Sarah's Baby (20 page)

Sarah followed. “Please, Kyall, let me tell you about my past.”

“It's my past, too!” He rounded on her, a tall, powerful man emanating a terrible anger. “My child, my daughter, gone forever. I didn't hold her. I didn't kiss her. I have nothing of her. Not even a wisp of hair. Nothing! God!” He lifted his arms impotently to the heavens. “And
you
didn't want her. Isn't it a mercy she died! So all these years, Sarah, you've been consumed by guilt.”

She could have crumpled but she was fueled by her own anger. “What has that lying bitch told you?” she exclaimed, acutely aware she had forced the issue with Ruth.

“My grandmother,” he reminded her.

“Your grandmother the liar. You have a right to know the truth.”

“The truth as
you
see it?” Bitterness flooded his voice. “Our child died, Sarah. You went on with your career. It didn't make you any happier, did it? No wonder you hid yourself from me. But you came back. Why? You came back, but it's too goddamn late.”

“Perhaps.” She winced. “But I was only trying to protect you.”

His laugh was totally without humor. “For God's sake, Sarah, don't make me loathe you.” His blue eyes flashed.

“For what? Didn't you forsake me?” She swallowed around the hard knot in her throat.

He stared at her mutely for a moment. “I thought I knew you better than anyone in the world. I didn't know you at all, did I? You're an enigma. The whole town emotes when someone mentions your name. Our own brilliant little Sarah Dempsey, back here as head of the hospital. Engaged to Kyle McQueen. Wonderful! A fairy tale. You got to be a doctor and now your mission is to marry me. Why? For the sex?”

She held that burning stare. “And why not? It's important enough to
you.
Now and then. Didn't sex ruin my life? I was fifteen, Kyall! And I had to deal with the consequences. You didn't.”

“No, you relieved me of my responsibilities by running off.” He spoke tonelessly. “I didn't abandon you, Sarah. You abandoned me.”

“Dragged off by your grandmother!”

“She was trying to give you a chance,” he said in a hard, condemning voice.

“What chance? She wanted me to have an abortion. Did you know that?”

He looked appalled. “Dammit, Sarah, what sense is there in claiming that? We're talking about her own grandchild. She loves me. Imagine how much more she would've loved our child. Do you think I don't understand your panic? Your fear? I could never blame you for that, but I would have stood beside you. I would have helped you get through. There was nothing I wouldn't have done for you.”

“Nothing—except listen to my side of the story.” Despite herself, her eyes filled with tears, which she blinked back furiously. “Your awful, awful grandmother, who must communicate with the devil, has a selective memory. I
was
fearful at first. What else did you expect? My mother wasn't a strong person. She was no match for Ruth McQueen. What your grandmother rammed down our throats was that having the baby, keeping the baby, would ruin your life. Your future. After all, you were the McQueen heir.”

“Not that again!” He shook his head violently. “I never did give a damn about any of that. I would've protected you with my life. I loved you. I loved you. I continued to love you for years on end.”

“So you're saying you don't anymore?” Anger was an expanding force that pressed against her rib cage.

“Don't you think my mind has been circling round and round, looking for an answer? Who are you, Sarah?
What
are you?”

She put her hands to her temples to stop the pounding. “I've tried to be a good person,” she said. “Maybe I've failed, but I've had to live with such terrible loss.”

“But…you didn't want the baby. You never stopped saying that. You would cry and cry. You never tried to call me. You didn't give me a chance to help you. You didn't look after yourself when it was so important. You had to be forced to eat. At the same time, you were going to make
me pay. For what? I expected the world of you. You could've done so much better. All our hopes and dreams, Sarah!”

“You're not interested in what I have to say?” His words, words put into his mouth by Ruth, pierced her like knives.

“Say it!” He moved swiftly, compelled to grasp her by the arms.

“Let go!”

He shook his head, gazing into her eyes. “Don't you know anguish when you see it, Sarah?”

