Angel's Baby

by Pamela Browning

  She was a dainty, pretty little thing, white with gray spots. Looking blissful, she closed her eyes and purred as he scratched her under her chin. When the purring seemed to intensify rather than abate, Stuart slung the cat over his shoulder like a baby, and she laid her throat against his neck so that he felt the vibration of her purring as he headed inland. Before long, he realized that on this inner part of the island, where the sea breeze did not penetrate the thick scrub, it was very hot. He paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead and set the cat down. He would head for the beach, where it would be cooler.

  The cat followed him for a hundred yards or so before disappearing on a mission of her own. Stuart emerged from the brush into a grove of coconut palms and caught his breath at the sight of silvery waves breaking upon a wide curve of sand. Without further thought, he stripped off his shirt, shoes, jeans and underwear.

  He sprinted barefoot across the hot sand but skidded to a stop halfway to the water. Angel was swimming close to the sunken coral reef, and too late he saw her clothes stacked in a neat pile at the water’s edge.

  If she had spotted him where he stood, he would have brazened it out and waded in to swim at a respectful distance. Weren’t they going to be married as soon as possible? Weren’t they going to share the same bed, conceive a child together? What could it hurt if they swam naked in the same body of water at the same time, feeling without touching, communicating without words? But she didn’t see him, and he didn’t want her to think he was spying.

  Angel rolled over on her back and began backstroking in the opposite direction. The soft mounds of her breasts rose from the water, the nipples glistening in the bright sunlight. He imagined seawater coursing through the wedge between her legs, the pale curls as salty as seaweed. He shouldn’t be watching. He knew that. But she was so beautiful. So sexy. And it had been so long since he’d been with a woman.

  He groaned, feeling his body begin to respond to her. He backed into the palm grove, willing himself to calm down, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off her. He held his breath, thinking that he had never seen anything as beautiful as Angel McCabe as she languidly emerged from the sea and waded slowly toward the pile of clothes on the beach, shaking the water out of her long golden hair in myriad droplets that glittered like tiny diamonds. She still had no idea that he was watching.

  Her breasts were tanned and globular, with pink nipples perfectly centered and tip-tilted upward. They swung slightly when she walked, and water dripped off the tips. Her hips curved outward from a narrow waist, and her pelvis was wide—good for childbearing, Stuart reminded himself. Her body was tanned all over, and it gleamed like oiled silk. As Stuart thought about touching her, sleeping beside her, his mouth went dry and he was aroused again.

  He didn’t want her to see him as she made her way toward the path, so he sank to the ground and tried to meld into the shadowy trunk of a palm tree. Angel took her time putting on her clothes, starting with a sliver of lace that she shimmied up over her hips and ending with her blouse, which she slipped over her head in a single fluid motion. She was unconsciously seductive in her movements; he was sure she had no idea how the way she moved incited a healthy, red-blooded man to want her.

  By this time, Stuart had decided to wait until she had gone and then cool his ardor by plunging into the sea and swimming as far out as possible. But as Angel started to walk gracefully toward the palm grove, he heard a loud “Meow,” followed by Caloosa’s mad dash down the sloping trunk of a coconut palm.

  The cat headed straight for Stuart, her whiskers twitching. He pushed her away, but she only butted insistently against his hand and purred.

  “Meow,” said the cat, plaintively and loudly. Stuart shrank away, hoping that Angel wouldn’t hear. She was closer now and, hearing the cat, she looked around in puzzlement.

  Stuart took the chance to speak to the cat. “Go away,” he growled.

  “Caloosa?” said Angel. She was standing no more than twenty feet away from Stuart, the rays of the sinking sun tipping her eyelashes with gold.

  “Meow,” said the stupid cat, bounding toward her.

  Stuart clutched his clothes over his most vulnerable parts, which at least had subsided. He could only hope that by remaining motionless, he would be invisible. With the sun in her eyes like that, Angel probably wouldn’t be able to see very well.

  “What have you been up to?” she said. For one heart stopping moment, Stuart thought she was talking to him.

