"You don't want to get involved with me when you're going to have to give up the baby and leave," he guessed.
"Something like that," she said, turning back toward the lighthouse.
"So marry me. Then you don't have to leave."
"If I married you, I wouldn't want to go to balls, banquets or meetings of any group where ladies sit around and drink tea," she said.
He was afraid to ask it, but he had to. "No sex?" he said.
"Morgan, I'm pregnant."
He could only be blunt. "I desire you," he said.
She swallowed, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. "How you can desire a seven-months-pregnant woman is beyond me," she replied.
"You're beautiful," he said.
The sound she made fell halfway between a snort and a chuckle. "Only if you're into whale watching."
"Cut the smart remarks, Kate. They can't hide the fact that you want to sleep with me as much as I want to sleep with you."
She walked silently, and Morgan considered that this heavy-duty attempt at persuasion might be too much for Kate to absorb at one time. He was asking a lot. She'd been through so much—the loss of her job, her father's death, the historical society's insistence that she leave the island, her pregnancy and abandonment by Courtney and now the matter of the contract. Her stress level must be sky-high.
As he was trying to figure out if anything he might do could lower it a bit, they reached the path through the dunes. As they grew closer to the lighthouse, they heard an unfamiliar metallic clanking noise that here, on the island, made no sense at all.
They exchanged a mystified glance.
"What's that?" he said.
"Probably Tom and Tessie Tourist rappelling down the side of the lighthouse—or worse," Kate said, stepping up her pace.
When they came into the clearing and rounded the lighthouse, they saw a big yellow bulldozer and beside it a crew of four men studying a blueprint.
Kate stopped dead in her tracks. "What are you doing?" she asked in alarm. "Who said you could bring that—that thing onto the island?"
"Willadeen Pribble, ma'am. We're here to put in a new septic tank for the museum. You mean she didn't tell you about it?"
Chapter 8
Gump was irascible when Kate stormed aboard the ferry, which didn't help much.
"What do you mean, what did I see?" he fumed. "Some kind of landing craft ran ashore about fifty feet from the ferry dock, and then this bulldozer rolled off it. You don't think I transported a bulldozer over to Yaupon Island on my ferry, do you?"
"Of course not," Kate said irritably, trying to maintain her balance as the ferry bucked and dipped across the choppy channel.
"I bet Willadeen will be sending dune buggies over next. If you've got some kind of complaint, it's her you want to see," Gump said as Kate stormed out of the wheelhouse.
"You could have let me take care of this," Morgan told Kate as she maneuvered her infuriatingly cumbersome body down the steps in order to join him below deck.
"Ha! As if I'd want to. I can't wait to see how Willadeen is going to explain a bulldozer. I'm entitled to another four months on the lighthouse premises, and that doesn't include being serenaded by a bulldozer as it's digging up the marigold beds."
Morgan reached across the back of the seat and massaged the back of her neck. "You're awfully tense. Does that feel better?"
Kate relaxed against him. It hadn't been necessary for him to accompany her to the mainland to find out what was happening, but he had offered, and, because she'd needed moral support, she'd gladly taken him up on it.
They didn't talk until the ferry docked, and as they disembarked, Gump called, "Don't forget that the next one is the last ferry today! You only have about fifteen minutes until I leave for the island."
Kate threw Morgan a despairing glance. "We'd better hoof it," she said, but he put out a hand to restrain her.
"No running," he said firmly.
"Morgan—"
"Come on. We'll walk extra fast," he said, taking her hand.
They reached Ye Olde Pribble Gift Shoppe as Willadeen stepped through the pale pink front door.
"Willadeen," Kate said without preamble, "what the hell is that bulldozer doing at the lighthouse?"
Willadeen looked Kate up and down with a faintly disapproving smile. "Didn't they tell you? The septic tank is totally insufficient to serve the rest rooms we need to build for the museum. They're going to dig up the old one and replace it with a new one."
