Forever Together (28 page)

Tom took a gulp of juice. “Have you told
Kate?”

“Nope. She thinks I’m after her body.”

Tom choked on what had gone down his throat.
“Would you like to rephrase that last comment?”

Dan grinned. “I am after her body.”

“Oh my God. Kate’s in love with an
idiot.”

Dan’s heart sped up. “Has she told you she
loves me?”

Tom grabbed another glass of juice
from
a passing waiter. “Not in so
many words. But I might have overheard her asking Anna about what
it felt like to be in love.”

“Are you sure she was talking about me?” Dan
didn’t want to get his hopes up. She could have been talking about
Pearl, or Betsy, or the new kittens that had been born a couple of
weeks ago.

“Why don’t you ask Anna? She’s on her way
over here now.” Tom waved Anna closer. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.
Dan’s got something he wants to ask you.”

Anna planted her hands on her hips. “I will
not bake for the entire Bozeman Police Force again for his
birthday. All I got was a grumpy brother moaning about setting up
false expectations.”

“It’s not about his birthday,” Tom pulled her
toward an alcove filled with potted plants and colored lights. They
sat under a beach umbrella and pulled their chairs close.

“Ask her,” Tom nodded at Dan.

Dan crossed his arms in front of his chest
and glared at Tom. “I won’t ask her. She’ll think I’m
desperate.”

“You’ve always been desperate, so what’s new?
Ask her.”

“Would someone mind telling me what this is
about? I’ve promised the next dance to Edward, the School
Janitor.”

“Edward Humphries?” Tom looked astonished.
“You mean he’s still alive?”

“Don’t be rude. He’s seventy-four and still
going strong.” Anna winked. “They’re his words and not mine. So
what’s this all about?”

“Kate,” Dan mumbled.

“Who?” Anna leaned closer.

“Kate. I love her.” Anna blinked a few times
before sitting back in her seat. She glanced at Tom, then back at
Dan. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I’m ever going to be.”

“How does Kate feel about you?”

Dan rubbed his forehead, hoping the headache
he could feel building would go away. “I don’t know. That’s what I
wanted to ask you.”

“How would I know?” Anna looked genuinely
confused.

Tom leaned into Anna, talking over the beat
of the sixties pop music. “Kate asked you what it felt like to be
in love.”

“She did? When?”

Tom shook his head. “A few weeks ago. You
were in the kitchen.”

“In the kitchen? Oh, you mean when Kate had
just arrived? We weren’t talking about Dan, we were talking about
you.”

“Me?” It was Tom’s turn to get a little hot
around the collar.

Anna smiled. “Your daughter wanted to know
how we met. I told her about the rodeo.”

Tom blushed. “All of it?”

“No, not all of it.” With a twinkle in her
eyes, Anna added, “Just the good bits.”

Tom cleared his throat and held Anna’s hand.
“I’m taking my wife for a dance,” he said to Dan. “I suggest you
find Kate and tell her how you feel about her.”

Dan didn’t think his news would sit too well
with a woman who’d be leaving for San Diego soon. Even after
everything that had happened, she still hadn’t told him she’d be
staying. So he’d waited, hoping she’d decide that Montana wasn’t so
bad after all.

He watched Tom and Anna for a few minutes
before hunting for Kate. When he found
her,
he nearly tripped over his feet. She was dancing
with Logan, although dancing didn’t really describe what was going
on in the middle of the room. They were huddled together, talking
quietly amongst the chaos of teenage arms and legs moving to the
beat.

He tapped Logan on the shoulder. “I believe
you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

“Deputy Dan. How nice to see you.”

Dan cringed at the nickname Loretta kept
using. But that was Loretta, not Logan. “That’s Deputy Chief of
Police to you. Have you written any good stories lately?”

“Dan.” Kate didn’t look too impressed with
his caveman display of irritation.

“You haven’t told her, have you?”

Dan didn’t know whether Logan was referring
to the story that wouldn’t be hitting the headlines or his
ex-fiancée. Either way he was in trouble.

