by Lilian Darcy
He took the winding road at speed, risking occasional quick glances towards the lake. No sign of her. Hell and damnation, why hadn’t he asked her in?
By the time he reached her door, he was breathless and probably wild-eyed, and the fact that he didn’t take the time to explain didn’t help. Maggie’s mother looked blank and then frosty.
‘She went for a walk. Said not to expect her back for a good while. Look, Will, you’ve turned up here as if it’s your right to know where she is, and I have to ask if you care for her enough to do that? Do you love her?’
‘I can’t answer that now. Dolly, I’m worried about her.’
‘So am I! How long does it take to say yes or no? If you love her, Will, do the right thing.’
‘That’s…harder than I want it to be. And right now—’
‘Not when it’s my daughter!’
Desperately, Will tried to make his explanation both brief and lucid. ‘She paged me, Dolly, but her cellphone company is telling me her phone’s switched off or out of range, which seems weird. I’m going down to the lake. She was heading in this direction. I can’t think why she’d call my pager like that if it wasn’t an emergency.’
‘An emergency?’ The word galvanised Maggie’s mother. ‘You mean you think something has happened?’
Will didn’t wait to give her an answer, just set his son on his feet and clattered back down the porch steps. He saw the two figures struggling out of the water next to Maggie’s dock as soon as he rounded the corner of the house.
Maggie watched her cellphone disappear into the darkness of the water, then discovered that she could just touch bottom at this point. The lake floor shelved steeply. All she had to do was pull Curtis a few yards and they’d both have a chance.
She swam to him again, and told him fiercely, ‘We’re going to do this, OK? We’re not giving up.’ Her words vibrated with the chatter of her teeth, and if Will had been here, she would have said them to him, on the subject of their relationship.
She grabbed Curtis’s arm and began to swim, her head sinking beneath the water, making her eyeballs ache with cold. He made a floundering attempt to assist her, but his legs managed only a few feeble kicks, and every few inches she gained was precious.
But at least she was gaining. They were getting closer to the dock. Another six inches and she’d touch it. Another foot, and she’d be able to grip, only she really needed both hands. She couldn’t keep holding onto Curtis.
‘Keep hold of me,’ she said to him. ‘That’s all you have to do. Whichever part of your body is working, use it.’
He made a sound that had to be an assent, and jerked his right arm forward, plunged his hand down the back of her collar and anchored himself to her that way. It worked, but it choked the front of her neck.
Live with it, she decided, and began to move hand over hand towards the shore, praying that her muscles would retain their gripping power until she could stand less than chest deep and, if possible, get Curtis back on his feet.
In the end, they were both crawling and reached the shore just as she heard shouting coming from the slope of snow-dusted grass in front of her house. She recognised Will’s voice.
‘Help us!’ she called. ‘At the public dock.’
‘I see you. I’m coming.’
Maggie saw her mother in Will’s wake, holding Daniel in her arms. None of them were dressed for the conditions. Responding to the cryptic warning of her number on Will’s pager, they hadn’t had time.
‘Blankets, Dolly,’ she heard Will call back to her mother. ‘Call an ambulance, and turn up the thermostat in the house.’
He reached the shore seconds later, his face drained of all colour. ‘Maggie, what happened?’ He bent and put his arms around her, heedless of her dripping, muck-stained clothing. She was too numb to sense the warmth of his hands, but the heat and need and fear in his face gave her strength somehow. He pressed his mouth hard against her hair, and she was overwhelmed to find that he was shaking.
‘When I saw your number on my pager, I didn’t know if something was wrong,’ he said. ‘Or if the bad feeling I got was just because I hadn’t—’ He stopped.
‘I’m fine,’ she gasped. ‘Help me to lift Curtis.’
They both struggled to get Curtis onto his feet, but he shook his head.
‘I’m sorry. I can’t. Dr Braggett, you’ll have to carry me,’ he said. He swore in frustration, then added bitterly, ‘We should have left the island months ago, before the baby. Laura would be right never to forgive me for this.’
‘She will,’ Maggie told him. ‘You know she will. The island has been important for all of you.’
Will hefted Curtis over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. ‘Can you walk, Maggie? If not, I’ll come back. Hell, I hate leaving you, even for a moment!’
He muttered something heartfelt that she didn’t catch, and she assured him again, ‘I’m fine. Go on, take him. Yes, I can walk.’
His eyes met hers for a brief moment, and he let out a controlled breath. ‘Of course you can,’ he said softly. ‘You have more courage in your little finger than most people have in their whole soul.’
