Morgan cleared his throat. "I care," he said in a low tone. "Not only about the baby, but about Kate as well."
"Hmm. So she told me. How do you feel about having him there with you, Kate?"
Kate's eyes sought Morgan's. He was gazing at her with tenderness and deep feeling. Her heart turned over. Why couldn't she simply agree to marry him? She almost couldn't pull her eyes away because she wanted to go on looking at him, at his dark hair, now tipped with sun streaks, and at his eyes, so full of his soul.
"I want him there," she said clearly, watching his face.
"So be it." The doctor shuffled the papers on his desk and plucked a few pamphlets out of the jumble. He presented them to Morgan with a flourish.
"Here, these are about what goes on in a delivery room. Read them and call me if you have questions," he said.
Morgan took the booklets and studied them briefly while the doctor turned back to Kate.
"Kate, your due date isn't until the end of July, so I'll see you again in two weeks. And remember, I'd rather respond to a hundred false alarms than allow you to have this baby all by your lonesome on Yaupon Island."
The doctor stood and offered his hand to Morgan. "I'm glad you came in, Morgan. Kate, you take care of yourself. I mean it."
When they were outside on the sidewalk, Morgan said, "Your Dr. Thomas thinks I'm an interloper."
"He likes you," Kate countered.
"He's a real character."
"He's a fine doctor," Kate said defensively.
"Mmm. Say, do we have to go back to the island right away?"
"Well—"
"Isn't there a nice quiet restaurant where we could eat an early dinner?"
"Preacher's Inlet is the kind of town where McDonald's is considered a trendy place," Kate told him, her lips curving upward in an amused smile.
"I was thinking of someplace where I can snap my fingers and they bring out a tray of desserts," Morgan said.
"I know of a steak house on the highway to Charleston. I've never been there, but I've heard it's first-rate," she said.
"Want to try it?" Morgan asked, holding his breath. Kate seemed much calmer now, and perhaps the doctor had reassured her.
"Sure," she said, smiling at him. "Let's. It's so early that I'm sure we won't need reservations."
When they arrived, they found that the steak house had recently been converted to a hibachi grill called Fuji, like the Japanese volcano.
Kate was dismayed and looked to Morgan for his reaction. She didn't think this was the kind of restaurant he had in mind.
"I love a sushi bar," Morgan said. "How about you?"
"As long as it doesn't include oysters," Kate said with a laugh as the hostess guided them to a room divided from the others by shoji screens and insisted that they take off their shoes. Kate clung to Morgan's arm in order to keep her balance as she slipped off her flats, and it wasn't easy to kneel on the little mat that was provided.
"Now that I'm down here, don't expect me to get up anytime soon," Kate warned him.
"Good, you can't run away," he said.
Outside the room where they sat was a salad bar built into what was supposed to look like a Japanese temple.
"Great," Kate said when she realized what it was. "I'll have to get up again to get my salad."
"I'll go for both of us," Morgan said.
"I hope you say that when it comes time for me to go to the rest room," Kate said gloomily, but Morgan only grinned and came back with two plates.
"By the way," he said after he had chewed and swallowed, "I looked around when I went to the salad bar and decided that you're easily the best-looking woman here."
"I wish you wouldn't say things like that because I don't know how to act when you do."
He leaned forward and spoke earnestly. "Acting is the last thing I'd expect of you. I like you because you're completely without pretension."
He rested his hand upon hers—a hand so strong that it conveyed instant reassurance. For a moment Kate imagined what being pregnant would be like without Morgan. In a flash she felt the loneliness, the rejection, and the anguish she'd experienced in the days following Courtney's announcement that she no longer wanted the baby. And then Morgan had come along to share the burden with her, and his involvement had changed everything. She smiled a tremulous smile. It seemed strange to have someone she could depend on—strange, but reassuring.
