Morgan's Child (5 page)

"I was afraid—" he said, and then he stopped talking and looked deep into her eyes. She stared back, spooked by his change in manner. "Are you all right?" he asked sharply.

She shook her head back and forth in an effort to clear it. "No," she said. "No, I'm definitely not all right." She was slowly realizing that what she had seen in his eyes only a moment ago was the glimmering of a conscience.

"You'd better sit down," he said, appropriating her arm, and she said nothing when he steered her down the steps to street level, across busy East Battery Street and into the park on the other side. He found an empty bench and gave her a little push in its direction. She sat down and tried to breathe deeply. She felt faint, and walking had stirred up the baby.

"Ms. Sinclair," he said.

"Kate," she reminded him. "You might as well call me by my first name, considering we have such an, um, intimate relationship."

"Intimate," he said. "Well, I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Your child is, right at this moment, aiming drop-kicks at my kidneys," she said. "Cells created by you occupy a large part of my body. That's pretty intimate if you ask me."

"I didn't," he said, tugging at his tie to loosen it.

"Why did you look for me? Why didn't you let me go?"

He looked even more uncomfortable. "I thought about it. If it's my child—"

"It's yours," she said unhappily.

"I don't know that. You can't prove it. I don't know what kind of life you lead," he pointed out.

She focused wide eyes on him. "Oh, that takes some nerve. You want to know how many men I've slept with, right?"

"And you don't want to tell me, right?"

"It so happens that there haven't been any men, none whatsoever. For almost three years I've been living on Yaupon Island in the keeper's quarters of the lighthouse, where I nursed my sick father until he died. This baby came straight out of a laboratory, and I'll thank you never to mention it again," Kate said.

He seemed chastened. "I'll have to contact the fertility clinic, of course, and ask them to verify that you received the embryos," he said.

"Why don't you just ask Courtney? It'd be a whole lot easier," Kate said.

"We don't speak. It wasn't an amicable divorce."

"No wonder. You're not easy to talk to," she snapped.

"Some people think—"

"I'm not interested in anyone else at the moment. Are you going to take responsibility for this baby or aren't you?" she demanded.

"
If
what you say is true, and
if
I can prove it, and
if
you're what you appear to be—"

"Which is what?" Kate said hotly.

"A woman who is down on her luck and has a bizarre story to tell," he shot back.

She slumped suddenly. "Well, you've got that right, I guess," she said. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her. He noticed that her skin, though tanned honey gold by the sun, had pasty undertones.

He spoke on a sudden impulse. "Look, have you had anything to eat lately?"

She passed a limp hand over her eyes. "No," she said.

He took quick stock of her; she looked exhausted. "Let's go get some food. We can talk in the restaurant."

"I don't think I want to do that," she said in a small, quiet voice.

"What you mean is that you don't want to walk there," he said.

She lifted her head, surprised.

"I'm observant," he said. "I was holding on to you as we crossed the street, remember? You felt as though you were about to collapse. Let's not take any chances. My car is parked down the street, and I'll drive over here. You'll hop in—"

"My hopping days are over," Kate said morosely, easing one shoe off her foot and inspecting the blister from afar. She watched with a sense of helplessness as a run in her panty hose inched up her leg.

"You'll get in the car, and we'll drive somewhere quiet. All right?"

"All right."

"I ought to have my head examined," he muttered under his breath.

She pinned him with her eyes, which were remarkable for their intelligence. "I may be tired, but there's nothing wrong with my hearing. Please stop insulting me."

Morgan swallowed. Again he felt as though she had the upper hand. Well, in this case maybe he had been out of line.

"I'll be right back," he said, and the whole time he was hurrying to his car, he was wondering what gave Kate Sinclair the right to act like some kind of duchess.

* * *

Kate waited for Morgan, her expression bleak. She supposed he couldn't help being skeptical, but it was hard to see his point of view when she was desperate for him to take the baby or at least find a good home for it.

It hadn't been easy for her to beard Morgan Rhett in his own den. He was well-known in Charleston circles, and although Kate had never met him, she knew who he was. He owned real estate up and down the South Carolina coast and was one of the developers of Teoway Island, a prime beach, golf and tennis resort fifteen miles south of Charleston.

It was just that she hadn't expected him to be so handsome, with those broad shoulders, square-jawed face, patrician nose and deep-set ultra blue eyes that missed nothing. She suspected that the expensive, perfect suit hid a muscular, perfect build, product of frequent workouts at a local gym.

He was such a well-put-together package that she'd pegged him as a natural ladies' man, a real smooth-talking, fast-acting bachelor. Kate could, in her mind, picture him with Courtney, but the idea made her shudder. How could Courtney have married a sleazeball like Damien Cobb after having been the wife of the oh-so-perfect Morgan Rhett?

A car squealed to a stop at the curb in front of her and the door on the passenger side flew open. The car was a metallic-beige Mercedes sedan, one of the big models.

Kate heaved herself off the park bench and wedged herself into the front seat with a bit of difficulty. Once she was there, she sank into the cushioned leather upholstery with relief. She didn't look directly at Morgan Rhett.

