Morgan's Child (18 page)

She drew a deep breath before she spoke. "Morgan, I'm only moving into the lodge because of the water problem," she said. "Not because I want a physical relationship."

Morgan shrugged, but there was a definite flicker of hope behind his eyes. "Sure, Kate. Whatever you say," he said, and she could have sworn he was hiding a grin.

* * *

Kate hadn't been to the lodge in a long time, and it had been permanently off-limits when she was a child. Her father hadn't approved of hunting, and neither did Kate. The lodge itself was huge, and it was surrounded by outbuildings—servants' quarters, a shambles of a stable, a hut where skins had been scraped and tanned. Slowly kudzu vine had encroached and enveloped all but the main building, which was still in reasonably good repair.

"Pick a room, any room," Morgan said as he led the way to the bedrooms.

Kate chose at random. "This one," she said, and Morgan dumped her suitcase on the bed.

"I don't know about you, but I could use a drink," he said. "Meet you on the terrace in ten minutes?"

"Ten minutes," she agreed, and added, "Something nonalcoholic for me."

"One of my nieces tells me I make the best Shirley Temples in the world," he said, smiling at her as he went out.

Kate explored the rest of the hallway before joining Morgan. His room was two doors from hers.
Still too close for comfort,
she said to herself, but no matter where she went in this house, she would always be aware that Morgan was there too. She only hoped that while she stayed here with him, she would be spared the sexy, erotic dreams that had been troubling her ever since the beginning of her pregnancy.

Morgan handed her a glass when she came out onto the terrace, and he offered her a chair at the table. They could hear the sea from where they sat, the soft rise and fall of the waves, the shrill crying of the sea birds.

She sipped her drink appreciatively. "Your niece was right," she said, and Morgan smiled, the smile starting in his eyes and working its way down. She'd always, ever since the day she met him, thought he had the nicest smile.

"She usually is," he said.

"You have nieces and nephews besides Joanna's children?" she asked.

"My brother Clayborne, who lives in Atlanta, has two children, and my sister Daphne in New Orleans has four. They're all older than Joanna's brood."

"Do you see them often?"

"As often as I can. They're some of my favorite people." He paused. "I've been thinking about this fatherhood thing," he said.

"I don't know when you've had time," she answered ruefully.

"Oh, there have been some long nights," he said vaguely. His eyes sought hers. "I'm used to the idea now. I'm even looking forward to it. When I look at your body, big with my child, and think that you're the one to bear the next little Rhett, it overwhelms me."

She watched him, surprised that he had chosen to speak of this. She hadn't suspected that he had any deep feelings about the baby. He'd made it clear that he didn't love it. She waited, sensing that he had something more to say.

He turned his glass in his hands, staring down into the amber liquid. "Many of my friends have become fathers lately. They took a lot of interest in their wives' pregnancies. They saw their own babies being born. I'm beginning to think that I'd like that, too." He raised his head and looked squarely into her eyes.

This news was a complete surprise to Kate. "You're putting me on," she said at last.

"No, I mean it. Really," he said.

She fought the urge to snicker and forced herself to give the idea serious consideration. She tried to picture Morgan Rhett wearing delivery-room pajamas and a hospital mask. It was impossible, and she felt her mouth stretching into a grin.

"I
mean
it," he insisted, indignant that she didn't believe him.

"Do you know what it's like in a delivery room?" she asked incredulously.

"Oh—well, I imagine it's bright. Lights, you know, so the doctor can see what he's doing. And antiseptic."

She laughed, and he liked the way she laughed, throwing her head back as though she was really enjoying it.

"You don't know what it's like in a delivery room, either," he pointed out. "How many times have you ever been in one?"

"None," she said, sobering immediately. "I have an idea it's not the easiest place in the world to be, though. Unless you're the main event."

"Oh. Maybe. Anyway, I think I should see my baby born. It would help me—" he searched for the right word; he'd heard Charlie and Joanna use it a time or two. "It would help me
bond
with the child," he said, hoping that the term would make the right impression. When Kate's face relaxed, he knew it had.

"Bonding can set the tone between parent and child for the child's whole life," she said in a soft voice. She studied his face. "You really think you'd like that? To be in the delivery room, I mean?" she asked.

"Definitely," he said.

"I'll ask Dr. Thomas about it next time I go," she said.

"I'm going with you to your next checkup, remember?" he said. "When is your appointment?"

"Tomorrow at two o'clock, and if you still want to go, it's okay with me," she said. She finished her drink and set the glass on the table before standing and walking to the edge of the terrace, her hands pressed to either side of her abdomen in a gesture that Morgan found inexpressibly poignant.

He wanted to go to her and tell her that he'd always be there for her, but he didn't think she wanted to hear it. And so he finished his drink and made an excuse to go inside, wishing he knew some way to communicate to her all that he felt, and feeling inadequate because the only way he could think of was sexual.

Dinner was a casserole which Morgan produced from the freezer, compliments of his housekeeper in Charleston, and afterward Kate looked askance at the mounted boar and deer heads and suggested that they go out looking for loggerhead turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs.

"Anything is better than sitting around this lodge with those animals staring at me," she said, and Morgan laughed.

On the path through the dunes he caught her hand to help her through the shadowy parts, and she clung to his fingers tightly and didn't shake them away when they were standing on the wide, flat beach.

She slipped off her sandals, and he kicked off his shoes. Here under the wide sky, with the stars winking and blinking overhead, she ventured a smile at him, and he stared back at her, not returning the smile but acknowledging it with his eyes. Behind them waves rose and fell in majestic splendor, and the sand beneath their feet shone alabaster in the moonlight.

