Fortune's Valentine Bride Part 12

Still, this was something that Virginia felt needed to be commented on. "Emily, that's just an awful name," her mother cried, appalled.

"What matters," Emily continued as if nothing was said, "is that she's healthy."

"I agree with Em," Michael chimed in.

John Michael shrugged his broad, thin shoulders. "Well, apparently we don't have a say in the name," he commented, still reflecting on the fact that his first grandchild would not bear any part of the family name.

Wendy braced herself to offer a defense of her choice, "Dad-"

But her father held his hands up to stop her protest before it was launched. "Hey, I said it wasn't a bad name," he reminded her.

Just then, the door to her room opened again and she immediately looked in that direction, hoping for reinforcements or a diversion. Her father had a way of belaboring a point if it suited him.

When she saw Blake and Katie walking in, the relief she felt was overwhelming. "You came back."

Blake crossed to her bed and positioned himself beside her-and across from his father. "Said we would," he told her.

Katie noted that he'd said "we," when this morning, he had promised that only he would return. Was this progress? Or just the effects of too much cayenne pepper? she wondered wryly.

Either way, she savored it for a moment, telling herself that at least she had that.

Chapter Twelve.

Within a few minutes, as they surrounded her bed, the sound of Wendy's family's voices began to grow and swell, until they were all but deafening. They were each vying for her attention.

Virginia attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to keep the volume down. After a few more minutes had pa.s.sed and the decibel level continued to climb, it was inevitable that the noise would attract someone's attention. And it did.

Ten minutes into their visit, a tall, heavyset and seasoned nurse with the bearing of a drill sergeant stuck her head into the overcrowded single care unit and did a quick a.s.sessment of the situation.

Walking in, she announced, "There're way too many people in this room. I'm afraid you're going to have to take turns visiting with the new mama." Her tone left no leeway for argument.

Nonetheless, Wendy's father drew himself up to his full and rather intimidating height, then scowled down at her. She looked to be approximately ten inches shorter. "Young woman, do you know who I am?"

Meeting his steely gaze, she looked completely unfazed. "One of the people who's going to be waiting outside for his turn at the new mother's bedside," the nurse replied matter-of-factly.

The steely glare narrowed into slits. "I'm John Michael Fortune," he informed her coldly, "and I recently made a sizable donation to this hospital because they took such good care of my daughter when she went into premature labor."

"Did you, now?" For a split second, it looked as if the nurse was going to relent and back away, but then she merely nodded. "All right, then you get to be one of the ones who gets first crack at visiting, but I still need half of you to wait outside."

Ever the peacemaker, Katie quickly moved to the front of the group and said to them, "Why don't I show all of you the way to the nursery so you can meet the cutest baby you'll ever hope to see," she suggested, looking from one of Wendy's siblings to another.

Emily spoke up first, crossing to Katie. She hooked her arms through Katie's, as if to seal the deal. "I'd love to see the baby."

She said it with such feeling that, along with her earlier comment, Blake caught himself wondering if something was going on with his sister. He started to leave with the others.

But Wendy wanted him to run interference for her with their father. Ordinarily, she was more than up to it, but the delivery had literally and figuratively taken a great deal out of her and she needed an ally on her side-just in case.

"You just got here," Wendy protested, her eyes pinning Blake in place for a second.

He smiled at her. "I'll be back soon," he promised. "Besides, I don't want to monopolize you. The others haven't had a chance to talk to you yet-and we wouldn't want to upset your nurse now, would we?" he asked, smiling just a little too brightly at the woman waiting by the doorway. Their eyes met as he pa.s.sed her on his way out.

The woman's expression never changed. "Not if you know what's good for you," she replied in a low, even voice.

Blake wisely kept to himself the laugh that bubbled up in response.

He caught up to Emily a couple of steps outside the room and fell into step beside her as Katie led the small cl.u.s.ter of Atlanta Fortunes down the hallway to the nursery. It occurred to Blake, out of the blue, that he would probably be lost without Katie. She seemed to antic.i.p.ate whatever needed doing before anything was said and had a knack of heading off problems before they actually became problems. The woman was worth her weight in gold.

And right now, she'd cleared the playing field for him so that he could talk to Emily alone.

"Something wrong?" he asked Emily in a hushed, lowered voice.

He noticed that she stiffened ever so slightly. "Why do you ask?"

He didn't beat around the bush. "Because you don't sound quite like the cheerful Emily I know. You're okay, right?" He peered at her face and saw nothing to enlighten him. "No ill aftereffects from that little dustup with the tornado the other month?" he pressed.

"Is this you, being the concerned brother?" Emily asked, amused.

