“I take it rolling over is a new thing?”
“It is.”
“I took pictures.”
“You did?”
Dean moved into the house, shut the door, and fished his phone out of his pocket. He showed Katie the snapshots of Savannah grinning and lifting her head.
“Move in with me,” Dean said as he reached out and smoothed her hair with his hand.
“An instant family could be disastrous,” she warned him.
“Or it could be perfect. Since when do you shy away from a challenge?”
“You’re being manipulative, Dean Prescott.”
He chuckled and dropped his hand from her hair. “That’s how I get what I want.”
She didn’t say no…in fact, she looked like she might just be considering his proposal. He suppressed a grin and waited for her to say something.
“I’ll think about it.”
He chewed the inside of his cheek and rocked back on his heels. Thinking about it is a start.
“I can accept that.”
“It’s not a yes.”
He grinned. “No, I’ll think about it isn’t a yes. It’s closer to a yes than a no…but it’s not a yes.”
She squeezed her eyes together. “How do you figure?”
Dean looked to the ceiling and thought back on his childhood. “How often did Gaylord say to you, I’ll think about it, Katelyn…and he eventually said no?”
She tilted her chin. “If I buttered him up, he never said no.”
Dean let a slow, evil grin spread over his face.
Let the buttering begin!
The delivery boy from the local florist must have thought her suitor was crazy. First, there were roses…a dozen pink ones with a big red bow. Alongside the flowers was a package of diapers.
Katie couldn’t look at the flowers without laughing. Leave it to Dean to court her with diapers. The next day at work she told him about her strange gifts with a smart-ass comment about someone getting her address mixed up with a nursery.
The next day a bouquet of orchids arrived along with a box of formula.
At work, Dean asked how Savannah was eating. Katie let him know she wouldn’t be hungry for weeks.
Then came star lilies with a teddy bear…then sunflowers with a handmade knit blanket.
By the time Monica arrived home from Florida, the apartment looked like a gift shop.
“My God, this place looks like a flower shop threw up in here,” Monica said when she walked in.
“Dean.”
Monica dropped her duffel bag at the door and sniffed the first bouquet. “Did you fight?”
Katie laughed. “No. He wants me and Savannah to move in with him.”
Monica moved to the second set of flowers and sniffed. “All this to convince you to change your address?”
Smiling, Katie said, “Yeah. He sent stuff for Savannah, too.”
“Wow.” Monica moved into the room and flopped onto the couch. “Hold out for something that won’t die or get used up,” she told her with a laugh.
Katie reached over and hugged Monica. “It’s good to see you. How was it?”
“Amazing. I know it’s only training…but the people were crazy-excited about what they do. It’s an adrenaline rush like nothing else. There was disaster triage training, figuring out who was beyond saving, and working on those who had a chance.”
The thought sickened Katie, but she understood the drama enough through Monica’s eyes to be excited for her friend.
“Could you leave someone who was suffering to take care of someone else?”
“I don’t know. I have to try. In the ER we’re told that one day we might have to make that choice but, as of yet, I’ve always stayed with a patient until there was nothing left. The thought of getting out there in the thick of something and working day after day to help people…I like it, Katie. Helping people is why I wanted to be a nurse.” Monica’s green eyes sparkled as she spoke.
“Thank God there are people like you out there. I couldn’t do it.”
Monica tapped her thigh and moved from the couch to the refrigerator. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’d do what you had to if pushed to the wall. I doubt you’d crumble.”
Katie shrugged. “If pushed, maybe. But I wouldn’t jump in the disaster willingly.”
“According to you, you jumped into some crazy crap earlier in life.” Monica popped the tab on a soda and drank her fill.
Yeah, she had. But with Savannah, that had all changed. Actually, shortly after Jack and Jessie had hooked up, all that had changed.
No…when she and Dean had broken it off! That was when it had all changed. “Life is different now,” she said softly.
“So…ya gonna do it?”
“Do what?”
“Move in with Dean?”
“Should I?”
“Oh, don’t put this on me. This is your decision. You two have a huge history. I couldn’t give you sound advice if I wanted to.”
Fair enough. “I want to. I think I do.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“What if it doesn’t work? How badly will it hurt if I end up leaving?”
Monica drank more soda and smirked. “The easy questions,” she said. “That’s the problems with relationships. You don’t know if they are going to work out. There are no guarantees and tons of heartache along the way.”