… but that was three months ago.’ She couldn’t have been pregnant for three months and not known.
Could she?
She thrust out her arm. ‘Please, do a blood test or … or something!’
‘I will take blood and send it off to the lab to make a hundred per cent certain. But, Kit, the pregnancy test I just used is roughly ninety-seven per cent accurate. I can do an internal examination to eliminate that final three per cent of doubt if it will put your mind at rest.’
Kit nodded mutely.
After the internal exam and when Kit was dressed again, she forced herself to meet the doctor’s eyes. ‘Well?’
‘There is not a doubt in my mind that you are pregnant. And, like you say, I’d put you at about three months. The results of the blood test will give us a better indication of your due date.’
She could tell the doctor the exact date of conception, only she didn’t have the heart to.
‘Kit, what do you want to do?’
She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t be. Alex, he’d …
She closed her eyes.
‘If you’d prefer a termination, we can’t leave it too much longer.’
Her eyes flew open.
‘Do you want children, Kit?’
‘Yes.’ The word croaked out of her.
But she’d wanted to do it the right way—married, with a divine husband whom she adored and who adored her in return, and with a mortgage on a cute little house and … and planned. Not like this!
‘You’re twenty-eight. How much longer did you mean to leave it?’
She didn’t have an answer for that. Through the fog of her shock, though, one thing started to become increasingly clear. She swallowed, twisted her hands together. ‘I don’t want to terminate my pregnancy.’
Her doctor smiled.
The answering smile that rose up through her suddenly froze. ‘Oh, but I’ve been drinking tea first thing in the morning and again at lunchtime and—’
‘You don’t have to give up caffeine altogether. Are you exceeding more than three cups a day?’
‘No.’
‘Then that’s okay. Alcohol?’
She winced. ‘I usually have a glass on Friday and Saturday nights.’
‘Any alcoholic binges in the last three months?’
‘No.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I haven’t been taking folate.’
‘You can start that today.’
Kit leaned forward. ‘You really think my baby is okay?’ She couldn’t stand the thought that she might have somehow hurt her unborn child.
The doctor patted her hand. ‘Kit, you are a healthy young woman. There’s absolutely no reason to suppose your baby isn’t healthy too.’
She let the doctor’s words reassure her. Finally, that smile built up through her again. ‘I’m really pregnant?’ she whispered.
‘You really are.’
‘But that’s lovely news.’
Alex Hallam wouldn’t think it was lovely news.
The doctor laughed. ‘Congratulations, Kit.’
Who cared what Alex Hallam thought? She was through thinking about him, remember? She beamed back at the doctor. ‘Thank you.’
Pregnant!
Kit left the surgery and turned in the direction of the train station. When she arrived there she couldn’t remember a single step of her journey.
Pregnant? A tentative excitement wrestled with her apprehension. One moment joy held sway. In the next, anxiety had gained the upper hand. An unplanned pregnancy? She gulped. It sounded so irresponsible. Irresponsible people shouldn’t be allowed to raise children.
She hugged her handbag. No. She hadn’t been irresponsible. She and Alex had taken precautions. It was just that sometimes, obviously, accidents happened.
She frowned over that word—accident. Her baby wasn’t an accident. It was lovely, a miracle.
Alex wouldn’t think their baby lovely. He’d definitely think it was an accident, a mistake. She closed her eyes. It was pointless telling herself now that she was through with thinking about Alex. They were having a baby. That changed everything.
Her hand moved to her abdomen, cradled it. She imagined the tiny life inside and her mouth went dry. How on earth would Alex react when she told him the news?
I don’t do long-term, I don’t do marriage and babies, and I certainly don’t do happy families.
Nausea swirled through her. Her eyes stung. Would Alex reject their child as ruthlessly and dispassionately as he had rejected her? Her throat thickened and then closed over completely. When her train arrived she boarded it like an automaton, found a window seat and concentrated on her breathing.
A baby deserved a mother and a father. Had she robbed her child of that chance because she’d misjudged Alex so badly? She should pay for that mistake, not her baby. She’d messed everything up and now her baby would pay the price.
The rush and clatter of an oncoming train as it sped past her window made her flinch and then sit up suddenly straighter. What was she doing? She couldn’t control how Alex would react, but she could control how she dealt with the news. She had a miracle growing inside her and she wanted this baby with every atom of her being. The weight pressing down on her shoulders melted away. A smile built up inside her.
She was having a baby!
The minute Kit entered her apartment she let out a whoop, shrugged her arms out of her coat and threw it up in the air. She was going to have a baby! And then she danced around the coffee table before falling onto the sofa and grinning at the blank screen of her television, at her sound system, at the magazines scattered on the coffee table.
She was going to be a mother.
Her hands formed a protective cocoon across her abdomen. ‘I’m going to be the best mother that ever walked the earth,’ she vowed, making the promise out loud to her unborn child.
And Alex I-don’t-do-happy-families Hallam?
She lifted her chin and pushed all thoughts of Alex aside for a moment. He was out of contact for the next three weeks and she wasn’t going to let thoughts of him darken her day or dim her joy. He might not
