by Calista Fox
As Kate entered, the ones who were hanging out playing games, reading or watching TV greeted her. The dark-haired girl from the stairwell leapt from her bed and raced toward Kate, who knelt down just as the girl launched herself into Kate’s arms and hugged her tight.
“Katie!” she cried gleefully.
Kate had never preferred any derivative of her name other than Kate. Yet Sophia-Maria Santos went by Sophie and so when she called Kate “Katie,” well…who was Kate to correct her?
Had it been anyone else, sure… But Sophie was much too irresistible and so Kate couldn’t find it in her heart to insist on any other name.
“How’s your day?” she asked Sophie, who was five, and the most inquisitive kid Kate had ever met.
“I played scotch-hop,” she said in broken Spanish.
“You mean hopscotch.”
“No.” Sophie gave a definitive shake of her head. “Scotch-hop.”
With a laugh, Kate said, “Okay. Show me.”
Sophie took her by the hand and led her to her bed—a simple, twin cot that had been rolled in, like the others. Alongside it, pieces of paper were taped to the floor to resemble the game Kate remembered from her youth.
As was the case with her name, Kate didn’t bother correcting Sophie’s idea of this game. They played until Jude came to collect her, knowing exactly where Kate would be.
When she told Sophie she was going to dinner with Jude, Sophie gripped her hand. Pleading with her big amber-colored eyes, quite similar to Kate’s, she implored in Spanish, “Please don’t leave me.”
Kneeling before her once more, Kate gently clasped her shoulders and said, “It’s time for me to go. But I’ll be back tomorrow. And you can see your mother in about a half an hour. She’ll be awake again.”
This brightened the little girl’s pretty face. Kate kissed her forehead and reminded her she’d return.
She and Jude went in search of Nikki, locating her in a patient’s room. The man resting in the bed was in a medically induced coma. He had shrapnel from one of the explosions through his shoulder blades and lower back, and he’d suffered a head injury when a brick had slammed into his skull.
His vitals were stable and he was expected to make a significant recovery…though it was still to be determined how the trauma might impact his vision or his speech pattern.
Kate joined Nikki, who sat gingerly on the edge of the bed, reading to him. She lightly touched her friend’s arm.
“Ready for some dinner?” Kate asked. “We’re starving.”
Nikki glanced over her shoulder. “Already? What time is it?”
“Close to eight. We’ve been here for over twelve hours and they’re about to kick everyone out. Time’s up.”
Nikki’s gaze returned to the patient. “Seems like I just got here.”
She set the book she’d been reading aloud on the nightstand and then said to the man in the coma, “I’ll check in on you first thing in the morning, Nico. Pleasant dreams.”
Kate stepped back and Nikki stood. But she didn’t move away from the bed. She stared down at it for several moments, then gave a small shake of her head before following Kate out.
In the hallway, she told Kate and Jude, “I was speaking with the capitán de la policía earlier and he said Nico Valdiviesio saved thirteen lives. That first building that erupted was an apartment complex with many elderly residents who weren’t efficiently mobile. Nico manages some of their trusts and was in with one client when the initial blast occurred. The warning alarms went off, and he purposely sought out those he knew couldn’t make it out of the complex on their own—and also assisted their neighbors and friends who were similarly going to have difficulty evacuating in a timely manner.”
“He’s our kind of people,” Jude commented.
“Yes,” Nikki said. “What’s so bizarre, though, is that no one other than those survivors have come looking for him in the hospital.”
“As in, no family, friends…fiancée?” Kate ventured.
“Well, I wasn’t thinking in terms of the latter, but, yeah. Total loner. And yet, he risked his life for all these people.”
“Interesting,” Jude replied.
“How so?” Kate’s gaze narrowed on him as they started down the corridor to avoid being politely kicked out by the staff.
“I’m just thinking that if he’s the one putting all their estates in order, there’s an opportunity for him to become close to the elderly—who might not have other relations. If you get my drift.”
