Chapter 8
‘You’re what?’
Bella closed her eyes. Something was going wrong here. She didn’t know quite how she’d expected Kate to react to the news but she hadn’t pictured this. The way her aunt had gone as white as a sheet. To look as though… as though Bella had stabbed her in the heart or something.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said for the second time. A whisper now.
‘Bella! How could you?’
They were standing in the kitchen of Kate’s house because she’d been cooking. Connor was running late, apparently. Bella was welcome to stay and have dinner with them both. Or she had been, until she’d summoned her courage and blurted out the frightening results of that damned test.
‘It was an accident.’
Kate’s snort was contemptuous. ‘So that makes everything all right? For God’s sake, Bella. You’re twenty-six. You know about contraception.’
‘It just… happened.’ Oh, God… that sounded so pathetic. How many times had Bella heard other people make an excuse like that and thought how stupid they were? No wonder Kate was looking so incredibly angry.
‘No, it didn’t,’ she snapped. ‘It was you being totally irresponsible. Again.’
Bella’s heart sank even further. She’d come here for help. She didn’t need a lecture. She needed advice. From the person she was closest to in the world. An aunt who was more like a sister. A best friend.
Something was bubbling away in a pot on the stove behind Kate.
A pasta sauce, probably. The aroma of garlic and oregano should have been delicious, but Bella was aware of faint nausea.
The first physical symptoms of her pregnancy, or was it fear that she’d really gone too far this time and even Kate wasn’t going to be prepared to help her pick up the pieces of the latest disaster she’d created?
Kate seemed to have forgotten the pot. She moved her arms and it looked as if she was hugging herself. Instead of Bella. Yes… that was the reaction she had expected. Desperately wanted.
‘Who’s the father?’ Kate’s voice was hollow. It was an automatic question. A way of filling a horrible silence.
‘Oliver Dawson.’
There was another silence as Kate absorbed what was clearly a shock.
‘Does he know?’
‘Of course not. I only found out myself five minutes ago. I’ve got no intention of telling him either.’
Kate’s breath came out in an incredulous huff. ‘You don’t think he might notice?’
‘He doesn’t have to.’ She could leave. Go somewhere else to have her baby. Her mother would help her if Kate wouldn’t, but it was Kate she wanted to have on her side. To help her tell her mother, if nothing else.
Kate was staring at her now. She was actually shaking.
‘Don’t you dare… Don’t even think about it.’
‘About what?’ What was so wrong in keeping a father out of the picture? Millions of women did it. It wasn’t ideal, admittedly, but it wasn’t a hanging offence, was it?
‘Getting rid of it,’ Kate said hoarsely. ‘You can’t. You mustn’t…’ It was Bella’s turn to stare now. She’d never seen Kate look like this. Ever. Her face seemed to be dissolving. Moving into lines of… grief?
‘It would haunt you forever,’ Kate said.
‘You’d think about it every time you saw a baby.
Every time it was the day that should have been its birthday.
You’d think about how old it would be and whether it would be walking yet or talking…
or if it might look like that kid you just saw in someone else’s pram… ’
Whatever it was in the pot was burning now. Bella could smell it, but she couldn’t say anything. The way Kate was looking was unbearable. The way she was dragging her breath in as though it was physically painful.
‘Did you… Have you had an abortion?’ Bella whispered.
‘No…’ Kate’s voice rose in her vehemence. ‘And I’m not going to. I just can’t…’
‘You don’t need to.’ Bella shook her head. This was surreal. ‘I’m the one who’s pregnant.’
‘You don’t get it.’ Kate was shouting now. Calm, controlled Kate who never shouted. Who certainly never looked like this. ‘You’re not the only one who’s pregnant.’
‘Oh… my God… Kate, are you pregnant?’
The words were inside Bella’s head, but they hadn’t come out of her mouth. Both Bella and Kate turned towards the door. Connor was standing there, looking just as pale as Kate had when Bella had told her why she’d come.
Kate made an agonised sound. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said brokenly. ‘I’m so sorry…’ And then she turned and fled.
Bella couldn’t move. She stared at Connor. Connor stared back. He still looked pale and there was no expression on his face whatsoever. He looked… cold. Angry? Maybe. Terrifying? Definitely.
