"Your wife," she said heavily, touching one of the camisoles. It was a confection of ivory silk, matching lace, and blue satin ribbon. She looked at him. "Morgan, there's something I must tell you," she said.
His face grew serious, and overlaying the seriousness was a look of dread. She didn't take time to figure it out. Instead she plunged ahead.
"Morgan, I received a letter today," she said, pushing the box with all the lacy underthings aside and retrieving the letter from the floor where it had fallen. "It's from the new director of Northeast Marine Institute. He wants me to call for an interview. I'm going to get my old job back."
It seemed as if all the air left him. He sagged against the plump cushion of the chair where he sat and stared at her.
"I see," he said.
"You knew I'd be leaving eventually," Kate said. "It was our agreement."
"I know."
"And the opportunity to resume my work is important to me."
"How about Pearl? Isn't she important to you?"
What could she tell him about the sweet pleasure that filled her when Pearl nursed at her breast? How could she justify leaving the child who so occupied her days and nights that sometimes Kate didn't know where Pearl began and Kate ended? There was no way, and so Kate merely stared at the floor.
"I suppose I'd better get a list of prospective nannies from Joanna," Morgan said at last.
"Yes," Kate said.
He stood up abruptly. "I'm not hungry. No need to cook dinner," he said. He strode out of the room and disappeared into the TV room, slamming the door after him.
Kate sat in the darkening living room. She wouldn't be able to eat anything, either.
Well, perhaps the best thing to do was to write a letter to the institute. Or perhaps she should phone tomorrow. Yes, that seemed like the wiser course to follow, but she wanted to organize her thoughts beforehand. What she needed was one of those large yellow legal pads that Morgan carried in his briefcase.
Morgan's briefcase was on the chair in the foyer where he had left it when he came in from the garage. She flipped on the overhead light and opened the briefcase, removing one pad of paper. A document fluttered from between the pages, and she stooped to pick it up.
As she slowly stood, her eyes fell on the letterhead. "Saldone Detective Agency," she read softly to herself. Her name, Katharine Sinclair, was on the first page. She pushed the briefcase aside and sat down on the chair, her eyes skimming the report.
Penelope's name was there, and Kate flipped the pages over, one after another, stunned to be reading what appeared to be a complete account of her activities at Northeast Marine Institute as well as a rundown of her personal life. Information included the address where she'd once owned a house, the full name of her former fiancé, and finally, and this astonished her, the information that the lab was certain to offer her old job back.
She leafed through the pages and noted the date. Why, Tony Saldone's surveillance of her had ended before Pearl was born, before she and Morgan were married! And Morgan had known—he had known then that she was going to be offered her old job!
The report fell to her lap as her mind raced. Morgan had let her think that the detective's investigation into her background had ended with the report that she hadn't been seeing other men when she became pregnant. In fact, Tony Saldone had been investigating her the whole time that she and Morgan were together on the island, while they were cohabiting at the lodge, while they had been falling—no. They hadn't fallen in love. Morgan said he loved her—but how could he love her? You didn't investigate people you loved.
Slowly she stood and walked to the door of the TV room. She listened for the chatter of the television set but heard nothing. A narrow band of light showed beneath the door, so she pushed it open and walked in.
Morgan looked up sharply. He was sitting at the small desk in there, his face illuminated by the reading light. His eyes were red, and his expression was strained. When he saw her, he looked hopeful.
"Kate, come in," he said, and she stalked over to the desk and tossed the report down in front of him. His expression changed.
"Suppose you explain this," she said coldly.
He was silent, staring at the report. She saw him swallow. "You've read it?" he asked, his eyes scanning her face.
"Yes. All of it. You told me you'd called Saldone off."
Morgan sighed deeply. "I did, but he convinced me that he might be able to turn up information concerning what was happening with the Federal Health Foundation's investigation into irregularities in research at Northeast Marine Lab. He said that he might be able to find out something that would help you."
