Still the One (19 page)

“It’s that serious?” Katie said.

“Yes. It can be a life-threatening condition for both the mother and the baby. But as I said, ninety percent of the time,
partial placenta previa resolves itself.”

Katie’s brow wrinkled. “What will you do if she starts bleeding?”

“It depends. If it’s close to her due date, we’ll deliver by C-section. If the bleeding isn’t too severe, we’ll put her on
bedrest for the remainder of her pregnancy, but we’ll still need to deliver by cesarean, probably a week or so early.”

“So I’ll have a scar?” Gracie asked. The thought of having one wasn’t quite as intriguing as looking at them on other people.

“Yes, but it would be low enough you can still wear a bikini.” Dr. Greene clicked some more buttons on the console. “In the
meantime, don’t worry. But as a precaution, I don’t want you having sex or putting anything in your vagina.”

As if!
Gracie felt her face heat.

“She’s just gotten a job as the recreation assistant at Sunnyside. Is it okay for her to work?”

“Sure. She can do anything she normally does.” Dr. Greene smiled. “Congratulations, Gracie. Your baby looks beautiful and
completely healthy.”

A grin started deep inside her and radiated out, a grin so big it hurt her face.

“I’ll make a disk for you to take with you.”

“Awesome,” Gracie said. She couldn’t wait to send it to Megan. “Thanks!”

“Zack will want to see it,” Katie said.

“Yeah,” Gracie said. “He’ll be blown away.” If she wanted to keep up the screw-you attitude, she shouldn’t be so freaking
agreeable, but she was too excited to care. That was her baby, right there on the screen. Holy shit—this was for real! “How
big is my baby right now?”

“About the size of an eggplant.” Dr. Greene shut off the ultrasound machine and opened a cabinet on the far wall. She pulled
out a model of a fetus. “Your baby is just a little smaller than this.”

The plastic baby was a little bigger than the doctor’s hand. A baby like that, perfectly formed with little eyes and ears
and everything, was moving and alive inside her! Wow. It was totally awesome—scary and wonderful and amazing, all at the same
time. A sense of pride and importance surged through her. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she mattered, as
if she had a purpose.

She was going to be a mother!

Oh, God. A mother! The pride was chased by panic. She was just a kid herself. She didn’t know anything about how to be an
adult—how to pay bills or get insurance or any of those other mysterious things that grown-ups knew how to do. How was she
going to take care of a baby by herself?

Dr. Greene handed her some paper towels to wipe the gel off her belly. “You can get dressed, Gracie. Considering the position
of your placenta, I’d like to see you in two weeks.”

“Okay.”

Katie handed her her clothes, her eyes tender and warm, and a traitorous thought crossed Gracie’s mind: She might want Katie’s
help after all.

Zack squinted at the screen of his laptop open on the kitchen table. It was like looking at a moving Rorschach test. He saw
lots of things that looked like bubbles and spilled cola, but nothing remotely humanoid. “I still don’t see it.”

“Right there.” Gracie leaned over and pointed to a blob. “That’s the head. Do you see it now?”

Zack still didn’t, but he didn’t want to disappoint Gracie. She and Katie had burst through the door after the doctor’s visit,
happy and hyper and talking a mile a minute, and Gracie was obviously eager for Zack to share her excitement. He didn’t want
to let her down.

“That’s a foot right there, ” Katie said, bending over his other shoulder. The scent of her shampoo made it hard to concentrate.

Something on the screen moved—and all of a sudden, he made out a tiny form. His pulse kicked up as if he’d drawn the last
ace in a straight. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Holy smokes—it looked so—so
human
! In an abstract kind of way, like it had been run through a special-effects machine or something.

Still, it was definitely a baby.

“The doctor said it looks perfect,” Gracie said. “The heartbeat is strong and the head size is right and everything looks
great.”

“That’s terrific.”

“Yeah.” Gracie smiled. For the first time, she had that glow that people talked about pregnant women having. “The placenta
is kinda low, though, and that might be a problem, but the doctor thinks it’ll be okay.”

