Читать книгу Beyond Desire - Gwynne Forster, Gwynne Forster - Страница 7

Jacob Graham patted her arm affectionately, his smile sympathetic. “I’m afraid so. There’s no chance of error. Have a seat in the waiting room while I write a couple of prescriptions for you.” She dressed, walked back to the gray carpeted little room and sat in one of the red leather chairs. Not a chance, he’d said. She’d gone to Elizabeth City—forty miles north of her Caution Point, North Carolina, hometown—for the examination, because the old doctor had been her family’s physician for more than forty years; she trusted Jacob Graham. Her gaze captured the man who sat across from her beneath a painting of the perfect family gamboling in pristine snow. She wanted to turn her back to it. Engrossed in the Carolina Times, the man seemed oblivious to her presence. Would he also get bad news?

Dr. Graham appeared, saw the man and greeted him with a smile. “I see you’ve finished it ahead of time. My grandson is going to be one happy boy.” He opened the violin case, examined the instrument and exclaimed, his weathered white face wreathed in smiles, “It’s beautiful, just like new.”

“It’s as good as new, too,” the stranger said. “Ought to last Jason until he’s ready for a Stradivarius.” She shrugged off the tremor of excitement that shot through her when she heard the husky, sonorous voice.

Dr. Graham rubbed the wood gently, as though respectful of its value. “Now, tell me how things are going with you these days. Any better?”

“Nothing new; not a thing.” She reflected on the weariness apparent in the man’s voice and vowed not to let her circumstances whip her. She hated gloom, and she wasn’t going to let it cloud her life. Anxious to leave, she cleared her throat, and the doctor turned toward her.

“Are these my prescriptions?” she asked him as she stood preparing to leave, and pointed to the two sheets of paper that he held.

“Yes, sure.” The doctor looked from her to the tall, dark man beside him, rubbed his chin as though in deep thought and glanced back at her. “Have you two met?” Before she could respond, the big man shook his head more vigorously than she thought necessary. “You two ought to talk,” Jacob Graham declared.

“Why is that?” the man inquired with an exaggerated note of skepticism and without so much as a glance her way. Not that she cared, she told herself.

Her doctor seemed to like his idea better the more he thought of it. “I’ve known both of you for years.” He looked at her. “And you I’ve known all your life. If the two of you were prepared to act sensibly, you could solve each other’s problems.” He shook his almost snow-white head. “But sensibleness seems to be too much to expect of you young people these days.” He handed her the prescriptions and patted her on the back. The other man nodded, but seemed preoccupied and hardly glanced in her direction as she left them.

“Just a second,” Jacob Graham called after her. She waited until he reached the door where she stood. “Lorrianne’s having one of her barbecue brunches Sunday, and I know she’d love to have you come.”

Amanda diverted her gaze from the piercing blue eyes. “I don’t want her to know about this yet. I have to get used to it myself. You understand, Dr. Graham?”

He removed the pencil from behind his ear and made a note on his writing pad. “How will she know if you don’t tell her? I don’t give my wife an account of everything that goes on in this office. You come on over. The garden’s at its peak this time of year, and you know how she loves to show it off. Noon, Sunday. Don’t forget, now.”

Though anxiety boiled inside of her, she raised her head and squared her shoulders with an air of calm and walked out into the April morning, chilled by the Atlantic Ocean’s still wintry breeze.

Amanda plaited her long, thick and wooly hair in a single braid, twisted it into a knot, surveyed the result and made a face at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t bring herself to cut her hair, though she spent a good fifteen minutes every morning braiding it and wrapping the single braid around her head or making two French twists at the back of her head. It would be easier to manage if she straightened it but, as a teenager, she had decided to leave it as nature had ordained. She finished dressing, got into her car and drove to Elizabeth City, giving herself plenty of time to arrive before other guests; joining a crowd of cocktail-sipping strangers was not anything she relished on that particular day. Her concerns were too serious for light chatter. But in spite of her efforts, she arrived to find at least a dozen people milling around, chatting and drinking coffee. No cocktails. She had forgotten Lorrianne’s rule about not serving alcohol before six o’clock. Lorrianne claimed that Americans spent too much money and wasted too much energy on alcohol. Not that any of it mattered to her; a glass of wine was as much as she ever drank.

Her hostess introduced her to the other guests, but she couldn’t muster any interest in the things that concerned them—mostly local gossip and politics—and after a few polite exchanges she focused her attention on the garden. Lorrianne Graham had created a magnificent retreat for a troubled spirit, Amanda decided, as she strolled among the profusion of red, white and pink peonies, pansies, hyacinths, and flowering dogwood and fruit trees. What a pity the tulips had no perfume, she thought, gazing at their array of colors and the many shapes of their petals. Flowers from several fruit trees floated to the ground, leaving behind their tiny green treasures.

She leaned against a wrought-iron bench and inhaled deeply, enjoying the fresh spring air and the fragrant hyacinths. But her weight toppled the three-legged bench and, to her amazement, she lay sprawled across a patch of purple and yellow pansies. Her cheeks burned in embarrassment as she looked around, hoping that she’d escaped notice.

“Here, let me give you a hand.” She had to quell the impulse to ask him to leave her to her own devices, summoned her dignity and smiled politely. Of all people: the man she’d seen that previous Thursday in the doctor’s office.

“Give me your hand,” he persisted. She raised her left hand, because her right one lay trapped beneath her side. “You’re lucky you missed that raspberry bush,” he said, friendlier than she thought necessary. She accepted his assistance with as much dignity as she could muster, thanked him and hoped he’d leave her and join the other guests. She couldn’t think of a way to dismiss him without appearing rude and ungrateful. So she strove to be her normally gentle, courteous self and to make conversation, but her personal problems bore so heavily on her that she couldn’t summon the will to friendliness. I’m in bad shape, she conceded, if I can’t focus well enough to carry on an impersonal conversation with such a man as this one.