He stopped the car at a crosswalk to wait for pedestrians to pass. "We'll go someplace small and quiet," he said, easing into the lane that would take them to less-crowded Mount Pleasant across the bridge, and Kate nodded. She didn't care where they went as long as it had a rest room.

He drove his car as though he were part of the machine. No, he was master of it, Kate decided, sending him a sidelong glance from beneath her eyelashes. She had an idea that if Morgan Rhett decided on a course of action, nothing could sway him from it.

That was good for her purposes, and now her job was to figure out how to persuade him to provide for this baby. Unfortunately she'd never been good at talking her way around men. In fact, most of the time she'd rather not bother. It was usually easier to walk away.

But this time she couldn't walk. Waddle, perhaps, but not walk.

"You're smiling," he said. "What's so funny?"

Kate forced a straight face. She hadn't been aware that her facial expression showed any emotion whatsoever, and she hadn't realized that he was looking at her.

"Nothing about this situation is remotely funny," she said as sternly as she could. Maybe he would respond to authority in her voice.

"Oh no? It amuses me that just when I thought she was gone for good, Courtney has managed to insert herself into my life again in a different form," he said wryly as they crossed the Cooper River bridge.

She stared at him. "You have a strange sense of humor."

"That's what my ex-wife thought. Well, here we are," he told her, pulling up beside a building fronting on a nondescript dock on Shem Creek.

He came around and opened the car door for her, and although she gave herself several unsuccessful pushes, she could not unbend from the car seat. She looked at him helplessly as he offered his hand. She took it, noticing this time how square and strong it was, how immaculate his fingernails.

She was acutely and embarrassingly aware that the two of them made an odd couple as she preceded him into the small seafood restaurant that looked dingy and weathered on the outside but was all tinkling silver, coral-colored tablecloths, and wide-windowed view of the docks on the inside.

When they were seated at the best table in the corner of the small loggia, Kate said, "Order something for me, I don't care what it is. I'm going to the ladies' room," and she hurried away in the direction of the sign she'd seen on the way in.

She was horrified at the way her hair looked when she glanced at her reflection in the ladies' mirror; it looked as though she'd combed it with an eggbeater. She tried to rearrange it, but it wouldn't hang properly, it only clumped. Finally she wound the tie-dyed scarf around her head and gave up. She wasn't trying to impress this man with her looks.

On her way back to the table, she saw two women who were lingering over dessert cast longing glances in Morgan's direction, although he didn't seem to notice. As Kate approached, he was staring out the window at a fishing boat as it eased up to the dock. He looked up and saw her, and, proper gentleman that he was, he stood until she was seated.

He sat down and said, "What exactly do you want from me? You might as well spell it out."

She regarded him coolly, her heart beating a mile a minute. "I want you to adopt this baby," she said.

"Adopt my own child? That's ironic."

"The contract that Courtney and I signed provides that the baby will be placed for adoption if Courtney for any reason changes her mind. It shouldn't be reared by strangers when it has a perfectly capable parent—"

"Me?" His eyes were steely.

"Yes."

"Why should I want to do this?" he asked. His tone was abrupt.

"You have the means to care for the child and bring it up properly. I don't like the idea of putting the baby up for adoption, the way the contract requires in case of Courtney's default, and I can't take care of it," Kate said.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked.

"I study oysters," she said.

"Oysters?" he repeated, sounding surprised.

"As in the world is your," she said, and then she was afraid that she had been too sarcastic. Her father had always said that you could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and she sensed that it would be well to observe that maxim now.

"I see," Morgan said. "And so your idea is that you'll give birth to this baby, I'll pay your expenses—"

"Courtney is doing that," Kate said stiffly. "It was part of the original agreement, and her lawyer tells me that she intends to live up to it. She just doesn't want the baby."

"What makes you think I do?"

She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "Nothing, except that you're the father," she said miserably.

"I don't feel one bit paternal about that—that lump under your dress," he retorted. "However, if it
is
my biological child, I don't want anyone else rearing it. Rhetts live up to their responsibilities."

"It's not—not just a lump," she said. "It's a baby, a real, live person, a child who will need attention and regular visits to a pediatrician and new shoes periodically and—and a lot of love."

"I can't give it love," he said. "I told you, I feel nothing."

Remarks such as that one made her emotions surface, much to her embarrassment. She looked down at the tablecloth and fought back the tears that came much too easily these days. Kate had never been a weeper. Not until now, that is.

"Kate, I need to make inquiries, surely you understand that. It will take time."

"But if you could prove that the baby is yours,
then
would you take it?" Kate said on a note of desperation.

"I am no longer married, Ms. Sinclair. A baby doesn't fit into my life-style. But I don't want my kid to grow up with somebody else's last name. How Courtney could have abandoned this child after arranging for you to bear it is beyond my comprehension. If it's mine, I'll provide for it." His blue eyes were as cold as ice.

Kate blinked away her tears. This was a concession of sorts.

"Now, here's our food. You look famished, and the steamed oysters here are the best in the world," he said.

Kate focused her blurry eyes on the waiter, who was wheeling a huge container of oysters to their table. With a flourish of his gloved hands he began to crack the shells, exposing the exquisite little oyster bodies, dead and smelling of the sea.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Kate murmured, and, clapping a hand to her mouth, she bolted for the ladies' room.

Chapter 3