Cherished Beginnings (22 page)

* * *

Later Xan watched Maura as she slept, her hair cascading over the pillowcase like a spill of bright rubies, and he wondered how it was that he, that very night, had been the first man in her life.

Twenty-eight. She was twenty-eight years old. And the pain in her eyes when she spoke of her previous life in California had been real. She must have had someone. She was too beautiful and too passionate to have remained alone all this time. But then how...?

He wouldn't ask her about it, that was for sure. He wanted her to trust him enough to tell him everything. He'd work on that trust, and when she felt wrapped securely in their love for each other, she'd talk to him. Why bring up the past if it would only cause her mental anguish? They loved each other, that was all that mattered. He could wait until she was ready to tell him all the secrets she held in her heart.

He drew her close to him, and she stirred in her sleep with a contented sigh and nestled her head more comfortably on his shoulder. He gently rearranged her hair so that it spread across his chest like a silken coverlet. Then he kissed her once very lightly on the forehead, buried his face in her fragrant hair, and fell asleep.

Early in the morning, just as the sun's first opal rays burst from the horizon, his phone rang. Xan managed to grab it on the first ring.

"Mrs. Jameson? All right. Sure. I'll be right there."

Maura groped for him, touched his chest. He hung up and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing the tips of her fingers one by one. Then he swung his feet around and sat on the edge of the bed. "Nancy Jameson is about to deliver. I need to hurry over to the hospital," he told her, smoothing his hand along her flat abdomen and touching her lightly on the breast.

Her eyes opened and she smiled. Then she removed his hand from her breast. "Babies don't wait," she said. "Loving does."

He laughed and headed for the shower. Before he left, she was sound asleep again.

When he returned, he slipped quickly out of his clothes and into bed beside her. He didn't mean to awaken her, but she opened her eyes and smiled. "Again," was all she said, and this time their mating was as wild and as passionate as the sea in a storm.

Afterward she said, "Am I getting the hang of it?"

"You're doing fine," he said. "Although, as they say, practice makes perfect." He was just moving his hand upward along the inside of her thigh when they heard the ring tone of Maura's cell phone. She rolled over in bed and dug it out of her purse.

It was Golden for whom she'd earlier left a message in case of an emergency. "Maura, I thought you should know. Ginny Matthews has started her labor. It's two weeks short of her due date."

"I'll be at her house in twenty minutes." Maura sat up, clutching the sheet around her.

"I need to get to the Matthews's house as quickly as possible," she told Xan. "I have a feeling that it's going to be a long labor." The sheet fell away from her breasts, still tender and sensitive from their long session of lovemaking.

"And you have to be there to hold Ginny Matthews's hand," he said. "Oh, well... it was nice while it lasted." He smiled and kissed her shoulder.

This was something that Xan of all people understood. Just as she had understood when he'd left to deliver Nancy Jameson's baby.

She looked at him, sharing that understanding, and then suddenly her expression changed from tender to one so comical that he almost laughed.

"What," she said, "am I going to wear?"

"Since your clothes have probably washed halfway to the Canary Islands with the tide, that's a good question."

"I have clothes in my car," said Maura. "I keep them there for times when I'm officiating at long or difficult birthings. But I can hardly go outside like this."

Xan looked her nude body over judiciously, taking in her smooth skin and her flowing hair coppery in the early-morning sunbeams slanting through the blinds. "You'd certainly add your own brand of exoticism to the neighborhood. Old Frank Stanley would suddenly find a number of plants to water in his yard, and as for Minerva Stanley, she'd think the worst of me. Which she already does, I'm afraid."

"She knows you, uh, entertain women here, I suppose."

Something flared in Xan's eyes, and he pulled her to him so fiercely that she almost cried out in alarm. "No," he said, his voice grating against her ear, "there have been no other women in this house since the day I met you. Nor will there be."

Reluctantly his hands fell away and he stepped down from the bed via the footstool with its needlepoint treads bearing the Copeland family crest. His naked body as he stood momentarily before her was beautiful to her, even more so now that she knew every inch of it intimately.

"I'll get your clothes," he said, after which he pulled on a pair of shorts and hurried from the room. Lying back against the soft pillows in the high four-poster bed, she smiled as she heard him singing on his way down the stairs.

* * *

"You know," she said later, as she was dressing, "you could come with me to Ginny's."

He looked up from checking his phone messages. In the sudden stillness, he measured her sincerity.

"Do you want me to?" he asked.

"If you'd like," she said. Both of them were thinking of the fiasco when she'd observed him in the delivery room at Quinby. And both of them knew that more rode on his decision than on the birthing of Ginny Matthews's baby.

He thought for a moment before saying quietly, "I'd like to go with you." After last night, he wanted to be with her.

They drove up to the Matthews's house in Maura's minivan. Ginny's husband met them on the front porch. "Xan, this is Joe Matthews," Maura said. The two men shook hands. They all moved into the house, a white clapboard bungalow flanked by carefully tended beds of nasturtiums. Xan was surprised to find that Ginny Matthews was up and moving around. From a tape player in the living room wafted gentle music, something by Brahms.

