The Spiral Path (67 page)

It
was full light when Rainey woke again. She wanted to laugh out loud, except
that might wake Kenzie up. Emotional healing was a patchwork process, but based
on the way he'd made love, he was well on his way to unraveling the emotional
knots that had kept him at a distance since they'd left England.

Her well-being diminished as her stomach
began to churn. She fought the nausea, but it increased with violent speed.
Hell!
She slipped from the bed, praying Kenzie wouldn't wake, and darted into the
bathroom. She barely made it in time. After vomiting into the toilet, she
curled into a miserable ball, her cheek pressed against cold porcelain.

Kenzie was so quiet that she didn't know
he was there until he wrapped a warm robe around her shivering body. His,
apparently, since it was huge on her. "What's wrong, Rainey?"

Panicked, she pulled the voluminous
fabric close. "A touch of food poisoning, I think. Or the spareribs were
too spicy. I shouldn't have eaten so many." She tried to stand, then
doubled over dizzily, retching again.

When there was nothing left to throw up,
he put a glass of water in her hand. She rinsed her mouth and felt better,
though not so good that she was ready to leave the bathroom yet.

Clad in jeans and nothing else, Kenzie
sat on his heels, one arm around her shoulders. In a carefully neutral voice,
he said, "This has all the elements of a cliche."

Her first instinct was to lie, but that
would be a temporary reprieve at best, assuming he even believed her. "I'm
pretty sure I'm pregnant," she said wearily.

As she expected, he went rigid. Near
hysteria, she blurted out, "Don't worry, it isn't yours. I was having
nooners with one of the crew guys in England, and it's his."

The arm around her shoulders was
trembling. "You're a poor liar, Rainey. Even assuming you wanted to sleep
with two men at the same time, you didn't have the time or the energy to be
carrying on another affair."

She began to weep uncontrollably.
"I'm so damned sorry, Kenzie. It was an accident--I was so crazy busy that
I missed a pill." She'd thought missing a pill was no big deal, until
she'd researched the subject as her suspicions of pregnancy grew. It turned out
that the directions for her low-dosage pills warned that a single missed day
meant using another form of protection for the next seven days. And she hadn't.
"I never would have gotten pregnant deliberately, but don't worry, you
needn't have anything to do with this baby. I'll deny that you're the father
and raise it myself."

He swore under his breath, but kept his
arm around her. "Do you think I'll abandon my child like my father
abandoned me? Or your father abandoned you? I ... I don't know anything about
being a parent, but if you think I'll walk away because you're pregnant, your
common sense has been scrambled by hormones."

She gulped for breath. "Your sense
of responsibility does you credit, but you said yourself that the thought of
having a child was painful beyond description. Sticking around from duty won't
benefit either the baby or me."

He began massaging her back, his large
hand rubbing around her neck and between her shoulder blades. "You're
right, the idea of having children terrifies me. I should have had a vasectomy,
but doctors, especially those with knives, also terrify me. The price of
cowardice is that I have to take responsibility for the consequences."

"Me wanting kids and you horrified
by the idea is a really basic difference, and not likely to change." She'd
thought enough about this so that she was clear on what was right. It was just
her stupid hormones that were making her want to collapse into his arms and
hold onto him at any price. "Why put ourselves through more torture until
we get to the place where we have to admit that staying together for the sake
of the child isn't working? You are what you are, and I am what I am, and ne'er
the twain shall meet. Your turn to file for the divorce."

He slid his arms under her and pulled
her onto his lap, leaning back against the wall as he cradled her. "A lot
has changed in the last few months, including a rearrangement of my brain. The
one thing that hasn't changed is that I like being married to you, Rainey. I
like it a lot." He rested one hand on her belly. "We made this baby
together, and unless you've changed your mind, you also want to stay married.
Your desire to avoid trapping me is admirable, but how can we not at least try
to do this right?"

She rested her head on his shoulder
tiredly. "Maybe it's my lifetime theme song playing here: 'I don't trust
you to stay, so I might as well push you out the door now.'"

"Could be. Lord knows we both still
have issues to sort out, but at least we have a pretty good idea of what they
are, and now we have another incentive to get it right." He kissed her
brow. "Oddly enough, I'm terrified, but ... not sorry. Now I can stop being
noble and just be with you, which is what I've wanted all along. Not a bad
compensation for terror."

She gave a shaky laugh. "That's
kind of romantic, actually."

He got to his feet while holding her, a
tribute to the fitness advantages of chopping wood and building labyrinths.
"I'll try to be more romantic when you aren't on the verge of being sick.
Is it a deal then? We're married, we're staying married, and we'll both do our
damnedest to raise this child better than we were raised."

She caught his gaze. "If we're
going to give marriage and parenthood our best shot, we can't spend so much
time apart, Kenzie. Separation hurts too much."

"Agreed." His mouth twisted.
"One reason I was always working was to stay to busy to think. No more of
that in the future, I promise."

"Then it's a deal." She put
her arms around her neck and kissed him. "I love you, Kenzie. Always have.
Always will."

He smiled down at her, weary but
tranquil. "I must love you, too, Rainbow, because no one else can tie me
in knots the way you do."

As a declaration of love it needed work,
she thought as he carried her off to the kitchen to find something she could
stand to eat. But not bad for a first time. Not bad at all.

CHAPTER 40

T
here
was nothing like recommitting to one's marriage to settle life down. For the
first time ever, Rainey felt that she and Kenzie were truly moving in tandem.
She loved it when she had time to think, which wasn't often. Most of her waking
hours were spent editing like crazy.

While she worked, Kenzie took care of
general life. He'd come out of his shell enough to leave Cibola to buy food and
supplies, and haul her off to the nearest obstetrician for checkups and
vitamins. He no longer minded business calls from his manager and assistant.
Compared to his mood when they'd first returned to New Mexico, he was calm and
in control.

Nonetheless, in spare moments she
worried a little, suspecting that he was suffering low-grade depression--which
would make sense, given that he spent his evenings writing down his childhood
memories and burning the results. Journaling was every bit as difficult as Tom
Corsi had said it would be. She just hoped that when he finished processing his
past, he'd lighten up again.

She worked on her journal as well, but
less productively, since she had a tendency to fall asleep by the time she got
to it. Editing, gestating, and journaling were too much to do all at once. She
promised herself, and Kenzie, that she'd work harder once
The Centurion
was
finished.

Alma Grady proved to be as reliable a
resource for impending motherhood as she was for cooking, gardening, and New
Mexico. From the gleam in her dark eyes, the baby was going to become an
honorary Grady grandchild about ten seconds after it was born.

The dedicated skills of Eva Yanez, the
sound editors, and other postproduction specialists meant
The Centurion
was
almost finished in record time. With the deadline only a week away, she
appealed to Kenzie over dinner. "Can you stand to watch the movie? Mostly
it's done, but something about the pacing isn't quite right, and Eva and Marcus
and I can't figure out what. Maybe you can."

His face tightened, but he nodded.
"I suppose I'll have to see
The Centurion
sooner or later, so it
might as well be now."

Hoping the movie wouldn't trigger more
emotional upheavals, she led the way into her workroom, turned off the lights,
and began to run the current cut on her giant computer monitor. The opening
credits rolled over the scene of Sarah darting across the green gardens of her
home with Randall in pursuit so he could propose to her. "The look is lush
and very English, but the resolution isn't great," Kenzie observed.
"Is that a limitation of the computer monitor?"