  But she wasn’t. She bent and picked up the cat, stroking it gently. Caloosa struggled to get down.

  “Okay, then, if you’d rather walk, fine,” Angel said resignedly. The cat leaped from her arms and bounded through a thicket of sea grapes. She headed straight for Stuart.

  Angel chided the cat in a playful voice. “What have you found, you silly cat? You haven’t tangled with another crab, have you?” she said. Stuart looked around for an escape route. There was none.

  Angel rounded a palm tree and stood openmouthed as Stuart stared up at her with a sick feeling in his stomach.

  “Well,” she said slowly, after a moment of speechless astonishment, “look what the cat dragged in.”

  Stuart could think of absolutely no reply. He stared at her, separated from her by nothing but a few feet of air and the foolish look on his face.

  “You’ll learn not to walk around Halos Island without clothes as soon as you get your first sunburn. The sun is very hot here,” she said. “Come along, Caloosa. There’s fish for dinner.” She turned to go.

  The cat switched her tail and, feckless creature that she was, slinked toward the path without a backward look. Angel followed with her nose in the air, and she didn’t look back, either.

  That suited Stuart just fine. He had turned red all over, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the sun.

  * * *

  IT WASN’T ANGER that Angel was trying to control as she stalked away from Stuart. It was laughter. She knew she probably should be furious with him for spying on her. And she probably would have been, if the man hadn’t looked so funny, cringing against the trunk of the palm tree with his clothes bunched up against his private parts.

  But as soon as she got her amusement under control, she realized that Stuart had probably had a good look at her—all of her—a mortifying thought. She didn’t like anyone looking at her too-large breasts, or the hips that were too rounded, and as for her stomach, it was firm and flat, but could have been flatter. Or at least that was what Howard had always said. She hadn’t let a man look at her—all of her—since she and Howard had broken up. She knew that baring her body was unavoidable in Stuart’s case, but she was determined to remain one step removed from the process; somehow, she’d get through it. She was willing to do anything—anything at all—to have a baby.

  Back at the bungalow, Angel started to prepare dinner. There was still no sign of Stuart Adams by the time she had squeezed the juice of a key lime over a snapper fillet and tossed a couple of potatoes in the microwave oven. She couldn’t blame Stuart for staying away, she supposed. It was a way of saving face—not to mention other parts of his anatomy.

  Holding the screen door open with her elbow, Angel carried the fish outside into the gathering dusk and lifted the hood of the grill. She slapped the fillet on the rack, sure that the mouth-watering smell of fresh fish cooking would bring Stuart back to the house in time for dinner. She was a little worried about what they would say to each other when he finally appeared.

  She finally heard Stuart approaching. To her ears, unaccustomed to other people walking about the island, he sounded like a rhinoceros crashing through the shrubbery. She could only hope that by this time he was fully clothed. At least she thought that was what she hoped. After all, the first time she set eyes on him, she’d known he’d look great in the nude. And, aside from the preposterousness of today’s revealing little incident, she hadn’t exactly been disappointed. But then, she hadn’t seen all of him—exactly.

  She
looked up from turning the fish, schooling her expression carefully.

  “You can wash up at the kitchen sink,” she told him. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Okay,” he said. He started into the house, then turned on his heel.

  “Do you, uh, want me to help with dinner? Set the table or anything?”

  “Sure, that would be nice,” she told him, keeping her tone aloof. “We’ll eat on the porch. There are dishes in the china closet in the hall between the bedroom and the living room.”

  He went on into the house, and Angel breathed a sigh of relief. So far, so good, she thought as she slid the snapper onto the platter. Caloosa mewed and followed Angel up the steps. Angel adjusted Caloosa’s pet door so that the cat couldn’t get into the house.

  “You stay outside,” she told Caloosa, finding it easier to talk to the animal than to the man who was to be her husband. “I’m sure Stuart would agree that you’ve caused enough trouble for one day.”

  “Meow,” said Caloosa disconsolately.

