Bound Together by a Baby

by Penny Jordan

  ‘I’m hot,’ she told him in a small, bewildered voice. ‘I don’t feel well.’

  ‘I think you’ve got ‘flu,’ Garrick told her curtly. ‘I’m taking you home, Kate, and then I’m going to call your doctor, and if you dare to tell me once again that there’s nothing wrong with you, so help me…I’ll…’

  ‘Michael—’ Kate protested drowsily.

  ‘I’ve managed to persuade one of your neighbours to keep an eye on him for an hour.’

  ‘How did you know that I needed you?’

  Had she been fully in control of herself, there was no way those words would ever have been said, and with her eyes closed she was not aware of the brief betraying look he gave her. She might admit that she needed him now, but were he to remind her of those words when she was well again, he suspected that she was all too likely to deny ever having said them.

  What had started out as a simple ploy to gather enough information to make sure that a court would award him full guardianship of Michael had turned into something far, far more complicated.

  And the worst of it was that he could see no way free of the tangle of deceit he had wound around himself. As he drove over a rut in the road, Kate gave a small moan and he switched his attention from his contemplation of abstracts to the reality of the woman seated next to him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FOR Kate, the next twenty-four hours passed in a haze of confused events: their return home, Rick undressing her and putting her to bed, despite her feverish protests, the arrival of the doctor who agreed with Rick that she was suffering from a severe bout of ‘flu. The doctor added to Garrick, although Kate herself wasn’t aware of it, that she suspected Kate was also under a considerable amount of strain, which wasn’t going to help her recovery.

  She woke several times from the heavy sleep that claimed her, each time worrying fretfully about Michael and the office, only to be told by Rick that everything was under control and that she wasn’t to worry, but over a whole day elapsed before she was able to ask him for concise details of exactly who was taking care of Michael while he sat at her bedside.

  ‘I got in touch with one of those twenty-four-hour emergency services. They sent round a relief nanny. Oh, and they’ve also arranged for someone to go into your office and deal with the day-to-day routine stuff while you’re off.’

  ‘You’ve what?’ Kate shrieked, sitting bolt upright and then groaning as her head started to pound. ‘Have you any idea what those agencies charge?’ she protested bitterly. ‘Rick, I can’t afford to…’

  She heard him curse under his breath, his hand cool as he placed it against her burning forehead. She was shivering again now, and desperately weak, only too glad to give in to his firm instruction that she lie down again. It was wonderful to lie there and be cosseted, to have the bedding pulled up and tucked round her as her mother had done when she was a child; to have someone telling her not to worry and that everything would be all right, and her mind, already clouded with fever and fear, readily abandoned its anxieties to Rick, as he soothed her and told her she was not to worry.

  Garrick sat with her until she had drifted back to sleep, and then he stood up with a frown. He wouldn’t be able to fob her off so easily for very long. She was no fool. The temporary nanny was costing the earth, and of course he was footing the bill himself; as for her office, he had instructed Gerald to send someone suitable there, to take charge of the everyday basic things, so that the two girls would be left free to take over Kate’s own workload. He had warned Gerald that whoever he sent must be discreet and capable of holding her tongue, but once Kate was back to normal…

  He looked down at her sleeping form, marvelling a little that she should have the power to move him so deeply. The problem was, did she reciprocate his feelings? There was a physical awareness between them, there was no doubt about that, no matter how much Kate might shy away from it, but would she be prepared to change the course of her life, to deviate from the route she had mapped out for herself to include him in her life?

  It gave him encouragement and hope that she had done so once—to include Michael. He grimaced faintly to himself. He loved her. He who had always sworn that he would never commit the folly of falling in love had proved to be just as human and vulnerable as his fellow men, and he didn’t mind at all.

  What he did mind was the fact that he was daily deceiving her, that she had a totally erroneous view of him. How would she react when he told her the truth? He would have to wait until she was well, of course. Patience had never been one of his strong suits and he hesitated in the doorway, reluctant to leave her, and yet knowing that sleep was exactly what she needed to aid her recovery.

  * * *

  It was over a week before Kate, who in the early feverish days of her illness had insisted that she was going straight back to work, felt strong enough to get out of bed for a couple of hours a day, and sit with her feet up, listening to Michael’s gurgles and staring lazily into space.

  She was now in the recuperative stage of her illness, her doctor informed her, adding severely that it was going to be at least a month before she was anything like fully fit.

  ‘And even then I have my doubts about whether you’re going to be strong enough to go back to work. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard for far too long,’ she had added gently. ‘It can’t go on. If you knew the number of young women who are coming to me with all the hallmarks of tension and stress. I’m all for sexual equality, but I sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t concentrate on making the male of the species more like us than vice versa.’

  The temporary nanny was no longer required, for which Kate heaved a sigh of relief. Every now and again when she allowed reality to penetrate past the lazy barrier of self-protection engendered by her illness, she was pierced by a sharp and frightening awareness of how perilously close to financial disaster she must be.

