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.
"Mine," he said again, and then he kissed Kate, a long deep kiss that hinted at much, much more.
"We shouldn't be doing this," Kate said firmly, pulling away.
"Why?" he said, grabbing her arm.
"Because—because—" she said, and he saw the struggle written on her face.
It was all the encouragement he needed.
"Come back here," he commanded, and he kissed her again.
And even as the kiss made her feel awestruck and giddy and eager to explore all the possibilities of it, Kate froze. Something was happening. Something odd. It felt like a rubber band tightening around her hips and across her abdomen.
"Morgan," she said, twisting her head away. "Morgan!"
He tried to fold her into his arms, but she stepped backward, an alarmed expression on her face.
"What is it?" he said.
"A contraction. I'm having a contraction!" Kate said.
* * *
They sat on the old creaking swing on the front porch of the hunting lodge, Kate gazing stubbornly at the distant trees. Her legs stuck out in front of her as straight as two hockey sticks, and one of Morgan's hands rested lightly on her abdomen.
"The book says—" he began.
"Where'd you get a book?" she asked sharply.
"My assistant sent it on the ferry a few days ago."
"Let's hope it's the only thing that's delivered on the ferry," Kate said darkly.
"Anyway, the book says that these Braxton-Hicks contractions occur at regular intervals and are just practice for the real thing," he said.
"A few days ago you seemed to know nothing about birthing babies. Now you think you're an authority." Kate was not unduly alarmed about the contractions. There had only been three more since the first one, and they hadn't come at regular intervals. Morgan had timed them.
"I'm not an authority," Morgan said. "But I did manage to read the whole book. It covers the complete process, all the way through postpartum depression."
"How about prepartum depression? Does it say anything about that?"
He couldn't see the expression in her eyes because they were shaded from the moonlight by heavy vines climbing up the poles supporting the porch's roof.
"Sometimes I wish I'd never come to see you back in April," she said in a low tone. "It only complicated things."
"What else could you have done?" he asked. He reached for her hand; her fingers were clenched. Slowly he massaged her wrist until the fingers uncurled one by one. He caressed each one in turn before lifting her hand to his lips. Then he kissed the soft tender inside of her wrist, the palm of her hand and the tip of her thumb. She didn't pull away.
He slid his other arm around her shoulders. "I'm glad you sought me out," he said softly in the vicinity of her ear. "I'm glad I know you."
She made a small negative sound and started to put a respectable distance between them, but the motion of the swing and her own awkwardness prevented her from moving.
"Don't," he said.
"I can't, anyway," she said in a muffled tone.
He pressed his cheek against hers and was stunned to feel the dampness there. He leaned away.
"You're crying," he said.
"You noticed," she answered.
"I wish you wouldn't make sarcastic remarks," he said fiercely. "Don't you know I care about you? That it matters to me what happens to you?"
"Sometimes I get so tired of being pregnant," she whispered.
He kissed the damp places on her cheeks. "If it's any consolation to you, nature will take care of that pretty soon."
"Talk about remarks," she said. She sniffed, and he dug a handkerchief out of his pocket.
"Here," he said.
"Always a clean handkerchief. Always the gentleman," she said, twisting the damp handkerchief between her fingers. She no longer had a lap; her hands rested on top of her stomach.
"Not always the gentleman," he said. "In fact, I have a suggestion that may not seem at all gentlemanly." He was glad for the darkness now. He didn't want her to see how apprehensive he was, or
how uncertain about the wisdom of all this, or how much he wanted her.
"You're going to ask if I'll sleep with you," she said, surprising him again.
"I wish you weren't so perceptive," he said, his hopes plummeting at the tone of her voice.
She was quiet for a long time.
"Well?" he said. "What do you think?"
"I can't imagine it," she said. "I can't imagine that you want to. I'm pregnant, Morgan."
He couldn't help chuckling under his breath. "It so happens," he said, lazily trailing a string of kisses along the side of her neck, "that I am hopelessly attracted to you, pregnant or not pregnant, and that I want to sleep beside you until I know the contours of your body by heart."
"Why? They change week by week," she pointed out.
