Angel's Baby

by Pamela Browning

  Come to think of it, maybe he ought to go find her. She might still want to go.

  * * *

  ANGEL, on her way to the meadow, was confronted by Caloosa, who bounded in front of her and came to a skidding stop.

  “What in the world is wrong with you, Caloosa?” Angel asked, bending down to pet her, but the cat was so skittish that she jumped out of Angel’s way.

  “Caloosa?” Angel said. She’d never seen her cat act this way before.

  The cat ran to the edge of the path and looked over her shoulder at Angel. When Angel approached, Caloosa twitched her tail and leaped into the shrubbery. Angel could have sworn that Caloosa wanted Angel to follow her.

  The connecting path to her swimming beach was nearby, and Caloosa ran in that direction. Angel, unsure why she was doing it, followed along.

  At the edge of the beach, Caloosa skirted the palm grove and ran out onto the sand. When Angel emerged from the brush into the bright glaring sunlight of the beach, she couldn’t see the cat at first. As her eyes adjusted, she realized that Caloosa was running back and forth at the edge of the ocean, keeping just outside the reach of the surf. Angel was amused at how the cat managed to dodge the water; then she realized that Caloosa was acting highly distressed at the sight of an object that was rising and falling on the gently billowing waves.

  Angel ran to the high-tide line and saw immediately that whatever Caloosa was paying so much attention to was moving and definitely alive. Why, it’s a pelican! Angel thought with a start. The bird’s feathers were ruffled and dirty, and it wasn’t sitting correctly in the water, but it definitely was a brown pelican, one of a flock that inhabited Halos Island.

  By this time, Caloosa was mewing distractedly, and after Angel kicked her shoes off and waded a few feet into the water for a better look, she realized that the bird was caught in a discarded six-ring plastic beer pack. It was clearly exhausted from the struggle of trying to escape it.

  Angel didn’t even have to think about it; she plunged into the water, clothes and all, to rescue the beleaguered pelican.

  The surf wasn’t high today, and she was a good swimmer. In a matter of seconds, she reached the pelican, which stared at her without much hope out of the eye on the side facing her. Angel paused to tread water for a moment or two as she planned the best way to disentangle the terrified bird, and when she realized that not only was its bill caught in one of the rings but that its feet were twisted in two others, her heart sank. This wasn’t going to be a simple task.

  The bird seemed to be losing strength. Angel gingerly placed her hands around it, expecting it to burst free of the plastic and nip her at any second, but the bird was apparently so worn out from its struggles that it attempted only a feeble token effort. Angel launched herself toward shore and kicked as hard as she could, pushing the pelican ahead of her.

  Her hair got in her eyes, making it even more difficult for her to see, but she was making some progress. She was beginning to congratulate herself when she felt the first sting on her lower leg. A jellyfish, she thought. What an inconvenience. But then the sting became a searing pain that made her cry out involuntarily so that she gulped a mouthful of water. After that, attempting to ignore the pain, she clamped her lips shut and tried to keep kicking. It was a nasty shock when she realized that whatever was stinging her was now trailing across her thigh, scorching the skin in a kind of slow torture.

  She fought to keep from crying out. She didn’t dare try to brush away whatever was causing the pain for fear of what it might do to her hand. Panic caught in her throat, but she wasn’t about to abandon the pelican after what she’d already gone through. The bird, however, seemed resigned to its fate. It lowered its head and heaved a great sigh.

  Angel gritted her teeth against the torment and pushed the bird toward land with one last giant heave, hoping that this desperate effort would provide enough impetus to wash the pelican up on shore.

  At that moment, she spotted the source of her pain: the clear blue flotation sac of Physalia pelagica, the dreaded Portuguese man-of-war, hulked only a few feet away from her. She knew that this member of the phylum Coelenterata, like other jellyfish, possessed a network of toxic tentacles that floated beneath it, and if she became enmeshed in its tangle, she would be in even worse straits. And where there was one man-of-war, there were usually others. She could be smack in the middle of a whole flotilla of them, unable to see them because of the rise and fall of the waves.

