To Be a Family (Harlequin Superromance) (6 page)

“Can we please move on?” Katie added.

He was reluctant—they were talking, really talking, for the
first time in years. And as far as he knew there was a chance she couldn’t even
have kids after going through chemo. But he didn’t want to fight Katie, he never
had. Now more than ever he wanted to be friends. Having Tuti come to live with
him and seeing Katie again had stirred his old dreams of a home and family. It
was probably wishful thinking but maybe if Katie got to know him again, if they
could get past the old stuff, they might have a chance.

The way to her heart was through Tuti. Katie loved kids and she
liked to be needed. And God knows, Tuti needed her. His family, while they were
willing to help with Tuti, didn’t have Katie’s teaching skills. Plus their time
was limited. His mother was willing to babysit when she could but she worked,
writing a column for the local newspaper. Same went for his sisters, one a
lawyer, the other running a café. He could hire a tutor but in spite of Katie’s
claim that he didn’t know her any longer, he did know she had the patience and
the resolve and the dedication Tuti needed. Tuti was in a foreign country with
foreign customs and limited English. She was overwhelmed and the more familiar
faces he could give her, the better it would be. So yes, for all those reasons,
Katie
did
top his list of potential tutors.

The family at the next table was getting up to leave, strapping
their baby into a stroller. Tuti would be back any second. John wanted a
positive connection with Katie so they wouldn’t go back to being formal with
each other. He took a breath and summoned the kind of courage that didn’t get
exercised much on the police force.

“It hurts that you don’t want to know me.” The epithet
“superficial” especially had stung. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I
promise I won’t try to flirt with you again. I’m not asking to take up where we
left off.”
Yet
. “But I would like to be
friends.”

There, he’d said it. If she turned down his friendship after
all that groveling, he would move away from Summerside and never come back.
“So…?”

“You’re only saying this because you want my help with
Tuti.”

“I do want your help. I don’t deny that. But that’s not why I’m
flaying myself before you. If you don’t have time for her then I’ll figure
something else out. But just don’t…cut me dead when I meet you on the street.
Don’t leave a party the minute I arrive. Say ‘good day’ like you mean it. Have a
coffee with me now and then.” He felt his throat catch and cleared it. “It’s not
a lot to ask.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hands clasped tightly around her teacup. “I
wasn’t aware I was that mean to you.”

“Well, you are. People comment.”

“I’ll try not to do it again.” She sucked in a breath, regained
her composure. “So, do I have your word—no flirting? No innuendo? No double
entendres?”

He grimaced. Had he really been that louche? “None of that. If
only you’ll give Tuti extra help to bring her up to speed.”

Katie tilted her head to one side. The curve of her breasts
beneath her draped blouse rose and fell as she thought about it. His mind
drifted in an inappropriate direction. Damn it all. He was a man. He couldn’t
help the way his body reacted. She could ask him to keep his mouth shut but she
couldn’t control his thoughts.

But he would learn to stay quiet. The comments were more a
nervous reaction than anything he really wanted to say to her, anyway. If she
actually conversed with him like he was a decent human being then maybe he could
respond in kind.

Tuti slid back onto her chair next to Katie and smiled up at
her teacher. The little girl couldn’t have made a more timely entrance if she’d
been scripted. But that just ratcheted up the tension. Katie wouldn’t like
feeling pressured from two sides.

John sat back and glanced away, as if it wasn’t a big deal if
she tutored his daughter or not. When, in truth, her continued presence in his
life had become of paramount importance to him in a very short space of
time.

* * *

K
ATIE
WOULD
LOVE
to
help Tuti. But she’d agreed to write three books this year. Plus, she was
teaching full-time. And spending time with Tuti would inevitably mean spending
time with John. Sure, he’d promised to curb his teasing and flirting but that
didn’t mean she wanted to be his new best friend. He’d hurt her. Badly. Tuti’s
very existence was a constant reminder of the extent of his betrayal.

But Tuti needed her in the here and now, and that was bigger
than Katie and John’s unhappy past. In only a day Tuti had made her way into
Katie’s heart with her shy smile and sparkling eyes. Somehow she would find the
time to teach, write and tutor Tuti. As for John, she could be friendly without
getting involved. “I’ll do it.”

