Every Breath You Take (Second Opportunities 4)

With that in mind, Holly started back toward the kitchen; then she jumped in nervous shock when someone knocked at the front door just as she walked past it. Hoping it would be Evan, preferably on his knees, Holly opened the door; then she stepped back in nervous surprise. Standing on the porch was an unsmiling gray-haired man in his early sixties wearing full clerical regalia of black suit and white collar. God!” she said to the priest, her shock turning to annoyance. “What is with you right-to-life people, anyway? Are you plugged into every OB in the city? Go away! She can make up her own mind.”

must be Holly,” the priest said, smiling slightly.

don’t creep me out. Just leave your literature on the porch, and I’ll see that she gets it,” Holly said, starting to close the door.

He put his hand on the door to stop her. ’m Father Donovan, Kate’s uncle. Kate came by the rectory late this afternoon when I was out. My housekeeper said she seemed upset. She hasn’t answered my phone calls. Now, may I come in?”

Embarrassed but resolute, Holly stepped back, opened the door, and whispered, ’s sleeping right now, and she’s upset. I don’t want her to wake up. You can come into the kitchen if you want to wait around for a while.”

Holly closed the kitchen’s swinging door behind them and kept her voice low. you like some coffee?”

, thank you. I take it that Kate’s pregnant?”

Holly’s background had left her with little respect for organized religion and even less for clerics. ’ll have to discuss that with her, Father Donovan,” she said, refusing to be intimidated by his collar. The wine rack was in the corner on the counter, and she pulled out a bottle of red wine and began uncorking it, trying to remember whether it was Baptists or Catholics who disapproved of drinking alcohol. ’m going to drown my sorrows for Kate in a large glass of wine,” she warned him. hope you don’t object,” she added in a tone that conveyed she didn’t care whether he objected or not.

you planning to drink the whole bottle yourself?”

might. Why?”

When he didn’t answer, she turned around and found herself looking straight into eyes as green as Kate’s, eyes that were filled with amused curiosity. you aren’t planning to drink the bottle yourself,” he said, “I thought perhaps we could sit here and enjoy a glass together while we wait for Kate to wake up?”

, of course,” Holly said, feeling confused and rude. I’m not going to tell you about Kate’s—little problem. If she wants to confess it to a priest, that’s up to her.”

’m not here as her confessor,” he remarked. ’m here as her uncle.”

’re a priest. You’re going to tell her she has to have that—thatbastard’s baby.”

As she poured wine into two glasses, Holly waited for him to deny it. ’s what you’re going to do, isn’t it?” she challenged bitterly as she handed him a glass of wine and sat down across the table from him.

Kate came to see me today to tell me she’s pregnant, then the answer to your question is that Kate already knew what I was going to tell her. Which, in turn, makes me think that’s what she wanted to hear. What surprises me is that she’s been involved with a man you think is a bastard. She’s usually an excellent judge of people.”

Holly took a sip of her wine, considering that. this time.”

Father Donovan took a sip of his wine. must have had some quality that appealed to her?”

’s a heartless pig,” Holly declared angrily, and took another sip of wine. a heartless pig with a lot of looks and charm.”

see. Poor Kate. She’s gone with the same young man for four years. I take it the heartless pig we’re talking about isn’t him?”

, that heartless pig broke their engagement today and dumped her. She met the heartless pig who got her pregnant in Anguilla a few weeks ago. Don’t ask me to tell you anything more.”

won’t.”

Holly drank more of her wine, her thoughts on Kate; then she lifted her gaze to the man with Kate’s eyes and said in a wrenched voice, can’t believe the things he did to her, and all to get even with Evan . . .”

is the heartless pig who dumped her today?”

. Mitchell Wyatt is the one who used her and broke her heart. I’m the one who coached her about how to treat him when she saw him the last time, and he broke her heart all over again.”

meant well. It’s not your fault.”

Holly drank a little more wine and bit her lip. ’s partly my fault that she had anything to do with him in the first place. Evan took her down to Anguilla and left her there alone, and I told her she should have a fling, and that’s what she did.”

Father Donovan took another sip of wine. ’m sure Kate made that choice on her own.”

, no, she didn’t!” Holly said angrily. met Mitchell Wyatt in a restaurant one afternoon when she accidentally spilled a Bloody Mary on his shirt. He knew she was Evan’s girlfriend, but he pretended not to . . .”

“. . . WHAT A HEARTBREAKINGstory,” Father Donovan declared sincerely an hour later, after Holly finished apprising him of every minute detail, culminating in Kate’s confrontation with Wyatt at the Children’s Hospital benefit.

A second bottle of wine was on the table between them, along with a tissue box from which Holly had periodically removed a tissue to dab at her eyes. could kill him with my bare hands,” she said ferociously.

could I,” Father Donovan declared.

Holly looked at him with new respect. ?”

was a figure of speech.”

are we going to do now?” she asked, spreading her hands on the table, palms up. has that huge restaurant to run, and she doesn’t have anyone who cares about her anymore.”

Father Donovan looked at her in surprise. has you, Holly,” he said with a smile, you’re loyal and brave and strong. And she has me. We’ll get her through this. And when it’s all said and done, she’ll have a baby to love and to love her back, and we’ll share him with her.”

In the doorway, Kate paused and looked from Holly to her uncle. , Uncle Jamie.”

Standing up, he opened his arms to her and said tenderly, , Mary Kate.”

Kate fled into his familiar embrace.

Chapter Forty

ON A BALMYJune morning, when she was four months pregnant, Kate hurried beneath the decorative burgundy awnings of the front windows of Donovan’s on her way into work, and she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. With a sense of grim fascination, she kept walking and studying her unfamiliar outline in the glass. Her head was bent; her shoulders were hunched forward as if she had to plow her way through the lunchtime crowd in order to keep moving; her hair was a mass of untamed curls pulled up into a ponytail because that was easiest; and her pregnancy was showing. Mitchell Wyatt’s son was making his presence known.