“Why would that be a problem?”

“The placenta is the part that implants in the uterus and feeds the baby. It’s supposed to come out after the baby, not before,”
Katie explained. “If it’s over the cervix, she might start bleeding and have the baby too early.”

Zack’s stomach tightened.

“The doctor says it usually corrects itself as the pregnancy progresses. She thinks it’ll be all right.”

The screen went blank. Gracie headed for the refrigerator and lifted out a carton of milk. “The doctor said my diet is really
important, so we’re going to need to get lots of fruits and vegetables and healthy crap.” She cut a guilty glance at Zack.
“I mean stuff.”

She was trying to clean up her language. She got an A for effort. “Sure thing.”

“What’s for dinner, anyway? I’m starved.”

“I, uh, don’t know.” Zack usually didn’t think about dinner until he was hungry. “We can go out, or we can order pizza.”

“Again?”

There weren’t a lot of culinary options in Chartreuse.

“I’ve got frozen veggies and some cooked chicken,” Katie offered. “You can come home with me and we’ll make stir-fry.”

“Sounds great,” Gracie said. “I’ll cook.”

Katie gave Zack a polite smile. “You’re welcome to join us.”

She didn’t really want his company; she was inviting him out of her ingrained sense of Southern hospitality. She’d been stiff
and distant ever since he’d kissed her, sending off prickly vibes.

Well, hell. He deserved stiff and prickly. He deserved a whole porcupine, shoved squarely where the sun didn’t shine. What
had he been thinking? He’d told himself before he came to Chartreuse that he wasn’t going to get anything started with Katie.
He wasn’t even sure how it had happened. One minute they were arguing about getting Gracie a car, and the next…

Hell. What had happened next had melted his brain, and he hadn’t thought straight since. He shouldn’t have touched Katie.
That had been his downfall. Touching her had set off some kind of weird chemical reaction that had short-circuited his prefrontal
cortex. His reptilian brain had taken over, and it had held only one thought:
Get closer
. It hadn’t helped that Katie had seemed awfully amenable to the idea at the time.

He hadn’t been able to get rid of that reptilian thought, either. It kept nagging at him, making him take long showers and
use excessive amounts of soap, which only resulted in an unsatisfactory, temporary abatement of what seemed like a chronic
condition.

From her reserved, overly polite behavior, it was pretty clear that Katie regretted the moment of regressive behavior and
wanted to keep her distance. If he was any kind of gentleman, he’d refuse the dinner invitation and let her off the hook.

Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t. “Thanks. That sounds great.”

The summer air steamed around them as the three of them traipsed down the block to Katie’s house, past an elderly couple sitting
on a front porch swing. The man wore an orange plaid shirt, olive khakis, and bright green suspenders. The woman wore a flowered
button-up dress like his great-aunt used to wear, a thing she called a housecoat.

“Hello, there, Katie,” the man called.

“Hello, Mr. Gantor—Mrs. Gantor.”

“We sure enjoyed that casserole,” the man said.

“I’m so glad.”

“If you have a moment, I’ll fetch the dish for you,” the old woman called.

Gracie blew out an impatient sigh. “I’m starving.”

Katie glanced at her anxiously, then smiled at the elderly couple. He could see that she was torn between making the elderly
couple happy and appeasing Gracie. Apparently Gracie won out. “We’re kind of in a hurry. I’ll stop by for it tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t quite hear you, dear. Did you say there’s something you want to borrow?”

“She said she’ll stop by tomorrow,” Mr. Gantor said loudly.

“Oh. Okay, dear.” The woman smiled at Katie. “Who’s that with you?”

“This is my daughter, Gracie.”

“Racy? Oh, I wouldn’t say that, dear. All the girls wear their clothes tight these days.”

“She said it’s her daughter, Gracie,” Mr. Gantor said.

“I’m not her…,” Gracie began.