"To reach over to your side of the bed and touch some part of your anatomy and to know immediately what part it is because it's so familiar to me. To make love to you, Kate. Over and over again."
"I can't believe you're saying these things to me," she said in a small, little-girl voice, which may have been meant as a defense but made her seem more vulnerable than she had ever been, and when she was vulnerable, she was even more desirable to him because her prickly side wasn't even slightly in evidence.
He rested his hand on the high round mound of her belly again, caressed the contours before tentatively touching her breast. A shudder ran through her, and he reminded himself that he must be gentle, he must take care, because he didn't want to do anything to hurt her or the baby. Then she was kissing him, hungrily parting his lips with her tongue, and her mouth blossomed beneath his.
Her lips were soft and yielding, and she lifted trembling hands to cup his face between them, and then she trailed gentle fingers down his neck to his shoulders and pulled him close. His own fingers spread wide across her breast, feeling its warmth and firmness. She pulled his head down to her breasts and he buried his face in their warmth, breathing the sweet secret smell of her, her lips against his hair.
Kate fell back against the cushions of the swing, shivering it on its chains, and he put out a foot to steady them. Slowly he unbuttoned the bodice of her dress and parted the layers of fabric. In the darkness her breasts shone white as marble, their contours ripe and the nipples swollen and dark.
He curved his hands around her breasts, a picture of Kate in her white nightgown springing into his mind. Her breasts had swung when she walked. He lifted one to his mouth and tentatively touched the moist tip of his tongue to her skin.
She inhaled sharply. Beneath his seeking fingers he felt her heartbeat accelerate. She moved restlessly so that the swing shifted again.
"If we're going to do this, we should do it right. We should go inside," Morgan said.
"Is that what the book says?" she asked, but she was teasing.
"The book says that making love is good exercise during pregnancy," he said, his fingers tracing light circles around her nipples.
She laughed uneasily and shrugged away his hands before wrapping her dress around her. "Are you making that up?" she asked.
He stood and pulled her along with him. She was almost as tall as he was, and he liked being able to look directly into her eyes.
"You can read it yourself," he said seriously, though it seemed ludicrous to talk about reading a book at a time when his skin was alive with the longing to be touched.
"I'd better," she said.
She sounded flippant, but he knew otherwise. He reached out to touch her, but she turned swiftly and walked into the house. When she was gone, the intimacy of her aroma lingered on, bittersweet in his nostrils. He fell back onto the swing, telling himself to slow down and reminding himself that, with Kate, he couldn't move too fast. In fact, perhaps it would be better if he didn't move at all.
But that wasn't what Kate wanted, he was sure of it. And it wasn't what he wanted, either. He wanted everything—to feel, taste and breathe Kate, to rise and fall to the rhythm of her exploding heartbeat, to shudder in her arms and to feel her grow weak in his.
He waited outside, pondering the problem, and he didn't go in until long after the light in her bedroom winked off.
Chapter 10
The next day they rode the ferry to Preacher's Inlet in uneasy silence, neither of them sure what to say or how to say it. Kate was nervous about how to introduce Morgan to Dr. Thomas and fretted about it as they walked up the street after disembarking from the ferry.
"Just introduce me as a friend if it makes you feel better," Morgan said.
"He'll figure out that you're more than a friend," Kate replied, keeping her eyes on the road.
Morgan looked impatient. "That's okay, too. Why don't we level with him? I'm the baby's father. Your doctor knows that your pregnancy resulted from the implantation of an embryo."
"He wasn't onboard with the notion from the start." Kate sighed. "At least that was my impression."
"Kate, don't walk so fast," he said as they approached the building on the highway where the doctor's office was located. When they reached the palmetto tree beside the parking lot, he stopped her.
She tried to shake his hand away, but he held her until she was forced to look at him.
"Maybe we should talk about last night before we go in there," he began.
"I don't want to think about it now," she said, twisting away.
"Nevertheless, it happened. I want to make love to you, Kate. Hell, I think I'm in love with you," he said.
"You don't mean that. You're only trying to find a quick fix for this situation," she said, but her eyes never left his.
