To the Ends of the Earth

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Cramps coiled harshly, relaxed, then returned with redoubled force. Heat flushed Cat’s body, followed by a prickling chill and clammy waves of nausea.

  The sound of someone knocking at the front door drifted into her bedroom, followed by Dr. Stone’s voice.

  “Cathy?”

  “The door is open,” Cat called.

  Dr. Stone came into the bedroom and looked around. “Very nice. Much better than a hospital room.”

  Cat managed a smile despite her cramps. “You say that every time. And I say, ‘Cheaper, too.’ ”

  The doctor smiled. “True, too. New shells?” she asked, looking at the drift of shells on her patient’s bedside table.

  “Jason brings more every day.”

  Idly Cat stirred a fingertip in the shells. They made light and shadow curve into shapes that were both fascinating and serene. Sunlight streamed in from the full-length window by the bed. Light filled the room, picking out all the white envelopes and crumpled papers left by Cat’s bill-paying spree.

  “Working?” Dr. Stone asked, looking at the envelopes.

  “Just taking care of a few details. Sharon will mail them for me tomorrow.”

  “No need. I’ll mail them on my way home.”

  Dr. Stone gathered the envelopes and put them in her leather attaché case. Then she gave her patient a quick, expert examination. When she was finished, she sat in the chair that had been drawn up to Cat’s bed for visitors.

  “It’s not any worse, is it?” Cat asked anxiously.

  “It’s been ten days. Frankly, I’d hoped for some progress. Are you staying in bed?”

  “Yes. I only get up to go to the bathroom.”

  “Are you eating well?”

  Instead of answering, Cat handed over a list of her meals since the last visit. Doctor Stone read it in silence, nodding approvingly from time to time.

  “What about sleep?” the doctor asked.

  Cat looked down at her hands, willing them not to clench. She hadn’t had a whole night’s sleep since Travis had sailed the Wind Warrior over the curve of the world.

  “I sleep,” she said.

  “How many hours a night?”

  “A few.”

  “How many is a few? Two? Four? Six?”

  “Three, most of the time. Sometimes . . . less.”

  Dr. Stone frowned. “Do cramps wake you up?”

  “Dreams.”

  “Describe them.”

  “There’s only one, really.” Cat’s fingers laced together. “At least, only one ending. I stumble into the hole at the center of the universe and fall and then I wake up cold and shaking. It takes me a while to figure out that it was just a dream.”

  “Sleep with a light on.”

  “I do. It’s just that”—she took a deep breath—“the dream is very real.”

  Dr. Stone put her hand over her patient’s clenched fingers. “You never talk about the baby’s father. Does he know you’re pregnant?”

  Cat’s face became smooth, utterly expressionless. “Yes.”

  “I see.” The doctor chose her next words carefully. “You’re not the type of woman to sleep with a man just because you can. Do you still love him?”

  “I don’t hate him,” Cat said, unwilling to assess her own raw feelings any more than that.

  “Even though he abandoned you?”

  Cat’s breath came in sharply as she remembered Travis’s rage and . . . agony. His sense of betrayal had been as deep as hers.

  Deeper.

  She could see that now, where before she had seen only her own terrible hurt.

  “I don’t hate him,” she said in a soft, certain voice.

  “That’s why you want this baby. Other men, other babies just don’t interest you, is that it?”

  “Yes.”

  “No wonder you can’t sleep. The man is gone and you’re losing the battle to keep the baby.”

  “No.”

  Dr. Stone’s hand squeezed gently over Cat’s fingers.

  “Listen to me,” the doctor said. “You must begin the process of accepting what almost certainly will happen.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Cathy. If you don’t, there will be a time you won’t wake up when you stumble into that hole. You’ll just keep on falling.”

  Cat closed her eyes, not wanting to see the other woman’s compassionate face.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Dr. Stone continued gently. “It’s a miracle that you’re still pregnant at all. You have an amazing will. But even you can’t keep willing miracles day after day, week after week.”

