Sarah's Baby

by Margaret Way

  “You’d rather believe your grandmother than me,” Sarah said. “I suppose it’s not that unusual. She’s your flesh and blood. I’m not even the woman you thought I was. That’s the harsh reality.”

  “Where are the flowers she sent you?” he asked, ignoring what she’d said. “Was there a card? How do you know she sent them?”

  How could she convince him she was telling the truth? “I tore the card up. The flowers are at the hospital, mixed in with others. Basically the card said she offered me her best wishes. I was going to need them. That there was so much you had to learn about me.”

  “That part was dead right.”

  “It was a form of blackmail to keep me quiet. In telling my story, I’d be exposing her. The way she tried to harass me into an abortion. She’d arrange everything. All we had to do was kill our baby. And the way she dealt with my mother and me! I’ll never forgive her. I’ll never forget. She hates me—but surely you know that. Or have you shut it out? She sees me as being in competition with her for your love. Her obsession is not only bizarre, it’s ruining everyone’s life, but she can’t put it aside. If she could destroy me, she would.”

  Powerful emotions seared Kyall’s blood. “My God, women!” he moaned. “Don’t they make a lot of trouble in the world!”

  “Especially when you’ve got a megalomaniac living in your home,” Sarah retorted, her own face stricken. “I’m so very, very sorry, Kyall,” she said more quietly. “Our baby died. It’s my fault. I couldn’t succeed in producing a healthy child. It happens. Women have to cope with it every day, sometimes on their own. You’re supposed to handle the grief, then try again. You’d have to experience the emotional trauma to get anywhere near understanding it.”

  “Do you understand how I feel or are you thinking only of yourself?” he asked. “This was my child. At least you have your precious memory of her. She was perfect. A little angel. Well, men’s hearts break, too, Sarah. Men can be crushed by grief.”

  “I know!” she cried urgently, wanting to go to him, knowing she didn’t dare. “Please forgive me, Kyall. I was so young, and your grandmother persuaded me it was better you didn’t know. It was so you could go on with your life, she said.”

  “She told me that was your choice.” He wondered if he could’ve done anything to avert the tragedy. Or was it meant to be? “Your subsequent actions bear that out.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes, slid down her cheeks. “I’ve always had the feeling she’s still with me, my little Rose.”

  He stood up abruptly, as if he could bear no more.

  “Are you going?” She watched him turn away from her.

  Don’t let it happen.

  Don’t let her win. It tugged at her heart to see him so terribly distressed. “Kyall?”

  He threw back his head like a horse pulling at a tight bit. “I can’t take this, Sarah.”

  “That’s a yes. You are going.”

  “I wanted you to marry me.”

  “You don’t any longer?”

  “What I want… What I want…” He turned to stare at her, noticing that her eyes were glittering with tears. “Oh, God, Sarah!”

  “I can’t keep your engagement ring.” She went to pull it off.

  “Take it,” he said. “I couldn’t give it to anyone else.”

  “Kyall, I’m sorry.” She laid the ring on a small table. “I think I’ll go lie down. I feel…really strange.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

  “Just upset, I think. I’ve been rehearsing what I’d say to you for days. I should have realized there are some things in life one simply can’t forgive.” Her slender arms folded around her, she stood up. “Yet in some ways it’s a relief that it’s over. You know now. You’ll cope. You’re a man, not a boy. The boy might not have been able to cope.”

  “I wasn’t given a choice,” he said bleakly. “Can I get you anything, Sarah? You’re very pale.”

  “I’m all right.” She shook her head. “I know where the little Sinclair girl is,” she said suddenly. “Estelle.”

  “Do you?” Of course she was in shock. He moved to her, unable to stop himself from putting a supportive arm around her.

  “I saw it in a dream. Perhaps something good has come out of all this. She was raped and murdered. I saw it all. I saw the man’s face. I saw him pitch her body into the middle of Wirrabilla.”

  “Come and lie down,” he said gently.

