Morgan's Child

by Pamela Browning

  "I should let the others go on ahead," she said, pulling him into the green-dappled shade beneath a live oak. Something happened when she touched his arm; a tiny jolt of electricity rippled through him. Suddenly Morgan was conscious of the swell of her breasts beneath the demure jumper, aware of them in a new way. At that moment, Kate seemed extraordinarily womanly.

  Well, of course, she was a woman. She was pregnant, for Pete's sake. Nevertheless, he studied her covertly, taking in the sweet curve of her upper lip, the downy softness of her skin. If he had thought she was gawky or rawboned before, he'd been wrong. Despite her unusual height, he saw now that her wrists were delicately fashioned and her limbs were lithe as well as long.

  "Do you climb this path often?" he demanded after the people had passed and they resumed their climb. Ahead of him he could see the brunette who had been so aggressive. She had enormous hips.

  "I have to go to the landing once a day to pick up my mail," Kate said.

  "Couldn't Gump bring it to you?"

  "I've never asked," Kate said, and as she spoke, it occurred to Morgan that the path was fraught with peril. Little tree roots clutched at Kate's feet, and widespread branches of dwarf wax myrtle clung to her skirt. He thought about her tripping and falling. He thought about her alone in the lighthouse keeper's quarters with no one to call if she were hurt.

  "If you didn't show up, would Gump come looking for you? If you were sick, would he know?" he asked.

  "If I had an emergency, I'd hoist an SOS up the flagpole at the lighthouse, and Gump would come to see what was wrong. He doesn't climb this hill very often. He limps," Kate said patiently.

  "Kate," Morgan said, "what if something happened to you?" He was pretty sure that cell phones didn't work on the island, and he wasn't sure about Internet.

  "Don't be ridiculous," she said, clipping the words off sharply, whether due to annoyance or shortness of breath, he couldn't tell. She continued to plant one foot in front of the other, and he took hold of her elbow to steady her. She tried to wrest her arm from his grasp and nearly toppled over in the process.

  "You see? This path wasn't made for expectant mothers. You shouldn't live here," he said firmly.

  "Maybe you're right, but the question is moot. I'll have to move out in September anyway."

  A canopy of moss-hung live-oak branches arched a momentarily dark tunnel over them before they emerged into the sunny clearing, the lighthouse towering above them. A sign proclaimed: Yaupon Light—Established 1859.

  Kate led him past two circular beds planted with exuberant yellow marigolds. She pulled a key out of her purse and opened the door. He followed her inside.

  He found himself in the kitchen of the small cottage attached to the lighthouse tower. One window overlooked a magnificent view of the ocean, another framed a view of the ferry dock, and under it sat a small table covered by a red-and-white checked tablecloth. A huge enamel coffeepot and a sugar bowl were on the table. The rest of the kitchen was spartan. Morgan had never seen a stove that old outside of a museum.

  "Please sit down. Oh, push those envelopes aside. Here, give me a handful," she said, and when she reached for them their hands touched.

  Morgan would have thought nothing of it if she hadn't blushed. She turned away so he couldn't see her face and opened the refrigerator and peered into it, her maternity dress falling forward so that the curvy shape of her hips was clearly outlined. He followed the line down her thighs to her calves and to her ankles, which were trim and shapely.

  When she had finished assembling it, Kate slid a tuna sandwich across the table to him and pushed the coffeepot aside. He liked the way her hair was shot with gold sparks from the beam of sunshine angling through the window.

  Kate wasn't somebody who had impressed Morgan as beautiful before. But now, with the sun streaming on her hair, with her clear gray eyes scanning his face and waiting for him to say something, with the lush curve of her breasts so evident under that jumper she was wearing—yes, she was more than pretty. He wished he knew what she'd looked like in her nonpregnant state.

  "Back to our discussion about your safety," he said.

  "You were discussing it. I was not," she said aloofly.

  "Are you the only one who lives on Yaupon Island?"

