The Pregnancy Plan by Brenda Harlen Read Free Book Online Page B

you were both so young when you went away. And yet—” she smiled “—a woman never forgets her first love.”
    “Spoken like a woman with fond memories,” he noted.
    “I fell in love when I was fifteen—much to the chagrin of both my parents and his. He was nearly twenty, already in college, and our families were united only in their desire to keep us apart.”
    “What happened?”
    Her eyes sparkled. “I married him.”
    “Grandma and Grandpa disapproved of Dad?” He couldn’t believe it. His father was the epitome of responsibility and respectability—certainly not the usual type that parents warned their daughters about.
    “I was fifteen,” she said again. “I don’t think they would have approved of anyone I brought home at that age. And he was so…sexy. He worked in construction in the summerto earn money for college and he had all these rippling muscles and—”
    “Please.” Cam held up a hand, urging her to spare him the details.
    “If I hadn’t been attracted to your father, you wouldn’t be here,” she pointed out.
    “Still, there are some things a kid doesn’t need to know.”
    “Well, my point,” she said, “is that parents always want what they think is best for their kids, even when it conflicts with what their kids want. That’s why your dad encouraged you to go away to school, to put some distance between you and Ashley before you got too deeply involved.”
    “He knew how I felt about her.”
    She nodded. “And he was afraid that you’d give up your dreams to stay in Pinehurst with her.”
    “Why did he think that?” he asked curiously. “Was there something he felt he’d missed out on by getting married so young?”
    His mother was silent for a long minute before she said, “He wasn’t thinking about his own dreams, but mine.”
    It had never occurred to him that his mom might have sacrificed her own plans to be a wife and a mother, because she’d always seemed so settled and content in those roles. “What was your dream?” he asked her now.
    “After I met your dad, I only wanted to be with him.”
    But he recognized the evasion, and his curiosity was piqued. “Before you met Dad?” he prompted.
    “I was going to be a doctor,” she finally admitted.
    He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. He couldn’t believe that he’d never known his mother had once envisioned having the same career that he’d chosen for himself.
    “A doctor,” he echoed.
    She nodded. “In fact, I’d just been accepted to medical school when I found out I was pregnant.”
    He set his now empty bottle down. “You gave up your dream because of me?”
    But she shook her head vehemently. “No. By the time I got pregnant, my dream had changed. Finding out that I was going to have a baby was the most incredible moment of my life. I had no qualms about giving up medical school for motherhood.
    “But when you first expressed an interest in becoming a doctor, your father was adamant that nothing would cause you to make the sacrifice he believed I’d made. But what he didn’t think about—what neither of us really considered—was what would make you happy.”
    “You shouldn’t worry about that anymore,” he assured her. “I am happy.”
    “A parent always worries. Especially when her kids grow up and move away.”
    He knew she wasn’t just thinking of him, but of his younger sister, Sherry, who was now married and living in Florida.
    “Well, I have no doubt that you would have been a great doctor,” he said. “But you made the right career choice, because you are definitely the world’s greatest mom.”
    She smiled through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “And when a mother’s grown son says something like that, she knows she’s done her job well.”
     
    When Ashley returned to the doctor’s office for her follow-up appointment, she was prepared to see Cam. Not just to see him, but to prove that she was completely unaffected by him, that the scorching kiss they’d