Morgan's Child (14 page)

She stared at him, eyes wide, the irises looking very black. He felt her heart pulsing beneath his fingertips and realized that he was gripping her shoulders too tightly.

"Good night, Kate," he said, making himself step back. Her lips were parted and moist from his kisses, and she had never looked so desirable. Nor had his thoughts ever been so carnal.

He left her then, slamming out of the house and rushing along the path toward the dunes in the light of a moon that seemed too white, too full, and too bright. In his head were images of Kate, her hair flying in the wind at the top of the lighthouse, her lips swollen from his kisses, and her eyes filled with uncertainty.

As Morgan approached the lodge, he realized with surprise that someone was waiting for him on the terrace.

He stopped in alarm and narrowed his eyes, aiming the beam from his flashlight to separate the figure on the terrace from the shadows.

The person who was waiting stepped forward.

"I thought you'd never get here, Morgan. What took you so long?" said Courtney.

Chapter 7

"What are you doing here?" Morgan demanded.

Courtney regarded him with a half smile.

"Invite me in and you'll find out," she said. "The bugs, by the way, are ferocious. How can you stand living here?"

Morgan opened the back door of the lodge and flicked on the overhead light in the big hall. The mounted animal heads cast bizarre shadows around the cypress-paneled walls.

"I like Yaupon Island," Morgan said.

"And you like what's on this island, too, right?" Courtney, with her unerring flair for the dramatic, unwound a scarf from her neck and trailed it as she walked to one of the big leather couches and sat down.

Morgan was sure she must be referring to Kate, but he decided to ignore the gibe. "How did you get here? The ferry doesn't run this late."

"Willadeen Pribble's son has a boat and was only too happy to do me the favor."

"Your husband isn't with you?"

"Damien? He's in Charleston. I had to come to Preacher's Inlet this evening for a meeting of the historical society."

To stall for time, Morgan mixed drinks for both of them, and after handing Courtney hers, he sat on the edge of a chair and eyed her warily.

"State your business, Courtney," he said. "I'm in no mood for small talk."

"I could ask you the same thing. State
your
business, Morgan. What are you doing on Yaupon Island?"

"I suppose I have your friend Willadeen Pribble to thank for passing news of my whereabouts along to you," he said, taking a sip of his drink and glowering at his ex-wife.

"How clever of you to figure out the obvious. But this isn't the season for hunting—hunting animals, that is. And you don't like to fish. So I said to myself, 'What could bring Morgan to Yaupon Island?' And I thought about the beauteous Kate Sinclair, and voila!"

"It's none of your business what I'm doing here," Morgan said heatedly.

"I think it is, especially when Kate Sinclair is carrying our baby," she said.

Morgan slammed his glass down on the coffee table. "You didn't want the baby. You told Kate to put it up for adoption."

"I didn't tell her to give it to you!" Courtney said, her voice escalating in pitch. "We fought a court battle over those embryos, Morgan. I won custody. They were mine to do with whatever I wished."

"The contract you and Kate signed states that the baby is to be put up for adoption if you renege on the agreement. I'm adopting it, Courtney. Adopting my own child!" There was no mistaking the irony in his tone.

Courtney leaned forward, her infuriating smile exposing a row of shiny white teeth. Perhaps it was only the mounted wolf's head in the background, but never had she looked more predatory.

"Read the contract again," she said. "The baby is to be adopted by a
married
couple.
Married,
Morgan. Unless you can find a woman to marry you, it's no go."

He stared at her, nonplussed at this new development.

"You haven't read the contract, Morgan? You should. I'll tell my lawyer to send you a copy. Shall I have it sent here?" Courtney stood up.

"Get out," Morgan said, barely able to contain his fury.

"I'm going," she said.

"Not nearly fast enough," Morgan answered, hurrying to the door and flinging it wide.

"I'm sure you can find someone to marry, Morgan. Don't you have women standing in line to go to bed with you? Too bad you never knew what to do with a woman when you finally got her there." After firing that parting shot, Courtney disappeared into the night.

Morgan slammed the door after her and stood with his fists clenched, fighting the impulse to run after her and scream epithets. Courtney, as usual, had hit below the belt. Their sex life had been a disaster. He'd never known anyone who was as cold and demeaning as his ex-wife. Making love to her had been like cuddling up to an iceberg.

Through the window he saw a shadow detach itself from a tree and join Courtney at the juncture of the path to the ferry landing. It must be the Pribble boy. When they had disappeared into the darkness, he exhaled slowly, his shoulders slumping.

Morgan sat down to finish his drink, massaging his temples thoughtfully. He was sure that Kate had never read the small print in the contract, and she probably had no idea that it specified that her baby could only be adopted by a married couple.

And just as he and Kate were getting used to each other, he didn't want to ruin their burgeoning relationship with an announcement as unwelcome as this one. All his protective instincts were aroused on her behalf. Kate had suffered enough from Courtney's whims, and he would not allow Courtney to sink her claws into Kate Sinclair again.

Besides the big hall and the long line of bedrooms, the lodge contained innumerable bathrooms, a kitchen and a terrace overlooking the ocean. It was a lonely place but well suited for solitary thoughts. He tore open a bag of potato chips and lay back on the couch, listening to the rush of waves to shore and exploring the situation in all its complexities as he munched.