  “I know you think I’m raving. I’m not. Get someone to check it out. Divers. They’ll find her bones. She’ll stop haunting this place after she’s buried. Will you do that, Kyall? No one will think you’re crazy.”

  “You’re not crazy, Sarah. Child and woman, you’ve been under far too much pressure. Anyway, I’ll have it done. No need to say at the outset what I’m looking for.”

  “Thank you, Kyall. Don’t bother to shut the door when you go. Your grandmother and her little helpers—you must know them—can get in, anyway. I could show you my beautiful yellow dress, all slashed, but I don’t think I want to anymore.”

  They had reached her bedroom. She sank onto the bed, not looking up at him, but looking away. Her heart ached and her head was spinning. Help me, she thought. Please, God, help me. Am I always to lose?

  Despite his profound disillusionment and state of shock, the same old sense of protectiveness ran through Kyall. She was Sarah, after all. “You can sleep if you want to,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE FOUND HIMSELF watching her as she slept. She was breathing quietly, one hand beneath her cheek. So beautiful. His Sarah. He was stupefied he could keep loving her when she’d denied him the truth. The irony was, he could almost wish he didn’t know, for now he’d have to live with it for the rest of his life.

  But wasn’t that what Sarah had said? Her wish had been to spare him. Why did the two of them, his grandmother and Sarah, think he was the one who’d needed to be protected? That dumbfounded him. He knew enough about himself to realize he could have handled the situation. He could even have made a difference. Sarah wouldn’t have had to disappear from his life. He couldn’t see any shame attached to having a baby. He loved babies. Little kids. That was what he wanted. A full life. Family. He’d been happy enough, despite his own disturbed family, but he knew there was a better way. He could have made Sarah so happy. He could have loved and protected his child.

  But she had elected to go it alone. Not believing in him. The fact that she hadn’t turned to him was too painful to bear. Sarah and his own grandmother had sidelined him, as if he was of no importance. The child’s father of no importance? Obviously his relationship with both of them had been incomplete. Lacking in certain essential components—like honesty.

  Sweetheart, how badly you treated me. He looked down at the sleeping Sarah, a pounding desire rising above his anger. She looked small. She was, of course, compared to him. He could see the tiny scar on her wrist. He had a matching one. The bloodletting had sealed their friendship. Forever.

  I’ll always take care of you, Sarah.

  What if you’re not able to?

  His shoulders slumped. And what about her accusations against his grandmother?

  No! Mind and heart were shaken. He shied away from the accusations, chilled and somehow fearful.

  “I DON’T EXPECT you to forgive me, my darling,” his grandmother said, her face suddenly drawn and lined. “Sarah and I both went through a dreadful time. It must be a bitter truth to hear that she didn’t want your baby. She desperately wanted an abortion—she made that very clear—so I had to take charge. Even then, her behavior was extremely dangerous to the baby. All of us paid a terrible price. Your child, my great-grandchild—a McQueen—died. I can’t begin to tell you of my sorrow.”

  He had believed her. Ruth was a hard woman; life had made her hard. But she’d always acted in his best interests. The baby would have made her so happy. As it was, he could see she was filled with the deepes
t, most painful regrets, her beautiful, resonant voice—the voice of an actress—quavery, on the verge of tears.

  But what if Sarah’s accusations were true? Even some of them. He’d been struck by her anguish. Would she lie? There was no way of knowing. It was one woman’s version against another’s. In any case, he’d start an investigation of his own, and he had all the resources to take it as far as it would go. If what Sarah said was true, he wouldn’t be able to look at his grandmother again. Sarah would be revealed as heroic, resisting intense pressure. Sarah as a child had been fearless, particularly when saying things, true things, he didn’t want to hear. Kyall felt he’d never known such confusion, such anger, such sorrow in his life. He couldn’t deal with it all now. He needed time. A lot of time.

