Kitabı oku: «A Mother For His Child»

CONTENTS

Cover

Dear Reader

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’M STARTING to get nervous about the island thing.’

Laura Bailey curved one forearm below the tight swell of her pregnancy as she swung herself awkwardly from the examining table. She gave Dr Maggie Lawless an apologetic smile.

Maggie, who had been nervous about the island thing for months, nodded and clicked her tongue in sympathy.

‘Do you want to take another look at what I suggested before?’ Her tone was as persuasive as she dared to make it. ‘Just check into a motel for a few nights? You’re due on Monday and your cervix is as ripe as a plum. It shouldn’t be too much longer.’

Laura sighed, and the smooth, fair skin on her brow crinkled into a frown. She slipped her feet into a pair of flat-heeled but expensive-looking navy shoes. Her outfit was expensive, too—a navy tunic and pants combination that contrasted with her blonde hair.

‘I guess that’s what I’m going to suggest to Curtis,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to—I still don’t—because I know he’ll think it’s about him…which, of course, truthfully, it is. In part, anyway. How will it be if I go into labour on the island in the middle of the night and he’s not well enough to help me get to shore? We have friends on standby, but if the baby’s coming fast…’

Maggie nodded again, took a surreptitious glance at her watch and winced. It was late, but she didn’t want to hurry Laura along. As the Bailey family’s physician, she was familiar with the conflicting issues that were tying this patient in knots at the moment.

Millionaire businessman Curtis Bailey had multiple sclerosis, and he wasn’t the type to give in to his disease. He was proud, independent and fought bitterly against any limitation to what he did. Living on an island in the middle of a lake demanded a defiant form of courage that Maggie had to admire, even though, as a doctor, it scared her.

‘Problem is,’ Laura was saying, ‘I’d forgotten what this feels like.’ Her vague gesture made it clear that ‘this’ was the pregnancy—the heaviness, the waiting, the nerves. ‘It’s six and a half years since I was pregnant with Lily.’

‘If you want to call Curtis now…’ Maggie offered.

But Laura shook her head. ‘He’s in Wayans Falls, running some errands, and then we have to pick up Tyler and Lily from ball practice. I’ll talk to him about it tonight. The other two both came around ten days late, so I’m sure there’s a little time.’

Maggie wasn’t as confident.

‘Tell Curtis to call me any time if he has questions, OK?’ she urged. ‘I’m on call all weekend.’

‘Thanks, Dr Lawless.’ Laura glanced through the wide windows looking onto the lake. The sweeping expanse of water danced with bright reflected light. Maggie could see the tip of the Baileys’ island, as well as the blue, contoured smudge of the lake’s opposite shore.

‘At least the weather is holding,’ Laura went on. ‘It’s supposed to be fine through Monday.’

‘Supposed to,’ Maggie echoed dryly.

‘Well, yes.’ Laura gave a little sigh.

Maggie ushered her out into the waiting room. It was empty. Her office manager, Marilyn, had already left for the day, and so had Janet, who handled billing and insurance. She closed the front door after Laura, blew a breath through her lips and lifted the thick hair from the back of her neck with both hands, enjoying the sensation of air on the tender skin there.

Last patient of the day. And, as was the case more often than not, she’d been running a half-hour behind for most of the afternoon. It happened when she was the only doctor in a practice that really needed two. She often had to squeeze in extra patients who really needed to be seen. It was well after six already.

Not a problem, normally, with the quiet, ordered life she’d led here for the past two years. Tonight, though, she was having dinner with Will Braggett, of all people, in less than an hour. He had called out of the blue last week, his voice rough, musical, careless, confident and astonishingly unexpected.

‘I’ll be in the area. Any chance that you’re free to meet?’

She’d said, yes, fine, no problem. Had imagined a quick coffee, for old times’ sake.

No, for Alison’s sake. Will’s divorce from Maggie’s old college room-mate and close friend had apparently been an amicable one.