  Slowly Cat opened her eyes. She saw the doctor’s concern and her calm certainty that the pregnancy would be lost.

  “Why?” Cat whispered.

  Dr. Stone hesitated, then said, “I’ve seen thousands of pregnancies, delivered thousands of babies. I’ve learned not to question the wisdom of a woman’s body, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy. Learn to accept all the possibilities, Cathy. Then, when your mind is calm, let your body decide what is best. It knows more than either of us.”

  Cat drew in a long, tight breath. “I’ll try. But I want this baby so much!”

  The doctor’s smile was both sad and comforting. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to deliver a healthy baby into your arms.”

  Cat looked quickly at Dr. Stone’s dark, compassionate eyes. “I’ll think about . . . what you said.”

  “Good.” The doctor stood up. “I’ll see you in three days. Call me immediately if the pattern of bleeding changes or the cramps become rhythmic or truly painful. Do you need anything else?”

  “Nothing. Just . . .” Cat’s voice died.

  Her hands opened and settled protectively over her womb, saying all that she couldn’t say in words.

  “Think about what I said, Cathy. Find what peace you can with yourself.”

  Cat didn’t answer.

  The door closed behind Dr. Stone.

  Slowly the light flowing over the bed shifted from yellow to gold to deep orange. Motionless, Cat lay watching the supple transformations of the sea, trying to understand the unthinkable, accept the unspeakable.

  It’s a miracle that you’re still pregnant at all.

  I’ve learned not to question the wisdom of a woman’s body.

  Let your body decide.

  “No,” Cat whispered. “I can’t.”

  If you don’t, there will be a time you won’t wake up when you stumble into that hole. You’ll just keep falling.

  Accept. Accept. Accept.

  Yet Cat couldn’t. She simply could not accept losing the tiny ember inside her.

  So she thought of other things, her mind floating free, adrift in twilight, seeking the black shadow of a vanished ship.

  TWENTY-ONE

  NIGHT OR day, moonlight or sunlight or storm, the Pacific rolled in untamed waves from horizon to horizon. Usually the simple magnificence of the sea cleansed Travis of impatience and anger, but not this time. He had lost track of how many days he had been on the water.

  He knew only that it hadn’t been enough time.

  Cat hadn’t called his cousin’s house. She hadn’t called his lawyer.

  She will, Travis told himself with bitter certainty. She doesn’t have enough money to support a baby. If she’s too coy to talk to an answering machine, she’ll get the number I left with Harrington or he’ll patch her through to the ship on a radio link.

  Cat’s a big girl. She’ll figure it out. She was going for the lifetime ride, but she’s shrewd enough to cut her losses and take the cash instead of the gold ring.

  Sterile.

  My God, how could I have been taken in so easily?

  Like the waves rolling beneath the ship, Travis kept going over and over his relationship with Cat, from its rocky beginning to its brutal end. He needed to figure out where he had gone wrong, how he had been so completely fooled by her.

  It wasn’t as though he had ignored the possibility of getti
ng Cat pregnant. He had asked her outright.

  I’m not contagious, but I have to know if you’re protected against pregnancy.

  She had answered with a reluctance that set off warning bells.

  I won’t get pregnant.

  He had pressed her hard, needing to know the truth.

  Are you certain?

  I’m very certain. But it doesn’t matter.

  Like hell it doesn’t. I was caught in the baby trap once. Once was more than enough.

  Not to worry, Mr. T. H. Danvers. I’m fresh out of baby traps.

  What does that mean?

  I’m sterile!

  Cat’s rage had been so real, her pride so vulnerable, that Travis hadn’t pushed beyond her words to real proof of sterility.

  She had lied to him, beginning to end. He had believed her.

  Beginning to end.

  Spray lifted past the bow, brushed across Travis’s hands like cool, salty kisses from a passionate yesterday. He tightened his grip on the railing and kept replaying scenes as he had done day and night since Cat betrayed him. He tore each memory apart again and again, seeking . . . something.