‘Turn that pot off, will you?’ Connor said quietly a long, long moment later. ‘Before the house burns down?’
And then he turned as well and went after Kate.
Poor Kate, Bella thought. Oh, my God. Bella turned off the scorched sauce.
She didn’t know what to do next because her world was falling down around her ears.
So this was what had been bothering Kate so much.
Why she wasn’t so excited about the wedding.
Neither of them wanted children. Was this a deal-breaker?
No. Please, no. Bella sank into a chair beside the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands. For some inexplicable reason it felt like this was all her fault.
* * *
‘I’m sorry, Connor.’ Kate’s heart was breaking. She could actually feel it splintering, the shards stabbing in her chest as she stood there in the garden, and Connor came up behind her and enfolded her in his arms.
She very badly wanted to turn into him and bury her face against his chest and give in to the pain that wanted to escape in gut-wrenching sobs, but Kate fought the urge. The battle was enough to make her tremble from head to foot.
‘I know it’s the very last thing you want.’ Her voice was trembling, too. ‘That you never want a child of your own because of Pippa.’
She drew in a shuddering breath as she felt the pressure of Connor’s arms turning her towards him.
Pippa had been the baby of Connor’s family.
The longed-for girl who had become sick with leukaemia and eventually died, fragmenting the family.
The determination not to let history repeat had been born then for Connor even if he hadn’t realised it.
What had he told her that time? That kids were a potential bomb waiting to go off and destroy a whole family.
That it was a risk he was never going to take.
Connor had been a lost little boy. Forgotten and left to feel abandoned and unloved.
Kate knew what that felt like, and the connection had been so powerful that hearing his story had been the moment she had realised how much she loved him.
She wanted to hold him close and show him how much he was loved.
Incredibly, such a short time ago, it had seemed like she had her whole life to show him that love. But now she was pregnant and he wouldn’t want to cope with that. Maybe he wasn’t capable of coping, and the challenge would be too much. It would send him away.
Kate had her face against Connor’s chest now. ‘I know it should be easy to… to fix things,’ she said shakily, ‘but I can’t and I can’t even tell you why because…’
The trembling in her body intensified to become shaking. Connor’s arms tightened around her and somehow he moved them so that Kate found herself sitting beside him, but she couldn’t look up at him because she was too scared of what she might see in his face.
He put his fingers under her chin, though, and lifted her face, and what she saw there wasn’t anger or rejection. It was… it was far more heartbreaking. He looked so sad.
‘Never say that, Katie,’ he said. ‘You can tell me anything.’ He touched her face gently. ‘I know that bad stuff happened to you. How could I not? You remember the first time we tried to make love?’
Of course she did. It had been a disaster.
‘That bad stuff – you getting raped by your so-called boyfriend – was in the way.’
‘In the way’ was an understatement. It had seemed to spell the end of a potential relationship. Kind of like the way this pregnancy was spelling doom for their impending marriage.
‘You still don’t know everything,’ Kate said, her voice breaking as she pulled her hand away from Connor’s.
‘So tell me,’ was all Connor said quietly.
Kate swallowed hard. ‘There were… repercussions from the rape.’
Connor went very, very still. ‘You got pregnant?’ She heard the sharp sound of his indrawn breath. ‘You had an abortion?’
That would explain why she was so upset about Bella’s, albeit unspoken, plan to ‘fix’ things, wouldn’t it? But he still didn’t understand. It was worse than that.
‘I didn’t try to find a way out,’ she said softly. ‘I didn’t even tell anyone. I… I wanted that baby so much, Connor. It would have been someone to love. Someone who would…’ Her voice was almost inaudible. ‘… who would have loved me back.’
Connor’s voice was raw. ‘What happened?’
‘I was a bit over five months pregnant, I guess, and I got careless. My father saw me coming out of the bathroom in the T-shirt I slept in and he was so angry.’
Connor made a growling sound. ‘He hit you?’
‘He didn’t get a chance. I ran. I got as far as the front door but then I tripped on the step and fell… hard.’ There was no point going into the gory details. ‘I lost the baby,’ she finished quietly. ‘And that was when Mum shipped me off to my brother’s. I was sixteen.’