“Really?” John said, sitting forward. “Thank you.”

“But you have to reinforce my teaching,” Katie said. “That
involves reading to her every night, talking to her as much as possible,
explaining things.”

“I can do that.”

“Even if she doesn’t understand every word you say, the meaning
will gradually sink in. Children pick up languages easily. Tuti seems very
bright.”

Tuti’s gaze was flicking from Katie to John.

“I’m going to give you extra time after class, just you and
me,” Katie said, and Tuti beamed up at her. To John, Katie added, “The school
will provide a teacher’s aide. We should be able to bring her up to speed in a
few months.”

“I really appreciate this. Let me know what days and times are
good for you and I’ll arrange to be home.”

“That’s not necessary,” Katie said quickly. A cozy threesome at
John’s house felt a little too similar to a family unit for her comfort. With
anyone else she wouldn’t have even thought that, but with John she didn’t want
any reminders or allusions to what they might have had.

“I’ll take her home with me after school a couple of days a
week then drop her off at your place when we’re done.” Katie reached for her
purse among the bags of produce at her feet. “I need to get back. Are you ready
to go?”

On the return trip to Summerside Katie pointed out trees, cars
and houses to Tuti. The girl listened attentively at first then gradually lost
interest to play with her doll.

Katie fell into silent contemplation. Had she really cut John
dead at parties? Walked out of the room when he walked in? It wasn’t
always
about him, although she would never get used to
seeing him with his arm around another woman. She simply wasn’t a party person,
preferring small groups of close friends. If she was invited to a large
gathering, she put in an appearance then often left when the night was still
young. She winced to think how others might view her behavior. Riley sometimes
gave her a hard time for being standoffish but she put that down to her
brother’s not-so-secret wish that his best mate and his sister would get back
together.

Katie glanced sideways at John, one hand draped over the
steering wheel, a slight frown creasing his brow as he gazed at the road ahead.
So what if she did snub him? He’d left her to die and gone surfing.

It didn’t get much worse than that. And yet…

Seven years on she was still punishing him. She didn’t like
what that said about her. And it wasn’t the way a woman who didn’t care
behaved.

“It’s Tuti’s birthday in a couple of weeks,” John said. “Would
you like to come? My parents are hosting it at their place. They’ve got the
space for all the cousins to run around.”

“When is it exactly?” she stalled. Once upon a time she’d felt
part of his family, even though the noisy boisterous Forsters were so different
from the more reserved Hennings. Acting friendly was one thing but going to a
party with him was quite another. Her introverted nature aside, if she went to
the party would everyone think she and John were getting back together? That
wasn’t going to happen. The pressure, the sincere good wishes, might be
uncomfortable.

“Not this Saturday but next.”

“I’ll have to see. I have these insane deadlines now.”

“It’s going to be Tuti’s first time being around the whole
family. It would be great if she had a few people there that she knew well.”

“Oh, right.” Her cheeks burned and she turned away to look out
the window. He was asking her for Tuti, not him. Of course. How could she have
thought anything else?

“Tuti and my mother haven’t hit it off,” John went on. “You
know how Mum is, so over-the-top. She’s trying too hard. Tuti runs and hides
every time she comes around.”

Katie could relate. She’d been overwhelmed by Alison at first,
too, and she’d been a teenager when she’d first met John’s mother. Gradually
she’d come to appreciate Alison’s exuberance, and then to love her as a second
mother. “You want me to be an intermediary. Isn’t that your job?”

“I’ve tried. So far it’s not working.”

“I don’t know. The tutoring is within reason. But getting
involved in family stuff…” She shook her head.

“Okay. I’m not going to pressure you. Just thought you might
like to come for your own sake.” He paused. “My sisters ask after you.”

Suddenly her chest felt tight. She’d lost a whole family when
she and John had split up. His sisters and his mother had rallied around her
when she was ill and in the hospital. It wasn’t until John had returned to
Australia and she refused to make up with him that Alison had turned cool toward
her. She understood that Alison would be loyal to John and side with him, but
she’d come to rely on Alison’s love and support. When she’d withdrawn it, she’d
hurt Katie.