"And he did, didn't he? He told you that I was going to get my old job back, right?"
"Right," he said, measuring her fury.
"You didn't tell me," she said.
"I thought—" He didn't finish the sentence when he saw the angry glint in her eyes.
"You thought what?"
"That you wouldn't marry me if you knew you could leave as soon as the baby was born," he finished lamely.
"I would have! I wanted to prevent you from having another court battle with Courtney."
"I didn't only want that, Kate. If you'd known there was a job waiting for you, you would have gone, and I wouldn't have had a chance to show you how much I love you. For that I needed to be with you every day for a while. I wanted you to see how well the three of us, you, me and Pearl, would function as a family," he said.
"That's pretty underhanded, don't you think?"
"It's been good, hasn't it? We've been happy living here on Teoway Island. You love taking care of Pearl, you said so yourself. Last night you told me how you hate being away from her. Can't you see that we have a good life together, that most people would give anything to know the happiness that we've created for ourselves—"
"You've created," she said. "Courtney told me what people say about you. 'Morgan Rhett gets what he wants.' And now I know why. You'll stop at nothing." She turned to go, but in that instant Morgan was out of his chair and spinning her around.
"Don't touch me," she said.
For an answer he pulled her roughly into his arms and kissed her, kissed her until her knees turned to water, kissed her until her head spun.
"When you think about what's true, think of that," he said. "You and me. That's the only thing that's real, Kate."
Shaken, she backed away. "I'm leaving," she said. "Tonight."
"I love you, Kate. We need you," he shot back.
"I'm tired of—of people needing me. I'm sick of dealing with human beings. It gets so messy. I want to spend my days and my nights with something clear-cut and unequivocal—my work. Goodbye, Morgan." She spared him one last look and went out of the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
She tossed clothes into her suitcase, pausing only to call a cab. When she had packed, she carried her suitcase down the hall and deposited it next to the front door. She hadn't intended to say goodbye to Pearl. She didn't think she could bear it. But as she waited for the cab, Pearl began to cry, and Kate hid her face in her hands in despair. Whenever she heard Pearl cry, her milk began to flow.
She ran into the bathroom for tissues to stuff in her bra, and when she came out she met Morgan, stiff faced and pale. He was carrying Pearl out of the nursery.
"Kate, I'll take you into the city. If you'll feed Pearl first, I'll—"
"No," she said over the baby's cries, trying not to look at him or at Pearl's puckered little face.
"How can you do this?" Morgan said in desperation.
"I don't know. I don't know!" Kate cried, her own tears flowing down her cheeks.
Pearl hiccuped, her chin quivering, and in that moment Kate almost wavered. But then a pair of headlights skimmed the edges of the driveway. They heard the bleat of the taxi horn, and Kate looked despairingly from Morgan to Pearl and back to the taxi.
Without a word she lifted her suitcase, spared Morgan one last frantic look, and
stepped out into the night. The last sound she heard was Pearl's crying.
Chapter 15
Would she ever forget those last moments with Pearl and Morgan? Would the baby's cries ever be erased from her memory? Kate, as she resumed her work at Northeast Marine Institute and was welcomed back by her former colleagues, thought that she would not. She resigned herself to sleepless nights. She replayed that terrible scene over and over in her mind.
With Penelope's help, she managed to find a lovely house to rent. It was on the coast where she could walk the lonely, rocky beach to her heart's content. And walk it she did, but it only reminded her of another beach in another place, and the crash of breakers on the rocks could not soothe her like the soft lapping of tides on a South Carolina barrier island.
It was hard, resuming her work. But she threw herself into it full force, knowing that only work could dull the pain.
She thought about Morgan all too much, about his treachery and deception, but mostly about the good times they'd had. Now, removed from the experience by time and distance, she had to admit that her weeks with Morgan and Pearl had been some of the happiest days of her life.