“Your head is almost covered with pink and white petals,” he told her, evidently oblivious to her discomfort. That voice. Could he hear the melodies in his speech? Of course, she immediately concluded; enough women must have told him about it. She forced herself to turn slowly toward him, gaining time to restore her equilibrium.

“Oh? Flowers in my hair?” She hated that he disconcerted her to such an extent that she lost her poise.

“Yeah,” he answered, no doubt unperturbed by her aloofness. “Lots of them.” He picked off a few and showed them to her. She backed away, sensitive to the feel of his fingers on her scalp, and resisted the urge to remove her dark glasses. Remove them and get an unobstructed look at eyes she remembered as being the color of dark brown honey and at a flawless almond complexion. She breathed deeply in relief when a beautiful, sepia woman with a mannequin’s build and carriage claimed his attention and took him away. All I need right now is to lose my head over a guy like that one, she told herself, amused that the possibility existed.

She didn’t tolerate the medicine well and went back to her doctor two weeks later for a new prescription.

“Nothing has changed,” Jacob Graham told her when she asked again whether he was certain of the diagnosis. “Only time will change this; you know that, so you might as well start right now to adjust to it. It won’t be easy, but I’m confident you’ll manage.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll be fine. Give my love to Lorrianne.” She doubted that anything could have depressed her more than his declaration that he knew she’d manage. How was she supposed to do that?

An hour and a half later, she slid into a booth at Caution’s Coffee Bean. She had heard it said that, if you went to the popular eatery often enough, you would eventually see most of the town’s fourteen thousand inhabitants. She barely remembered driving from Elizabeth City to Caution Point, North Carolina, or even parking her car. The waiter brought her usual breakfast of coffee and a plain doughnut and would no doubt have paused for their morning chat, had she not been preoccupied.

She sipped the coffee slowly, without tasting it. In two weeks, just two short weeks, she had tumbled from a state of euphoria to one of despair. She almost wished she hadn’t gotten that promotion; a department head might get away with it, but never a school principal. It couldn’t be happening to her. But it was and, somehow, she had to find an acceptable solution.

“It’s ridiculous,” she heard a man in the adjoining booth say. “How can they charge like that? It must be illegal.”

“They can, and it’s legal,” his companion replied in a deep, resonant, almost soothing voice, a familiar voice. “One hundred thousand dollars for my child’s future. A hundred thousand and she’ll be able to walk like other children. She’s had fourteen months of operations, tubes and needles. Fourteen months in intensive care, and now this. Those doctors charge as much as ten times what the insurance pays. I’ve sold my car, mortgaged my home and my business and borrowed on every credit card I have. And now because the insurance company will pay only thirty thousand of it, I have a little more than a week to come up with seventy thousand dollars, or Amy will never walk again.” Amanda couldn’t help listening to the two men.

“And the bank turned you down flat yesterday afternoon?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you? I’m a poor risk right now. A year ago, I could call my shots, but now I can’t even take care of my child’s needs. I told the bank officers that I have a strong damage suit in this case, but all that got me was sympathy.”

“Have you tried Helena? Maybe she’d be willing to help. After all, that British polo player she married is rolling in money.”

“I wrote her about the accident the day after it happened, and I got a note about six weeks later saying that she hoped everything was all right. Not that I expected more; Helena doesn’t have the maternal instincts of a flea. She hasn’t written since and doesn’t know what her four-year-old daughter’s condition is.” Amanda empathized with the man; compared to his problem, hers seemed slight. If she could solve her problem with seventy thousand dollars, she would stop worrying. As heir to the wealth of her parents, grandparents and great-aunt—derived from their interests in one of the regions most prosperous fish and seafood canning businesses, money was the least of her problems. She wanted to peer around the coat tree to get a look at him, but she wouldn’t know which one was Amy’s father. Surely that voice couldn’t belong to the man she first saw in her doctor’s office and then at Lorrianne’s barbecue brunch. But how could two men have that same voice? She sipped some water. Great-Aunt Meredith had always said that sipping water slowly was very calming. The men continued to search for a way to pay for Amy’s surgery.

“Can’t you pay the doctors on installment?”

“They want it upfront,” she heard him say. “Every dime of it. But look, Jack, you’d better go. You’ll be late for work, and you’ve sacrificed enough for me.”

She looked up as “Jack” passed her on his way out, then focussed on the man who remained. Good Lord! He was the same one she’d seen in Dr. Graham’s office and at his home. She regarded Amy’s father, a handsome, clean-cut man whom she thought any woman should be proud to have for a husband. Dr. Graham had said that they could solve each other’s problem. Her gaze held him, seemingly deep in thought, as he stared into his coffee cup. Perhaps…No. She pushed back the absurd idea, paid for her breakfast and left.

Amanda drove home thinking that spring recess would soon be over and she hadn’t done any of the things she’d planned. Instead, she had been struggling with the most difficult problem she’d ever faced. She didn’t put her car in the garage as she usually did, but left it in front of the house. She had lived alone in the comfortable, two-story home with its spacious grounds since her aunt Meredith’s death and, though she loved the house with its memories, ghosts and treasures, there were times when she had to struggle with the loneliness. The telephone rang just as she closed the front door.

“Amanda, can you come to my office tomorrow morning?”

“Why, yes. Is there a problem, Dr. Graham?”

“Maybe a solution. I have an opening at eleven o’clock. Would that suit you?” She agreed and hung up. A solution. Solution to what? Well, she’d find out when she got there.

When she walked into Jacob Graham’s office, Amanda supposed that his cheerful greeting was meant to put her at ease but, instead, his smile alarmed her.

