Morgan's Child (25 page)

"I didn't keep you awake last night, did I?" she asked anxiously.

"No, no, nothing like that," he said, coming around to her side of the car to help her out. He reached behind the front seat for her bouquet. "You might want to keep this," he said.

The orchids in her bridal cascade were crushed, the edges of their petals brown. Kate didn't want Morgan to see her sentimental streak—she considered it a weakness—but she touched one of the petals gently, as if the tactile sensation on her skin could reassure her.

"It's a lovely bouquet, Morgan," she said softly. "Thank you. And—and I've never had such an expensive pin in my whole life. Thank you for that, too."

His eyes bored into her. "You're welcome, Kate," he said.

"I wish I had something to give you for a wedding present," she said as they started into the house.

"You're giving it to me," he said.

"What? I have nothing." They had reached the bottom of the staircase by this time.

"You've given me a family," he said.

She realized that he was serious, and his earnestness embarrassed her. She started up the stairs.

"I should have carried you over the threshold," he said suddenly.

She paused and looked down at him. "I'm five feet ten inches tall and weigh more than I ever have, Morgan. I'm glad you didn't." She continued up the staircase, but he galloped up the rest of the steps to beat her to the bedroom door. Before she realized what was happening, he had placed one arm around her shoulders and one under her knees and was swinging her into his arms.

"Morgan, stop!"

He looked down at her, an amused expression on his face. "Whatever the future holds, let it be said that we started off right," he said, carrying her through the door of the master bedroom and striding to the big bed.

So close to him, inhaling his scent, thinking how sexy he looked with his hair slightly disheveled, she felt desire curling up from somewhere deep inside her, the same desire that she had come to know so well.

He kissed her, deepening the kiss and letting it become more fervent, and she felt herself tremble in his arms and so did he.

He laid her gently on the bed, never removing his lips from hers, and slid his body close to hers. His tongue traced the line of her jaw, leaving a damp trail, his breath hot on her skin. Even though she was immediately aroused, she nevertheless gasped when he slid his hand up her leg.

"What's that?" he murmured when his fingers encountered a barrier.

"A blue garter borrowed from Joanna," she whispered.

"Doesn't it cut off your circulation?" he asked with interest, his fingers sliding it down over her ankle.

"My circulation has been curtailed for the past eight months," Kate said.

"Where'd you get that dress?" he asked.

"It was a wedding gift from Joanna. She said—"

"I don't care what my esteemed sister said. It makes you look like a huge marshmallow."

Kate pulled away. "Morgan!" she said, not knowing whether to be offended or not.

He pulled the dress up and she sat so he could slip it over her head.

"It so happens," he said, unhooking her bra, "that I love marshmallows," and Kate subsided, wanting only to feel his lips upon her flesh.

He was gentle, and she responded as she never had before. For the first time Kate realized that she was Mrs. Morgan Rhett, a strange circumstance but not without its rewards, one of which was that they would be together at least until after the baby was born.

On this night she wanted nothing so much as to feast her eyes on his long, lean body and on his square-jawed face with its sweet smile, gathering him to her with moans of pure delight. The joy built inside her until she exploded with passion, and then she coaxed him, teased him until he cried out, exultant, again and again and again.

It was a wedding night, Kate thought hazily, to end all wedding nights. Although they might be mismatched socially, they were ideal sex partners. There might be a lot of things wrong with this relationship—or rather, this marriage—but their sexual adjustment was certainly not one of them.

Some people worked a whole lifetime to achieve a union such as this, Kate thought with remarkable lucidity before she finally fell asleep. How lucky that it hadn't taken her and Morgan long at all.

Of course, they didn't have long. They were going to be divorced, weren't they?

Chapter 13

The next day, at Kate's urging, they returned to Yaupon Island.

"Wouldn't you rather go to my place on Teoway?" Morgan had asked her, but Kate turned the offer down flat.

"I want to live on Yaupon Island as long as I can. After the baby is born, Morgan, we'll go anywhere you want, I promise. But right now I can't wait to get back to the island."

"What are we going to tell Gump? And Ye Olde Pribble?" Morgan wanted to know.

"We'll tell Gump we're married. He'll be relieved, and maybe he'll be able to think about something besides me for a change—like sobering up, for instance. As for Willadeen Pribble, I wouldn't tell her if her house was on fire. No, let me change that—I wouldn't tell her if her
hair
was on fire," Kate said.

They told Gump as soon as they boarded the ferry, taking him below deck and sitting him down on one of the row seats in order to break the news. He hemmed and hawed before wishing them good luck, but finally his mustache, always the true indicator of his mood, curved upward to frame a broad smile.

"Only thing is," he said, "you ought to live in Charleston, not on this fool island."

"You said the same thing to Dad when he was sick, but you might as well have held your breath for all the good it did. He wanted to stay on the island as long as possible, and so do I."

"Don't mean it makes good sense," Gump said before disappearing up the stairs and into the wheelhouse.

Kate actually felt a thrill of anticipation as they approached Yaupon Island. She'd missed the eerie beauty of the twisted live oak trees and the wide gold-and-green stretches of marshland, and it seemed too long since she'd seen the weathered bricks of the lighthouse silhouetted against the sky. She gripped Morgan's arm as the ferry eased up to the landing.