"Something like that," he conceded, then asked, "What's up?"

She sighed as they turned a corner. How did she phrase this without sounding strange? For a second, she pressed her lips together, debating just shrugging it off. But this was Blake and although they'd had their share of teasing-not to mention fights-they were close and she had never lied to him, at least not deliberately. Now didn't seem like a good time to start.

She began slowly, like a child dipping a toe into the icy ocean tide. "The tornado got me thinking."

"A lot of that going around," Blake a.s.sured his sister. After all, if it hadn't been for the tornado, he wouldn't have realized that he had let the opportunity of his lifetime slip through his fingers without doing anything about it. "So, this thinking you did, where did it lead you?" he asked.

G.o.d, she never thought she would be saying this. Or feeling this. And yet, here she was, filled with this insatiable longing that was ripping her apart.

Emily took a breath and dove in. "I realized I wanted a baby." She looked at him. He didn't look surprised-or even amused. She decided that he couldn't really be getting the full import of what she was telling him. Suddenly, it became important to her that he understand. "Badly. I want a baby badly-like that's all I've been able to think of."

Emily was older than he was. As far as he knew, there was no steady man in her life and maybe she was hearing her biological clock ticking-maybe the tornado had even set it off. He could sympathize with that.

"Stop thinking and do something about it," he counseled.

She blinked. She hadn't known what to expect from him as a reaction, but this certainly threw her.

"What?"

"Do something about it," he repeated. "Get a plan. Something with teeth, like a campaign strategy." He thought for a moment, then threw out various choices for her. "You could adopt, hire a surrogate, or go aggressively after the man of your dreams with the goal of starting a family. Those are just three options. But whatever route you decide is best for you, go and do it. Sitting and sighing and wishing isn't going to get you anywhere. It certainly isn't going to help you get a baby."

Stunned, Emily looked at him. And then she smiled. "You know, for a younger brother, you didn't turn out half bad."

Blake held his hands up, as if to fend off her words. "Please, you'll make my head swell."

When she laughed, she sounded like her old self again. He knew then that she was going to be all right. And that he had succeeded in getting through to his sister. He had a very strong feeling that she was going to take his advice.

He watched her at the nursery window as she looked, not just at her new niece, but at all the other babies as well. There was love in Emily's eyes. Love and wistfulness. Emily wasn't just talking, she really wanted a baby.

Wow.

Quite unintentionally, his eyes met Katie's as she glanced toward him over her shoulder. There was the woman who was going to help him attain his own goal, Blake thought with growing affection. It was getting to the point that he honestly didn't know what he would ever do without her.

At times the thought struck him that he didn't know how he could have gotten so lucky. It was as if Katie could almost read his mind, knowing what he needed before he even did. There weren't many working relationships like that-or even regular relationships for that matter, he thought. She was, quite possibly, the total package. Smart, competent and beautiful to boot.

Was it his imagination, or had she gotten, well, more beautiful of late? Or was that just a result of their spending so much more time together? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that the past few days he'd become more...aware of her than usual. He caught himself looking at her as if he'd never seen her before.

Had to be the close proximity, he decided. They'd all but been in each other's pockets of late.

The next moment, his thoughts took off in another direction. He had to find a way to thank her for all the extra time she'd put in on this unorthodox project of his. It was only right. After all, there was nothing in her contract that said she had to help him find a way to capture his future wife's heart. That was going above and beyond.

One in a million, that was Katie Wallace, he thought. Smiling at her, he nodded absently.

It was hard for her not to lose her train of thought when he looked at her like that. But she couldn't just begin babbling, at least not when his older brothers and sisters were around her like this. They'd think she was crazy-which she was, she silently acknowledged. Crazy in love with Blake.

And once he's with Brittany, you'll just be certifiably crazy, nothing more, she told herself with sick resignation. Face it, that day is coming, and soon. You can't keep burying your head in the sand like this forever.

She pushed the thought aside. Later-she'd deal with the inevitable later. Right now, she had Blake's siblings to contend with.

"I can't tell you how good it is to be back in my own bed again," Wendy said with yet another deep, contented sigh. It was two days later and Marcos and Katie had brought her home after she'd been discharged. There was only one thing to mar her happiness. "Everything would be perfect if I could have brought the baby home with me, too."

"She'll be here soon enough," Katie told her rea.s.suringly. She sat on the edge of Wendy's huge bed, the way she used to when they were younger and sharing secrets they were sure no one else knew. "If I were you, I'd get all the rest and sleep I could now, because there won't be any once MaryAnne is here-since you turned down your father's offer to hire a nurse to help you," she reminded her friend.

