Daddy by Surprise (18 page)

Jordie was hurt. A couple of broken teeth. She needed Jack to look at him and tell her what to do.

Jack was touched that she trusted him enough to call. And here was a chance to put his new plan into effect. If he couldn’t handle sweet little Jordie, he couldn’t be a regular dentist.

He’d given Kat directions to his house. If Jordie’s teeth needed immediate attention, they’d go to the office. Apparently with his sister at his side.

The flash of headlights in his driveway set them both into motion. Rachel opened the door and let Jack lead the way to the unfamiliar SUV that was idling a few feet away. The inside dome light was on, so Jack could see Kat behind the wheel. She’d turned to face the backseat. The rear windows were tinted, so Jack couldn’t see any movement.

He rapped lightly on the passenger window. It disappeared quietly into the door. “Hi,” he said. “You made great time.”

“Luck and lack of traffic,” she said. Her gaze shifted to the person behind him.

“This is my pesky sister, Rachel. I was at her house when you called and she thinks she can be of some help, although I doubt it.”

Rachel bumped him from behind to reach out to Kat. “Hi. Sorry to meet you under these circumstances. How’s your little boy?”

Kat shook Rachel’s hand, but Jack could tell she was frazzled and the only thing on her mind was Jordie. “He’s asleep,” she said in a low whisper. “I took your advice and stopped at home for his pillow and favorite blanket and I gave him some children’s painkiller.”

Jack poked his head inside the car and looked in the backseat. His heart twisted. Beneath the jumble of pillows and blankets, Jordie was curled up beside his older brother, whose arm was around the younger boy protectively. If he’d ever worried that he couldn’t love these children, his fear vanished in an instant, and he felt a powerful need to protect them and care for them.

“Instead of waking him here, then moving to the office, why don’t we just head over there now? If Tag doesn’t wake up when we move Jordie, Rachel can wait in the car with him.”

“I’m awake, Mom,” Tag said softly. “Jordie’s breath stinks, but I didn’t want to move him.”

Kat smiled for the first time, and Jack had no trouble reading the depth of love she felt for her older son.

Jack opened the passenger door and got in. To his sister, he said, “Follow us.”

Her Porsche Boxter was parked behind the third door of his three-stall garage.

“I really appreciate this, Jack,” Kat said as she backed out. “You have no idea.”

“I think I do. I’m only sorry you had to drive so far. If this had happened a few weeks from now, I would have been closer.” He shrugged. “Although then, I might not have had a state-of-the-art dental facility at my disposal. I haven’t gotten that far in my relocation plans.”

“You know, we really have to talk about that,” she started. “I took—”

“We will. Later. Or tomorrow. You’re staying at my house tonight, of course. Turn right at the corner.”

She made a soft sound of exasperation. “When did you get so bossy?”

“Dr. Treadwell, Mr. Hyde,” he said, wishing they had time for a private moment. She looked like a woman who needed a hug and he was just the man to give her one. But this wasn’t about them. “Turn left at the next light and move into the far-right lane.”

He could see the tiniest glimmer of a smile on her lips, but she didn’t say another word until they reached the office. “Pull up to the front door. If the security people come by to check on us, Rachel can deal with them.”

Jack hopped out the moment the car came to a stop. He motioned for his sister to park beside the SUV, then he tossed her his key ring. “Go ahead and open up. The code is Mother’s birth date. If you tell her that, I’ll never whiten your teeth again.” He hurried around the car to where Kat was holding the rear passenger door open. She had a confused look on her face, so he explained, “Mom’s kind of vain about her age, and everyone who works here has the code. If she thought they knew what it stood for, she’d be royally ticked off.”

He could tell Kat was trying to be polite, but her main focus was Jordie. He heard her suck in a breath when Jack bent over and scooped the half-asleep child up in his arms. He turned and kept walking even as Jordie started to fuss. “No, Mommy. I’m fine now. I don’t want to see no denith.”

His lisp broke Jack’s heart.

In his kindest, gentlest tone, he tried to soothe the boy. “This is an old-fashioned dentist office, Jordie. We have balloons and candy for our patients. My dad was a dentist, and he believed that every child who was brave enough to open his mouth to have his teeth checked deserved a reward.”

“Candy?” Tag said, his tone skeptical. “I thought candy was bad for your teeth.”

