Читать книгу Her Sister's Child - Lilian Darcy, Lilian Darcy - Страница 10

“Dad, sorry it’s so late. I know you’ve been waiting for me to call,” Meg said into the phone, just moments after she arrived home that night.

Her father had picked up on the first ring. Now he didn’t waste words. “Okay, shoot, Meggie. Did it go well? Was he what we were expecting?”

The two impossible questions she had known he would ask. She had the answers prepared, but her throat suddenly felt dry all the same. Unbearably so. She went into the galley-style kitchen of her one bedroom apartment with the cordless phone pressed between her shoulder and her ear and got some sparkling mineral water from the fridge. She spoke as she went. Carefully.

“No, he wasn’t what we were expecting. I can’t go into any details yet.” She took a big gulp of the mineral water and her parched mouth felt better.

“You’re calling from your office? He can’t still be with you…”

“No, I’m calling from home. I’m alone.”

“Then why can’t you talk?”

“Because I want to be cautious about this, Dad. There’s…more going on than we realized.” A lot more. “It’ll be a few days before I can really be clear about what’s happening.”

There was a clatter in her ear and the sound of Patty’s warm voice. “Meg, I have to know. Your dad’s asking all the wrong questions. Is this Callahan man a total low-life, or not? Did you see Amy?”

Answer the easy one first. “No, I didn’t see her. She was staying with his mother overnight.”

“His mother? Men like that don’t have mothers! Not ones you can safely leave a baby with, anyway.”

“He’s not a ‘man like that,’ Patty,” she had to say. “Or if he is, he’s a darn good liar.”

“Of course he’s a good liar! Men like that are!”

“And he’s not going to give Amy up easily. I don’t even know if—”

“But we can win it, right? Her own grandparents? Financially secure, with me giving up work as soon as she’s with us, so I can care for her full-time? And after everything Cherie said about him? Oh, I’m just aching for that poor little girl, and what she must have to endure!”

“I know.” Meg was aching, too. For different reasons.

She managed to deflect another five minutes of questions and finally put down the phone, exhausted by the effort of holding back what she knew. She wasn’t going to frighten Dad or Patty with the specter of Amy’s leukemia.

Not yet. Not until she’d satisfied herself that this whole thing wasn’t just some sick scam, and that Adam Callahan was really the man he said he was.

She didn’t know why the issue of trusting him was building such conflict inside her. Was it a lawyer’s instinct? A lawyer’s caution? Those things had been drummed into her constantly through three years of law school and she put them into practice daily in her legal work now.

Even a simple real estate closing could turn into a minefield of problems. People lied. Just last month, she’d saved some clients from handing over every penny they’d put away to a man who was trying to sell them a house he didn’t even own. He was a plausible character, too. Attractive and sophisticated.

Yes, there were people out there who deliberately, brazenly, believably lied, and for a dozen different reasons. Financial gain, self-preservation, easy sex…Was it just her lawyer’s instinct to fear that Adam Callahan might be one of them?

Restless, she downed the last inch of her mineral water and wandered into the bathroom to wash hands that felt clammy with tension, then caught sight of her flushed face in the mirror.

She’d resorted to a glass of wine over dinner in an attempt to stay cool and focused as they discussed Amy’s illness. It hadn’t worked. But she knew it wasn’t the wine bringing this color to her face. It was Adam Callahan.

She couldn’t remember when any man had had such a powerful, immediate effect on her senses, or on her emotions. It wasn’t just his dark, lively good looks. She’d never been instantly susceptible to good-looking men, so it couldn’t be that. What was it, then? The apparent strength of his feelings? His determination? His way of listening, with those black-coffee eyes of his fixed on her, liquid and intent, and his well-drawn mouth serious and sensitive?

“Oh, boy, he really did a number on me tonight, didn’t he?” she muttered to her reflection. “He probably got exactly what he wanted. I swallowed every word he told me and started treating him like a hero.”

She saw that flushed cheeks weren’t the only difference in her appearance tonight. Her eyes shone, her breathing was shallower than usual, and even her lips looked fuller. Swollen. As if they’d been kissed. Which they hadn’t.

But she’d wanted him to.

Oh, lord, might as well be completely honest about it! By the end of the evening she’d hardly been able to drag her gaze from his mouth as he talked. Then, when they’d said goodnight outside the restaurant, after arranging to meet at the hospital tomorrow for her blood test, she’d actually swayed toward him for one tell-tale second before getting a grip on her physical response to him.

But maybe he hadn’t noticed, she prayed now. Maybe he’vd been distracted, because I’d finally gotten him to agree to my meeting Amy tomorrow, after the blood test.

He hadn’t wanted the meeting, she recalled. Why? That was strange, wasn’t it? Suspicious?

“No, I don’t trust him!” she told the mirror forcefully aloud. “I really don’t!”

Saying it so decisively like that felt like taking control at last, and she sensed her body beginning to unwind from its state of coiled tension. To her surprise, after a mug of hot chocolate and the late TV news, she actually slept soundly.

He was afraid I wouldn’t show.

