Cherished Beginnings

by Pamela Browning

  "Do you like this?" Xan shouted over his shoulder. She could barely hear him with the noise of the wind rushing past.

  "Yes!" she shouted back.

  "That's why I keep a motorcycle as well as a car. Riding is one way for me to get rid of tension." His hair ruffled backward, caressing the side of her face as she inclined her head forward to hear his words.

  She clutched Xan's midriff more tightly. Underneath his knit shirt he was spare and lean, just as he looked, with no roll of flab at his waist, only firm muscle.

  Maura relaxed a bit when they pulled out on the deserted highway, and he relaxed, too. As his muscles untensed, he leaned backward slightly into her. The sensation of his vibrating back pressed to her soft breasts and flat belly was titillating, to say the least. It was a wholly sensual feeling, suffusing her entire body to send warm ripples to the center of her, but surprisingly, these sensations weren't unwelcome. She swallowed at this new knowledge of herself and looked over his shoulder, watching the white divider lines on the road slide past.

  The distance to Teoway Island, one of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina, wasn't as far in miles as it was in cultural lag. Annie's cabin and others like it were located along a lonely highway on the mainland in the Shuffletown community about twenty miles from the elegant and historic city of Charleston. Unincorporated, forgotten, and ignored by its well-to-do neighbors, Shuffletown housed the mostly black population that had once worked the rich South Carolina plantation land as slaves.

  Staying on after the Civil War, they became tenant farmers, working the land for others. Some made a living fishing the abundant waters off the coast. Lately, many had found employment in the resort and residential developments on Teoway Island. Others left for college and better-paying jobs in the cities, never to return.

  For those who remained in Shuffletown, life could be good if they didn't expect too much in the way of worldly goods. Steeped in the Gullah and Geechee traditions that their forebears brought with them from Africa, folks were not wealthy by most people's standards, but there was one commodity they produced with abundance. Children.

  Maura loved the children. Kids with wide gleaming smiles. Little girls with hair braided in corn-rows, coffee-colored scalp shining between the rows. Small boys with tight black curls, chasing one another in play, their brown legs pumping as they ran. These children were not well-dressed, as their counterparts on Teoway Island were. They wore cotton shorts and simple shirts, some of them homemade. Or they wore T-shirts and jeans bought at rummage sales. Now, in the summer, they went barefoot.

  Maura had first asked Kathleen about the Shuffletown community one day as they sat sunning themselves on Teoway Island's wide beach.

  "No one on Teoway Island seems to know anything about Shuffletown," Kathleen said, dismissing her question with a shrug.

  "Everyone who lives here has to cross the Teoway Island bridge to pass through Shuffletown on the way to Charleston," reasoned Maura.

  "I don't think anyone from Teoway wants to know anything about Shuffletown," Kathleen said pointedly.

  And then Maura dropped a bombshell. "I'm going to set up my practice in midwifery there," she declared. "I'm going to provide home births for the people who want them."

  Her sister stared in openmouthed shock. "Shuffletown is not the kind of place you'd want to practice as a midwife," Kathleen demurred.

  "They're the kind of people I want to serve," Maura replied quietly. "They need me, Kath. So do their more well-to-do neighbors. My practice will serve them all." Maura didn't know if Kathleen was being purposely obtuse or if she really, after all their sisterly talks, didn't understand why Maura had forsaken her old life for a new one that she hoped would be more purposeful.

  "People living here in the Lowcountry are much more traditionally oriented than where you used to live," Kathleen said. "Hospital births are the norm."

  Maura scoffed at this. "Home births have been going on since we all lived in caves. Nowadays, women everywhere are opting for giving birth in their homes because they're dissatisfied with the hospital model. Women should have a choice."

  "I don't know, Maura." Kathleen rolled her eyes. "You might want to consider other options."

  "Kathleen, I'll help the locals understand what a home birth is about, like I did with people in the housing projects and ghetto. Believe me, I know from experience that there will be lots of pregnant women around here who prefer to deliver their babies at home. Besides, I already know that there's no practicing midwife in this area."