  Some truth. Some answers.

  Something to make him feel more alive, less a fool.

  She had been so convincing, so proud, so strong and yet so vulnerable.

  When Billy found out I was the reason we weren’t having kids, he was furious. He wanted to know how I would earn my keep since I couldn’t have babies. I wasn’t educated, my mother was broke, and I was sterile. What damn good was I to a man?

  Even in memory, Cat’s words squeezed Travis’s heart. The knowledge that she still could reach inside him made him want to scream in raw fury. Because underneath it all, the pain and the memory and humiliation, he was hungry for her. He couldn’t sleep for remembering how it felt to push into her tight, wet body and listen to her rippling cries of pleasure.

  Travis didn’t want to remember Cat’s surprise and passion when she climaxed that first time. And he had believed it was her first.

  What an actress. Shit, why didn’t she go onstage? Money would have been the least of her problems.

  Hot memories sleeted through him, sex better than he had ever had before, so damn good he never questioned the truth of Cat’s response. He knew women could fake climax—and he also knew there were some things that couldn’t be faked. Wet sheets were one of them.

  All right. So she enjoyed it. So what? She lied about the rest and I went for it all, hip-deep and buried to the hilt.

  Furious with Cat and with himself, Travis spent his waking moments balanced on the razor edge of self-control. It had never been this bad. Not even with Tina.

  He couldn’t go back to shore yet. He was still too vulnerable. He was still haunted by the sight of Cat’s hand in the flames and the ice in her eyes when she told him to take his money and go to hell.

  But most of all he was consumed by something he called himself a fool for even thinking.

  What if she wasn’t lying? What if she really thought she was sterile?

  The possibility teased him, taunted him with all that he wanted to believe, all that he hungered to believe, with an intensity that left him shaken.

  He needed her.

  She only needed his money.

  He had to remember that. Women and money was a lesson that had cost too much to learn. He couldn’t allow himself to forget that.

  Travis’s hands squeezed the cold railing hard enough to leave marks on his palms.

  “Captain?”

  He spun toward Diego. “I told you I didn’t want—”

  “There is a call for you,” the first mate interrupted quickly. “Very urgent.”

  A savage combination of triumph and despair twisted through Travis. The triumph he understood.

  Cat got my number from Harrington and called.

  Travis ignored the despair. He didn’t want to examine why being right about what Cat really wanted from him should make his gut twist.

  Nobody was standing around the radio phone when Travis got there. Every crew member had vanished. No one wanted to be within range of their captain’s hair-trigger temper.

  “Yes?” Travis said into the transmitter.

  “Well, if it isn’t Hell-on-Women Danvers. Finally. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get this call through?”

  “Harrington,” Travis said. Disappointment made his voice rough.

  “That’s me, boy-o. Mind telling me why you aren’t picking up your phone messages?”

  “I am.”

  “Delightful,” Harrington said sarcastically. “Then why in hell haven’t you returned just one of my ten calls?”

  “Eleven.”

  “But who’s counting, right? Talk to me, Travis. Tell me why I shouldn’t hire a boatload of thugs and beat you into a thin paste.”

  “Nice to know who my friends are.”

  “You’re lucky to have any.”

  “Am I to assume Cat told you the heart-wrenching—or is it gut-wrenching?—tale of her sterility followed by her miraculous fertility?” Travis asked.

  “I talked to Cochran.”

  “Then you know what kind of a fool I’ve been.”

  “I know what kind of a fool you’re being. Cathy isn’t a lying, scheming piece of ass like Tina.”

  “The proof is in the pudding. Or isn’t Cat pregnant?”

  “That’s up for grabs right now.”

  Travis felt as though the ship was sliding down the side of a wave as tall as the sky. “Are you telling me that she’s going to have an abortion?” he asked savagely.

  “An abortion? Are you on drugs? Get it through the rock that passes for your brain: This isn’t Tina. Right now Cathy is flat on her back in bed, doing everything she can to hang on to your baby.”