“It’s sugar-free,” Rachel said. She was waiting with the door open. “I turned on the lights in the first exam room, Jack,” she said, pointing down a hallway he rarely visited. Cosmetic dentistry was on the second floor.

She locked the door and hurried to catch up. “Do you like Xbox?” she asked Tag.

Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw the look Tag gave her. Half curious, half get-out-of-my-face, crazy lady. God, he loved that kid.

“I played Grand Theft Auto at my friend David’s house once. It was pretty cool. You got to run over girls. And the helicopter cut people’s heads off.”

“Taggart John Linden!” Kat exclaimed. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

He blanched, obviously forgetting about his mother’s presence in his effort to sound cool. “Oh, Mom, it was just the one time. Now his mom keeps the R-rated games locked in her desk.”

“Interesting. I’ve heard of that one, but never tried it,” Rachel said. “But I know for a fact that Jack’s got Madden. Do you like football?”

Jack could tell Tag was dying to follow Rachel wherever she might lead, but he hesitated, looking to his mother for his cue. “Go ahead, hon. You don’t have to be in the exam room with us. But don’t play with anything else. And tell Mrs…. um…Rachel thank you.”

“Just Rachel. I’m nobody’s missus.”

Jack hated the fatalistic tone he heard in his sister’s voice. Rachel was one of the coolest people he knew. She deserved better where love was concerned. So did Kat.

“We’ll be in here, Tag,” he said, turning to enter the exam room. He carried his patient to the perfectly proportioned chair that was covered in a jungle print. On the ceiling was a mural of monkeys, colorful birds and snakes that looked right out of a Disney movie. Regulars to this office knew that if they pointed out a very tiny Tarzan figure hiding behind one of the trees, they’d get an extra prize at the end of the exam.

Jack handed the blanket that had come with Jordie to Kat. “Are you warm enough?” he asked his patient.

Jordie nodded. As Jack had hoped, his attention was drawn to the colorful display and away from the tray of sterilized tools on the counter behind them. “Have you ever had an X ray of your mouth, Jordie?”

“No,” Kat answered, “but he had a checkup last fall in school. He brought home a certificate that said everything looked good and he had no cavities.”

Jack pulled on a pair of latex gloves and used his foot to position his stool. He sat so he was eye level with Jordie. “That’s great. That means your teeth are strong. But I won’t know for sure until I look inside. Can you open up for me?”

Tears glistened in the boy’s eyes, but he bravely inched his jaws apart. Jack angled the overhead light to give him a crisp view. He did his best not to let anything show on his face. “Wow. You are one tough kid, Jordie. Did you leave a dent on the rock you hit?”

Jordie grunted mutely.

Jack looked at Kat. In his peripheral vision, he noticed that Rachel had returned. He told them both, “For tonight, I’d like to get some X rays and affix a little sealant to the two broken teeth. They’ll probably need to be pulled, but I’d like to save them if possible.”

“You mean like a crown? On a baby tooth? Won’t that be expensive?” Kat asked.

Before Jack could figure out how to put his answer in a way that wouldn’t sound like charity, Rachel said, “Our father had one strict rule. Family was always free. Remember those crazy cousins of Mother’s who planned their entire vacation around coming to Denver to get free dental work? Drove Mom nuts,” she added.

Jack had no idea what she was talking about, but he nodded gamely and played along. “And how many times did he have to redo Aunt Peggy’s bridge? A dozen, at least.”

Kat looked from Jack to Rachel and back. He couldn’t tell if she bought the lie or not, but she finally sighed. “I’m not family.”

“You will be,” Rachel said, patting her back. “I have no doubt about that.”

Jack would have hugged her, but he had too many things to do before he lost his patient to boredom, fear or fatigue. Any one of the regular children’s dentists in the building could have done things faster and more efficiently, but Jack didn’t want to make any mistakes, and he was determined to do his best for Jordie.

Kat watched for as long as she could, but when the stress of the day and the long drive finally caught up with her, she curled up in the chair Rachel had dragged in from the waiting room. She let her head nod into the soft blanket that carried her son’s scent and closed her eyes.

She knew in her heart of hearts that Jack was treating her son as if he were his own. Rachel was at Jack’s side performing every command her brother made with surprisingly few mistakes, given this wasn’t her job. Kat thought she heard Jack say something about counting beans for a living, but mostly she’d tuned out their banter.