She felt a wrenching pity even as she jerked herself away. “I truly believe your grandmother is an evil woman,” she said in a trembling voice. “I was fifteen years old. Born and bred in a small outback town. I had no father to protect me. A mother who lacked the strength and courage to stand up to your grandmother. I can't describe to you what those months of waiting were like. Farmed out to a couple your grandmother rounded up. I couldn't get hold of you. I knew I'd be prevented. And I couldn't rid myself of the thought that she might be right and I'd ruin your life. The scandal and the shame. Your grandmother wanted above everything to have the pregnancy aborted. I refused.”

He stared at her as if she were an alien. “Why would she lie? You know what she's like about family.”

“What family?” Sarah's voice was charged with derision. “She doesn't give a damn about anyone in this world but you. What love does she give your mother? What about your uncle Stewart who died? What chance did
he
have? He had to get away from her. He couldn't stand the control. As for me, I was that little upstart Sarah Dempsey who helped her mother in the grocery shop. Whose father had been a shearer in Wunnamurra's sheds. You don't think I
was going to be allowed into your precious family, do you? Me or my baby.”

“Our baby.” He needed that confirmed. “My child.” He felt as though he was permanently damaged. “I really don't know what you're saying, Sarah.”

“That's because you're not listening.” She tried to calm herself, but to no avail. So much for all her rehearsals. This wasn't going according to plan. “You want to believe your grandmother has a good side to her, as you always do, Kyall. I have to accept that. She's never shown you anything but love. But anyone else, anyone who's a threat to her—look out! What about that poor woman, Molly Fairweather?”

His face turned utterly disbelieving. “What the hell has she got to do with anything?” He studied Sarah grimly.

“Molly Fairweather—Mad Molly—was the midwife who brought our child into the world.”

His hand descended like a sword. This time he dragged her into the living room, standing over her while she fell onto the sofa.

“Why did she come to Koomera Crossing?” Sarah raised a challenging face. She knew that however angry he was, he would never hurt her. “Why did she stay in this house, a house that belongs to your grandmother? What in God's name happened between them?
Why did she die?
”

“Stop it!” he said. “Are you saying my grandmother had her killed?”

With equal force Sarah answered with a question of her own. “Are you saying she's not capable of murder?”

“No, she's not!” A muscle rippled along the side of his jaw.

Sarah looked away. “Then explain to me the connection between your grandmother and that poor woman. You must have heard the rumors?”

“What rumors?” he retorted, on the offensive.

“Joe thought that your grandmother was somehow involved in Molly Fairweather's untimely death.”

“Good God!” He actually reeled back. “Sarah, you're demented! What you're saying is an affront to my family. I can't believe any of it!” Kyall tried desperately to call on some inner reserve of control. He loved this woman. Had loved this woman. Could he ever come to terms with her massive deception? At that point he didn't know, his shock was so profound. “You're trying to muddy the waters. Were you ever going to tell me any of this? Or were you planning to live with your secret for the rest of our lives?”

“Believe what you want, Kyall. Your grandmother still dominates your life. She learned early how to amass power, but it's been her undoing.”

“Sarah, she can't help the fact that she's a woman to be reckoned with. Money and power go hand in hand.”

“Then why don't you act like her?” Sarah challenged. “You've had everything you could possibly want from the minute you were born. Adoration. Every damn thing provided. You understand nothing about struggle. About having no one to turn to or going without because you didn't have enough money. You're used to being filthy bloody rich, with all the confidence that gives you. But it hasn't spoiled you. You're a hero in this town. You're friendly and charming. You speak everyone's language. You're one of the boys, and the girls have been mad about you ever since I can remember. You're nothing like your grandmother. You know why? It's not in your nature. Thank God you've got a dad who's not a McQueen. And you have a conscience to dictate to you. She doesn't.”

The lamplight on her hair turned the loose golden masses to sheer glitter. She wore a silk shirt, a lovely shade of
aqua, her small, perfectly shaped breasts rising and falling against the material. She seemed filled with conviction, yet tremendously vulnerable. And God help him, utterly desirable. One day he might be free of her hold over him. He couldn't imagine when.

