Not Quite Mine (Not Quite series) (36 page)

“Oh, sorry to bother you.” Dean left the complex and switched on his phone. He’d deleted her number from his phone and sadly couldn’t bring it up in his memory.

He sat in his car for a while flipping around the Internet with his smartphone. He came across an old e-mail out of a sent file and found her cell number.

He dialed it and was met with a
No longer in service
message.

“Well, damn.”
Guess she didn’t want to be found.

Dean called up the investigator he’d hired to find Savannah’s mother and brought him up to date on the facts.

“I need to know where she is and I need to know yesterday. Katelyn should be back tomorrow and I want to have this conversation with Maggie finished.”

“I’m on it, Mr. Prescott.”

Unable to go home to wait, Dean drove around town to see if any of Maggie’s friends knew where she’d gone.

It was midweek and early in the day so the nightclubs they’d gone to a couple of times either weren’t open or didn’t have a familiar face in the room.

Maggie’s parents had both passed away when she was very young. He remembered her aunt lived north of LA, but he didn’t know the exact address. A phone number was out of the question. Hopefully Nathan, his PI, would find the information. And find it soon.

The day ran on with a silent phone. When it did ring, Katie was on the other end, her voice tight with emotion.

“It was awful, but I’m done. It’s up to her now,” Katie told him after she relayed everything about her conversation with her mom.

“I’m proud of you, darlin’. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t. But you know something? This whole ordeal reminded me how lucky I am to have my brother and my dad on my side. They’ve been great.”

“I’ve always thought of your dad as a linebacker that would tackle anyone who even tried to hurt you.”

Katie giggled. “Yeah…he would. Listen, I—I, ah, told them…about Savannah.”

“You what?” His grip tightened on the phone.

“I couldn’t keep lying to them. All this drama with my own mother made me realize that there are women out there that can’t be a mom. Emotionally. Maybe Savannah’s mom couldn’t handle it.”

Dean thought of Maggie and couldn’t rule that reason out. They’d talked about kids, having them someday, but nothing stood out as a sign that Maggie wasn’t mother material. Come to think of it, she always brushed off the
kid
conversation. He’d told her about Katie. About their child. Those conversations were short, however. Dean thought their limited conversations on the subject were because they included Katie. Talking with his fiancée about his ex had been met with hostility. He didn’t blame Maggie for that.

Now that Maggie was part of his past, Dean could see that he’d always loved Katie. Maggie must have sensed that.

“Dean? You there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. How did they take the news?” The last thing Dean needed was the Morrison men digging too deep in Savannah’s parentage…not yet. Not yet.

“They were shocked. My dad thinks someone is gunning for money.”

Dean hadn’t ruled that out either. If Maggie wanted money, why hadn’t she gone to him? Sure, his pockets didn’t run as deep as Gaylord’s but he wasn’t without means. Millions of them.

“What about Jack?”

“Jack got stuck on the fact that I can’t have kids. I didn’t know my brother was such a softy. He was excited about Savannah though, and can’t wait to tell Jessie.”

“Do you think your dad will launch his own investigation?”

“I—I told him to wait. I…I…” Her voice trailed off. “I can’t wait to get home.”

“Me, too.” He glanced at his watch.

“We were going to leave tonight, but there’s a tropical storm cutting down air traffic. The pilot said we could leave in the morning so long as the bulk of the storm passes overnight without a ton of damage.”

“That’s probably better anyway…in case something changes with your mom.”

“They moved her out of the ICU shortly after we left. I think she’ll physically be fine. I insisted that we stop in Texas tomorrow and drop off my brother and dad. They both wanted to come and see Savannah, talk to you.”

Dean laughed despite the nerves fraying the edge of his psyche. “I didn’t think your family would let me off with a
We’ll talk about this later
warning.”

“Just leave them to me. After I told my mom off, the two of them aren’t so quick to jump on me.”

“It’s not you they’ll be jumping on.” Not that he was worried. His intentions when it came to Katie had always been honorable.

Only now he had a new dilemma…he had the mother of his child to deal with.

He gave up on his search for Maggie and drove home. After relieving Mrs. Hoyt and making sure she could return the next day, Dean spent a little time in his office before Savannah woke from her late nap.

A message greeted him from Nathan. “I found Maggie’s aunt living in the Valley. Like you said. Looks like Maggie was living with her before she had the baby. I have a new address. Call me.”

Dean approached the door to the bungalow style home and hesitated before he knocked.

He rapped three times and stood back. Maggie’s car was in the drive but the house was quiet. He hoped she was home. He didn’t want to have to come back later.

He knocked again and heard footsteps.

Maggie opened the door with a rush, the smile on her face quickly faded when she recognized him. Her hair was swept up into a ponytail, her face free of any makeup. She looked younger than he remembered. He’d forgotten that she was six years younger than him. Just out of college when they’d met.

“Hi, Maggie,” he said. Trying his level best to keep his voice even.

“Dean.”

She looked beyond him, searching for Savannah maybe…or Katie?

“I’m here alone,” he told her. “Savannah’s with a sitter.”

Her attention shot to his and her shoulders sagged. Without words, she opened the door farther, walked into the house, away from him.

He followed her inside and closed the door behind him. His heart beat so rapidly he found himself breathing hard.

