The Pregnancy Contract

by Yvonne Lindsay

  Upstairs in her bedroom she quickly changed out of her work clothes and into a comfortable pair of stretchy sweatpants and a long sleeved T-shirt, and pulled on her father’s old robe over it all. She cinched the sash around her thickening waist and rested her hand on her belly. Now at sixteen weeks, this pregnancy felt different than her last but she was afraid to hope that everything would be okay.

  She needed a distraction, she decided as she stroked the fabric of the robe. Maybe now would be as good a time as any to sort out her father’s personal papers. Wade didn’t seem to be in a hurry for them to go through her father’s room. Perhaps she could have it all done by the time he returned.

  Piper lit the fire that was set in the grate in her father’s suite and drew the drapes to help keep the warmth in. The Dexters had obviously been airing the room on a regular basis because not so much as a trace of his presence remained. It was more than four months since his death and yet sometimes it still felt as raw as if she’d just heard the news.

  She settled by the escritoire in the corner of the room and busied herself deciding on what needed to be kept and what should be burned. It was about an hour later that she cast off the robe and pushed up the sleeves of her T-shirt. She must have put too much wood on the fire, she thought as she realized that she had begun to sweat, but hard on the heels of the sweat came another round of chills.

  This was ridiculous, she thought, shrugging the robe back on again, this time leaving it open. She was making good headway on her father’s papers and didn’t want to stop now. She still didn’t feel hungry and it wasn’t too late yet. She’d just check this one drawer before going back downstairs and heating up dinner.

  The drawer contained a flat file box with her name on it. Startled, Piper lifted it out. She had never known her father to express any sentimentality over her childhood certificates and awards, so what could he have in here? She lifted the lid, surprised to see a collection of her old school reports and every single childishly hand-drawn card she’d made for Father’s Day or Rex’s birthday. Tears filled her eyes as she looked through them. The fact he had kept every one was proof positive that, in his own way, he had cared about her, that she’d mattered to him. She felt the knowledge finally begin healing the gaping hole in her heart. Swiping away the moisture on her cheeks with the cuff of one sleeve, she set the mementos aside and pulled out the plain manila folder that lay at the bottom.

  She opened the cover and was surprised to see the logo of a health insurance company. The name jogged her memory. It was the company her father had insured her under when she’d left to go overseas. But what was he doing with all these papers?

  She spread them out on the desk surface in front of her. For the most part, they appeared to be a record of premiums and notifications of increases, or decreases, in available benefits. But then two words sprang out at her from a stapled set of papers.

  Spontaneous abortion.

  Piper’s hand shook as she picked up the report and read it more thoroughly. Of course her father would have gotten the wrong end of the stick. Medical terminology had never been his forte. He probably read those two words and didn’t read any farther—and then he’d done the unthinkable and told Wade.

  She felt sick to her stomach. All that anger, all that sorrow, Wade had borne these past years—all for the sake of a misunderstanding? It just wasn’t right. Not only that her father could think her capable of taking a life, but that Wade had believed she had done so, also. Her first instinct was to pick up a phone and call him, to tell him that she had the proof that she was telling the truth, but caution stayed her hand. This was a discussion that was far better held face-to-face.

  Piper placed the papers carefully back on the desk and started to sort through the balance of information. A swell of nausea hit her hard, along with it another flush of heat that saw her body bloom with perspiration. She should have stopped to eat. She’d noticed she only suffered nausea with this pregnancy when she didn’t eat little bits often. The rest of the papers would have to wait until tomorrow.

  She stood and gripped the desk and groaned as a spear of pain shot through her head. The last time she’d felt this bad had been when she’d had malaria. A shock of fear hit her with seismic effect. Could she be suffering a relapse? May had mentioned this could be a serious issue, with treatment being problematic for the baby.

  Piper cupped her belly with both hands. No, not again. She didn’t want anything to happen to this baby. Hadn’t she already borne enough loss in her life? And Wade—he wouldn’t believe she hadn’t done something on purpose.

  She stumbled toward the door. She had to call May, but the doctor’s number was in her handbag, which she’d left downstairs. As she stumbled down the first flight of stairs, all she could think of was Wade and how she needed him to know she wanted this baby to be all right, that she’d tried her hardest and that even now she wasn’t going to give up. It was on the landing halfway down that she lost her fight for consciousness, the piercing pain in her head too much for her anymore.

  Fifteen

  “Miss Piper! Miss Piper!”

  Dexie’s worried voice penetrated the fog of pain and heat that held her body captive.

  “Dexter, call an ambulance, quickly. And call Mr. Collins. He left his contact details in the library.”

  “N-no.” Piper struggled to form the words her confused brain knew had to be said. “Don’t tell Wade. Not yet.”

  “Don’t fuss yourself, Miss Piper. He needs to know.”

  “N-not until we know what’s wr-rong,” she said as a violent shiver shook her body, making her teeth chatter. “D-Dr. Ritter. Her number. It’s in my b-bag. Call her. T-tell her…m-malaria.”

  Her eyes slid shut, speech suddenly too much for her. She felt Dexie’s hand repeatedly and gently stroke her forehead, the sensation soothing her as she slid back into unconsciousness.

