by Ella Brooke
"Pet, I've wondered off and on—"
She could feel her heart beat faster with dread at his soft words. No. If he wanted to leave her in New York after giving her another few wonderful days, she didn't want to hear it. She didn't know how to stop him, and so she turned to him tensely.
Then the car gave an enormous jerk as it slammed to a halt. All around them, cars burst into a cacophony of angry honks and shouts, and Natalie felt herself relax with relief.
"What the hell was that?" Patrick asked.
"Looks like someone had a fender bender with a food truck about five cars up," Natalie said looking out the window. "Oh, neat — the food truck has food from various countries wrapped up in the dough from a Chinese bun. That sounds pretty good, actually."
Patrick gave her a wary look.
"Please don't tell me you are going to get us involved in a traffic accident just so you can try some questionable food," he said, and she smiled at him. If he could forget about what he was saying so easily, she wasn't going to complain.
"Get us involved, no. But if traffic happens to stop next to the food truck, there is not a force in the universe that could stop me from getting some of those buns.”
***
"Oh, that was a mistake," Natalie groaned, curling up into a small ball on the vast hotel bed. Patrick, dressed in a sharp suit for an evening meeting, looked infuriatingly good and healthy.
"I would honestly say that these are your just desserts, but what does it mean that I ate more than you did, and I feel fine?"
"It means that I'm cursed," Natalie groaned. "Just go on without me."
"You already told me that you weren't interested in going to the meeting," he said patiently. "Stay still, and if you need something, ring the front desk, all right? They'll take care of you."
"Thank you," Natalie sighed as another brief pain flashed across her abdomen. Patrick kissed her almost chastely on the top of the head, and then he was gone, leaving her in a beautiful hotel room atop a gorgeous old hotel. Natalie lay on her back with one arm draped over her eyes, and for a brief span of time, she thought of nothing at all.
Then she rolled over to see if there was anything good on the television, and she sucked in her breath at how sensitive her breasts had become. They grew mildly sore at certain times of month, but this pain was a little different. It was deep rather than bright, almost sensual, and her eyes opened wide.
She tried to think of the last time she had her period, and the alarm bells that had started to chime in her mind got louder and louder.
"Oh, there's no way!" she said out loud, but even as she said it, she knew that there were plenty of ways and plenty of times. After the first time, they had tried to be conscientious about condom use, but more than once, the urge to give in to their passion immediately was too much.
"Okay, okay," she said to herself, sitting up. "I can't panic. I need to think about what I can do and what I need to learn."
The first step was to get a test. There was a drug store around the corner, and in her blind hurry, Natalie grabbed a handful of tests off of the shelf. The clerk raised an eyebrow at her, but Natalie ignored him as she hurried back to the hotel room. She felt as if her face were on fire, as if everyone who could see her knew what she was doing. Her brain still felt frozen. She was doing everything on autopilot.
She took two tests at once, and when that line showed up telling her that her suspicions were confirmed, she took another two. That was four tests that told her why she had been feeling so tired and odd lately.
Oh my God. I'm pregnant, she thought.
She wasn't sure how she started walking. She was aware that she was moving out of the hotel and onto the sidewalk, but it all felt like a very distant thing. She was aware enough to stay with the flow of traffic and to avoid the bumper-to-bumper cars outside, but little else.
Her mind was spinning.
A baby.
Hers and Patrick's.
A baby was growing inside her, and she would be a mother. Wouldn't she? Would she be any good at it? Would she be the kind of mother she wished she had, or would she be like the mother that some of her friends had — bitter, shouting and cruel? Her own mother had done her best, but poverty had ground her down and Natalie was certain that her mother's employers saw more of her than her daughter did.
And Patrick? What would he say about all of this? Would he be angry with her? Would he want to keep the baby, and in turn would that make him want to keep her? The thought made her heart hurt, the idea of staying with Patrick for the sake of the baby. That would be terrible.
She made her way to Central Park. The enormous green space at the heart of the city was a comfort in a way. It was gorgeous in places, full of people who wanted to enjoy the outdoors. She found herself a path without thinking too much about it and started to walk. Most of the paths were loops, and her mind followed the patterns her feet traced. She thought of the baby, she thought of Patrick, and with every moment that passed, she grew more upset and more confused. The only thing that she could do was put one foot in front of the other, moving forward with a kind of dogged determination.
What the hell was she going to do?
***
For Patrick, the first clue that something was wrong came when he couldn't reach Natalie on her cell. He left her a voicemail, assuming that she was in the shower. Then he came back to an empty hotel room, but it wasn't as if he told her she had to stay there; she was welcome to wander as she liked.
He wondered briefly if she was falling in love with her home country all over again. Once in a while in Scotland, she spoke wistfully about the United States. Perhaps this trip would tip her over on it?
Patrick shrugged the thought away. Even if it happened, there was no suggestion it might happen now. She said she loved him, and he hung onto that.