  "Whatever you say," Kathleen had sighed, knowing better than to brook Maura's stubborn determination, and so Maura had continued her discreet inquiries at places where people gathered—small stores and gas stations and hole-in-the-wall cafes. She'd developed an ear for Geechee and an appreciation of the Gullah people as she assessed their needs.

  Maura had deliberately avoided Quinby Hospital, the small and fairly new facility which purported to serve the area. She could hardly expect local doctors to welcome her with open arms, after all. She was a threat to their business and the beliefs that had been drummed into them in medical school.

  Today, she thought wryly, by delivering Annie Bodkin's baby, she'd revealed her secret. Unexpectedly, and before she had all her ducks in a row. She hadn't yet figured out how to manage financially—and aside from the problem of a sponsoring obstetrician, money was her biggest worry. Well, that was the way of it. Birthing babies didn't run by time schedules or financial schedules, either.

  Ahead of Xan's motorcycle, the overarching trees streaked the road with shadows. The roar of the bike had faded to a hum now that Maura was used to it, and the vibration somehow soothed her tired body. She fought the entirely human urge to rest her cheek against Xan's broad back.

  "When was the last time you ate?" he shouted. His words were all but whipped away by the wind.

  "Before Annie's baby was born," she said, her lips so close to Xan's ear that she could smell the warm natural fragrance of his skin.

  Without warning, he swerved the motorcycle into the shell-rock parking lot of a small roadside diner and cut the engine. "Will you join me for dinner?" he asked. He slid partway off the motorcycle and switched on his considerable charm as he half turned to look at her in the flash of blinking red neon lights.

  "Here?" The diner shook on its foundations with twangy country music from a blaring old-fashioned jukebox.

  "I know it's not as fancy as the Teoway Island Inn," he said persuasively, "but they fry a mean chicken. We'll have to ask them if they have alfalfa sprouts."

  She smiled back, thinking how nice he was. She honestly didn't think he realized what a sensory effect he was having on her.

  "Even if they don't have sprouts, they could grow them in a week or so. I'd be glad to describe the process." She lifted the helmet off her head and let her hair spill out over her shoulders.

  "I'd rather you describe how you came by such gorgeous hair," he said, lifting a strand of it and letting it flow through his fingers like liquid copper.

  "That's easy," she said lightly. "I was born with it." She flipped her head so that her hair was out of his reach and strode toward the door, not wanting the conversation to take a more serious turn.

  "Birthing, borning," he said, following her. "With you everything seems to revolve around such things." He sounded serious, but at the same time not.

  She glanced back over her shoulder with a smile.

  "The whole world revolves around such things. Can you think of anything that's more important?" And she was utterly serious.

  He shook his head thoughtfully as he held the door open for her. Her retort had given him pause. "I guess not," he conceded.

  Inside, people bunched around a long counter watching a game on television. Raucous laughter echoed off the dingy beige walls, but Xan steered Maura to the end booth, where, blessedly, the music and laughter were muted.

  "I apologize for the place," he said. "We could have gone to the i
nn, but I thought you might prefer not to have to go home and dress first. I know you're tired." He regarded her with empathy.

  "You're right," she said gratefully. "Have you ever noticed how birthing babies fills you up in one way but depletes you in another?"

  "Of course," he said, a surprised yet meditative expression flitting across his face. It was the way he often felt himself, but he hadn't before known anyone to whom he could communicate such feelings. As nothing else could have, her voicing of his own thoughts gave a more meaningful significance to his attraction to her.

  After they had ordered, Xan studied her with absorbed concentration over the chipped Formica table. "So," he said, "tell me all about being a midwife."

  "It seems to me that you saw all there was back at Annie's house," she said, smiling at him.

  He laughed. "You're right. What I can't figure out is why you're here in Shuffletown."

  "I'm visiting my sister and her husband, Scott and Kathleen O'Malley," she told him. "Scott's the resident pro at the Teoway Island tennis club. Do you know them?"

