LITMIR.BIZ

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you kidding?” Doors and windows, Sophie thought as she hugged her friend. “Of course I want to know. And this calls for a celebration.”

      She took the wine out of the bag and dug through her kitchen drawer. “I’ve got a bottle opener somewhere in here.”

      Mattie’s hand covered Sophie’s. “I brought one. And while I open the bottle, tell us what happened. Who was that girl?”

      Sophie sat at the table and let Mattie and Lily bring over the wine and bruschetta before she answered, “My daughter.”

      “You have a daughter and never mentioned it?” Mattie asked, shocked.

      Sophie tried to decide how to explain what it was like. How thinking about Tori, much less talking about her, hurt.

      She’d known she’d have to tell her friends, but she hadn’t talked to them because she didn’t know what to say. Stalling, Sophie reached for a piece of the bruschetta, and as she brought it to her mouth, she caught the overwhelming scent of garlic. It wafted up her nose, and she felt a sudden wave of nausea. “Pardon me,” she managed as she bolted for the bathroom.

      After she was done throwing up, she sank to the floor, covered in a cold sweat.

      She never threw up.

      The last time she’d been sick was when she was pregnant with Tori.

      “Sophie, are you okay?” Mattie called through the bathroom door.

      “Fine. I’m fine,” she said, thinking. Trying desperately to remember the last time she’d had a period. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

      She sat on the tile floor and leaned against the cool tile wall. The last time she remembered having her period was when Abbey had been sick in the hospital. She’d been buying feminine products when she’d heard the news. It had been a weird period. Light. Really nothing more than splotching. She remembered thinking how odd it was, but hadn’t worried since her cycles had been irregular since she’d gone off her birth control at the beginning of the year.

      When had Abbey been sick?

      Sophie got up and splashed some cold water on her face, then brushed her teeth and walked out to the kitchen.

      “Sophie, are you okay?” Mattie and Lily asked in unison.

      She nodded. “Mattie, when was Abbey sick?”

      “Why?”

      “What was the date?” she repeated without answering why she wanted to know.

      “April twenty-eighth. It was a Thursday and it was the scariest moment of my entire life.”

      Sophie watched her friends exchange worried looks as she sank into the chair. Two months. She did the math in her head, and if it was true, then sometime at the end of January, beginning of February, she’d have a baby.

      She’d have a baby with a man who’d left her.

      Again.

      She hugged her stomach.

      This time, no one, nothing, would tear the baby from her. Colton might not want to marry her, but this baby had been conceived in love. She’d stopped taking birth control pills in January because they knew they wanted a family right after the wedding, and her doctor had suggested it might take some time for her system to regulate. They’d used other precautions but, obviously, they’d failed.

      Then she thought about Tori.

      If it was true, if she was pregnant, what would the news do to the daughter she’d just found? Or rather the daughter who had found her? A child who already thought Sophie had simply given her away without a second thought or regret.

      One week ago, Sophie had been on the cusp of marrying the man of her dreams, starting a family with him and living happily ever after.

      This week, the daughter she thought she’d lost forever had stolen a car, come to Valley Ridge and objected to her wedding. Her perfect man had decided she was too much trouble to marry. And for a second time, she might be going through a pregnancy on her own.

      Sophie wasn’t sure if the situation was ironic, moronic or simply absurd, but a giggle escaped.

      Then another.

      Soon she was laughing, and tears were streaming down her face as she hugged her stomach and wondered if it was possible she was pregnant.

      “Sophie, you’re scaring us,” Lily said. “Come on, hon. Talk to us. How is it you have a daughter, and why aren’t you and Colton getting married? What’s going on?”

      “And, most important, what can we do to help?” Mattie said.

      Sophie fought hard to get herself under control. “Do you know the saying about God closing a door, but opening a window? Let’s open that ice cream and I’ll tell you.”

      And for the first time in her life, she allowed the story to spill out. She told her friends about her parents, who cared more about image and status than her. She told how her parents had chased off her boyfriend, and their ultimatum to cut her off without a dime, leaving her no way to support her baby. She told them that she’d acquiesced to her parents’ demands and gone to a home. She’d given birth in secret, like someone from a ’50s movie, and how she’d fought to give the baby to people who’d love her rather than the überrich couple her parents had chosen.

      And even though she told her story to her friends, she didn’t tell them about her screams when the hospital staff took her baby away without allowing Sophie to see or hold her. But she saw in their faces that they knew that part.

      She told about Tori finding her, about how wonderful Tori’s parents were. “And she’s coming to spend some time with me.”

      “How long?” Lily asked.

      “As long as she wants, at least until school starts. Her parents will come to spend the weekends.”

      “And Colton?” Mattie asked.

      Sophie shook her head. “I never told him about Tori. He sees that as a lie. I don’t know how to make him see that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell him, or that I didn’t trust him. I couldn’t tell him. For fourteen years, I’ve allowed myself one day a year to wallow in that old pain. Tori’s parents send a letter annually on her birthday through the agency. Pictures, too. That one day, I read their new letter, and I reread the old ones. I look at pictures of a daughter I never held, and I see pieces of myself in her. I write a letter to her, a letter I never send, but just add to the box. For that one day, I allow myself to mourn. If I had allowed myself any more than that, I don’t think I’d have survived. And if I’d told anyone, and had to have seen the pity in their eyes daily, I would have buckled under the pain.”

      But suddenly that all changed. Tori was in her life again. She’d actually touched her daughter. She would get to know her.

      She didn’t think she could stand merely sharing the story. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She had a daughter, and Tori was back in her life.

      Sophie’s hand rested on her stomach as she laid it all out for her friends. Well, not all. She didn’t tell Mattie and Lily about her pregnancy suspicions, and they didn’t ask. She had to be sure before she said anything. And then she’d have to tell Colton.

      For a moment, she envisioned Colton telling her that they had to marry for the baby’s sake. And part of her would long to say yes, because having Colton in her life was what she wanted. But she didn’t want him that way. She didn’t intend to be an obligation. He was a man who valued honor, and she didn’t want to be something his honor demanded he attend to.

      No, if she was pregnant, even if he offered to marry her—which she was sure he would do—she’d have to say no. She’d have to be certain he understood that she’d never keep him from his child. She was positive they could work out something amicable.

      Telling him should

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