After The Loving. Carole Mortimer

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘ARE you sure, darling?’ her mother choked through her tears of happiness. ‘The doctors seemed so sure——’

      ‘Mine is just as sure I’m pregnant,’ Bryna told her laughingly. Her parents’ reaction to her news, the one she had expected from them, had been pure joy! At last she had been able to tell someone, and the happiness of sharing her child with them was all she had thought it would be.

      ‘It’s just so incredible!’ Her father hugged her, tears in his own deep blue eyes. He was tall and muscular, with hair that was grey now but that had once been the same colour as Bryna’s.

      ‘I know,’ she laughed again. ‘Yesterday I was still too shocked by the news to be able to take it in myself, but before I left this morning I called my doctor and asked him if he could be absolutely certain I was pregnant. I mean, he knows my medical history as well as I do! But he’s almost certain the doctors told you there was always the possibility I could conceive, even if that possibility was a remote one.’ She looked at them questioningly.

      Her mother frowned thoughtfully. ‘They seemed pretty convinced you wouldn’t——’

      ‘Well, he also said that they know more nowadays than they did then, and that perhaps they really did believe I couldn’t conceive. But they were wrong,’ she told them happily. ‘Because my doctor also told me I should start thinking of names!’

      ‘Oh, darling!’ Her mother was crying in earnest now, small and dark, with a plump figure Bryna’s father had always maintained was cuddly!

      Bryna had only arrived half an hour earlier, but she had been too excited to contain her news until after they had all eaten. She came home to see her parents regularly in the home she had known all her life. Her father owned and ran a ski-school in this lovely part of north-east Scotland.

      ‘No more tears,’ she instructed briskly, her face glowing. ‘Let’s have dinner before it spoils.’

      ‘We should have some wine to celebrate,’ her father decided, hesitating suddenly. ‘Can you drink wine?’ he asked curiously.

      ‘One glass occasionally,’ she nodded, smiling. ‘And I think this is definitely an “occasion"!’

      By the time they were halfway through the meal her father was discussing which schools her unborn child should attend! Bryna just smiled at him indulgently, knowing how much he was enjoying himself in his role of grandfather.

      ‘Really, James,’ her mother admonished lightly. ‘That will be for Bryna and Mr Gallagher to decide.’

      A shadow darkened Bryna’s eyes to purple. ‘Raff and I are no longer together,’ she announced flatly.

      She had told her parents all about Raff and the part he played in her life after their first week together, never having kept secrets from them, and knowing they respected the fact that she was old enough to make her own decisions—and her own mistakes, if need be.

      Her father frowned. ‘I’m not old-fashioned enough to believe, or imply, that the two of you should get married because you’re pregnant, but surely he’ll want to take some interest in his own child?’

      ‘It’s my child, Dad——’

      ‘You haven’t told him,’ he reproved gently. ‘Isn’t that a little selfish, lass?’

      She blushed. ‘He already has two children, why should he want mine?’

      ‘Because——’

      ‘Now, James, this isn’t the night for an argument,’ her mother cut in determinedly. ‘I’m sure Bryna knows what she’s doing.’

      ‘But, Mary——’

      ‘Not tonight, James!’ her mother bit out, her brown eyes flashing warningly. She might be small and cuddly, but when the occasion warranted it she had a fiery temper that even her husband was in awe of!

      Bryna gave a rueful smile, as her father, almost twice her mother’s size, subsided into silence.

      She hadn’t meant to cause any friction between her parents, but she didn’t want to talk of Raff this weekend, not when she had managed to avoid thinking of him since setting out for Scotland this morning.

      It was a pleasant evening for all of them, making plans, laughingly suggesting the most outrageous names they could think of. A boy’s name was already decided in her mind—Rafferty James, after its father and grandfather, but a girl’s name was a little harder to decide upon. Maybe because she was already convinced she carried Raff’s son.

      Once she was alone in the single bed in the room that had remained hers, even though she had left so long ago, it was impossible to banish Raff from her mind any longer, and she allowed the tears of desolation to fall unheeded down her heated cheeks.

      Was he with Rosemary, or someone like her, tonight, having put from his mind and his life the woman who had dared to end their affair?

      God, how she would love his child, she vowed protectively.