Cherished Beginnings (19 page)

"Go furniture shopping? Oh, Xan, there's no point in carrying this any further. We're on opposite sides of the childbirth issue. Let's just drop the whole relationship, all right?"

He felt a stab of dismay. He shook his head firmly. "No, ending the relationship is definitely not all right. I'm willing to admit that we don't see eye to eye professionally. But I'd like to see you again."

Maura let herself be drawn into the intensity of his gaze for a moment, then fought her way out of it before it sucked her under. "There's no point in it." She spoke decisively, as if there could be no argument.

He took a deep breath. "Maura, I like you very much, and it's seldom that I meet a woman as intelligent and as compassionate as you are. I enjoy talking with you and I'm physically attracted to you. As far as I'm concerned, there's every reason to keep us going."

"I see," she said. "You have it all figured out, so very rationally. This, therefore that. I was right. You don't have any emotions."

"I damn well do have emotions," he said, beginning to get annoyed. "One of them is anger. Why do you keep accusing me of having none?"

"Because you don't show them, that's why!"

"So what do you want me to do? Tell you I'm madly in love with you? We hardly know each other, and if you get your way, we never will!"

Her nerves felt coiled tight as a spring. She let the silence grow, and after a while it no longer felt threatening. She caught her breath when he raised a finger and traced its way downward from her cheekbone to her jaw. He was looking at her with incredible longing, and she found herself wanting to experience the wonderfully delicious sensations she felt whenever she was in his arms.

Xan caressed the curve of her lower lip with the same lazy fingertip, imprisoning her eyes with his. Her lips parted reluctantly before his finger tentatively touched the tip of her tongue. She savored the taste of him, feeling the heat of her arousal spreading through her body in widening ripples. After a moment he continued the tracing of her features with his finger, bringing into being a yearning so strong that it became a growing, aching need. She closed her eyes for a moment, wanting to ease away from that need, and when she opened them he had narrowed the space between them and his lips were closing on hers.

If there was frustration inside her, it melted away as she became aware of the softness of his lips. Whatever harsh words had passed between them counted for nothing in the hazy drifting easiness of being swept away on a gentle tide of lethargy. And then gradually their heartbeats accelerated, their breath grew more frantic. Xan's kisses unleashed the passions that she had checked for so long, and they battered at her resistance like the wings of frenzied birds longing to be free.

She found herself clutching at him, spanning his shoulders with spread fingers taut with urgency. And throughout the fierce craving onslaught of his kisses, she kept thinking,
this can't be happening! Not to me!

But it was happening. Her own clothes picked up the dampness and began to cling to her skin where they touched his wet clothes, and still he held her tenaciously, his mouth eager upon hers, and savage.

While he could still think, when he first began kissing her, he thought about how long he had waited to kiss her since that last time, and how many times he had dreamed of doing it again. He wanted her, all of her, inch by inch. And he wanted her to know him. And then he didn't think anymore.

The rain curtained them from the rest of the world. They were encapsulated, isolated, far away from everyone else. Their breathing fogged the car windows so that they couldn't see out, and it was just the two of them together.

The male textures of him were so new to her as her hands found his hair, caressing and then winding themselves into the wet strands, finding their way to curve around the nape of his neck, then traveling slowly and tantalizingly down his backbone to rest lightly at the hollow just above his hips.

His mouth released hers and burned little breathy kisses along her throat, and her lips pressed against his damp skin and tasted warm rain. Outside, the storm lessened and the rain drummed more quietly on the roof, tapering off until it was no more than a mist.

"I know you need time, my darling," he whispered close to her ear. "But I don't want to wait much longer."

She buried her face in his wet shoulder, and she couldn't tell if the moisture on her cheeks was rain or tears.

"Nothing to say?" he asked gently, tipping her face so that he could look at it. He wished he knew how to communicate his longing to her, to tell her how very much he wanted her.

"What if—what if I told you that it wasn't going to happen?" she breathed.

Xan said nothing for a moment before speaking very carefully. "Then I would ask you why you are making me hurt for you. You are, you know." His eyes spoke volumes in their intensity.

He couldn't have said anything that would have shaken her more. She hated hurting anything ever. She knew this was a different kind of hurting. But did that make it different? For she was hurting, too—aching for want of him.

Carefully, as though she were very fragile and precious, Xan disengaged himself from her and hitched the car seat forward. Maura retreated to her own seat, smoothing her hair back and not daring to look at him. He drove her home on rain-slick roads, and they didn't speak even when she fumbled with the door latch and let herself out. She ran up the steps of the farmhouse and slipped inside as quickly as possible. Overcome by her own thoughts, she sank down on the stairs and buried her face in her hands.

A sexual relationship would be a veering from her course, and she was dedicated to her mission here in Shuffletown. Yet it suddenly seemed crystal clear to her that, unless something happened to stop it, she was indeed about to embark on a love affair. The aftershocks of this certain knowledge shook her for days afterward. She still needed time to come to terms with the idea of herself as Xan's lover.

* * *

The next evening as twilight spread shadows over the field behind the farmhouse, Maura pulled on a sleeveless top and yoga pants before unrolling a mat on the commodious side porch where bumblebees darted in and out of the nearby rosebushes.

She planned to practice refreshing yoga exercises to clear her mind and relax her body. When she felt totally free of tension, she'd think about the things she'd been putting off thinking about. She had just finished a series of hollow breaths, a technique that induces calmness, and was lying on her back inhaling the roses' fragrance when something furry brushed up against her feet. It meowed.

She sat up and found herself face to face with the scruffiest cat she had ever seen. It wasn't at all pretty, with its patchy gray tiger-striped fur and kinked tail. "Poor thing," she said sympathetically, reaching to scratch it behind the ear. It closed its eyes and let out a heartrending meow. "I suppose I'll have to feed you," she said. "It doesn't look as though anyone else ever does."

