year. This was before Lizzie had married her husband, Finn. Lizzie’s PR company put on a fundraiser up here, got in some of her clients for a celebrity golf outing, even got the Stanley Cup up here. It was a huge success. Annie got her operation, and is walking.”

  Her voice turned ragged at the end. Darío watched as she dabbed at her eyes, then turned to look at her friend, Lizzie, who also had tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, I thought if I explained it to him, it wouldn’t be so emotional for you,” Katie said, holding her hand out to Lizzie. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Darío didn’t point out that Katie was crying as well.

  Lizzie sniffled. “It’s okay. Pretty much everything makes me cry these days. Hormones, you know.” Katie nodded her head knowingly. Darío watched as Alison rolled her eyes at her friends, but then shot him a playful wink. He shrugged his shoulders at her in a silent bonding of the only two not being led around by hormones.

  He was being led around by Katie. And a very different kind of hormone.

  “Anyway,” Katie continued, “it was such a success, that Hampton PR is doing it again. But for a different child in need this year. Lizzie and Finn had Annie choose the child herself.”

  “With a little help,” Lizzie said. “The Hannah Robbins Foundation found the candidates, all kids from the U.P., and we left the final decision to Annie. But she had to give us reasons as to why she picked that child. Otherwise, the kid who got help would probably be the one who most resembled Justin Bieber.”

  “Justin who?” came from both Alison and Darío.

  “Ah, you obviously live in households without kids,” Katie said. “He’s all the rage with the pre-teen set. My nieces adore him. This week, anyway.”

  “Yeah, remember how fickle we were at that age? One week it was Kirk Cameron. The next week River Phoenix,” Lizzie said, her face serene as she remembered.

  Alison smiled. “Except for Katie. It was Patrick Swayze from beginning to end for her, she never wavered.”

  Katie lifted her chin, ready to defend herself. “Hey, nobody puts Baby in a corner. Rest in peace, Patrick.”

  Darío studied Alison while Alison studied Katie. “No, that’s not it. It’s you, KitKat, once you make a choice, that’s it, no going back.”

  Katie brushed Alison’s words aside with her hands, but Alison kept nodding and Lizzie looked at Katie with a questioning brow.

  The words permeated Darío’s mind. He found himself irrationally hoping that Alison’s statement was true, and that it also included Darío.

  Katie had only told her parents she was bringing someone for dinner, she’d given no details on who or why. Darío had been deeply amused to see the look on her family’s faces when they discovered that their dinner companion was Darío Luna. But that look had been nothing when compared with the dropped jaws when Katie explained to her family that she was going on Tour with Darío for a few months.

  They were an intimidating bunch. Leo, Katie’s father, and her four older brothers, all with Katie’s white blond hair and towering good looks.

  But Darío had gone against Phil Mickelson in match play and won. A large Finnish family shouldn’t be intimidating to him. Right?

  Most of the wives were also towheads and every last one of the many nieces and nephews also sported the stick-straight white locks. Darío took a perverse delight in the thought that his child, surely with some of his dark coloring and hair, would break family tradition.

  The house was a large, older Victorian on the east side of the small town, in an older neighborhood that rose above the man-made canal and the lift bridge that connected Houghton and Hancock. Large as the house was, Darío couldn’t imagine growing up with four brothers, as large and active as Katie’s brothers seemed to be, in one house.

  The living room was full of reminders of the Maki children. The bookshelves held more art class projects than books. A ceramic animal that Darío guessed was supposed to be a duck was prominently on display on the coffee table. Darío picked it up, feeling its weight. As he put it back, he noticed the name Chris M. etched on the bottom. He looked over at Katie’s eldest brother, Chris, who at the moment was chastising his thirteen-year-old son, Jordan.

  Katie tried to head off the barrage of questions with a story that sounded rehearsed to Darío. It was technically true, but left out a great many details.

  She told them they’d met in Texas when she’d gone with Lizzie to meet a prospective client.

  True.

  She told them they’d hit it off right away.

  He remembered Katie’s comment about his forearms, then how she passed out on him in the elevator the night they met. Memories of the next night, of looking down at Katie as he thrust deep inside of her flashed through his mind. Of her reaching her peak.

  True. They’d hit if off right away.

  She told them that she and Darío had kept in touch after Texas.

  He thought about seeing her in the gallery at Memphis, the flood of gratitude he’d felt at getting another chance to see her, be with her. Then he thought of the rage he’d felt the next day at her hotel when she’d assumed he’d want no part of his child. He’d left swearing his lawyer would be contacting her.

  So, true, they had kept in touch.

  She told them that Darío had shown up out of the blue two days ago and after a very long discussion they’d decided they wanted to see where –“this thing” is what she called it – could lead, and the only way to do that would be for Katie to travel with Darío. She’d made arrangements with her boss at the paper to do some work from the road, and she was having Alison look in on her house
and collect her mail.

  Other than having his child vaguely referred to as “this thing”, Darío figured that was all true.

  What she didn’t mention was the baby. No word of pregnancy at all. Darío waited, watched. Katie shot him a look that showed him she’d changed her mind. He followed her lead.

  Katie dragged him into the kitchen with all the women to make pasties. She used the excuse that Darío had never even heard of pasties before, let alone seen them made.

  A pasty, Darío found out, was a meat pie of sorts. He watched as Katie’s mom and sisters-in-law rolled out the dough of the crusts, filled each with a meat, carrot, onion and rutabaga mixture, then sealed it up into a crescent moon shape. Darío had tried cuisines the world over. The closest thing he’d seen to a pasty was an Italian calzone, but with a much different filling.

  “It’s Cornish originally. Cornish men came over to work the copper mines here, and their wives would make these for them to take down in the mines with them. They’re hearty, but because of the crust, easy to carry and eat in such cramped quarters. The miners would heat them up on their shovels, by holding them over the candles on their helmets,” Mrs. Maki – Ellen, she’d told Darío to call her – explained.

  Darío only nodded and watched the women work. They’d obviously been doing this together for many years, each woman knew exactly her part, or ingredient as the case may be, to play.

  Katie was the last person on the make-shift assembly line that’d been set up at the Maki’s long, well-used pine kitchen table. He watched her elegant fingers seal the pasty, two fingers pressing down the opening, creating a wave effect of the crust. Her hands were lightly tanned, her nails trimmed and unpolished. He looked down at his own hands, roughened by years of handling clubs, his left hand much lighter than his right from years of wearing a golf glove.

  As he watched the women work, biting their tongues, Darío saw the genius of Katie’s plan. By having Darío in here with her, her mother and sisters-in-law couldn’t ask her questions about him. And, maybe more importantly, he wasn’t left alone in a living room full of Maki men just waiting to ask him his intentions toward their daughter and sister.