She wondered what her father was doing. Was he in court? Was he in that rambling home? Was he in the study where he’d worked long hours teaching her how to research, how to prepare a case, how to win? And she a cried a little because she knew he didn’t know she was alive. He would think he was completely alone now.
Through a mist of tears she looked down at Annabelle and understood something she never would have before. She understood some of the looks her father had given her over the years. She understood the fear that came with being a parent, the horrid fear of losing a child.
And Margaret cried, silently, until Annabelle shifted in her sleep, and her fist pressed against Margaret’s rib. She studied the plump and tanned fingers on little hands that each day discovered something new. She made Margaret rediscover it, too. Something as simple as a feather, as complex as the intricate designs of a seashell. The flight of a bird, the smell of a flower. The awe with which a child saw the world.
Annabelle shifted again, then murmured, “Mama.” Margaret swallowed to assuage the dryness in her mouth, and took a deep breath because tears were coming to her eyes. It was so silly in a way. So sentimental and so wonderful.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t conceived Annabelle. It didn’t matter that she had been someone else’s child first. All that mattered was now and the future.
She looked down and stroked the baby’s forehead again. “I’m here, sweet. Mama’s here.”
She hadn’t known Hank was there until she looked up. He was standing in the doorway, watching her. She couldn’t see his face. She didn’t know if he’d heard her. But he came inside and stood beside her, then bent slightly and cupped the back of her head with a hand. It was a gesture she’d come to know, a natural and tender gesture from a man who looked as if he could never be tender.
She gazed up at him from eyes misty with emotion. He squatted down behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She felt uncomfortable, a little more open then she wanted to be in front of him. She stood, and his hands slid from her shoulders. “Let me put her to bed, okay?”
She crossed to the nearby corner and lay Annabelle down, then straightened, but she didn’t look at him. She could feel his look, knew there was a question there. She could feel tension between them. It was coming from her. And yet she couldn’t stop it. Her emotions were taut and had been for days now.
She glanced up at him. He was studying her.
She moved to the window and rested her hands on the moist, woven grass that was wrapped around the bamboo that formed the windowsill. She stared out at the sea and the sky, both flawless and blue, everything one could ever want. A paradise. “Do you think anyone will ever find us?”
“I don’t know.”
“What will happen if they do?”
She heard his feet as he crossed to stand behind her. “What are you worrying about, Smitty?”
“I’m not certain. Everything. Nothing. Us. Them.”
“The children?”
“Yes. And the future. They have no one, and I won’t let them be placed in an orphanage.”
He took a deep breath, then said, “They have us. You’re an attorney. What’s the law?”
“Legally I can’t do anything.”
He was quiet. “Because you’re a woman alone?” She nodded.
“What about us? Together?”
“What are you saying, Hank?”
He was quiet for a tense minute. “We could get married.”
She didn’t know if she could have moved then, not after he’d said those words. Words she wanted more than anything but that frightened her. The words weren’t the problem. Oh, God, she wished things were different.
He stepped behind her again.
She picked up the silver frame with the photograph that Muddy had taken and given her. She looked at it with a bleak feeling.
“If we’re found, we’ll go back to the States, get married, and adopt the kids. It seems pretty simple.”
She turned and faced him. “It’s not that simple.”
He gave her a narrowed look. “Why not?”
“You have a past, Hank. A past that could destroy everything.”