Although why bother even with coffee when Maggie and Will had strenuously detested each other for years? she wondered.

And then he had suggested a Friday night dinner, in that typical far-too-confident way of his. Would she meet him at the Caprice restaurant at the Craigiemoor Hotel at seven? He’d already made a reservation.

Of course he had!

Caprice was easily the most expensive and exclusive dining establishment within a radius of a hundred miles or more, just as the Craigiemoor was the most expensive and exclusive resort hotel. The place occupied its own island in Lake George, linked to the mainland by a picturesque bridge. Maggie had only eaten there once before, nearly three years ago. With Mark, celebrating their second wedding anniversary. Just two months later, Mark’s aggressive form of prostate cancer had been diagnosed.

‘Is that why I’m sorry I said yes to this? Because it’ll remind me too painfully of Mark?’ she murmured to her reflection ten minutes later, after she’d changed her clothing and brushed her hair to a dark sheen.

Didn’t let herself answer the question.

Ten minutes, she decided, really wasn’t long enough. And neither was this dress. The stiff cream line of its hem flirted sexily with her knees, when it would have been far more compatible in a staid relationship with her lower calves. Also—tonight, suddenly—cream was not her colour. It wasn’t assertive enough.

Dissatisfied, she wrenched the back zipper open again. Halfway down, right at the tightest spot, it got caught in the fabric. It took her five minutes and a strained muscle in her neck to get it free, and in a bad mood she then dived into the safest, simplest outfit she owned, with her jaw already aching and tense.

It was a pair of black linen trousers and a matching sleeveless top, with a round, open neckline and a closely fitted shape. Not dowdy, but not a show-stopper either. The outfit was, however, far more her than cream silk and lengths of nylon-covered leg.

Maggie had always been quite aggressively herself in the company of William James Braggett. Intelligent, uncompromising, argumentative, sure of her ground.

On the surface, at least.

In return, he’d barely spared her the time of day. Well, no, that was an exaggeration. Certainly, though, he’d never appeared to take her seriously in any way. Apart from one solitary occasion…

Late. She was definitely going to be late.

Her pager vibrated as she was adding some defensive length and blackness to her lashes and, nervous, her hand slipped and streaked an ugly blob of mascara onto one eyelid.

‘Ugh!’ A rough flourish with a moistened cotton ball only made it worse, and her eye stung. She’d have to start again, after dealing with the pager.

Her medical answering service reported a call from the mother of one of her patients, and she returned it straight away. The ten-month-old had a fever. It was fairly high, at a hundred and two Fahrenheit, but some questions calmed both her own concerns and those of the mother. It was probably the start of a simple cold. The baby’s older brother and sister both had one.

Maggie put down the phone, swabbed the mascara off her eyelid with make-up remover and completed a sketchy version of her make-up, resisting the temptation to try for glamour. She wasn’t glamorous. Never had been. Her mind was her strength, not her body. Why pretend to Will Braggett, of all people?

That phrase kept cropping up in her thoughts, annoying and disturbing her. Did she really still have him under her skin, after so long, like some irritant chemical?

Apparently she did, because when she finally turned into a parking place outside the stately and exclusive hotel, she was aware of an emotion that could only be described as glee as she noted that the time on the dashboard clock now read seven twenty-two. Yes, that definitely counted as late.

Unpunctuality was a power play she normally scorned to indulge in, but just this once, since it was Will—of all people—and, anyway, it hadn’t been deliberate…

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said to her, nine minutes after this.

Maggie threw back her head and laughed. ‘In the space of five seconds, Will Braggett,’ she jeered lightly, ‘you have just taken me back in time about eight years!’

Still laughing, she took in his dark, impossible and totally masculine good looks, which had only improved with the seasoning effect of the years. Thick, short-cropped hair showed off the neat shape of his head. Brown eyes and long lashes created a liquid impression of tenderness and warmth. His mouth was made for kissing, or murmuring in a woman’s ear.

