by Sharon Sala
At first Cat had rejected the notion, saying she couldn’t possibly learn. She’d felt awkward and silly, and couldn’t seem to balance the yarn between her fingers while pulling loops through with the hook. But Dorothy didn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Finally Cat had given up and given in, and found out that she loved it. So far she had learned how to make a chain and a simple crochet stitch, and she was as proud of the beginnings of her own afghan as she’d been when she’d become certified as a bounty hunter.
The first day of lessons, Wilson had come in to find both women sitting side by side on the sofa. He’d seen them with their heads down, leaning so close together that their foreheads were almost touching. When he realized what they were doing, he walked right back out again without disturbing the process.
He’d been floored by what he’d seen, but at the same time, touched by Cat’s willingness to try something new. He knew from experience that she didn’t like to be put in unfamiliar situations and hated to show weakness. Once in a while he would stop and watch her with his Dad or his Mom and wonder where this woman had come from. She was nothing like the bullheaded, do-it-myself female he’d known. If he hadn’t known better, he might have thought the real Cat Dupree was in hiding and a body double had taken her place. It wasn’t a complaint, but it made him nervous, wondering if this about-face was going to stick, or if she would suddenly switch back to her cantankerous self and nail him to the wall for bringing her here.
* * *
The morning had passed quickly, and Cat was lazing in her chair with the yellow afghan over her legs. She was wearing camel-colored pants and a white pullover sweater. Her dark hair was hanging loose, but in deference to the special day, she was wearing a tortoiseshell clip on one side.
Wilson was wearing blue jeans, a denim shirt and an old pair of brown boots. His hair, as usual, needed a cut, and he was still sporting the small gold loop in his ear. Cat was beginning to appreciate the significance of that small rebellious gesture. She, of all people, knew about rebellion.
She had her crochet work in her lap and was adding a new row when Carter suddenly pointed out the window and jumped up.
“Here comes Charlie,” Carter said, and headed toward the front door.
Cat looked at Wilson, then took a deep breath. She’d gotten comfortable with his parents, but meeting his brothers and sisters was like starting from scratch. There was a whole new set of people and names to remember. The bruises on her face were fading from dark purple to a paler shade, mixed with a little green and brown. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it was what it was.
Wilson could tell Cat was nervous. He didn’t know how to make this any better for her.
“Cat…”
Cat rolled her eyes. “Quit fussing,” she said. “I’m fine. If I can put up with you, the rest of them will be a breeze.”
Wilson felt a kick in the pit of his stomach. “So…is that what you’ve been doing? Putting up with me?”
Cat sighed. From the look on Wilson’s face, she’d said something wrong. She just wasn’t sure what it was.
“Wilson.”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever it was that I said wrong, get over it. You know I don’t know how to do this relationship stuff. You can either bear with me or toss me out on my ass and shut up, ’cause I’m doing the best that I can.”
Wilson heard the fear in her voice and got up from his chair, and took the yarn out of her hands and set it aside. Regardless of the fact that his brother Charlie, sister-in-law Delia and their three kids were coming through the door, he kissed her square on the mouth, without regard for bumps and bruises. When he pulled back and looked up, Charlie was grinning, while the rest of the family looked a little shell-shocked.
Cat would have been more comfortable taking down a reluctant perp than meeting the rest of Wilson’s family. However, if she was going down, she was going down fighting. She stood up, unaware that she’d lifted her chin in a defensive position, and waited to see what came next.
Wilson stood with her, then put his arm around her shoulders. Immediately Cat felt sheltered, as if Wilson was ready to defend her despite what anyone thought. It was a daunting emotion that she didn’t know how to take.
“Everyone, this is Catherine,” Wilson said. “Catherine, this is Charlie, his wife Delia and their kids.”
Then the smallest of Charlie’s children, three-year-old Mindy, broke the ice. “Unca Wilson…is she you girl fend?”
Everyone laughed, and then Delia dispatched the kids to the swing set out back and her husband to the back porch to keep an eye on them. After that she slipped her hand in the bend of Cat’s elbow, eyed the state of her face and frowned at Wilson before turning to Cat.
“I’m assuming Wilson Lee didn’t do this to you, honey.”
Wilson frowned. “Damn, Delia…you just lost your status as favorite sister-in-law.”
Cat couldn’t help smiling. She was beginning to understand the love beneath the bullshit this family handed out. And she set her place in Wilson’s heart forever when she calmly stated that she’d gotten herself into a really dangerous situation and he had saved her life.
Delia’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Cat said.
Delia kissed Wilson on the cheek. “You know I was teasing…but this obviously wasn’t a funny subject. Sorry.” Then she pointed toward the kitchen. “I think I hear a potato calling my name. Come on, Catherine. I need a drink, and I know where they keep the good stuff.”
Cat looked a little startled, which was what Delia was obviously aiming for. “I’m kidding,” she said. “How about some of Mom’s sweet tea?”
“Sounds good to me,” Cat said, gave Wilson a quick look, then let herself be led away.
Soon the rest of the family arrived and the kitchen was filled with the women of the family helping Dorothy finish up the meal. The men came in long enough to snitch bites, taste-test sauces and carry heaping bowls of food to the dining room table.