He exhaled a long sigh of exasperation. "The time we've spent together has been good for me. For once I'm not thinking of myself, I'm thinking of other people—you and the baby. I've changed for the better since I've known you. I've grown. I never wanted this baby, Kate, but now that it's a reality, I can't wait to be a father.
"I'm not sure I know what love is—maybe I've never known. But if it's putting others first, if it's wanting to make a difference in their lives, if it's feeling happy when I think about someone, then I love you," he said. The speech was too long, but it was effective. Kate's eyes widened and she didn't move.
"If—if we don't hurry, we'll be late for my appointment," she said, and he followed her the remaining distance to the doctor's office, satisfied that if he hadn't convinced her, he had at least rattled her composure.
* * *
"You've never looked healthier," Dr. Alan Thomas told Kate as she sat across the desk from him. He eyed her sharply. "How do you feel?"
"Mentally or physically?" Kate asked. He and his wife Gloria were long-time friends of her father, and Kate knew he took a serious interest in her and her pregnancy.
"Both, and if you ask me which is most important, I can't tell you." Her doctor got up and paced the floor, making sweeping gestures as was his wont. Kate had always thought that he looked like a caricature of a stork but never more so than now.
"I've seen mothers in perfect physical condition—perfect, mind you—whose mental attitude goes so low—" here he dropped his voice to emphasize the word "—that it drags the physical condition down with it." He shot her a sharp look. "You're not getting depressed, now, are you, Kate?"
"Not exactly," she hedged. All in one breath she told him about the problems with the contract and how Morgan would not be allowed to adopt his own child unless he married.
He became very grave and resumed his pacing, muttering something to himself and finally wheeling on her. "No wonder you feel worried. Crazy thing all the way around, the whole idea. What to do?" He threw his arms out in exasperation and stopped with his hands on his hips, his neck outstretched toward Kate in quivering indignation.
Kate gazed down at her hands twisted together, stung by his words. He seemed to think better of them and said, "Well, you're going to have a fine healthy baby. That should be a consolation."
"It is," Kate assured him. "And one more thing. The baby's father wants to marry me."
He walked to his chair and sat down. "You expect advice from me?" he asked abruptly, raising bushy eyebrows. "You get yourself into this bizarre situation and you think I can tell you what to do?"
"You can't tell me whether to marry him or not, but I—um—I don't know if making love would be good for the baby," she said.
"Making love? Why not? You think lovemaking is only physical? You have emotional needs, too, Kate. As long as you're healthy and there are no physical reasons to restrict lovemaking, why, I say go ahead! I'm more worried about your being stuck on that damned island with no way to get to the mainland than I am about dire consequences befalling you if you decide you want to make love," he said.
"Gump knows to watch for the SOS flag on the pole in front of the lighthouse like he did when Dad was sick," Kate told him, glad to ease him away from the topic of lovemaking. "And anyway, the baby's father—Morgan—lives on the island now, too. He's been, well, thoughtful and—um, helpful."
"Oh. I see. Well, maybe I should talk to the man about getting you away from there the last couple weeks of your pregnancy."
"Morgan wants to talk to you, but not about that. Besides, I've convinced him that I want to remain on the island. You know how important it is for me to stay there as long as possible."
"I know, I know. You and your father have always harbored some kind of fixation about that island. Nice place, but I'd as soon live on the moon—it's about as accessible. Well, where is this Morgan fellow? Did he come with you today?"
"He's in the waiting room," Kate said, and she went to summon him.
Morgan accompanied Kate into the small office, supremely self-assured as always, and sat in the chair beside her. Alan Thomas looked him up and down and seemed satisfied with what he saw. He said bluntly, "Kate tells me that you're the father."
"Yes," Morgan said. He met the doctor's gaze coolly and directly. "The reason I'm here is that I wanted to discuss being in the delivery room when the baby's born."
The doctor's eyebrows lifted in surprise as he considered this. "You are the father," he said finally. "It's certainly possible if that's what Kate wants. Although it's my experience that unless there's a bond of some sort between the mother and any nonmedical person in the delivery room, there's no point in it. No point in it at all. Kate tells me—oh, well, it sounds like there's a bond, all right. Why do you want to be in the delivery room—curiosity about the process?"
Morgan's Child Page 13