There were laugh lines around it now, too, showing the teasing humour she’d always refused to respond to. His build, in contrast, gave him a very definite aura of power. Finally, she registered that his charcoal suit fitted him like armour, his smile dripped with charm and he was thrusting a very pretty bunch of white daisies in her direction.

She remained unimpressed. Tilted her head to one side and looked at him from beneath her lashes. ‘Is that part of the apology?’

He frowned, and looked—but this was impossible—taken aback. ‘No, I bought them earlier.’ His voice dropped a little. ‘Maggie, I really am sorry about being late. I’ll explain while we eat.’

Maggie took the flowers, feeling the heat rise in her face. How had she managed to let him wrong-foot her so soon?

‘They’re lovely,’ she said. She hid her repentance by looking down at the simple blooms.

‘I thought they’d suit your place better than hothouse roses.’

She angled her head once more, and met those dark eyes. ‘How do you know…?’

‘I drove by it this afternoon,’ he explained. ‘You have a great setting, and that log-cabin look to your house fits it so well. Your practice is under the same roof as your home, right?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘But listen, let’s talk properly when we get inside. Our reservation is for seven-thirty. I was thinking we’d have time for a drink at the bar, but…’

She felt his hand beneath her elbow, guiding her confidently towards the restaurant, and all the old, unwanted feelings came flooding back. The wall of alien, chemical desire slamming into her like a rogue wave the moment he was near her. The seething irritation and shame at her own weakness in responding to a man she considered so…so…shallow and arrogant and unsubtle. The determination that he should never, ever guess that she wasn’t nearly as immune to him as she pretended to be.

For heaven’s sake, she thought in sudden panic, why hadn’t she just invented another commitment when he’d called last week? She had been Alison’s college room-mate. Both of them had been bright and ambitious, and both of them had scorned the frequent feminine tendency to hide the fact. They’d been close all through four years of premed studies and four years of medical school, but their internships had taken them in different directions. Contact over the past few years had dwindled to an annual Christmas card.

She knew that Alison and Will were divorced. Sad. They’d seemed like the perfect couple, with Alison’s classic, cool blonde beauty and Will’s dark good looks. Beyond Maggie’s disappointment that yet another modern marriage had failed to stay the distance, however, it meant that she and Will had no reason at all for any further connection. Why had he called? And why had she accepted?

Ah, yes, why had he called? Will wondered. That was what Maggie—now the cool, intimidating Dr Lawless—had to be thinking. He could feel it in the stiffness of her body as she walked beside him, and he’d heard it in that cynical, and perhaps exultant laugh of hers when he’d apologised for being late.

She’d always loved catching him out. She watched for opportunities, and never let one pass. She had never believed in his sincerity. Basically, she’d never understood him at all, and he knew this was partly…mostly…his own fault. She’d unsettled him for nearly eight years of regular contact. He’d deliberately played up to her poor opinion of his worth, and at the same time he’d experienced an unparalleled sense of impotence whenever they’d rubbed up against each other.

Metaphorically, of course.

The back of his neck prickled as he realised what a sexually suggestive phrasing he’d just used in his thoughts, and he wrenched them back to the question of why he’d called her, why he’d proposed dinner and why he’d proposed dinner here.

He had an interview scheduled for Monday morning at another family practice in the region, but it was located in a city centre, and that wasn’t what he was ideally looking for. In her annual Christmas card to himself and Alison several years ago, Maggie had written with enthusiasm about her own practice on the shore of the northern reaches of Lake George in the Adirondack mountains, several hours’ drive north of New York City.

She’d penned a vivid sketch of the spacious wooden house with an attached suite of professional rooms. She’d spoken with love about the wide windows looking onto the lake, the surrounding grandeur of tall trees and spreading grass, and the summer flowers which painted accents of colour. In fall, the mountains flamed a hundred different colours as the leaves changed, she’d said. In winter, the long, island-dotted lake was frozen solid enough to support a car. It was a beautiful part of the country.