Cat had slipped out of the kitchen a short while earlier on the pretext of going to the bathroom, but what she really needed was some quiet. The noise level was beyond loud and the number of people overwhelming. She’d gone down the hall toward her room, but her escape ended when she heard a baby fussing in Carter and Dorothy’s bedroom.
She knew that Wilson’s baby sister, Emily, had a new six-month-old baby, who’d been asleep when they’d arrived, so they’d put her on the bed to keep sleeping. Obviously baby Lynnie had awakened to find herself all alone.
The door was ajar. Cat pushed it the rest of the way open and walked in. The little baby was penned in on the middle of the mattress by pillows that had been propped up all around her to keep her from rolling off the bed. Lynnie’s squawking stopped immediately when she saw a friendly face. She broke out into a big smile, and began kicking her legs and waving her arms. It was a “pick me up” plea Cat couldn’t ignore.
“Hey, sweet thing,” she said softly, and picked up the little girl.
The baby immediately grabbed hold of Cat’s hair and pulled.
“Ouch,” Cat said, then quickly sat down in the rocking chair so she could get the little fist untangled from her hair.
A few moments later she had the baby’s fingers untangled. Careful of her bound ribs, she shifted the baby to her shoulder and began patting her on the back as she rocked. Almost immediately, Lynnie gave a large burp, and after that she began to relax.
Cat kept on patting and rocking, whispering soft little nothings that were strictly between Lynnie and herself. Within a few minutes the baby had fallen back asleep. Cat knew she could have put her back down, but she didn’t want to. She liked holding this warm, tiny body against her heart, feeling the softness of hair and skin against her cheek.
She was so focused on the baby that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hall.
* * *
Wilson was a little uneasy. He hadn’t noticed Cat leaving, but once everyon
e began to gather in the dining room, he realized she was missing. His first instinct was to panic. Someone must have said or done something to send her running. But then he quickly discarded that thought, because the woman he knew didn’t run.
Still, her absence was enough to worry him. Her injuries were far from healed. All of this commotion might have been too much and sent her to her bed.
A quick look through the dining room and living room failed to turn her up. Next stop was her bedroom, so he started down the hall. He would have walked right past his parents’ bedroom except that the door was open and he thought he could hear someone singing. He stopped in the doorway, then breathed a slow sigh of relief.
He’d found her.
But not in a way he would have believed if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. His pretty, hard-nosed bounty hunter was rocking a baby and, from what he could tell, doing a damn good job of it.
“Catherine?”
Cat heard Wilson calling her name. She looked up, then put a finger to her lips, begging his silence.
He walked into the room, sat down on the side of the bed and started to speak, then swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried again.
“Once again, Catherine, you surprise me,” he said softly.
Cat didn’t know what to say, but she knew what she was thinking. What would it be like to have a baby with this man?
She slid her hand up the baby’s back, rubbing it in a soft, caressing manner as she continued to rock.
“She was fussing when I walked by.”
“She looks good in your arms.”
Cat leaned her head against the back of the rocker and for a moment closed her eyes, then kept them closed as she started talking.
“Wilson…”
“What, honey?”
“When I was in Mexico…”
Wilson’s heart suddenly hammered against his ribcage. Something told him that she was about to take her first step toward trusting him, and he didn’t want to mess it up.
“Yeah?”
Her voice trembled. “I found a dead woman and a baby in the desert.”
Wilson was shocked. For a few seconds it felt as if all the air had been kicked out of his lungs. Suddenly the lack of communication from her began to make sense.
“God, Catherine…what a horrible thing. What did you do with…the bodies?”
“Oh…I didn’t say that right. The baby was alive,” she said, and then opened her eyes. They were swimming in tears.
“The mother’s name was Pilar. She died of a snakebite. She and that baby were in the middle of nowhere, and I kept thinking to myself, why couldn’t I have found her sooner? Then I thought of Marsha and wondered why I hadn’t been able to find her before it was too late. Why are these women dead and I’m not? I didn’t have a baby depending on me. Why did God keep me alive and let them die?”
Wilson sighed. Lord God…all this was inside her head and he’d never known it. Guilt? For God’s sake, she felt guilt for not dying?
“Catherine…Jesus, sweetheart…you can’t think like that. Ever. Death isn’t about being fair, and it isn’t about making deals with God. After all that has happened to you in your lifetime, I can’t begin to guess why you’re still alive.” Then his voice began to shake. “I don’t know why you’ve been spared, but I will spend the rest of my life thanking God that you were. You are precious to me, Catherine. I wish you knew how much.”
Cat looked at him through a blur of tears, wanting to say what he was beginning to mean to her, but afraid to give life to the words.
“Thank you, Wilson. Thank you for loving me…and thank you for bearing with me through this.”
Then they heard another set of footsteps coming down the hall.
“They’ve sent a scout to look for us. Dinner must be ready,” he said.
“What about the baby?” she asked. “She was crying before, and no one heard her.”
Wilson got up just as his brother Charlie entered.