Meg could see this at once. He was waiting for her outside the Pathology department of the hospital where he worked, prowling restlessly. She had seen him just seconds before he looked along the corridor to see her. The relief in him when he did was totally apparent and sincere. His big, hunched shoulders relaxed, his dark eyes opened wider, his mouth softened like summer fruit ripening and he actually smiled.

Cautiously.

“I should have told you where to park,” he said, not wasting energy on a hello.

“I’m a big girl,” she answered. “I managed.”

“And how do you feel about needles?”

“I feel fine about them,” she claimed, waving a confident hand, then admitted, “So long as they’re going up and down through a piece of fabric.”

“So maybe you’re not such a big girl, after all?”

They both laughed, though it wasn’t a particularly joyous sound. He touched her briefly on the shoulder. She felt the lingering warmth of his hand through the fine knit of her sweater. Their awareness of each other was almost painful. She’d never imagined the possibility of such a complex mix of emotions about one man. Empathy. Distrust. Attraction…

“Through here,” he said. “It’s just a simple blood test, in your arm. They know what they’re doing. It’ll bite a little when the needle goes in, but if you look away…”

“I think I can handle it, Dr. Callahan.”

“Can we please use first names, at least!”

“Is that wise? Shouldn’t we keep—”

He turned to her and gripped her upper arm, chafing it in a rough caress that he wasn’t even aware of. She was, though. Why did it feel so good just to be close to him? Was it just that he seemed so solid and strong?

“Look,” he said, “If you’re referring to the custody issue and the fact that we’re on opposite sides of the fence…then don’t! I can’t deal with that right now! I want my little girl to live. That’s the only thing that matters to me, and surely it matters to you, too! She’s your niece. Do you ever think of that?” The accusation mounted in his tone.

“Of course it matters! Of course I think of it.”

“Then do me a favor. Pretend we’re friends. Think about the fact that we’re on the same side right now, no matter what happens later on. I need you, Meg. Amy needs you.”

“I—I know.”

“And if you’re a compatible donor then you’re going to need me. Or need someone for support, anyway. It’s not an easy process to go through.”

“I know nothing about it,” she admitted. “Last night we only talked about the blood test.”

And I wasn’t sure, then, that any of this was real, she added inwardly. I’m sure now…

“Maybe that’s as far as we should take it for now,” he suggested.

“You’re scaring me. What exactly is involved?”

“No, sorry.” He released her arm at last, but the appeal remained in his face. “That’s not what I meant to do. I’m talking to myself, I guess. Telling myself to take it one step at a time. If you’re not compatible with Amy…” His voice was husky.

“One step at a time.” She nodded slowly. “You’re right. We can’t think too far ahead. Let’s just get this part done.”

Drawing the blood took only a minute or two. Taking his advice, she didn’t watch, just distracted herself by reading the humorous cartoons and sayings thumb-tacked on the walls.

“I used to take life one day at a time,” read one of them, “but lately a whole flock of days have attacked me at once.”

Strangely appropriate, somehow. If Adam had been in the room, she would have pointed it out to him, but when he’d asked if she wanted him there for support, it seemed too weak to say yes…or maybe she just hadn’t wanted him to hear if she yelled in pain!…so he was waiting outside.

“There, all done now,” said the medical technician cheerfully as she gently withdrew the needle. “Results in a week to ten days.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

A minute later, Meg had a circle of flesh-colored Band-Aid stuck in the crook of her left arm and was out in the waiting area where Adam sat. He had a magazine open in front of him. A fishing magazine. It wasn’t hard to tell that he hadn’t read a word of it. He flung it back on the pile and said lightly, “I didn’t hear any screams.”

“I screamed silently. Figured people would be grateful if I spared their hearing.”

“Considerate.”

“Very,” she agreed. “Seriously, though, it was fine. I haven’t had a needle in years, and I was expecting it to be a lot worse. She said the results would—”

“I know,” he nodded quickly.

“Of course. You’re a doctor. I keep forgetting.”

“Good. Let’s forget all of this, okay?” He was pep-talking himself as much as appealing to her. “Nothing more can happen until we find out the results. So for now I’m taking you to meet Amy.”

They both knew it was important, but somehow, by unworded agreement, they tried hard to pretend it wasn’t. That it was just an ordinary visit, one they both wanted, rather than one he’d tried hard to postpone. Meg still wondered about his reasons for that.

The glorious spring day helped in the illusion that they were in agreement, that this was a casual event.

“Can we take your car? Then, if you could, drop me back at the hospital later on?” he asked her casually as they left the main building and felt the brilliant strike of the spring sunshine. “My car’s here, and I have to work tonight.”

“Your car? What about the motorcycle?” It came out almost like an accusation, and she realized that she was still clinging to that bad boy image of him, conjured by Cherie’s words months ago. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might drive something so tame and civilized as a car, as well.

He looked at her sharply. “You didn’t notice I didn’t have my helmet with me?”

“Unobservant, I guess.” She shrugged, trying to make light of it.

“I used the motorcycle yesterday because I wanted the quickest way of getting between the hospital and your office in the traffic, since timing was tight, but mostly I don’t use it now.” He added deliberately, “It’s merely a relic of my wild youth.”

And she walked right into the trap. “You had a wild youth?”

He pounced. “You hope so, don’t you? That’s what you’re pinning this whole custody claim on.”