‘I—I—No, I wish that was true. I haven’t felt very brave just lately.’ Maggie couldn’t manage a more coherent response. She was too cold. Her lips were numb. Her mother arrived with a thick down quilt for each of them, and that gave her body heat a fighting chance against the continuing chill to her drenched and frozen form.
At the house, the next few hours were a chaotic blur. Curtis didn’t fight the suggestion of an ambulance and the hospital. ‘Just call Laura,’ he said. ‘Tell her I’m sorry.’
Maggie’s mother had to help her out of her sodden clothes as if she were a tiny child, and all she could do for a long time was lie on her bed in dry underclothing, wrapped in the quilts. She felt totally exhausted, and eventually, when Curtis was safely on his way to the hospital, she slept.
When she awoke again, Will was there, and it was dark. ‘How long did I sleep?’ she asked in a rusty voice.
‘It’s seven, so around three hours, probably,’ he said, then smiled crookedly. ‘Longest three hours of my life, I think. Daniel was asleep for a good while, too. Your mother is making you something to eat, and I’ve brought you some hot chocolate.’
‘Thanks. Mmm, I need this!’ Maggie struggled to sit up higher in the bed, took the steaming mug from his hands then realised she was only wearing a smooth black satin bra. She felt too drained to care. He’d seen her wearing less than this.
Apparently, however, he was by no means blasé about the sight. His dark gaze caressed her body, lingering in all the places where he’d set her on fire. She tried to smile, but felt too unsure of herself. The hot drink threatened to spill in her hands and she put it on the bedside table after the first few sips. She’d drink it later, when it had cooled.
Meanwhile, the fact that Will responded so strongly to her body was wonderful, important and good. Could she take her mother’s advice and wait, in the belief that one day he’d be able to offer her more? It wasn’t an easy decision. The courageous decision, her mother had called it, but maybe she just didn’t want to be brave any more. She wanted someone to step in and make this easy for her.
‘I saw you walking along the lakefront, past my house,’ Will said suddenly. ‘I almost asked you in for a coffee, but then I got stuck in all sorts of questions about whether I could live up to the consequences of an invitation like that.’
He took her hands in his and began to chafe them, and she had to laugh a little at his talk of the ‘consequences’ of coffee, even though her heart had begun to beat strangely.
‘Coffee is a huge commitment,’ she said. ‘Caf or decaf, latte or cappuccino.’
He was sitting on the bed now. Almost close enough to kiss. She resisted the need to pull him against her and waited. He wasn’t just talking about coffee. He couldn’t be.
‘Hell, Maggie, if I’d lost you…’ he said. ‘I’m sorr
y, I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long! Your mother said it. How long does it take to say yes or no? She made it quite clear she wasn’t going to look kindly on anyone who asked her daughter to do all the running.’
‘Funny. She told me to wait, and give you time,’ Maggie whispered. ‘It hasn’t been long.’
‘And I’d just reached exactly that conclusion myself.’
‘I’ve been too impatient, Will. I’ll wait, if you need me to.’
He hardly seemed to be listening. He had his arms around her now, and his hands traced the contours of her body with eager, almost reverent need. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, seeking his mouth. It was right where she wanted it, familiar and warm, and she kissed him with her whole soul right there on her lips for him to taste.
‘I love you,’ he said. Words and kisses were tangled together. ‘And if you throw that back in my face, it’s only what I deserve.’
‘I’m not throwing it back, Will.’
‘You were right in your opinion of me all those years ago.’
‘No.’
‘I’m a complete jerk!’.
‘No!’
‘But I do love you.’ He kissed her harder, then broke off in frustration. ‘That word isn’t strong enough! I need you in my life. I need you in Daniel’s life. I want to marry you and give you the child you couldn’t have with Mark. Could you, Maggie? Would you marry me?’
‘Oh, Will…’
‘Is it too late?’ At last he paused long enough to hear her.
She smiled at him. ‘As I’ve said about six times now, no, it’s not too late. I’m still wondering if it’s too soon. If you need more time to be sure about this, I can wait. If you want to take it slowly, so that Daniel has time to understand, we can wait as long as you want.’
‘Daniel will be fine.’ He pulled back a little, and touched her lips with his fingers. His dark eyes flamed. ‘I’ve been the one holding back, and those moments today when I thought I might have lost you because I’d taken too long aren’t something I ever want to repeat. Daniel will love you as soon as he knows you’re a part of our lives. And a baby brother or sister will put him in heaven. I don’t want to wait for that, Maggie. I want to give it all to you as soon as I can.’