"The island means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

She only smiled and squeezed his arm.

The bulldozer had finished its work, the new septic tank presumably reposing beneath the raw gash in the sandy soil beside the lighthouse. Despite the damage to Kate's flower bed, which somebody had ineffectively tried to repair, the quarters looked much the same. The only negative thing Kate could find to complain about was the oppressive heat, which seemed to hang over the island more heavily today than she remembered. By the time they unlocked the quarters, Kate's forehead glistened with perspiration.

"We've never discussed it, but do you want to stay in the keeper's quarters or at the lodge?" Morgan asked.

"In the quarters, of course," Kate said, looking around the familiar and beloved little sitting room with its family pictures and her father's bifocals still on the table where he'd left them. "This has been my home most of my life. I want nothing so much as to spend my last days on the island in this house." She felt her eyes grow misty at the thought of leaving.

Morgan took her in his arms. "If that's what you want, then here we will stay," he said.

Morgan went to gather his belongings from the hunting lodge, and while he was gone, Kate busied herself with unpacking her suitcase. She was soon interrupted by a knock on the door. When she looked out the window, she saw that Gump was standing there, and Kate hurried—well,
tried
to hurry—to the door as fast as her bulky body would allow.

"What are you doing here?" Kate said. They'd just left him on the ferry.

"Your news took me by surprise so that I forgot something important. Here's your mail for the past couple of weeks," Gump said, thrusting it under Kate's nose.

"Mmm, thanks," Kate said as she thumbed through the envelopes, plucking out one with the return address of the Federal Health Foundation and slitting it open with a fingernail.

Gump sat down in a convenient chair. "I had some second thoughts, and I just wanted to tell you, Kate, that if you don't want to be married to this fellow, this Morgan Rhett—"

Kate looked up from the letter. "What?" she said.

"You don't look like a woman in love to me. In
like
maybe, but not in love." Gump glanced at the wide gold ring on Kate's finger and looked away.

"I never said I loved him. It was the best thing to do under the circumstances," Kate said.

"Best thing for who? Him? Courtney? What about you? What about integrity?"

Kate's eyes scanned the letter she held in her hands. She paled but kept reading.

"Well?" Gump said.

"I'm sorry, Gump," Kate said, looking up. "My mind is on something else."

"I said what about integrity? And what's so all-fired important about that letter? What's in it that keeps you from telling me all about this business of getting married to someone you don't even love?"

"Actually, the letter
is
relevant to the topic if we're talking about integrity," Kate said, handing the letter over with a trembling hand.

Gump took the letter and skimmed through it. Kate sat as if lost in thought, her mind seemingly a million miles away.

"What does all this mean?" Gump asked impatiently. "You know I don't understand government bureau-ese."

"It says that according to the FHF's investigation, I'm exonerated of all wrongdoing in the case that caused me to lose my job. The director of the Northeast Marine Institute will be asked to resign, and my co-worker, Mitch, the man I was going to marry, will be fired."

"Kate," Gump said, letting the letter drop to his lap. "This is what you've been waiting for. I'm glad for you."

"But—" and Kate made a frustrated gesture with her hands, which she then allowed to drop to her sides.

"Your reputation will be restored, won't it? You'll be able to get a job now, won't you?"

"I suppose so," Kate said, tears beginning to roll down her face. She didn't know what was the matter with her; tears kept coming, and she was powerless to stop them.

"What's the matter? You should be delighted!"

"I—I—" Kate couldn't finish the sentence. She wasn't even sure what she had been about to say. All she knew was that her pent-up emotions were brimming over, and at the moment she wouldn't have been able to identify her tears as happy or sad even if her life depended on it.

"There, there," soothed Gump as he patted Kate awkwardly on the shoulder. "You're just easily upset right now."

Morgan, carrying his bag from the lodge, appeared in the doorway. "What's going on in here?" Morgan asked with a frown at Gump and a look of concern for his sobbing wife.

"Oh, Kate here is going through what every pregnant woman goes through," Gump said so cheerfully that Kate briefly thought of throttling him.

"This letter came," Kate managed to say between sobs.

Morgan glanced at the letter and arranged his expression so that when he looked up he looked pleasantly surprised.

"It's good news, Kate. Why are you so upset? Is something else wrong?"

"I don't know. I'm happy. Now that this has happened, I feel vindicated. But all those long months of being reviled by everyone in my profession, and not being able to get a job, and—oh, I don't know. I'm happy."

"Well, since you're so happy and a storm's brewing outside, I guess I'll get back to the ferry. I'll check on you tomorrow and see if you're feeling any happier. Though I don't think any of us could stand it if you was," Gump said, disappearing out the door.

Kate wiped her eyes. Now that Morgan was here, she felt better.

Morgan sat down and regarded her solemnly. "What will you do now?"

"Continue my job search. Pursue employment interviews. Things like that," Kate said. Her nose was stopped up and she fumbled in her pocket for a tissue, but there wasn't one. Morgan handed her his clean pocket handkerchief.

"You won't start interviewing until after you have the baby, I suppose," he said in as businesslike a voice as he could muster. In truth, his heart was pounding in his chest.