  "I run into them at parties now and then. I play tennis with Scott occasionally when he's looking for someone he can beat without too much trouble." Now that she'd told him who her sister was, he could see her resemblance to Kathleen, although they were two different types. Kathleen was the glossy one, ajangle with jewelry and the latest fashions. He'd always thought she was pretty. But Maura was thoughtful and tranquil and intelligent and above all completely natural, and he thought she was beautiful.

  "Do you play tennis?" he asked hopefully.

  She shook her head, her hair rippling across her shoulders in a fascinating show. "Seldom," she said. She wasn't going to let him maneuver her into a dating situation, no matter how casual. There wasn't space for that in her life right now. She needed time to figure out just where men fit into it—if they fit at all.

  "Well, we'll have to remedy that," he said, crinkling his eyes coaxingly. "How about a doubles match with Kathleen and Scott some evening?"

  "Sorry, but tennis isn't on my list of priorities."

  Xan was taken aback by her refusal. He wasn't used to being turned down by women. "Well," he said, realizing he was up against something new, "what are your priorities?" His eyes, richly green now, were suddenly intent.

  This intensity caught her attention, and his receptiveness warmed her and made her want to confide in him. Birthing Annie's baby had opened a floodgate of emotion for her. It had been too long since she'd felt the joy of a tiny body settling into her hands and thrilled to that welcome first cry of a newborn. Xan was a doctor, yes, but he had also proved himself to be extraordinarily caring and interested. She thought he'd understand.

  She drew a deep breath. "My first priority at the moment is setting up my own practice in midwifery, right here in Shuffletown," she said. Her eyes sparkled with more than happiness. They reflected compassion from a wellspring of love deep within her. Not carnal love, but the other kind, a sort of radiant goodness. Xan felt more attracted to her than ever, and yet, conversely, he was caught up in a backwash of dismay. Her own practice! As an obstetrician, he didn't want to believe it.

  He forced himself to keep his face blank. "Tell me about it," he said, knowing with an appalling certainty that the more he heard, the less he'd like it.

  Her words tumbled over one another like the flow of a freshening brook. "I want to start my own clinic for expectant mothers, a place where they can learn good nutrition and exercise. And then I'll be able to attend them in their own homes when they give birth, too. You know, Xan, I think I've found the place where I'm really needed and can use my skills in midwifery to make a difference in people's lives."

  Xan managed through sheer willpower to keep his expression neutral. She didn't know, couldn't know, but every word she uttered hit him in the gut, and hard.

  "I'm hoping to find an able assistant to train to be a midwife," Maura went on, warming to her subject but oblivious to Xan's pain. "An R.N., if possible. Someone local would be ideal. We'll train other people, too, and we'll—"

  At that point Xan tuned her out. The whole time she was talking, all he could think about was how in the world he was going to tell her that as an obstetrician he regarded her attempts to set up a Shuffletown practice in midwifery as sheer effrontery, not to mention detrimental to the public good. And that despite her high-flying notions, she'd better find some place other than Shuffletown to practice.

  The fried chicken arrived along with fresh biscuits and gravy, and she devoured the food eagerly. Further thought was impossible for Xan. She'd dashed his hopes about them as a couple, threatened his livelihood, and brought unwelcome competition for the Quinby Hospital, all in one fell swoop. It was all he could do to nibble on one skinny chicken leg, and the biscuits dried in his mouth like so much dust.

  "So what do you think?" she finally asked him, halting her rhythmic and expressive flow of words.

  "I think," he said abruptly, standing up and pulling his wallet out of his pocket, "that we'd better get you home."

  Maura stopped eating and blotted her mouth with a paper napkin. What was happening? She was barely through eating, and Xan was so gruff, and his expression had gone all stony and unreadable. He'd hardly eaten anything on his plate even though the food was delicious.