"I'm still living in the quarters. Do you know what a mess that will make?" Kate said. "They'll be piling dirt all over the place, and the septic tank lies beneath my largest flower bed. Not to mention that I won't be able to use the toilet if the septic tank's disconnected."
"It will only take a few days for the crew to do their job," Willadeen said. "We're going to do away with the flower beds when the lighthouse is finally a museum. We'll plant petunias, bright pink ones, in lovely white planters." Her chocolate-kiss hairdo wobbled, and she looked positively rhapsodic.
"I want the bulldozer gone," Kate said through gritted teeth.
"It will go when the crew has finished. Now, if you'll excuse me—"
"Mrs. Pribble," Morgan said.
She looked down her nose at him as though she hadn't noticed him before.
"I don't believe we've met," she said.
"Willadeen, this is Morgan Rhett," Kate said in a faint voice.
"Morgan Rhett! Why, you must be Courtney's ex-husband!"
"Yes. And I'm sure there's no reason why the bulldozing couldn't wait until Kate is gone. In another few months, she'll be off the island. Why make her life miserable in the meantime?"
"If Kate's life is unhappy, I'm sure she is the one who has made it so," Willadeen said pleasantly. "Besides, Mr. Cobb tells me that he wants to begin work on the rest rooms right after Labor Day. The new septic tank needs to be in place before that. That's why—"
"Who told you?" Morgan said incredulously.
"Mr. Cobb, Courtney's husband."
"Damien Cobb?"
"Exactly. The historical society awarded him the plumbing contract for the museum. And, of course, we want the museum to be operational as soon as possible, and we can't open without rest rooms, now, can we?" Willadeen sidled past them. "Goodbye, Kate. And Mr. Rhett." She nodded primly and left Kate and Morgan staring at each other.
The ferry whistle tooted at the landing.
"That's Gump signaling that he's ready to leave," Kate said. She clung to Morgan's hand as they rushed back to the dock.
When they were seated on the outside deck of the Yaupon Island Belle with Preacher's Inlet receding behind them, Morgan kicked his legs out in front of him and threw his head back. The sun had sunk into the backdrop of trees on the mainland, and the scent of the sea helped to push the bad taste of their encounter with Willadeen Pribble from his mouth.
"Courtney is behind this. She's the one who put Ye Olde Pribble up to sending the bulldozer," he said.
"I guessed that," Kate said miserably.
"I'm realizing that in the future, I may never be free of Courtney."
"Because of the baby?" Kate ventured a glance at him and was touched by the pain in his expression.
"Exactly," he said. "I've been thinking about how my child will look, how it will act, and what kind of adult it will grow up to be. I wonder how I'll deal with a kid who is exactly like Courtney."
"This child is a Rhett," Kate said fiercely. "It will have big blue eyes, dark hair and a patrician nose. It will look exactly like you and Joanna."
He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile. "We don't know that," he said quietly.
Kate sat back in her seat, realizing that Morgan was right. If the child turned out to be like Courtney, how would Morgan deal with it? By disappearing and staying out of the child's life? How did he feel about nurture versus nature? Did he think that behavior traits were acquired or genetic? What, in fact, was the truth? Science hadn't pro
ven either yet.
All in all, this whole experience was proving to Kate that, as the old TV commercial said, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature.
* * *
The next morning Morgan woke early and decided to visit Kate. He wanted to talk her out of staying in the quarters while the workmen were there. He didn't like the idea of the men in the crew looking at her and was surprised to realize that he didn't want anyone to see her but him. She was too radiantly beautiful in her pregnancy, too ripe and far too vulnerable. The worst part was that she didn't even realize it.
When he emerged from the dunes, he saw Kate watering the flowers planted at the base of the lighthouse. He stopped in surprise. He hadn't expected to see her there.
She was wearing something made of thin cotton—organdy, he thought it was called—and it was flapping in the breeze. The bodice was decorated with little tucks, he noticed, before he realized with a jolt that Kate wore nothing under it.
