LITMIR.BIZ

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      “First find out if you are pregnant.”

      Angela slowly raised her head and looked at her. “And then?”

      “And then—” With effort, Lori raised herself to her feet, “—we’ll go from there. One step at a time. When I see you tomorrow, Angela, I want you to tell me you have an appointment with the doctor.”

      The girl nodded, scrambled up to her feet and wiped away the last of the telltale streaks from her face. She looked at her for a long moment. And then, slowly, just the barest of smiles emerged. “You know, you’re pretty pushy for a pregnant woman.”

      “You’re not the first one to tell me that.” Lori slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulder and gave her a quick hug.

      She couldn’t get Angela’s face out of her mind. All through her instructions at the Lamaze class, Lori kept visualizing Angela in her mind’s eye. She could almost see her here at Blair, taking classes to prepare for the monumental change that lay ahead of her.

      The classes weren’t enough, Lori thought. Not for her and certainly not for a fifteen-year-old.

      The classes Lori gave with such authority taught woman how to give birth, but not what to do after that. Not really, not if she was being honest with herself. There was more to being a parent than knowing how to give a sponge bath to a newborn and that you should support their heads above all else. So much more.

      Lori walked down the long, brightly lit corridor of the first floor of one of Blair Memorial’s annex buildings. She’d waited until the last couple had left before locking up. The building felt lonely to her despite the bright lights. Seeing Angela huddled in a corner like that today had brought out all her own insecurities and fears. She had no mother to cower before, but there wasn’t a mother to turn to for guidance, either.

      She missed her mother, Lori thought not for the first time as she unlocked the door of her 1995 Honda Civic. Missed her something awful. For once, she lowered her defenses and allowed the sadness to come.

      With a sigh, she started up her car. Leukemia had robbed her of her mother more than a dozen years ago. A heart attack had claimed her father just as she was in the middle of college. By twenty, she was all alone and struggling to make the best of it. And then Kurt had entered her life and she felt as if the sun had finally come out in her world.

      Now here she was, eight years later, struggling all over again. The upbeat, feisty manner that the rest of the world saw was not always a hundred percent authentic. There were times which she really ached to have someone in her corner.

      She had someone in her corner, Lori reminded herself as she turned down the hospital’s winding path. She had Carson.

      Leaving the hospital grounds, she fleetingly debated stopping by the old-fashioned Ice Cream Parlor where she and the other three single mothers had so often gone after classes, eager to temporarily drown their problems in creamy confections sinfully overloaded with whipped cream and empty, sumptuous calories.

      It wasn’t nearly as much fun alone.

      Lori drove by the establishment. It was still open and doing a brisk business. The tables beside the bay windows were all filled. She wavered only for a moment before she pressed down on the gas pedal. The Ice Cream Parlor became a reflection in her rearview mirror.

      She couldn’t help wondering what the other women were doing tonight and if they still found motherhood as exciting as they had in the beginning.

      Would she? Or was her only certainty these days the fact that she found the prospect of giving birth and motherhood scary as hell?

      She came to a stop at a red light. Her hands felt slippery on the steering wheel.

      Opening night jitters, she told herself.

      Her due date was breathing down her neck and although part of her felt as if she had been pregnant since the beginning of time, another part of her did not want to race to the finish line, did not want the awesome weight of being responsible for the welfare of someone else other than herself.

      “I know what you’re going through, Angela,” she whispered into the darkness as she eased onto the gas pedal again.

      Right now, Angela probably felt isolated and alone. Maybe if she gave the girl a call, to see how she was doing and if she’d called to make an appointment with the doctor, Angela wouldn’t feel so alone.

      The next moment, the thought was shot down in flames. She didn’t have Angela’s number. On top of that, she wasn’t even sure where the girl lived or what her mother’s name was, so surfing through the Internet’s numerous helpful sites wouldn’t be productive.

      The number, she realized, was probably on Carson’s computer.

      Lori made a U-turn at the end of the next block and pointed her vehicle back toward the center.

      By car, St. Augustine’s Teen Center was only fifteen minutes away from Bedford and home, but it might as well have resided in a completely different world. Here, the streets were narrow rather than wide, and the neighborhoods had not grown old gracefully. The windows of the buildings seemed to be staring out hopelessly at cars as they drove by. The street lights cast shadows rather than illumination. It made Lori sad just to be here.

      This was the kind of neighborhood Kurt and Carson had grown up in, she thought. The kind they had both tried to leave behind.

      Except that Carson had come back. By choice.

      Lori saw St. Augustine’s Teen Center up ahead. Lights came from the rear of the building where Carson kept his office. She glanced at her watch. It was past eight.

      What was Carson still doing here?

       Chapter Three

       T he parking lot was deserted, except for Carson’s beat-up pickup truck. His other car, a sedan, was housed in his garage at home. Right beside the classic Buick Skylark he had been lovingly restoring for the past three years. Lori had a hunch that working on the car was what kept him sane.

      Everyone needed something, she mused.

      Parking beside the truck, Lori got out and crossed to the rear entrance. Curiosity piqued, she let herself into the building and walked down the short hallway to the back office. Light was pooling out into the room onto the floor outside, beckoning to her.

      For a moment, she stood in the doorway, watching him, trying to be impartial. Carson was really a very good-looking man, she thought. Handsomer, actually, than Kurt had been. There was a maturity about him, a steadfastness that marked his features. It was a plateau that Kurt hadn’t reached yet.

      What Carson needed, she decided, was a life. A life that went beyond these trouble-filled walls. Contrast was always a good thing.

      Right now, he looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. A weight he guarded jealously. Carson O’Neill wasn’t a man who shared responsibility or had ever learned how to delegate. He thought he had to do it all in order for it to be done right.

      Carson glanced up. He’d thought he felt someone looking at him, but he hadn’t expected it to be Lori. If he was surprised to see her standing there, he made sure he didn’t show it. He let the papers he was shuffling through sit quietly on the desk.

      “Can’t seem to get rid of you, can I?” And then he realized how late it was. How did she get in after hours? It was late. “I thought I locked up.”

      “You did. I have keys, remember?” She held them up and jingled the set for his benefit before slipping them back into her purse.

      He laughed shortly. “That’ll teach me to hand out keys indiscriminately.”

      “You really are in a mood tonight, aren’t you?” She noted that he wasn’t smiling and there was an edge to his words.

      Carson laced his fingers together as he leaned back in his chair and rocked, looking

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