Worth the Drive (35 page)

When Ron reached her and dropped to one knee, she heard the gasps and oohs from the surrounding females. She wasn’t surprised that Ron was proposing, they had talked about getting married after graduation, but she was surprised he was doing it now, in the middle of their senior year, and doing it here, in the middle of
The Journal’s
newsroom.

“Katie Maki, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I worship the ground you walk on. Make me the happiest man on earth and say you’ll be my wife,” he said. His eyes never left hers, but his voice was loud enough to carry, and the oohs and aahs continued.

Dry eyed, but very pleased, she accepted his proposal and the newsroom burst into applause as he slipped the miniscule diamond ring on her finger.
Seeing
the looks of sentiment on
the faces of hardened reporters
who covered murder
and corruption on a daily basis
moved Katie almost as much as Ron’s proposal did. Several flashbulbs went off - the photographers were always slinking around the newsroom, and always had a camera strapped around their necks.

They celebrated with their friends that night, and later, alone.

In the next day’s
Journal,
a story of Ron’s proposal ran with the heading, “Hobey Baker Hopeful Scores Big”
.
A picture of Ron on his knees in front of Katie took up three columns.

Katie tried not to think about the timing of Ron’s proposal with the ongoing hockey season and the fact that he was a candidate to win the Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s equivalent to the Heisman.

She’d thought it odd that Chris, who covered MSU hockey, was in the office that day
. If he came in at all, it was in the evening, wrapping up the sports page. Most of the time, he didn’t come in at all,
posting his story from his laptop at a game or at home. Katie wouldn’t have known him from interning, but she had seen him covering hockey for the past four years, had watched him interview Ron countless times while she waited.

She ignored her doubts of Ron’s sincerity. Maybe he had used the proposal to get a little press. Who cared? What mattered was he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

In the end, the Spartans got knocked out in the first round of playoffs, a player from Maine
won the Hobey, and Ron
and Katie planned a big
September wedding.

Yes, grand gestures were for the young, the naive. It was the small things that mattered, the building blocks of a future. It was carrying in groceries from the car. It was letting you off at the door when it was raining. It was rubbing your feet when they were sore.

It was putting toothpaste on a toothbrush.

Brushing her teeth in a hotel bathroom, not even sure what city she was in, tears streaming down her cheeks, Katie decided to marry
Darío
Luna
.

Darío
couldn’t believe it when the next night Katie agreed to marry him.

He
made the decision right then and there not to question the paternity of this child again. It would do no good. And his gut told him the child was his. Had told him that from the start. And
Darío
was a man who listened to his gut.

Like Binky always said after a difficult selection of which club to use, “Don’t look back, Guv, don’t look back.”

He played the Boston tournament in a fog, barely making the cut. In a way, he almost wished he’d missed it, then he and Katie could begin with their plans that much sooner.

They
’d
decided that she’d go home for the weekend without
Darío
while he stayed in Boston. She’d tell her parents about the baby and start tying up her loose ends in Hancock. After she was done with that, they’d fly to Spain so Katie could meet his mother and t
hey could
start making wedding arrangements.

Darío
would join her in Hancock on Monday. He’d wanted her to put off telling her parents until he was there, he wanted to properly ask her father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, but Katie wanted it this way.

He didn’t push it. He also didn’t say anything when she mentioned she wanted to get married in Spain, not
in
the Copper Country. He had a feeling it had something to do with her first marriage, with Ron still living in Hancock, but he kept silent. He tried to push the niggling doubts away, but they stayed with him.

Chapter
Nineteen

It’s a marriage. If I had to choose between my wife and my putter –
well,
I’d miss her.

-
Gary Player
, professional golfer

“You’re sure about this, KitKat? It’s not the fifties, you know, you don’t
have
to marry the father of your child,” Alison said.

They were in the Commodore, having pizza and drinks. Alison was having drinks. Katie and the now immense Lizzie were having water.

“I know I don’t have to marry
Darío
. That’s the point I made all along. I was fully prepared to raise this child alone.”

“So a few months away, some good sex and now you’re ready to shackle yourself to this guy?”

“Al, for Pete’s sake, marriage is not a shackling,” Lizzie said.

“Says you.”

Lizzie leaned back in the booth, her huge stomach touching the table. She rubbed her belly, a small smile playing on her very happy mouth. “Yes. Says me.”

Katie thought she looked the most beautiful she’d ever seen her and told her so.

“I can’t believe I’m so happy at being so heavy,” Lizzie said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lizzie’s deliriously happy and about ready to pop, let’s get back to Katie. How’d your parents take the news?”

Katie thought back to yesterday in her mother’s kitchen. Lots of tears had been shed, lots of hands had been wrung, lots of words had been said. But in the end, Katie had walked out of the house that she’d grown up in with her parents’ blessing.

“After the initial shock, they came around. Of course they were ecstatic that I was finally able to conceive…”

“Just not so ecstatic about the out of wedlock part,” Alison said.

Katie nodded. “They like
Darío
and everything, that’s not it…”

“They’re just concerned that you’re marrying a man – having a child with a man – who you’ve only known for what? Three? Four? Months?”