Nikki caught on quick. “So they might bequeath unto him?” she mused. “Because he feels like family, is only looking out for their ‘best interests’… So on and so forth?”
“Something along those lines,” Jude concurred. “It’s a familiar scam. One I’ve encountered a time or two in the courtroom.”
“Hmm.” Nikki seemed to give this its due consideration.
Kate, ever the optimist, eyed her friend and said, “But in this case, the potential scammer saved the lives of his clients—and their friends. People he didn’t even know, right?”
Nikki gave a noncommittal shrug, as though uncertain as to whether to continue believing in the hero-worshipping path she’d inadvertently traveled with Nico Valdiviesio.
Because Jude wasn’t instantly throwing the man under the bus any more than Kate was, he causally suggested, “Doesn’t sound as though Nico was looking to cash in on anything, Nik. Perhaps he was just helping others because he knew he could.”
Nikki deliberated over the pros and cons of the situation for a few moments before reluctantly saying, “There have been reporters and newscasters wanting to interview Nico. They’re collecting stories from those he rescued. I haven’t let the press into his room on my watch, but the papers have been filled with his heroics. That’s what I first started reading to him.”
“And has there been any response?” Kate asked. “Even slightly?”
“Ever-so-slightly,” Nikki told her. “Yes.”
“That means something.”
With a nod, Nikki said, “I thought so, too. So I grabbed a couple of books from the chapel’s library and began reading to him. He seems to like A Tale of Two Cities.”
“Or he likes your voice,” Kate said as she took a side-step closer to Nikki and rubbed shoulders with her.
Nikki laughed. “Ever since you and Jude hooked up, you’ve been one big fluffy ball of romance.”
“While I will concede to finding a little more Zen in my life…” She flashed a grin toward Jude, then returned her attention to Nikki. “I’m only saying that you’ve just gravitated toward a SAR hero without even knowing it, and he clearly likes listening to you murmur to him whatever it is that you murmur to him at the end of the day. When no one’s around. When it’s just the two of you in his room and—”
“Kate!” Nikki flashed her an indignant look.
Kate didn’t back down. She simply smiled coyly and said, “My how defensive you’re getting, Nik.”
She tossed a look over her shoulder, toward Jude.
He winked… And chuckled.
Then he more seriously mouthed, “Careful, babe.”
Because they all knew how fragile Nikki’s personal feelings were… In every capacity.
27
“Fine,” Kate gently conceded. “Walk the balance beam of indecision: is he a hero or is he a villain? But let’s at least accept one clear truth. He’s hot. Like… Mm-hmm, H-O-T hot.”
“Kate!” Jude exploded beside her.
She laughed again. Turning to Jude, she patted him on the cheek.
“Not Jude McMillan hot,” she assured him. To Nikki, she added, “Though I can accurately report that all the single nurses in this hospital are hoping and praying no girlfriend comes out of the woodwork for Nico Valdiviesio.”
“Completely irrelevant to me, Kate,” Nikki said with a smirk.
Kate held her next comment in check. She didn’t want to push Nikki’s buttons…yet there was clearly a spa
rk of interest on her friend’s part—the first Kate had seen in years.
Jude wrapped a strong arm around Kate’s waist and eased her toward him, tucking her against his hard body.
He murmured in her ear, “Not everyone’s embracing romance. Just because I keep your skin tingling doesn’t mean—”
“It’s not only my skin that tingles when you’re near.” She wagged her brows at him, suggestively.
“I’m just saying that—”
“Katie!”
The tiny screech down the corridor seemed to wrap its way around Kate’s heart and squeeze tight.
Deathly tight.
She halted abruptly. Whirled around.
Sophie came charging toward her, once again launching herself into Kate’s arms as she bent down.
The little girl burst into body-wracking sobs.
Kate’s gaze flew to Nikki, who immediately said, “I’ll see what’s wrong.” She rushed off, knowing exactly what Kate was thinking. Something had happened to Isabelle Santos, Sophie’s mother.