  Stuart was making china-and-cutlery noises on the porch. In the kitchen, Angel quickly assembled on a tray baked potatoes, fish, stewed tomatoes from her vegetable garden, and pickled okra.

  “I’ll carry that for you,” Stuart said, appearing suddenly and taking the tray from her.

  “But—”

  “No buts. Come and see if I’ve set the table decently. I don’t have much experience along those lines.”

  He had located her good china and set two places at the table on the porch. He had put the forks to the right of the plates instead of to the left, and he hadn’t used the place mats, which she’d forgotten to mention.

  “Well?” Stuart waited anxiously.

  “Very nice,” she said. She wondered if he would be so eager to please if she hadn’t caught him red-handed in the palm grove. Well, not exactly red-handed...but red.

  They both sat down, and Angel picked up her fork. Stuart picked up his fork. Angel stuck her fork into her baked potato. He stuck his fork into his baked potato. Angel conveyed a bit of potato to her mouth. He conveyed a bit of potato to his mouth. She chewed and swallowed. He chewed and swallowed. Angel helped herself to the fish and passed the platter to him. He helped himself to the fish.

  Suddenly he stood up and pushed his chair back. It wobbled and fell against the screen, punching a fist-size hole in the mesh. Stuart stared at the damage, then looked down at Angel helplessly.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” he said.

  “I’ll light a citronella candle so the bugs won’t bother us,” she said. She got up to get one.

  When she set the candle on the table, Stuart started pacing to the end of the porch and back again. He looked at her from beneath his heavy brows.

  “This afternoon was a mistake. I shouldn’t have watched you on the beach. As soon as I realized you were there, I should have come back to the house, left you alone. All I wanted to do was go for a swim, and I’d already taken my clothes off before I realized—” He sounded genuinely distressed.

  “Stuart,” she said gently, interrupting him. “It’s okay. I wasn’t offended.” She blew out the match she’d used to light the candle.

  “Why not? Wasn’t it a direct violation of the privacy you’ve come to expect on Halos Island?”

  “I suppose it was,” she said slowly, refusing to look at him, staring into the candle flame instead. “But if you’re going to live here, too, I’ll have to get used to not having the privacy I’m accustomed to having, won’t I?”

  “And I’ll have to get used to blundering in where I shouldn’t be, won’t I?”

  She stood up. “Stuart, we’ll manage. This is an unusual set of circumstances. We can make it work.”

  He ran an impatient hand through his hair so that it sprang up between his fingers. “All right,” he said dismissively. “Consider the subject closed.” He sat down and began to eat.

  Watching him, avoiding eye contact, Angel was suddenly overcome with regret. Her island had for so long been a peaceful retreat, a safe haven from the rest of the world, and she had destroyed it by allowing Stuart Adams to come here. Sudden tears at her own shortsightedness stung the back of her eyelids.

  She stood up abruptly. “You go ahead and eat,” she said. “I’m not hungry.” She whirled and walked swiftly through the doorway into the house, leaving him to stare after her in bewilderment.

  She fled out the back door, where Caloosa greeted her enthusiastically on the stoop. Angel sat down on the top step and stroked the cat’s head, staring moodily out into the night. After a while she got up and scraped the specks of fish off the cooled grill into a saucer for Caloosa. She heard Stuart inside, running water into the sink.

  If he noticed her sitting hunched over on the back steps while he rinsed his plate, he gave no sign. Eventually she heard his footsteps retreating, and she went back inside.

  She found the remains of the broiled snapper in the refrigerator. She heard sounds from the porch that made her think that Stuart must be repairing the hole he’d made in the screen. A good thing he was, too, or they’d have a pack of mosquitoes whining around their ears all night.

  Angel wondered how long it would take her to get pregnant. Two weeks? Two months?

  No matter how long it took, she thought, it would seem like a very long time.

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, the first night with Stuart under her roof, Angel decided that sleeping in the same house with him was an impossibility. Usually she loved lying in bed under her mosquito netting at night, lulled to sleep by the wind whispering in the palm fronds and the surf on the shore. But on this night, she couldn’t go to sleep.