She smiled again. ‘Right now?’
‘Yes, if you like.’ His dark eyes met hers steadily. ‘Right now.’
‘I was teasing.’
‘I wasn’t. I was deadly serious. Let me make love to you, Maggie,’ he whispered. ‘With my hands and my heart, and everything I can possibly promise you. Let’s not waste another hour…’
If his words hadn’t convinced her, his hands and his mouth soon did.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Maggie’s mother tipped her head to one side and listened to the suspicious silence radiating from Maggie’s room. Will had disappeared up there some minutes ago, and it didn’t look as if he was coming back any time soon. As far as she was concerned, that was an excellent development.
‘Do you know what, Daniel?’ she said to the little boy, who was drinking a big mug of hot chocolate at the kitchen table. ‘I think I might get to be your grandmother soon. Would that be nice?’
He smiled and nodded, ‘Yeah!’
Dolly knew he didn’t really understand what she had said. It didn’t matter. There was plenty of time for all of them.
EPILOGUE
‘WE DON’T have time to play on the swings today, Daniel,’ Will said to his son.
‘But, Daddy, I want to.’
‘There’s something else you’ll want to do when I tell you.’ He hefted three-year-old Zoe a little higher on his hip, took Daniel’s hand and steered him away from the school playground swings in the direction of the car. ‘First, how was school today?’
It was the end of six-year-old Daniel’s first week, and he seemed to have settled in well. His easy reply confirmed Will’s sense that this was the case. ‘I kept cool,’ he said. ‘And for news I told about my teeth.’
Since Will had suggested to Daniel’s teacher that she nudge him towards this subject, he wasn’t entirely surprised. Nonetheless, he felt a familiar constriction in his heart. It had come less often over the past few years, but remained the symptom of a need to protect his son which he sometimes struggled to keep to an appropriate level.
‘How did that go?’ he asked, outwardly casual. ‘What did the other kids say?’
‘They said did the tooth fairy come to my house every night? Wasn’t that silly?’ Daniel giggled, and Will could breathe again.
‘Hey, guess what?’ he said to his son. ‘Do you know what we’re doing now? We’re going down to the hospital to see our new baby!’
‘Our baby? Did the baby come out?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘While I was at school?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he’s a boy?’
‘Yes. Called Luke.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ Daniel’s firm statement covered the entire package of information he’d just received.
Will was a little confused. ‘Well, but you knew it was time, didn’t you? We’ve been telling you that.’
‘Yes, but the baby’s been in there for so long, and Maggs has had a big fat tummy for so long, and you’ve been saying it was going to come out for so long, I just didn’t think it could really be today!’
‘Well, it was. So do you want to see him?’
‘Yes!’
On the way to the hospital, Daniel expressed his scepticism several more times. It really wasn’t until he’d seen the tiny, black-haired, red-faced and unmistakably baby-like boy creature, and had ascertained with his own eyes that ‘Maggs’ had a much flatter tummy than she’d had when he’d left for school this morning, that he felt ready to believe.
At this point, his feelings transformed. ‘My brother,’ he said, with intense and possessive satisfaction. ‘My baby brother.’ He held Luke and cuddled and kissed him, and shooed poor, eager little Zoe away every time she tried to kiss the baby, too. ‘You have to be gentle with him, Zoe.’
‘Not quite the form I was expecting sibling rivalry to take this time around,’ Will murmured to Maggie.
‘Isn’t that the keynote to parenthood, though?’ she whispered back. ‘The keynote to love, really. Never what you expect.’
‘Better, sometimes.’
‘Is it?’ She tilted her head and gave him a glance of shameless and lingering flirtation.
‘Fishing for it, aren’t you, Dr Lawless?’
‘Hey, I gave birth today. I shouldn’t need to fish!’
‘I’m not that soft. You say it first.’
‘With pleasure.’ She smiled at him, tired and beautiful. She’d had a pretty intense couple of hours just before lunch. ‘I love you, Will. I love being married to you, and I love giving birth to our children. I knew I would but, even so, it’s so much better than I imagined.’
‘Me, too, Maggie, my darling wife,’ Will said.
Distracted by the territorial battle erupting between Daniel and Zoe over who had the right to kiss which bits of baby Luke, he couldn’t kiss Maggie just then. But with a lifetime of kisses still to come, both of them could wait.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-5723-1
A MOTHER FOR HIS CHILD
First North American Publication 2003
Copyright © 2002 by Lilian Darcy
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