There was a long silence. Then Connor took hold of her hand again and she could hear the hint of a smile in his voice.
‘Do you remember when we did get to make love?’
Kate nodded. Of course she did. How could she ever forget? It had been in her office, no less. After he had saved her from her father’s violent attack.
‘Why did it work that time?’
‘Because… I felt safe.’
‘But why did you feel safe?’
‘Because I loved you and… and that was when I found out that you loved me.’
The miracle of it was still fresh. Kate could hear the wonder in her voice.
‘Mmm.’ Connor was stroking his thumb across the back of her hand. ‘It got you past that barrier, didn’t it? Feeling loved. Feeling safe?’
She echoed his sound of agreement. ‘Mmm.’
‘Well, my barrier was the thought of having a child with the potential for something to go horribly wrong and for it to destroy a family. Looking at it now, I think it was all to do with the loneliness of feeling abandoned. Being vulnerable.’
Kate had to touch Connor. To connect with him in a way that words couldn’t hope to convey. She reached up to touch his face. To trace the outline of his eyes and his cheekbones and his jaw. She wanted him to know that she understood. That she loved him. That he would never, ever be abandoned again.
Connor smiled down at her. He caught her hand with his own. ‘I don’t feel like that any more.’
‘You mean…’ Kate wasn’t sure exactly what he meant because what she wanted it to mean was too much to hope for.
‘The biggest risk I ever took was loving you, Katie,’ he said softly. ‘And it was a risk I had no choice but to take because I do love you. And you love me. And I feel safe, too. Kids don’t seem like that big a risk any longer.’
He was smiling at her now. A slightly wobbly smile but it was full of joy. ‘We can do anything, Katie, my love. Nothing’s going to destroy our love and to have a baby… our baby, maybe lots of babies… it’s only going to make that love bigger, don’t you think? Stronger, anyway.’
‘But what if something goes wrong? Like Pippa?’
‘We’ll have each other. We’d be strong for each other. And we’d know not to forget to show that love to each other. And to our children.’
‘Oh, Connor…’ Kate threw her arms around the man she loved and he held her just as tightly. ‘I love you so much. You’re going to be the best father.’
‘And you’re going to be a totally awesome mum. You’ve even had practice with teenagers.’
‘Oh, no…’ Kate pulled reluctantly out of Connor’s embrace. ‘Bella.’
Connor sighed. ‘I think she might need you right now even more than I do. What are you going to tell her?’
‘I really don’t know,’ Kate confessed. ‘It’s a mess. The father of this baby is Oliver Dawson.’
‘Whoa…’ Connor was practically gaping at her. ‘Does he know?’
‘Apparently not.’
Connor shook his head. He watched Kate get to her feet to head back into the house.
‘Want me to come in too?’
‘Not yet. Bella and I have some talking to do. I think it’s time she heard my whole story. And then we’ll talk about what comes next.’
* * *
Connor watched her walk back into the house.
Pride filled his chest until it was so tight it was hard to breathe. No wonder he loved this woman so much. She was so strong. She’d been through so much. Being loved by her made him the luckiest man alive. And now she was carrying his baby.
His baby.
A grin came from nowhere and stayed on his face for a very long time. Finally, it faded into a somewhat rueful smile as he thought about Bella’s predicament. About what Oliver Dawson was going to have to deal with.
Bella was another one of those strong Graham women. And a much wilder one than his Katie.
He could understand perfectly well why Oliver had been attracted to Bella, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine Oliver seeing her as the chosen mother of his child. Even with his peers, the surgeon came across as being a bit pompous sometimes. Stuffy, even.
Man, but he’d love to be a fly on the wall when he got the news that Bella was carrying the Dawson heir.
And that thought was enough to propel Connor to his feet and into the house.
They’d had plenty of time to talk and he had to make sure that Kate started looking after herself.
Here it was after 8 p.m. and he knew she hadn’t had a bite of dinner yet.
He didn’t want Bella upsetting her either.
Besides, Bella was part of his family now.
They would find a way through this mess.
Together.