Caught by You

Author:Jennifer Bernard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

LIFE BEFORE MIKE faded into a distant, dull sort of dream. All the elements of her previous reality still existed. She still showed up every morning for work at Dental Miracles. She still made appointments for root canals, showed patients into examination rooms, and took quick trips to the break room to swallow down burnt coffee. She picked Zack up for outings twice a week, and an overnight once a week; Mike came with them as often as he could.

But everything was glazed with the misty sheen of magic that went along with being engaged to a baseball player. The other staff members ate up every line of her interview in the Kilby Press-­Herald. Someone cut out the article and posted it on the bulletin board in the break room. She kept getting peppered with questions, especially from her young, single coworkers.

“How did you meet him, really? . . . The only guy I ever met at the Roadhouse lived in his van and shot roadkill for breakfast . . . If you ever want to go on a double date, you call me, girl. I’d take Trevor Stark, Dwight Conner, or even that crazy Yazmer. Hell, they’re all cute. . . . What do Mike Solo’s thighs look like when he ain’t wearing that uniform? Mind taking a picture sometime?”

She deflected all the questions with good humor, because she was too happy to be irritated. Not even when she was called in to assist one of the dentists, and instead of handing him dental instruments, she wound up reenacting Mike’s proposal, using a box of tissues as a stand-­in for the bouquet of lilacs.

She gave some thought to Mike’s suggestion that she quit her job, but decided she’d wait until Judge Quinn made his decision. She didn’t want to look unreliable or flaky. Given the new timeframe for the wedding, Crush had hired a professional planner who only called Donna for token consultations. The whole thing felt like a dream, with Mike the solid, irresistible anchor to reality.

One day Mike announced that it was time for him to meet her father and stepmother.

“You know, I’d rather get three root canals than have a conversation with my stepmother,” Donna told him.

“I have to meet them,” Mike insisted. “It’s important to me.”

“Do you have to be such a boy scout?”

“Take back the ‘boy’ part,” he growled, shifting the conversation from verbal to physical. “And I’m not letting this go, just so you know.”

Donna had no wish to take him to the home where she’d been nothing but miserable after her mother left. From the moment Carrie had moved in, they’d clashed. A former army sergeant, Carrie had no patience for a confused, high-­energy kid who didn’t understand why her mom had moved out, and Donna had done her best to piss Carrie off. She wasn’t proud of it, but she couldn’t change it now. She still hadn’t found a way to get along with Carrie—­not that the other woman seemed interested in family harmony.

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