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“Are those hibiscus blooming against the wall?” Matty pointed to her left.
He nodded. “And the purple flowers behind them are bougainvillea.”
“Paradise.”
“The last man to own Inspiration Cay spent a fortune on landscaping. It’s gone wild, but Arthur prefers to leave it that way.”
“Jungle appeals to me. Things that grow and thrive without restraint, abundant good health…”
“You’ve seen little enough of that, haven’t you?”
She seemed startled, whether at his insight or her own guileless revelations he didn’t know. “Not enough, I guess,” she admitted.
“Was that one of the reasons you said yes to this arrangement? Because you needed to be away from illness and suffering?”
“For a while, maybe.” She folded her hands. “I’m good at what I do, but it’s possible I need to do something else, something I might do even better.”
“So you need some time to think? To reconsider your life?”
“Does that bother you?”
“Absolutely not. It reassures me. I’m not sure I could go through with this if I thought I was the only one of us who was going to benefit.”
“Don’t forget Heidi.”
“I couldn’t possibly. She absorbs every waking minute. You’ll see, once we get to the island.”
“Damon, tell me the whole story. You’ve told me bits and pieces on the telephone, enough to get me here. But I need to know it all. How you feel about Heidi’s mother, why you didn’t marry her. How she feels about you and Heidi, too. Where and how I’ll fit in.”
And that was the other way that Matty didn’t fit with Damon’s picture of her. He had expected a woman so eager to please, so accommodating, that she wouldn’t ask pointed questions or show the wealth of insight that was a part of the real Matty Stewart. He found her perceptions unnerving at the same time that he found them refreshing. She did not suffer from self-absorption, but on the other hand, she was too intelligent not to recognize the problems that might affect her own happiness.
He tried to cull out the things in his past that didn’t matter and cut right to the things that did. “I met Gretchen in Washington, D.C. She had just ended a relationship with another man, and she was looking for someone to take up the slack. She’d be the first to tell you that. She was very clear about it to me.”
He paused as their server brought them steaming bowls of spicy black bean soup and garnished them with a splash of sherry and dollops of sour cream. He watched Matty lift her spoon and begin to eat. Her hands were unadorned, no rings, no polish on her short nails. Just broad strong hands that looked as if they could solve a multitude of problems, hands that probably rarely fluttered or trembled.
“And what was she to you, Damon?” she asked.
“She was a one-night stand that lengthened into weeks,” he said bluntly. “She was in no hurry to move on, and I was in no hurry to get rid of her. We were both new to the city, and lonely. When she finally found an apartment in Arlington, I helped her move. We saw each other less and less as the weeks went by, and finally, when it was time for me to leave D.C., I couldn’t even catch her at home to say goodbye.”
“So you didn’t know she was pregnant?”
“It’s the nineties, Matty. When we had sex I was careful to protect us both.” He read her expression. “Technology is imperfect. It failed us one night. I didn’t think too much about it, since Gretchen seemed to think it was the wrong time in her cycle to matter.”
“Damon…” She returned to playing with the wedge of lime. “Could she be lying about who Heidi’s father really is?”
“No. The timing’s right, and Gretchen swears that Heidi’s mine. I was there when the condom broke. I have to accept responsibility.”
She nodded, and he knew that accepting responsibility was something she would understand completely.
“Gretchen never contacted me until after Heidi’s birth. She says she intended to keep her, that she thought it might be a lark. Gretchen likes to be entertained, and she thought Heidi would be endlessly entertaining. Two weeks of staying up all night with a screaming infant cured her of that. Gretchen can act decisively when she needs to. She realized her maternal instincts were nonexistent, but she felt a responsibility to her daughter. So she sat down and listed the alternatives, and I was at the top.”
“How did you feel when you discovered you were a father?”
“Furious.”
Matty cocked her head, and her eyes searched his. “But you took Heidi anyway? Out of responsibility?”
“I had begun my research on Inspiration Cay.” He drummed his fingers on the table and tried to decide how much of that story to tell her. He settled on only the most salient details. “This work is my whole life, or at least it was then. I was sure that having a baby on the island with me was impossible, unthinkable. So I flew to Arlington to help Gretchen make arrangements to place Heidi in a good adoptive home. You know the kind I mean. Two devoted, educated parents with love and time to give her, both things I was sure I couldn’t manage. And then I saw her and held her.” He looked away and shrugged. He was still embarrassed at the depth of his attachment to the squirming, screaming scrap of humanity who was his umbilical cord into the future.
“And so you brought her back to the island?”