Jude knelt beside them and rested a supportive hand on Kate’s back as she held Sophie, who wept uncontrollably.
Jude whispered in Kate’s ear, “This can’t be good.”
Kate’s heart constricted further. She held Sophie a bit more firmly. While muttering, “It’ll be okay,” in Spanish.
But would it?
Sophie’s fingers curled around strands of Kate’s hair and her body trembled in Kate’s embrace.
Endless minutes passed. Sophie continued to wail in distress. Nikki eventually returned and placed a hand on Jude’s shoulder. He glanced up at her.
Then Jude leaned in close to Kate again and murmured low enough for only her to hear: “Isabelle’s gone, sweetheart.”
Jude’s throat tightened with each word.
His gaze returned to Nikki, who had tears in her eyes, silently relaying the tragic news.
He let out a long breath, then dipped his head to Kate’s once more.
“I’m so sorry, baby.”
His gut clenched. He knew Kate had developed a kinship with Sophie from the moment she’d scooped her into her arms in the stairwell. She’d spent every spare moment with her here in the hospital, assuring Sophie her mother would be fine, assuring her everything would be fine.
She’d tracked down Sophie’s father to a prison—and there was no conceivable way the man was getting out anytime soon. He was in for life on multiple murder charges, having been an enforcer for a regional drug lord.
Jude knew in his heart that Sophie was infinitely better off with her father in prison. Except that now…she had no mother.
Jude’s eyes squeezed shut briefly, blocking out the sight of Kate with an orphan (for all intents and purposes) in her arms. A five-year-old girl who had latched onto Kate as much as Kate had latched onto her.
His heart wrenched.
Kate wasn’t the motherly type. She claimed to have no maternal instincts and yet…ever since that night when she’d intuitively protected Sophie, Kate had made it a point to check in on the girl every chance she got.
Jude swallowed down a lump of emotion—and love—and focused on the reality of the situation.
He told Kate, “We have to find Jeanette. She’s the one working to place children without homes.”
Kate’s head snapped up.
Their eyes connected.
She didn’t say anything, though tears pooled in the corners and Jude could clearly see exactly what she was thinking.
She verbalized it, anyway.
“We can’t just…leave her.”
His insides coiled tight. Jude could barely breathe.
He shook his head. “Kate. This is—”
“Jude.” Fat drops filled her eyes. Sophie clung to her, crying hysterically and clearly not planning on releasing Kate anytime soon. If ever.
Jude scrubbed a hand down his face.
He reminded her, “We have to be in New York at the end of the week. Kate—”
“I can’t leave her,” Kate asserted. She relinquished her hold on Sophie, spreading her arms wide. Sophie’s grip around Kate’s neck only tightened. “See?”
Kate embraced the girl again.
Every fiber of Jude’s being pulled taut.
This was wholly unexpected: a kid clinging to Kate out of emotional distress—and Kate responding to the S.O.S.
Again…Jude knew she had no inclination to have children with him. Sure, she was acclimating to the idea of an engagement/engagement party. A wedding. Even the notion of them living together in his vast apartment.
But when it came right down to the kid scenario… He understood that concept was one well outside her mental realm.
And yet… Here she was, reacting so innately, so naturally to Sophie’s distraught disposition, her entire desolate situation.
Jude reeled.
His heart swelled with how fantastically Kate enveloped the emotions surrounding her and Sophie. How she gave into them. He saw more tears seeping out of the corners of Kate’s eyes as she squeezed them shut. He caught the tremors through her arms and heard the hitch in her breaths.
Jude ripped his gaze away and it connected with Nikki’s once more. Her eyelids drifted closed for a moment as well…then she pinned Jude with a steady gaze.
Son of a fucking bitch.
Her gaze didn’t waver.
Jude’s shoulders bunched. The cords in his neck tightened.