“What is it?” He wasn’t wearing his white coat, and he didn’t indicate that he wanted her to go to the examining room. “Is something wrong, Dr. Graham?”

“Amanda, I want to talk with you as an old family friend. Caution Point is a small place, and you’ve just been made principal of the junior high. Small-town people are conservative; you know that. I saw you talking with my friend, Marcus Hickson, in the garden the day Lorrianne had that brunch. Both of you have a difficult problem that you could easily solve together. Marcus is a fine man by any measure, or I wouldn’t say this.”

“Say what?”

“Well, he’s got a problem with his daughter’s health, and…”

“I know,” she said when he hesitated as though not wanting to betray a friend’s confidence. “I overheard him telling someone. What does that have to do with me?” The skin seemed to roll on her neck as she anticipated his next words, and her breath lodged in her throat when he leaned back in his old-fashioned swivel chair, made a pyramid of his hands and prepared to continue.

“Amanda, the answer to your problem and Marcus’, too, is for the two of you to get married. Don’t look so shocked. You pay his daughter’s medical bill, and he’ll be a buffer against what you’ll face otherwise.”

“You’re not serious!”

“Oh, yes, I am. He’s a good man.” Tremors spiraled down her back at the thought of being married to the man she remembered having passed a few minutes with in Lorrianne Graham’s garden.

“But marry a perfect stranger? I couldn’t.” Agitated, she stood abruptly and began to pace. “Do you realize what you’re suggesting?” His gentle smile failed to soothe her, and he must have realized it, for he added, “If the two of you found that after one year you couldn’t get along and didn’t want to stay married, you could separate. Of course, that means you couldn’t consummate the marriage during that year. In fact, I’d counsel abstinence unless and until the two of you learned to care for each other.” She felt the heat scorch her face; she hadn’t been thinking of a marriage of convenience. She sat down and gazed at her feet. Dr. Graham wanted what was best for her, and she couldn’t reject his proposal out of hand.

“What about him?” she asked. “Would he do it?” She was almost certain that he wouldn’t. Jacob Graham looked toward Heaven and slapped his hands on his thighs.

“Probably react same as you, but considering what he’s facing, he may have no choice. Do you want his phone number?” She shook her head.

“I’ll have to think about this.”

Amanda started down the walk toward her car and stopped short. A picture of Iris Elms, a female colleague at the junior high school, flashed before her mind’s eye. Iris, gloating triumphantly. Iris victorious at last. The woman had lost her bid for school principal, but there would be no end to her boasting and baiting if she got the job anyway because of Amanda’s mishap. Amanda was convinced that Iris’ antagonism toward her was more than envy and hatred because she’d lost her bid to become school principal. For months, the woman had derided her at every opportunity. She reached her car and leaned against it. Half of the joy of getting that promotion to principal had come from knowing that Iris would have to treat her with respect. Dr. Graham had said that Marcus Hickson had no options. Did she?

Fighting a feeling of gloom, Amanda got into her car and drove to General Hospital in Caution Point, where she volunteered several afternoons a week. She got in the short cafeteria line, bought a pint of milk and a peanut butter sandwich for her lunch and found a table. Soft music from overhead speakers proclaimed the soothing charm of a wide, sleepy river in the moonlight, and she felt it sweep away the darkness of her mood. Since childhood, she had loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and she rose to get back in line for grape jelly.

“Leaving? I was going to ask if I could join you; the place is practically deserted.” She looked up to see Marcus Hickson holding a tray of food.

“Oh, no. I don’t mind.” Flustered, she pointed to the chair. “Please sit. I’m just going for jelly.” She couldn’t imagine his thoughts as he glanced toward the chair, shrugged one shoulder, hesitated and sat down. She took her time getting back to the table, because she wasn’t in a hurry to talk with him and wondered why he had decided to sit with her when there were at least twenty vacant tables.

“If you’d rather not have company…” he began and let it drift off with a seeming diffidence that she thought didn’t ring true. She remembered that he had a sick daughter and assumed that he had come to the hospital to visit her.

“Please stay,” she said, compassion winning over wariness. “I’m glad for the company.” When she asked if he was visiting a patient, she couldn’t understand his reluctance to admit it. And the dark cloud that seemed suddenly to mark his features troubled her. She thought of Jacob Graham’s advice earlier that day. If this man was as desperate as he looked…

“How is your…your little girl?” She could see that her question surprised him.

“Are you clairvoyant?” She wasn’t, she told him, and waited for his answer.

He didn’t seem to recognize her, but that didn’t surprise her, because she had been wearing dark glasses when they’d encountered each other in the Grahams’ garden and, at their previous encounter, he hadn’t looked straight at her. She braced herself for his reaction to what she was going to say.

“I overheard your conversation with your friend in Caution’s Coffee Bean yesterday morning. I hope she’s better.” He told her that the child was no longer in danger, but that there was a chance she would be crippled permanently. She reached toward him to comfort him when he propped his head with his left hand, his elbow resting on the table, and released a long breath, but she withdrew self-consciously. He stirred his coffee idly, seeming to look through her, lost in his thoughts. If he wasn’t desperate, she decided, the thought of his child’s condition pained him so much that he might…She girded her resolve and seized the moment.

“Since you apparently aren’t married, I have a proposition for you.”

He frowned in disapproval. “I wouldn’t have thought you the type.”

“Please. I’m not trying to pick you up, but you have a problem and I have one, and together we can solve both of them.”

He leaned back, observing her more closely. “Are you by any chance the woman I pulled out of Lorrianne Graham’s flower patch a couple of Sundays ago?”

“Yes.” She bristled at his perusal but, considering what she was about to suggest, he was entitled to appraise her. “Yes, Dr. Graham has tried twice to introduce us, but somehow, it didn’t come off.”