"Morgan! What are you doing here? Why, the first ferry hasn't even arrived yet!" She was so surprised that she sprayed a plume of water into the air, wetting the brick of the lighthouse and raining a few drops down upon herself. They made the fabric of her gown stick to her skin so that it shone through pink and glowing.
"I wanted to talk to the crew when they get here," he said. He felt goggle-eyed over her see-through dress, or maybe it was a nightgown, and he didn't know where to look.
If he looked at her face, he would have to respond to her expression of annoyance, which was directed straight at him. If he looked lower, he'd see the shape of her so blatantly outlined by the white fabric, and he'd see what was underneath—heavy breasts, a belly as round as a melon and below that a hint of darkness between her thighs. Whoever had perpetuated the fiction that pregnant women weren't desirable should be shot, he thought suddenly.
"I certainly didn't expect you to show up when I was enjoying the little privacy I have left," she said in annoyance, stalking to the water spigot and bending to shut off the flow. He was treated to a long glimpse of the back of Kate's thighs, and her breasts shifted tantalizingly beneath the fabric.
"Do you always wear thin, diaphanous garments when you water the flowers?" he asked.
She straightened and aimed a long, hard look at him. "It used to be private here every morning before the first ferry arrived," she said, and head held high, she strolled with complete unconcern to the door and went inside.
He waited, but Kate didn't come back out, and Morgan was reluctant to knock on the door. He thought she might be hiding behind a curtain at one of the windows and laughing behind her hand at his uncertainty. Although, knowing Kate, she wouldn't laugh behind her hand. No, Kate would laugh out loud so he could hear her, and she would probably enjoy every bit of his confusion.
At that moment he heard men's voices. He turned to see the bulldozer's crew emerging from the sheltering canopy of oaks. Morgan talked to them for a few minutes, which was long enough for him to decide that he didn't want any of them, especially the big burly one, anywhere around Kate.
As the men went to work, Morgan knocked on Kate's door. There was no answer. The bulldozer started up, making so much noise that she wouldn't have heard him knocking anyway.
"Kate!" he called, beginning to worry. "Are you all right?"
No answer.
Really concerned by this time, he went around to the kitchen window and peered in. An empty glass sat on the sink drainboard, but other than that, he saw no sign of Kate.
"Kate!" he yelled, pounding on the door this time.
What if she had fallen? What if she'd gone into labor? What if she couldn't answer him?
He ran around to the bathroom window and jumped up on a pile of bricks beneath it so he could peer in.
"You sure you ought to be doing that, buddy?" called Burly Dude.
Morgan ignored the remark and squinted so that he could see inside. He heard water running, and on the other side of the bathtub, located beneath the window, he saw a pair of calves and ankles extended along the floor. They were easily recognizable as Kate's legs.
"Kate!" he exclaimed, and then Kate's face appeared on the other side of the windowsill. Her hair was wet and soapy and she was gazing up at him with an expression of outraged indignation.
"What do you want now?" she asked, scrambling to her feet. There was a blue-striped towel draped around her shoulders.
Morgan stood on his pile of bricks, feeling foolish.
"I knocked and I called, but you didn't answer. I thought you must have had an accident. Or something," he finished lamely.
"I'm washing my hair, Morgan Rhett. I have to lean over the edge of the bathtub to do it, which isn't an easy position for me to get in now that I'm so big, and when I get there, I don't want to get up until I'm finished. And since when do members of the well-bred Rhett family get their kicks from peering in bathroom windows?"
She spoke so loudly that Morgan thought that Burly Dude, who was still staring at him, his hands on his hips, hard hat shoved back from his forehead, must surely hear.
Morgan scrambled down the pile of bricks and brushed past the hard hat, who was watching in openmouthed astonishment.
"Just checking on my friend," Morgan said lamely.
"Yeah, sure."
Morgan strode up to the front door of the quarters and walked in. Water was still running in the bathroom, so Kate was presumably finishing her shampoo. He socked his right fist into his left hand a few times and waited, too uneasy to sit down.