Her son was either too scared or too tired to complain about anything Jack did. And Kat was too groggy to follow beyond the basics. They’d all agreed that Jack would fix what he could tonight to make sure there would be no infection and pain. In the morning he’d call one of his colleagues to confirm that Jordie was on the right treatment path. Everything was going to be free.

Kat would have felt like a charity case, but she didn’t. She felt…cherished. And special. Jack stepped up and did what needed to be done. The way Mad Jack would have. He was a hero in every sense of the word.

And she loved him. The real Jack. Not her imaginary dream man. But she still couldn’t agree to marry him. All her bluster about deserving something better than a man who only wanted to do the right thing by their child was bull. She was a good mother. She was determined to be a dedicated teacher. But she was so lousy at relationships she wouldn’t dream of ruining this wonderful man’s life by agreeing to marry him.

She simply had to make him wake up and see the reality of their situation before he ruined his perfect life.

“Y
OU’RE GONNA
marry me and that’s that.”

“I’m not one of those women from the bar, Jack. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Hellfire and damnation, woman,” he said, throwing his hat on the dusty ground between them. “Has anyone ever told you you’re the most pigheaded person this side of the Missouri?”

Katherine continued to rock, the knitting needles in her hands keeping time to the
click
of the chair against the uneven planks of the porch. “I am not. That distinction is reserved for the man who insists on marriage despite the fact he could be shot and leave me a widow on any given day that he puts on that holster.”

His steely gray eyes narrowed to that squint so many feared. “People die, Katherine. Not just people who use guns. Your family took sick and left you all alone, but you can’t stop living because you don’t want to feel that pain again. Pain is what reminds us we’re alive. Pain and love.”

“Maybe I don’t deserve to be alive.”

He cleared the distance between them in two long strides and yanked her to her feet. The grip on her wrist stung, but she didn’t pull away. She met his angry gaze chin high. “Don’t you see? You’re alive for a reason. I’ve had more close calls than you ever want to know about, but I’m here now—with you—because we have a purpose beyond just living out our days. We have a chance to make a family. To bring normal to this wild place.”

He let her go, undid his gun belt and let it drop. It landed with a thudding sound nearly as loud as her heartbeat.

“Without you, I will die. It’s only a matter of time. My reflexes will slow. A young pup looking to make a name for himself will beat me to the draw. You’re my last hope, Katherine. Can’t you see that?”

K
AT SAT UP
in bed, heart racing. She looked around and recognized nothing. She had no idea where she was. Or when. The dream had been so real. She could still taste Jack’s kiss. A hint of mint from the leaf he’d picked near her porch. He’d called her his last hope.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She wasn’t anybody’s hope. She was a lodestone. A burden. No matter how hard she tried to tread lightly in other people’s lives, she always managed to screw up. Just ask her two exes.

The Jack in her dreams was poised to give up his way of life for her. The Jack in real life was in the process of throwing away his established business to move closer to her. Talk about utter madness. She didn’t get it.

Why me?
she wanted to shout at the top of her lungs.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she felt calmer. But she wasn’t going anywhere today until she got an answer.

She hopped out of the guest-room bed. She’d been too exhausted to notice much last night. By the time they got back to Jack’s house and she’d put the boys to bed, she’d barely had enough energy left to brush her teeth and crawl under the covers.

The room was lovely. The gold- and rust-colored silk spread contained strands of teal that picked up accents in the wall hangings and dried flower arrangement on the Craftsman-style dresser. Everything was so perfect she suspected a designer had had a say in the decor.

After peeking in on the boys, who were crashed on an air bed in the room beside hers, she took a shower and dressed in record speed. The light murmur of a television coming from the first floor let her know that Jack was awake and moving around downstairs.

At least, she hoped the woman’s voice she heard was Diane Sawyer and not Jack’s sister. While Kat liked Rachel and hoped to see her before she left town—and thank her for her help last night—at the moment she needed some alone time with Jack before the boys woke up.

She followed the sound toward the back of the house. She couldn’t help but admire the home’s tasteful design, although there were too many breakable art objects on low tables to give the place a kid-friendly feel.

Her flip-flops made a
shush-shush
sound on the terrazzo tile. Jack must have heard her coming because he met her at the doorway. “Kat. You’re up. I was hoping you’d be able to sleep in. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, thanks.”

“I have the water on if you’d like tea.”