***

Kate didn’t know what was going on. One
minute she was dancing with Logan and five minutes later, Dan was
in front of them looking like he was about to flatten Logan to the
ground.

She looked between both men. “What don’t I
know?”

“There’s something I should have told you
sooner.” Dan winced as another song blasted out from the speaker
system. “I need to talk to you.”

Kate frowned at him, then glanced at Logan.
“Thanks for the dance. I’ll see you later.”

“If you need a ride home, just let me
know.”

Kate had a feeling Logan hadn’t offered her a
ride to be kind or considerate. He’d said it to annoy Dan and it
looked as though it had worked. Before she got a chance to reply,
Dan wrapped his hand around hers and left Logan in the middle of
the dance floor.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere quiet.”

They walked under the balloon arch at the
entrance to the auditorium, past the display cases full of sports
trophies, then out into the cool night air. Even from outside Kate
could still hear the music pounding through the walls.

Dan found a wooden seat and sat down. “Are
you cold?”

“A little bit.” He took his jacket off and
wrapped it around her shoulders. It was warm and comforting, unlike
the man sitting beside her. Dan’s face had turned to granite. It
didn’t look as though he was looking forward to what he had to
say.

“Logan came and saw me a couple of days ago.
He apologized for thinking you’d stolen the check from the fashion
show.”

Kate let Dan’s words sink in. She’d been
worried about the story Logan was going to write. Worried what it
would do to the other fundraising events for Kaylee. And it was all
for nothing. Rachel and Emily had pitched in to make sure Logan saw
how important Kaylee was to her. She didn’t even want to consider
what Tess had done.

It was no wonder Logan had looked at her
strangely when she’d brought up the newspaper article. “Why didn’t
you tell me sooner?”

“I was going to, but there never seemed to be
the right moment. We were both busy.”

“I saw you two days ago and even if there
wasn’t time, you could have called me. Do you know how worried I’ve
been?”

“I’ve got a fair idea,” he muttered.

Kate looked across the parking lot. All sorts
of vehicles gleamed under the fluorescent lights, including a
patrol car sitting as bold as brass in the front row. “Is there
anything else I should know before we go back inside?”

Dan took a deep breath. “Logan was the person
who married my ex-fiancée.”

She blinked a few times, let the words
settle. Of all the things he could have said, she hadn’t been
expecting that. “Did you know him before they got married?”

“We went to school together. When he moved to
Seattle with his
parents,
we lost
touch with each other. I haven’t spoken to him very much since he’s
been back in Bozeman.”

At least she could understand why he was so
angry with Logan. But Dan had been engaged years ago and Logan
hadn’t mentioned anything about a wife. “Where’s his wife?”

“They divorced. Last I heard, Juliette’s
living in San Jose with a husband and three kids.”

“And you still hold a grudge against him
after all these years?”

“It was easier to be angry with him when he
was living in Seattle. Juliette wanted to get out of Montana. When
I was deployed she looked for someone else to fill my shoes, only
she didn’t bother telling me. Logan thought her relationship with
me was over and Juliette wanted it to be. I guess she saw him as an
easy meal ticket, but he figured out what she was up to sooner than
I did. They were only married for a few months before it
ended.”

She pulled Dan’s jacket close and thought
about what he’d said. “Logan seems like a nice person.”

“I haven’t spent enough time with him to know
what he’s like now.”

“People don’t change. Except me.” She smiled
at the serious expression on Dan’s face. “It’s not all doom and
gloom.”

“Are you moving back to San Diego?”

“Where did that question come from?”

Dan crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“We haven’t talked about it. I’d like to know.”

Kate looked at the ground. Her shoes were
peeping out from beneath the long skirt of her dress. She wondered
about the person who’d sat at a table somewhere in the world and
stuck the little diamante stones on the straps. Or maybe it had
been a machine. A shoe making
machine
that churned out thousands of pairs of shoes for
other women in the world.

“Kate?”