  Keep calm, she told herself, and that was when she heard Stuart shouting at her.

  “What’s wrong, Angel?”

  “Man-of-war!” she called back, scarcely able to speak. The pain was shooting through her whole leg, and she had to fight not to scream in agony.

  Stuart started into the water. “No, stay there, it’s too dangerous!” she yelled, kicking and paddling with all her might. For all she knew, she could be heading into a web of poisonous lashes, but she had to get to shore.

  At that moment, a large wave bore her upward and toward shore, so that with one more powerful lunge, she was within Stuart’s grasp.

  “Watch...out...” she managed to gasp as he hauled her onto the sand. She knew that the tentacles of the man-of-war could be more than fifty feet long, and that they could be coiled around her leg. If Stuart touched them, he would be stung, too.

  “I see them,” Stuart said tersely. His eyes raked her body, taking in her sodden clothes and the red welts beginning to rise on her legs. “Where else did they sting you?” he asked, as he pulled off his shirt and used it to wipe gently at the tentacles adhering to the welts.

  “Just on my legs,” Angel said through teeth gritted against the pain.

  She strained to see the pelican, which was lying on the sand only a few feet away, its sides heaving. “Can’t you take care of the bird first?” she asked.

  Stuart glanced at the pelican. “If you’re up to removing the tentacles from your legs, I’ll take a look at the bird.”

  “I can do it,” she said. He handed her his shirt, and she began to swab gently at her welts. Stuart, after studying the situation briefly, grasped the pelican firmly and eased its feet and neck out of the plastic rings.

  “This fellow’s going to be okay,” he said. He went to the edge of the water and released the bird. It looked stunned, but Stuart spent no more time worrying about it. He hurried back to Angel.

  “You’d better lie back,” he said. “I’ll do this.”

  Angel gratefully allowed him to minister to her. Now she felt the toxin from the man-of-war spreading through her body, making her feel weak and woozy. As Stuart said, “There! That’s the last of them,” she felt a cramp in her leg.

  Stuart looked alarmed. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. She swallowed hard against the nausea rising in her throat.

  “Angel?” Stuart said, as if from a long distance away.

  She realized that she had closed her eyes; she opened them again. “Is the pelican all right?” she asked anxiously. Stuart was blocking her view.

  Stuart moved, and they both saw the pelican fly a short distance before coming to rest on the surface of the ocean. The bird sat there, riding the waves. Caloosa, who had been crouching nearby, watching the proceedings, suddenly got up and trotted over to Angel, where she rubbed up against her mistress’s face.

  “The pelican will be fine,” Stuart assured her. “I’m not so sure about you.”

  “I’ll be fine, too,” Angel said, and then she lost the battle with her stomach.

  * * *

  “TALK ABOUT STUPID,” Stuart said. “Talk about ill-advised. You should have seen the Portuguese man-of-wars. There were certainly plenty of them.”

  “I was worried about the pelican,” Angel said from her position on the sofa where Stuart had deposited her after carrying her back to the house.

  “You risked your life for that bird. Does that make you feel better?” He eyed her sternly from the kitchen, where
he was diluting ammonia with water.

  “I’m glad he’s okay. Are you sure you saw him fly away?”

  “Absolutely sure. He’s probably diving for fish out past the reef right now, which is more than you’re going to be doing,” he said. He hurried into the living room and knelt by her side, washing the welts on her legs with the ammonia-and-water solution. His touch was gentle, and she felt a rush of gratitude toward him. Stuart was right, of course. She should have been more careful, should have seen the jellyfish floating on the surface of the water.

  The ammonia stung, and she winced. Stuart glanced sharply at her face. “Some people have really bad reactions to man-of-war stings,” he said. “Do you still feel nauseated?”

  “No,” she said, but she was lying. She always felt nauseated these days.

  “If you start having trouble breathing, you’d better tell me,” he said. “And you’d better get out of those wet clothes.”