  “Yeah yeah yeah,” Travis said, not believing a word of it. “You’re breaking my heart.”

  “I’d rather break your head,” Harrington snarled.

  “Just because I don’t think old Fire-and-Ice is an innocent little angel? Hell, Harrington. You’re the one who’s always telling me that a man can’t really know a woman until he sleeps with her. I’ve slept with Cat. Have you?”

  “Of course I haven’t. She’s my friend.”

  Travis told himself he wasn’t going to ask. It was none of his business.

  But it would explain why Cat hadn’t called him or his lawyer.

  “Did her Big Check from Energistics come through?” Travis asked.

  “No,” Harrington said curtly. “And it won’t. Energistics is tits-up. Hardly enough left for the lawyers to snarl over.”

  Then why hasn’t Cat called? Travis demanded silently. She’s dead broke and the twins’ tuition is due.

  “So how much did you give her?” Travis asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Cash and Cat.”

  “I tried to help her. She refused.”

  “Playing for keeps, isn’t she?”

  “Listen, you muleheaded son of a bitch,” Harrington said, spacing each word so there could be no misunderstanding. “Cat isn’t playing at all. She’s honest to a fault. She has more integrity than any ten people and more stubbornness even than you!”

  “So says the man who hasn’t slept with her. Watch it, pal. Next thing you know she’ll have you in front of a minister.”

  Silence stretched. Then Harrington spoke, his voice all but purring. “What a wonderful idea. Thank you. Should I send you an invitation? It will be a small ceremony, of course. Do RSVP at your convenience.”

  Before Travis could get his voice back, Harrington broke the connection.

  Travis stood there, staring at the radio phone, for a long time. He knew his friend wouldn’t be getting married. Not to Cat. If she had wanted to marry Harrington, she would have by now. But she hadn’t even been his lover.

  The thought transfixed Travis. He had been assuming that Cat wanted him for his money, but Harrington was richer than Travis.
>
  What if Harrington is right about Cat’s integrity?

  Then, like ice water, came the second question: What if he isn’t?

  Travis didn’t know the answer to either question. He did know that nothing was being solved at sea.

  “Diego!” he yelled up the stairway.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Set course for Dana Point.”

  Travis listened to the creak and snap of sails as the ship came about. Automatically he shifted his weight, adjusting to the different feel of the sea. Something close to calm stole over him. Cat needed his money. No matter how stubborn she was, she couldn’t get past that fact.

  She would see his ship returning, know that he was back, and call him.

  Lying in bed, watching a restless dawn, Cat saw the Wind Warrior sail back out of the night, heading down the coast to Dana Point. Her heart beat so fast that it frightened her as much as the cramps gripping her body. She would have given anything but her baby to get up and look through a telescope, to see Travis again, if only at a distance, if only for an instant.

  He came back, she thought, dizzy with relief. He thought about it and now he knows it wasn’t the money I wanted. Just him.

  Soon he’ll call me, hold me, trust me, love me as much as I love him.

  Tears burned behind Cat’s eyes. In an agony of hope, she waited for the phone to ring.

  She waited all day.

  She endured another dream-haunted night.

  Sometime during the second day, Cat finally understood that Travis wasn’t going to call her. He wasn’t going to see her. She was no more to him than spindrift torn from a storm wave.

  Sometime during the second night, Cat realized that even good swimmers could drown.

  Finally she slept, only to wake up shaking, breathing brokenly, sweating, bolt upright in bed. Just a dream, she assured herself frantically. Wake up. It’s just that damned dream.

  But being awake didn’t end the nightmare. It was there in the blackness beyond her window, in her shallow breaths, in the fear that made her body rigid. Silently she endured it all, the sweating and the cramps, the darkness and the nightmare, the blank emptiness that awaited her with such terrifying patience.

  I’ll be better in the morning.

  The bleeding will stop. The baby will be fine. This will all be worth it, every bit of it, when I hold our baby in my arms.