“It seemed the right thing to do. Gretchen wanted it that way. Officially we’ll share custody, but I doubt she’ll ever be much of a presence in Heidi’s life. She’ll breeze in with gifts and kisses, whisk her off to Disney World and back again. But she can’t meet Heidi’s emotional needs, and she knows it.”
“How do you feel about Gretchen, Damon? It sounds like she’s going to be part of your life for a long time.”
“Are you asking if we might take up where we left off?”
She didn’t look away. “This whole situation is strange enough. If another woman is involved, it’s impossible.”
“Gretchen and I were briefly attracted to each other. The attraction was briefer than the relationship, and that was brief enough. I don’t hate her. I have a grudging respect for her willingness to give birth to Heidi instead of the obvious alternative, and then for her willingness to find the best solution for Heidi’s future. But Gretchen will be a part of Heidi’s future, not mine. After I realized I was going to raise Heidi, I asked Gretchen to marry me, and she said no. We were both profoundly relieved that that was out of the way, because our marriage would have been an unqualified disaster.”
He let that dangle a moment before he added the clincher. “But Heidi won’t be a part of my future at all if Gretchen’s parents have their way. And that’s where you come in.”
“I can’t believe they have a prayer of getting custody. You’re her father.”
“I’m a father without a real job, at least the way the court sees it. A father living on a remote island in the Bahamas without a doctor, a grocery store, a church, a school. A father with no experience caring for a baby and no time to do it properly. I can’t hire help. Most older women with good credentials would find life on the island too lonely and harsh. And a younger woman would look suspicious to the courts.”
“Like a live-in lover?”
“Exactly. Not the kind of role model a child would need.”
“Why did Gretchen choose you over her parents? She could have handed Heidi over to them and never even told you that you were a father.”
“In Gretchen’s words, the Otts are rigid and incapable of either love or understanding. They exist to do their duty, and they see Heidi as a duty and nothing more. Gretchen’s childhood was miserable. She’s not much of a mother, but she doesn’t wish that kind of life on Heidi.”
“Would the Otts be content if you just allowed them to visit when they wanted?”
“I’ve spoken to them once. They made it clear that they intend to control Heidi’s upbringing. They see Gretchen as a failure and Heidi as their chance at redemption in the eyes of their church and community.”
“So there’s no compromise in sight?”
“They want all or nothing. If I retain custody, I don’t think they’ll even want to see her. And if they get custody, they’ll throw up every possible roadblock to keep me from visiting.”
Matty was silent as the server took away their soup and plunked down the sandwiches they had ordered. Damon had eaten half of his before she spoke. “You told me during our first phone call that your attorney thinks you’ll have no problem keeping Heidi if you’re married to me.”
He understood that she needed to hear the reasons again. He obliged her. “You’re not a stranger, Matty, or at least the court won’t see it that way. We were friends in college—”
“We weren’t.”
He went on. “We knew each other. A case could easily be made for a friendship that continued through the years and turned into a romance. No one will ask for proof. We stayed in touch, fell in love…” His voice trailed off, and he sipped his tea. Everything tasted like ashes.
“You don’t like this, do you?”
“I like losing my daughter less than I like lying.”
Her eyes were grave. “And I have all the perfect qualifications to be Heidi’s mother.”
“Matty, you have nothing in your past that anyone could object to. And you’re a pediatric nurse, one of the best. No one could question Heidi’s safety or your loving care of her. If we marry, my attorney believes the custody hearing will be a formality and nothing more.”
“How long?”
He wasn’t sure what she was asking, but he was sure how important the answer was to her. She looked as if everything in both their futures depended on it.
“How long before I’ll know if I retain custody?” he asked.
She shook her head slowly. “No. How long before you can safely divorce me?”
There were still half a dozen questions she could be asking, questions he might not even comprehend. The ashes in his throat seemed to sift deeper, layering his heart. “I don’t know.” He leaned forward, but he didn’t touch her. “If you can only make a brief commitment to us, this can’t work. I might be at Inspiration Cay a year, a month, a decade. And as long as I’m there, Heidi’s vulnerable.”
“A decade?” She voiced the question softly. “And then a divorce when you no longer need me?”
Now he understood exactly what the question was, and he was almost giddy with relief. “Matty, have I ever mentioned divorce? I’m not planning to divorce you the minute I don’t need you anymore. Heidi needs a mother, not a baby-sitter. She needs the emotional ties that Gretchen can’t give her. I don’t know how long our marriage will last. Maybe we’ll grow to hate each other despite every effort not to. Maybe you’ll decide you need more than I can give you. I can’t see the future. But I’ve never thought this was going to be less than a real marriage. Maybe we have to pretend about our past, but not about our future.”