Katie placed her hand on her stomach, feeling the tiny roundness that was
discernible
only to her. And
Darío
when she was naked
. “Four and a half,” she said.

“You can’t blame them, Kat, they are your paren
ts. We’re concerned for you too,
”
Lizzie said.

“I know, and I love you guys for it. Just like I love my parents. But, I’m going to do it. I’m going to marry
Darío
.”

She saw Lizzie and Alison exchange glances
and then
come to some kind of silent agreement. “Well, too bad you guys are on the wagon, because we really should toast this,” Alison said, sipping from her huge,
F
ishbowl drink.

Katie let out the breath she’d been holding. “Wow. I thought I’d get a lot more argument out of you guys.” She looked at Alison seated next to her in the booth. “Especially you.”

Alison shrugged. “You went into this knowing you’d be fine on your own. I’m assuming
Darío
didn’t put the screws to you – no pun intended – to get you to marry him?”

Katie shook her head. “No, he kept his promise and didn’t bring it up.” She didn’t mention
him whispering “Marry me,
Gata
” to her as they fell asleep. She wasn’t even sure that  he was aware he’d said it, or that she’d heard it.

“Then you obviously, for whatever reason, decided you want
Darío
to be a part of your life,” Alison said. She and Lizzie, the subject apparently decided upon, returned to the half-eaten pizza.

“So, are you nervous about meeting his parents?” Lizzie asked as they were getting ready to go.

“It’s just his mother, and yes, kind of nervous. They’re very close. I’m not sure how she’s going to like having an American for a daughter-in-law. An American who doesn’t speak any Spanish. She could be really old school and want a little senorita for her son.”

“Just the two of them while he was growing up?” Alison, ever the
shrink
, asked.

Katie nodded.

“Hmm, that’s interesting.
Darío
doesn’t seem like a mama’s boy, so you should be okay. What did she do, when he was a kid, before he turned pro?”

“He said she was a cook at the country club. Has been since he was born.” She didn’t feel the need to tell her friends about
Darío
’s upbringing. It seemed…unfaithful…somehow. It was probably the first thing she’d ever kept from Lizzie and Alison. She didn’t let herself think about the significance of that.

“Great. Of course you’d end up having a mother-in-law
who’s
a fantastic cook,” from Lizzie.

“I
picture
this old woman with black stockings rolled down to her ankles rolling a grocery cart home from the market every morning.” They all laughed. Katie admitted she’d had the same vision of
Darío
’s mother. “And a kerchief, definitely a kerchief.”

“She’ll probably grab you and start shouting about the
bambino
and that you’re too skinny and you need to
Mang
ia
, Mang
ia!
” Lizzie said.

“I think that’s Italian, Lizard,” Katie said, although she wasn’t sure.

He arrived two days later after a rather poor showing in Boston. He told Katie it had been be
cause his good luck charm wasn’
t there.

She met him at the airport. The minute she saw him her face lit up and
Darío
realized that two days away from this woman was two too many. He, who’d traveled alone for nearly fifteen years, did not want to be alone again.

He wanted to be with Katie. Forever.

When she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him hello, her body soft and yielding, she made him believe that was what she wanted as well.

But, deep inside he knew there was a difference. Katie wanted to be with the father of her child, and that happened to be
Darío
.
Darío
saw Katie as more than the mother of his child. She was the woman he wanted to be his wife. Share every moment with. Read her thoughtful news pieces. Stare at her beautiful face. Wince from the pain she inevitably invoked when making love.

Grow old together. That there was already a child growing out of this union was just another blessing.

He was in love with her.

It snuck up on him, but being in Boston alone, without her in the bed next to him, walking the course without being able to find her in the gallery, he had finally put it into words. He was
in love with Katie Maki.

The summer
tourists had left the area,
schools had started, the University was back in session
and
the leaves were just beginning to turn color. As
Darío
watched the sleepy little town through the car window, he thought that it would be a nice place to raise children. His children. Their children.

There was no question this time that they’d be sleeping in the same bed. But which bed? When she led him upstairs, she paused at the door to the guest bedroom. She seemed unsure of what to do. His heart went out to her.

“Katie,” he said softly, reaching for her.

“It’s just…it’s just…” her eyes, her beautiful blue eyes, looked tentatively down the hall toward the master bedroom.

He stepped backward into the guestroom, gently pulling her hand. He led her to the bed. “No ghosts in here, eh?” he asked as he slid her shirt over her head.

She sat down on the bed, reached for his belt. “No. No ghosts in here. No memories in here at all.”

He pushed her backward, her feet dragged up his calves, her legs opened wide for him. He stepped into the space
she created
. “Then let’s make some.”

They spent the next few days making arrangements.
Darío
was on the phone with his manager telling him which events he would and would not play in the new year. This season, he’d only play the two tournaments in Europe he’d already committed to – one being the Spanish Open, hardly a tournament he could skip – and the Tour Championship back here in the states in November. If all went well, when they came back from Spain for it, they’d be man and wife.