She’d talked about the private boat dock, the motor launch, the canoe and the little sailboat.

‘Mark and I are just like the characters in The Wind in the Willows,’ she’d written in her bold hand. ‘Eight months of the year, we spend half our free time simply messing about in boats.’

Her description had stuck in his mind, even then, when he hadn’t yet been looking for something such as she’d described. Over the past year, his need to get away from Arizona, a long way from Arizona, had grown acute—more than enough to overcome his reluctance at subjecting himself to fearless, opinionated, maddening Maggie Lawless once again. He’d remembered the one night when their connection hadn’t generated sparks of hostility but sparks of something very different.

And he’d—stupidly, he now saw—clung to that memory and made too much of it. He’d joined it to his need to find a new place to live and work far from where he now was, a place like the one Maggie had described so glowingly in her card, and he’d taken the bull by the horns and called her.

Picnic Point would suit his needs a lot better than Wayans Falls, and infinitely better than Arizona, for several reasons. He was a good doctor. That wasn’t arrogance. It was simply a fact. He wouldn’t be asking her for a favour.

But, hell, Wayans Falls and Picnic Point weren’t his only options. He could have kept looking, found something in Vermont or Maine. Flying east from Arizona for a series of exploratory trips and professional interviews wouldn’t be convenient, but it would be worth it to find the right place.

Why had he pinned his hopes on maddening Maggie? And why had he thought he could bulldoze her into considering his proposition by making it with style and finesse in this glamorous setting? He should have remembered that she was the last woman on earth to be impressed by such a move.

He dropped back a pace as they were ushered to a table overlooking the terrace garden and the lake beyond. He let his hand slide from her elbow—she clearly didn’t want it there—and studied her rear view.

Did cool-headed, intellectual, difficult Dr Lawless have the slightest idea what she looked like from this angle? He doubted it. He knew from several conversations with Alison years ago that Maggie didn’t consider herself to be a particularly attractive woman.

She was dead wrong, and his visceral awareness of the fact had tortured him persistently for a long time. For a start, she had the best back view he’d ever seen on a woman. Neat, square shoulders, perfect shoulder blades, glossy dark hair that bounced when she walked…and, oh, that walk…oh, that very female and very sinuously curved behind!

They sat down, and the walk and the behind and the creamy scoop of skin above the low, curved back of her close-fitting black top were all lost to sight. They were facing each other now, only she had her head tipped forward and, distracted from her equally magnificent front view, he suddenly saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. Had she been crying the whole time he’d been ogling her?

It didn’t matter. She was crying now. She stopped trying to hide the fact after just a few seconds, picked up the peach-coloured cloth napkin and shook out its overly elaborate folds with clumsy impatience. Her strong jaw jutted.

‘I hope this mascara’s waterproof,’ she muttered.

‘You OK?’

He would have reached out to cover her hand with his, but was saved from enacting what she would undoubtedly have considered a slimy gesture by the fact that she was using both hands to dab the napkin against her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped.

‘Good gosh, don’t apologise!’

‘I came here with Mark once. They put us at this same table.’

Oh, lord, of course! It was Mark!

‘I was saddened to hear of his death, Maggie,’ he told her at once, his voice dropping. ‘I know Alison wrote to you. We would have come for the funeral, only she was so close to her due date, it wasn’t safe for her to travel so far.’

She nodded. ‘I knew that, Will. I’m fine. Just let me…’ She waved a hand vaguely, then rested it on the table as she gathered herself together. ‘He was ill for quite a while, and we both had a chance to get used to it. We laid up some good memories. Like fine wine, he said. He was a lot older than me—twenty-five years—so we always…took it in our stride…that I’d be the one left.’

‘But not so soon?’ Will suggested gently.