  SHE STIRRED A LITTLE, murmuring something he couldn’t catch. And that strange story about the Sinclair child? A foray into the paranormal. He didn’t go for it himself, but then, what would he know? Plenty of people over the years claimed to have seen the spirits of the first Fiona and the little Sinclair girl. Had the loss of their child maximized Sarah’s already sensitive perceptions, or was this blighted house affecting her as it did most other people? Whether she liked it or not, she had to move out for her own protection.

  “Kyall?” Her eyelids fluttered.

  The ray of light from the hallway cut a dull gold path across her body, so shining in its grace.

  “I’m right here.”

  She exhaled deeply in gratitude. “Don’t leave me,” she begged. “If you do, my whole life will unravel. I can’t take that again.”

  “No.” Although his voice came out curtly, he recognized the long years of trauma she had endured.

  “I love you.” She turned her face up to him as he stood above her. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you.”

  “Don’t waste your time!” Pity and hostility went together. He moved back abruptly, causing her to make a frantic grab for him.

  “Kyall!”

  “Go on. Tell me you need me—when I’d have given anything to hear it anytime all these years. Why don’t you go to sleep again?” he added harshly. He knew once he touched her he wouldn’t be capable of stopping. Even when waves of sadness and despair were crashing over him, he wanted her. He wanted to tear the clothes off her, cover her body with his, punish her. Only, he wasn’t like that. He was still the bloody gentleman. His father’s son. He would never be able to hurt a woman. Never be able to hurt Sarah—although she’d put a huge crack in his world.

  “Lie down with me for a while.” She reached out an imploring hand. “I just want you to hold me. It hurts so much, your not believing me. I keep seeing the face of that poor woman, Nurse Fairweather, hovering over me. I was so hazy, I thought she was a big bird. Isn’t that strange? Then the pain started and it didn’t stop until she lay Rose on my breast. So sweet, so soft, so small…so lovely.”

  “Don’t, Sarah,” he warned, shifting her slender body over so he could take her side of the bed.

  “All I thought of was you.” She dared to touch his cheek. “Just you, me and Rose. Once I had my baby, nothing was going to stop me from getting back to you. God knows, I understood that was dangerous. She would’ve done anything to keep me away. There’s something…unnatural about Ruth.”

  “And you.” His voice was deliberately wounding. He slid his arm beneath her and pulled her to him, the whole lovely length of her. Soon he would kiss her. What did any of it matter? he asked himself cynically. It was simple, really. He loved her. Unconditionally. But it was a real effort to be gentle right now. He wanted to rip the silk shirt apart to reach her breasts. Her soft skirt was already rucked up to her thighs. He wanted to caress between her legs, let his fingers enter her.

  Desire for her was the dark whirlpool that forever pulled him down. There were tears on her cheeks. He started licking them off with his lips and his tongue.

  “Please say you forgive me,” she whispered.

  He swept her hair aside to bare the exquisite shell of her ear. “Isn’t it enough that I’m with you?” He held her tightly, hearing the hard edge in his voice, not bothering to change it.

  “Only then am I whole. Kiss me.” She knew he couldn’t hold back.

  “No, you kiss me.” His voice reflected the anger in him.

  She raised her face to his, touched his lips with hers.

  Oh, yes!

  THERE WAS A CONSTANT emotional drain on Sarah in the following weeks. She and Kyall were still together, but she was under no illusion that he’d fully accepted her version of past events. As she expected, he’d had a confrontation with his grandmother; Ruth, of course, had refused to back down. She hadn’t changed one word of her story, saying it wasn’t surprising that Sarah had denied her own unacceptable plea for an abortion. She’d been fifteen, after all, a mere schoolgirl, frightened of the monumental experience of childbirth. undergoing massive hormonal change. To survive afterward, she’d chosen the path of denial. Not so Ruth. Ruth knew better than most people how hard life really was.

  His mother, Enid, on hearing both versions of the story from Kyall, had become ill with shock. She’d had nothing to say beyond, “I had no idea. None. My poor boy! And Sarah? How she must have suffered.”

  That gave Sarah some comfort.