He didn’t move when she stepped closer. Even though she had every intention of ending things with him today, she was tempted, so very tempted, to throw herself into his arms for a good cry.

Damn hormones.
Even if she wasn’t pregnant, something was whacked out inside her body. Maybe what she was feeling was swoo whiplash.

“Do you have any juice? Something cold sounds good.”

“Pineapple orange?” he asked, ushering her into the kitchen/dining nook, which with its twelve-foot ceilings, arched windows and faux-suede paint job the color of the juice he’d just offered to give her could have appeared on the pages of a decorating magazine.

She froze the second she caught sight of two women seated on the opposite side of the large, U-shaped counter. Their reflections were visible in the shiny perfection of the gold-flecked onyx marble countertop. Rachel and an auburn-hair woman who simply had to be Jack’s mother. She looked exactly the same as the photo Kat had found in his wallet.

“Kat, this is my mother, Rosaline. And you remember Rachel, of course.”

Kat screwed up her courage. She’d never had a great relationship with either of her mothers-in-law, despite the fact that they were very nice women. She’d always wondered if the circumstances behind the weddings to their sons had put a strain on their relationships from the get-go.

“Good morning,” she said, taking a step closer. She wasn’t sure if she should offer to shake hands. “Did Rachel tell you what a hero your son is?”

Rosaline’s perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched with an air of disdain. “I’m absolutely certain she didn’t leave out a single detail. That’s all she’s talked about all morning.”

Kat looked at Rachel, who shrugged good-naturedly. Her mother’s waspish tone seemed to drift right past her. Kat was envious. “Oh, Mother, get off your high horse. Jack and I have both told you that Kat is the one. You’d better be nice to her, or you’ll never see your future grandchildren. And believe me, Kat’s kids are great and you’re going to want to know them, too.”

Kat was too shocked by Rachel’s assumption to respond. Until Jack took her hand and put a cold juice glass in it. She immediately set it down and faced Rachel. “You’re jumping to conclusions that aren’t based on fact. I came here because Jack is the only dentist I know who might possibly have helped us on a Friday night. Maybe if I’d been thinking straight, I could have called around, but when your child is in pain, all you can think of is how to fix things the fastest.”

“So you drove eight hours to Denver,” Rachel said, a knowing smile on her lips.

Kat felt her face heat. “I trust him.”

Rachel crowed triumphantly. “You love him, Kat. It’s okay to admit that.”

Kat looked at Jack, who took a deep breath and let it out. His sigh was filled with a frustration that probably went back to the day his parents brought his baby sister home from the hospital. “For someone who has—as recently as yesterday—declared love to be an emotional black hole that sucks all joy and hope from one’s soul, you sure seem eager for me and Kat to get together. What’s that about?”

“Your sister needs therapy,” Jack’s mother said. “She won’t admit how unbalanced the divorce left her. She’s probably projecting her unfulfilled dreams on the both of you.”

Rachel laughed. “Whatever. The point is, Mother, that you and I are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we’re leaving right this instant so Jack and Kat can talk.”

When Rosaline started to protest, Rachel shushed her. “That was our deal, remember? You had until Kat woke up to try to convince Jack that he was making a huge mistake.” To Kat, she said, “
I
don’t think that, but Mother hasn’t had a chance to get to know you. Once she does, she’ll come around. I was thinking I might lock her in a room with Tag and an Xbox and see what happens. What do you think?”

Kat kept her opinion to herself.

Rachel, who obviously was used to getting her way, hustled her mother out the door with barely a chance for the older woman to voice her protest. Rosaline’s last words were, “Call me when your company is gone, Jackson. We need to talk.”

Kat echoed the sentiment once the sound of Rachel’s sports car’s engine faded. “Jack, we need to talk.”

“I know, Kat. But first I want to show you something.”

His tone reminded her of Jordie when he brought home an art project that spelled MOM in macaroni. “What?” she asked suspiciously.

He stepped closer and turned sideways before carefully rolling back the edge of his loose, short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt.

Her involuntary gasp made her sip of juice lodge sideways in her throat. Tears burned in her eyes as she coughed and sputtered. “You have a tattoo. A real one.”

He nodded, stretching his neck to look at it. “I know. See what it says?”

She brushed the tears from her eyes—coughing tears, not real tears—and looked again. Her name in a heart. How cheesy. But knowing how much he feared needles and everything he’d endured with the black ink made her eyes fill with moisture again. Real tears this time.