  "Xan?" she said, staring up at him. Suddenly she knew what had gone wrong. No matter how admiring he had been of her expertise in delivering Annie's baby, and despite his kindness, he was like all the rest of the doctors she'd ever known. He felt threatened. She'd been a fool to talk on and on. She was even more of a fool to entertain the notion that he'd be willing to be her supervising physician.

  His expression softened when he read the impact of her disappointment on her pale face. He couldn't bear to look at her. "I'll pay the check," he said, and he strode away from her toward the cash register.

  Maura slid across the slick red plastic seat and followed Xan to the door. He held it open for her, avoiding her eyes, and she followed him as he stalked to the Harley. "Here," he said, thrusting the helmet at her. "Put this on."

  She looked mutely up at him, and the confusion in her eyes stopped him cold. He didn't like acting this way. He'd loved her earnestness and the way she had so vivaciously shared with him the things that were important to her.

  But there wasn't any way he could fit her into his life if she insisted upon this folly. And he, who had never wanted to arrange his life around any serious relationship with a woman, whose emotions were bound up in his dedication to his profession, had set his heart on having her in his life. He hadn't known how much until he'd realized it was impossible.

  "If you'd rather not take me home, I could possibly track down Scott or Kathleen to come and get me." She gazed up at him with those velvet-brown eyes, and more than anything he wanted to burrow into them and be enfolded in their softness.

  Xan ran a hand through his hair, wishing he were running it through hers. He shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "Let's go home."

  He held the bike steady as she swung one long leg over the seat. This time she felt too constrained to wrap her arms around him as he gunned the engine and they swooped out of the parking lot. Instead she balanced herself by settling one hand on either side of his waist above his trim hips. Thank goodness there wasn't any way for him to know the way she reacted to him. She wasn't used to being around men, she thought tremulously. And it showed.

  After a ride remarkable only for the tension stretched between them so tautly that Maura dared not speak, Xan braked to a halt in front of Scott and Kathleen's house. The Teoway Island home of the O'Malleys was magnificent, all weathered wood and soaring angles, with wide smoked-glass windows overlooking the marsh. Architecturally, the structure was at one with its surroundings, looking not at all out of place amid the pines and hickories and sweet gums, which hadn't been cut down to make room for a lawn but were allowed to grow unimpeded in their natural state.

  Xan switche
d off the engine. The night immediately seemed too quiet. They sat for a moment in silence until they began to hear the sounds of a giant bullfrog in the marsh and then the soft cacophony of the other night creatures of wetlands and forest as they joined in. It was obvious to both of them that each was waiting for the other to make the first move.

  Maura slid from her seat. Xan did, too. "Looks like no one is home," commented Xan. His words sounded empty, and they both knew that it was a hollow remark uttered to fill up the space between them.

  "Scott and Kathleen often go out at night," Maura said, knowing even as she spoke the words that this was nothing Xan didn't already know.

  Xan made no move to remove her midwife's kit from his saddlebag. "Don't you go out with them?" he asked a bit sharply.

  Maura shook her head. "No. I'm not much into socializing." She had the craziest impulse to tell him how the very idea of a party frightened her, that she didn't remember how to dance and wouldn't have the nerve to drink a cocktail. She cast her eyes down. That at least was a reaction that came almost second nature.

  She waited for him to open his saddlebag, but he didn't. "I'll need my things," she said.

  "Oh, of course," he said, and he unbuckled the saddlebag, fumbling in the dark, and removed her leather bag. As she took it from him, their fingers brushed, and his touch fluttered through her, warm as the night wind.

  Silently he walked her to the door. Only a single porch spotlight was lit in this modern house of angles and glass, the light picking out the roughness of the weathered boards and glinting on the wide glass expanses of the windows.

  She turned to him in the glare of the spotlight, and a glance at his face arrested all thought. His eyes pulled her into their depths, treating her to a glimpse of the man's underlying sensuality and the passion beneath his smooth outer veneer. He wasn't trying to hide it, and yet she sensed a new reserve in his attitude toward her.

  "I'll see that you get your car back tomorrow," he said.