Saving Katya Read Online Free

We’re going home.”
    “We’re not going home.” Debra laughed, as if it was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “We’ve come too far. You’re too close.”
    “I don’t care.” Kate shook her head. “The risk is too great.”
    “Kate, you’re talking about your eyesight.”
    “Don’t you think I know that?” Kate blew out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you think I know this surgery is my last chance? If I don’t get the money to have this procedure done within a few weeks, I’ll be completely blind within a year.”
    “Then why would you even consider going home now?”
    “The surgery isn’t a guarantee. The odds of success are only fifty-fifty. I’m not going to set her up for a rejection on those odds.”
    If Kate had to make a choice between the possibility of saving her sight and the welfare of her only child, she could deal with being blind. She’d learn. She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned back and stretched her legs, resting one ankle atop the other.
    “Your daughter is why you have to do this.” Debra eyed her with one very annoying eyebrow shooting up. “If he’s her father then he should help.” She was fishing but Kate wasn’t biting. Yet.
    “The best thing Alexei Petrova can do for me is go back where he came from.”
    “Spoken like a true hardhead.” Debra turned her head away momentarily. But soon enough she had Kate back in her sights. “Why don’t you want help from the one person who truly owes you?”
    She rolled her eyes toward Debra. “Believe me, any debt that Alexei owes is better left uncollected.”
    Debra turned to her with a determined glare. “It’s true. He’s her father, isn’t he?” Her inquiry, more of a statement than a question, did little to shake Kate’s collected reserve.
    Stoic-faced, Kate held Debra’s stare, keeping quiet.
    “Well, come on…out with it.” Debra raked her blonde hair behind her ear.
    “What exactly do you want to know?” Kate asked, avoiding her peering gaze.
    “Well, for starters, how did Alexei Petrova come to be your daughter’s father?”
    “Do I really have to explain that to you?”
    “I’m serious, Kate. Why isn’t he helping you take care of her?” Debra shook her head and exhibited her trademark serpent’s stare. “How did he go on to become a multi-gazillionaire while you fell by the wayside, struggling to take care of his child?”
    “Calm down.” Kate cleared her throat, trying to force out the anxiety building inside. It remained. “It wasn’t like that.” No matter the facts, she didn’t like anyone criticizing Alexei. “We were kids. Just seventeen. When his coaches found out about us, they pulled him off the Olympic Tour and took him back to Russia before I realized I was pregnant.”
    “You never told him?”
    “I wrote him several letters,” Kate said. “The last two or three came back marked return to sender .” The notion that he’d do that still pierced her heart. She’d believed their love affair had meant more.
    “You don’t know that he was the one who sent them back,” Debra said, as if she knew the thoughts running through Kate’s mind.
    “That gets harder to believe after nearly eight years.”
    Debra paused, propping her face in her hand and tapping a red-tipped finger against her cheek. “I don’t think he knows.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “I just keep thinking about the look on his face when I walked up.” She paused, draping her arm along the back of the couch. “He looked like a lovesick puppy.”
    “Everybody looks like a lovesick puppy to you.”
    A jiggling at the door yanked at Kate’s awareness.
    Katya ?
    “We have to stay. If you disappear now, it’ll look suspicious,” Debra said just above a whisper. “He wants to see you and talk to you. He’s made that clear. And he’s got enough money to track you down if you vanish.”
    “Mommy...” Kate’s seven-year-old daughter rushed toward her. “The skating rink is so