The footstep beside her startled her, and she looked up at Xan Copeland, who was staring down at her and the cat with a bemused expression. "If you're feeling in the mood to be kind to strays," he said, "will you take on another one? No one feeds me, either." He smiled at her engagingly, feasting his eyes on her.

"I was going to feed this poor animal the chicken livers that I cooked for pâté. Would you like some?" There was teasing in her look, but her heart turned over at the sight of him.

Xan grimaced. "Hardly. Don't you have some leftovers or something?" He sat down on the double-sized Pawley's Island rope hammock which Golden had strung up on the porch for the comfort of waiting fathers. He looked at her hungrily, and she knew he was hungry for more than dinner.

"Did you bring this cat?" she said quickly to distract herself from his presence. "I didn't hear you drive up."

He nodded. "That's because we both came on little cat feet. I brought her for your mice. Remember?"

She couldn't possibly have forgotten that night. But she hadn't seen a mouse since, and she'd forgotten that Xan had said he'd get her a cat. "She's such a sad specimen," she said, her heart going out to the poor thing. Concentrating on the cat made it possible for her to dismiss Xan's eyes, which made his feelings for her so very obvious.

"I found her hanging around the garbage cans outside the hospital. Considering her condition, I thought she needed the services of the McNeill Birth Center."

He was right. The cat's sides were bulging, sure sign of an advanced pregnancy. Maura stopped rubbing the purring cat behind the ears and stood up quickly. Right now she'd welcome an activity. "Come on, both of you. I'll see what I can find in the refrigerator. Beggars, however, can't be choosers." She bent and picked up the cat, cradling its ample body between her breasts.

Xan tipped himself out of the hammock and followed her inside to the kitchen. Maura opened the refrigerator door. "There's leftover spaghetti, cooked and mixed with sauce, if you'd like that."

"Sounds wonderful. Do you know that's the ugliest cat I've ever seen? It looks boneless, too."

Maura regarded the cat, which was focusing yellow unblinking eyes upon her face. "You're right."

"I hope you know something about birthing kittens."

"I think cats take care of those things themselves," she said, setting the cat on the floor, where it proceeded to twine through their legs, purring in anticipation. Maura found the chicken livers and set them down in a bowl. The cat began to gulp them down voraciously.

"Speaking of birthing," Xan said slowly as Maura dumped cold cooked spaghetti into a pan to warm it, "the chief of staff at the hospital, Raymond Lyles, called me into his office today."

"Oh?" Maura kept her eyes on the spaghetti.

"Dr. Lyles asked me my opinion about setting up birthing rooms in the hospital. He mentioned giving family-oriented childbirth care, complete with midwife labor coaches."

She glanced at him, eyebrows raised. "What brought this big change about?" she asked.

"You want the long version or the short one?"

"Short will do," she said. "Though the long one would certainly be interesting."

Xan leaned against the wall, watching her. "Raymond's been visited by some of the Teoway Island women. They want to know why Quinby Hospital doesn't offer alternative birthing methods. It seems that one of the women employs Annie Bodkin to clean her house, and Annie's been singing your praises loud and clear."

Maura stopped stirring and stared at Xan in amazement.

"Anyway, these women—most of them patients of mine—are advocating local family-centered childbirth like they could get in Charleston or bigger hospitals. Some would like to try home births, but they're upset that they'd have to rely on a hospital twenty miles away in case of emergency. The trip there is what they'd like to avoid. Raymond is feeling the pressure."

To say that Maura was surprised was an understatement. She handed Xan a plate of spaghetti and the two of them sat down at the kitchen table.

Maura chose her words carefully. She didn't want to jinx this.

"So setting up birthing rooms is Dr. Lyles's way of appeasing these women?"

"He wants their business. Plus he's conscientious about providing the best in health care for Quinby Hospital patients. He wants a midwife to work as a labor coach in the new birthing rooms. It looks as though it might be an in for you."

"What kind of an in?"

"Eventually, delivery-room privileges. Emergency-room privileges. Everything you need and want, right here in Shuffletown."

Then it was as though a light bulb flashed on inside her head. She eyed Xan with suspicion. "Say, how much did you have to do with this?"

"You have to admit it would be one way to see more of each other." He watched her carefully, but he didn't like the way her cheeks were coloring.

"Xan, I told you I don't want to work in a hospital. And I certainly don't want to be a mere labor coach when I'm already handling my own deliveries." She set her fork down very carefully beside her plate and stared at him.

"I know you said you don't want to work in a hospital, but—"

"My kind of midwifery works best in a home environment." Her words were clipped short.

"Maura, I don't understand your anger," he said patiently. She was overreacting. Even though he knew she wanted to birth babies only in her patients' homes, he had thought that she would welcome this way of gaining privileges at Quinby Hospital. To tell the truth of it, the birthing rooms had seemed like a solution to the problem of getting to see more of Maura, but it hadn't been his idea. It had been his patients' idea, just as he'd told her.

Memories flooded over Maura. "I decided at a certain point in my career that I should only work with families in their homes. I had to—to choose my kind of midwifery over the kind practiced in a hospital, subject to all the requisite rules and regulations of an institution." Leaving a surprised Xan staring after her, she stood up abruptly and ran outside. Suddenly the kitchen seemed stifling. She needed fresh air.

Totally perplexed, Xan jumped up from the table, almost knocking his chair over in haste. He followed Maura into the backyard, where she stood beneath a hickory tree staring out over the straight green rows of the cotton field beyond. She was trembling slightly when he put his arms around her.