“Maybe I should talk with her. See if there’s anything I can do to help her out.”
“I wouldn’t want her to think anyone in the clinic has been talking about her.”
“Give me some credit for discretion, will you? I’ll simply say that I’ve noticed she seems stressed. Your name will never come up.”
“Thanks. I, um, guess your family’s beginning to wonder where you’ve been for the past week?”
He shrugged and reached for his water glass. “I doubt it. Everyone’s busy, and I usually entertain myself when I’m in town.”
“So they don’t know about…”
“Us?” he inserted smoothly when she hesitated. “I haven’t said anything in particular, but Dad and Mari both know I was with you Sunday evening when you delivered that baby at the movie theater. Word of that sure got around.”
“Especially after the article appeared in the Merlyn Mage,” she muttered.
“Well, don’t worry. No one’s making a big thing of our seeing each other. My family likes you. They aren’t surprised I enjoy spending time with you. That’s why I wanted you to join us last night at my grandmother’s. We’d have had a pleasant dinner together, and you’d have spared me another evening of my grandmother trying to fix me up. This time she was pushing me to meet the granddaughter of one of her friends.”
Cecilia found it difficult to smile in response to the ironic humor in his voice. She didn’t find his grandmother’s matchmaking efforts nearly as amusing as Geoff did. Maybe because she strongly suspected that Myrtle Bingham would never include Cecilia’s name on her list of desirable brides for her beloved grandson.
Not that she wanted to be on the list, she assured herself. Hadn’t she just asserted that she was perfectly content without a man in her life? That she was not like Brandy, so needy and insecure that she would sacrifice her own dignity to obtain the illusion of love? Though she longed for a child, she was content in every other way with her own company, her own accomplishments.
As for Geoff, he couldn’t have made it more clear that he had no interest in settling down. In his own words, he saw a wife as someone else to answer to, someone else he would be obliged to keep satisfied and content.
He didn’t seem to view a child in the same way, which reinforced Cecilia’s suspicion that he thought of a child as a novelty. A form of slightly rebellious entertainment—like his motorcycle. Or an outlet for his creativity and self-expression—like his guitar.
She envisioned his role in their child’s life as the noncustodial parent who made grand appearances with gifts and play dates and out-of-the-ordinary fun, while she would be the full-time nurturer, caregiver and disciplinarian. She could live with those roles. She knew plenty of people who had grown up under similar parental circumstances and had turned out just fine. If she didn’t think Geoff would be a good part-time father, she would never have agreed to his terms in this partnership.
It would all work out, she promised herself. But in the meantime, she would just as soon not talk about his family’s efforts to arrange a suitable marriage for him.
She promptly changed the subject, bringing up a local campaign to raise funds to spruce up some of the historic buildings in downtown Binghamton. The Merlyn County Public Library, for example, which was located in a renovated white clapboard house that provided five stories of books when the basement and attic were included in the tally. The library was always in need of upgrades and maintenance. The arts-and-crafts and bluegrass festival being discussed by community activists would became an annual event if successful and would be designated as a fund-raiser for the library and other local facilities.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Geoff said. “I’ve always said we need an annual festival of some sort to celebrate the area’s history and unique character.”
Relieved to have found a topic that interested him, Cecilia kept the remainder of their dinnertime conversation centered on community affairs, rather than their own. All in all, she decided, it was a much safer topic.
Geoff insisted on helping Cecilia clean up the kitchen after they had eaten. The task took only twice as long with his help, she thought wryly. The way he kept distracting her with increasingly lengthy kisses, it would be a miracle if they got all the dishes into the dishwasher before he dragged her off to bed. Or maybe she would be the one doing the dragging, she thought after one particularly arousing close encounter.
He lifted his head from hers with a wicked grin. Only then did she realize that both his hands were beneath her knit top, his palms warm on her back. “I think the kitchen’s clean enough, don’t you?”
Mentally consigning the rest to a later time, Cecilia smiled. “Yes, I think it is.”
Pulling her closer, he murmured, “Then maybe you and I could—”
His suggestion was cut short by the shrill ring of the telephone. Cecilia sighed deeply, tempted to let it ring. It probably wasn’t an important call, she tried to convince herself. Maybe a telemarketer.
But when the phone rang again, she gave Geoff an apologetic look, extricated herself from his grasp and moved to the kitchen extension. “Hello?”
Her expression was even more apologetic when she hung up a very short time later. “Geoff, I’m sorry, but I—”
He nodded and cut in. “I heard enough to figure out that you’ve been called to work.”
“Looks like I have a delivery to make. I saw this client earlier today, and I was pretty sure she would give birth at any time.”
“A home delivery?”
“No. I’m one of the more traditional midwives on staff. My clients tend to prefer more standard deliveries with medical facilities close at hand—and so do I. Women who choose home deliveries or water births or other nontraditional methods are generally guided to other midwives.”
“And yet you’re still available for the occasional movie-theater delivery.”