‘Not so soon,’ she agreed, looking up at last. Her eyes were pink-rimmed, but her mouth was steady again. Smooth and full-lipped, and no longer pinched. ‘We had a good marriage. Short, but good. He always said it would lay a good foundation for whatever came after, and so far that’s held true. I’m pretty content most of the time.’

He noticed she didn’t say ‘happy’. Then noticed that his hand was right where he’d resolved not to place it—on top of hers, stroking it gently with his fingertips.

She noticed it, too. Laughed. Apologised. Pulled it away. She looked…angry. She was good at that. A pair of dark, delicately arched brows descended until they formed a straight line. Her full lips tucked in at the corners. Her blue eyes clouded, and her strong jaw jutted again. He’d seen it all before, many times.

How come he never knew how to handle it? Never! Where was the easy, confident instinct he usually had with people? Why did he always burn to prove something to her? Normally, he didn’t consider his ego to be that fragile.

A tiny espresso cup filled with a creamy, pale green liquid arrived. Fennel bisque, the waiter told them—their complimentary appetiser. They hadn’t even ordered their meal yet, but it seemed that the tone of the evening was already set. Will grated a rough sigh between his teeth and saw a long, difficult two hours stretching ahead.

I’ll bide my time on this, he decided. I won’t cut to the chase right away, and tell her what I’m here for. We’ll just talk. Surely we can manage that!

From the pocket of her black linen trousers, Maggie felt her pager begin to vibrate against her thigh. She welcomed the interruption, and didn’t quite manage to hide the fact as she pulled the little instrument into view.

‘I’m on call,’ she said, her tone dropping into something that could only be described as officious. ‘I must call my service and deal with this. It could be important.’

‘Yeah, really?’ Will drawled at her across the table. He leaned back and twisted slightly in his chair, to rest one elbow on the seat-back. ‘Important? And you a doctor? I had no idea…’

She flushed and apologised. Again.

Felt like a fool as she managed to extricate herself from the table legs and went in search of a private spot where she could return the call. She’d condescended to him in a way that was ridiculous, considering the fact that he was a doctor himself. No wonder he’d called her on it, with that liquid, mocking tone and those raised brows.

They’d always, always dealt with each other like this. Never cutting each other any slack. Never giving an inch. Surely that should have changed after such a long interval? It was infuriating.

Sheltering in a little alcove beside a delicate still-life painting, she took out her cellphone and keyed in the number her answering service gave her. It was the father of the ten-month-old this time.

‘We’ve given her the medication,’ he said. ‘But her temperature’s still pretty high. She’s so dry and flushed.’

Again, Maggie asked some questions, elicited a description of the baby’s symptoms and wasn’t overly concerned. ‘Make sure she gets plenty of fluids,’ she said. ‘And don’t overdress her. Use a damp, tepid cloth to cool her head and her limbs.’

Many of her phone consults were like this, routine and quick to deal with, snatched moments that punctuated her personal time. She was back opposite Will at the table sooner than she’d have liked. Why hadn’t she taken some time to gather herself together? She might have drawn some tranquillity from that lovely little oil painting of fruit. Too late now…

They ordered, ate, drank. The meal was delicious and beautifully presented, the setting was gorgeous and their waiter attentive. Respecting her on-call status, she refused more than a half-glass of wine, but the evening itself was intoxicating enough. Will had never shown any doubt about how to keep a woman entertained.

Distantly, Maggie watched their conversation unfold as blue darkness spread over the mirror-still lake. It wasn’t going so badly now. It was nice. She forgot his promise to ‘explain’ about his lateness, the significant way he’d said, ‘We’ll talk.’ She stopped watching for chinks in his armour, opportunities to catch him out.

She decided that people did change and grow and mature after all. At last. With hard work. She wasn’t quite the same belligerent, awkward young woman she’d been ten or fifteen years ago, thank goodness. She didn’t have to curl herself into a ball like a porcupine, showing only her spines. She could handle Will Braggett now.