She also missed John’s sisters, Sonya and Leah. They’d been the
older sisters she’d never had. She’d lost touch with them, too. She’d been glad
in a way—seeing them had been a painful reminder of John—but it had been another
loss. She’d liked his dad, Marty, a fire captain, too. He was easygoing and
jovial, a far cry from her bottled-up ex-military father.

Now, through Tuti, John was back in her life and she would have
to deal with all those feelings she’d buried for years. In most areas of her
life she was confident, happy, cheerful. Yet she’d allowed herself to stay stuck
in the role of being the injured party with John. She was weary of it. This
behavior made her seem cowardly and, since her recovery, she’d vowed to be bold,
adventurous and brave.

She missed being friends with him. Missed their quiet
conversations, the laughter, the sense of knowing someone so well they didn’t
need to speak. For seven years she’d kept John Forster off her radar. Taking on
Tuti meant reentering his sphere. It would be uncomfortable at times but she
would be lying if she told herself she was doing it only for Tuti’s sake. She
needed to do this for herself. It was time to learn to see John as just another
guy. It was time to move on.

From now on she would go out of her way not to avoid him. It
was the only mature way to behave. She would be pleasant and polite. She would
have the occasional coffee with him. And she would go to his daughter’s birthday
party. In return he would simply treat her as a friend. It sounded like a fair
deal.

They were approaching the end of the highway and the
intersection leading to Frankston. “What day did you say the party is?”

“Saturday, two weeks from now.” He shot her a glance. “Two till
six.”

This was her opportunity to show the Forsters what Katie
Henning was made of. So she didn’t have a husband or children. That wasn’t the
be-all and end-all. She’d survived, not just the cancer but the heartbreak, the
loss of her second family. She’d gone on to have a great life on her own, a full
life, achieving her goals and making a success of herself in not one but two
careers.

“I guess I could probably make it.”

“Great!” John reached over to squeeze her hand.

Oh, dear. The sudden kick of her heart at his brief touch
wasn’t the stuff of friendship. She tugged her hand away and folded it inside
her own. No matter what, she was not going to fall for him again.

* * *

“H
OLD
STILL
, T
UTI
.
” John scraped her
slippery hair back with the brush and awkwardly fumbled the elastic around the
pigtail. Despite his mother’s gifts of sparkly barrettes and pretty hair bands
Tuti only wanted her chin-length hair in pigtails. It was damn fiddly and he was
sweating beneath his uniform shirt. But so much in Tuti’s life had changed, he
figured if she wanted to hang on to this one thing, he would give her pigtails
if it killed him.

“How’s that?” He looked into the bathroom mirror with her,
hands resting lightly on her shoulders. The pigtails looked too high on her
head, a bit like an alien’s antennae. “I’m not much of a hairdresser.”

Tuti gazed silently at her reflection, her eyes worried.

“Sorry, sweetheart, they’ll have to do.” He squeezed her
shoulders. “Let’s go or you’ll be late for school.”

He walked Tuti inside to her classroom then drove on to the
police station, parking in the back in his reserved spot. Every day he had to
face that damn empty lot next door where the station extension should be.
Shading his eyes against the sun, he visualized bricks and mortar housing a CSI
unit and facilities for half a dozen more uniformed cops. Not going to happen
thanks to cuts to the state budget.

He wasn’t an empire builder. He just wanted the resources he
needed to protect his community. Okay, maybe it was more than that. Lately his
job, although rewarding in many ways, had seemed…not enough. The bigger cases
kept going to Frankston and growing Summerside station was the only answer he
could think of.

Seeing Katie achieve big things with her writing was wonderful
but, though he hated to admit it, it had made him more discontent with his own
lot. He’d had simple dreams once—to marry Katie, have a bunch of kids and be a
professional surfer. His relationship with Katie had gone bust and his surfing
dream faded with maturity. He’d turned to law enforcement hoping for a life of
action and excitement. But with each rung on the police career he’d had less
action and more paperwork. Now he’d risen as far as he could go at Summerside
Police Station and he was stagnating, careerwise. He never told anyone that, of
course. From the outside his life no doubt appeared perfect—a solid job, nice
home, family and friends, great community. To want more would look like he was
complaining.