“Stuff it,” Zack warned her under his breath.

“And this is Zack Ferguson,” Katie continued. “He’s moved into the old Ashton house.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

Mrs. Gantor pulled on his sleeve. “What did she say?”

“That Nellie was right after all.”

“I’ll come see you tomorrow and we’ll catch up,” Katie promised.

“Ketchup? That’s sweet, dear, but we have a full bottle.” The woman wiggled her fingers in a little wave. “Nice meeting you.”

“Nice meeting you, too,” Zack called. He glanced down at Gracie and gave her a nudge. “Likewise,” she muttered.

Katie strode quickly past the next house, where a curtain parted as they walked past. She opened her front door.

“Don’t you lock your place?” Zack asked.

“I do at night, and when I’m gone long, but not when I’m just going down the street. My neighbors keep an eye on things for
me.”

A louvered window opened across the street. This place took neighborhood watch to a whole new level. “Apparently so. But you
should lock up anyway. Someone could sneak in when your neighbors aren’t looking.”

Katie looked like she was about to protest, then glanced at Gracie. He could see the thought rolling through her head. She
had to set a good example. “You’re right. Gracie, I’ll have a key made for you in the morning.”

She strode into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and pulled out a green pepper and a stalk of celery. She handed them to Gracie
and indicated the cutting board. “Would you please dice these?” She went to the cupboard and pulled out an onion and two cloves
of garlic. “And you can cut these.”

“I can see where I rank,” he commented. “I get the stinky work.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Gracie almost crack a smile. Katie opened the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables,
then opened the refrigerator and pulled out a package of precooked chicken breasts. As Katie made rice, she gave Gracie directions
on preparing the stir-fry. Zack set the table, and twenty minutes later, they sat down at the dining table to steaming bowls
of stir-fry and rice, fragrant with lemongrass and garlic.

“I think we should say grace,” Katie said.

“Grace,” Gracie quickly said. “Although I prefer to be called Gracie.”

Katie grinned at her. “I meant a blessing.”

Gracie rolled her eyes. “What for? That’s just superstition.”

“Not to me.”

Gracie huffed out an exasperated sigh. “You didn’t insist on praying last time we all ate together here.”

“You were upset.”

“I can get upset again.”

Apparently the baby high was wearing off and she was reverting to ticked-off teenager mode. Zack decided to try to head things
off. “It’s Kate’s house, so let’s do things her way.”

Katie held out her hands. Zack folded his fingers tightly around hers, enjoying the sensation of her warm palm in his. He
extended his other hand to Gracie. The girl rolled her eyes again, blew out another long-suffering sigh, then took each adult’s
hand.

The moment struck him as surreal. There they were, gathered around the table, holding hands, just like one big happ family.
The concept should have alarmed him, but oddly enough, it didn’t. Katie bowed her head and closed her eyes. “Thank you, God,
for this food and all our many blessings. Help us to remember how loving and kind you are toward us, and help us to be loving
and kind to others. Amen.”

“Amen,” Zack echoed.

Gracie remained silent. He squeezed her hand.

“A men,” Gracie said, jerking her hand back. “A women, too.” She picked up her fork.

“Napkin, Gracie,” Zack said.

She huffed out a sigh. “What are you, the etiquette police?”

“Yeah. And I’m citing you for a moving violation.” Zack grinned and picked up a pair of chopsticks. “You’re going to have
to set a good example for your child, you know.”

“Oh, like you did?”

The kid really knew how to kick him where it hurt. He forced a smile. “I’m trying to make up for lost time.”

“Yeah, well, don’t bother.” Ignoring the chopsticks Katie had put out, Gracie scooped a pile of food on her fork. “I had a
dad, and you’re not him.”

“I couldn’t believe how clearly the baby showed up on the ultrasound,” Katie said in a transparent attempt to change the subject.

Gracie’s face softened. “Yeah. That was way cool.”

“You ought to send a copy of the ultrasound to your baby’s father,” Zack remarked.