Then he walked into the bathroom and was startled by the cardboard packaging on the floor. He picked it up, read the label almost by accident and felt his blood run cold. The tests were tossed into the wastebasket, but he didn't need to read them to figure out what was going on. Suddenly everything made sense — he needed to find Natalie.
Patrick took a deep breath and started to make some phone calls.
***
The sun was going down and the temperature was dropping. Natalie's feet were sore, and her arms were strapped around her to hold in the warmth. In a distant way, she wished that she had dressed warmer, but that was almost incidental. Her mind buzzed so loudly with the information that she held that she could barely think straight. All she could do was keep walking.
The park's lights were coming up, and she knew that it would be dangerous to stay after dark, but she felt trapped, stuck.
I want Patrick, she thought, the first clear thought she had had in hours.
Natalie looked up with a start and realized that at some point, she had entered a portion of the park that she had never seen before. Chills ran up her spine, and suddenly she felt starkly afraid — not just for herself but also for the baby inside her. One hand came up to rest over her belly, and now it was real for her in a way that it had never been before. She was going to have a baby. She was going to be a mother.
There was a dim figure coming up the path towards her, and Natalie wondered if it sped up. She tensed herself to fight, to flee, to do whatever it took to get out of the situation, but then she saw that it was a police officer.
"Are you Natalie Rook?" the man said, as soon as he was close enough, and she was so startled she relaxed, standing up straight.
"I am, sir," she said, and he smiled at her.
"That's good. There's someone who’s been looking for you."
***
She expected confusion and perhaps even anger when she got back to the hotel, but Natalie had not expected this glacial rage. Patrick looked up when the policeman escorted her to the door. He was polite, even generous with the man, offering a hundred dollar bill to the protesting man while showing him out.
&
nbsp; Then they were alone, and Patrick turned towards her with an icy blue glare.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" he demanded, and she fell back defensively, lifting her chin.
"I wasn't doing anything that warranted being brought back by the police," she said. "I feel very fortunate that they did not break out the handcuffs—"
He cut her off, shaking his head. It was as if there was a thick glass wall between them. Patrick didn't have to hear her right now, and he was moving fast.
"Get ready to fly out," he said tersely. "Anything you don't pack, we are just leaving here."
"Fly out? Why?"
He gave her a flat look.
"Because I have been informed that you are bearing my child," he said, "or would you like to embarrass us both by denying it?"
She stared at him, feeling a warmth of dull shame on her cheeks.
"I... I meant to tell you. I was going to, I just couldn't think..."
"You didn't think, that's exactly right," he said savagely. She flinched, and for a moment, it seemed as if he would say more. Then he sighed. "That is my child that you are carrying inside you. We will talk more about this in Dublin, but only in Dublin. I can’t speak to you right now."
He paused, and for a moment she thought he might soften, that Patrick might remember the warmth between them and relent, but then his gaze was blue ice again.
"Move."
Chapter Fifteen
The flight back to Dublin was torturous, or at least it would have been if she were awake for it. As soon as she was on the plane, Natalie felt extraordinarily tired. She wanted more than anything than to snuggle up to Patrick, but that was clearly not going to happen. Instead, she nodded off in the seat across from him as he worked, having terse conversations with a number of different people.
It seemed he had canceled a number of engagements to return to Dublin at this point, and some people were not pleased.
When she mentioned it, Patrick shrugged.
"They can be pleased or not pleased, it has ceased to matter to me at all. Right now, there is only one important thing for me to think about."
He leveled a cold look at her, and Natalie felt a spark of temper run through her.
"You can't treat me like a criminal," she said. "All I did was take a pregnancy test and take a walk."
"No, that's not all of what you did," he bit out. "You neglected to say that you took off with your head in the clouds as you are so prone to do, and while you were newly pregnant, before even speaking to a doctor, you decided to wander around a desolate portion of a city that you knew not at all. The police officer on the phone told me they found you in an area that had two muggings in the last year, Natalie!"
"I didn't know that," she contested hotly, but he made a cutting motion with his hand.
"There is nothing you can say that is going to make this sound better, Natalie," he said bitterly. "I knew when I met you that you were wild. I thought perhaps that Scotland might have tamed you a bit, made us suit a little better, but I can see now that that was purely wrong."
"Tamed me?" cried Natalie. "Like some kind of wild bird or dog?"
"I would expect a dog to come to heel better," he retorted. "But quiet now, I have a call to make."
It was on her mind to simply shout and ruin the call, but that was likely just pure spite talking. Her fatigue was catching up with her again, and before the phone call ended, she was asleep again.
She woke up with a blanket tucked around herself, but when she glanced at Patrick to thank him, she saw him pacing the cabin behind her, a dire look on his face.
***
In Ireland, they returned to the townhouse, and this time she was given her own room instead of staying in her nook in the library. The room was fine, luxurious even, but the only thing it seemed to do for her was to emphasize that there were more walls between her and Patrick than there had been otherwise.