His skepticism was apparent even before he replied. “I suppose you’ve got seventy thousand dollars lying around unused.”

All right, if he didn’t believe her; she knew she didn’t look as if she had a penny. “Yes, I have that much money, and I’m willing to strike a deal with you. I need a husband. At the end of one year, if either of us wanted out of the marriage, we’d call it quits. We could even sign an agreement to that effect. Up to that point, we’d be married in name only. We’d live in the same house, and I’d give you a certified check for seventy thousand.” Both of his eyebrows shot up, his mouth opened, and he stared at her, seemingly speechless.

“I’m only suggesting a marriage of convenience, unless we decided to change that, though I kind of doubt that you’d want to. That way, your little girl can have her operation and I can get out of this predicament I’m in.” He leaned farther back in the chair and looked at her. She saw nothing sensual in the way that he regarded her, but she blushed, obviously surprising him.

“Why do you need a husband desperately enough to put out this kind of money?” She folded her hands in her lap and had to control an urge to squirm, because she hadn’t considered that she would have to give this stranger intimate information about herself. His barely checked sigh suggested that he wasn’t a patient person, and that she’d better hurry and get it out.

“I’m two months pregnant.” That seemed to stagger him, but only for a second, as he blinked eyes that she thought were the most beautiful honey-brown ones she’d ever seen.

“Then you’re talking to the wrong man. You should be talking to the guy who had the pleasure of putting you in this predicament.” She winced, unable to hide her embarrassment, and he apologized.

“I don’t know where he is, and if I did I don’t think I’d marry him. I’d rather be disgraced.”

“Many single women have children outside the sanctity of marriage. Why would you be disgraced?”

“Those women aren’t principal of Caution Point Junior High School. I am. I just got the appointment week before last, and I don’t think the Board of Education would like having an unmarried pregnant principal as a role model for fourteen-and fifteen-year-old girls.”

He knew how to whistle: it was long and sharp. “You don’t have to have it, you know. You’re only two months along.”

Her lips quivered, and she closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. No point in getting annoyed, she told herself, as she gathered her purse to leave, then felt rather than saw his hand lightly on her sleeve, detaining her.

“Why do you want to have it?” he asked softly, showing sympathy for the first time. “You obviously don’t like the father. Why?” She hadn’t had anyone with whom she could discuss personal things since her aunt Meredith’s death eighteen months earlier, just after her friend, Julie, had married and gone to live in Scotland with her husband. She had turned to Pearce Lamont out of loneliness and the need for more than casual contact with another human being, and she had convinced herself that she cared for him and that the feeling was mutual.

“I didn’t plan…that is, I was unprepared for…I mean I wasn’t taking the pill, and he told me that he would protect me. I had every reason to believe him and to trust him, but I found out that he was just stringing me along; he didn’t really care. I’d rather not be pregnant, but I am, and I don’t expect ever to conceive another child. I’m thirty-nine years old, and neither boys nor men ever found me irresistible.”

“At least one man did.” He said it softly, gently, as if he didn’t want to hurt her. “Go on.”

“I don’t have any family, and if I had a child at least there would be someone who needed me and cared about me.”

“Are you sure you’re doing the right thing by not trying to find the child’s father?”

“I cared for him, and he knew it. But I discovered that I was just fun to him, a game, a challenge. He was one of the summer people, the first man who’d showered me with attention, and I wasn’t wise about such things and fell for him. He strung me along through the winter, but I refused to have an affair. Aunt Meredith said that men could change their minds once they got what they wanted. I finally gave in and proved her right. He wasn’t very kind, and I never saw nor heard from him after that night.” She searched her handbag, found her business card and handed it to him. He read: Amanda Ross, Ph.D., Chairperson, English Department, Caution Point Junior High School, followed by her school and home phone numbers.

“I haven’t gotten my new cards printed yet,” she told him, trying to display the cool dignity that was so natural to her. “Please call me after you think about it.” If you refuse, I’ll probably have to resign and leave town, she thought. He put the card in his shirt pocket.

“You have to find that man.” He took the card out and looked at it. “Amanda. The name suits you.”

She smiled. “I’ve always liked it.”

“Amanda, no man is going to take responsibility for a child without knowing something about the father’s whereabouts and his reaction to the whole thing.” For a minute he seemed deep in thought, letting his left hand lightly graze his strong square chin. “Are you being wise to consider marriage to a stranger? You’d be sharing your property as well as your life with me, and you wouldn’t have much protection if I proved to be unscrupulous. Legally, a marriage is a marriage, no matter what kind it is.”

“I am not entirely naive. Taking a chance on a man who would mortgage his life for the health of his four-year-old daughter is no gamble whatever. Besides, Dr. Graham seems to think highly of you. You’re an honorable man, Mr…. Do you realize that this is the second time we’ve talked and that we’ve been sitting here nearly an hour, and we’ve never introduced ourselves.”

“Marcus Hickson. This is a lot of money we’re talking about, Amanda. Will it put you in a hole?”

“No, it won’t. If you can’t give me your answer now, will you call me tomorrow or the next day?” He stood and offered her his hand. Her trembling reaction to the current that shot through her at his touch must have shocked him as it did her, for he quickly withdrew his hand. She couldn’t look at him, merely picked up her tray with the half-eaten peanut butter sandwich and fled.

“I’ll phone you,” he called after her. He looked at the card, then back at her, knowing already what his answer would be. He’d gotten his food, started for a table and noticed her sitting in a far corner of the nearly empty cafeteria shrouded in despondency. Thinking that she might have just left one of the patients and sensing a kindred soul, he’d stopped at her table on an impulse. He hoped she got out of her predicament, but he wasn’t her solution. He’d find a way to pay for Amy’s surgery, and marriage wouldn’t be in it. He had just been curious; he never expected to marry another woman as long as he inhaled oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide.