  "Yes, except for occasional groups of people who visit the Oates hunting lodge for a week or two at a time." She bit off some bread and chewed it, gazing out the window. He wished she would look at him.

  "I'd almost forgotten about that place," he said.

  "How did you know about it?" she asked him with upraised eyebrows.

  "I came here with a group of guys from college one spring break," he told her.

  "Oh, so what happened? The bunch of you got your kicks out of shooting Bambi and Thumper?"

  He looked her straight in the eye. "I don't hunt. As I recall, most of the hunting took place on the mainland, and it was strictly boy chasing girl."

  "Oh," she said. "Sorry."

  "I doubt it," he said.

  She blinked at him, and he downed the last bit of sandwich. Suddenly he'd had enough—of her and of the confines of this kitchen. She was from a different world than he was and might as well be wearing a No Trespassing sign around her neck. What she wanted from him only seemed personal, and he would do well to remember not to get emotionally involved.

  "Are you leaving?" she asked as he stood up. She looked surprised.

  "I'm going to take a turn around the island, maybe walk around the hunting preserve. No one's there at present, I take it?"

  "They hardly ever use it anymore," she said, pushing her chair away from the table.

  "Don't get up," he said. "Thanks for the sandwich." And before she could say anything else, he was out the door.

  She was beautiful, Morgan thought as he headed through the dunes toward the wide beach. But her beauty had nothing to do with the problem. He was wary of being inveigled into a flirtation with a woman who was, for him, clearly beyond the pale.

  If Kate hadn't been pregnant, that might have been another story, provided they could possibly find anything in common. But the baby, and especially the fact that it might be his baby, made problems.

  As he dug his hands into his pockets and walked along the beach, Morgan reflected that he wasn't accustomed to babies bringing problems. He had learned from his mother and sisters that babies brought happiness—arrived with a supply of it, in fact, to be doled out without reservation to adoring relatives and friends. He'd never considered babies as liabilities, and his mind-set was turned topsy-turvy by this weird situation.

  He bent to pick up a shell, dipped it into a foaming wavelet to wash the sand off and decided it passed muster for Christopher. As he dried it off, he cautioned himself that Kate Sinclair might be one crazy lady—he couldn't overlook that possibility.

  He headed northward, steeling himself to meet the brunette from the ferry and her friend, who were walking toward him. The brunette wasn't much. But Kate Sinclair was beautiful, even though she was clearly off limits.

  * * *

  Kate watched Morgan Rhett from the kitchen window as he turned toward the dunes. He was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt with light blue-and-white stripes and a pair of blue pants with docksides and no socks. It had surprised her on the ferry when she'd glimpsed his bare ankles, because he didn't seem like the type to dress so casually.

  That brunette on the ferry. The way she had crushed her breasts against Morgan's arm. No doubt she would be delighted to see him roaming the island alone.

  The baby shifted, and she rested the palm of her hand lightly on her abdomen. At least he's interested, she told it. At least he's going to check us out. Little fingers or toes rippled beneath her hand, and she slowly rubbed her stomach. Can you feel that? Does it feel good? she asked it. Remembering Joanna's baby, she dropped her hand. She wasn't good with kids, that much was for sure.

  She cleaned up the kitchen, occasionally stopping to massage the small of her back. Would Mo
rgan return this afternoon, or would he take the ferry back to the mainland without saying anything more to her?

  She hoped he would go. She didn't want him on her territory. What she wanted from him wasn't a personal relationship. After he got to know her and agreed to accept the baby, the two of them wouldn't have to have anything at all to do with each other. Their only association would be brief and for business purposes, like the way she and Courtney had been. Clean. Distant. All matters preferably handled through Morgan's attorney.

  As for what would happen with Morgan, there was no point in conjecture. He would contact the fertility clinic, and then his answer would be either yes, he would take the baby, or no, he wouldn't. There was nothing more she could do to influence his decision, so she might as well get on with the things she normally did.

  She changed out of Joanna's maternity clothes and pulled on the gray sweatpants and an old loose T-shirt that she used to wear on the Northeast Marine Institute's research vessel.

