Unease washed over her. “Then perhaps I should see her and discover what is so important that she needs to meet with me.”
“She is here now. Are you up for company?”
She shrugged. “I suppose.”
“Do you wish me to stay?”
Maxey had mixed emotions. How dangerous could the woman be? Maxey needed to rely on her instincts, but they had steered her wrong on previous occasions. Did she dare risk being alone with a stranger, especially when just getting over pneumonia?
“Perhaps you should be right outside the door, just in case.”
Nash leaned forward and kissed her on the nose. “I will not be far, my sweet Maxey.”
Maxey scooted up straighter, fluffing the pillows behind her then making certain the sheet and blankets covered her. Nash left, and after a few minutes, the door opened again and in stepped a woman—the same woman from up on deck that had stared so boldly at Maxey those few times.
Except now, she saw the stranger better. Silver strands heavily streaked her once-golden hair, and age lines wrinkled her face. Maxey felt certain this woman would have been very beautiful at one time in her life, but her sad eyes and tight lips told a different story, one that most certainly held a lot of pain.
The woman closed the door and stood silent. Her piercing stare made Maxey uncomfortable, and she fidgeted beneath the covers. The woman scrutinized her in an unnerving way.
The longer the woman stared, the more her eyes filled with liquid. Emotion tugged at Maxey’s heartstrings, yet the woman hadn’t even said a word. Curiosity nearly killed Maxey, so it appeared she would have to make the first move.
She cleared her throat and smiled the best she could under the circumstances. “I recognize you.”
The woman’s gasp surprised Maxey. “You do?”
“Yes. From up on deck. I noticed you staring at me a few times during the journey.”
The stranger’s shoulders relaxed. “Yes. Up on deck.”
Maxey motioned her hand to the empty chair beside the bed. “Would you care to sit?”
The woman’s eyes bounced back and forth between the chair and Maxey a few times before she shook her head.
“What is it that you need?” Maxey asked.
From the stranger’s tight expression, Maxey knew something heavy weighed on the woman’s mind. Her bottom lip quivered slightly.
Finally, the stranger pulled herself straight and lifted her chin. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
Hadn’t they just covered this? “Yes. From up on deck.”
The woman shook her head. “I’m not talking about that. I mean in your life, while you were growing up.”
Maxey narrowed her eyes, wariness filling her. “You know me from my childhood?”
“Yes, Maxey.” The woman’s voice softened. “I was the woman in labor with you for twenty-seven hours. You were a difficult birth, since you had turned slightly in my womb, so the midwife said.”
Memories Maxey wanted to keep buried resurfaced. Images of her childhood floated through her mind, and the woman standing beside her resembled her mother perfectly. Reality crashed in around her, making her body cold and numb again.
What was her mother doing here? And pray, why did she have to interrupt Maxey’s life now, after all these years of silence?
Chapter Fourteen
Maxey blinked, stunnedcompletely. Suddenly, the woman’s eyes seemed familiar, as well as the tilt of her nose and her pointy chin. Memories resurfaced, and she could imagine this woman in her home sitting on the couch reading a book, in the kitchen cooking, then at night tucking Maxey into bed. All the pain and suffering she had experienced those days, months, and even years after her mother left crept into Maxey’s chest and weighed it with emotion.
Her mind flooded with the wrenching memories of her father pacing the floor in their house and staring out the window for days on end. Many nights Maxey had stayed awake listening to her father’s sobs, and most of those nights she had also cried herself to sleep.
She had waited every day, every month, every year for the moment her mother would come back into her life. As each year passed, Maxey had hardened her heart against the woman who loved her family so little that she abandoned them.