Marcus put Amanda’s business card back in his shirt pocket and stood where she’d left him, staring in her direction until she was out of sight. As he stood shaking his head, he didn’t think he’d ever heard of a more ridiculous idea; she had to be out of her mind. Or desperate. He’d had a lot of experience with desperation, and he couldn’t help but empathize with her, but he did not want any part of her scheme. He carried his tray to the disposal carousel and stepped out into the spring sunshine, dreading going to his daughter’s room, abhorring the expectant looks he knew he would see on the faces of the nurses. But they no longer asked him when Amy would have her operation, because they could read the answer in his face. He had to find a way, and it wouldn’t involve Amanda Ross.

Unable to postpone it any longer, Marcus walked past the nurses’ station, relieved to see it unattended, and hurried to his daughter’s room. During the last fourteen months, he had spent so many hours in that corner watching her sleep that he imagined he’d be lonely for it when he no longer had to go there. She opened her eyes, smiled at him and closed them again. He supposed the painkillers made her drowsy. Leaning over her carefully, so as not to touch the tube in her arm, he kissed her forehead, and his heart kicked over when her little fingers brushed his cheek.

Clouds had begun to darken the sky when he left the hospital for the short walk to the railroad station. He ignored the fine mist that soon dampened his cotton poplin bomber jacket and made his way at a normal pace. He grabbed a copy of the Carolina Times, tossed the newsboy fifty cents and boarded the train for Portsmouth, Virginia, and home seconds before it left the station. But he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t even decipher the words; visions of Amanda Ross flitted around in his mind, troubling him. A couple and their twin daughters around Amy’s age got on at Elizabeth City and sat across from him. He realized later that he’d ridden thirty miles without being aware that he’d covered his eyes with both hands, shutting out the pain of watching that couple with their healthy little girls.

“How’d it go?” Luke, his older brother asked when he opened the apartment door. Marcus walked in, comfortable in his brother’s home, but it galled him that he might be forced to rent out his own house and move in with Luke in an effort to conserve his resources. Yet, he knew that, barring a miracle, the move was inevitable.

“Same old. Same old, man. But I haven’t given up. I can tolerate anything, but I want Amy to have a normal, healthy life and I have to do whatever I can for her.”

“Of course you do. If I hadn’t just bought that resort property on the Albemarle Sound, you wouldn’t have a problem.” He handed Marcus a piece of paper. “The surgeon wants you to call him.”

After the doctor’s first few words, Marcus stopped listening. What was the use?

“I’ll get back to you in a couple of days,” he told the man, but he knew the futility of the gesture.

“Something wrong?”

Marcus pulled air through his teeth, leaned back in the kitchen chair, crossed his knee and took a hefty swallow of the beer that his brother put in front of him.

“Yeah. Plenty. The doctor and his team have two dates open during the next month. After that, it will be too late. They can help some, but if we wait any longer, she’ll be deformed.” A deep sigh escaped him. “Hell must be something like this.” He pushed the beer aside. “I’m going down to Elizabeth City. See you tomorrow.”

“You want to take my car?”

Marcus shrugged. “Thanks, but I’d better take the train.”

An hour later, Marcus sat in Jacob Graham’s living room questioning him about Amanda. “Her suggestion stunned me. She doesn’t know anything about me, except that she saw me here twice and yet she makes this preposterous offer. I shouldn’t mention this to you, and I doubt I’ll do it, but as things stand now I have to give it some thought.” Marcus couldn’t think of a reason for his friend’s smile and happy mood. He frowned. “Am I to think you’re enjoying this, Jacob?” The smile dissolved into a grin.

“Yes, I suppose I am. This is precisely the solution I wanted to propose, but you seemed to find it preposterous that anything involving Amanda would interest you. She’s a fine woman, and she’ll honor any commitment. You could do much worse.”

He spent the next day reviewing his options and concluded that he didn’t have any. At six o’clock that evening, he forced himself to smile and walked into the intensive care room that had been his little daughter’s home for more than a year. At least, she was out of danger now. She would live, but would she ever walk? Her multitude of internal injuries had been repaired, and the web of tubes that for months had reminded him of the frailty of her life had been removed—the last one just that day—and he was thankful. But he wanted his child to be whole, to be like other children. The nurses had propped her up in bed, combed her hair and plaited it with two big yellow bows. Sometimes he thought the doctors and nurses on Amy’s ward ministered to him as carefully as they did to her. He leaned over to hug her and caught a whiff of a lovely, feminine scent. She smiled brilliantly, as if she knew he needed cheering.

“Hi, Daddy. Tomorrow, I’m going to be in a room with other children. I don’t have to be by myself anymore.”

“That’s wonderful. Maybe you’ll make some little friends.” He gathered his child into his arms and hugged her again. He had to do his best for her. The poor child had been in that bed so long that she’d forgotten what living in a real home with him was like. He thought about Amanda and her crazy scheme. He couldn’t, wouldn’t marry again. Marriage as he knew it was hell, and he would challenge anyone to prove differently. I can’t go that route again: I won’t. There has to be another way, he told himself.

“Am I going to get a wheelchair like Brenda and Terry, Daddy? The nurse brought them to see me today in their new chairs.”

Marcus crushed the child to him. “I don’t know, baby. We’ll see.” He held her until she was asleep and then slipped quickly past the nurses’ station to avoid a discussion of the inevitable. Four years old and already inured to pain and discomfort as a way of life. He let a tear roll down his face untouched. Too drained to make the trip back to Portsmouth, he decided to spend the night with his friends, Jack and Myrna Culpepper.

He hadn’t meant to unload his dilemma on his friends. It poured out of him: his child’s health or his freedom.