  Two more nights and he’d be home. Things had been chaos when he’d arrived but he was making headway. The most important thing was that none of the exports they’d organized out of the region had been jeopardized and everything remained on track. Now it was just a matter of waiting for Roy to show up and briefing him on what was to happen next.

  Wade picked up the glass of brandy he’d ordered from the bar and looked out across the hotel pool and past it to the lagoon. It was an idyllic setting, especially considering the wintry weather he’d left behind him at home, but it wasn’t a setting to be enjoyed alone. Maybe he should have brought Piper with him after all. The thought snuck into his head before he could quell it, and with it, brought a surge of longing.

  Without stopping to consider what he was doing he reached into his pocket and extracted his cell phone, automatically punching in the numbers to call home. The phone rang several times before the harried voice of Dexter answered.

  “Dexter? Is everything okay?” Wade asked.

  “Oh, sir. Thank goodness you called. The ambulance has just been here. I was going to call you once we knew where Miss Piper was being taken.”

  The relief in the older man’s voice was palpable, reaching across almost three thousand kilometers and delivering a punch of fear square in Wade’s gut.

  “What’s wrong? What happened? Is she all right?”

  Hard on those questions came another. Had she done something to harm the baby?

  “We came home this evening to find Miss Piper collapsed on the stairs. We have no idea how long she’d been there in that state. We would have gone straight to our cottage and wouldn’t have come in the house if there hadn’t been so many lights on inside. Mrs. Dexter was worried. Thank goodness we checked.”

  “She fell?”

  “No, she’s ill, sir. The ambulance officers weren’t sure what it was but she kept refusing any medication in case it hurt the baby.”

  Wade got what details he could from Dexter before leaving his untouched drink on his table and heading back to his room. His frustration mounted as he tried to book a flight home. Th
e soonest he could get on board a plane was at almost 2:00 a.m. He looked at his watch. There had to be another way he could get home faster.

  He tried charter companies but in the end it would only have taken longer to get a plane to Apia that he could then travel on to Auckland. The hours until he could get home and make sure that everything—everyone—he corrected himself, was okay, stretched out interminably.

  Staying here at the hotel a moment longer was just going to drive him crazy. If he was out at the airport, he’d feel that he was at least a little closer to heading home. He quickly threw his things in his case and grabbed it and his laptop and headed for the door.

  At the airport his frustrations increased a thousand fold as the early hour he’d gone out there meant he couldn’t check in yet. But finally he was on the plane and headed in the direction he needed to be going.

  His whole focus had been on getting on the next available flight home, but now he was forced by the four-hour flight to stop and wait—and think. Those thoughts immediately turning to the woman who’d never been far from his mind the whole time he’d been away.

  Something just didn’t gel with what Dexter had said. She’d refused any medication. Her first concern had been for the baby. This wasn’t the Piper he thought he’d left behind. She’d been talking about getting rid of their child, just like she’d done before. Refusing medication wasn’t the action of woman who didn’t have a care toward the life growing within her. It had a lot more to do with a woman who was prepared to protect that life at all costs.

  The possibility made him rethink that awful night in the nursery, turning over their conversation in his mind again and again. She’d never actually said she wanted to be rid of the baby and she’d tried to make him believe the loss of their first infant had been out of her control. Even faced with the fact that he knew about that first pregnancy, she’d been adamant—her story not wavering a millimeter.

  Had he jumped to conclusions and heard only what he had believed she’d been saying, instead of what she’d meant all along? Had he been wrong about her? A fist clutched in his chest. He wanted to be wrong about her. He’d always wanted to be wrong about her. Finally he allowed himself to face the truth. He’d seen the evidence with his very own eyes. Piper had been different since she’d come home. More settled, more willing to take on responsibility. Going so far, even, to give him the child he’d insisted upon even though the prospect had clearly terrified her.

  That took a new level of bravery. Sure, he’d had her between a rock and a hard place over the money and all the things that should rightfully have been hers. But she’d still had the option of walking away. Granted, with nothing and probably to nothing, but a woman who had as much pride as Piper had always had, wouldn’t have thought twice about turning her back on the debt. Somehow she would have found a way to survive.

  Survive. Hard on that thought came a deeper concern. If Piper was ill, it had to be pretty serious for her to collapse as she had. And it was with that thought that Wade knew that he didn’t want anything to happen to her—ever. He loved her, and he hoped against hope that he would have the chance to tell her face-to-face. To tell her that he was sorry for all the pain he’d put her through, and to beg her forgiveness.

  It was 5:00 a.m. in Auckland when the plane touched down. Wade disembarked as swiftly as he could and processed through immigration before the interminable wait at the baggage claim. He considered just leaving his suitcase on the carousel, and sending for it later, but even as the thought formed in his mind his Louis Vuitton case appeared. He scooped it up and headed for customs, thankfully without issue, and headed straight for the taxi line outside the terminal building—one thing and one thing only on his mind. Piper.

  The sun was rising as the cab pulled up outside Auckland City Hospital. Wade could only hope that the feeble rays punching through the dark clouds were a sign that everything would be okay.