After dinner, which Kate thought was dismal but Morgan proclaimed passable, they unfolded themselves painfully from the floor mats and, after Morgan paid the check, walked to Morgan's car swinging hands. "Do we have to go back to the island?" he asked impulsively.
"If we don't we'll miss the last ferry," she said. One foot was still asleep, so she stopped and shook it, leaning on Morgan's shoulder.
"That wouldn't be all bad," he said as they resumed their walk.
"We aren't going to miss it, Morgan," Kate said with a stern look.
"What did you and your father do when you wanted to go to a movie? Or anyplace at night?"
"We hardly ever did. Sometimes we stayed overnight with Alan and Gloria Thomas, but it wasn't often necessary because there's only one movie theater in Preacher's Inlet, and they run to films like Kung Fu Race Car Driver and Nightmare in Loch Ness."
"I used to think that the B in B movie stood for bad," Morgan said, unlocking the car door and seeing that Kate was comfortably seated before going around to the driver's side.
"I've seen some passable B movies. Have you ever seen Vulture Voodoo?" she asked as they headed toward the dock.
"It couldn't be any better than Sturgeon General, where this two-thousand-year-old fish is thawed from a glacier and turns into a man who terrorizes pygmies in an African hospital."
"You're making that up!" Kate said.
"No, I'm not," he said, and Kate snickered.
Morgan parked the car in the lot near the ferry landing and they boarded the waiting Yaupon Island Belle, realizing only after they were seated that they were the only passengers going to the island on this, the last trip before the ferry ceased operating for the night.
"Gump's not here," Kate said.
"What do you mean? Isn't he required to be?"
"Yes, but if there are no passengers for the last ferry, he's been known to close up shop early." She stood up. "He's in the Merry Lulu," she said with conviction.
"You sound pretty sure of that," Morgan said.
"That's where he always is," Kate said. "We'll have to go drag him out of the tavern if we want to get back to the island tonight."
"We could enjoy the scenery for a while," Morgan answered, reluctant to break the happy mood that he and Kate shared.
"You don't understand. Gump will retire when the lighthouse becomes a museum. He's got a short-timer's attitude these days, and he's spending more and more time in the tavern. It's not good for him. Come on, let's go."
Kate set off at a fast clip across the ramp and down the dock, Morgan following reluctantly, and when they reached the Merry Lulu, Kate marched right in, brushing aside the curtain of fake fishnet at the door to survey the scene.
A clutch of sunburned tourists sat on plastic-and-chrome stools at the bar, which had been salvaged from a wrecked vessel. Kate and Morgan peered through air thick with the smell of beer and saw immediately that Gump slumped in a booth, snoring wheezily. He was sound asleep.
Kate poked his ankle none too gently with her toe. "Wake up, Gump," she said.
His eyes flew open and he opened and closed his mouth a few times. "Well," he said finally. "I was wondering when you'd get back."
"You don't look in any shape to take us to the island," Kate observed with a glint in her eye.
"The truth is, I had a few beers."
"Your eyes are as glazed as day-old donuts. You should be home in bed."
"Now wait just a minute," Gump said indignantly. "No reason I can't run you back to Yaupon Island. Kate, my girl, in your condition, you get too impatient." He
struggled to a sitting position.
"Come along, Gump, I'll take you home. Morgan, give me a hand." Kate appropriated one of Gump's arms and Morgan supported the other.
"Where does he live?" Morgan asked as they guided Gump past the other curious patrons at the bar.
"Only a few steps away, thank goodness," Kate said.
"Thing is, Kate, I got kind of thirsty," Gump said querulously.
"Thing is, Gump, you get too thirsty too often," Kate retorted.
"Ridiculous," Gump muttered. "Purely ridiculous."
"He's always making much too merry at the Merry Lulu," Kate told Morgan under her breath.
"If it's any consolation, he's going to have a lulu of a hangover tomorrow," Morgan whispered back.