  Kyall’s father, Max, dropped into the hospital to see Sarah. “If things had gone well, my dear, I’d have been a grandfather,” he said, dark brows drawn together in pain. “I’m so sorry you didn’t feel you could confide in us. At heart Enid is a good woman. She’d have been a much better one away from her mother. We both would’ve been, but there were too many…issues in the way.” He gave Sarah a brief, sardonic smile. “Enid is far from being a submissive woman. She has too much of her mother in her for that—yet she has little sense of her own value. Ruth made sure of that.” He paused a moment, very serious. “I’ll tell you something in confidence, Sarah, since you’ll be joining the family. I’d have left Enid long ago if I thought she was emotionally strong enough, but despite what everyone thinks, she needs me.”

  “And you? What are your needs?” Sarah asked, looking across her desk at this handsome man who was Kyall’s father. A man who was essentially a stranger.

  “I’ve had to find a few strategies to survive,” he said dryly. “My children are the most important people in the world to me, Sarah. And the fact that my son has scarcely noticed anyone else is palpable proof of his love for you. He’s going through a lot of mental pain at the moment.”

  “I’m to blame for it.”

  Max considered her with open sympathy. “You were a child, Sarah. Had you been older, or had your father been alive, things would have been different. Or if you’d come to me…”

  She nodded in recognition. “I deeply regret I didn’t. I know Ruth has told Kyall I was desperate for an abortion. I want you and Enid to know that’s not true. I may have been overwhelmed by loneliness, but I wanted the baby. If I could turn back the clock, you’d know how much I fought Ruth when she spoke so calmly of an abortion. I didn’t care that she was Mrs. Ruth McQueen. I found my voice. I raged at her that it would never happen. I must have forced her to listen. Then, despite everything my baby died.”

  They were both quiet for a while.

  “What a tragedy,” Max breathed eventually, his deep voice gentle.

  “My life changed from that point. Do you believe me, Max?”

  “I want to believe you, Sarah. I’m your friend.”

  “And yet?”

  “That would make Ruth a monster.” He was visibly appalled.

  “Let me tell you she is,” Sarah answered bluntly. She sensed that the day of reckoning was at hand.

  It was during this emotionally turbulent time that Sarah had a most unexpected visit from a young woman she’d met together with her doctor husband, at several medical functions in the state capital. Laura Morcombe was a long way from home. And using a different name?

  It was morning surgery. Sarah walked into the waiting r
oom looking for her next patient. “Ms. Graham?”

  A young woman stood up, pushing back her lustrous fall of dark hair, green eyes as brilliant as the waters of an outback creek.

  Sarah maintained her composure until they were inside her room. There she gestured for the young woman to take the chair beside her desk. “Laura! This is a surprise. What are you doing here? Where’s Colin? How is he?” Sarah studied the lovely face in front of her. Soft, romantic, with an overall quality of gentleness and sensitivity, shadows of fatigue beneath the eyes.

  “I’m not with Colin anymore, Sarah,” the young woman said quietly. “I’m using my mother’s maiden name.”

  “Oh!” Sarah’s hand paused on its way to a file. She had a swift vision of Laura and her husband together. Such an attractive couple; they’d seemed very much in love. Colin in particular. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Sarah said with genuine sympathy. “You both seemed so happy.”

  “It wouldn’t have done to show my real face in public.” Laura’s voice wasn’t steady.

  “You were unhappy?”

  “Desperately so.”

  “I’m very sorry. Are you able to talk about it?”

  Laura met Sarah’s eyes. “Actually, Sarah, I knew you were here. I rang the clinic. They told me you’d taken over at the Koomera Bush Hospital. I needed to speak to someone I could trust. Someone trained, who might be able to view Colin objectively. That, and a place to hide. I’m deeply ashamed.”

  “Of what?” Sarah remained still and quiet.

  Laura glanced away. “I was an abused wife, Sarah. Physically, sexually, psychologically. I felt…degraded. It’s not an uncommon story. Only I couldn’t live with it.”

  “My God, why would you!” Sarah leaned back, hiding her horror as she invited Laura to tell of her obviously traumatic experiences.