Wendy shook her head. "I want to be a hands-on mother," she said with determination, "not an occasional one."

"Still, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have someone here just part-time," Katie advised. "Just until you get the hang of the routine. No one would think any less of you," she promised, knowing how Wendy's mind worked. "This is your first time as the mother of a newborn and every little thing's going to seem like a crisis to you until you get used to the routine-and, more importantly, to the aberrations."

"How do you know so much?" Wendy asked with a mystified laugh.

Katie shrugged. She supposed that she did come off a little like a know-it-all. "I just read a lot, that's all."

Wendy inclined her head, leaning closer to Katie. "Okay, I'll keep my options open. To be honest, Marcos said something along the same lines," she admitted. "But I want to try to do this on my own first."

Katie gave her friend an alternate choice. "You know, I could hang around, pitch in for a while if you like. I don't have anything pressing to do anymore."

"What about Project Brittany?" Wendy asked. "Has Blake finally come to his senses and decided to sc.r.a.p that?"

Katie did her best to look as if the thought of Blake cozying up to Brittany didn't tear her apart the way that it did.

"Well, the fundraiser that he wants to take Brittany to is this coming weekend and he feels that he's fairly well prepared to get his campaign underway." Each word she uttered felt like a sharp pin p.r.i.c.king her heart. "So there's no more plotting a course of action for him," she told Wendy. And then she sighed. "As a matter of fact, he wants to show me his grat.i.tude by taking me out to dinner tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow night?" Wendy repeated, her eyes widening as she said the words slowly.

"Yes, tomorrow night." Katie stared at her friend's expression. "Why do you look like that?"

It was Wendy's turn to stare-in disbelief. "Katie, don't you know what tomorrow is?"

Since she had gotten here, it felt as if the days just fed into one another, especially after all the drama that had occurred with the way Wendy's baby had been born. She thought for a minute, then said hesitantly, "Thursday?"

"It's Valentine's Day. Blake wants to take you out on Valentine's Day," Wendy emphasized.

Wendy was right, Katie realized. Tomorrow was Valentine's Day. But she had her doubts that Blake had been aware of that when he'd made the offer. "I'm sure that he doesn't realize that."

Wendy drew herself up as best she could, given that she was still in bed. "We'll make him realize it."

"We?" And just how was Wendy going to hope to accomplish that when Katie was the one who would be going out with Blake?

Wendy's smile was wide and dazzling in its confidence. "We," she affirmed. "Go to my closet," she instructed. It was impossible to miss her enthusiasm. "I have just the dress for you to wear."

Fifteen minutes later, Wendy was shifting impatiently in her bed. "Well, come out," she coaxed, raising her voice to carry through the bathroom door. "I want to see what it looks like on you."

In her opinion, Katie was taking an inordinate amount of time putting on the s.e.xy black dress that she had selected for her.

Reluctantly, Katie finally opened the door and came out, moving very hesitantly.

"Where's the rest of it?" Katie wanted to know.

The slinky, black dress was clinging to her every curve. It only came down to her thighs and, although it had long, narrow sleeves that ended at her wrists and hinted at modesty, all hints vanished when she turned around. The dress was completely backless.

"There's just enough to make it interesting," Wendy told her. "d.a.m.n, but you look gorgeous!" she cried with no little pride. "And I've got just the shoes to go with that. A great pair of strappy high heels," she elaborated, then c.o.c.ked her head as she studied Katie's reflection in the wardrobe mirror Katie was facing. "I'm going to have to fix your hair for you," Wendy said. It wasn't an offer, it was a given. One that made her grin in antic.i.p.ation. "One look at you and that brother of mine is going to say, 'Brittany who?'"

Not from the way he talked about her, Katie thought. Although she hated raining on Wendy's parade, she didn't want to give her best friend false hope, either. "I really, really doubt that."

"I don't," Wendy countered cheerfully and with the confidence of a person who was seldom wrong. "Now, remember, when you enter the restaurant, walk as if every man in the room is looking at you."

"If I think that, I'm not going to be able to take a single step," she protested.

"Yes, you are," Wendy told her firmly, "because you know that every one of those men looking at you is living in the moment-and envying my big brother like h.e.l.l." There was pure joy in Wendy's eyes. "This is going to be magnificent!" she prophesied gleefully, clasping her hands together in antic.i.p.ation.

Katie tried her best to smile and ignore the full squadron of b.u.t.terflies that had suddenly shown up as she began to earnestly think about tomorrow evening and all the different possible ways that she could embarra.s.s herself.

Blake had chosen Red for his dinner with Katie, because he was familiar with it and because Marcos was the manager, so he knew the food was always excellent.