in baggy trousers and a huge loose top as she was, it was hard to tell that she was pregnant at all. Her face looked very pale, though, Stella acknowledged, and she could see the smudges of mascara on Julie’s cheeks where she had been crying.
In fact she looked as though she was about to start crying now, Stella recognised.
‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said firmly, going up to the girl and putting her arms maternally around her. ‘Hughie has told us what’s happened. He says, though, that the relationship between the two of you is over … is that true?’
Ignoring the angry look Hughie was shooting her, Stella waited patiently for Julie’s reply. There was no way she wanted Julie to turn round at a later date and claim that Hughie had dropped her because she was pregnant. But, to her relief, Julie immediately nodded, her voice papery thin as she whispered, ‘Yes. I … we … I’m not going to keep the baby,’ she burst out tearfully, ‘but I couldn’t let my dad make me kill it and I know that’s what he would have tried to do.’
She was sobbing in earnest now, and Stella tried to calm her down.
‘Julie, it’s all right,’ she said reassuringly. ‘No one is going to hurt your baby. When is it due, by the way?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’
‘Three months.’
Stella thought she must have misheard her.
‘Three months,’ she repeated. ‘No … I don’t think …’
‘It’s three months!’ Julie insisted stubbornly, shaking her head and begging Hughie, ‘You tell her.’
As she saw the confirmation in Hughie’s eyes Stella frantically grappled with the enormity of what she was facing.
‘Julie! Your parents … When did you tell them?’ she asked uncertainly. Three months! Had Julie registered with a doctor? The hospital? Had she …?
‘When Hughie came home. I couldn’t tell them before. I was too frightened … and I didn’t want to tell anyone until I knew it would be too late for anyone to make me do … anything.’ Her voice was stubborn, her facial expression saying that she felt proud of her actions, like a small child who thought she had outwitted the adults around her. Stella’s heart sank even further.
And it was certainly too late for anyone to make her do anything now, Stella acknowledged. Julie was seventeen, six months pregnant and still at school, and her father had thrown her out. Stella closed her eyes.
‘What am I going to do? I can’t go home! My dad …’ Tears were brimming in the huge washed-out eyes.
‘What you’re going to do for the time being is stay here with us,’ Stella told her as calmly as she could, firmly taking control of the situation. Over Julie’s downbent head she saw the look of relief and hope that Hughie was giving her, and her own eyes threatened to mist.
‘Thanks, Ma,’ he told her gruffly, coming over to give her a hug. ‘I told Julie you’d know what to do!’
Things would have to be sorted out with Julie’s parents, of course, a way found for her to go back home, but there was no point in them discussing that right now. Julie looked exhausted, and, now that she knew just how far advanced her pregnancy was, Stella felt seriously concerned for her.
Their house was an old Victorian three-storey one with plenty of bedrooms, and a granny suite on the top floor where Richard’s mother had lived whilst she had still been alive, so there was no problem in finding room for Julie. But the sooner she was back at home with her own family, the better, Stella resolved.
It was all very well for Hughie to face up to his responsibilities and to accept that he had them, but Julie’s parents had their responsibilities as well!
‘Mmm … I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve only been gone for four hours,’ Maggie tried to protest, but Oliver was too busy kissing her to let her speak properly.
‘Four hours, fifteen minutes and several seconds,’ Oliver corrected her as he cupped her face and smiled down into her eyes.
Irresistibly his glance was drawn to her mouth. Maggie had the most wonderful, the most sexy, the most kissable mouth he had ever seen. In fact, so far as he was concerned, Maggie had the most wonderful, the most sexy, the most kissable, the most lovable everything any woman possibly could have.
‘How was The Club?’ he asked her teasingly as he drew her closer, one hand in the small of her back, the other resting on her still-flat stomach. ‘I suppose they’ve all rushed home to knit baby clothes.’
To his bemusement and her own chagrin, Maggie immediately burst into tears.
‘Baby hormones,’ she excused her reaction to Oliver, but as she said the words she could hear inside her head Nicki’s voice, taut with anger and contempt, insisting, ‘You can’t be pregnant!’
As he registered the brief look of betraying bleakness in her eyes, Oliver demanded gently, ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
Maggie closed her eyes and took a deep, painful breath.
‘You are far too perceptive,’ she told him wryly.
‘We made a pact, Maggie,’ Oliver reminded her. ‘No game playing, no hidden agendas, no hidden anything between us.’ Lifting her hand to his lips and placing a kiss in her open palm, he added, ‘We agreed that our love deserves better than that.’
Now more tears were threatening her composure but for a different reason this time, brought on by a different emotion. Pain and joy—strange how in their intensity both could call forth the same physical response.
‘How could I ever forget us making that pact?’ Maggie answered him, her eyes luminous with her love.
Self-protection had been a necessity following the breakup of her marriage and had become a way of life for her. Strong, feisty, successful career women in their forties were vulnerable in a way that women one or two decades younger were not. All the more so when, like Maggie, they broke one of society’s taboos by falling in love with a younger man. Because of that, Maggie was very protectively careful of her emotional responses. It was rare for her to make such an open admission of her feelings. That alone was enough to alert Oliver to the fact that something—or somebody—had seriously hurt her.
‘Tell me,’ he insisted.
‘It’s Nicki,’ Maggie admitted shakily. ‘She hates the idea of me having this baby.’
‘She what?’ Oliver frowned. He knew how important Maggie’s friends were to her; he had heard the full history of their relationship, their shared traumas, and the way they had always supported and protected one another. He knew too how excited Maggie had been about telling them the news, and he could see beneath the brittle bravery of her smile just how hurt and shocked she was.
‘She says that I’m too old,’ Maggie told him. ‘She says that I’m depriving another younger woman of the chance to have a child. She says that I’m doing it to … to keep you—’
‘To keep me!’ Oliver interrupted her. ‘Maggie, there is no way on this earth that you could ever or will
