The Baby Gift. Bethany Campbell
Читать онлайн книгу.
He shoved the faxed messages unread into his camera case, took his key and headed for the bank of elevators. His room was on the fourth floor, overlooking the Raushskaya Embankment and the Moscow River. Beyond the river were the lights of the Kremlin.
He took the faxes from the case and laid them on the gilt and glass table next to the phone. The parka, his hat, gloves and boots he put into the laundry bag he found in the closet.
He stripped down to his skivvies and began running his bath. His underwear would soon join his other clothes in the trash. He unlatched the bar, opened a bottle of whiskey and filled a crystal tumbler.
Then he carried his messages and his glass into the bathroom. While he ran the bath, he yanked off his underwear and kicked it under the sink. At last he settled naked and belly deep in the hot water.
He read the first fax. It was from his agent.
“Morris, Adventure magazine says the Pitcairn Island assignment may be shaping up. Be prepared to move fast if it does. Remember you’re contractually obligated. You’ve owed them an article since hell was a pup. Best, Carson.”
Josh snorted, crumpled the fax paper and flung it into the gilt wastebasket beside the sink. Adventure had been trying to put that freakish assignment together for years. It was never going to happen. He wished he’d never signed the damned contract. Adventure’s editors were crazy, and their assignments bizarre.
He settled more luxuriantly into the water and read the next message. It was also from his agent.
“Morris, Know you’re coming off a tough assignment, but would you consider shooting a piece on Greater Abaco for Islands? Would not take more than a few days. Writer is Stacy Leverett. Would start in two weeks—Feb. 15. Short notice, but Gullickson caught bad bug in Dominica. Best, Carson.”
For Josh, this was a no-brainer. Abaco with Stacy Leverett? Go to a Caribbean island with a statuesque blonde who looked great in cargo shorts and had a taste for short-term relationships? Just what the doctor ordered for a poor frostbitten man.
The third fax was yet another from the agent. Carson curtly reminded Josh that he was still on call for another Adventure assignment, Burma. His permission from the Ministry of Tourism might come through within four weeks, and he needed to be ready. But, cautioned the message, remember that if the Pitcairn assignment jelled, it was the magazine’s top priority.
Josh gritted his teeth. Burma would be a rough assignment and dangerous—typical for Adventure. At the moment, he would rather think of the Bahamas and getting Stacy Leverett out of her cargo shorts.
He’d go to Missouri for a week and see his daughter, then the Bahamas, then, if need be, Burma. At least Burma would cancel out Pitcairn.
He sipped his whiskey and looked at the next fax. It, too, was from his agent. Good Lord, didn’t anyone else in the world write to him?
“Morris, Your ex-wife called from Missouri at ten o’clock this morning, New York time. She says please get in touch immediately. It’s crucial. Best, Carson.”
Briana? Briana wanted him to call? It was crucial?
She did not use words like crucial lightly. She hardly ever contacted him when he was in the field.
Unless something was wrong. Very wrong.
Visions of the Bahamas and statuesque blondes fled. Instead his mind was taken total hostage by a slim brunette woman—and a very small girl with very big glasses.
Troubled, haunted by images of his ex-wife and his daughter, he went on to the next fax. Again it was from Carson.
“Morris, Your wife called again at one. She says she needs to talk to you as soon as possible. Please phone her, no matter what the hour. She says it’s an emergency. Yours, Carson.”
The last fax was from Carson.
“Morris, Your wife phoned again at four, Eastern Time. She says please call as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Yours, C.”
Josh swore under his breath, not from anger but from a deep and instinctive terror. He rose out of the tub, knocking the glass of whiskey to the floor. It shattered, and he stepped on it, cutting his heel. He hardly felt it.
He wrapped a towel around his middle and grabbed the bathroom phone.
Getting connected to Missouri from Moscow was approximately as difficult as arranging a rocket launch to the moon. Josh’s imagination ran to places that were haunted and dangerous.
He bled on the marble floor. While the transatlantic connections buzzed and hummed, he had time to pull the shards of glass from his heel and pack the wound with tissues.
Briana, Briana, Briana, he thought, his pulses skipping What’s wrong?
From across the ocean, he heard her phone ringing. He pictured the little farmhouse—tight and cozy. He pictured Briana with her dark hair and mysterious dark eyes, her mouth that was at once stubborn and vulnerable. He imagined his daughter, who resembled Briana far more than him. His bright, funny, unique, fragile little daughter.
Then he heard Briana’s voice, and his heart seemed to stumble upward and lodge in his throat.
“Briana?” he said.
“Josh?” she said in return. She didn’t sound like herself. Her tone was strained, taut with control.
He heard voices in the background, those of adults, those of children.
“Are people there?” he asked.
“It’s Larry’s birthday,” she said. “Just a minute. Let me take the phone into the bedroom so we can talk.”
He heard the background noise growing dimmer. “There,” she quavered. “I shut the door. They can’t hear.”
“Briana, what’s wrong?” he said desperately, but he already knew. “Is it Nealie?”
“Oh, Josh, she’s sick. She might be—so sick.”
He had the sensation of falling toward a devouring darkness. “How sick? Is she in the hospital?”
“I don’t know how sick. It’s—it’s in the early stages. She doesn’t know yet. Nobody in the family knows. You’re the first one I’ve told.”
“Briana, what is it? What’s wrong with her?” Damn, he thought, his hands were shaking. His hands never shook, no matter what.
“It’s a—an anemia,” she stammered. “It’s very rare. And—and serious.”
“How serious?” He sat on the edge of the bathtub, his head down. He felt as if he was going to pass out.
“She could—she could…”
Briana started to cry. Josh put his hand over his eyes. “Okay,” he told her raggedly. “You don’t have to say it. What can be done? What can I do?”
She seemed to pull herself together, but she still sounded shattered. “Can you come home? I mean come here?”
“Yes. Yes. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll book a flight as soon as I can. But what can we do for her?”
“Oh, Josh,” she said, despair naked in her voice, “I’ve thought and thought. I think there’s only one thing. One thing in the world.”
“What? I’d do anything. You know that.”
She was silent a long moment. He knew she was having trouble speaking.
At last she whispered, “To save her, I think we have to have another baby.”
CHAPTER TWO
JOSH WAS STUNNED, stupefied.
“What?” he said.
“I—I said,” she stammered, “I—I think we have to have another