She took a deep breath, pulled her brain back
to Dan’s question and hoped like crazy her answer made sense.
“Staying in one place is a big deal.” She glanced at Dan. He looked
so worried that it made her sorry for what he must be thinking.
“I’ve moved around so much. I didn’t know if I could stay anywhere
for long. But then I thought about why I’d moved. For the first
half of my
life,
I followed mom
and then I guess I got lost. I didn’t have a reason to stay in one
town until I started training as a beautician.”

“Do you like living in Bozeman?” Dan asked
quietly.

Kate nodded. “I’ve been thinking about
staying here. Bozeman’s a beautiful town and I’d like to get to
know my family better. Tess offered me a part time job and Loretta
wants
me to work mornings. It
could work out.”

“And that’s all?”

This was the hard part. The part where she
told Dan how she felt about him. About them. The part where she
told him how much it would matter if he
wasn’t
in her life. “I’d miss you if I left. I like
practicing to be your girlfriend.”

She peeked sideways. Dan didn’t look quite so
distant. His mouth had softened to an almost smile and his arms
weren’t crossed in front of his chest keeping the world away.

“You can stop practicing. I don’t want a
girlfriend anymore.”

That’s not what she’d expected him to say. A
sharp stab of pain hit her in the chest. “I didn’t…I’m sorry.” She
grabbed a handful of
skirt
and
stood up. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll just…”

She turned around, ready to run to the
highway if she needed to. Dan didn’t love her, didn’t need her in
his life. She’d made a fool of herself, thought he cared for her
more than he did. She felt like a puppet on a string, dancing to
someone else’s tune. Except Dan had just cut the strings and she
was falling somewhere that she didn’t know how to get out of.

Dan’s arms caught her around her waist. He
pulled her into his chest and held her close. “Don’t leave. Listen
to me, Kate…”

He ran his arms down the jacket she was
wearing and took a step backward. “I know we haven’t known each
other for very long. I’ve been an idiot. I should have trusted you
from the beginning, but I kept looking for reasons why you’d leave
and not help Kaylee. I know this will sound weird, but I love
you.”

“You do? But you said you don’t want a
girlfriend.” She searched his eyes for something, some clue that
told her where he saw their relationship heading.

“I don’t want a girlfriend because I want to
marry you. I want you to be my wife.”

Kate stared at him with her mouth open. She
couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead of
feeling like the happiest person in the world, she started to
panic. She could be Dan’s girlfriend, she knew she could. But wife?
Marriage was forever. She’d never done forever before. Not even her
parents had managed to stay together.

“You love me?” she stammered. This wasn’t
good. Dan deserved someone who knew about making a home, being
happy. “But what about Kaylee? Are you sure you haven’t got some
kind of transference thing going on because I helped Kaylee? You
love her, Dan. It would be normal…”

Dan’s mouth landed on hers, silenced the rest
of the words tumbling out of her mouth. She held his shoulders,
wrapped her arms around his waist, and kissed him with everything
inside her.

“There’s nothing normal about this,” he
whispered. He held Kate’s hand over his heart and kissed her cheek.
“My heart’s pounding and my blood’s racing. I can’t imagine my life
without you. You’re the first person I think of in the morning and
the person I dream about at night. I love you.”

She rested her head on Dan’s chest. She
thought about what it meant to love Dan, to be part of his life,
her family’s life. Tears filled her eyes when she thought about not
being part of everything he was offering her. His love, his
friendship, the best of who they could be together.

“Will you marry me, Kate?”

She wiped her eyes and looked up at him. “I
love you, Dan. I didn’t come to Montana to fall in love, but
somewhere along the line that changed. But I’m scared it won’t
work, that we won’t work.”

“There are no guarantees in life. You have to
go with what feels right, what will make a difference. And you’re
that difference, Kate. You make me believe in
happy-ever-after.”

Kate closed her eyes and thought about her
past, about who she had become. “I want to be a special part of
your life. I want to grow old with you and love you.”

“Does that mean you’ll marry me?”

“I couldn’t think of anything more wonderful
than being your wife.” She reached up and kissed him, held him
close, and didn’t want to let go.

***

Nine Months Later…