“I suppose she started on you the minute you got home,” Sarah said with a brittle laugh. “It was my fault in a way. I warned her.”

“How?”

She watched him move abruptly away from her, as though he hated being in such proximity to her. “She sent me white lilies this morning. The sort one drapes over a coffin.”

“She couldn't have done such a terrible thing!”

“Are you going to listen or are you afraid to?”

“How can I trust you, Sarah?” he asked. “You've kept too many things hidden. Someday I might forgive you. Not now.”

She stared at him with peculiar intensity, her velvet brown eyes darkened with emotion. “I'm not proud of my life, Kyall. Your grandmother warned my mother and me to keep quiet. I know my mother went in fear of her. She drained all Mum's courage.”

“Yet you took the money, McQueen money,” he retaliated. “It got you where you are today, Dr. Sarah.”

“Without it, I would've been nothing,” she acknowledged. “Nothing and nowhere. I had lost my child. I descended into purgatory, but I held the view—and I still hold it—that you McQueens owe me. Had I been a lot older or even a few years older I might have put up a battle—although I know, even now, I'm no match for your grandmother.”

“You're as adept at defending yourself as she is. Just as convincing. My grandmother did everything she could to
help you. She helped you escape this town. Isn't that what you wanted? What your mother wanted for you? Hell, you told me that yourself. You also told me you wanted nothing more to do with me. Isn't that right? You can't deny it. You've had all these years to straighten things out, but you didn't. My grandmother, for all her faults, supported you during your confinement, when we all thought you'd achieved your ambition to attend a prestigious school.”

“Many months later,” she said, staring across the room at him, “I was a schoolgirl who'd held her baby to her breast, then lost her. Just like that. She was perfect.”

“Don't!” The vision was terrible. He groaned.

“I had no one to tell it to,” Sarah continued, his words filtering through to her from a distance. “My mother wasn't strong enough to carry the burden, as you know. In the end, I think it killed her. There was no escape from grief for her or for me. You can't know what it was like! The depth of despair. So don't go judging me, Kyall McQueen.”

He felt as though he was looking down at the dregs of their love. “You see yourself as the victim?”

“Indeed I was,” she said. “I was little more than a child crying herself to sleep. Night after night. Empty arms. Empty breasts. Empty womb. All the overwhelming love I had in me, the great joy of motherhood, was stolen away. Literally overnight. For a while I think I was deranged from grief. My Rose.”

“You'd forgotten she had a father,” he said with a terrible tonelessness.

“I never forgot that, Kyall. I'd come to believe I saved you the grief. It made up for other things, somehow. Your grandmother was lying to you when she said I didn't take care of myself. I did all the right things for my baby.”

“Our baby,” he corrected her harshly.

“At least you believe that.” Her voice was bitter. “It's
a wonder your grandmother didn't suggest I was the town whore.”

He looked at her as if she'd undergone some radical change. “Sarah, nothing like that has
ever
been said. By anybody. Do you think I would've allowed it? My God, what's happened to you? My grandmother told me she tried to handle things as best she could. I know she's too much for most people, but she was trying to
help
you. It was her great-grandchild, after all.”

Suddenly Sarah's voice took on a hard edge. “I never thought you were a fool, Kyall. There's no mystery about what your grandmother and your mother thought of me. They joined forces in their disapproval. Don't pretend you've forgotten.”

“I didn't take any notice, did I. I spent all my time with you, no matter what anyone thought. I loved you—always.”

“And I loved you. Ill-fated, ill-advised lovers. That's what we were. I'm desperately sorry for your unhappiness now, Kyall. Your sense of betrayal. I deserve your condemnation. It's what made me fear telling you, knowing you might turn away from me. But I'd decided on confessing everything tonight. I made the mistake of warning your grandmother of my intentions. So she decided to get in first with her version of the past. It goes without saying that she gave her actions a total whitewash.”