The Pregnancy Plan / Hope's Child: The Pregnancy Plan / Hope's Child. Brenda Harlen

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СКАЧАТЬ started to realize that she was making a mistake. That she didn’t love Trevor as much as she should love the man she intended to marry. That she didn’t love him specifically as much as she loved the prospect of being a wife and mother.

      Now Megan and Gage were married and getting ready to have a baby.

      The tug came again. Stronger this time, but she pushed it aside. “Oh, Meg. That’s wonderful news.”

      Her sister looked uncertain. “Are you really okay with this?”

      “I’m thrilled for you,” Ashley told her, willing it to be true. “I was just caught off guard by your announcement. I didn’t even realize you and Gage were trying to have a baby.”

      “Well, we weren’t actually trying, we just weren’t trying to prevent it.” She blushed prettily. “In fact, I think Gage is a little disappointed it happened as quickly as it did.”

      “Obviously you guys are doing something right,” Ashley said.

      Her sister’s blush deepened. “Everything is right with Gage. I never thought I would feel this way about anyone—or that anyone else would feel the same way about me. But he’s just—” her sigh was filled with blissful contentment “—amazing.”

      “So are you,” Ashley told her sister. “Which is why you guys are so perfect for one another.”

      “That’s what I want for you,” Megan said. “I know Trevor’s betrayal hit you hard, but you can’t give up hope that you’ll find someone to spend your life with just because of CBB.”

      “I haven’t given up hope,” Ashley said, though she wasn’t entirely sure it was true. “I’m just not willing to put the rest of my life on hold while I wait around for Mr. Right to show up, because the reality is, there may not be a Mr. Right for me.”

      “There is,” Megan insisted, and smiled slyly. “And I think he might already have shown up. Or maybe I should say shown up again.”

      Ashley didn’t bother to respond. Cam Turcotte was part of her past, not her future, and she had no intention of arguing with her sister about that fact.

      And no intention of letting herself yearn again for something that could never be.

      Though it wasn’t one of their scheduled evenings to get together, Ashley wasn’t surprised when Paige showed up at her door Friday night. Or that she’d brought a bottle of her favorite merlot with her.

      Ashley put together a platter of assorted crackers and cheeses and they took it out onto the porch with the wine.

      “I don’t know why you’re paying rent on an apartment in Syracuse when you’ve been spending so much time in Pinehurst lately,” Ashley said to her.

      “I’m only here on the weekends,” her cousin replied, glossing over the real issue. “Because it’s too far to commute to the office every day.”

      “Seriously, Paige, what happened to your social life?”

      Her cousin shrugged. “Things fizzled with Josh. Ben met someone else. As for Lucas—well, I realized I wasn’t secure enough to date a guy who’s prettier than me.”

      Ashley had met Lucas once, and while she had to admit the man was unbelievably good-looking, she knew that her cousin’s serial dating was really a reflection of the nomadic childhood that had taught her, at an early age, not to form close attachments to people who wouldn’t be in her life for very long. The pattern had changed only when Paige’s father decided she needed more stability than his lifestyle afforded and finally left his daughter in the care of his sister and her husband. Ashley and Megan had forged an unbreakable bond with their cousin, but by habit or deliberation, she continued to keep everyone else at a distance.

      “Is that why you’re here?” Ashley asked her now. “Because you had nothing better to do on a Friday night? Or because you were worried that I was going to fall apart?”

      “You’re not the falling apart type,” Paige said, with such conviction Ashley almost believed her.

      “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

      “Seriously, you’ve dealt with a lot in the past six months and stood up through it all.”

      “I had a minor meltdown on Wednesday,” she admitted, reaching for her glass. Thankfully the Fedentropin trial didn’t prohibit the consumption of alcohol, and the wine she’d drank was already helping smooth the roughest of the edges.

      “When you found out Cam had a child? Or when you learned that your sister’s pregnant?”

      “It was probably a combination of both.”

      Paige nodded and set a slice of blue cheese on a rye cracker.

      “I’m happy for Megan and Gage,” she said. “And I’m thrilled about the baby.”

      “I know you are,” Paige agreed.

      “I just want to know when it’s going to happen for me. When is it going to be my turn?”

      “What happened to your appointment at the clinic?”

      “I got bumped,” she grumbled. “The doctor had some kind of emergency.”

      Her cousin smiled. “I think that’s the nature of the medical field.”

      “I know. It just seems like one more detour sign on a road that’s been littered with them.”

      “What kind of sign is Cam?”

      Ashley sipped from her glass again. “Dead end.”

      “Are you sure about that?” Paige asked. “Because if I’m not mistaken, that’s him walking up your driveway.”

      Ashley set down her glass before she spilled the contents all over herself. “Don’t you dare leave—”

      But Paige was already on her feet, reaching for the tray of snacks. “I’ll just go refresh this.” She turned and smiled at the uninvited guest who had stepped up onto the porch. “Hello, Cam,” she said, then slipped into the house before he could even respond.

      Cam glanced at the closed door, then at Ashley. “Did I say something wrong?”

      She didn’t smile at his attempted humor. “Not yet.”

      He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I just came over to apologize.”

      “What, exactly, are you apologizing for?”

      “For not telling you that I had a child.”

      She lifted a shoulder. “You don’t owe me any apologies, Cam.”

      “I didn’t mean to blindside you.”

      “It doesn’t matter.”

      “It does,” he insisted. “Maybe I figured you would have heard about Maddie a long time ago, but I shouldn’t have counted СКАЧАТЬ