worth looking into.” Nikos got the port authority on the line. The captain in charge of the last crossing was emphatic that a blonde, pregnant American woman had not been on board.
Nikos shook his head. “She’s here somewhere, Yannis. Maybe she crept on some fishing boat down at the harbor to spend the night.”
Yannis scratched his head. “I don’t think she’d do that, not in her condition. She’s so excited about that baby, she’d never put herself in precarious circumstances. Besides, everyone knows you. I doubt she’d do anything that could embarrass you. She said as much in the note.”
Nikos stared blindly at the water in the distance. “She had to get help from someone, but in my gut I know she wouldn’t turn to Tassos or my family. She hasn’t made any friends yet.”
“That’s not exactly true.”
His gaze swerved to Yannis. “What do you mean?”
“Bulos.”
Though she’d spent ten hours a week for months with her language teacher, Nikos still ruled him out and shook his head. “Let’s go home and see if she’s back on board the Diomedes. If not, I’ll think about bringing in the police.”
Except that she expected him to trust her enough to take care of herself and come back when she was ready. The police would want to know why she was missing and would figure out she and Nikos were having a domestic quarrel. It would be the talk of the Oinousses.
By three in the morning it was clear she wasn’t coming back. Nikos thought he’d been at the end of his rope in the hospital, but this was agony in a new dimension. If anything untoward happened to her or the baby because of him, life wouldn’t be worth living.
Yannis made them coffee. Both of them were too wired from anxiety to do anything but pace. They were waiting for morning so they could begin their search all over again.
At five to four Niko’s cell phone rang, causing him to almost jump out of his skin. He clicked on. “Stephanie?”
“No, sir. This is Sister Sofia at the Convent of the Holy Virgin on Oinoussa. Are you Kyrie Vassalos?”
Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. “Speaking.” He couldn’t imagine why she’d called.
“Your wife checked into our hospice this afternoon.” The hospice! Of course! “But she’s been in labor ever since and is now at the hospital.”
Nikos weaved in place. “God bless you, Sister. You’ve just saved my life!” He hung up. “Yannis? Stephanie is at the hospital having the baby!”
With Yannis driving, they made it there in record time. Nikos burst inside the emergency entrance. “My wife!” he said to the surprised attendant. “Stephanie Vassalos—”
“She’s in the delivery room.”
“Has she had the baby?”
“Not yet. Dr. Panos says for you to come with me. I’ll get you ready. We need to hurry.”
The next few minutes were a blur as Nikos was instructed to sanitize his hands before being led into the delivery room. He was told to sit.
“Nikos!” He heard Stephanie call out to him.
“You’re just in time,” the doctor said without missing a beat. “Your baby fooled everyone and decided to come a few weeks early. Push, Stephanie. That’s it. One more time.”
Nikos’s wet eyes flew to his brave, beautiful wife, propped on the bed. The strain in her body and the way she worked with the doctor was something he’d never forget.
“Ah, there’s the head. This guy’s got your husband’s black hair.”
He heard his wife’s shouts of excitement.
“Keep pushing. Here comes Alexandros.” Dr. Panos held the baby up in the air by the ankles and Nikos heard a gurgle, followed by a lusty cry.
Stephanie started sobbing for joy. “How does he look?” she begged the doctor.
“You can see for yourself after I’ve cut the cord.” A minute later he laid the baby across her stomach and wiped off the fluid. “Come on over here, Papa. You can examine your son together.”
As wonderful as that sounded, Nikos leaned over to kiss Stephanie’s dry lips first. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
Her eyes were a blazing blue. “But you have been, all this time, and I’ve never been so happy in my life. Isn’t he beautiful?”
His gaze flew to the baby, who’d stopped crying and gone quiet. His dark eyes looked at Nikos so seriously, reminding him of the way Stephanie sometimes did. He studied the rest of him. His perfect hands with their long fingers were curled into fists. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope, where all the bits and pieces formed a miraculous design. This one was made from the molds of a Walsh and a Vassalos.
Nikos saw Stephanie’s mouth and chin, his brother’s ears, his mother’s black hair, his own fingers and toes, his father’s body shape. My son. My one and only.
“He looks exactly like you, Nikos.”
He turned his head toward her. “You’re in there, too. But I want you to know that even if he didn’t look like me, it wouldn’t matter, because I fell in love with the two of you a long time ago. A miracle happened on the island.”
“I know.” Tears gushed from her eyes. “I love you, darling. So much I can’t begin to tell you.”
“No woman ever fought harder to show her love than you did when you came all the way to this remote island to find me. I’ll never forget,” he said against her mouth. “I’ve got to tell Yannis. Then I’m going to call the family and tell them they’ve become grandparents again.”
January 24
YANNIS WAS WAITING for her at the car outside the clinic. The temperature had to be in the forties. Her sweater felt good. There’d been some light rain that afternoon, but now that the sun had dropped into the sea, it had stopped.
Stephanie had decided to get her six weeks checkup a few days ahead of schedule, without Nikos knowing. The whole point was to surprise him.
“Dr. Panos says I’m 100 percent healthy, but I need to lose weight.”
“You look good for a new mother.”
“Thank you.”
“Now remember our plan.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Yannis?”
He grinned. “Nikos’s parents have spent more time on the Diomedes than they have at their house. It’s my turn.”
“Alex is crazy about you.”
“I love him. Maria and I have been waiting to tend him. We have it all planned for tonight. Everything’s ready for you on the cruiser.”
“Do you think Nikos suspects anything?”
“No. Tassos is with him and so are your parents. Between family, the demands of the business and the duties of a new father, he’s too exhausted to be doing much thinking.”
She took a shaky breath, so nervous and excited at the same time that she couldn’t hold still. “Then I’ll just keep walking past the yacht to the cruiser, and wait for him to come.”
“When he asks where you are, I’ll tell him that after you got back from shopping, you went in search of the camcorder, since you couldn’t find it in the lounge. In the end he’ll come looking for you.”
This was