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“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.”
