It’s not for you, Sam, and don’t go thinking it is. It was for the baby. The child they’d made together.
The baby was real to her in a way it hadn’t been until that moment in the doctor’s office with the gel and the sensors and that gauzy, miraculous picture that now rested in the back seat of Duncan’s car. She wondered if he felt the same way. The baby they’d talked about in Houston and married for in Las Vegas and come to Scotland to raise—that baby was a living, breathing human being who sucked its thumb and changed position with the restless grace of a dancer on a very small stage.
She felt overwhelmed by the wonder of it all and she was certain that Duncan shared her feelings. They didn’t talk or banter or analyze. They didn’t need to. It was all between them as they sat close together and imagined life thundering like the sea.
THEY RETURNED to the castle in time for lunch. Duncan and Sam ate quickly then went their separate ways. He went to the studio while Sam busied herself in the kitchen making the potato salad while Old Mag followed the hired cleaning help from room to room, pointing out their shortcomings. Sam ladled the potato salad into a huge earthenware bowl, covered it securely with plastic wrap, then somehow managed to find a place for it in the packed refrigerator.
From there she went to her office where the mountain of paperwork seemed to have grown while she was away. She checked for messages. Still nothing from Lucky or her sisters. Not that she expected to hear from them yet. Lucky wasn’t due back from his vacation for another two weeks, about the same time Martie and Trask would come home from their vacation. And as for Frankie—well, Sam wouldn’t hazard a guess. Her flighty little sister could pop up anywhere at anytime. The world’s rules had little to do with the way Frankie lived her life. Or at least that was how it had always seemed to Sam.
She wasn’t sure exactly why she’d asked her mother to join them at the party but she had. Of course, Julia had written immediately, saying she didn’t know if she could fit the party into her busy London social life. She’d just have to see. Motherhood had never been Julia’s strong suit, and, until recently, Sam hadn’t spent much of her emotional energy wishing things had- been different. Her pregnancy, however, had lowered her emotional defenses and she found herself thinking about her mother more often than she had in the thirty-two years that went before.
Wishful thinking, that’s what it was. Wishful thinking that had absolutely nothing to do with reality.
They’d decided to bypass a hot dinner tonight. It seemed to Sam they all had enough to do without worrying about that. She wandered into the kitchen around eight o’clock and fixed herself a sandwich and milk. There was no sign of Duncan anywhere. Even his studio was dark. Not that she would have had time to pose for him tonight. She needed to bathe and condition her hair and draw up a last-minute list of all the other things that needed doing before the party began tomorrow.
She washed her plate and glass, dried them, then put them away in the cupboard. Satisfied that the kitchen looked orderly and clean enough for Old Mag, she went upstairs.
DUNCAN LANDED his new Cessna at the strip outside Glenraven a little past ten o’clock. Summer days in the Highlands were long and beautiful and the sky still held more than a memory of light. He’d spent the late afternoon and evening in Glasgow, searching for the perfect wedding ring for Samantha. He’d finally found it, a beautiful circle of silver and gold, and he’d waited while the jeweler painstakingly inscribed it with Sam’s initials and Duncan’s and the date of their wedding. It was a sentimental gesture and he knew it. A gesture that came with an element of risk attached to it, but for Duncan, it was time.
She needed to know it was about more than the baby. That wasn’t what had drawn him across the Atlantic in search of her. She called to him, his bride did, to the deepest and most forgotten part of his heart.
He would give it to her tomorrow night after the party. After the guests left and the music faded away.
When it was only the two of them and the future stretching before them. A future he’d stopped believing was possible until she came into his life.
SAM TOOK a long warm shower. She took her time afterward, enjoying those wonderful heated bath towels, the slippery feel of her body lotion, the delicious slither of her nightgown as it slid over her shoulders and breasts. She’d never considered herself a particularly sensual person but lately she seemed to be almost unbearably aware of her body, of how it moved and felt. Things she’d never thought of before, like the coolness of the sheets as she climbed into bed and settled in. Her belly felt heavier than before. When she lay on her side, she could feel the shifting weight within her.
Her baby, she thought. Their child. It all seemed so much more real to her than it had when she woke up that morning. She’d pinned the sonogram picture to the bulletin board behind her desk, but she really didn’t need to look at it anymore. She had every shape and shadow memorized, from the tiny feet to the little thumb already firmly in his or her mouth. The doctor had been unable to determine the baby’s sex, but Sam found it honestly didn’t matter either way. She finally understood the expectant parents’ prayer. “Just let the baby be healthy. That’s all we ask.”
A breeze fluttered the window curtains, and she caught the scent of heather mingled with lavender and mint and all the other fragrant
