She wanted to walk back to her room, but Mark won that battle, and
she was wheeled in on a stretcher. Moments later, Katie was brought in by one
of the nurses and placed in her arms. She lay back against the pillows and
watched the baby suckling at her breast, tiny fists curled in contentment, blue
eyes gazing into hers with avid interest.
Beside the bed, the telephone rang. The nurse answered it and
handed it to her. Danny’s voice, coming from across the Atlantic, sounded
tinny and insubstantial. “Casey?” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“Of course I can. Oh, Danny, you should see her, she’s
beautiful. She looks just like you.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I wanted to be there with you.”
“It’s all right, darling, I understand. We didn’t know she was
going to come early.”
“Are you all right? Christ, I’ve been frantic ever since they
called.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Is she really beautiful?”
“She’s just perfect, Danny. Absolutely perfect.”
“Honey, I have to go. I’m on standby for the next empty seat at
Heathrow. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Take your time,” she said. “Katie and I will be just fine.”
***
Armed
with a plush white teddy bear the size of Kansas, a massive bouquet of white
camellias, and his most persuasive smile, Rob MacKenzie poured on the boyish
charm and talked his way into the closed maternity ward of the expensive
private hospital where Casey Fiore had just given birth.
He
paused at the doorway to her room. Casey was sitting up in bed, propped
against a pile of pillows, her hair pulled back in a thick braid and the sleeping
baby cradled against her breast. She wore a look of such radiant bliss that he
was reluctant to intrude on their intimacy. He took a step backward, but the
movement caught her attention. She looked up, and Rob crossed his ankles and
leaned against the door frame. “Hey,” he said.
He
saw it in her eyes, before she could conceal it, the quick flash of pleasure at
sight of him. Then the mask came down as those eyes studied every detail of
his appearance, missing nothing. They paused when they reached the bouquet of
flowers, and her mouth thinned. “Do I know you?” she said.
“Go
ahead,” he said. “Rub it in. I deserve it.”
“Where’s
the little woman? Home doing the wash?”
He
cleared his throat. “We, ah—” Cleared it again. “Monique and I aren’t
together any longer.”
She
raised a single dark eyebrow. “Threw you out, did she, MacKenzie?”
“Actually,”
he said, “I walked.”
“Oh,
really? So you finally managed to get your brain to function somewhere north
of your belt buckle?”
He
took the blow straight to the heart, wondering if the truth always hurt this
much. “I’m here,” he said, holding the furry polar bear in the air above his
head, “to propose a truce.”
Coolly,
she said, “How touching. Is the bear for me?”
“Actually,”
he said, “it’s for the baby. The flowers are for you.”
She
eyed them suspiciously and said, “My mother always warned me to be wary of men
bearing gifts.”
“Look,”
he said, “we both know I’ve been an ass. You’re my best friend, and I let
Monique come between us. It was a shitty thing to do.”
“Yes,”
she said evenly. “It was.”
“You’re
not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
She
shifted the baby against her breast. “Does the word grovel mean anything to
you, MacKenzie?”
Without
waiting for an invitation, he stepped into her room and dropped the teddy bear
on the foot of the bed. Bouquet in hand, he sat on the edge of the mattress.
“Take a sniff,” he said, tilting the flowers in her direction. “They’re
spectacular.”
She
leaned forward to take a single, dainty whiff, and he thought he detected a
softening in the hardness around her mouth. “So,” he said with forced
joviality. “Where’s the Italian stallion?”
The
lines around her mouth deepened. “London,” she said.
“
London
?”
he said, outraged. “You mean he wasn’t here when the baby was born?”
“It
wasn’t his fault,” she said. “Katie came three weeks early. There was no time
to reach him. He’s on his way home now.”
It
was inconceivable to him that Danny could have missed his daughter’s birth.
Nothing short of death or dismemberment could have kept Rob MacKenzie away from
the birth of his child. “Why the hell didn’t you call me, Fiore? I would have
come in an instant.”
“And
do what? Sit by my side through twelve hours of labor?”
He
squared his jaw. “If that was what you needed, yes.”
“It’s
not your job.”
“Tough.
Better me than some nurse you don’t even know.”
As
she continued to study his face, the lines around her mouth gradually
dissolved. “You’d do that,” she said, “wouldn’t you?”
“Damn
right I would!”
Softly,
she said, “Damn, Flash, I’ve missed your ugly mug.”
He
reached out, picked up the end of her braid, and tugged playfully at it. “I’ve
missed you, too, sweetcakes.”
“So
where are you staying?”
“I
found this great apartment. Hardwood floors, French doors, stained glass
windows. It’s in this Gothic monstrosity of a house that looks like something
out of a Stephen King novel.” He grinned. “I call it the Hotel California.”
“How’d
you manage to find something like that in Southern California?”
“A
wizard,” he said, “never reveals his secrets.”
“You
don’t have to be in such a hurry to set up housekeeping,” she said. “You could
stay with us for a while.”
“You
guys need your privacy. You have a family now. You don’t need me hanging
around.” He laid a single finger on Katie Fiore’s velvety cheek. “Of course,
if my mom had anything to say about it, I’d come home to Southie and marry Mary
Frances O’Reilly.”
She
raised a single eyebrow. “Mary Frances O’Reilly?”
“She has thick ankles and buck teeth and Coke-bottle glasses. She
used to follow me around the school yard at recess.” He flashed her a wicked
grin and added conspiratorially, “She wanted to have my babies.”
“You might be surprised. Most girls grow out of that awkward
stage. When was the last time you saw her?”
He grimaced. “Last year, and believe me, if anything was about to
give me nightmares, it would be the thought of marrying Mary Frances.”