Her cheeks flushed a delicate rose. “A real marriage?”
“Were you really ready to settle for less?”
She bit her lip, small even teeth pressing hard enough against the soft tissues to be dangerous. He folded his arms over his chest to keep from covering her hand with his own. “We’re adults, and we’re going to be almost alone in paradise. And we’re going to be married. I don’t work in the lab day and night….”
“Well, that puts things in perspective.”
He smiled, dredging it up from some place deep inside that hadn’t been touched by the cruelties and disappointments of the past years. “We’ll take that part slowly. I’m not expecting you to jump into bed with me. I’m not making demands.” The smile disappeared, and he tasted ashes again, because he knew he was not above using his most foolproof weapon. And he used it now.
“I need you. No one will ever need you more than Heidi and I do, Matty.”
She nodded. If she was aware that he was playing on her greatest vulnerability, she gave no sign. “I’ll go with you to Inspiration Cay.”
“And I’ll do everything in my power to be sure you’re never sorry that you did.”
He told himself it was true, but even as she smiled in answer, he wondered what he could ever give her in return that would be half as important as what she was giving him.
CHAPTER TWO (#u5cf4c690-8543-543a-a416-91eb5e912b1f)
Matty was used to exhaustion. She had worked graveyard shifts, double shifts and even, during the worst years of her father’s illness, around-the-clock vigils, snatching sleep when she could as she hovered at his bedside. What she wasn’t used to was the muscle-clenching, nerve-pinging meltdown of a body stressed to the limits of its endurance. She had survived the flight to Miami with its delays and rerouting, and the first sight of Damon with its emotional intensity. She had survived their lunch together with its revelations and evaluations. She had survived her own decision to accompany him to Inspiration Cay.
But she wasn’t at all certain she was going to survive the trip there.
“Matty, you’re as white as a ghost.” Damon’s voice vibrated against her ear.
She wanted to smile reassuringly, to explain in a cheery nurse voice that nothing was wrong except that her blood had drained to her feet. But she couldn’t summon a smile or an explanation. She closed her eyes and promised her stomach that the flight to George Town was almost over.
“You’ve never flown in a small plane, have you?” Damon shifted subtly closer in his seat. The heat from his body felt like an electric blanket cranked up to nine.
“Tell me we’re almost there.”
“We promised to be honest with each other.”
Something surprisingly close to a groan rumbled through her throat. His voice was kind. “This wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t stormy. But we’re perfectly safe. We’ll pass through this in no time.”
She wanted to keep him talking. She needed to concentrate on something besides the jolting of the plane and the roiling of her stomach. “Tell me about the island.”
He didn’t answer immediately. “First, I’d better tell you about Kevin. And Nanny.”
She knew that Kevin Garcia and Nanny Rolle were the other two adults who lived on Inspiration Cay. During one of their phone calls, Damon had mentioned that much in passing. He had left her with the impression that they were caretakers, and she had pictured them as a friendly older couple who trimmed hedges and swept verandas in exchange for a small cottage in paradise.
“Kevin first,” he said.
Matty waited, but moments passed before Damon began.
“About six months ago I was in Miami on business, and I’d stayed out later than I’d expected at dinner. My colleagues grabbed cabs back to their hotels somewhere on the other side of town, but I decided to walk to mine because it was less than a mile away. About halfway there I met Kevin.”
She frowned. This didn’t jibe with her notions about who Kevin was. “You mean Kevin was visiting from the Cay?”
“No. He was living in Miami.” He paused. “On the streets.”
Her picture of a smiling old man who would show her shells on the beach and identify tropical shrubs dissolved. “Go on.”
“Kevin ran away when he was fifteen. That was almost two years ago.”
“He’s only seventeen?”
“Not quite.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He tried to rob me.”
The plane lifted, and Matty’s stomach dropped. She squeezed her eyelids shut and pictured herself on the beach with a maniacal teenager who was pelting her with deadly-looking seashells. She forced open her eyes. “I see.”
“He was carrying a knife. A very sharp knife. And I wasn’t carrying anything of interest except a few dollars. I thought I was…” He shrugged.
“Dead?”
“Or thereabouts. Then I noticed the knife was shaking, the kid was shaking. And while I stood there waiting for the right moment to jump him, he collapsed.”
She made a noise low in her throat that was meant to be comforting, but it sounded more like a plea for help.
Damon continued. “He was half starved, crawling with lice, and well on his way to pneumonia. I ended up taking him to the nearest emergency room and telling them he was my nephew, so they would agree to treat him. They shot him full of antibiotics and cleaned him up, then I took him back to my hotel.”
