Quarterback's Secret Baby(116)

Chapter 8


I was woken up by the next morning by a series of knocks on my door followed by a small, plaintive voice:

"Miss Robinson? Miss Robinson?"

It was Cameron. I found her standing alone in her pajamas with a very worn-looking stuffed dragon clutched in her arms. Instead of saying anything to me when I finally opened the heavy door she just reached both her small arms up and curled her body around mine when I picked her up.

"What are you doing here, little one?" I asked, "Isn't Mrs. Clyde making breakfast for you?"

But I knew why she was at my door. It was the day she was to fly back down to London. And none of the fake cheer I forced into my voice fooled her.

"I don't want to go to London, Miss Robinson. Please let me stay here."

I put her down on my bed and sat beside her.

"I want you to stay here, too, Cameron. But it isn't my decision. It isn't your Daddy's decision either. If you don't go to London your Daddy might get in trouble."

She knew she had to go. I could see it written all over her face and in her trembling lower lip. Once again the question of what any mother could be doing to a child to make them so reluctant to see her leapt into my mind. I had yet to see any marks on Cameron other than a small bruise on her left thigh that she herself had told me she'd gotten when she slipped and fell on the mossy rocks beside the loch. She didn't strike me as a storyteller, either - she'd owned up to sneaking into the kitchen and gorging herself on shortbread earlier in the week when Mrs. Clyde and I had been surprised by an uncharacteristic refusal to eat dinner.

"I don't want to go."

Cameron's voice was a barely audible whisper. I felt completely helpless.

"I know you don't want to go, honey. But today is Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday - you'll be back tomorrow night! Mrs. Clyde will make stew for dinner and you can eat it with me and your Daddy. And then next week it's going to be hot so we can go swimming in the loch."

"And then next weekend I have to go to London again. And the next weekend and the next weekend."

Cameron was the child of a very wealthy man. When she started school it would be the best private school in Scotland. I knew she would never want for the best of anything materially or educationally. Emotionally, however, she seemed as deprived as any child I've ever seen - and I grew up hovering around the poverty line. Her desolation made me angry. All the visits to London were court mandated and as far as I knew even in the United Kingdom custody decisions were made based on the best interests of the child. Who had made the decision that Cameron McLanald had to visit a mother she clearly hated every single weekend of the year?

She refused breakfast so I took her to her room and helped her get dressed and then I carried her across the courtyard and out to the helicopter landing pad that sat just outside the castle walls. The Laird was there waiting for us and the look on his face exactly matched my own feelings.

Cameron wailed when her father pulled her out of my arms. She fought a little, too, snatching at my shoulders and holding onto my body with her legs but giving up within seconds, going limp and allowing herself to be strapped into the backseat of the helicopter. Her father leaned in to kiss her and whisper something into her ear. Just before the door closed I reminded her:

"We'll have dinner together tomorrow night, Cameron! We'll see you soon!"

She didn't look up, though. Even when the door closed behind her and the pilot started the rotors. She didn't see me and Darach waving and smiling as hard as we could as the copter rose into the air and careened off to the south, leaving us behind to stand in the cool fog of the morning for a few moments, saying nothing.

"Do you want to go to the pub later this afternoon, for a pint?" Darach's voice was low and he sounded defeated.

"A pint?" I asked, "sure, that sounds nice."

Darach started to walk back towards the castle first and I decided to let him go, sensing that conversation was probably the last thing he wanted. If I felt terrible about watching Cameron's tiny little blonde head bowed in defeat as the helicopter took off - and I did - it could only have been that much worse for her father.

There was a pall over the castle and its grounds without Cameron there. It wasn't just the lack of her joyful shrieks as she went on various adventures and discovered new and interesting bugs and amphibians in the fountain's pool, it was the fact that everyone in the castle knew the circumstances of her departure, and we all hated it. Even Mrs. Clyde was in a somber mood when I found her in the kitchen a few minutes later.

"Jenny. You'll be wanting breakfast? How does toast and poached eggs sound?"

I wasn't even hungry but I wanted company so I told her toast and poached eggs sounded perfect and sat down at the long wooden table where I'd sat the first time I walked into Castle McLanald. It felt like a long time ago even then, although in truth it had only been just over a week.