Morgan's Child (9 page)

"Are you leaving?" she asked as he stood up. She looked surprised.

"I'm going to take a turn around the island, maybe walk around the hunting preserve. No one's there at present, I take it?"

"They hardly ever use it anymore," she said, pushing her chair away from the table.

"Don't get up," he said. "Thanks for the sandwich." And before she could say anything else, he was out the door.

She
was
beautiful, Morgan thought as he headed through the dunes toward the wide beach. But her beauty had nothing to do with the problem. He was wary of being inveigled into a flirtation with a woman who was, for him, clearly beyond the pale.

If Kate hadn't been pregnant, that might have been another story, provided they could possibly find anything in common. But the baby, and especially the fact that it might be
his
baby, made problems.

As he dug his hands into his pockets and walked along the beach, Morgan reflected that he wasn't accustomed to babies bringing problems. He had learned from his mother and sisters that babies brought happiness—arrived with a supply of it, in fact, to be doled out without reservation to adoring relatives and friends. He'd never considered babies as liabilities, and his mind-set was turned topsy-turvy by this weird situation.

He bent to pick up a shell, dipped it into a foaming wavelet to wash the sand off and decided it passed muster for Christopher. As he dried it off, he cautioned himself that Kate Sinclair might be one crazy lady—he couldn't overlook that possibility.

He headed northward, steeling himself to meet the brunette from the ferry and her friend, who were walking toward him. The brunette wasn't much. But Kate Sinclair
was
beautiful, even though she was clearly off limits.

* * *

Kate watched Morgan Rhett from the kitchen window as he turned toward the dunes. He was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt with light blue-and-white stripes and a pair of blue pants with docksides and no socks. It had surprised her on the ferry when she'd glimpsed his bare ankles, because he didn't seem like the type to dress so casually.

That brunette on the ferry. The way she had crushed her breasts against Morgan's arm. No doubt she would be delighted to see him roaming the island alone.

The baby shifted, and she rested the palm of her hand lightly on her abdomen.
At least he's interested,
she told it.
At least he's going to check us out.
Little fingers or toes rippled beneath her hand, and she slowly rubbed her stomach.
Can you feel that? Does it feel good?
she asked it. Remembering Joanna's baby, she dropped her hand. She wasn't good with kids, that much was for sure.

She cleaned up the kitchen, occasionally stopping to massage the small of her back. Would Morgan return this afternoon, or would he take the ferry back to the mainland without saying anything more to her?

She hoped he would go. She didn't want him on her territory. What she wanted from him wasn't a personal relationship. After he got to know her and agreed to accept the baby, the two of them wouldn't have to have anything at all to do with each other. Their only association would be brief and for business purposes, like the way she and Courtney had been. Clean. Distant. All matters preferably handled through Morgan's attorney.

As for what would happen with Morgan, there was no point in conjecture. He would contact the fertility clinic, and then his answer would be either yes, he would take the baby, or no, he wouldn't. There was nothing more she could do to influence his decision, so she might as well get on with the things she normally did.

She changed out of Joanna's maternity clothes and pulled on the gray sweatpants and an old loose T-shirt that she used to wear on the Northeast Marine Institute's research vessel.

Time to take water samples,
she told the baby. She stuffed her hair into a battered straw hat and headed for Tyger's Creek. On her way out the door, she scooped up her lab kit, which consisted of a woven sweet-grass basket filled with the things she needed for testing water. She added ice cubes to cool down the samples.

Going down the hill on the creek side of the rise of land where the lighthouse stood was easier than going up, a fact for which Kate was now extremely thankful. She tried not to think about climbing back up the sandy path, which was not the same one that led to the ferry landing. This one was narrower, so that, in a way, walking here was much easier. She could grab hold of branches on her way down so she wouldn't fall if her sneakers slipped on loose sand.

The creek wound through salty marshland on the side of the island closest to the mainland, and it and the mud flats nearby were the home of a large number of intertidal oysters. Kate clambered into the johnboat and shoved herself awkwardly off from the shore with one of the oars.

The boat floated to the middle of the creek, and she slowly and carefully settled herself on the seat and began to row. After the city, the island seemed so quiet and so peaceful. The air here was more humid and bore the scents of both marsh and sea.

Kate let the johnboat glide to a stop near the mud flats. She removed a glass vial from a basket, dipped it into the water, then recorded the time, location and water temperature.

When she had stashed the sample on ice, she turned the boat around, bracing herself against the bottom so that she could get a better hold on the oars. If she hurried, she could send the samples to the lab on the next ferry.

She ran the boat into the reeds near the path and stood up, concentrating on keeping her balance. She was so engrossed in maneuvering around the basket in the bottom of the boat that she didn't even notice the blue heron stalking nearby until, with a whir of its wide wings, it took flight in a rush of air.

The sturdy little boat barely rocked. But Kate was so startled that she slipped sideways over the gunwale and fell slowly, almost comically, into the creek. She cried out when her shoulder sent a spray of water into the air, and she got a mouthful of muddy creek water. Her hands instinctively wrapped around her abdomen to cushion the baby, and all she could think was,
I'm glad Morgan isn't around to see this.

Kate sputtered and kicked until her feet sank into the pluff mud on the bottom of the creek, and before she knew it she was taking stock. Her head was okay, and her arms still worked, and she was standing up. Her old straw hat hadn't fared as well—it bobbed merrily toward the sea—and the baby inside her was protesting such undignified treatment.

She had barely finished her self-inventory when she heard the shout from the path.