  Angel struggled to sit up. “Bring me the robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door, will you?” she said.

  He went and got the robe, handing it to her silently. “Do you want me to help you to bed?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. With difficulty, she pulled her shirt up, and he helped her ease it over her head. Angel felt stifled under the wet fabric, finding it hard to breathe, and her stomach turned over. She pushed the shirt upward, but her hair was wet and tangled, and it snagged on one of the shirt’s decorative buttons.

  “Careful,” Stuart said, cautiously unwinding the strand of hair.

  Angel inhaled deeply when she was free of the shirt. Stuart was looking at her strangely.

  “You still look a little green around the gills,” he said.

  “I’ll be all right,” she replied. She reached around and unhooked her bra, sliding it down her arms and setting it on top of the wet shirt. She knew Stuart was looking at her breasts, their nipples already swollen with the enlargement of early pregnancy, and though she still felt sick, she couldn’t help feeling a thrill of pride that he desired her even when she looked like a drowned rat.

  “Help me, Stuart,” she said, trying to slide the wet shorts and panties down her legs, which were visibly branded in a crisscrossing pattern of welts that showed minute hemorrhages underneath.

  He complied, expertly but carefully easing her clothes past the welts and over her feet. She slid her arms through the armholes of her robe and wrapped it around her, and Stuart helped with that, too. He was trying to look businesslike and failing miserably; in spite of the pain that she still felt from the man-of-war stings, Angel almost smiled. Even now, there was a sexual tension between them. These days, it never went away.

  She felt a pleasant tightening in her lower abdomen, and it felt good but inappropriate. Ditto the way her nipples were puckering under the loose robe in anticipation of his touch. If Stuart had touched her at that moment, had given her any sign that he wanted her, she would have said yes. But, because of her unsettled stomach, Angel was glad when he didn’t.

  Stuart arranged a pillow behind her and tossed aside the wet bed sheet that he’d pulled over the couch to protect it from the seawater. She was surprised and yet somehow not surprised that he was so competent in handling this emergency.

  She shifted onto her side and pillowed her hands under her cheek. “How did you know the proper first aid for man-of-war stings?” she asked him.

  He studied the marks on her legs through narrowed eyes. “I’ve been around the sea all my life. I’ve sailed around the Caribbean enough to know what harm a Portuguese man-of-war can do.”

  “You have?” she said. The aspirins he had given her when they first came back to the house were making her drowsy, but she didn’t want him to leave her; she didn’t want to be left alone. But Stuart had been on his way to somewhere when he spotted her struggling out in the ocean; surely he wouldn’t stick around once he had taken care of her. Keep him talking, she told herself.

  Stuart sat on the floor and leaned back against the arm of the couch. “One summer when I was in college, a friend and I bummed around the Bahamas for two months. We crewed on a dive boat, and we ran into more than a few jellyfish and assorted nasty sea creatures,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Barracudas. A shark or two. And once I stepped on a sea urchin.”

  “Mmm...” was all Angel said.

  Stuart noticed her lassitude. “Would you like to sleep? Take a nap?” he asked sharply.

  Angel shook her head. “No. I like to listen to you talk,” she said.

  “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Tell me about your childhood,” she said.

  Probably she was merely making small talk, but he was reluctant to comply. He racked his brain, trying to think of an aspect of his childhood that he wanted to mention. The only thing he could think about was Valerie, and he didn’t think that his childhood sweetheart was an appropriate topic to discuss with Angel McCabe.

  She seemed to sense his hesitation. “How about your family?” she asked. “What are they like?”

  His family. Certainly that was the last thing he wanted to talk about.

  He started to tell her so, but one look into those interested brown eyes reminded him that she was going to be the mother of his child and had a right to know the bare essentials about that child’s ancestry. He inhaled a deep breath.