When Kate appeared with a towel wrapped around her head, he was apologetic. "Can you blame me?" he asked her.
"Yes," Kate said frostily. "Go away."
"I don't want you here with those men around."
"That's ridiculous."
"Move into the lodge. There's lots of room."
"Those men seem like less of a threat than you do at the moment," she pointed out.
"I walked right in. You didn't even have the door locked."
"You had no business entering uninvited. Honestly, Morgan, I don't know what to think. Yesterday you ask me to marry you—"
"Which I hope you're still thinking about."
"—and today you ask me to move in with you."
"Will you?"
Kate sighed. "First I'm going to dry my hair. Then I'll think about things. Please, Morgan, leave me alone!"
Her tone was so anguished that Morgan thought better of staying.
"No drying your hair at the top of the lighthouse. Don't you have a hair dryer?"
"Yes. Now will you please go?"
"I'll go to the mainland to call my office," he said. He didn't hear Kate's exasperated reply.
When he left, the bulldozer was digging up a patch of land and piling dirt indiscriminately around the base of the lighthouse.
"Any luck?" called Burly Dude.
Morgan ignored the question and kept walking. But he knew that Kate couldn't stay here, no matter what she thought.
* * *
After she Morgan disappeared down the path, Kate dressed quickly and gathered her wet hair into a loose ponytail. Morgan would take the next ferry to town, but he wouldn't be on the return ferry. She was sure that his phone calls would take too long for that. She wanted to talk to Gump before Morgan came back.
Kate arrived at the ferry landing and boarded the Yaupon Island Belle after all the tourists had disembarked.
"You look upset," Gump said, chewing on his pipe.
"Wait till you hear this," Kate said, and she launched into the story about Courtney and the contract and Morgan's proposal.
Gump stared long and hard at one of the channel markers in the middle of the sound after she finished. "Do you love this Morgan Rhett?" he asked abruptly.
"No," Kate whispered, knowing that she could never admit to Gump how she had, with some astonishment at her own passion, returned his kisses.
"You're a woman of integrity. You proved that during the Northeast Marine Institute crisis. As a woman o
f integrity, you can't marry Morgan Rhett unless you love him," Gump pointed out.
"The baby..." Kate said, not knowing what she wanted to mention about the baby, since it really had no say in this matter, but wanting to make it clear that the welfare of the baby was her first responsibility.
"I know, I know," Gump said, removing his pipe from his mouth. "But you can't solve one problem by creating another."
"I mean, it's not the baby's fault that we're in this predicament," Kate said sadly.
"You think I don't know that? Well, that's what happens when you take nature into your own hands. It ain't natural for babies to be made in dishes in laboratories, and just because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it."
"Man controls science," Kate said.
"Man doesn't control man, though," Gump said succinctly. "And man sure doesn't control Courtney Rhett Cobb. I don't know how you're going to put this situation right, Kate. It's a mess. I only know that there's no quick fix in marrying Morgan Rhett."
"I guess I needed to hear someone say it," Kate said distractedly.
Gump reached over and patted her hand in a touching gesture of tenderness, a side of his nature that he rarely showed to anyone.
"Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?" he offered awkwardly.
Kate smiled a thin smile. "Find Morgan a wife," she said before leaving the ferry to wait for Morgan.
* * *
Morgan was surprised when Kate met him at the ferry landing when he returned from the mainland.
"Mind if we chat?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't detect nervousness in her voice.
He shook his head, and she sat down beside him on the hard seat beneath the palmetto-thatched roof that provided shade from the hot summer sun.
The water shimmered tourmaline blue, and the mainland was no more than a smoky green haze in the distance. Kate tried to marshal her thoughts, something that wasn't easy to do with Morgan beside her knowing that something was on her mind and waiting for her to state it.
Kate said as she watched a pelican soaring on a wind current, "I can't do it, Morgan. I can't marry you."
Morgan's Child Page 11