  May Ritter was at the nurses’ station when he arrived on the floor Piper had been admitted to. She turned at the sound of his feet marching at a fast clip on the vinyl floor.

  “Wade, you got here fast. What did you do, charter a plane?”

  “I couldn’t, or I’d have been here sooner. How is she?”

  “We’ve stabilized Piper’s fever and fetal monitoring shows everything is normal.”

  “Thank God. A fever? Why? What’s wrong with Piper?”

  May smiled and laid a hand on his arm to reassure him. “It’s a particularly nasty strain of one of the current influenza viruses. It was a relief to us all that it wasn’t a relapse of malaria, the symptoms presented very similarly, and Piper told me that it was her biggest fear.”

  “Her biggest fear, why?”

  “She’d contracted malaria a while back, during her volunteer stint abroad. I believe she was working at a women’s clinic in Africa at the time—it was the first of several tours she did with various agencies through many countries. It’s hard work and can be soul destroying, but she stuck it out despite getting sick. Did she never tell you that?”

  “No, I didn’t even know she’d done volunteer work.”

  Wade shook his head in disbelief. Piper? Volunteering to help those far less privileged? It didn’t fit with the girl who’d left him, but for some reason it seemed to suit the woman who’d returned.

  “Apparently she’s been all over the place. Mostly Africa and Asia. You’ll have to get her to tell you about it some time.”

  “Yes, yes, I will,” he said, admitting to himself that there was a whole other side of Piper that he needed to know and understand. “Can I see her?”

  “She’s resting.”

  “I won’t disturb her, I just want to see she’s okay.”

  “Sure, I can understand that. But don’t wake her. Her fever’s down and she needs the rest more now than anything. All going well, we might even be able to let her home later today.”

  “Don’t rush her out. If this is the best place for her I don’t give a damn what it costs, keep her where she’ll get the best care.”

  “We won’t let her out until she’s ready, but I think she’ll be fine. Usually when a flu case presents like this we’d be administering medication, but there doesn’t appear to be any problems with the baby and Piper has expressed a wish that we hold off unless absolutely necessary. Bearing her wishes in mind, however, you can rest assured that if her illness presented any issues for the baby we’d be treating her.”

  “Thank you,” Wade said, feeling relief begin to ease the tension in his shoulders and neck. “Where is she?”

  May indicated the room two doors down from the nurses’ station and issued a final warning not to disturb her patient.

  “Don’t worry,” Wade said, “I want her to be well again, too.”

  He felt his heart hitch in his chest as he pushed open the door and entered Piper’s room. The lighting had been subdued and she looked very small and alone in the hospital bed. He left his cases just inside the door and crossed to the chair next to the bed, lowering himself quietly into it. He scanned her face, noting the sweep of her lashes on cheeks stained with a faint flush of fever. She appeared to be sleeping normally and he felt himself relax by degrees, sinking back into the chair to watch the steady rise and fall of her chest.

  He had no idea what time it was when he saw her move beneath the covers. “Wade?”

  Her voice made him sit upright. “Shall I call the nurse? Are you okay?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose, you have to believe me,” she said, her voice a weak whisper as she drifted back to sleep again.

  Her words sliced through to his heart. He’d been such an ogre that her first thought on waking was to defend herself to him. It was no better than he deserved. He’d made such a total hash of all of this. He’d treated her with a complete lack of respect, thinking only of his own agenda and hoarding his bitterness over the past close to him—allowing it to color his every decision. And why? All because he still allowed his father’s cho
ices and decisions to sway his own direction.

  He’d long since become his own man. Why did he let his old man’s abandonment drive him even now? He was a success in business, something his father had never achieved. He had wealth and position in society, again things Eric Collins had failed at. And Wade had the chance to make something good out of something bad, instead of walking away from it and never looking back—so what was holding him in the past?

  He knew what it was like to stand on his own, to fight for everything that came his way and create opportunities for those things that didn’t. Had it really been so different for Piper when she’d left home? She’d been on her own, completely alone. Could he continue to blame her for decisions she made back then? Things he’d had no knowledge of, things he couldn’t change now even if he’d had.

  The icy grip around his heart began to soften and melt as Wade realized that no matter what she’d done before, what mattered most to him was her well-being. Now and in the future. And he wanted to be a part of her future. He wanted to love her and protect her and stand beside her through the next stage of their lives, together.

  But would she let him? Would she ever believe that he forgave her for not telling him about their first baby? Would she ever let him love her again?

  Wade sat motionless in the chair at her bedside for several hours. Just watching her sleep. It was around lunchtime that May returned to check on her patient and ordered him home to get some rest. He eventually agreed, but only on the proviso that the hospital contact him the moment Piper woke. Piper’s fever had returned and it was unlikely she’d be coming home today. The knowledge that she and their baby were still at risk struck fear into his heart. He wanted her to be well again so he could begin repairing the damage he’d wrought.

  The cab ride home passed in a blur. He’d been on the go now for more hours than he could count. When he got home he updated the Dexters on Piper’s progress and then made his way wearily upstairs. As he reached the door to his suite, he remembered that Mrs. Dexter had mentioned that last night, Piper had been in her father’s old rooms.