Barefoot Brides (14 page)

“N
o!”
The dark-haired toddler craned her neck to turn her head away from the dollop of strained carrots that her grandfather offered her. Every muscle in her compact body stiffened. She spread her fingers and even her toes as her arms and legs flailed.

“C'mon, Fabbie.” Vince followed the dodging and weaving of her head with the spoon. “Just one bite.”

“Careful what you ask for there, Vince.” Kate bent down, kid level. “From the look in her eyes, I think she might just bite you.”

“If she doesn't, her mom might when she gets back.” Vince dropped the plastic spoon onto the food-caked tray of the child's high chair. “I don't think this child has actually swallowed more than a mouthful this whole evening.”

She gave the man a gentle nudge to get him to relinquish his seat directly in front of Fabbie. “Here, let me try.”

“Kate, I've been doing this since the kid went on solid foods.” His resistance shone through in everything from his posture to the tone of his voice but he rose from the chair, his arm extended to welcome her graciously to the task. “What makes you think you can do a better job with it?”

Kate tensed. “There were three things wrong with what you just said. Shall I enumerate them?”

He shook his head, smiled a big goofy grin at her and held out the spoon.

Kate took it, snatched it away, really, then softened toward him and laughed.

Vince laughed, too.

It felt good to share this evening with him, and yet it didn't entirely take the sting out of his reminder that she remained an interloper in his family.

“I am a doctor, you know,” she couldn't help throwing out as she moved past him toward the uncooperative baby seated in the bright, cheery kitchen.

“You're a podiatrist, Kate. That's like being a specialist in the opposite end of the baby that's giving me fits. Now if she had issues squishing strained carrot between her toes…”

He reached out and lifted up one fat, pink baby foot spotted with globs of green and orange. “Then I could see where your expertise would come in handy.”

“My expertise also includes emergency-room medicine.” She swatted his hand away from Fabbie's ankle. She seated herself in front of the baby and bent her nose just inches from Fabbie's face, as though they were longtime girlfriends commiserating about the difficulties of dealing with the men in their lives.

Fabbie scooted closer, too, her small hands gripping the edge of the tray.

“Tell your grandfather that I've quieted plenty of little ones in my life.” Kate lowered her voice in a tone of shared confidences. Then sputtered her lips, made a face and stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth.

Fabbie giggled.

This wasn't so hard. Kate pushed the bowl of baby food back in front of the child. “You just have to get their attention. Don't you, Fabbie? Grown-ups aren't the only ones who enjoy a little dinner theater. Are they?”

Fabbie clapped.

Kate pulled her shoulders up. “You have a long record of approaching child care by trying to control the outcome of every encounter, Vince. You never learned to pick your battles.”

Fabbie shoved the bowl across the tray toward Kate.

Kate met the child's determined gaze with one of her own in which she tried to telegraph the message,
I'm making a point here, kid, work with me.

Another shove.

The bowl wobbled.

Vince snickered but said nothing.

Kate plastered the sweetest smile she could muster on her face and cooed to the baby. “Okay. So you want the bowl at the edge of the tray. No problem.”

Kate very calmly wriggled her chair over to clear herself from any potential drop zone for falling food or bowls. She then turned and looked at Vince. She could do this. She did not have to have been involved in this child's life every day up until this point to make a connection with her. She could be a part of this family if he would only ask her to.

“Sometimes you have to roll with the punches,” she told him, talking about far more than just poking food into an uncooperative child. “You start where you are and work with what you've been given.”

She held up the spoon.

He watched her intently.

So intently she could not tear her gaze from his, or hide the double meaning in her words as she said, “It's not so hard, really. You'd be surprised what people can do when they just—”

Splat!

A tiny handful of baby food hit Kate across her cheek and nose.

For a moment, silence practically crackled in the air.

Then Vince burst out laughing.

Kate sat there for several seconds more before she got over the shock enough to make a sound. To Kate's surprise, the sound she made was a warm, heartfelt peal of giggles.

“I really don't know that much about babies. I just thought…” She looked at the wriggling child then at him.

She swept her gaze across the small kitchen and into the nearby front room, the small space that both defined and disclosed almost nothing about Vince. She looked at the school photos of Gentry as a child hanging on the wall and the snapshots of Fabbie stuck to the fridge. In a matter of seconds she took in the highlights of what Vince found important in life. She tried not to think too much about the fact that there was nothing of her to be found. She was the one sitting here helping him care for his grandchild after all.

He loved her.

She loved him.

“I thought—how hard can this be?” she confessed.

Vince opened his mouth to say something, cocked his head then frowned. “We're not just talking about feeding Fabbie now, are we?”

Kate took one last look around, put the spoon aside and stood. “No, we're not.”

“Yeah. I thought so.” Vince grabbed a dish towel and came to her. “You had that look.”

“What look?” Kate reached out to take the towel from him.

He yanked it away. “Hold still.”

She wanted to protest that she could take care of herself. Then he placed his large hand gently along the side of her neck.

As the warmth from his palm sank slowly into her tight muscles, Kate shut her eyes and sighed.

The nubby fabric of the cloth moved in circles over her skin as he dabbed off the goop on her face. After a moment, he stepped back to inspect his handiwork.