“It says ‘Kat.’”

“Yeah, it does. Thank God you don’t go by Katherine.”

His tone was light, but she knew he wasn’t kidding.

“Were you drugged?”

He shook his head. “I had one of my colleagues give me a prescription for a mild tranquilizer, but I didn’t fill it. I decided that since I’m asking you to be brave enough to risk marriage again, I needed to get over my old phobias, as well.”

She shook her head. “Jack, they’re not the same thing. Marriage is a lifetime commitment.”

“I know. So is a tattoo.”

She smiled. She couldn’t help it. “Jack…”

“Kat…”

“You’re crazy.”

He nodded. “Some might call me mad.”

A flutter started in her belly and quickly passed through all her limbs. “What did you say?”

He ran a hand through his hair—longer now than when she’d first met him and speculated about his receding hairline beneath his skull-and-crossbones do-rag. Had he grown into his looks these past weeks or had her perception of him changed?

“I know this is going to sound bizarre, but the first night we were together at the motel, I had this dream where I was a gunslinger named Mad Jack and I swept this beautiful schoolmarm named Katherine off her feet. I was prepared to love her, then get the hell out of Dodge, as they say, but instead, I fell in love with her.”

“You? Or Mad Jack?”

He made a face as he pondered the question. “A week ago I would have said Mad Jack. I honestly didn’t think I was capable of being someone like that. In charge of my life. Fearless. Independent. Afraid of nothing—not even needles.”

“What changed?”

“You made me realize that I could do anything I wanted. Even when I failed—like with the black ink—you didn’t judge me. That was really empowering, Kat. And I’ve seen you do the same with your children. It’s what’s going to make you a fabulous teacher.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “Funny how other people can see things about us that we seem to miss. It took a figment of my subconscious to get over a lifetime of fears. Needles. Kids. Love.”

“You were afraid of love?” She was afraid her knees were going to give out.

He led her to the stool his mother had been sitting on. “Afraid to love completely, honestly. Afraid to be vulnerable. I think that’s one thing we have in common.”

She sat, but her focus was fixed on what he was saying. “I’ve been vulnerable all my life, Jack. I never take precautions to protect myself. Obviously. I have two children to prove it.”

He put his hands on the armrests of the stool and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Neither of your sons was an accident. They came into your life to fill a void. Just like you came into mine to fill an empty spot where my heart should have been.

“Kat, you have to marry me. I told you about my dream. I’ve risked your laughing at me—or worse, calling me crazy. I can’t bare any more of my soul than that.”

Did she dare tell him the truth?

Before she could make up her mind, the sound of voices—her children’s voices—filtered through the doorway. She expected Jack to pout about the interruption. Both Pete and Drew would have. Instead, he threw back his head and laughed. “In here, boys,” he called in a booming voice. “Who wants pancakes?”

To Kat, he added, “Soft food for Jordie.”

That was when she knew the truth. Jack was not a mistake. He was a gift. And only a fool would turn her back on someone fate went to such great lengths to put in her life.

Unfortunately Kat had yet to tell him the truth. She wasn’t pregnant. She still hadn’t seen a doctor, but two over-the-counter tests seemed to trump her symptoms, which probably were the result of stress, as Libby suggested.

Once he found out about the baby—or rather the lack of a baby—he’d probably rethink his proposal. What man wouldn’t? What man in his right mind would marry someone like her? Someone with all her baggage—two ex-husbands, two kids with bad teeth, a crazy, convoluted, completely dysfunctional family and a herd of bison?

Not a single man she could name. Not even Mad Jack.

J
ACK WAS SHOCKED
by how fast the morning shot by. Jordie seemed to rebound from his ordeal with inordinate healing ability. Just a casual check of his mouth showed excellent improvement. Jack had made an appointment for two o’clock with the colleague he’d most trust with his own child. Kat had made calls to her parents, her girlfriends and both boys’ fathers to keep them abreast of what was happening. She planned to leave right after the checkup, unless there was some pressing need for action that Jack had missed.

He was sorry their heart-to-heart had been interrupted, but he couldn’t blame the boys for wanting to be near their mother. A video game kept Tag occupied, but Jordie had refused to leave Kat’s side even for a minute—until Rachel showed up with ice cream and watermelon.