Flabbergasted, Jack stared at Marcus. “My God, man, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. This is the answer to our prayers. It’s not ’til death do us part, man. It’s just a year out of your life, and you get more of your problems solved than the money for Amy’s operation.”

“I’d like to know what they are,” Marcus said, losing his taste for the discussion. “What is so good about being bought by a woman for a year? It’s one thing to borrow money and another thing entirely to barter yourself. I have never been beholden to others. And since Helena, I’ve been careful not to owe any woman anything. You get screwed even if you don’t owe them. Until Amy’s accident, I didn’t owe one penny. I don’t like being indebted to anybody, much less to a woman in whose house I would be living and who, for whatever reason, would bear my name.” Myrna sat on the floor between her husband’s knees and turned to face their long-time friend, whom she regarded with sisterly affection.

“Look,” Jack explained, “if you stay with her, you’ll be right here in Caution near Amy and won’t have that four-hour daily and expensive commute from Portsmouth. You can lease your house in Portsmouth for the year, and the income will cover the mortgage you put on it. And you can visit the factory from time to time, which is about as often as you get there these days, anyway.”

Marcus stopped pacing and sat down. He hadn’t thought about Amanda’s problem and, suddenly, he did. “Please don’t mention any of this. I wouldn’t like to see her hurt more. As it is, she has a rough time ahead. If it’s all right with you I’m going to call Portsmouth, talk to my brother and turn in.”

Luke Hickson listened to his younger brother’s story about Amanda and her offer. Marcus had always looked up to Luke and would be the first to acknowledge his brother’s sobering influence. He knew that he could be hotheaded at times and stubborn, and he valued Luke’s judgment. He told himself to be open-minded.

“She needs you just as much as you need her,” Luke told him. “Sounds to me like the hand of Providence working here. Not all women are like Helena. The very fact that she wants the child and plans to have it is a major difference. Don’t forget that.” How could he? It was the reason for his divorce. Helena had blithely informed him that she wasn’t having their second baby after all and that it was a fait accompli, a done deed, giving him no choice. And then she’d left him and Amy. But he had wanted no more of her and would never forget the pain that she’d caused him.

“Thanks, Luke. I’ll keep you posted.” He hung up. A man shouldn’t be faced with such choices; he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

The following evening, Amanda sat on her upstairs back porch looking over at the Albemarle Sound that had been a part of her life ever since she knew herself. She had stopped by the Caution Point Public Library after leaving school and collected books on the North Carolina and Virginia coast towns. Her heart wasn’t in it, but a week had passed and she hadn’t heard from Marcus, so she had to start looking for a new home. Amanda hated the thought of leaving the place where she belonged, where people knew her name and she could distinguish the churches by the ring of their bells, knew the cracks in the sidewalk, the names of the dogs that barked at night and which trees had broken limbs. She would have to move; she couldn’t expect the ultraconservative citizens of Caution Point to accept unwed motherhood from the principal of their junior high school. After all, a lot of people thought it disgraceful that fifty-six-year-old Minnie Carleton, a spinster, had gotten married. A woman in her position wasn’t supposed to think of such things.

Amanda leafed idly through a book on the outer banks of North Carolina, listening to the swirling waters of the Albemarle Sound. She couldn’t contemplate life without it, but she knew she would have to leave if Marcus Hickson turned her down. And he might; the idea didn’t seem to have found any favor with him. But she was betting on his love for that girl, a love that she sensed was strong enough to force him to do things he didn’t want to do.

She sniffed the air with pleasure as scents of the roasting herbed chicken, buttermilk biscuits and apple pie baking in the oven wafted up. She sat on a low hassock, and when the cool April breeze worried her bare toes, she pulled the burnt orange caftan that she wore down to cover them. She loved the color orange, because it flattered her smooth brown complexion. The wall supported her back, comforting her because it was familiar. And she needed, loved, to have familiar people, things and places around her. But for how long? The telephone ring broke into her thoughts, and her heart seemed to drop to her middle as it had with every ring since she’s encountered Marcus at the hospital cafeteria the previous week. She raced to her bedroom.

“Hello.” That nervous squeak couldn’t be her voice.

“Hello, Amanda. This is Marcus Hickson. If you’re not busy, I’d like to come over.” She felt shivers rush through her at the sound of his rich baritone.

“When?” she asked, nervous and excited.

“Now, Amanda. I’m at the hospital. How do I get to your place?”

She gave him her address and the directions. But Caution Point was a small enough town, just over fourteen thousand people, and everybody who lived there knew how to get around. Why did he need directions? She figured it would take him about forty minutes walking and took her time about dressing. When he rang the bell in less than ten minutes, she had no choice but to greet him as she was—thick hair billowing, feet bare and burnt orange caftan clinging.

Her impression of Marcus Hickson had been of a refined, sophisticated man, and she wondered why he seemed less poised.

“Hello, Amanda. I assume you’re Amanda.” He offered her what was barely a smile. “But this is certainly one hell of a metamorphosis.”

Amanda at home was very different from Amanda anywhere else. Gone were the severe suits, sensible shoes and the thick twist or braids in which she always wore her hair. In the evenings, her heavy black mane hung loosely down her back, kinky and wild; she wore floor-length, brightly colored caftans, and shoes never touched her feet.

Thinking that he was disappointed in the way she looked, she apologized. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d need more time getting here. I didn’t have time to get dressed.”

He looked down at her and gave his left shoulder a quick shrug. “God forbid you should make yourself less attractive on my account. I caught a ride. Mind if I come in?” She stepped back and let him pass as she mused over his cryptic remarks. Not an easy man to understand, she decided.

“Before we talk business, let me show you around.” She would be foolish if she didn’t do everything she could to make him decide in her favor, so she began the tour upstairs, showing him first the guest room and adjoining bath that would be his personal quarters.