  And her doctor was right about the strain she was under. She found herself increasingly reluctant to even think about going back to work, and that terrified her. Instead of looking forward to it, she found that she was deliberately pushing it to the back of her mind.

  It was as though losing James’s contract and then her bout of ‘flu had robbed her of all her old ambition. She was quite content to allow Rick to take messages from Sara that all was going well and that she was not to worry; she felt no burning urgency to find out for herself what was happening in her absence, and every now and again, like lightning piercing heavy dark clouds, she was rent by panic as she realised how easy it had become to simply allow herself to drift aimlessly from day to day, allowing Rick to take control and organise her life for her.

  When she eventually brought herself to confide these fears to her doctor, the older woman smiled grimly and said, ‘As I’ve already tried to tell you, too much stress. This is your system’s way of telling you that it’s had enough.’

  ‘But I must get back to work. I can’t simply sit here and drift.’

  ‘If you don’t listen to what your body’s telling you, you could well find yourself on the verge of either a heart attack or a nervous breakdown within a very short space of time,’ her doctor told her bluntly. ‘What you’re feeling now is just a warning, Kate. I can’t force you to heed it, but I can tell you that if you don’t, you’re all too likely to be far more seriously ill in the long run.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ Kate fretted, and then went silent, knowing that she could not confide her financial fears to her doctor.

  After she had gone, she sat tensely in her chair, desperately trying to think of a way out of her problem. When her bedroom door opened and Rick came in with Michael, they brought with them the coldness of the outdoors.

  ‘Five times round the park and we’ve fed the ducks,’ Rick told her with a grin, tossing Michael up in the air, much to the little boy’s delight.

  There was a bond between them that tugged at Kate’s newly tender heart-strings. Watching as Michael trustingly allowed Rick to throw h
im up again, her own emotional response to the sight of them, the big strong man and the small, vulnerable, trusting child, brought a hard lump of anguish to her throat.

  This was how life should be: a traditional family unit, two loving adults bonded together by their care of the child life had entrusted to them.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  The quiet words hurt her with her knowledge that they were simply an expression of social concern, with none of the deep-rooted and intensely personal caring she longed for.

  The unspoken words tolled through her mind, shocking her into abrupt realisation of the truth.

  Somehow…somewhere…she had done the unforgivable and she had allowed herself to become dependent on Rick. Feverishly she searched her mind, trying to push the unwanted knowledge to one side, trying to convince herself that she was wrong, that it was simply her weakened state that was causing her to have these thoughts, but she knew as she looked at him that when the day came for him to leave them her life would be emptier than she had ever dreamed it was possible for it to be.

  Somehow or other her heart had turned traitor on her, and he and Michael had become fused together in it as two permanent features in her life.

  He reached out and touched her, concern pleating his forehead into a frown as he put Michael down and turned his attention to her.

  ‘What’s wrong, Kate?’ he repeated worriedly. ‘Aren’t you feeling well?’

  Her skin burned beneath his touch, her pulses thudding tensely and the knowledge burst upon her like a shower of too bright light.

  She loved him.

  The knowledge hit her with the appalling severity of a mortal wound. She went pale with the shock of it, the blood draining from her extremities like a death flood, and she stared blankly at him, unable to think logically or say a single coherent word.

  ‘Kate, what is it?’

  The rough warmth of his voice was like an abrasive powder ground into too tender skin and she flinched from it, terrified of the swift surge of need within her to cling to it and to him. She went hot and cold and her body shook, and it was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than the ‘flu.

  ‘Kate…’

  He was actually touching her now, holding her shoulders, cupping the smooth round joints in the palms of his hands, and it seemed to her in her heightened mood of awareness that his fingers actually caressed the silk of her skin, but she knew she was simply thinking that because she wanted to think it.

  She drew a deep gulping breath of air, trying to steady herself. She mustn’t let him guess what was wrong with her; she shrank from the fool she would make of herself if he were to realise. She, the dedicated career woman, desperately in love for the first time in her life.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she lied.

  ‘No, you’re not. What is it? Something the doctor said?’

  She seized on the excuse gratefully, nodding.

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ he told her, shocking her with the realisation that her doctor must have discussed her physical condition with him. ‘You have been over-straining yourself. I know how desperate you are to get back to work, but you aren’t well enough yet.’

  His compassion overwhelmed her. She bent her head to hide the sudden, stupid rush of tears to her eyes and was shocked to hear herself admitting huskily, ‘That’s just it. I don’t want to go back.’ She drew a deep, shuddering breath, and tried to move away from his constraining hands. When he touched her she could barely think straight; her whole body yearned toward him, aching wantonly for his touch. She could feel the now shockingly familiar coil of painful need tense her stomach, and she ached to press herself against him, to be wrapped in the hardness of his arms.

  She looked past him towards the window and said more to herself than to him, ‘What’s happening to me? I scarcely recognise myself any more. Why do I feel like this? I ought to be eager to get back to work. Instead…’

  ‘It’s called post viral depression,’ Rick told her gently. ‘A common occurrence with ‘flu victims, especially when they’ve been as ill as you’ve been. I know that doesn’t make it any easier to bear, but it will pass, I promise you.’