Certainly they had run the gamut of experience, from the throes of childbirth to the ecstasy of lovemaking, from the beaches of Yaupon Island to the luxury of a Charleston mansion. It was, she thought ruefully, a life that would be the envy of any soap-opera character.
She never heard from Morgan even though she'd emailed a brief note to let him know she was doing well. She supposed that he was going ahead with the adoption of Pearl, which would soon be final, but what about the divorce?
Not that Kate cared about the divorce. She didn't want to go out with other men. She still wore the beautiful wedding ring that Morgan had placed on her finger because her finger had felt too naked when she'd taken it off. Her life consisted of her work at the lab, a good book at night, and walks on the beach when the weather was warm.
One month went by, then two, and Kate found herself daydreaming about Pearl. She wondered what Pearl looked like, who was her nanny, how much Pearl weighed. She wondered if Pearl had missed her when she left.
Morgan would probably remarry after their divorce, Kate thought. He was too nice a man to remain single. Someone would snap him up soon, no doubt, someone who had social ties similar to his and fit in with the kind of people Morgan knew.
Kate lost weight, which she attributed to being too busy on the job to eat. Her cheeks molded more sleekly to the bones of her face, hollows appeared under her eyes, and she began having gnawing pains in her stomach, which her doctor said were due to stress. In an attempt to alleviate it, she painted the kitchen of the house where she lived a bright cheerful yellow, and she joined a health club where she took a spinning class. To raise her spirits, she even bought a red winter coat in preparation for the snow that began to fall in November.
Her Thanksgiving was spent with a group of single friends, and afterward they all went outside and had a snowball fight. Penelope's cousin, a handsome man five years younger than Kate, asked Kate to go to dinner with him sometime. She liked him, but she put him off. When he pressed her for a reason, she fled. Her heart felt too full of pain to open to anyone.
Walking home that night with the snow falling upon her face and melting into tears, Kate tried to be thankful for everything she had—her work, her friends and her house. But all she could really think about was a sunny beach in the South where Morgan Rhett had appeared in his pin-striped suit and told her he was going to adopt the baby, and when she got home that night, she impulsively made an online reservation to fly to South Carolina the week before Christmas.
Why am I doing this? Kate asked herself after she hung up the phone. What will it prove? More importantly, what would she do there?
She missed the balmy southern climate. She wanted to see Gump, certainly, while she was in South Carolina, although she wouldn't go to Yaupon Island. She might visit Joanna and ask for a progress report on Morgan and Pearl—that is, if she dared.
As for Morgan, she could communicate with him, if necessary, through his attorney.
* * *
Kate stepped off the plane in Charleston into a warm day so different from the snapping cold weather in Maine that it took her breath away. An airport shuttle deposited her at her downtown hotel, and she spent the afternoon wandering the historic part of the city through streets decorated for Christmas, marveling that people were actually walking around wearing no more than a sweater in the middle of December.
She rented a car with the idea of seeing Gump, which she did the next day when they met for lunch. He was happily retired and packing to go live with his sister.
"She's planning to drag me to AA meetings, you can bet," he said gloomily.
"Good," Kate told him.
"Humph," was all Gump would say as she kissed him goodbye, although she thought he seemed pleased that his sister was laying down the law. No one had tried that with Gump for quite a while.
As she drove out of Preacher's Inlet, Kate actually intended to turn back toward the city when she got to the highway. But somehow she maneuvered into the wrong turning lane and found herself trapped in front of a tractor-trailer rig and unable to change lanes. In the space of seconds, she was headed toward Teoway Island and thought, Why not? I'll just have a look around, maybe take a few pictures of the place to show Penelope.
The entrance to the island was planted with bright red flowers, and the trees hung low over the road as they always had, and the marsh glittered on one side, the sea on the other. Kate remembered Teoway as beautiful, but surely it hadn't always been this beautiful.