Her smile was rueful. “Have you told your mother about the
split?”
“I called her. She wasn’t impressed. Two crashed marriages in
three years. Basically, she told me to get my head out of my ass and grow up.”
“Not bad advice, hot stuff.”
He held out a single finger and the baby grasped it. “Maybe,” he
said darkly, “I should think about entering the priesthood. Every good Irish
Catholic family’s supposed to produce at least one priest. The MacKenzies are
behind on their quota.”
“You’d never survive,” she said dryly. “You have to take a vow of
celibacy.”
“Yeah,”
he said. “Right. Well, you can stop worrying about me, because I’m never
having another serious relationship. Just lots of cheap, superficial sex with
as many women as possible.”
“That
certainly is what I’d call a mature solution to your dilemma.”
He
wiggled Katie’s hand. “Shut up,” he said. “It’s my life. I’ll live it my
way.”
“Not
for a minute do I doubt that,” she said. “You’re the most independent jackass
I’ve ever known.”
The
baby yawned and stretched, and she adjusted her hold on the precious bundle.
“Would you like to hold her?” she said. “After all, since we’re still
speaking, I suppose I have to ask you to be her godfather.”
He
let out the breath he’d been holding. “Sweetheart,” he said, “I thought you’d
never ask.”
BOOK THREE
Los Angeles,
California
April, 1986
“Why can’t I go with you?” Katie Fiore crinkled her dimpled face
as she watched her mother pack. “I hate it when you go away.”
“I know, sweetheart. I don’t like it, either. But it’s only for
a few days. And Daddy will be here with you. The two of you can have fun
together.”
“I don’t want Daddy. I want to go to New York with you.”
Another first for history
, Casey thought, taking a black cocktail dress from the closet.
Katie always preferred her father’s company. At five, she was already smitten
by the infamous Fiore charm. “I told you,” Casey said, “this is not a
vacation. Mama and Uncle Rob are going on a business trip.” She opened a
drawer and selected several pairs of silk undies. “You’d be very bored.
Besides—” She arranged the undies in her suitcase and bent to plant a kiss on
the tip of Katie’s nose. “You’re sick, remember?” Katie’s kindergarten class
had been passing around a respiratory virus all winter. This was the third
time in as many months that she’d come down with a sore throat and a runny
nose.
Katie glowered, those blue eyes identical to Danny’s. “I hate
being sick!” she said. “I hate having a red nose! Jimmy Bostwick called me
Rudolph!” Katie had inherited more from her father than his looks; she’d also
gotten a healthy dose of his vanity.
Casey held back a smile as she folded a blouse and neatly tucked
it into the suitcase. “I know, Katydid, but guess what? Your red nose will be
all gone by the time I get back.”
Those blue eyes continued to accuse her. There was one other
thing Katie had inherited from Danny: his intelligence. She knew when she was
being pacified, and she didn’t like it one bit.
Casey threw in a pair of black heels to match the dress. She
hated leaving Katie, especially when she was sick, but this was a career
opportunity she couldn’t afford to pass up. Gabe Rothman, the Broadway
producer, had discovered a brilliant but heretofore unknown playwright with the
unlikely name of Sam Adams, and he was in the process of turning Adams’ newest
work into a Broadway musical. Rothman had approached Casey and Rob about
writing the score. It was all very tentative at this point, but if they were
able to work out a satisfactory deal, and if the play was a hit, it would be a
very large feather in their caps. That was a lot of ifs, so Casey was trying
to rein in her enthusiasm. There would be plenty of time for that once they
had a signed contract.
It was too soon to think ahead to the actual work, which would
have to be done in New York instead of California. She would cross that
particular bridge when she arrived at it. In the meantime, she and Rob would
meet with Rothman and Adams and director Eli Walton, and test the waters. If
things worked out right, they might just come home with a contract in hand.
“I’ll bring you a present from New York,” she told her daughter.
“Something special.”
Katie reached into the suitcase and touched her mother’s black
silk slip, rubbed her fingers against the soft material. “A doll?” she said.
“Is that what you want?”
“Yup. A new Cabbage Patch doll.”
“But, honey, you already have five of them. Wouldn’t you like
something different?”
Katie shook her head vehemently. “A Cabbage Patch doll, Mommy.
That’s what I want.”
Casey smiled at her daughter as she closed and locked her
suitcase. “A Cabbage Patch doll it is, then, a special one for my Katydid.”
***
He hated it when Katie was cranky.
She’d been running a fever ever since Casey left for New York, and
he’d tried everything he knew to pacify her. Together they’d watched the
Muppets take Manhattan, they’d played Candyland until he thought he’d lose his
mind, and they’d feasted on Katie’s favorite food in the whole world, macaroni
and cheese from a box. He’d read every Dr. Seuss book she owned, and they’d
even gone a second round with
Green Eggs and Ham.
But Katie was whiny,
and nothing had held her attention for long. “I hurt, Daddy,” she said for the
hundredth time in the past two hours.
“I know, sweetheart. Why don’t we take a nap together? Maybe
you’ll feel better afterward.”
“No! I hate naps. I want Mommy!” And she started to cry.
Danny sighed. “How about we turn on the TV and see what’s on?
Maybe we can find a movie.”
“I don’t want a movie. My throat hurts.”
He gave her the antibiotic that Mark Johnson had prescribed, the
one she’d been taking, off and on, for three months. The infection kept
returning, bringing its own special brand of misery: a sore throat and
earaches, sniffles, crankiness. Katie hated medicine, and she fought
swallowing the foul-tasting stuff. He bribed her with chocolate milk, her
second favorite thing in the whole world. “Why don’t we cuddle together on the
couch?” he said. “Later, we’ll call Mom in New York.”