  “Family. Okay, here goes. My mother was of Boston Brahmin stock. My father comes from a long line of Adamses stretching back to the Mayflower, and he spent his whole life furthering the family shipbuilding empire. I have no sisters, and my only brother is a year younger than I am. My parents are both dead. My father died from too much drinking, and my mother died from too much smoking. I barely knew them, since I was reared by a succession of people who were paid to look after my brother and me.” He was unaware of the bitterness in his voice until Angel spoke. He’d thought she was falling asleep.

  “I’m sorry, Stuart,” she said in a soft voice. To his surprise, she rested a hand on his arm and squeezed it in a show of support and reassurance. He was unaccountably moved by this, and he had to look away.

  “When was the last time you saw your brother?” she said.

  Of course. He’d known she was curious about the letter he’d received today.

  “It’s been a while,” he said, in a tone that he hoped would put an end to her questions about his family.

  She appeared to consider this for a while. He thought that if he was lucky, Angel would nod off, but she seemed more wide-awake than ever.

  “I think it would be nice to have a brother or sister. It’s sad when siblings aren’t good friends,” she said.

  He managed a diffident shrug. “If you knew my brother, you wouldn’t feel that way,” he said, immediately regretting it.

  “Oh? What’s he like?”

  How to explain Fitz? Stuart didn’t think he could. How could he tell Angel about the rivalry that had been the overriding characteristic of his relationship with his brother, how they had fought since they were babies, first over who got to play with the red fire truck, and later over their allowances and which clothes belonged to whom? How could he tell her how he, as the older, more responsible sibling, had gotten Fitz out of trouble numerous times, with little appreciation from his brother? He didn’t want to explain about the times he’d reasoned with schoolmates who were in the process of beating Fitz up and how he’d taken a few licks himself for his pains, or how he had bailed Fitz out of a hundred financial binds brought about by his brother’s own bad judgment, or how he had corralled Fitz at family parties and hidden him away so that his snippy great-aunts wouldn’t see his little brother when he was drunk.

  “Fitz is just Fitz,” he replied enigmatically. He stood up. “I think I’ll check out the refrigerator, see what’s handy for a snack,” he said, and leaving her staring after him in openmouthed surprise, he headed for the kitchen.

  If only he had been able to manufacture a more plaus
ible excuse to get away, he thought morosely as he surveyed the few limp pieces of celery and half a key lime pie in the fridge. And now he might even have to eat something.

  He didn’t have to agonize over the choice for very long. He chose the pie.

  * * *

  WHAT IN THE WORLD had she said to make Stuart take off like that?

  Angel heard him opening and closing the refrigerator and rummaging around in the silverware drawer, but she wasn’t fooled. Chair legs scraped against the rough kitchen floor; she heard him sit down. There was no doubt in her mind that Stuart had started itching to get out of the room as soon as Fitz’s name came up. She had seen it in his agitated expression.

  Slowly she sat up and inspected the places on her legs where the man-of-war had stung her. Stuart’s hands had been sure and soothing as he tended her wounds—as gentle as a woman’s, in fact. They were hands that could easily comfort a child, but she didn’t allow herself to hold that thought. If she started thinking in that vein, she’d start coming up with reasons why Stuart should be part of their child’s life.

  Suddenly her eyes came to rest on a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. Wincing with the pain, she leaned over and picked it up, recognizing almost immediately that this was the letter from Stuart’s brother.

  She had no right to read the letter. She knew that. But she heard the rhythmic clink of fork against plate as Stuart ate, and as long as he sat at the kitchen table, he would never know she was reading his letter. Even as she cautioned herself that she shouldn’t do it, her fingers smoothed the paper flat.

  She scanned the letter quickly, noting the impersonal tone and the signature that had almost certainly been mass-produced by a signature machine. Whatever she had expected of this communication from Stuart’s brother, it was not this form letter signed so formally by H. Fitzroy Adams. Was this what Stuart had been so uptight about?

  She heard Stuart push his chair back, so she quickly crushed the paper in her hand and tossed it to one side of the couch. He’d find it there later, none the wiser that she had read it.

  Stuart came in at the same time that Caloosa entered through the pet door; the cat immediately crossed the porch and went to Angel.