“Better?” she asked, lifting her tentative gaze to his.

“Just a smudge more right…” He placed his thumb at the center of her lower lip.

His touch made her shiver.

“There. That's the last of it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked coyly.

“Maybe I should take a closer look.” He leaned in.

Whap. Splat. Clunk.

This time the runny mix of green and orange mush came at them spoon and all. Fabbie didn't have the oomph to throw the thing hard enough to reach their faces but hit Vince's knuckles just as he was raising his hand to run his fingers through Kate's hair. Which caused him to spread baby food from her temple to the back of her head.

“Oh, Kate. I'm sorry.”

“Yuck!” She thought she could simply brush the mess away but found herself inadvertently rubbing it deeper in. She withdrew her hand and stared at her gooey fingers. “When you said Fabbie would be our chaperone I never dreamed she'd take the role so seriously.”

“She has done a great job of keeping us apart so far,” he admitted.

“So many things have tried to keep us apart so far, Vince, Fabbie is going to have to come up with something a whole lot better than flinging a little food.”

“I know a way to foil her scheme.” Vince lifted the baby from her seat. “We'll see if a little time in a warm bathtub changes your tune.”

“Actually it's not her tune that needs changing.” Kate put her finger under her nose.

Fabbie kicked both legs like a jumping frog and squealed.

Vince kept his grip on the child even as he held her at arm's length. “So I guess this is out of your area of expertise,
Dr.
Cromwell?”

He was actually going to let her help! Sure, with the messiest and
stinkiest
duty of the evening. Not the kind of job you asked an outsider to do. She reached out. “Give me that baby.”

Half an hour later everything was back to normal—the high chair, Fabbie, Kate's hair and…

Kate looked up from the crib where she had just put the sleepy child to see Vince staring at her.

“What? Did I get soap all over my clothes? Powder on my cheek?” She swiped her palm down the side of her head. “Is there still strained carrot in my hair?”

“You're beautiful.”

She relaxed and let her gaze dip to the floor, shy but just a bit flirtatious. “Yes, I've heard the almost-forty, wet-haired, foot-in-cast look is all the rage on the Paris runways this year.”

“If it isn't, it should be.” He extended his hand to lead her out of the room. “But I wasn't talking about the way you look.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, you look good. You look—” he pulled her not just into the hallway but into his arms then gazed down into her eyes “—real good.”

“Thank you, Vince.”

“When I called you beautiful, I was trying to tell you that you…you're…”

“Yes?”

He touched her cheek. “You're beautiful.”

“So you said. Twice.” Not that she minded hearing it repeated. “And?”

Fabbie let out a low, drawn-out mewl.

Kate froze.

Vince made a move to go for the baby.

She nabbed his arm and held him in place.

When Fabbie cried out again, she tiptoed into Gentry's old room and stole a peek into the crib.

“Shh.” She stroked back the baby's dark, slightly damp hair. “Go to sleep, sweetie. You need to gather your strength to throw oatmeal at Grandpa in the morning.”

“Hey! Don't give her ideas!”

More fussing.

Kate patted the baby's back. “We beautiful girls have to stick together.”

As if agreeing with Kate's assessment, Fabbie let out a hearty burp.

Vince let out a laugh.

“Hey, beauty is as beauty burps.” She dropped a kiss on the drowsy baby's head then made her way back to the hallway.

He followed her with his eyes, making her feel self-conscious.

“Anyway, I'm not beautiful. That's Jo. I'm more the clean-cut wholesome girl-next-door type of attractive.”

“You were always pretty, Kate.” His hand fit around the nape of her neck. He tipped his head to one side, his eyes dark. “But now, knowing what you've done with your life, seeing how you take care of people, the way you care about me? Pretty just doesn't do you justice.”

“I'm not doing anything special,” she whispered.

“But what you are doing looks good on you,” he murmured. “You look good with a baby, Kate.”

His words virtually stole her breath away. Still, she managed to get out a very soft, “Do I?”

“Yeah. Very good.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear then let his fingertips trace the path from her earlobe down her jaw. “Makes a guy wonder.”

She stiffened. “Makes a guy wonder what?”

He crooked his finger beneath her chin and tipped it so that she could only gaze up into his sincere, searching eyes as he said, “Not ‘what' but ‘what if.'”

“Hold it right there.” Her stiffness turned to downright rigidity. She pulled away from his touch and held her hand up between them. “I just made a promise not to surrender to the temptation of the words
if only.
”

“I didn't say ‘if only.'” He placed both of his large hands on her tightly raised shoulders and lowered his face until the entire world seemed to narrow to the two of them. “I said ‘what if.' Big difference.”

“There is?” she murmured, mesmerized by the possibility.

“‘If only' speaks of regret.”

If only she had been a better Christian and turned to God and prayer for answers instead of running from hard realities. If only she had been a braver sister and spoken up when Molly Christina disappeared or paid more attention when they were in Santa Sofia and found the connection sooner. If only she had been a bolder woman, willing to stand and fight for what she wanted.

“Regrets,” she repeated softly. “Yeah. I see that.”

“Whereas ‘what if' dreams about possibilities.”

What if she started trying to do all that now—living her faith, bonding with her sisters, standing and fighting for what she wanted?