  Time to take water samples, she told the baby. She stuffed her hair into a battered straw hat and headed for Tyger's Creek. On her way out the door, she scooped up her lab kit, which consisted of a woven sweet-grass basket filled with the things she needed for testing water. She added ice cubes to cool down the samples.

  Going down the hill on the creek side of the rise of land where the lighthouse stood was easier than going up, a fact for which Kate was now extremely thankful. She tried not to think about climbing back up the sandy path, which was not the same one that led to the ferry landing. This one was narrower, so that, in a way, walking here was much easier. She could grab hold of branches on her way down so she wouldn't fall if her sneakers slipped on loose sand.

  The creek wound through salty marshland on the side of the island closest to the mainland, and it and the mud flats nearby were the home of a large number of intertidal oysters. Kate clambered into the johnboat and shoved herself awkwardly off from the shore with one of the oars.

  The boat floated to the middle of the creek, and she slowly and carefully settled herself on the seat and began to row. After the city, the island seemed so quiet and so peaceful. The air here was more humid and bore the scents of both marsh and sea.

  Kate let the johnboat glide to a stop near the mud flats. She removed a glass vial from a basket, dipped it into the water, then recorded the time, location and water temperature.

  When she had stashed the sample on ice, she turned the boat around, bracing herself against the bottom so that she could get a better hold on the oars. If she hurried, she could send the samples to the lab on the next ferry.

  She ran the boat into the reeds near the path and stood up, concentrating on keeping her balance. She was so engrossed in maneuvering around the basket in the bottom of the boat that she didn't even notice the blue heron stalking nearby until, with a whir of its wide wings, it took flight in a rush of air.

  The sturdy little boat barely rocked. But Kate was so startled that she slipped sideways over the gunwale and fell slowly, almost comically, into the creek. She cried out when her shoulder sent a spray of water into the air, and she got a mouthful of muddy creek water. Her hands instinctively wrapped around her abdomen to cushion the baby, and all she could think was, I'm glad Morgan isn't around to see this.

  Kate sputtered and kicked until her feet sank into the pluff mud on the bottom of the creek, and before she knew it she was taking stock. Her head was okay, and her arms still worked, and she was standing up. Her old straw hat hadn't fared as well—it bobbed merrily toward the sea—and the baby inside her was protesting such undignified treatment.

  She had barely finished her self-inventory when she heard the shout from the path.

  "Kate! Kate! Are you all right?"

  Morgan charged down the path, looking for all the world like a crazed bull. A sunburned crazed bull. She couldn't help it, she started to giggle. And then she laughed, stood there in the muddy water and laughed until her sides ached, unable to move toward shore because she was laughing so hard at the sight of the staid and sophisticated Morgan Rhett with a red face, a sprig of juniper caught in his hair and one shoe flying into the shrubbery as he ran.

  "Kate?" he said, stopping at the edge of the water.

  "I—I can't help it," she wheezed, tears running out of the corners of her eyes. "You look so funny."

  "I saw you fall. Are you hurt?"

  "No, I'm not. I just—oh." And she stopped laughing.

  He was looking at her, dead serious. She could tell that he didn't think this was humorous at all. He looked frantic with worry, and he was kicking off his remaining shoe.

  "If you think I look funny now, just wait," he said grimly. He started to roll up his pant legs before apparently thinking better of it. And then, to her utter amazement, he waded toward her fully clothed, the water swirling around his ankles, his knees. And then she began to laugh again, only this time it wasn't amused laughter, it was hysterical, a product of her roller-coaster emotions, and she couldn't stop.

  She pressed her hands into her face, suddenly quiet. All she could hear was the swish of water as Morgan approached, and as she lowered her hands, he grasped her firmly by the shoulders.

  "You scared me," he said, and the way he said it made it seem like a capital offense.

  "I'm fine," she protested, brushing his hands away. She lifted one foot experimentally out of the mud on the bottom of the creek; the other one followed. A wide wake billowed behind her as she headed toward shore.