"He keeps a spare key on top of the doorframe," Kate told Morgan as Gump, weaving and mumbling, fumbled in his pocket at the door to the tiny bungalow where he lived.
Morgan found the key and swung the door open. Gump stumbled through a small door to the left of the entrance and landed on his bed, with Kate following and clucking as she removed his shoes.
"Shh," Kate warned Morgan, holding a finger to her lips as she backed out of the room. "Let's not wake him up."
"Wake who up?" Gump demanded, lifting his head and letting it drop back on the pillow. In less than a minute he was snoring again.
Kate turned out the light as they left, and she and Morgan stared at each other beneath the lone streetlight illuminating the deserted street.
"Well, now what?" Morgan said. "We're stranded in Preacher's Inlet until morning unless we want to look up the Pribble boy and ask him to run us over to the island. He did it for Courtney."
Kate could not face Willadeen Pribble again so soon after their last encounter. "I'd rather swim," she said.
"In an hour we could be at my place in Charleston," he said, holding his breath.
"Dr. Thomas lives one block over. He and Gloria—" Kate felt her face flush. She knew what Morgan was thinking, and she was thinking the same thing. Alone, together, anything could happen.
"My place in Charleston," Morgan said more firmly, and all thoughts of staying with the doctor and his wife flew out of Kate's head.
Anything could happen, Kate thought again. And then she said, "Your place in Charleston."
* * *
When Kate stepped out of the car at Morgan's house in historic downtown Charleston, she couldn't help gaping. She was prepared for an impressive house, but she hadn't expected it to be so grand.
Through the heavy front door, a wide circular staircase swept upward beneath a shimmering chandelier. Morgan led the way to the second story, guarded at the head of the stairs by a ceramic greyhound. Beyond it the master bedroom was sumptuously decorated in black and white.
Kate stopped momentarily to stare at the huge bathroom with its big shower and black fixtures. "Courtney's idea," Morgan said, turning the corners of his mouth down.
On the other side of the bathroom was another bedroom, this one decorated entirely in white. "You can sleep here," he said, setting her suitcase on the waiting luggage rack.
"It's lovely," Kate said, although privately she thought that the whole house was over decorated.
"I need to make some phone calls," he said. "Will you be all right on your own for a few minutes?"
Kate nodded, and in a few minutes she heard Morgan talking to his assistant, to Joanna, and to a few others. She wandered idly to the window. A spotlight below lit an English-style garden with neat, narrow brick paths dividing low plantings of flowers.
Morgan returned, popping in unexpectedly through the open door.
"I've told Joanna," he said.
"Told her about me and Courtney and the baby and you?" she asked in surprise.
"Only that I'm going to adopt your baby. I didn't want to go into detail on the telephone."
Kate's heart sank. "Morgan, I—"
He touched her cheek. "It'll be okay. After her initial shock, she thought it was wonderful that I'm adopting a child."
Kate turned away and stared out at the garden. Shapes blurred in front of her. She didn't want to look at Morgan at the moment, nor did she want to confront her own feelings about Morgan's taking the baby.
Oh, that was what she had wanted, all right, but what was it her father always used to say? "Be careful what you want—you might get it." She'd achieved what she'd wanted, but the thought of relinquishing this tiny scrap of humanity that moved inside her and for whom she was a lifeline—well, the thought was beginning to pain her.
"Kate, look at me," he commanded.
She didn't turn around.
"Is it so hard for you to believe that I love you? That I care about the baby?"
"Since the moment that you told me you'd adopt it, I've never doubted that you cared about the baby," Kate countered. "You've got it backward, though. You should love the baby and care about me." She didn't add that she still wasn't quite sure whether to trust him. Or anyone, for that matter, considering all the abandonment she'd experienced in her life.
He swung her around, his expression compassionate. "I couldn't help but fall in love with you, Kate. You're so fiercely independent that I admire you, you're so vulnerable that it breaks my heart, and you're so beautiful that I want to kiss you—"
"Morgan," Kate said in desperation.