"Kate! Kate! Are you all right?"

Morgan charged down the path, looking for all the world like a crazed bull. A
sunburned
crazed bull. She couldn't help it, she started to giggle. And then she laughed, stood there in the muddy water and laughed until her sides ached, unable to move toward shore because she was laughing so hard at the sight of the staid and sophisticated Morgan Rhett with a red face, a sprig of juniper caught in his hair and one shoe flying into the shrubbery as he ran.

"Kate?" he said, stopping at the edge of the water.

"I—I can't help it," she wheezed, tears running out of the corners of her eyes. "You look so
funny."

"I saw you fall. Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm not. I just—oh." And she stopped laughing.

He was looking at her, dead serious. She could tell that he didn't think this was humorous at all. He looked frantic with worry, and he was kicking off his remaining shoe.

"If you think I look funny now, just wait," he said grimly. He started to roll up his pant legs before apparently thinking better of it. And then, to her utter amazement, he waded toward her fully clothed, the water swirling around his ankles, his knees. And then she began to laugh again, only this time it wasn't amused laughter, it was hysterical, a product of her roller-coaster emotions, and she couldn't stop.

She pressed her hands into her face, suddenly quiet. All she could hear was the swish of water as Morgan approached, and as she lowered her hands, he grasped her firmly by the shoulders.

"You scared me," he said, and the way he said it made it seem like a capital offense.

"I'm fine,
" she protested, brushing his hands away. She lifted one foot experimentally out of the mud on the bottom of the creek; the other one followed. A wide wake billowed behind her as she headed toward shore.

Her T-shirt clung to her body, and she pinched at it, trying to make it less revealing. When she looked down, she could see through the thin cotton and even through her bra; she could see the large dark circles of her areolas, and below her breasts, the indentation of her navel. It embarrassed her to have Morgan see her this way, the details of her swollen body so explicitly revealed.

"You have no business going out in a boat," he said sternly. "You should sit around and watch television or something."

"Television," she said scornfully. "The antenna pulls in one station, and even that one disappears sometimes." She bent over to push the boat through the reeds onto the shore, but Morgan said, "I'll do that," and gave it a giant heave.

When he turned, his eyes were on the level of the round protuberance under the wet shirt, and Kate turned away, embarrassed. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm, but she yanked it out of his grasp.

"Sorry," he said. "I thought you were falling again."

She wrapped her arms around herself, which didn't hide anything. Little rivulets of water ran off her clothes into the reeds.

"Don't you have something else to do?" Kate said.

"I've already done it," Morgan said. He had come to this end of the island to evade the two women from the ferry who kept following him around. He hadn't known he would run into Kate.

"Would you mind bringing that basket from the boat?" Kate asked him in a small voice.

He leaned over and picked up the basket. "Come along, I'll see you safely to the house. How you're going to make it up that winding path—"

"I can do it," Kate said through gritted teeth.

He made her walk in front of him, and she was aware of him close behind her as she headed upward. Kate eased her way by pulling herself up with the aid of drooping branches. By no means did she want to give him any reason to touch her again.

I will not,
she thought grimly,
let him see me breathing hard.
Nevertheless, she was huffing and puffing when they reached the top.

"Of all the harebrained, idiotic things to do," Morgan muttered. "Pregnant women aren't supposed to go gallivanting around in boats. They should stay home and crochet little sweaters or something."

Kate, as miserable as she was, couldn't let that pass. "Don't swing that basket so hard—you'll break the sample. And I don't crochet."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," he said. "What kind of sample is in here, anyway?"

"Water," she snapped. "I told you about my job."

"A sample of water was important enough for you to risk life and limb? Since when are bacteria more important than your life or the child's?" Morgan asked heatedly.

They had reached the lighthouse, and she turned to face him in front of the door to the quarters. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with a flick of her hand.

"The child is more important, of course. I suppose I'll have to think about giving up my job, but I need the money," she said.

"Courtney provides you with living expenses, you told me that yourself," he pointed out.

"Yes, but after I have the baby, after I leave here, I'll need a nest egg. My father's illness took all we'd managed to save, and—oh, why am I telling you this?"

Kate turned away, sick at heart. She didn't want to do any more explaining; she only wanted him to go. She pushed the door open, and to her dismay, he followed her into the house.

"You should get someone to come and live with you," Morgan said. "To take care of you."

"Who? No one wants to live on a barrier island four miles off the coast. The only people who come here are slobs who complain about the smell of pluff mud, throw trash on the beaches, and ask endless questions about the lighthouse," she said, aware that her voice was rising.

"And besides," she continued in a more normal tone, "the house is too small. There are only four little rooms."

She walked swiftly into one of the other rooms, and he heard her rummaging. When she returned, she'd looped a loose shawl in a soft shade of gray around her shoulders, hiding her body.

"I'll be in touch soon," he said. He gestured in the direction of the basket containing the water sample. "Did you say something about sending that to a lab on the mainland? I can deliver it to the ferry if you'd like."

She massaged her temple for a moment. "I'd almost forgotten. Yes, that would be a big help. Here, I'll label it."

Quickly she slapped a label on the bottle and dropped it into a padded mailing envelope. "Give it to Gump on your way back," she said as she handed the envelope to Morgan. "He knows what to do."

"You'll hear from me," he said in a tone of voice that made it difficult to discern if he had uttered a promise or a threat.

She watched as he retreated, his clothes still wet, his feet still bare. She hadn't even thought to offer him a towel.