‘But you haven’t noticed that that’s exactly opposite to the statement you made five minutes ago!’ she said triumphantly to him, to cap what she considered to be a lively and satisfying exchange.

He smiled in a lazy way. ‘Know what, Maggie?’ he said. ‘I think you’re even more terrifying than you used to be.’

‘Terrifying…’

‘Do you ever give a man a break?’ He was still smiling, his eyes liquid and dark. He might have been flirting if he’d been with any other companion. But he wasn’t flirting with her, she was sure of that. ‘No, of course not!’ he answered himself. ‘Maggie Lawless, relentless defender of her own principles.’

Ouch! The sharp prick of a shattered illusion.

It was a dismissal far more than a compliment, and she recognised the fact at once. He didn’t deliver the line with a sneer, because charming Will Braggett never sneered. That sexy, kissable mouth wouldn’t have known how. But still his words had the power to make her falter in her tracks and turn right back into that prickly, belligerent porcupine after all.

‘Take it as an attack if you like,’ she said crisply. ‘You’re the one who seems to feel you were vulnerable.’

He shrugged, as if it was far too wearying, and too far beneath his dignity, to cross swords with an intelligent female. His face closed and he covered his mouth for a moment. Was that a stifled yawn?

‘Why did you bother to do this?’ she blurted out, stung by the idea that, beneath his charming façade, he might…actually be bored by her? His problem!

‘You could easily have gotten away with coffee, or nothing at all,’ she went on. ‘Instead of this ridiculous meal. I haven’t been in touch with Alison. I didn’t know you were going to be in the area, and even if I had…For heaven’s sake, Will, we’ve never been able to stand each other. Was this an ego thing for you? The one woman you’d never been able to wrap around your little finger, and you couldn’t resist trying one last blast of charm? Get it straight, Will. You don’t impress me. You never have, and one expensive meal isn’t going to change that.’

She almost stood up and stormed out, then and there. Actually got as far as pressing both hands to the table to propel herself to her feet. At first Will looked shocked at the blunt barrage of her words. This was somehow satisfying to Maggie, but then the shock drained away to leave a grey, tired bleakness she’d never seen in his face before and…

She dropped back into her seat, falling hard. Not only had she never seen the bleakness, she’d never even considered that he had the depth of character to feel something like that. The gods had smiled upon him since birth, hadn’t they? His parents were successful and well-to-do. He’d topped his classes without visible effort. His divorce from Alison—who was as attractive, bright and successful as he was himself—was surely the only glitch in the glittering, perfect mechanism of his life.

Poor man, she might easily have drawled, how tragic it must be to have to live such a Camelot-like existence!

Only this wasn’t the face of a man who’d lived all his life in Camelot.

‘Is that really true, Maggie?’ he said, his voice low. ‘Was it as strong as that? You couldn’t stand me? That night at Gerry Berkov’s party when we sat out by the pool and talked, I thought…that we respected each other, at least. You used to get on my case about not treating Alison the way she deserved—about being late to pick her up, forgetting her birthday and not calling her when I said I would—and you were right about that. I was a jerk about things like that when I was twenty.’

‘Yes, you were,’ she agreed, masking her dismay with a confident nod.

‘And if that’s the sum total of what you feel for me then, yes, tonight has been a complete waste of my time as well as yours. That wasn’t intended as an attack just now. I was teasing you. And I guess I was trading on the fact that there was a little bit more between us than a shallow, trivial sort of dislike. I’ve always respected you. I thought that maybe two worthy and well-matched adversaries could make peace after all this time.’

‘Trading on?’ She picked up on the phrase straight away. Ignored that other very interesting phrase, ‘worthy and well-matched adversaries’. ‘What do you want from me, Will? Of course, I should have realised. You said we’d “talk” over dinner. You want something. A favour. But what is it?’