"That I want to kiss you all over. Like this," he said, tipping her face toward his and letting his lips meet hers.
Kate felt as if she were spinning into a deep and dark vortex from which she might never emerge. His lips were insistent, pressing, seeking, exploring her mouth with great tenderness and then, when she didn't resist, even greater passion.
If she could have summoned the strength, she would have pushed him away. If she could have run, she would have tried. But there was no escaping Morgan Rhett in his own house, and she had known that before she'd agreed to come.
"Tell me," he insisted, his lips close to hers, "tell me that this doesn't mean something to you. If you dare."
She shook her head to clear it, but it was no use. His lips were upon hers again, his fingers caught in her tumbling hair, and her body was pressed against his so that she could feel his arousal.
"You're not saying much, my Kate," he observed, and she caught a devilish gleam in his eyes. In that moment her surrender was complete. She and his child were one, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to unite with the child's father in a coupling that her body had been craving almost from the moment she had set eyes on him.
"There are other things I would rather do," she said softly, twining her hands around his neck and kissing him.
He slipped out of his clothes with minimal help from her, standing before her without the least bit of self-consciousness. If only I can feel as comfortable standing naked in front of him, Kate thought, but then she had always been matter-of-fact about her body and perhaps Morgan would be, too.
Morgan pushed the dress off her shoulders so that it fell to the ground. When she stood before him without her clothes, he felt as though he couldn't breathe. He'd had no idea she would be as lovely as this, as purely beautiful, as wholesomely arousing.
The low lamplight in the room bathed them both in its mellow glow. "You're wonderful, Kate," he said, smoothing his hands over her hips with reverence. "There's something elemental about you in this state. You're like—like the mother goddess, the earth mother, the source of all life and love."
"Morgan Rhett, I think you are crazy," she said clearly and distinctly, but he could see the emotion in her eyes, and he knew she was only joking.
"I won't hurt you, you know. I'd never hurt you," he said. He could barely speak, and it was as though an ever-abundant life force sprang from her to him through his fingertips, spiraling through him and filling him with wonder.
"I know," she said.
"We're going to be good together, Kate," he said.
"I know that, too," she whispered.
She felt his hands cu
pping the hot curves of her breasts, and she felt her nipples swelling under his insistent touch. She closed her eyes and floated with the sensation, feeling lost in her fantasy of making love with him, scarcely able to believe it had come true.
He parted her thighs gently, his hand softly seeking her warm center, and with the other hand he held her close, whispering, "Sweet, sweet."
And her frantic hands sought him, sought and held him, wanting him, and somehow they were on the bed lying on their sides and gazing at each other as if they were the only two people on earth.
Slowly he sat and lifted her to him, soothing her, urging her, his thighs solid beneath her.
"Gently," she reminded him, her voice only a murmur.
"Yes," he said, and he was gentle, and she rocked against him, reaching with her hands, their fingers entwining, reaching with her eyes, their eyes holding.
"You can't love me," she whispered, but he only smiled and slid his hand beneath the hair on her neck to pull her closer for a kiss.
Chapter 11
Sometime before first light, Kate drifted awake and groped her way to the unfamiliar bathroom. When she returned to the bed and lay down beside Morgan, she didn't fall asleep immediately. Instead she felt the baby stirring in her womb, reminding her of its presence.
Morgan's eyes opened briefly and she saw him smile in recognition before he curved an arm across her stomach. It fit there as if it had always belonged, and she wove her fingers between his. The three of them—she and Morgan and the baby—hovered somewhere between sleeping and waking, all together in one bed. It seemed right.
Morgan was not the kind of lover she'd expected. His tight buttoned-down exterior had disappeared completely when they made love. He was uninhibited and yet gentle. And caring. And so considerate of the baby.
The baby. Always the baby. The reason for their meeting, the reason for their mating. Talk about the cart before the horse!
Morgan's Child Page 14