Maura took time to spend with Ginny, palpating her abdomen, taking her blood pressure, checking the fetal heart rate before preparing the bedroom where the baby would be born. "You'll know instinctively when to move around, when to be still," she told Ginny. "Let yourself flow with the experience. A relaxed body and mind are the best way to an easy labor." Then, tranquilly humming along with the music, Maura busied herself with preparations.

Joe remained with Ginny, massaging her back or feet when she requested it, sitting beside her on the bed when her labor deepened. The couple's two children wandered in and out, very much a part of the proceedings, very interested in the progress of the birth of their new brother or sister. There was a lot of laughing and joking between Ginny and Joe, a camaraderie that reached out to include Xan and Maura in their family's joy. And through it all there was Maura, encouraging, lending her vital energy, reacting with concern and love to her patient's needs.

Maura found herself renewed and refreshed after the night with Xan, and she felt so filled with love that she could feel the healing energy of that emotion as she guided Ginny and Joe and their family toward the big moment. When the baby was born, she encouraged Joe to catch his new daughter, her eyes meeting Xan's at that special moment, and she felt herself fusing with him in a spirit of love and happiness that shook both of them to their souls.

Xan felt it, too. And his only thought was
I never knew it could be like this.
He was well aware that he was thinking not only of his love for Maura but of his own enlightenment about childbirth, which had never seemed so beautiful to him as when Maura conducted a birthing. The emotional flow, the insight and above all the peace he shared with Maura in that moment of birth combined in a revelatory moment that Xan Copeland would never forget.

Chapter 11

There had not only been rooms in her house to be filled, but also rooms in her heart. Maura hadn't realized before how empty she'd felt. And now that emptiness was filled with so much warmth and happiness that Maura could not imagine how she had ever been able to get along without Xan.

In the convent, the emphasis had been on God's love. But in her outreach midwifery practice, Maura had become accustomed to giving and receiving love from many kinds of people outside the order. That love gave her strength when it became clear to her that she must leave the convent. But it hadn't prepared her for the totality of her love for Xan, which permeated her whole life and her whole being.

Kathleen had been stunned by the news that Maura was in love with Xan Copeland. "You're not!" she said, her eyes widening at the thought. "You can't be in love with him. Didn't I warn you? Didn't I tell you all about him?"

"Wait a minute, Kathleen," Maura said impatiently. "It's different with Xan and me. He loves me. Really."

"Other women thought he loved them, too," said Kathleen darkly.

"Since Xan's fiancée broke their engagement, his practice and the hospital have been everything to him," Maura said. "He hasn't had time for serious relationships."

"So how do you fit into his life? How does he fit into yours? You have different views about childbirth, and you both put your practice before everything else." Kathleen's eyes were worried.

Maura's thoughts flew to the moment when Ginny Matthews's baby was born and she and Xan had shared a new and special understanding. She could only hope that somehow, some way, she and Xan could integrate their lives and their beliefs. She loved Xan Copeland, and she wanted to be with him as much as possible. She had no doubt that he felt the same way.

"Anyway," she continued, "I'm going for an interview with Dr. Raymond Lyles, Quinby Hospital's chief of staff, sometime this week." Quickly she outlined the birthing-room concept.

Kathleen was excited by the news that such a facility might soon be available at Quinby. "I know a lot of young married women here on Teoway," Kathleen told her. "Lots of them have babies. If they want to use a birthing room, they have to go all the way to Charleston. You can imagine how worried they get as their due date approaches, thinking that they might not be able to make the twenty-mile drive to Charleston in time for the baby's arrival."

"Why don't they look into home births? I'm willing to serve any women who want a home birth, not just the Shuffletown women."

"No, Maura," Kathleen said gently. "Can't you see that they think it would be even worse if they counted on a home birth and then at the last minute had to be transported the twenty miles to Charleston anyway? Home births will become popular on Teoway Island only when you have local medical backup at Quinby Hospital."

More than she would have admitted to anyone, Maura was troubled about working in a hospital, but she was determined to go through with her discussion with Raymond Lyles for Xan's sake and for the sake of their relationship. It was the least she could do, especially when Xan seemed to be making an effort to modify his stance on childbirth. However, when she called Dr. Lyles's office at the hospital to make an appointment, his secretary said that Dr. Lyles was out of town for the day, but that he would call her when he returned.

Except that it wasn't Dr. Lyles who called her about the appointment the next day. It was Xan. Sounding jubilant, he said, "Can you come over to the hospital? Raymond is back, and he's ready to see you."

As always, Maura's heart lightened at the sound of Xan's voice. She longed to see him, since their separate schedules hadn't allowed them to be together in days. But the time was inconvenient, as much as she wanted to be with Xan and do what he asked of her.

"I'm getting ready to teach an exercise class," she said reluctantly. "Must it be now?"

"As soon as possible. Can't Golden take over your exercise class?" Xan's words were impatient.

"Well—"

"Maura, Raymond seems extremely enthusiastic. He visited a small hospital up in Yewville that recently began offering family-centered maternity care, and he liked what he saw."

She made herself think. Xan sounded so excited about it all, as though he really believed in the birthing room and what it could provide. Maybe there was, after all, some way they could come to a meeting of the minds.

"I can be there in about half an hour," she told him, rapidly figuring in her head how long it would take her to find something suitable to wear.

"I'll meet you in the main lobby of the hospital," he told her. "And, Maura, I can't help but think that this is going to be a good thing."