“Hey, you guys, Mom says dinner is ready.” Then he saw the baby in Cat’s arms. “Is everything okay?”
Wilson looked at Charlie and grinned. “The baby was crying.”
Charlie arched an eyebrow, then grinned back. “She’s a natural, isn’t she, Will?”
“A natural what?” Cat asked.
“A natural mama,” Charlie said.
Cat didn’t know how to respond, but the declaration filled her with an odd sort of joy. She’d never thought of herself as any kind of normal female. She didn’t fuss with her hair or her nails, or worry about makeup and clothes. She wouldn’t ever have believed that she would care about wanting children, but she did. She’d known ever since she’d lifted Maria Elena out of her dead mother’s arms and felt her baby breath against her neck that this was something she could do. She’d known what it was like to be without parents, which in her mind made her highly qualified to be a better parent than most.
“Can I bring the baby with me?” she asked.
Wilson rubbed a gentle hand over the sleeping baby’s dark hair, then stroked the side of Cat’s cheek with a finger. “Absolutely,” he said. “Emma will thank you. She’s a real mother hen with her kids, and wouldn’t be happy knowing the baby was unattended and crying.”
“Are you sure?” Cat said.
Charlie backed Wilson up. “Absolutely, honey. Now come on and get yourself a seat at the table before it’s too late. You don’t want to get stuck in the chow line behind a table full of McKays. You’ll go hungry.”
With Wilson’s help, Cat stood up. Still carrying the sleeping baby, she walked with the men to the dining room. The moment she walked into the room carrying the sleeping baby, the noise level dropped.
Dorothy saw Cat and hurried over to her.
“Bless your heart, darling…I’ll bet she woke up and we didn’t hear her, right?”
Cat nodded.
Emma was fixing plates of food for her two older boys when she looked up and saw her baby in Cat’s arms.
“Oh no…poor baby. Was she crying?”
“Just a little,” Cat said. “She burped when I picked her up, so I rocked her back to sleep.”
Emma lifted the baby out of Cat’s arms. “Are you all right? You didn’t hurt yourself lifting her, did you?”
“I’m fine,” Cat said, and tried not to resent the loss of the baby.
“Sit here,” Carter said, and pulled out a chair for her.
Wilson sat down beside her, and the meal began. Cat had felt welcomed before, but now, for some reason, she felt accepted. It was as if, by caring for one of their own, she’d become a part of the family instead of just a visitor.
She sat rather quietly, letting the sounds of laughter wash over her as she ate. Every now and then Wilson would give her knee a gentle squeeze, or slide his arm across the back of her chair and whisper a bit of explanation as to why the story that had been told was so funny to them.
Once he got up and refilled her glass of iced tea and brought it back to her without comment, then noticed she’d eaten all her broccoli casserole and asked if she wanted some more. And all the while he was seeing to her needs and making her a part of the family, she thought to herself, is this what love feels like? If it was, she liked being loved. And if this was so, then she might also like being in love. It was definitely something to consider.
* * *
Wilson and Cat were leaving after breakfast on Tuesday. Cat had been out of the hospital for a week, and she was due to go back and get her stitches removed the next day.
Except for her still-tender ribs, she was almost as good as new. The bruising was nearly gone, except for lingering patches on her face. She was well on her way to finishing her first afghan and had a big bag of homemade cookies to take home, as did Wilson. Dorothy had even packed them some of the leftover baked ham from Sunday dinner, enough so that Cat wouldn’t have to worry about shopping for food the moment she got home.
Wilson was still uneasy about what was goin
g on at his office, although no more property had been damaged since the security cameras had gone up, which told him that whoever was messing with them also knew that the cameras had been set up. Either that was deterring him or he was waiting for something else. He tried not to think about what that might be. He had too much to live for to be careless with his life.
He had their suitcases loaded and the only thing left was saying their goodbyes. It had been great spending this much time back at home, and it was going to be a bit of an adjustment to get back into the hectic lifestyle of being a bail bondsman. He wasn’t going to think about the guts it would take to step back and let Cat resume her own life, as well, seeing as that life had nearly gotten her killed. He knew she deserved to make her own choices, just as he did, but that didn’t mean he had to like them.
He walked back into the house just as his mother came out of her bedroom. She was carrying the pale lavender afghan from Cat’s bed.
“Catherine, I want you to have this to remember us by,” Dorothy said, as she placed it in Cat’s arms.
“Oh, my…oh, Dorothy, it’s beautiful. Thank you.” Cat clasped the afghan to her, then brushed it lightly across her cheek. “It’s so soft.”
Carter grinned. “Well, you don’t know it, missy, but you’ve just been given Dorothy’s wholehearted approval. She doesn’t give away her afghans to just anyone.”
The emotions Cat was feeling were spreading. She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry.
“You both know I didn’t want to come here,” Cat said.
Dorothy giggled. “Honey, if Carter had done to me what Wilson Lee did to you, dragging me off to a bunch of strangers when I looked like hell warmed over, I would have wrung his neck. I can’t imagine how awkward we made you feel. Still, you need to know that we loved having you, and we look forward to seeing you again.”