  ‘How can you say that? You don’t know…’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ he contradicted her. ‘Three years ago I suffered a similar experience. It was the most demoralising thing I’ve ever known. But I promise you there is life after ‘flu,’ he told her teasingly.

  Life after ‘flu, yes. But life after him—never.

  The realisation that she loved him kept her tense and restless when she ought to have been concentrating on recouping her strength. She slept so badly for two nights and looked so frail and drawn on the third night when he brought up her dinner tray, he insisted that she was to drink all of the large glass of rich red wine he had poured for her.

  ‘But I don’t like it,’ she protested. ‘It goes straight to my head, especially red wine.’

  ‘Think of it as medicinal.’

  Until she’d realised that she loved him, Kate had been having her evening meal with Rick. Since then she had cravenly insisted on eating alone in her room, and she had seen from the expression in his eyes that her refusal to share the evening with him puzzled him. She shrank from his classing her with his previous employer, the woman whose sexual advances had led him to handing in his notice. How well she could understand that woman now. She shivered, despite the warmth of her bedroom, and Rick frowned.

  She was not recovering as fast as she should. He privately considered that she would recuperate far more quickly somewhere warmer. He thought of the villa in Corfu bought half on impulse, half as an investment and now so rarely used, but there was no way he could suggest that she stay there without alerting her suspicions.

  Kate watched him as he placed her dinner tray on the small table. In the early days of her recuperation, she had marvelled at the delicacy and variety of the meals he brought her to tempt her appetite, and he had confessed to her that they weren’t his creation but had been delivered via a special restaurant service he had found in Yellow Pages.

  Kate had winced at the thought of how much it must be costing, but when she had tried to point this out to him he had told her bluntly that his own cooking skills were not such as would tempt the appetite of an invalid.

  Tonight there was chicken breast in a delicate cream sauce, flavoured with some sort of spirit, although she couldn’t recognise which one, accompanied by delicious new potatoes, no doubt flown in at great expense, and a tempting variety of beautifully cooked and arranged vegetables. For pudding there was a very special egg custard, again beautifully cooked and arranged in a pure fruit sauce to add piquancy to its flavour.

  But as she ate it, and reluctantly drank the wine Rick had brought her, Kate knew she was not doing justice to the delicious food.

  The double burden, not only of her love for Rick, but also of her growing reluctance to face up to the reality of what the loss of James’s contract was going to mean to her business, was haunting her, sapping her strength like an invidious disease, leaving her wan and listless when she ought to have been getting better. Sometimes she even wondered if she was deliberately sabotaging her own recovery, just so that she could bask for a little longer in the warmth of Rick’s cocoon. Once she would have scorned such an idea, but now… Now she was no longer sure if she knew herself at all.

  When Rick returned with the bottle of wine and insisted on pouring her another glass, she demurred, but he poured it anyway and left it on the table beside her bed, saying that she might feel like it later.

  He offered her coffee, but she refused, knowing that even the smallest stimulant was likely to keep her awake into the small hours of the morning as she fought to come to terms with what was happening to her.

  She sensed that Rick wanted to stay and talk. On previous evenings, before she had realised what was happening to her emotions, she had enjoyed their discussions, finding in Rick a male companion intelligent enough to challenge her, and at the same t
ime confident enough of himself to accept her fully as his equal. She missed their verbal sparring, but that was nothing to how she was going to feel once he had gone from her life completely.

  She fell asleep thinking about him, and then woke up abruptly at two o’clock in the morning to find the covers had slipped off the bed, as she struggled restlessly in her sleep, and she was freezing cold.

  Pulling on her robe, she went to check on Michael, wondering if a sound from him had woken her, but the little boy was deeply asleep. She touched his smooth soft face and felt an unfamiliar urge grip her body. What would it be like to conceive the child of a man one loved? To carry that child and eventually give birth to it…the strongest bond there could be between two people who loved.

  She was shaken by the tempest of emotion that swept her, leaving her shivering and achingly aware of how barren her life was going to be. She would never sleep now…and she wondered how long she was going to be condemned to spend the hours of darkness tormented by her thoughts of Rick.

  She half stumbled back to her own room, and saw the glass of red wine. That should warm her, and help her sleep too. She picked it up and drank it quickly, as though it was medicine, pulling a wry face as the full-bodied claret slid down her throat.

  There was more in the glass than she had imagined, and even before she had finished drinking it she was conscious of the sudden burst of warmth heating her stomach. On an empty stomach and in her tense, nervous state, the intoxicating effect of the strong wine was almost immediate.

  She could see the room blurring almost in front of her, and when she tried to get into bed, to her bewilderment, the bed seemed to shift hazily in front of her, as though it was a floating mirage and not really material at all.

  She clutched hold of the quilt to steady herself, and found to her astonishment that she was sitting on the floor with it. She started to giggle, the whole situation suddenly unbearably funny, but somewhere along the line her giggles changed to tears and she started to cry, uninhibited, wrenching tears of intense pain.