She stood with her back to him, her hands poised on the edge of the kitchen sink while she looked out a window.

Dean waited for her to say something. He didn’t trust himself and had learned long ago that silence often worked better than words when trying to get someone to open up.

“So…you and Katelyn are back together.”
Was that hurt in her voice?

Instead of answering her question, he asked his own. “Why, Maggie?”

She took a deep breath and still had yet to turn around. “Do you know how much you talked about her when you were with me?” she asked.

Dean flinched.

“You tried to hide your feelings for her. I convinced myself that it was natural for you to slip once in a while and call me her name.”

“Twice. That happened twice.” And they’d only been dating a few weeks when he slipped. Maggie had laughed it off and told him it wasn’t a big deal.

She twisted around, met his eyes. “You talk in your sleep, Dean. I told myself that you weren’t responsible for your dreams. Reminded myself that it was me wearing your ring. But it wasn’t me you loved. It was her.”

Dean’s teeth clenched together. He couldn’t deny his feelings and didn’t see a need to shelter Maggie from the truth now.

“I cared about you.”

“But you loved her.”

“You had my baby.”

She blinked a few times.

“I would have stuck by you,” he said softly. He wasn’t raised to walk away from his responsibilities.

“And I would have hated you for it. Having a child isn’t a reason to get married.”

“I’d already asked you to marry me.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“To what end, Dean? You may have been ready to get married, but you weren’t ready to be a father.”

“The hell I wasn’t!” he yelled.

“Not a single father. Do you remember the night you told me about Katie’s miscarriage?”

He’d been drinking. Trying to move on with his life. He thought if he’d told someone about Katie he could do that. Since he was engaged to Maggie, he felt it was right to let her know about his past.

“You were heartbroken. I told myself it was because of the baby, but it wasn’t. It was because Katie walked out of your life. You told me then that a child isn’t as important as being with the right woman.” Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. “I lied to myself for months about us. The wedding was coming up fast. I couldn’t do it.”

He remembered the empty feeling when she’d returned his ring. His ego was so friggin’ bruised he couldn’t see straight. A bigger part of him was relieved.

“When did you find out about the pregnancy?” he asked.

“A few weeks before we broke up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want your pity. I wanted your love but you couldn’t give that to me.”

“So you dumped our daughter.”

“I did
not
dump Savannah. I placed her in the care of someone who wanted her more than I did. This may come as a shock to you, Dean, but I didn’t want kids. Not yet anyway.”

Dean thought of Katie, of the ongoing drama with her mother. Not everyone was cut out to be a mother. How fair was it that Katie wanted kids and couldn’t have them and Maggie didn’t want them and could.

“You never told me that.”

“It wasn’t until I was pregnant that I realized I wasn’t ready. You never attempted to contact me after we broke off the engagement…didn’t try and get me back. I knew why. I wanted to hate you. I couldn’t.” There were tears in Maggie’s eyes. “So instead of terminating my pregnancy I decided to have Savannah and give her to the one person that would love her unconditionally and without regret.”

“You didn’t even know Katie.”

Maggie smirked. “She’s rich, beautiful, stubborn, and in love with you. I watched hours of that stupid reality show she was on when she was a teenager. Do you know how often she talked about you on that show?”

He shook his head. He hadn’t thought of that show in years.

“Even then she adored you. I kept up with her brother Jack’s story, knew he was getting married in Texas and that you’d both be there. I had my doctor induce my labor so I could get Savannah to Texas before you both left.

“Leaving Savannah was one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. I thought it would be easy.”

Dean’s heart squeezed in his chest. This was where Maggie was going to ask for her back. He thought of Katie, her angelic smile when she watched Savannah laugh.

“Katie’s a perfect mother,” he told her.

“I’m not going to ask for her back. Leaving her was hard, but I know I did the right thing. She’ll be raised in a loving home with two parents. If I’d kept her I would have hated sharing her. I didn’t want to share her daddy either.” Maggie’s sadness was palpable. Dean cursed himself for her grief.

“So that’s it? You walk way and never look back?”

“Now that I know the two of you are together I can go on with my life.”

His brow pitched together. “You went through a lot of trouble keeping your identity hidden. Are you saying you would have told me eventually? That you did all of this so Katie and I would get back together?”

“I loved you, Dean. Once I realized it wasn’t your fault that you didn’t love me I knew I could at least give Savannah a chance at a good life. Savannah can only be icing on the happiness cake, not the glue that holds it together. You and I weren’t that cake.”

Here he thought Maggie was the most selfish woman in the world for leaving their daughter. “I wanted to love you,” he whispered.

She brushed away her tears and forced a smile to her lips. Maggie pushed away from the counter and walked over to him. She lifted up on her tiptoes and placed a soft kiss to his cheek. “Good-bye, Dean. Take care of your girls.”

Katie dropped her bags in the doorway and rushed into the living room where she heard Mrs. Hoyt and Savannah.

“Oh, look, Mommy’s home,” Mrs. Hoyt said when Katie hurried in the room.

“Where’s my little girl?”

Savannah smiled and Katie pushed away all the crazy emotions she had harbored over the past several days. “Did you miss me?” Katie kissed her tiny nose and held her tight.