“You could rearrange it to suit yourself,” she told him, “and I’d change the covers and curtains. You’d want something more masculine.” She walked on. “This is my sitting room.”

He nodded. “You’ve got a complete office up here,” he said of her sitting room.

“You’d be welcome to use it.” They walked out onto the porch.

“This is beautiful, Amanda. Idyllic. Don’t you get lonely here?”

She answered him truthfully. “Yes. But the result of my one experience at reaching out after my aunt died is the reason you’re here. Believe me, lonely is better.”

She’s rambling, because she’s scared and nervous, he thought, and told himself that he should put her at ease. But he didn’t; the little exercise was very revealing.

She took him through the living and dining rooms and, though she didn’t invite him to do so, he followed her through the breakfast room and into the kitchen. She took the pie out of the oven and turned the chicken. Her slight body with well-rounded, feminine hips silhouetted through the caftan sounded a warning to him as she bent to her task. This wasn’t going to work. She’d upped the ante. He refused to believe that she hadn’t presented herself as a little siren just to get him to agree to her mad scheme. He had been astonished when the door was opened not by the lackluster person he’d met previously, but by a lovely and charming woman. He let his gaze travel over her back. Yeah. A real sexy sister. The sensation he experienced was not one that he welcomed.

He brought his left hand up and brushed the back of it against the bottom of his chin. In all fairness, she was entitled to try and win her case, he acknowledged silently; she had plenty to lose. He told himself to lighten up.

“What kind of contract are you offering, Amanda?” The abruptness with which he opened the topic surprised her, but it relieved her, too. If he wanted to discuss it, he hadn’t ruled it out.

“Go on in the living room; I’ll get us some coffee. Sugar or cream?” He took both.

“The kitchen’s fine.” She felt oddly secure as she watched him settle his long frame into the straight-back chair.

“Well, I thought like this. You would have no financial responsibility for me or the baby. We’d stay married for one year, and then consider the future, though I expect you’ll want to end it. You’d live here. Any of your friends or family would be welcome anytime you wanted them to come, because this would be your home. We’d both have physical exams first and you’d get the certified check as soon as we married. We’d divorce after one year on grounds of irreconcilable differences, if that’s what either of us wanted. I would bear all household expenses during that time.”

He turned sharply and stared at her. “You’re proposing to take care of me for one year?” His discomfort with the idea was obvious and, for the first time, she resented what she regarded as his unnecessary defensiveness enough to bristle and show it.

“You’ve got a more reasonable suggestion? Maybe if I knew a little something about you, I’d manage not to insult you. For starters, why did you need directions to my house? Everybody in town knows this place.” She wondered why he seemed pleased at her sharp response. Maybe he preferred women with guts to shrinking violets.

“Amanda, I live in Portsmouth. I’d brought my daughter with me to watch the sailing competition on the Sound, and a building crane fell on our rented car and crushed her almost to death. I was practically unharmed. The emergency squad took her to Caution Point General, and it hasn’t been wise to move her. I could now, but she’s learned to like and trust the nurses and she’s getting the best of care. So I’m keeping her there.”

“You’ve commuted between Portsmouth and Caution Point daily for fourteen months?”

“Fourteen months and two weeks. Sometimes twice daily. I have a business in Portsmouth. I rebuild fine grand pianos, antique harpsichords and spinets. I’ll handle a console or a small string instrument, but only if it’s of superior quality. Right now, the banks own everything I have.”

She shook her head slowly, so slowly that he had to know exactly what she was feeling and that the sentiment was for him.

“Are we going to have a deal, Marcus?” She wanted his agreement, but not at the expense of appearing fragile and vulnerable. He must know that both her future and his child’s future were at stake. Her apparent calm as she waited for his answer was as good a piece of acting as she had ever pulled off, she thought proudly.

“It’s possible, but there’s still the matter of the child’s father.” She handed him a fax from Dexter and Strange, Inc., dated that day. He read it twice before giving it back to her.

“If you had told me his name, I could have saved you the price of those detectives’ fee. Still, it’s a good thing to have a copy of that death certificate. Pearce was always a daredevil and totally self-centered. I think I should warn you, though: you’ll be better off if Pearce, Sr., never learns about this child; he’d give you plenty of trouble.”

She gasped. “How could he? This child is mine.”

“Amanda, Pearce Lamont, Sr., is a rich man. He owns two newspapers, an FM radio station, a string of motels, and he doles out a lot of money to both political parties. He can swing any deal he wants to. He’s bought his son out of jail, out of parenthood…” Seeing her shocked, hurt reaction to that information, he toned it down. “There’ve been several paternity suits against Pearce, Jr., but, as far as I know, he and his family won all of them. We’ll never know what the truth is. Just pray that you’re carrying a girl. Lamont doesn’t have a grandson nor another son, and he’d bend rules and break laws now to get a male heir.”

The more he talked and the longer she shared his company, the more certain she was that she wanted him there. She felt more secure than ever in her life. “Marcus, you’re very big. How tall are you?”

He blinked, obviously surprised by the question. “I’m six feet, three and a half, and I weigh two hundred dripping.” She blanched as the image of a dripping Marcus filled her mind and, from his expression, she didn’t doubt that he knew her thoughts. “And I’m thirty-five years old,” he added gruffly.

“Nothing would frighten a person with you around.” She caught her breath when he threw her off balance with a genuine grin, his white teeth flashing and his enchanting, honey-brown eyes sparkling with deviltry.

“There’s not much to you, is there?” he teased.

“Well, I’m five-three, and it hasn’t hindered me so far.”

“You didn’t tell me what name you’ll put on the birth certificate as the father of your child, Amanda.” She was quiet for a long time before looking inquiringly at the man who sat before her, waiting patiently for this most important of answers. The answer that would determine her future. It was best to be honest.