"You are to stay put," he said the first night back. He had all but shaken his finger at her, and she bared her teeth in frustration. "If you think I found you fast in New York, where I know next to no one, you should see how well I know the Dublin police force."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Can't keep a woman?" she said, her voice dark and taunting. "Do you have to threaten to lock me up?"
"A woman with a grain of common sense would not have to be locked up," he retorted, and then he was gone.
***
Two days later, Patrick sat her down with his offer, if one could call it that. In his study, he passed her a slip of paper with a number so large on it that she blinked.
"That is how much you will get for your time," he said remotely. "For bearing the child and spending the first year nursing it, boy or girl. During the time you are pregnant and nursing, you will receive a small stipend of the money, say, five thousand a month, and at the end you will receive the balance."
"Are you going to tell me what this is all about?" she asked angrily, and he glared at her.
"You are wild," he said. "There's something in you that cannot be tamed, and it is a fine thing in a lover, but it is...” he struggled with the words, “...deeply unsettling in a mother. That money pays you for your work, and then you will leave the baby with me, where he or she can be raised safely and without fear."
"Without fear!" she spat, but he slammed his hand down on the desk hard enough to make her jump.
"Yes! Without fear that their mother might be kidnapped by criminals, or fall out of a window or go walking in a dangerous park at night! Without fear that their mother might leave everything behind to wander the world for years before returning!"
"I wouldn't," she said weakly, but there was something all too true about it.
"Take the deal," he advised her. "It is the best you'll get, and it will save us all from pain. All three of us."
***
For one day, she put up with it. Natalie wept in her room for a few hours, and then she laid on the bed, coming to terms with it. Perhaps he was right, and she was a dangerous influence. Perhaps he was right, and she would bring pain to any child she bore.
Then Natalie's native stubbornness buoyed her up, she grabbed a piece of paper and started writing.
Better a wild mother than a father who sees everything in shades of gray. Better a nomadic life than one spent in one place, doing the same thing and never thinking of anything beyond it.
She paused, biting her lip, but then she shrugged.
I love you, and I won't give our child a life like that.
Then she was gone.
***
At the airport, Natalie carried only the clothes she had first come to the country with, her phone and her passport. She had a ticket back to the United States, where she would be able to raise her child in peace, and yes, she would try to curb her wilder impulses to keep her child safe. She did not think of Patrick, not of his arms around her or the way her heart was screaming at her not to leave Ireland.
She was working so hard on not thinking of him that she barely heard him shouting her name. Natalie saw the crowd move first, and then she turned just as he ran straight for her, gathering her into his arms. To her shock, his body was shuddering as if he had run a long distance.
"Patrick?"
"Don't you dare," he growled, his voice broken. "Don't you dare leave me, not after you said you love me and that you are having my baby. I love you. I love you so much, you wild woman, and I am sorry."
She could feel the tears prickling her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She knew that she should let him go, talk rationally, but she could not.
"You called me terrible things," she whispered, and he only held her harder.
"Because I was a fool," he growled. "I was crazed with fear, and blinded by my own stupidity. Then you were gone, I read your note, and I realized... Natalie, you were right. About everything. I'm not fit to be a father on my own, I would need you. And then I realized that I need you for all of it. Morning and nig
ht, Dublin and New York and Beijing and all the places in between. Stay with me. Stay with me and I swear, I will make you the happiest I can."
She hugged him hard, feeling as if her heart would swell with joy. Something in her told her that it would all be all right, it would all be wonderful, but still.
"No," she said, and she felt him shudder as if a bullet had gone through him.
"No?"
"No. I love you. I want you, and I want to be married to you and have you father our children to come, but I won't stay. Come with me, instead. Come on. Right now. I will give you my heart, but my soul, I think that you have to chase."
Patrick's face changed from one of confusion and heartbreak to understanding. He glanced up at the gate's designation as if seeing it for the first time, and he laughed.
"All right then, pet," he said, love in every word. "San Diego it is. I've never been, so this ought to be interesting."
"I've never been either, but I'm sure it will be wonderful," she said, and she knew she was not talking about the city.
Epilogue
Four years later, Natalie lounged on the deck of the small watercraft that they took out onto the perfect blue Aegean Sea. Her daughter Tabitha napped with her cheek against Natalie's bare thigh, and she stroked her daughter's hair gently.
"Put some sunscreen on yourself and the child," said Patrick, coming to sit next to her.
Travel suited him, she thought. He boasted a healthy tan now, wearing a pair of cut-off shorts and nothing else, and so handsome he took her breath away.
Agreeably, she took the bottle from him, slathering more of the cool lotion first onto Tabitha and then herself.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, and he smiled.
"Good. All of this sunshine might be getting to me, though. I might be pining for dreary Dublin a bit, but I've no real desire to head back just yet."
"Well, maybe we should," Natalie said, and Patrick raised an eyebrow.
"We should?"
"Well, Tabitha was born in Dublin. It might be nice if her sister or brother was as well."