Kate inhaled deeply of the sea-tinged air. "Wow," she said. "What a day."

"Yeah."

"I'm not sure we settled much of anything," she said broodingly.

"Do me a favor. Let's not talk about Courtney or the lawyers—"

"Or Mrs. Pribble or the bulldozer or getting married—"

He grinned at her, and she smiled back.

"How do we go about finding a turtle?" he asked her.

"We tramp along the beach until we find the telltale trails. You've seen them, I'm sure—a turtle flattens the sand into a furrow leading toward the dunes, where she digs a hole and lays her eggs."

"I don't believe I've ever seen the moon so full," he said as they began to walk.

"Of course, you have," she told him. "You're exaggerating."

"Well, it's been a long time since I've looked at it," he amended. A half smile lit her features, and he still held her hand.

"How long since you've gone moon gazing?" she asked.

"Years," he told her. "Usually I'm inside on nights like this. Working," he hastened to add, because he thought he'd given her the wrong impression of himself. Suddenly it seemed important to reiterate that he was no longer the man-about-town that he'd been shortly after his divorce from Courtney.

But she was intent on a pattern in the sand. "Wait," she said. "This looks like a fresh turtle crawl." She bent over and studied the sand, then straightened and pointed toward the dunes. "The mother turtle is up there, all right. There's no return trail leading back to the ocean."

Kate guided their way into the dunes, little ghost crabs scuttling out of their path, and there, beneath the swaying stems of sea oats, Morgan switched on his flashlight and they found the mother turtle settled into a body pit and laying eggs two and three at a time.

Kate knelt beside the turtle, which blinked its eyes at them. She must have weighed three hundred pounds, and her shell was crusted with barnacles and moss.

"She's crying," Morgan said when he saw the tears running down the leathery face. He was touched by the turtle's efforts.

"Tears of exertion," Kate said, watching with a practiced eye as the mother turtle deposited eggs into the nest. They looked like ping-pong balls.

"If the nest remains undisturbed by raccoons or other predators, and if she's built it high enough on the beach so that it won't be disrupted by high tide, we can expect little turtles, perhaps a hundred or so, to crack out of the eggs, dig their way out of the sand, and crawl down to the water in about sixty days," Kate said.

The mother turtle, exhausted from her exertions, began to fill in the nest, and after half an hour or so she wearily headed back toward the sea, finally disappearing into the surf.

Morgan switched off his flashlight. "I'd say that human mothers have an infinitely better deal," he said. His tone was ironic but tinged with admiration for what the mother turtle had accomplished.

Kate laughed. "That's because you've never been one. And as for producing babies, it's oysters who have it easy."

He glanced at her, taking in the curve of her lips and the tiny cleft in her chin. He sensed that she liked explaining these things and enjoyed sharing her knowledge with him.

"Tell me about oysters," he said. He took her hand again, and she laced her fingers companionably through his.

"Well, their sex life is scandalous," she said, warming to the topic. "In warm months, those without an
R,
their sex organs push the other parts of their bodies out of the way, taking over. And then the female oyster ejects perhaps a hundred million unfertilized eggs in one season, sending them into the surrounding waters in spurts."

"Spurts?" Morgan said.

"Spurts," Kate affirmed. "Then, a neighboring male oyster, hopefully from a good family, spews ten times that many sperm, which encounter the eggs purely by chance. These random encounters result in larvae, who enjoy the only freedom they're likely ever to have by riding water currents for a couple of weeks."

"When do they settle down?"

"Oh, when they're about the size of a pinhead, they exude a concrete like substance and attach to something, usually another oyster. And that's it, except that they change sexes."

"And then star in their own TV reality show?"

"If only. Most oysters change sex at least once during their lives, and the frequency seems to depend on water temperature. In the Mediterranean, they might change sex several times in one season, but in Scandinavia, where the water is colder, they generally stay the same sex all year."

She was so caught up in the discussion that she almost didn't feel the strange twinge in her abdomen. When she realized that it wasn't going away, she stopped suddenly.

"What's wrong, Kate?" Morgan asked, looking alarmed.

"The baby," she said, a peculiar expression crossing her face. "It pushes so hard against my stomach sometimes that it makes me uncomfortable. My, it's active tonight."

"Is that
normal?"
he asked in alarm.

"My doctor says it is. Sometimes the baby gets in a position—ooh, it's doing it again," she said.

While his eyes were riveted on her abdomen, Morgan thought he saw the fabric of her dress move. "I can see it!" he said in excitement. "I can see the baby moving!"

She looked down and laughed in delight. "It's very strong, isn't it?" She looked at him, her eyes bright. "Would you like to feel it? To touch your baby?"

He nodded his head slowly. Just as slowly, still gazing into his eyes, Kate took his hand and pressed it against her belly. At first he felt nothing, but then he noticed a tiny ripple beneath his fingertips.

He wasn't sure that it was real until he felt a good solid thump against Kate's abdominal wall. It was such a strong blow that his hand automatically recoiled, but he pressed more firmly and was quickly rewarded with another thunk. He felt his mouth hanging open and closed it. He swallowed. Suddenly he felt slightly light-headed.

"That's it," she said. "That's your baby."

"My baby," he said in wonder.
"Mine."

"Yes, Morgan. Your child," she replied softly.

He wanted to jump; he wanted to run. He wanted to whoop and holler. But instead he slid his hand around what remained of Kate's waist and brought her close to him. She might have pulled away again, but he didn't give her the chance. He lifted a hand and pressed her head to his shoulder until it rested comfortably, and then he wrapped both his arms around her until he, too, could feel the child moving against his own abdomen.