Was Courtney telling the truth? Did the contract really say that the baby resulting from those embryos could only be adopted by a married couple? He didn't like his ex-wife, and she didn't like him. But he was pretty sure that even Courtney wouldn't make up something like this.

And Kate—why hadn't she known what was in the contract? Was she so oblivious to legalities that she had plunged into surrogate motherhood without knowing all the ramifications of the contract she'd signed?

Finally, worn out with thinking, Morgan reached for the book on pregnancy and childbirth that Lavinia had sent. There might be no ready answers for the questions he'd been asking himself about this bizarre situation, but the book was most informative and answered other questions that had come to mind in the past few days.

It did, for instance, have a complete section on sex during pregnancy, a section that Morgan read twice.

* * *

Tony Saldone was jubilant when Morgan reached him at his hotel in Maine early the next morning.

"Good thing you phoned, Morgan. I've got new information about the Sinclair woman."

"Yeah, well look, Tony, you can call off the investigation," Morgan said from the public phone at the Merry Lulu.

"Call it off!" Tony said, sounding injured. "You gotta be kidding."

"I mean it. Fly home and send me a bill."

"Don't you want to know what I've found out?"

"Not especially."

"Kate Sinclair was fired from Northeast Marine Institute for blowing the whistle on the director and a colleague, at least one of whom was fabricating data. She even testified before Congress in their investigation of federal funds being misspent for false research. I cozied up to one of the assistants who works in the lab, and—"

"Can it, Tony. Kate told me about that."

"She couldn't have told you all of it because she doesn't know all of it. According to Penelope, Kate was correct in her allegations about her co-worker's research, and the independent Federal Health Foundation Office of Scientific Ethics is getting ready to blow the whole thing sky-high in a report."

"How does this Penelope know?"

"She's a good, good friend of a guy who works for the FHF. You still want me to quit?"

Morgan thought quickly. On one hand there was Kate's understandable aversion to his putting Tony on her case. On the other hand Kate could possibly benefit from finding out what the Federal Health Foundation intended to do.

"Well, Morgan, what do you say?"

Morgan felt as if he was double-dealing, and he didn't like the smell of this. But if he could help Kate, he would.

"Stay on the case, Tony. Find out whatever you can."

"Good decision. I'll let you know if I learn anything. And thanks. There's nothing I like more than entertaining beautiful and compliant women on an expense account."

Morgan hung up the phone slowly. He felt like a two-faced sneak, poking around things that didn't concern him.

Or did they? They involved Kate, and if they affected her, they also concerned the baby. And whatever concerned the baby also concerned him, committed as he was to its welfare.

Which was why, on the spur of the moment, he drove into Charleston and dropped in unannounced at his attorney's office.

Ted Wickes, his longtime lawyer, was a close personal friend, and Morgan poured out the story of Courtney and Kate, the embryos, Kate's pregnancy, and the baby.

"Courtney offered to send me a copy of the contract," Morgan said.

Ted shook his shaggy head to and fro in amazement. "Let me make some phone calls," he said, and within ten minutes Morgan and Ted were inspecting the contract and its small print.

"Looks like Courtney's right," Ted said.

"What are my options?" Morgan tossed his copy of the contract on Ted's desk in disgust.

"You can either get married or take Courtney to court."

Morgan groaned. "Courtney and I have barely finished our last legal battle. The last thing I need is another destructive lawsuit while I'm still smarting from the divorce."

"You need time to worry this through, is that what you're saying?"

"Ted, I have absolutely no desire to face my ex-wife across a courtroom again. I want to be through with her. I want her out of my life."

"Understandable. So if you still want the baby, get married to somebody else."

"Married. Right."

"Well then, forget the whole thing. Let another couple adopt the kid."

"Allow a Rhett to be reared by someone else? Never! Anyway, I've been thinking it over, and the baby seems like a good idea. Insurance of my immortality and all that. I'd given up on the idea of being a father because after Courtney and I divorced, it didn't seem to be in the cards, but this baby is mine and I want it, Ted."

"Then you know what to do," Ted said.

"I'm paying you for advice like this? I don't need it," Morgan said.

"You asked for it, my friend." Ted smiled and shrugged into his suit jacket. "Join me for lunch, Morgan? We can try the steaks at the new grill down the street."

Morgan declined the meal. "I have some contemplating to do" was his excuse.

He was still thinking when he boarded the
Yaupon Island Belle
for passage back to the island. And what he was thinking was that there was only one way for both him and Kate to achieve their objectives.

They would have to get married.

* * *

Morgan heard the music when he was still in the shade of the trees sheltering the path from the ferry dock to the keeper's quarters. And he heard a voice, Kate's voice, singing along.

He approached the back door slowly so as not to startle her, and as he drew closer, he saw Kate waltzing gracefully around the kitchen, her head thrown back so that her hair rippled down her back in a shining gold fall, her arms cradling her abdomen.

She looked beautiful, and he was entranced by the sight. Although he meant to move away from the door so she wouldn't see him, she glanced in his direction and stopped in her tracks, her rapturous expression turning rapidly to one of consternation.