She cruised slowly, feasting her eyes on Spanish moss and palmettos, thinking that she had her emotions completely under control until she saw the house where she'd lived with Morgan and Pearl. A blue spruce, a Christmas tree, was propped against the side of the garage, its trunk in a bucket. Morgan's car sat in the driveway, and hanging from one of the oaks was a baby swing.
Pearl is old enough to swing? she thought to herself, slowing the car to watch the small blue swing sway in the breeze. She tried to imagine Pearl in it, which was impossible. Pearl's legs would be too short, and surely such a swing wouldn't be comfortable, would it?
Pearl was almost five months old. What did five-month-old babies do? Did they eat a lot of solids? Did they crawl?
Kate had slowed the car almost to a stop and was staring at the house, wondering what the occupants were doing. Not that she wanted to see them—she had no intention of that. She was curious, that was all. Curious, and—
And lonely. She missed them. Or did she merely miss the happiness of their life together?
"Kate?"
In her surprise, Kate almost hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Her head whipped around to see Morgan approaching the car from behind. He was pushing a stroller and in it sat Pearl, wearing a sunny yellow suit with a peaked cap. But why was Morgan here? He should have been at work at this time of the afternoon.
An eternity passed in those few seconds. Morgan looked unsure of himself, and Kate felt like sinking through the floorboard of the car.
"Kate, please come in. Please." Morgan's voice held a quiet urgency. Pearl gazed up at her with big blue eyes, eyes as blue as Morgan's, her mouth hanging open and drooling. When Kate looked at her, Pearl chortled and kicked her feet into the air.
"Please?" Morgan said as he opened the car door.
Kate stood up, uncertain of what she should say. "I—" she started, but there were no words to describe how she felt. Looking at Morgan, seeing him for the first time in three months, she was overwhelmed by a sense of déjà vu and caught up in a time warp where she and Morgan and Pearl were once again a family—or playing at being a family, which was hardly the same thing.
She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. "Pearl is—so big," she said helplessly.
Morgan reached down and lifted the baby out of the stroller. Pearl's pacifier fell on the ground, and Kate reac
hed down to pick it up at the same time as Morgan. When they stood up, she and Morgan bumped heads.
"Sorry," they both said at the same time, and then they laughed self-consciously.
Morgan jounced Pearl expertly. "We've been for our walk," he said, "and now we're going in. It's time for Pearl's nap."
"She still sleeps a lot?" Kate asked, following Morgan up the path to the door, thinking that this was an inane thing to ask but unable to think of anything else.
"She even sleeps through the night," he said proudly, holding the door for Kate. "And guess what? I'm teaching her to play pat-a-cake."
"That's nice," Kate said. She walked around several boxes labeled Xmas Ornaments. The sight of them made her feel pensive because she knew she would be utterly alone for the holidays.
"I'll put her in bed while you get yourself something to drink," Morgan said over his shoulder.
Kate wanted to watch him put Pearl in her crib. Fleetingly she wished Morgan had invited her. Under the circumstances, however, she could understand why he hadn't.
Kate stared for a moment at the dirty pacifier in her hands before carefully setting it on the coffee table. She went to the bar and poured a glass of ginger ale for herself before mixing Morgan his favorite Scotch and water. When he came back, he said, "Pearl will fuss a little until she settles down, but then she'll go right to sleep."
"You sound like an experienced hand at this," Kate said after Morgan sat down across from her.
"I didn't hire a nanny," he said. "I've been staying home and taking care of Pearl myself."
Kate stared. "What about your business?"
"I set up one of the extra bedrooms as an office with a computer, a fax machine, the whole works. Lavinia comes over a couple times a week, and I keep in close touch by phone. It's not easy, but Pearl needs me," he said.
"I never expected you to jump into this fatherhood bit with both feet," Kate said slowly.
Morgan smiled a wry smile. "Neither did I, believe me. Only I wouldn't have it any other way. I was supposed to go to England in the fall—remember? When it was time to go, I found I couldn't leave Pearl. I would have missed her too much. Do you know she does something new every day?"
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