“I want to put your name there, Marcus. Could you agree to that? It’s very important to me that my child be legitimate. When it’s old enough to understand, I’ll explain to her or him. But I won’t do it unless you agree.”

He studied her for a few seconds. She hadn’t made it a term of the contract, but had asked his permission. And instead of doing it surreptitiously, she had chosen to be open and honest about it. Marcus walked over to the window and stared out at the darkness. The eerie shapes of the big, stalwart pines barely moved in the gusty wind, but the little dogwoods—visible by their bright flowers—bowed low as though under a great burden. He couldn’t help likening the scene to his present dilemma. He had what he needed to withstand the rigors of life but, as small and vulnerable as she was, Amy could not protect herself. Only he could do that. What was one year of his life for the whole of Amy’s? He walked back to Amanda and extended his hand.

“All right, Amanda. If those are your terms, you’ve got a deal, and my name goes on the birth certificate. I don’t know how I’ll feel, though, knowing that there’s a child somewhere with my name and who thinks I’m its father, but to whom I give nothing. It’s never going to sit well with me, but I don’t suppose you’re crazy about the idea, either. Something for something, I suppose. But, honey, this is one tough bargain.” He’d have to tell her not to hope for more than a year; he didn’t see how he could push himself to accept it longer than that. Her face glowed with happiness, and he waved off her thanks. She had tried to make it as palatable as possible, he knew, but it still went against his grain and tied up his guts. Married! After all the promises he’d made to himself and God about tying himself to a woman. Still, it didn’t seem right to make her miserable just because he was. He tried to shake it off.

“Do I have the right to offer a little advice?” When she nodded, he continued. “For the sake of privacy, let’s see a lawyer in Elizabeth City. And I suggest that we get married there, too.” He looked at his watch. “Good Lord, I’ve got to go. I’m just about to miss the last train to Portsmouth.” Amanda glanced at her own watch.

“I don’t see how you can get to the station and on that train in eight minutes, not even if I drive you. So, suppose you stay over and try out your room tonight. Supper’s ready.”

“I hate to put you out, and I don’t want to eat up your meal.”

“Marcus, I’ve never eaten a whole chicken at one sitting in my life. There’s plenty. I made a fresh batch of buttermilk biscuits and there’s a pot of string beans.” It occurred to Marcus that he could stay with Jack and Myrna as he had done many times, but for reasons that he refused to examine, he dismissed the idea.

“What’s that over there?” He pointed to the pie.

“Apple pie.”

He loved home cooking, though he rarely got any. But just the thought of a home-baked apple pie could make him delirious. What was the point of polite pretense?

“You’re on. I love that stuff.”

He finished his third piece of pie and stretched lazily. “Happiness is having ‘a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.’ Two out of three’s not bad.” Amanda Ross turned sharply around and stared at the man who’d just eaten half of a roasting chicken, seven biscuits and more than half a pie. He leaned back, watching her. Had she thought he wouldn’t know anything except the way in which wires and hammers functioned on string instruments? From the look on her face, she hadn’t expected a housemate knowledgeable in literature, which he assumed was her specialty.

“I see you’ve been reading Rousseau.”

He smiled wickedly, enjoying her surprise. “And I see you’ve mixed up your metaphors.”

She got up and began to clear the table. “You’ve got many sides; we’ll get along.” Nodding in agreement, Marcus rose and took the plates from her.

“The one who cooks shouldn’t wash dishes. And we’ll do the housework and other chores together. You should have put that in the contract.” And he should have put it in a contract with Helena. She hadn’t done much more than sleep at home, not even after Amy’s birth. Oh, but she had punished him!

“It’s been my experience that one ought to look ahead and start the way one can finish. And that’s from Ross. Amanda Ross.”

“Yeah? Well ‘the only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing.’” He waited for her to identify the quote.

“Maurois, right?” He nodded. She showed him the washer and dryer so that he could wash his underwear, socks and shirt, gave him a large beach towel and bade him good-night.

For the first time since she had learned of her pregnancy, she didn’t dread going to bed. She would sleep. All still wasn’t right with the world, but the outlook was certainly improving.

Several days later, Amanda sat in Jacob Graham’s waiting room. The same painting hung facing her on the wall, and the simple red and gray furnishings hadn’t changed but, to her eyes, the old looked new and what had seemed dull now glowed. She stood when the doctor walked toward her.

“I hope you’ve got something good to tell me,” he said, draping an arm around her shoulder. “Come on in the examining room.” She told him about her agreement with Marcus.

“That’s the best solution for you two; I’m glad you worked it out by yourselves.” She explained about the health certificate she needed.

“All right, and while I’m at it, we’ll see how the baby is coming along. You’re in good shape,” he told her later and advised her to choose a gynecologist in Caution Point. As she left, he assured her, “You will never meet a finer man than Marcus Hickson. I hate to see him down on his luck this way, but I don’t doubt for a minute that he’ll snap back. If you need me, you know where I am.”

She skipped down the walkway to her car, picked up a green crab apple from the lawn and sent it sailing through the air. Turning, she waved to the doctor who stood in the doorway smiling, got in her car and drove off. She stopped at Caution’s Coffee Bean and ordered a chocolate shake from the lone waiter who nodded and asked whether she’d hit the lottery.

“Haven’t seen you this bright in a while now,” he said.

“Haven’t felt this bright,” she answered, smiling to herself. She walked out into the sunlight and looked up and down State Street for her friend Sam, the rag man, who’d been sweeping that street for as long as she could remember, but he was nowhere to be seen. She stopped by the Albemarle Kiddies Roost and bought a book on pregnancy and two on child care. At last, she could have the pleasure of planning for her baby.