  Her T-shirt clung to her body, and she pinched at it, trying to make it less revealing. When she looked down, she could see through the thin cotton and even through her bra; she could see the large dark circles of her areolas, and below her breasts, the indentation of her navel. It embarrassed her to have Morgan see her this way, the details of her swollen body so explicitly revealed.

  "You have no business going out in a boat," he said sternly. "You should sit around and watch television or something."

  "Television," she said scornfully. "The antenna pulls in one station, and even that one disappears sometimes." She bent over to push the boat through the reeds onto the shore, but Morgan said, "I'll do that," and gave it a giant heave.

  When he turned, his eyes were on the level of the round protuberance under the wet shirt, and Kate turned away, embarrassed. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm, but she yanked it out of his grasp.

  "Sorry," he said. "I thought you were falling again."

  She wrapped her arms around herself, which didn't hide anything. Little rivulets of water ran off her clothes into the reeds.

  "Don't you have something else to do?" Kate said.

  "I've already done it," Morgan said. He had come to this end of the island to evade the two women from the ferry who kept following him around. He hadn't known he would run into Kate.

  "Would you mind bringing that basket from the boat?" Kate asked him in a small voice.

  He leaned over and picked up the basket. "Come along, I'll see you safely to the house. How you're going to make it up that winding path—"

  "I can do it," Kate said through gritted teeth.

  He made her walk in front of him, and she was aware of him close behind her as she headed upward. Kate eased her way by pulling herself up with the aid of drooping branches. By no means did she want to give him any reason to touch her again.

  I will not, she thought grimly, let him see me breathing hard. Nevertheless, she was huffing and puffing when they reached the top.

  "Of all the harebrained, idiotic things to do," Morgan muttered. "Pregnant women aren't supposed to go gallivanting around in boats. They should stay home and crochet little sweaters or something."

  Kate, as miserable as she was, couldn't let that pass. "Don't swing that basket so hard—you'll break the sample. And I don't crochet."

  "Somehow that doesn't surprise me," he said. "What kind of sample is in here, anyway?"

  "Water," she snapped. "I told you about my job."

 
; "A sample of water was important enough for you to risk life and limb? Since when are bacteria more important than your life or the child's?" Morgan asked heatedly.

  They had reached the lighthouse, and she turned to face him in front of the door to the quarters. She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with a flick of her hand.

  "The child is more important, of course. I suppose I'll have to think about giving up my job, but I need the money," she said.

  "Courtney provides you with living expenses, you told me that yourself," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but after I have the baby, after I leave here, I'll need a nest egg. My father's illness took all we'd managed to save, and—oh, why am I telling you this?"

  Kate turned away, sick at heart. She didn't want to do any more explaining; she only wanted him to go. She pushed the door open, and to her dismay, he followed her into the house.

  "You should get someone to come and live with you," Morgan said. "To take care of you."

  "Who? No one wants to live on a barrier island four miles off the coast. The only people who come here are slobs who complain about the smell of pluff mud, throw trash on the beaches, and ask endless questions about the lighthouse," she said, aware that her voice was rising.

  "And besides," she continued in a more normal tone, "the house is too small. There are only four little rooms."

  She walked swiftly into one of the other rooms, and he heard her rummaging. When she returned, she'd looped a loose shawl in a soft shade of gray around her shoulders, hiding her body.

  "I'll be in touch soon," he said. He gestured in the direction of the basket containing the water sample. "Did you say something about sending that to a lab on the mainland? I can deliver it to the ferry if you'd like."

  She massaged her temple for a moment. "I'd almost forgotten. Yes, that would be a big help. Here, I'll label it."

  Quickly she slapped a label on the bottle and dropped it into a padded mailing envelope. "Give it to Gump on your way back," she said as she handed the envelope to Morgan. "He knows what to do."

  "You'll hear from me," he said in a tone of voice that made it difficult to discern if he had uttered a promise or a threat.