He sent a silent question to Nikki.
She answered it with the quirking of a brow.
Jude groaned.
Kate had to be back in New York in four days. She’d committed to Denny and Charlotte’s wedding—and Kate didn’t renege on her commitments.
But how the hell was she going to leave Sophie?
Nikki voiced what he’d been thinking all along. “This is something new and different…”
“We’re all supposed to be in New York, remember?” Jude prompted.
“Yeah, well… That might not happen. At least, not for you and Kate.”
“You both realize I can hear you, right?” Kate murmured.
“I’m not putting you on the spot, sweetheart,” Jude quietly asserted. “Take as long as you need.”
“Four days’ worth of need?” Kate sardonically quipped. “That’s not enough time to sort out something like this.”
Fuck.
This was everything they were nowhere near ready to get into and yet… Here they were, getting wrapped up in all they were nowhere near ready to get into.
Nikki stated the obvious: “There are tons of legalities, Jude… You know that.”
“Yeah, Nik. I know.”
“Including a father who’s still alive,” Nikki felt compelled to remind him. “He might be in prison, but he is still her legal guardian.”
“So we’re just supposed to relinquish her to Mexico City’s child protective services?” Kate inquired.
“Or send her back to her family in Juarez,” Nikki suggested.
“She doesn’t have any,” Kate said. “Not really. Her uncle was the local drug lord. He’s in prison, too.”
Sophie continued to sob, tugging at everyone’s heartstrings.
Kate stared up at Jude, beseechingly, and said, “You have to figure this one out. Whatever laws we have to tackle and hoops we have to jump through. Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it. Please, Jude…”
Her voice cracked and it was all he could do to keep from promising her he’d find a solution. He wasn’t sure what that solution was going to be just yet.
But…goddamn it.
The legal issues were ones he’d work through. Because Jude would move heaven and earth to reach the right answer for Kate.
Even if it meant they adopted Sophie.
“You know I’ll fix this,” he steadily contended.
And reached for his cell.
28
The worst part about traveling back to New York was that Kate wanted to be wholly presen
t, physically as well as mentally. For Denny, of course. Certainly for Charlotte.
Unfortunately, there was a part of her that agonized over how Sophie was dealing with, adjusting to, internalizing the fact that her mother had survived the injuries she’d sustained in the stairwell that ill-fated night. And had then succumbed to them days later.
Nikki had volunteered to stay behind in Mexico City, to be with Sophie as much as possible—who had, indeed, been placed into protective services while the authorities sorted out the details on their end and worked with the attorney Jude had hired to ascertain what it would take for Kate to at least gain temporary custody of Sophie while the child’s fate was determined.
She and Jude went to New York to fulfill their obligations, nerve-wracking though it was for Kate…and Jude had to suffer through her separation anxiety from Sophie.
“I don’t think we should mention any of this to anyone at the wedding,” she told him on that morning’s flight to JFK. “For one, this is Denny and Charlotte’s day. I don’t want anything to spoil it—and my mother getting wind of what we’re kind-of-sorta-maybe up to will most definitely spoil the mood.”
“You don’t think she’d find it endearing that you’re attached to Sophie and want to take over raising her?”
Put like that, heart palpitations nearly ripped through Kate. Who would have guessed she’d ever feel this protective of a kid? Especially one that wasn’t her own.
She said, “My mother will trivialize it or be wholly offended for one reason or another—she won’t cast my plight in a positive light, believe me. Somehow, this will be torturous to her and detrimental to her social standing…or something absurd in that vein.” She heard the disdain in her voice and sighed. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions or judge…but Kate knew her mother well.
There wouldn’t be much empathy on her mother’s end. For sure, she’d find some reason to be displeased with Kate’s decision. Likely the fact that socialite and doctor’s wife Betsy Stockman’s one and only daughter was taking on a Spanish-speaking five-year-old out of wedlock, rather than her first born being Kate’s and her legally wedded husband’s child.