  While Angel lay stiffly in her bed, unable to get comfortable, she heard Stuart furthering his acquaintance with Caloosa, who should have been on her bed, warming her feet, which were, for some reason, stone-cold in the middle of May.

  Finally Angel heard the plunks and thumps that meant Stuart was unfolding the couch. She heard him shaking out the sheets that she’d unceremoniously dumped there while he was still on the porch fixing the screen.

  Soon he made his own trip to the outhouse, and she felt a twinge of guilt when she realized that she hadn’t told him where she kept the flashlight. But evidently he found his way there and back without mishap, because after a few minutes, she heard the protest of flimsy bedsprings as he lowered his weight onto the thin mattress.

  The faithless Caloosa must still be hanging around him, since Angel heard Stuart murmuring in a low voice. Wouldn’t you know that a cat would desert you for somebody else? Angel thought with annoyance. Next time she brought a pet to this island, it would be a dog. Dogs, at least, understood loyalty.

  Angel punched her pillow again and rolled over. She was finally falling asleep when she heard an unearthly shout. She froze for a moment, then leaped out of bed and ran into the hall.

  “What’s wrong?” she cried as she flicked on the light.

  Stuart was standing in the middle of the living room, wearing nothing but a pair of narrow black briefs. Caloosa was gleefully chasing a huge brown insect around the room, pouncing on it and then letting it go again for the sport of it.

  “You didn’t tell me the roaches around here fly and are as big as hummingbirds and crash-dive at people’s heads at night,” Stuart said accusingly.

  “That’s not a roach. It’s a palmetto bug. And I’m very sorry, Stuart, but I don’t think I can go through with this,” Angel said, before bursting into tears.

  Chapter Three

  “Maybe you’ve got PMS,” Stuart said.

  Angel, who was standing in the middle of the room and sobbing softly, suddenly stopped. She looked as if she couldn’t believe she had heard him correctly.

  “What?” she said.

  “Premenstrual syndrome. It makes women emotional at a certain time of their menstrual cycles,” he said patiently, as if explaining to a very young child.

  Angel only stared.

  “Well, you ha
ve to admit that I have an interest in such things, now that I’m committed to getting you pregnant,” he said.

  “Good grief,” Angel muttered. “I don’t know whether to be amused or insulted.”

  “I vote for amused,” he said. “If I’m allowed a vote, that is.”

  She looked around helplessly. “I don’t suppose you have a handkerchief, do you?”

  Stuart glanced down at his black briefs. “Not on me,” he said.

  Angel lifted the puffy sleeve of her nightgown and dried her face. “It can’t be PMS,” she said. “I’m only ten days into my cycle.”

  Stuart calculated rapidly. “That means that this week is the optimum week for you to get pregnant,” he said.

  “You’re extraordinarily informed,” she said, not without admiration.

  “My favorite subject in middle school was sex ed.”

  “And I suppose you were a prodigy?”

  “Well—”

  “Never mind. Maybe I’d rather not know.” Angel heaved a sigh. Her face was still damp, and her eyes were red and swollen from crying. She was still gorgeous, though, and Stuart’s heart went out to her.

  “Angel...” he began, hoping to offer some words of comfort, but she waved him off.

  “Forgive my lapse of decorum and chalk it up to temporary hysterics. That’s all it was,” she said.

  “I don’t know why you should be hysterical. The palmetto bug wasn’t trying to fly up your left nostril,” he reminded her.

  “It probably wasn’t trying to fly up yours, either, unless it thought you were harboring a possible mate in your sinuses.” Angel walked primly to a lumpy armchair and sat down, looking as if she intended to stay awhile. Stuart thought that maybe he should pull on his jeans, though after the episode that afternoon, it seemed pointless. And it wasn’t as if his underwear revealed anything. Well, nothing but a quiescent bulge, that is.

  Cautiously, he sat down on the edge of the bed. “As a native of New England, I guess I wasn’t prepared for the size of the bugs in this part of the world,” he said.