Katie immediately pictured Booker with Ashleigh and felt nauseous. “Where?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.
“I don’t know. He left. He was driving real fast.”
Katie closed her eyes, aching for Booker and wanting somehow to soothe his pain, if she could—despite what he’d done with Ashleigh. Her relationship with Booker was filled with such contradictions. Sometimes he seemed to enjoy having her at the farmhouse; sometimes he seemed to want her gone. Sometimes he treated her as though he still cared; sometimes she was sure he felt bitter and resentful. Her feelings swung in a pretty wide arc, too. But she had to remember that what she’d suffered last night was just a sampling of what she’d endure if she ever allowed herself to get seriously involved with him again. Reputations followed people around for a reason.
“He’s just blowing off steam,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“I hope so, Katie.”
“I hope so, too,” she said, because no matter how many times she tried to convince herself not to care about Booker more deeply than was wise or safe, it was too late. She was in over her head.
THE NEXT FEW DAYS passed quickly. Mike got her Internet service up and running on Wednesday, and she threw herself into creating a Web site for High Hill Ranch immediately afterward. Some days she was satisfied with what she could do. Other days she was frustrated by how much she had yet to learn. But overall, Mike seemed pleased with her progress, and when she looked at the High Hill site, done in green and blue with gold lettering, she felt a growing sense of pride. She’d created rollover buttons on the menu that changed colors and slid to the right, she’d made moving graphics that highlighted the more famous of the Hill brothers’ stallions, and she’d scanned and enhanced photographs of the ranch and its horses.
Maybe she hadn’t made any decisions about her personal life, but she was earning her keep. She even enjoyed living at the ranch. Mike stopped by each evening around dinnertime. They checked over the most recent changes to the Web site, came up with ideas for improvements, scanned additional photos, or compared what she was doing to other sites already up on the Web. Sometimes they ate with the cowboys, or he took her out to dinner. Quite often they walked over to the ranch house and watched a movie.
On Sunday, two weeks after she moved in, Mike showed up unexpectedly just after ten o’clock in the morning.
“What do you have planned for today?” he asked as soon as she answered the door and invited him in.
“I was just starting a new Web site.” She gestured toward her computer as she closed the door. “I’m beginning to get some business from my on-line marketing efforts.”
He took off his hat, turning it in his hands as he held it by the brim. “What kind of efforts?”
“Posting on loops and bulletin boards, visiting chat rooms, things like that.”
“That’s good. But you know what they say about all work and no play. You need to get out.”
She pushed a hand through her hair, conscious of the fact that she hadn’t showered before sitting down in front of her computer this morning. “I’ve been getting out,” she said. “You took me to McCall for dinner a few days ago, and it was great.”
“Well, I’m taking you to breakfast today.”
“Where?”
“The diner.”
The diner? Jerry’s was right across the street from Booker’s auto repair shop and, while he wasn’t technically open for business on Sundays, he often worked seven days a week. Katie hadn’t seen him since she’d moved out of his place. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to face him even now. “Looks like we got a little snow last night,” she said, nodding toward the window. “Why bother going anywhere? We might’ve missed breakfast at the ranch house, but I can make us some omelettes or pancakes right here.”
Mike put his hat back on. “Are you still thinking about giving up the baby, Katie?”
She nodded. “I want my child to have a complete family. It’s what I grew up with. It’s the way I was taught life should be.”
“Then I was wondering if we could invite Josh and Rebecca to go out with us this morning.”
Alarm raised the hair on the back of Katie’s neck. “Do they know I’m considering adoption?”
“No, I haven’t told them. That’s up to you.” Before relief could set in, he added, “I just thought it might make the decision easier for you if you were to talk to them as prospective parents. Josh, Rebecca and I are heading to Houston tonight to take a look at a stallion that’s for sale, which would give them a chance to think about the situation.”
“When I first mentioned that I might put the baby up for adoption, you told me you were afraid I’d regret it, Mike.”
“I am,” he admitted. “But Josh is worried about Rebecca. She wants a baby and so far nothing seems to be working out.” He straightened his hat. “I don’t want to see you make a mistake, but now that Delaney’s pregnant again—”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“She’s not saying much about it because Rebecca’s having such a difficult time. Anyway, I thought it might not hurt to talk to both Josh and Rebecca about other options.”
“I’m not sure talking about it is such a good idea at this point,” Katie said. “I don’t want to get Rebecca’s hopes up before I’ve made a decision.”
The snow he hadn’t managed to stomp off his boots melted onto the mat near her door. “She’s trying fertility drugs right now so she’s not set on adoption. I just want to introduce the subject, in case the fertility treatment doesn’t work.” He rested a hand on the door knob. “Whether she ends up adopting your baby or someone else’s, it might help her to see that there are mothers out there exactly like you who need a good home for their baby.”
So he wanted her to show his sister-in-law that all was not lost if she couldn’t conceive, that there were other options….
Mike had been so good to her that Katie hated to tell him no. She gazed up into his handsome face, the face she’d admired for so long, and decided to take a chance on this being the right thing. “Okay,” she said. “Give me thirty minutes to get ready.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KATIE TOYED NERVOUSLY with the Sweet’n Low packets in the middle of the table as she and Mike waited for Josh and Rebecca to join them at Jerry’s. They could’ve all ridden together. They were coming from the same place. But Katie was grateful that Mike had told his brother and sister-in-law they’d meet at the diner instead. The trip into town had given her some time to mentally prepare herself to approach Rebecca with the adoption issue.